Stress of War, Conflict and Disaster

STRESS OF WAR, CONFLICT AND DISASTER

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STRESS OF WAR, CONFLICT AND DISASTER Editor-in-Chief

GEORGE FINK

Professorial Research Fellow (formerly Director) Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria Australia Formerly Director, MRC Brain Metabolism Unit Edinburgh, Scotland UK

Amsterdam • Boston • Heidelberg • London • New York • Oxford Paris • San Diego • San Francisco • Singapore • Sydney • Tokyo Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier

Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, California 92101-4495, USA Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford, OX2 8DP, UK Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved Material in the work originally appeared in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, 2nd edition (2008), Encyclopedia of Stress, 2nd edition (2007), Comprehensive Psychiatry 49, Medical Hypotheses 73, Annals of Epidemiology 19, Lancet 367, Lancet 373, The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 49, Psychological Bulletin 136 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (+44) (0) 1865 853333; email: [email protected]. Alternatively you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier web site at http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions, and selecting Obtaining permission to use Elsevier material Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stress of war, conflict and disaster/editor-in-chief, George Fink. – 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-12-381381-7 (alk. paper) 1. Stress (Physiology) 2. Stress (Psychology) I. Fink, George. QP82.2.S8S884 2010 616.9’8–dc22 2010024875 ISBN: 978-0-12-381381-7 For information on all Elsevier publications visit our website at elsevierdirect.com Printed and bound in China 10 11 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

INTRODUCTION

‘‘There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs." Dwight Eisenhower (1890–1969)

The Twenty-first Millennium will forever be remembered for its cataclysmic beginning. On the sunny autumn morning of September 11, 2001, an unprovoked suicide attack by al-Qaeda was carried out upon the United States. ‘‘9/11’’ triggered costly US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a new phase in the ideological clash of ‘‘fundamentalisms.’’ The subtext to 9/11 is the human drive for ideological supremacy, territory and wealth in the form of oil and other resources. According to James Waller (Becoming Evil: New York: OUP, 2007), since the Napoleonic Wars, we have fought an average of six international wars and six civil wars per decade. The four decades after the end of World War II saw 150 wars and only 26 days of world peace. Buried in the midst of all of our progress in the twentieth century are well over a hundred million persons who met a violent death at the hands of their fellow human beings. To this may be added the many deaths, serious injuries and crippling long-lasting ill-heath, poverty, and devastation caused by major natural and man-made disasters. The present work, a sequel to Stress Science: Neuroendocrinology and Stress Consequences: Mental, Neuropsychological and Socioeconomic, is comprised of articles that review the stressful effects and outcomes of war, conflict and disaster. The work also details the way in which stress and aggression, the substrates for violence, conflict and war, are closely linked. Our understanding of stress and aggression has increased exponentially in recent years because of major technical advances in human brain imaging, genomics, genetics and molecular and behavioral neuroscience. The present work attempts to provide a cohesive explanation of the neural, psychological and behavioral substrates for aggression, psychopathy and sociopathy that trigger the widespread killing and maiming of fellow humans. In tandem, the work also reviews the financial, ideological, religious, social and political drivers for the initiation and prosecution of war. Stress of War, Conflict and Disaster begins with an introduction to human nature and the evolution of the stress response and violence, followed by a brief section on the neurobiology of aggression that is reviewed in greater detail in the earlier volumes on Stress Science and Stress Consequences. Preceded by up-to-date accounts of the psychological, sociological, behavioral and anthropological determinants of violence and aggression, the stress-causal centre-piece sections on ‘‘War Precursors,’’ ‘‘Wars’’ and ‘‘Terrorism’’ cover most key conflicts that have occurred during the last 100 years. There follow sections on combat reaction, posttraumatic stress disorder and prisoners of war and torture. Section VII on posttraumatic stress disorder ends with articles on the controversy of the gulf war syndrome. Briefly, it seems that while the 1991 gulf war was followed by a ‘‘gulf war syndrome,’’ the cause of the syndrome is still not established, and in UK troops involved in the 2003 Iraq war there has been no recrudescence of symptoms redolent of those associated with the 1991 gulf war syndrome. Section IX, which deals with the impact of war on civilians, is subdivided into a general section, which begins with a chapter on the response of indigenous peoples to conquest, and a specific section on holocaust survivors and refugees.

v

vi

Introduction

The economics and costs of war (Section X) are of seminal interest, as is the role of communications (Section XI), both in possibly promoting violence (although this is challenged by the last article in Section XI) and in serving to mediate an end to conflict. Section XII on ‘‘Disasters’’ is followed by a final section (XIII) on Altruism and Cooperation, which might help to prevent man’s self-destruction. That is, in addition to innate aggression, humans and most living creatures exhibit altruism and cooperation that facilitate survival of the species, subspecies, family, tribe, and nation. This is illustrated, for example, by the free gift of blood for transfusion in the United Kingdom (Titmuss, 1970) and the establishment of organizations such as the UN and the EU that seek to promote cooperation and prevent conflict. Altruism and the propensity to cooperate under appropriate/necessary conditions, especially within kin, would appear, like aggression, to be an innate property that reflects expression of the embryonic ‘‘Bauplan’’ for the nervous system. The plasticity of the nervous system is essential for learning and memory, and inter alia facilitates the impact of cultural and social factors on behavior. That is, in humans, cultural influences and social mores and pressures can override the default state and suppress altruism as well as our innate aggressive drive (exemplified in the chapter on ‘‘Peaceful Societies’’ by Karolina Baszarkiewicz and Douglas Fry). The interplay of Altruism and spite, aggression and cooperation, and war and peace is the subject of much analysis and debate especially in relation to Charles Darwin’s ‘‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.’’ Readers interested in this theme will find some relevant publications in the bibliography.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Ann Elizabeth Fink for her patience and indulgence of yet more stress, and for her helpful professional anthropological insights and advice regarding several of the themes covered by the work, especially Altruism and Peaceful Societies. Signe Howell, Professor of Anthropology at Oslo University, first introduced me to the concept of ‘‘Societies at Peace’’ when we were all at Edinburgh (S Howell and R Willis Eds Routledge, London 1989). Finally, production and publication of this volume were made possible by the continuing support of Mica Haley, Elsevier Neuroscience Acquisitions Editor.

Bibliography Bell, A. V., Richerson, P. J., and McElreath, R. (2009). Culture rather than genes provides greater scope for the evolution of large-scale human prosociality. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106, 17671–17674. Choi, J. -K. and Bowles, S. (2007). The coevolution of parochial altruism and war. Science 318, 636–640. Fehr, E. and Fischbacher, U. (2003). The nature of human altruism. Nature 425, 785–791. Fowler, J. H. (2005). Altruistic punishment and the origin of cooperation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102, 7047–7049. Santos, M. and Szathma´ry, E. (2008). Genetic hitchhiking can promote the initial spread of strong altruism. BMC Evolutionary Biology 8, 281. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/8/281 Titmuss, R. M. (1970). The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy. London: George Allen & Unwin. West, S. A. and Gardner, A. (2010). Altruism, spite, and greenbeards. Science 327, 1341–1344.

George Fink March 2010

CONTENTS

v–vi

Introduction

vii–xi

Contents

xiii–xvii

List of Contributors

I.

INTRODUCTION – EVOLUTION – ANTHROPOLOGY

HUMAN NATURE, VIEWS OF

3

James C Davies

EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE STRESS RESPONSE E A Young EVOLUTION OF VIOLENCE

II.

11 17

Jukka-Pekka Takala

ANTHROPOLOGY OF VIOLENCE AND CONFLICT, OVERVIEW THEORIES OF CONFLICT

R M Nesse, S Bhatnagar and

Andrew J Strathern and Pamela J Stewart

Ho-Won Jeong and Eleftherios Michael

28 39

NEUROBIOLOGY, NEUROCHEMISTRY – ANIMAL MODELS

BIOCHEMICAL FACTORS IN AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE Chawki Benkelfat and Robert O Pihl ANIMAL BEHAVIORAL STUDIES, NON-PRIMATES ANIMAL BEHAVIORAL STUDIES, PRIMATES

David LeMarquand, Peter N S Hoaken,

Hanna Kokko Irwin S Bernstein

51 65 74

III. PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL SUBSTRATES FOR CONFLICT, VIOLENCE AND WAR AGGRESSION, PSYCHOLOGY OF

Leonard Berkowitz

NEUROPSYCHOLOGY OF MOTIVATION FOR GROUP AGGRESSION AND MYTHOLOGY Jordan B Peterson SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF VIOLENCE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF VIOLENCE

Daniel Christie and Michael Wessells Rajni Kothari

SOCIAL THEORIZING ABOUT WAR AND PEACE STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE

IV.

Hans Joas

Kathleen M Weigert

85 94 105 113 119 126

WAR PRECURSORS

WARRIORS, ANTHROPOLOGY OF GANGS

Andrew Sanders

Glen D Curry and Scott H Decker

137 146

vii

viii

Contents

CLAN AND TRIBAL CONFLICT GENDER STUDIES

Keith F Otterbein

153

Lynne M Woehrle and Donna Engelmann

161

RITUAL AND SYMBOLIC BEHAVIOR FOLKLORE

Sanja Magdalenic


WEAPONRY, EVOLUTION OF CIVIL SOCIETY

177 186

Dave Grossman

200

Martin Shaw

MILITARY CULTURE

V.

171

Philip Smith and Brad West

209

James Burk

WARS

WARFARE, TRENDS IN

225

James K Wither

ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR AND PEACE CIVIL WARS

236

Jon D Wisman

248

Errol A Henderson

WORLD WAR I

Daniel Marc Segesser

256

WORLD WAR II

Charles S Thomas

269

GENOCIDE AND DEMOCIDE CHEMICAL WARFARE

302

J Berberich

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE NUCLEAR WARFARE

281

Allen D Grimshaw

306

Howard S Levie

314

Dean A Wilkening

HIROSHIMA BOMBING, STRESS EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WARFARE, THREAT OF

328

R J Lifton

332

J Thompson

PERSIAN GULF WAR, STRESS EFFECTS OF KOREAN CONFLICT, STRESS EFFECTS OF

S M Southwick, D Vojvoda, C A Morgan III and D Lipschitz C A Goguen and M J Friedman

NORTHERN IRELAND, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IN GUERRILLA WARFARE WOMEN AND WAR

VI.

340 342 346

Anthony James Joes

358

Annick T R Wibben and Jennifer Turpin

TERRORISM

TERRORISM

373

P Bell

SUICIDE TERRORISM, GENESIS OF

H Livingston and M Livingston

OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING, STRESS EFFECTS OF 9/11, RELIGION AND STRESS

COMBATING BIOTERRORISM

C Piotrowski and SJ Vodanovich

385 389 391

S. Packer

RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS, VIOLENCE AND NONVIOLENCE WAR, SUICIDE AND SACRIFICE

376

A Speckhard

LOCKERBIE AIR CRASH, STRESS EFFECTS OF

VII.

P Bell

335

Michael J McClymond and David N Freedman 397

V Hazboun Dean A Wilkening

407 412

COMBAT REACTION AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

COMBAT STRESS REACTION COMBAT, ACUTE REACTIONS TO

M Dobson R H Rahe

427 432

Contents

COMBAT REACTION, CHRONIC

435

R H Rahe

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF COMBAT

ix

440

Dave Grossman and Bruce K Siddle

SELF-REPORTED COMBAT STRESS INDICATORS AMONG TROOPS DEPLOYED TO IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY Mark S Riddle, John W Sanders, James J Jones and Schuyler C Webb

450

VIETNAM VETERANS, POSTWAR EXPERIENCES AND HEALTH OUTCOMES

455

J A Boscarino

TRAUMATIC STRESS AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, THE ISRAELI EXPERIENCE E Klein and J Zohar WAR STRESS IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

€ M Flogel, S Sˇupraha Goreta and G Lauc

WAR-RELATED POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, TREATMENT OF PEACEKEEPING

463 468

L B Slone and M J Friedman

472 475

B Litz and S Maguen

A MODEL OF SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR IN WAR VETERANS WITH POSTTRAUMATIC MOOD DISORDER Leo Sher

478

IS THERE AN EPIDEMIC OF SUICIDES AMONG CURRENT AND FORMER U.S. MILITARY PERSONNEL? Han K Kang and Tim A Bullman

484

GULF WAR SYNDROME, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL STRESSORS

487

H Soreq

IS THERE AN IRAQ WAR SYNDROME? COMPARISON OF THE HEALTH OF UK SERVICE PERSONNEL AFTER THE GULF AND IRAQ WARS O Horn, L Hull, M Jones, D Murphy, T Browne, N T Fear, M Hotopf, R J Rona and S Wessely

494

GULF WAR ILLNESSES

500

VIII.

Simon Wessely, N Greenberg, C Woodhead and N T Fear

PRISONERS OF WAR AND TORTURE

PRISONERS OF WAR

CAPTIVITY, ADAPTATION TO CAPTIVITY, RECOVERY FROM TORTURE

A.

509

R H Rahe

513

R H Rahe

517

I Genefke, H Marcussen and O V Rasmussen

TORTURE (STATE)

IX.

505

C Tennant

523

Raymond R Corrado and Irwin M Cohen

IMPACT OF WAR ON CIVILIANS INDIGENOUS AND CIVILIAN POPULATIONS

534

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ RESPONSES TO CONQUEST

HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF WAR AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Anthony B Zwi, 558

James Garbarino, Lauren Zurenda and Joseph A Vorrasi

POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, TRAUMA AND MENTAL DISORDERS Richard A Bryant and Derrick Silove TRAUMATOLOGY

548

Nigel Hunt

HEALTH SERVICES, EFFECTS OF WAR AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE ON Antonio Ugalde and Patricia Richards LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF WAR ON CHILDREN

535

Franke Wilmer

Angela Nickerson, 580 588

Charles R Figley

IMPACT OF TERRORISM ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH SYMPTOMS SUICIDE AND OTHER VIOLENCE TOWARD THE SELF

568

R Yehuda

David Lester and Karolina E Krysinska

598 601

x Contents

B.

HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS – REFUGEES

CONCENTRATION CAMP SURVIVORS

609

HOLOCAUST, STRESS EFFECTS OF

SURVIVOR GUILT

X.

613

P Valent

HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS, EXPERIENCES OF REFUGEES, STRESS IN

610

J D Kinzie

620

J D Kinzie

623

P Valent

ECONOMICS AND COSTS OF WAR

ECONOMIC COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF WAR

629

Carlos Seiglie

ECONOMICS OF WAR AND PEACE, OVERVIEW

635

Dietrich M Fischer

ON THE DYNAMICS OF THE ISRAELI–ARAB ARMS RACE

XI.

618

P Valent

Aamer S Abu-Qarn and Suleiman Abu-Bader

COMMUNICATIONS – RELEVANCE FOR WAR
Howard Giles and Daniel Linz Emily Moyer-Guse,

COMMUNICATION STUDIES, OVERVIEW LANGUAGE OF WAR AND PEACE, THE

MEDIATION AND NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUES MASS MEDIA, GENERAL VIEW

C D Mortensen

682 693

Jacob Bercovitch

701

Edward Donnerstein

TELEVISION PROGRAMMING AND VIOLENCE, INTERNATIONAL

Barrie Gunter

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: THE MISESTIMATION AND OVERINTERPRETATION OF VIOLENT VIDEO GAME EFFECTS IN EASTERN AND WESTERN NATIONS: COMMENT ON ANDERSON ET AL. (2010) Christopher J Ferguson and John Kilburn

710

723

DISASTERS

AIRLINE ACCIDENTS

731

G Li

CHERNOBYL, STRESS EFFECTS OF

A Tønnessen and L Weisæth

735

 M Livanou and M Bas¸oglu

739

EARTHQUAKES, STRESS EFFECTS OF FLOODS, STRESS EFFECTS OF

744

J O Brende

HURRICANE KATRINA DISASTER, STRESS EFFECTS OF MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS, STRESS EFFECTS OF THREE MILE ISLAND, STRESS EFFECTS OF DISASTER SYNDROME

C Piotrowski T C Buckley and E B Blanchard

A L Dougall and A Baum

EMERGENCY PERSONNEL, STRESS IN FIREFIGHTERS, STRESS IN

750 753 756 759

P Valent

DISASTERS AND MASS VIOLENCE, PUBLIC, EFFECTS OF

XIII.

659 670

William C Gay

LINGUISTIC CONSTRUCTIONS OF VIOLENCE, PEACE, AND CONFLICT

XII.

647

G Stevens, B Raphael and M Dobson

D S Weiss

T L Guidotti

761 770 775

ALTRUISM – COOPERATION

AGGRESSION AND ALTRUISM PEACEFUL SOCIETIES

Douglas P Fry

Karolina Baszarkiewicz and Douglas P Fry

781 795

Contents

PEACE CULTURE

COOPERATION, COMPETITION, AND CONFLICT Subject Index

808

Elise Boulding

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND RESOLUTION

xi

Ho-Won Jeong, Charles Lerche and Silvia Susnjic Sheldon G Levy

822 833 849

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Suleiman Abu-Bader Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

Elise Boulding Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

Aamer S Abu-Qarn Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

J O Brende Mercer University School of Medicine, Macon, GA, USA

M Bas¸og˘lu King’s College London, London, UK and Istanbul Center for Behavior Research and Therapy, Istanbul, Turkey

T Browne King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK

Karolina Baszarkiewicz A˚bo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland A Baum University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA P Bell South and East Belfast Health and Social Services Trust, Belfast, UK Chawki Benkelfat McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada J Berberich Agentase, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Jacob Bercovitch University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Leonard Berkowitz University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA Irwin S Bernstein University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA S Bhatnagar University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA E B Blanchard University at Albany–State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA J A Boscarino Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY and Geisinger Health System, Danville, PA, USA

Richard A Bryant University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia T C Buckley Boston VA Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA Tim A Bullman James Burk Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA Daniel Christie Ohio State University, Marion, OH, USA Irwin M Cohen University-College of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, BC, Canada Raymond R Corrado Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada Glen D Curry University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO, USA James C Davies Eugene, OR, USA Scott H Decker University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO, USA M Dobson Centre for Mental Health, New South Wales, Australia M Dobson New South Wales Health Department, North Sydney, Australia

xiii

xiv

List of Contributors

Edward Donnerstein University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

S Sˇupraha Goreta University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

A L Dougall University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Howard Giles University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Donna Engelmann Alverno College, Milwaukee, WI, USA

N Greenberg Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK

N T Fear Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK N T Fear King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK Christopher J Ferguson Texas A&M International University USA Charles R Figley Florida State University Traumatology Institute, Tallahassee, FL, USA Dietrich M Fischer European University Center for Peace Studies, Stadtschlaining, Austria M Flo¨gel University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia David N Freedman University of California, San Diego, CA, USA M J Friedman Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA M J Friedman National Center for PTSD, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Dartmouth Medical School, White River Junction, VT, USA Douglas P Fry A˚bo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland James Garbarino Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA William C Gay University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA

Allen D Grimshaw Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Dave Grossman Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR, USA T L Guidotti George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA Barrie Gunter University of Leicester, Leicester, UK Emily Moyer-Guse´ University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA V Hazboun Guidance and Training Center for the Child and Family, Bethlehem, Palestine Errol A Henderson Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Peter N S Hoaken The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada O Horn King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK M Hotopf King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK L Hull King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK Nigel Hunt Institute of Work, Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham, UK

I Genefke International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, Copenhagen, Denmark

Ho-Won Jeong Centreville, VA, USA

C A Goguen National Center for PTSD, USA

Ho-Won Jeong George Mason University, Centreville, VA, USA

List of Contributors

Hans Joas University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany; The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Anthony James Joes Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA, USA James J Jones U.S. Army Forces Central Command, Troop Medical Clinic, Doha, Qatar M Jones King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK Han K Kang U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Ave., NW, Washington CE 20420 John Kilburn Texas A&M International University USA J D Kinzie Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA J D Kinzie Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, OR, USA E Klein Faculty of Medicine Technion, Haifa, Israel Hanna Kokko University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Rajni Kothari Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India Karolina E Krysinska Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia G Lauc University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia David LeMarquand Regional Mental Health Care London, London, ON, Canada Charles Lerche Norwich University David Lester Center for the Study of Suicide, Blackwood, NJ, USA Howard S Levie Saint Louis University Law School, St. Louis, MO, USA

xv

Sheldon G Levy Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA G Li Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA R J Lifton Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge MA, USA Daniel Linz University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA D Lipschitz Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA B Litz VA Boston Healthcare System, Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC), and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA M Livanou King’s College London, London, UK and Hellenic Institute of Psychotraumatology, Athens, Greece H Livingston Dykebar Hospital, Paisley, UK M Livingston Southern General Hospital, Glasgow, UK Sanja Magdalenic´ Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden S Maguen VA Boston Healthcare System, Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC), and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA H Marcussen International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, Copenhagen, Denmark Michael J McClymond Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA Eleftherios Michael George Mason University, Centreville, VA, USA C A Morgan III Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA C D Mortensen University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA D Murphy King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK

xvi

List of Contributors

R M Nesse University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Angela Nickerson University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia Keith F Otterbein State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA S. Packer New School for Social Research, New York, NY, USA Jordan B Peterson University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Robert O Pihl McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada C Piotrowski University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA R H Rahe University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA B Raphael Centre for Mental Health, New South Wales, Australia O V Rasmussen International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, Copenhagen, Denmark Patricia Richards University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Leo Sher Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, Suite 2917, Box 42, New York, NY 10032, USA Derrick Silove University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia Bruce K Siddle PPCT Management Systems, Belleville, IL, USA L B Slone National Center for PTSD, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Dartmouth Medical School, White River Junction, VT, USA Philip Smith Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA H Soreq Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel S M Southwick Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA A Speckhard Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA G Stevens Centre for Mental Health, New South Wales, Australia Pamela J Stewart University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Andrew J Strathern University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Mark S Riddle U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3, Cairo, Egypt

Silvia Susnjic George Mason University

R J Rona King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK

Jukka-Pekka Takala National Council of Crime Prevention, Helsinki, Finland

Andrew Sanders University of Ulster, Coleraine, Londonderry John W Sanders U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3, Cairo, Egypt Daniel Marc Segesser University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland

C Tennant University of Sydney, St. Leonards, Australia Charles S Thomas Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA J Thompson University College London, London, UK

Carlos Seiglie Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

A Tønnessen National Competence Centre on Traumatic Stress, Oslo, Norway

Martin Shaw University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Jennifer Turpin University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

List of Contributors xvii

Antonio Ugalde University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Brad West Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

P Valent Melbourne, Australia

Annick T R Wibben University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

P Valent Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Dean A Wilkening Centre for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

S J Vodanovich University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA D Vojvoda Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA Joseph A Vorrasi Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Schuyler C Webb Naval Medical Research Center, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA Kathleen M Weigert Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA D S Weiss University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

Franke Wilmer Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA Jon D Wisman American University, Washington, DC, USA James K Wither George C Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Germany Lynne M Woehrle Mount Mary College, Milwaukee, WI, USA C Woodhead Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK R Yehuda Bronx VA Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

L Weisæth National Competence Centre on Traumatic Stress, Oslo, Norway

E A Young University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Michael Wessells Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

J Zohar Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Simon Wessely Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK

Lauren Zurenda Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

S Wessely King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK

Anthony B Zwi London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

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I. INTRODUCTION – EVOLUTION – ANTHROPOLOGY

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Human Nature, Views of James C Davies, Eugene, OR, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Some Earlier, Mostly Philosophical Views of Human Nature Innate, that is, Natural Sources of Tension

Some Research in the Neurophysiology of Assertive and Violent Behavior From Here, Where? Further Reading

Introduction

A practical definition of human nature is seldom offered: natural scientists say that it is vague definition and then offer nothing specific. Let this definition serve as a basis for discussing views of it. Human nature is the set of determinants of behavior that generate within the human organism and ultimately within the genes. It is very, very difficult to separate out, to abstract, these determinants because of two factors: the genetically established organism is influenced even before birth by several neurochemicals that pass through not only the placenta but also the blood–brain barrier. These prenatal influences, perhaps the earliest experiences, cannot be regarded as innate, but they so affect the developing fetus that they quite surely are permanent. Infants whose mothers took heavy doses of narcotics like heroin as at young adults became hooked themselves. Such prenatal influences may be called second nature, but as the fetus becomes an infant and grows through childhood to adulthood, it is most unlikely ever to become conscious that these prenatal events are not genetic. In one experiment a pregnant rat was injected with testosterone. Its female pups became more aggressive than females not subjected to infusion of abnormal, unnatural amounts of prenatal testosterone. In addition to prenatal influences, there is a steady stream of influences that commences with the first contacts with mothers, fathers, family, neighborhood, etc., and continues throughout life. Even though they may seem natural they are not but can be clearly described as second nature.

People’s views of human nature are part of their general attitude toward their fellow beings. The general attitude derives more from experiences than from formal learning. The experiences that produce views on this very basic matter begin at birth and continue through childhood, adolescence, and at least early maturity. One’s religion, one’s political orientation, and one’s attitude toward his or her fellow beings are very stable. The durability of these influences is confirmed by the persistence of opposing, incompatible views on religion, politics, and human nature. Millions of people are Christian or Muslim or Confucian or Buddhist and few of them ever move from one of these religions to another. The same is true in politics. And the same is true in views of human nature. It is important to appreciate that the systematic or casual views people have of human nature are altogether a product of experience. That is, views of human nature are not themselves innate and thus are subject to change. But they change very slowly. If individuals start life in families and neighborhoods that are high in violence and later experience nonviolent interactions in solving problems, they may change to a less violent view of human nature. If individuals start life with minimal domestic violence and later experience violent interactions, they may more easily retain or re-establish a less violent view of human nature. Individuals from a stable, relatively nonviolent culture may go to war and kill. These killers are not usually regarded as dangerous when they return to civilian life. It is important to appreciate these aspects of attitude formation because the attitudes are so important. Violence is often a life-or-death matter, and the wrong attitude can be deadly. Furthermore, these views involve both objective and subjective influences and inevitably involve considerations of moral right and wrong. The distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ is very hard to define and harder to realize. People maintain confidence that their views of religion, politics, and human nature are both correct and morally right. Realization of these problems is a necessary first step to moving beyond the illconsidered views of human nature that are so seldom revised after childhood.

Some Earlier, Mostly Philosophical Views of Human Nature Not all the writers mentioned in this section described themselves as philosophers. Indeed some of them – notably Hobbes and Freud – scorned the term. Nonetheless, they are here included as philosophers on the assumption that their observations arose mainly from their individual experience rather than scientific investigation, experimentation, and validation. This is not to say that these viewers of human nature were wrong but that, in their views of human nature, they were not acting as scientists.

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Aristotle, in a relatively peaceful time in Athens, looked at violence causally though he used somewhat different language than is used today. He concluded that revolution is caused by subjective inequality: ‘‘when inferior, people enter into strife in order that they may be equal, and when equal, in order that they may be greater.’’ Aristotle was the tutor of one of the most successfully violent rulers of all time: Alexander the Great. Nonetheless, his statement (Aristotle, Politics, p. 379) anticipated by more than two millennia of George Orwell’s succinct aphorism about life in the very unjust Animal Farm. In that anti-Utopia the ruling elite had total control of both power and ideology: everyone is equal, the elite said, but some are more equal than others. It is perhaps more accurate to describe Aristotle or Orwell not as prescient but as intuitively basic in his analysis. They both said that human beings naturally expect to be regarded as equals, if not more so: as it would now be expressed, and as Lasswell put it, people want dignity and power. Thomas Hobbes provides an example of environmental influences that profoundly affected his view of violence. He was in exile from the persistent and frightful wars of the Protestant Reformation in seventeenthcentury England. He was thus a participant observer in this very violent century in England’s history. He viewed human nature as inherently, innately violent and said this tendency is controllable only if people surrendered their power of self-rule to the sovereign. Hobbes did not work into his system recognition that people want other things in addition to power. The inevitable implication of his conclusion is that self-rule is impossible, and he did not consider that in the English Reformation, people who lacked power were forcibly demanding it and – if they won enough battles – taking it. That is, Hobbes did not consider that people want equality, in power and other things, and that they turn violent, when they are denied equality and power. Plato, also more than two millennia before Hobbes, proposed government by the guardians, by vesting total power in the active intellectual elite. Unlike his successor Aristotle but like his successor Hobbes, Plato did not adequately address the problem of who governs the governors. Both philosophers avoided logically facing the fact that rulers also are human beings and so much appraise their own violent tendencies. They viewed human beings from their philosophically elitist standpoints and assumed that ordinary human beings and elitists who were denied power did not want it: they just wanted to fight. Sigmund Freud’s greatest contribution to the science of human behavior was his insistence that unconscious influences not only exist but also are very powerful. He brilliantly applied and used his contribution mainly in the analysis of childhood experiences as they affected adult sexual behavior. He was less successful in applying his study of the unconscious to nonsexual behavior (and he tended to sexualize the nonsexual) and he did not clearly

distinguish sexual from other forms of love, like, for example, agape. Freud experienced World War I, the meatgrinder of millions of soldiers on both sides, from the viewpoint of Germany and the Central Powers. One of his sons saw military service. His early reaction during that war was to say that as German victories extended, they would spread German culture more broadly throughout the world. His later reaction was to observe with growing horror the enormous violence and to conclude that violence is an innate tendency. He elevated it in his theoretical system so that in addition to the positive, life-producing (sex) instinct in his earlier theorizing, there was a murderous death instinct that produced destruction not only of others but of the self. In 1933, he collaborated with Albert Einstein in an exchange published as Why war. In it Freud chided some presumptions of Einstein, noting that all sciences have their unexamined first assumptions. And Freud did not well examine either his own assumptions or their origins. The here-significant facts are that Freud was influenced by his (adult) experience and that this influenced, indeed determined, the construction of his basic orientation. If the world war served only as a reminder and not a determinant, it speaks ill of Freud that he was unable to include a death instinct before the war. If violence indeed is an innate tendency, it is quite an oversight in Freud not to see such an elemental tendency among Homo sapiens. World War II produced a similar spate of writing that likewise concluded that mankind are innately aggressive, innately violent. Perhaps among the most noteworthy writers was Konrad Lorenz, whose book On aggression (1966) was enormously popular following its original publication, two decades after Lorenz served as a medical doctor in the Germany wartime army in German as Das sogenannte Bo¨se in 1963. His conclusion was the same as Freud’s, though not in the same language: mankind are naturally aggressive, presumably with the exception of Lorenz. Similarly, in two superbly written books, African genesis (1961) and The territorial imperative (1966), an American writer, Robert Ardrey, likewise proposed and concluded that mankind are naturally aggressive. In the popular discussion of these postwar books, M. F. Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist, was a dissenting voice. He lambasted natural aggressionists for declaring that the violent behavior that is common in war is natural. The discussion, perhaps starting with the Biblical slaying of Abel by his brother Cain, has been endlessly inconclusive. One cannot satisfactorily demonstrate that general observations are false because they are a product of experience with war. However, one can question the verity of the conclusion by noting a couple of (in)conclusions. The first is an assumption that rather evidently underlies the conclusion that mankind are naturally aggressive

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(or have a death instinct). The unexamined assumption is that human beings have a natural need to survive ‘and have no other natural needs’ – except possibly to form groups, to associate. This assumption can be derived from too simple a reading of Darwin’s emphasis on the struggle for survival and the desire to perpetuate the species. But to assume that because they want to survive, people have a natural desire to aggress avoids consideration of the means–end relationship between aggression and survival. It seems clear that survival is pursed for its own sake, but it seems also clear that aggression is undertaken as a means to achieve not only survival but also other natural ends like the solidity, the integrity, of various groups with which individuals identify; and perhaps the pursuit of equal dignity. It is no more reasonable to ignore the fact that equality was given as a major reason in 1776 for Americans to throw off the British colonial yoke than it is to ignore the inclusion of equality that was included in France as a justification for its revolution. In sum, a few philosophers and theorists have made without examining it a large assumption that survival is the only natural need. They have tended to ignore the fact that human beings have enormously developed brains that furnish the potential not simply to develop an understanding of natural phenomena but also to identify and empathize with ever-wider segments of their conspecifics. Does this tendency to identify come altogether from the environment? There is a tendency among some philosophers and social scientists to separate themselves from the rest of humanity. Almost universally, people seem to prefer activity – even at times turbulence – to stasis. But they do not seem to prefer violence. If violence is pursued naturally and for its own sake, then the best humankind could maximize everyone’s opportunity to engage in it: to have, as Hobbes observed, a perpetual war of each against all. If violence nevertheless is undertaken as a means of achieving things that have inherent value and producing inherent satisfaction, then it is important to probe deeper into both definition and examination of human nature. Its discussion need no longer be left to philosophers or to theorists in psychology. Because it is possible to learn more about human nature by scientific investigation, it is possible to diminish the use of violence as a last-resort means of accomplishing ends that are naturally desired and that provide inherent satisfaction. The problem is akin to that facing global explorers and navigators in the fifteenth century: if you no longer suppose the Earth is flat, it is much easier to get around the globe. The problem is also akin to cosmic navigation: if you no longer suppose that space and time are independent factors, it is much easier to try to explain the universe. Describing and evaluating views of human nature is a grievous problem, because views of it are very much the product of experience, and experience varies widely and people cling to their views stubbornly. Even people who

are well educated and those without formal education have their view. The major difference between those without formal education and the rest is that literate people are better able to articulate their view, but they are not much better at appraising human nature. The reasons for such a view of views of human nature are elemental: from birth onward, each individual is influenced by events that impinge directly on each individual. If these earliest events include violent experiences, there is a great likelihood that violence will be considered natural, just as if these earliest events include supportive, affectionate interactions, the individual will incline toward a benign and amicable view of others. If those who readily engage in violence are close to a very young observer, a child, it is more likely to regard violence as innate to all people. If others – ranging from neighbors to nearby communities to other nations – are less likely to engage in it, violence is more likely to be regarded as an acquired rather than as an innate tendency. These seemingly speculative generalizations are, in other contexts, not regarded so speculatively. Social scientists do not often question why they are more likely to find immediate interpersonal violence among people who have been raised in violent families. And they are more likely to find violence on the grand, international scale among a people who feel threatened with violence by people of other nations. When such grand-scale violence strikes home, in the form of an air raid by the enemy or by the loss of a family member, the inclination to regard violence as an innate tendency is increased. What seems to be fundamental to these speculations is that views of violence are a function of experience with it, whether in childhood or adulthood, whether the violence is perpetrated by a family member, a local community, or a nation. And fundamental to regarding violence as innate or not is the fact that it threatens injury and even death: that is, views of violence are in part a function of the experience of threat to survival. In sum, the very earliest environmental influences underlie everyone’s view of human nature and these early imprinted influences become so ingrained as to become second nature. Views of violence become second nature. And few people are willing to believe that their view of human nature is highly subjective and imprinted rather than innate. Each person believes that his or her view of human nature, whether or not it includes violent tendencies, is an objective judgment about reality. If these speculative observations are not wrong, then the process of describing and evaluating views of violence is very difficult indeed. If they are not wrong, then the unconscious, imprinted origins must be looked at, in order to approximate somewhat closer a scientific view of the innateness of violent tendencies. A start toward understanding aggression and violence as they relate to views of human nature can be made by

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defining them. There has been critical vagueness in defining aggression. Lorenz uses the term agonistic behavior, and so do J. P. Scott and others. It is used to get around the knotty problem of defining intent. Agonism means forceful action against some part of the environment. Agonism avoids considering intent and avoids judging whether agonistic behavior is bad. There would be no problem for humankind and for perpetrators and victims of agonistic action if they were merely forceful interactors. We would be dealing in the realm of competition and perhaps with action that is heedless of its consequences. Forceful interaction may be undertaken with the intent of helping the object. A surgeon wielding a knife is engaging in forceful interaction, in agonistic interaction. But his or her action is readily acknowledged to be opposite to that of a person using a knife to injure or kill. Perpetrators of violence are not free of intent and we cannot avoid judging whether actions are harmful. In this article, the term agonistic is avoided because it does not consider whether an action harms or helps its object and whether an action is intended to harm or help its object. The term aggression is defined as action whose intent is to harm its object and which does harm its object. So defining aggression maintains the distinction that is lost in the term agonism, because aggression does not include action whose intent is to help. The question whether aggressive action is justified or not, is good or bad, remains open. In analysis of national action, it is both necessary and difficult to appraise national aggressive action, but the elemental unit of analysis must be the individual human being. If he or she is not naturally aggressive, then it is hard to conclude that aggression for its own sake is natural to the species. Aggression covers the action of a person who is attacking another person or an object, whether as an initiated action or as a defense against the attack of another. It only muddles things to say that a person defending him- or herself against another who is bent on homicide is not as aggressive as the attacker. If the defender is successful against the attacker, the defender will survive and the attacker may die. If a nation, say Czechoslovakia, is attacked and occupied in one decade by Nazi Germany and in the next by the Communist Soviet Union, no one save the attacking nation is going to say that Czechs have no right to defend themselves. But, in the historic cases, both Germany and the Soviet Union argued that they were defending their interests against wanton aggression. In a 1975 resolution the United Nations adopted a definition of aggressive war that specified the invasion of another nation’s territory but avoided the question of harmful intent. While the UN definition avoids the issue of culpability, and so avoids the problem inherent in the term agonism, it leaves indefinite the issue of harmful intent. This indefinition does not help appraise the action

of a nation or the UN that intervenes in a domestic dispute within another nation. In the former Yugoslavia, intervention by UN or in the name of the UN remains unappraised and unjustified. Needs that are innate characteristically are chronically, regularly, satisfied over decades, if not lifetimes. People must always eat. From birth, they have an undying desire for affection. And they develop, early on, a seemingly insatiable desire to be recognized, to be dignified, and to fulfill themselves. Neither infants nor children nor adults like to be ignored or humiliated or denied recognition for doing self-fulfilling work. There is only consensual rather than objective evidence that the desire to kill, maim, or destroy is innate. People may even be thrilled by it, but the desire seems to pass quickly among at least most people. They admire bravery in others and themselves. They admire the sacrifice that must occur when individuals forsake their private lives, put on uniforms, and learn the skills of killing, but then abandon these desires then they return to civilian life. Except for brief periods, they would rather be doing something else. A sense of guilt lingers, even when the killing results in vanquishing the enemy. Attempts to suppress guilt and forget the horror of violent conflict – products of very brief personal experience in combat – linger on for years and may never be lost from the unconscious. One seldom feels guilt for eating, for giving and receiving affection, for being dignified, and for creating a poem, writing a story, or fixing a broken chair. One is likely to feel guilt in such circumstances only if he or she realizes that eating deprives another, loving betrays another, or ignoring another may humiliate the person ignored. It is also evident that aggressive behavior is perhaps always the consequence of the frustration of needs, drives, expectations that quite surely are innate. Even the aggression that occurs within families and neighborhoods involves a previous frustration. A child denied food or affection within its family may in consequence turn violent. A child or young adult as an alienated member of an extra-familial group that is denied recognition may turn violent, as have thousands of individuals who identify themselves as members of a minority and are so identified. Nations that are enormously ambitious for recognition and power but have been denied these goods may launch very violent wars, as did Germany and Japan in the late 1930s and early 1940s. But to say that these transitory periods of enormous violence represent an innate human produces a few problems in the explanation. Although it is very common to say that aggressive acts are unprovoked, where are these acts to be found? When a member of a national majority expresses bafflement at the violence of minorities, has he or she satisfactorily determined that nothing is upsetting the minority? He or she might ask a minority member

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rather than come to conclusions about the innateness of violence. Justifiably or not, people do persuade themselves that their enemy – interpersonal or international – is claiming their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. They do not make these claims when they are threatened by something as relatively minor as not being able to see the sunrise, the cows come home, or the villain in a television program get his or her comeuppance.

Innate, that is, Natural Sources of Tension Views of human nature have become more complex in this century. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, notably in the writings of John Locke and Rousseau, two conclusions have, with scant analysis, been attributed to those who heavily emphasize the environment as a determinant of behavior. One is that people are naturally good and get damaged by bad experience. The other is that the mind is pretty much a blank sheet, on which the environment can write pretty much what it wants. That is, Locke, Rousseau, and Marx are credited also with making the moral judgment that it is institutions, both social and political, that are responsible for failing to let human beings achieve what they naturally want to achieve. Early in the twentieth century, perhaps partly because of the strong, worldwide influence of Marx, environmentalism flourished. Ivan Pavlov did brilliant new work in conditioning responses in dogs, making them drool when they had established a relationship between a bell ringing or a light turning on and the reward of food. This work was elementally consistent with the Marxist assumptions of the revolutionary government after 1917 in Russia and got strong support from the communist regimes. Similar work got established in the United States, first by J. B. Watson, who said that if he were given an infant, he could make out of him virtually any kind of skilled human being – butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. B. F. Skinner extended the work of Pavlov by getting pigeons to respond to a conditioning stimulus of light or whatever. Extrapolating from pigeons to human beings, he proposed establishing a good society by operant conditioning, which he declared was the responsibility of psychologists. It was not clear whether Skinner was influenced by Plato’s proposal in group l to put the intellectual elite of guardians, but the implication was again clear: that a small group of specialists could manipulate the bulk of humankind in the best interests of both the specialists and humankind. Heavy emphasis on environment not only frees individuals of responsibility for the existence and the development of institutions. It also produces a dead end in scientific pursuit of understanding: if human nature does not generate needs, demands, expectations, then where do they come from? The problem logically is like that in

which Plato and others believing in a supra-human aristocracy have avoided the question as to who guards the guardians. What institutions spontaneously generate what internal tensions in human nature? If people want to eat, what institutions established that natural desire? If people need to get together, be together, and stay together, what institutions generate these social needs? If people want dignity – want to be recognized as distinct beings meriting deference and respect – what institutions elicit or establish that natural desire? Are the needs for food, association, and deference mere excogitations of philosophers, who implant these needs in infants and children but ignore adulthood manifestations of these needs? Investigators have faced the problem of the content of human nature only partially. Behavioral science for the most part has recognized that human beings share with all other life-forms a desire to be fed and to associate. But behavioral science has shied away from considering that human beings have – at least in larger measure than other life-forms, even other vertebrates – a natural desire for deference and respect or any other nonphysical need, unassociated with the need for food and for sex regarded solely as a means of species perpetuation. Working mainly with insects, E. O. Wilson established a novel way of looking at behavior. He found that in the interests of perpetuating if not the species, at least the hive, ants were quite willing to sacrifice themselves. Without falling into a trap of saying that human beings should sacrifice themselves to perpetuate the species, Wilson clearly broadened the assumption of many investigators who followed Darwin’s views even more strictly than Darwin did. Wilson said that there was, in addition to the innate desire of individuals to survive, a desire of individuals to participate in making the species survive. Wilson’s frame of reference has evolved in the trend called ‘evolutionary psychology’, whose assumptions include an innate desire to survive but also a desire to associate and to associate amicably. If progress has been made in conceptualizing human nature, perhaps some consensus exists that human beings are born with more than the desire to survive: that they wish also to associate. Early work in the desire or the trend to associate was elementally addressed by ‘the cat at the U. of Chicago’, who examined not only the tendency of trees to associate but also of a wide variety of animal life. It now seems widely accepted that survival and the social needs are innate. Other tensions, needs, drives, are less accepted, except perhaps more or less by oversight. A great pioneer in political behavior, Harold Lasswell, posited that there was a natural need for deference and that governments had to address that need. The implications for democratic as distinct from aristocratic or plutocratic government are obvious. And behind Lasswell’s positing of a natural need for deference lie the ‘self-evident’ truths of Jefferson

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about human beings: that they have a natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson’s assumptions have origins in Locke and perhaps in a nearcontemporary of Jefferson: Rousseau, whose two principal works, The Social contract and Emile, were published about 15 years before Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence. It is this assumption of innate drives beyond self- and species-survival that needs to be addressed directly. It is not possible to say we have one or more useful models of human nature until we have systematically included metasurvival needs. Psychologists since Darwin who have assumed or stated more complex models of human nature have been remarkably neglected, in favor of the more simple, easy-to-conceptualize models of optimistic environmentalists, Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson, Marx, Watson, and Skinner. But the lineage is there. William James was perhaps the first to systematize a model of human needs that included drives beyond survival. He was followed by Freud, a pessimistic view of innate needs beyond survival. And after Freud came Henry Alexander Murray, who in his Explorations in personality (1938) produced a model of human nature that went beyond both James and Freud to include a long set of mental needs that included the desire not to be degraded (‘infavoidance’), not to be ignored or depreciated. Murray avoided classifying the long list as being innate or involving early conditioning. After Murray, Abraham Maslow developed a rather rigorous set of elemental needs and placed them in a hierarchy. He said that after the physical needs for food, good health, etc., people wanted security, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization – and they wanted them pretty much in that order. There has been resistance and indifference to the idea of positing some elemental needs that are beyond survival and sex, and resistance to the idea of establishing any priority among elemental needs. Some investigators have acknowledged that human beings have innate physical and love needs, but are not so confident that they also naturally want dignity and freedom to do their thing. There is some acceptance of the idea that (equal) dignity is innate, but skepticism about its naturalness may be related to the fact that philosophers – including Jefferson – may have called it innate, but not psychologists aside from James, Murray, and Maslow. That is, criticism may derive from the fact that dignity has not been very systematically or deliberately subjected to psychological analysis. Investigators have remained largely constrained by the very dubious assumption that the only innate needs relate to self- and species-survival. An additional argument is that the need for (equal) dignity is generated by – that is, originates in – childhood experience and longterm conditioning to values provided by moralists and religious leaders who have developed institutions that protect equality and that welcome efforts to dignify humankind.

The inescapable problem with environmental determinism which limits innate drives to survival is to explain how metasurvival values got generated in the first place. Have theories of philosophers and moralists emerged spontaneously out of cosmic black holes, without their generators (natural rights theorists like Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson; and moralists like Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet) sensing within themselves and people they observed a profound and universal demand? Such speculations are perhaps unnecessarily argumentative. Rather than continuing a discussion that can be endless, it seems more appropriate to pursue experiments in which determinants that are innate can be more clearly separated from those that are purely products of conditioning or are at least contaminated by it. Such investigations are possible but they still present problems. If an electrode is implanted in a particular part of the brain where a certain behavior pattern is supposed to generate, is it an innate force if it requires the electrode to be activated? That is, how can an innate force exist if it requires a stimulus to function? One answer to this basic problem in causation is to recognize that there can be no behavior that is not the product of the interaction between the organism and the environment. This is not to say that there are not areas in the brain with rather specific and specialized functions that are innate and have the potential of producing a specific, specialized response. A look at some experiments undertaken by neurophysiologists will show the progress that has been made in delimiting innate components in the interaction between organism and environment. Some of the research has been reported elsewhere in this encyclopedia but implications of the research merit examination in light of what it says about the innateness of violence.

Some Research in the Neurophysiology of Assertive and Violent Behavior The unique complexity of the human brain warns us that any findings about it can at best be only partial and tentative. Nonetheless, the complexity need deter us no more than natural scientists are faced with the considerably simpler working of the universe and of elemental, subatomic particles. Astrophysicists and nuclear physicists have progressed enormously on the foundations of Newton, Einstein, and other fundamentalists. We can quite confidently say that time and space are so intertwined that we cannot explain elemental phenomena if we consider them separately. We can say that light travels at a certain speed, but only for practical purposes like establishing just how long is an hour, a day, a century, and a millennium. We can accept as fact that energy has mass, though the difference in mass between energy and more palpable forms of mass like lead or water vapor is truly enormous.

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Correlatively, we can say that behaviors like a search for food or affection or for dignity have innate components, without thereby settling the dispute over the innateness of aggression, violence, dominance, or subservience. We have noted that theorists about human nature differ in their belief that violence is innate. Freud, Lorenz, and Ardrey build their basic theses on the assumption that aggression is innate. Other writers, notably Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson, suppose that it is not. We can get at better bases for addressing the question if we look systematically at the way brain researchers organize their less-certain, lessdefinitive conclusions about human nature. The Triune Brain A physiologist, Paul MacLean, had divided the brain into three basic parts: the reptilian, paleomammalian, and neomammalian. The reptilian part is so named by MacLean because in it are contained behavioral functions that humans share with reptiles. That is, reptiles have been found to manifest these and other behaviors: (1) the establishment and marking of territory; (2) defense of territory; (3) fighting; (4) the formation of groups; (5) the establishment of social hierarchy; (6) courtship; (7) mating; (8) the breeding and sometimes the care of offspring. An anthropocentric view would describe these behaviors of reptiles as humanoid. MacLean’s nomenclature reminds us better of the continuity between the behavior of human beings and those of some of the lowest vertebrates. Between the most primitive, reptilian part and the most advanced, neomammalian part of the brain (otherwise called the neocortex, the ‘new’ cortex, where information is processed and decisions are made) lies the part which is most critical for our analysis: the limbic system. More than any other part, it is the seat of the emotions. The limbic system was ‘discovered’ by Paul Broca, in France in 1878. Its major parts are the hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, and the septal area. In reptiles it is most of the brain. In Homo sapiens, it is a much smaller portion and is covered, wrapped around, by the very large neocortex, the thinking and feeling brain. Following Broca and Papez (1937), MacLean (1972), Delgado (1969), and many others have done extensive research within the limbic system, some of which are discussed here. To the extent that conflict behavior involves emotion, the limbic system is involved, and it is hard to conceive of emotion-free conflict behavior. However, it must always be borne in mind that bundles of nerves connect the limbic system with the neocortex and with the most primitive, ‘reptilian’ parts of the brain. One implication of these interties is that – physiologically speaking – there are probably few behaviors that are quite free of either the information-processing and decisionmaking functions of the neocortex or the most primitive

‘instincts’ of the sort that MacLean listed for reptiles. Another implication is that, to the extent that the primitive and the limbic systems ‘dominate’ overt behavior, people may not be totally aware and in control of their reasons for behaving as they do, notably in times of stress. Research in Nerves The brain’s activity is so complex and so interactive, both internally and with the environment, that the role of various factors can best be looked at by categories. Neural research is one of two major categories: neural and endocrine. Nerves and hormones interact continuously in the brain and in parts of the rest of the body that are directly under the brain’s control. A pinch or a stab wound may produce an immediate and violent response against the person who pinched or stabbed. This is primarily a neural response. The same stimuli also involve activation of hormonal response: the person pinched or stabbed experiences a surge of noradrenaline or norepinephrine (NE) and adrenaline or epinephrine (E), and this surge may cause the whole organism, the whole person, to respond violently. The neural part of the brain’s activity does not act alone; neither does the hormonal part. The master, most universally controlling, gland in the brain is the pituitary, the hypophysis. It is the size of a pea. The pituitary is physically divided into a part that is composed of a tiny set of nerves, the neurohypophysis, and another part consisting of a tiny sac of hormones, the adenohypophysis. Functionally, the pituitary’s two separate parts themselves are in continuous interaction. First, let us examine research whose emphasis has been on nerves. One of the great early investigators was Walter Cannon, who did experiments with dogs, by ablating different parts of the brain or cutting connections between them. He found that when a main trunk of nerves high in the brain (connecting the neocortex with the limbic system) was cut, the animals became veritable engines of destruction, sizing up in a coordinated way whoever was near and waiting for the first opportunity to strike. The neocortex no longer inhibited a response that could be called rage or selfdefense. When the cut was made lower, the animals became snarling, growling, uncontrolled, and undangerous animals. That is, the less involved the forebrain, the neocortex, the less controlled was the response behavior. Electrodes implanted in the brains of various vertebrates have again helped map the paths involved in violence. When electrodes were put in the brainstems (part of the ‘reptilian’ brain) of chickens and an electrical charge was fed into the electrode, the chickens, which previously had been friendly with their human attendants, pecked viciously at them. It is well to note that the chickens were not naturally, normally, hostile but the electrical charge made them so. It served the same function as ablation and cutting in the brains of Cannon’s dogs.

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Reis and co-workers in 1973 implanted electrodes in nine gentle cats, in a part of the brain immediately adjacent to the limbic system. When a current of 40 mA was introduced, the cats merely became alert. When it was increased to 50 mA, the cats started to groom them. When it was increased to 60 mA, five of the nine cats started to eat. When the current was increased to 70 mA, seven of the nine cats savagely attacked a rat placed in their cages. When the current was turned off, they stopped their attacks, and when it was turned on again they attacked again. In 1969, in an experiment with a group of monkeys housed in a single cage, Delgado noted unsurprisingly that the alpha male monkey, the top monkey, was, if not aggressive, at least assertive. He was the first to eat and sat wherever he wanted to. Delgado implanted an electrode in the caudate nucleus, a part of the limbic system, and on the cage wall he put an electrical switch that could send a current to the implanted electrode by remote control. The switch could be operated by any of the monkeys. One of the female monkeys discovered that by pressing the switch, she could stop the alpha’s dominant behavior. After pressing the switch, she could do what no subordinate monkey would dare do to an alpha: she looked him straight in the eye. After the effect had worn off, the alpha male was boss again. There is no evidence that the clever female had read the Declaration of Independence, but clearly she preferred at least equal deference and equal power. An idiosyncratic case emphasizes the role of the limbic system, the emotional brain, in determining behavior. A mentally healthy attorney started to take offense at offenses that for him became major crises. He got very angry at cocktail parties, pursued and tried to punish drivers who were rude or careless on freeways. He was getting short-tempered with his wife. Persistence and intensity of symptoms led to brain surgery. A tumor surrounded his hypothalamus, a major part of the limbic system. He died in the hospital. A young woman who had stabbed someone in the heart with a knife was put in hospital. She attacked a nurse with scissors. Brain surgery took the form of cauterizing and thus destroying the amygdala, another major part of the limbic system. It can confidently be said that the behavior of both the attorney and the young woman was violent: at least on the surface, overt evidence indicated conscious attacks on objects these two people considered appropriate. And it cannot be said with any confidence that either the attorney or the girl was responsible for his or her behavior. There are dozens of hormones – neurochemicals or endocrines – that interact with the nervous system as they control behavior. Their interaction is so reciprocal that one cannot confidently say that nerves control hormonal secretions or vice versa. But there are two categories of hormones that most directly relate to aggressive and violent behavior: the catecholamines and the steroids.

The principal catecholamines relevant to aggressive behavior are NE and E. The sequence of production of these hormones is from dopamine to NE to E. The sequence of production has distinct significance for the kind of behavior each helps produce. Dopamine tends to produce interaction rather basically and positively. Nurses administering dopamine have been the objects of amorous advances from their patients. NE tends to produce broad, unspecified response to protect the organism from threat: ‘destroy that attacker or get me out of here’. E, the metabolite of NE, tends to produce specific, deliberated response: the best way to destroy that attacker is to put him on trial, convict him or her, and then hang him or her. The ratio of NE varies from species to species. In chickens, lions, and whales, there is more NE than E. In human beings the ratio of NE to E is about 1 to 3. That is, human beings have more of the deliberative kind and other vertebrates more of the generalized kind. The second category of hormones relating to aggressive behavior is the steroids or sex hormones. The two kinds of steroids are the estrogens and androgens. Both males and females have both kinds: females have more estrogens than androgens and more estrogens than males, who have more androgens than estrogens. Both are metabolites of (are made from) cholesterol. Estrogen is associated with many kinds of behavior, but one of them is nurturance. Androgen is similarly implicated in producing overt behavior, but a principal one is assertive and aggressive behavior. The production of the steroids increases at puberty and at menopause the proportions change as between males and females. After menopause, women have less estrogen than androgen and have less estrogen than men. One indicator of these changes is that women often have facial hair that they never had before menopause; one indicator in men as they age may get less aggressive and more nurturant. That is, more nurturant than they were – and in some instances more nurturant than women. It is perhaps more difficult to separate out the behavioral consequences of different catecholamines than, perhaps, to isolate the effect of ingesting too much or too little salt, or too much or too little fatty food. But, without attributing physiological wisdom to the Roman Stoics, with their prescription, ‘nothing to excess’, it does appear that there is a normal range of amounts of catecholamines which, when it is not present, produces abnormal behavior. And that some of this abnormal behavior is clearly assertive and may be aggressive. Furthermore, variation in amounts of catecholamines may be partly under conscious control of the individual human being. And they can take various drugs to control the effect of catecholamines and steroids: among the commonest are alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. People do not need to know the physiology to enjoy or suffer from the effects of drugs on the natural production and effect of hormones. Research of this kind shows the behavioral consequences of direct intervention in the limbic system.

Evolutionary Origins and Functions of the Stress Response 11

The findings establish physiologically what Freud established psychologically: namely, that unconscious and often uncontrolled forces within human beings are major determinants of behavior. Freud discovered the unconscious origins of adult mental conflict in the (ontogenetic) development of humans as infants and children. What Broca, Papez, MacLean, and many others have done is to establish the similarities of brain structure and function between humans and lower vertebrates. They thereby have indicated that the emotional and some of the cognitive capacities of humans are phylogenetically rooted in the development of all vertebrate and, perhaps ultimately, all sensate species. Some later research illustrates the point by showing the interaction among neural structures, sex hormones, and various environmental factors in a species of lizard. These combine to produce certain complicated sex behaviors. We can infer that the neural structure of the lizard’s limbic system, its sex hormones, and various environmental factors interact within this reptilian brain in ways comparable to their functioning in human beings.

From Here, Where? Hitherto in this article, first a definition of human nature that may indicate the area of focus that is appropriate for seeking forces within the human organism that relate to political peace and violence has been offered. Then some research that helps explain political violence has been cited. This kind of research is in its infancy: most relevant research has been evidently undertaken for other purposes than explaining violence. So the relevant fields

of political psychology are hard to specify. We are about where Columbus was before he left on his first voyage. A major obstacle still remains the fact that most social scientists have not considered the need to get familiar with physiology as a step beyond social psychology. Another obstacle is the often scornful rejection of social science by natural scientists. Social science may be about where natural science was before Isaac Newton, but little is gained by arguing the matter. At least social science does not depreciate systematic investigation, however deficient it is in practicing it. But natural science can help enormously if it helps social science become more scientific, not just in its methods but also in the foci of its investigations.

Further Reading Davies, J. C. (1967). Aggression: Some definition and some physiology. Politics and the Life Sciences 6(1), 27–57. Dollard, J. L., Miller, N. E., Mowrer, O. H., and Sears, R. R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. London: Yale University Press. Einstein, A. and Freud, S. (1933). Why war? Paris: International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation. MacLean, P. (1972). The brain in relation to empathy and medical education. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 144, 374–382. Papez, J. W. (1937). A proposed mechanism of emotion. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 38, 725–743. Rackham, H. (trans.) (1932). Aristotle: Politics. London: Heinemann. Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: A. A. Knopf. Von Holst, E. and von St. Paul, U. (1960). Von wirkungsgefu¨ge der triebe. Die Naturwissenschften 18, 409–422. Von Holst, E. and von St. Paul, U. (1962). Electrically controlled behavior. Scientific American 206(3), 150–159 (A less complete report of the research originally published in 1960).

Evolutionary Origins and Functions of the Stress Response R M Nesse, S Bhatnagar, and E A Young, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Utility of the Stress Response Phylogeny of the Stress Response How Does the Stress Response Help? Adaptive Regulation of Stress Responsiveness

Glossary Defense A trait that is latent until aroused by threatening situations in which it is useful.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by R M Nesse, S Bhatnagar and E A Young, volume 2, pp 79–83, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Mismatch between Ancestral and Modern Environments Further Reading

Natural Selection The process by which genes that provide a fitness advantage become more common from generation to generation and those that decrease

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Evolutionary Origins and Functions of the Stress Response

fitness become less common, thus shaping adaptive traits, including defenses. Phylogeny The evolutionary history of a trait or a species.

Evolution is the process in which traits such as the capacity for the stress response are shaped by natural selection. Understanding the evolutionary history of a trait, how it gives a selective advantage, and the costs it imposes can help to illuminate its design and regulation and can guide research into its mechanisms and control. The stress response has been shaped by natural selection to increase the ability of organisms to cope with situations that require action or defense. Stress-related mechanisms emerged early in the history of life. Like all traits, they have costs as well as benefits. Because the stress response is so often associated with negative events, its utility has often been neglected. In particular, the release of glucocorticoids, which is often thought to be the hallmark of the stress response, may in fact exist, in part, to protect against other aspects of defensive systems.

Utility of the Stress Response The vast bulk of research on stress has investigated its causes, mechanisms, and effects. An evolutionary approach instead addresses two very different and relatively neglected questions: (1) How does the stress system give a selective advantage and (2) what is the evolutionary history of the stress system? The answers to these questions provide a foundation in Darwinian medicine for understanding why the stress response is the way it is and why it causes so much suffering and disease. The first and most important contribution of an evolutionary perspective on stress is a clear focus on its utility. The stress system is a complex, sophisticated, and carefully regulated adaptation that has been shaped by natural selection because it gives a selective advantage. That advantage must be substantial in order to outweigh its huge costs. The idea that stress is useful is by no means new. In fact, the very phrase Hans Selye chose to describe it, the general adaptation syndrome, emphasizes its utility. Despite this early emphasis on its benefits, as the idea of stress entered the popular imagination there was a tendency to emphasize its dangers so that the fundamental fact of the utility of the stress response was often forgotten. Stress and Other Defenses Other defenses are also often confused with the problems they protect against. The capacities for pain, fever, vomiting,

Trade-Offs The fitness costs and benefits of a trait whose net effects yield a selective advantage.

cough, and inflammation are often thought of as medical problems, although a moment’s thought reveals that they are useful protective reactions. The ubiquity of the illusion that defenses are abnormalities arises from several sources. First, defenses are often associated with some kind of suffering and therefore seem maladaptive. Unfortunately, however, discomfort is itself probably one aspect of a mechanism that makes it useful. Second, they are reliably associated with disadvantageous situations, so the association bias makes it seem as if they are the problem. Finally, it is possible to use drugs to block the expression of many defenses with very little harm, completing the illusion that defenses are useless. In fact, blocking a defense can be harmful. For instance, suppressing cough in a patient with pneumonia makes it harder to clear the infection and may lead to death, and stopping the diarrhea of a person with a serious intestinal infection may lead to complications. Blocking fever, however, usually has little effect on the speed of recovery from a cold. When blocking a defense is not dangerous, this is because the body has backup protective mechanisms and because the regulation mechanism seems to be set to a hair trigger that expresses the defense at the slightest hint of danger. Situations in Which Stress Is Useful Stress, like fever and pain, is useful only in certain situations. Such traits lie latent until aroused by the particular circumstances in which they are useful. This means that the evolutionary explanation for such traits cannot be summarized in a single function. Instead, the inducible defenses give an advantage by changing multiple aspects of the body that increase its ability to cope effectively with the adaptive challenges that arise in a particular situation. One defense may have many aspects that serve many functions. So, the first step in understanding the adaptive value of stress is not to try to specify its function but to understand the exact situations in which the stress response is useful. To do that, we need to go back to the very origins of complex life forms 600 million years ago. If a very primitive organism had only two states, what are they? The answer is quite straightforward: activity and rest. This is a fundamental divide, one that is maintained even in our biochemical and nervous systems. Biochemical pathways are divided into the catabolic, in which energy is used, and the anabolic, in which energy is stored and tissues

Evolutionary Origins and Functions of the Stress Response 13

are repaired. Parallel to this division are the two arms of the autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic system, which is activated as part of the stress response, increases arousal, blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and physical activity and institutes other endocrine and physiological changes necessary for action. The other half of the autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic, inhibits muscular activity, stores energy, and shunts blood to digestion and bodily repair. Is stress, then, the same as arousal for action? Not exactly. As soon as a generic state of arousal was well established, natural selection probably began to differentiate it into subtypes to better meet the demands of different kinds of challenges. Here again, the main bifurcation is quite clear. Arousal is useful in two different situations: threats and opportunities. This division is also represented in our nervous systems. As Gray and others have pointed out, the brain seems to have moderately distinct systems for behavioral inhibition and for reward seeking. The corresponding behaviors are said to be defensive or appetitive and are associated with feelings of fear/pain or pleasure. In psychology, the same division is recognized in the distinct cognitive states promotion versus prevention.

Phylogeny of the Stress Response Cross-Species Comparisons Comparisons among different species can help to reconstruct the phylogeny of the stress response. All vertebrates have the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) molecule that gives rise not only to adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) but also to opiate-like peptides. It is intriguing to note that these molecules, with their related functions, are derived from the same parent molecule. All vertebrates also make corticosteroids. Peptide sequences very similar to those of human ACTH are found not only in mammals but also in amphibians and reptiles and even in insects, mollusks, and marine worms. Interestingly they are usually associated with immune cells, equivalent to macrophages, where they set defensive processes in motion. ACTH has long been closely associated with other signaling molecules such as corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH), biogenic amines such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, steroids such as cortisol, cytokines such as interleukin-1, and nitric oxide. All these substances are crucial to defensive systems. The remarkable thing is that genetic sequences for these molecules have not only been conserved over hundreds of millions of years but they continue to serve closely related defensive functions. Why have they changed so little? If a single molecule has several essential functions, this creates a strong selective force against mutations that change the sequence. By contrast, mutations that result in the differentiation of

different classes of receptors in target tissues can slowly specialize the responses of that tissue to the signal molecule. And they have, judging from the proliferating classes and subclasses of receptors that are now being discovered. Cost–Benefit Trade-Offs Why is the stress system not better? It could provide more effective protection against danger – but only at a still greater cost. Drosophila have been bred to resist the stress of food shortage. After 60 generations of such selection, the new strain is 80% more resistant to starvation. However, the larvae are more likely to die, and development is slowed. Similar results have been found for selection of resistance to other stressors and in other species. Like everything else in the body, stress responses are shaped by trade-offs, sometimes with benefits and costs occurring in different parts of the life cycle. The mechanisms that regulate the responsiveness of the stress system are shaped by the trade-off between the long-term costs and the immediate benefits of a relatively quick or intense or prolonged stress response. It has been hypothesized that the individuals who are most resilient or resistant to the effects of stress on physiology or behavior are the ones least vulnerable to stress-related diseases. However, are these individuals resilient to all stressrelated disorders, or are there situations in which resilience to some disorders means vulnerability to others? The answer is not known, but given the large number of physiological systems affected by stress and/or glucocorticoids, it is unlikely that resilience to one stress-related disorder necessarily protects against all. Another trade-off reflects the benefits and costs of habituation. For instance, rats exposed to some repeated stressors, particularly those that are mild and cognitive in nature, habituate to that stressor. The hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) response is lower to the nth exposure than to the first exposure. Such habituation seems adaptive for most situations; if the stressor is known and can be easily coped with, then the HPA response should be moderated. Such habituation would, at the very least, conserve resources. However, it would be maladaptive to habituate to stressors that do present some danger. These trade-offs have shaped the brain mechanisms that regulate habituation. There are interesting sex differences in the habituation of the stress response, with some evidence indicating that habituation occurs in male but not in female rats. Such findings suggest that the selection forces acting on male and female rats may have differed enough to shape distinctly different patterns of habituation. Research is now addressing whether habituation occurs with some stressors in males but with others in females.

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Stress responses in adult animals are profoundly affected by early environmental events such as prenatal stress and variations in maternal care. The effects of variations in maternal care are transmitted across generations, with offspring that experience high maternal care exhibiting lower stress responses and providing high maternal care themselves. Such effects seem adaptive in that offspring are likely to experience an environment similar to that of their parents. So, for example, mothers providing low maternal care have high stress responses and so do their offspring when they become adults. However, when cross-fostered to other mothers, the offspring show patterns of stress responsivity similar to that of their foster mother and not their biological mother. Such results suggest that stress responsivity and maternal care are not simply genetically transmitted but are also regulated by early experiences. Such regulation is seen in other mammals and even plants. Some of such transmission across generations may arise from facultative mechanisms that evolved to adjust the system based on early life experiences, and some may arise from more general learning mechanisms. Difficulties in Defining Stress The human mind seems wired to try to make neat categories with sharp boundaries, perhaps because we communicate with words and this requires dividing the world up into categories even when that is unnatural. This leads to a tendency to try to make sharp distinctions between different states that may, in fact, overlap considerably. States of defensive arousal, for instance, are different from states of arousal for seeking food, but there is no reason to expect that the differentiation is complete. For instance, cortisol secretion is aroused by opportunities as well as threats. In fact, cortisol is even involved in reward mechanisms. Thus, any attempt to define the stress response in terms of cortisol arousal is doomed. For that matter, any attempt to define stress or the stress response is liable to be an exercise in frustration for the evolutionary reason that the system does not have sharp boundaries or a single function. The closest we can come to a defining characteristic is the kinds of situations in which stress has given a selective advantage, and those situations are not sharply defined. The stress system was, after all, not designed by an engineer but shaped by a process of tiny tinkering changes. The long unsatisfying history of attempts to define stress and the wish, expressed by many researchers, that the term would go away, arise from this difficulty. Even after defensive arousal was differentiated considerably from appetitive arousal, there were undoubtedly advantages to further differentiating subtypes of stress responses to match specific challenges. Thus, different situations – a predator, a high place, injury,

infection, starvation, loss of a status battle, and speaking in public – all seem to have shaped somewhat different defensive responses. These responses are only partially differentiated from a more generic response, so they have overlapping characteristics with functions in common. Attempts to sharply distinguish different kinds of anxiety disorders are as frustrating as attempts to define stress itself and for the same reasons. New attempts to study anxiety disorders in the context of normal anxiety will be helpful.

How Does the Stress Response Help? Immediate Response These difficulties notwithstanding, a stress response is a coordinated pattern of changes that is useful in situations in which the organism is faced with possible damage or a loss of resources. The next question is: How is it useful? Even before Selye, Walter Cannon provided some answers. In situations that might require fight or flight, he observed the utility of increased heart rate and contractility to speed circulation, increased rate and depth of breathing to speed gas exchange, sweating to cool the body and make it slippery, increased glucose synthesis to provide energy, shunting of blood from gut and skin to muscles, increased muscle tension to increase strength and endurance, and increased blood clotting in preparation for possible tissue damage. More recently, others have demonstrated faster reaction times and cognitive benefits as a result of sympathetic arousal. These immediate responses are mostly mediated by the sympathetic nervous system and the associated release of epinephrine from the adrenal medulla. Adrenal Cortical Response However, the stress system also includes a more delayedresponse release of cortisol from the adrenal cortex, although this system does have more rapid effects (such as fast negative feedback) that are probably mediated by putative membrane steroid receptors. This is initiated by neural signals to the hypothalamus, which releases CRH, which in turn results in the secretion of ACTH from the anterior pituitary gland on the bottom of the brain. The ACTH induces cortisol synthesis and release from the adrenal gland. The whole system is called the HPA system because the signal acts via the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the adrenal glands. Many actions of the HPA system seem, like those of the sympathetic system, well designed for acute action. It changes physiology so the liver breaks down glycogen into glucose, and it alters cells so glucose can get in more readily. Through different populations, CRH not only releases ACTH, but it also directly increases anxiety

Evolutionary Origins and Functions of the Stress Response 15

and arousal and activates cells in the locus coreleus, the brain center where the cell bodies for most noradrenergic neurons are located. All in all, the system seems admirably designed to get the organism ready for action. Indeed, both branches of the system are readily aroused by exercise, and trained athletes, far from having low levels of cortisol, have chronic high levels – just the thing for a person who frequently exerts him- or herself. Association with Negative Events So, why should the stress system as a whole be associated so closely with bad events instead of positive ones? To answer that question, we need to understand why the components of the stress system are carefully packaged. If the stress is so useful, why is stress not expressed all the time? There are at least three good reasons why it is not. First, it is expensive in terms of calories. No organism can afford to waste effort. Second, it interferes with other adaptive behaviors. A vigilant organism has less time for finding food and eating, to say nothing of mating. Finally, and most important, some changes that give an advantage in the face of threats may also cause tissue damage. For this reason, they need to be carefully sequestered, except in those few circumstances in which the costs are outweighed by the benefits. This helps to explain why some aspects of the stress response are associated more with negative than positive arousal. The benefits of a stress response that increases the likelihood of catching prey may sometimes be worth it, but if a stress response prevents being caught as prey, this is always worth it, even if substantial damage results from the stress response itself. This helps to explain why the stress response, despite its costs, is so ubiquitous. An optimal regulatory mechanism will express a stress response whenever, on average, it is worth it. Given the uncertainties of environmental cues and the potential life-saving effects of the stress response, there will be many instances where the expression of stress is worthwhile, even though there is only a small chance that danger is actually present. The global conclusion is that the damage caused by stress responses is not necessarily from abnormal stress. Some components of the stress response may be a part of the response specifically because they are too damaging to be expressed except when they protect against great danger. There is every reason to think that normal stress, like every other bodily trait, has costs as well as benefits. This idea is expressed in the concept of allostasis, as proposed by McEwen and colleagues, which emphasizes the short-term benefits and the longterm costs. That a normal stress response might be crucial for optimal physiological functioning has implications for recent notions about pharmacological therapies for reducing perceived stress. For example, if a drug such as a

CRH inhibitor blocks all stress response at the brain level, then how does the body react to what may be real requirements for increases in energy use and how do systems that are generally opposed in functions to those of glucocorticoids, counterregulatory systems such as the regulation of insulin release, stay in check? Furthermore, there are many indications in both human and animal studies of mismatches between perceived stress or behavioral indices of stress and HPA activation. The extreme of an absent stress response is, of course, Addison’s disease. Thus, although the cognitive nature of many current human stressors results in costs disproportionate to actual threats, from an evolutionary point of view the general inhibition of stress responses is by no means optimal. It would be ironic as well as tragic if the history of the excessive use of cortisone were to repeat itself with a new generation of drugs that block the stress response. Cortisol as Protection against Other Aspects of Stress If some aspects of the stress response cause harm, has selection shaped systems to protect against this damage? In 1984, Munck and colleagues reviewed the actions of cortisol and said, ‘‘We propose that stress-induced increases in glucocorticoids levels protect, not against the source of stress itself, but rather against the body’s normal reactions to stress, preventing those reactions from overshooting and themselves threatening homeostasis.’’ They noted that many inflammatory diseases had been attributed to overproduction of cortisol until 1941, when adrenal steroids were shown to decrease inflammation. Subsequent demonstrations showed that steroids inhibit the production of cytokines, prostaglandins, and other mediators of the immune response, thus decreasing immune function. This is just the opposite of what would make sense as protection from danger, but it is entirely consistent with a role in protecting against damage from immune system activation induced by other changes. It is now clear that the effects of glucocorticoids on immune function are much more complicated than originally thought. Added to this are recent novel findings regarding the effects of glucocorticoids on the brain versus the body on the regulation of energy balance and fat deposition that suggest that our assumptions about the physiological and neural functions of glucocorticoids will continue to be significantly challenged.

Adaptive Regulation of Stress Responsiveness The recognition that a moderately responsive stress system is optimal is quickly leading to a consideration of

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the adaptive significance of variations in stress responsiveness. Several lines of thinking addresses the adaptive significance of innate individual differences in stress responsiveness. The first attempts to explain the growing evidence for a bimodal pattern of stress response in some organisms, with some individuals responding quickly and strongly and others showing a much more restrained response. It has been suggested that these distinct patterns reflect distinct patterns of adaptation,: a hawk pattern that is optimal in crowded situations and a dove pattern that is optimal when population density is low. The different strategies are hypothesized to be the products of frequency-dependent selection. There is also increasing evidence that maternal effects on an offspring’s stress responsiveness may be adaptive. Mothers exposed to stressful environments give birth to offspring with especially responsive stress systems that may give them an advantage in harsh environments. The same evolutionary forces may have shaped mechanisms that explain the connection between early abuse or neglect and increased stress vulnerability.

Mismatch between Ancestral and Modern Environments Much has been made of the differences between our environment and that of our ancestors. In the case of stress, this argument comes in several flavors. Some suggest that life is more stressful now than it was for our predecessors. Special aspects of our environment do cause new kinds of stress. Working in a bureaucracy is tedious and political at best. Driving to work, living in a ghetto, running a corporation, working in a factory – these all arouse the stress system. Despite the amount of stress we experience, however, our ancestors almost certainly experienced more. With no police, no food reserves, no medicine, no laws, rampant infections, and prevalent predators, danger could come at any time. True, social groups were closer, kin networks were stronger, and people spent all their time with one another and none alone reading books. Still, life was hard. Perhaps in that environment, where stressors were more often physical, the stress response was more useful than it is now. Today, we mainly face social and mental threats, so the actions of the HPA system may yield net costs. This is plausible and supports the many efforts to reduce stress and to find drugs that block the stress response. This brings us back to the very concept of stress as a mismatch between the demands made on an individual and that individual’s ability to meet those demands. We think of these demands as coming from

the outside, and sometimes they do, as when we are attacked by the proverbial tiger. But most stresses in modern life arise not from physical dangers or deficiencies but from our tendency to commit ourselves to personal goals that are too many and too high and to ruminate about them. When our efforts to accomplish these goals are thwarted or when we cannot pursue all the goals at once and must give something up, the stress reaction is expressed. In short, much stress arises, ultimately, not from a mismatch between our abilities and the environment’s demands, but from a mismatch between what we desire and what we can have.

Further Reading Bhatnagar, S., Lee, T., and Vining, C. (2005). Prenatal stress differentially affects habituation to repeated restraint in adult male and female rats. Hormones and Behavior 47(4), 430–438. Cannon, W. B. (1929). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage: researches into the function of emotional excitement. New York: Harper and Row. Charney, D. S. (2004). Psychobiological mechanisms of resilience and vulnerability: implications for successful adaptation to extreme stress. American Journal of Psychiatry 161(2), 195–216. Dallman, M. F. (2003). Fast glucocorticoid feedback favors ‘‘the munchies.’’ Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism 14(9), 394–396. Frankenhauser, M. (1976). The role of peripheral catecholamines in adaptation to understimulation and overstimulation. In Serban, G. (ed.) Psychopathology and human adaptation, pp. 173–191. New York: Plenum. Gray, J. A. (1987). Fear and stress, 2nd edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist 52(12), 1280–1300. Marks, I. M. and Nesse, R. M. (1994). Fear and fitness: an evolutionary analysis of anxiety disorders. Ethology and Sociobiology 15(5–6), 247–261. McEwen, B. S. (2003). Interacting mediators of allostasis and allostatic load: towards an understanding of resilience in aging. Metabolism 10(supplement 2), 10–16. Munck, A., Guyre, P. M., and Holbrook, N. J. (1984). Physiological functions of glucocorticoids in stress and their relation to pharmacological actions. Endocrine Review 5(l), 25–44. Korte, S. M., Koolhaas, J. M., Wingfield, J. C., et al. (2005). The Darwinian concept of stress: benefits of allostasis and costs of allostatic load and the trade-offs in health and disease. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Review 29, 3–38. Nesse, R. M. (2005). Natural selection and the regulation of defenses: a signal detection analysis of the smoke detector principle. Evolution and Human Behavior 26, 88–105. Nesse, R. M. and Williams, G. C. (1994). Why we get sick: the new science of Darwinian medicine. New York: Times Books. Rosen, J. B. and Schulkin, J. (1998). From normal fear to pathological anxiety. Psychological Review 105(2), 325–350. Young, E. and Vasquez, D. (1996). Hypercortisolemia, hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors, and fast feedback. Molecular Psychiatry 1(2), 149–159. Zhang, T. Y., Parent, C., Weaver, I., et al. (2004). Maternal programming of individual differences in defensive responses in the rat. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1032, 85–103.

Evolution of Violence 17

Evolution of Violence Jukka-Pekka Takala, National Council of Crime Prevention, Helsinki, Finland ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Evolutionary Point of View Adaptations to Violence and Conflict Conflicts with Kin and Nonkin Conflicts over Resources for Survival and Reproduction

Glossary Adaptation A process of natural selection operating upon heritable variation by which an organism becomes fitted to its environment; any of the evolved fitnessenhancing characteristics that are functional in solving specific problems. Allele Any alternative form of a gene. Altruism In everyday language, altruism means selfless concern for the welfare of others. In evolutionary theory altruism strictly defined denotes increasing the fitness of another individual at the expense of the actor’s fitness. By-Products Side consequences of evolutionary adaptations. For instance, male nipples may be nonadaptive by-products of the design that produced female nipples that clearly have adaptive value. Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA) The environment in which a species evolved to solve the recurring problems posed by that environment. When the environment changes, existing adaptations may no longer be adaptive. Evolutionary Psychology Study of the mind in the light of evolutionary theory and current knowledge about the processes that created the mind. Used also more narrowly to designate an approach emphasizing the study of adaptations and problem-solving modules. Fitness The success of an organism’s genes relative to their alleles within a population. Gene Usually defined as a section of DNA that codes for one protein, but other definitions have been suggested also. Inclusive Fitness Total of an individual’s personal reproductive success and its influence on the fitness of relatives, the latter adjusted by the degree of their relatedness.

Evolution of Sexual Violence Conclusion Further Reading

Kin Selection A concept referring to the fact that natural selection works on inclusive fitness (qv). An individual may help to propagate the frequency of a trait in a population even if this reduces the individual’s personal fitness, provided the reduction is outweighed by increase in the fitness of individuals related to the actor. Kin selection explains why apparent altruism and self-sacrifice may be adaptive. Parental Investment Anything a parent does to increase an offspring’s reproductive success at a cost to the parent’s capacity to invest in other offspring. Parent–Offspring Conflict Conflict based on the fact that the genomes of parents and offspring are not identical; typically, it is in the parents’ genetic interest to invest more or sooner in other progeny than the focal offspring’s genetic interest would dictate. Paternity Confidence, Paternal Certainty The degree to which a male is confident that he is the father of a child. Reciprocal Altruism A pattern of behavior in which an individual provides benefits to another without immediate payment and the recipient reciprocates with benefits to the donor when a chance arises. Both increase their fitness when benefits are given at a time when they cost little to the provider and may be very valuable to the recipient and the needs and resources of the individuals vary. Reproductive Success (RS) Passing of genes to next generation. A quantitative estimate of success is often expressed as the number of one’s surviving offspring that are able to reproduce. Sexual Selection Intrasexual competition for access to the opposite sex and intersexual mate choice. Darwin held sexual selection to be a form different from natural selection but today it is usually considered to be a type of natural selection.

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The Evolutionary Point of View Introduction This article presents ideas and findings on the evolution of violence. First, the evolutionary point of view is sketched emphasizing natural selection and mentioning circumstances that might favor the evolution of a capacity to use aggression. It is neither claimed that the evolutionary view is the only relevant approach in explaining and understanding violence nor that violence is the only relevant aspect of human behavior that the evolutionary approach can illuminate. It is claimed, however, that in many cases evolutionary theory could be a fruitful part of the approach of looking at violence, particularly when looking for comprehensive and accurate explanations for the patterns of aggression. The article then reviews attempts at evolutionary explanations of some aspects of violence and aggression, as well as some empirical findings that have been inspired by evolutionary theorizing. The section, ‘Conflicts with kin and nonkin’, discusses how the fact that close relatives share, on average, a much greater part of their genetic heritance seems to be linked to the patterns of the selection of victims and allies of violent acts. The next main section looks at the possibility of seeing conflicts over resources for survival reproduction as an ultimate source of many kinds of fairly common types of violence. The section also includes discussion of gender differences in aggression that seem to be linked to sex differences in reproduction. The final section before conclusion looks more closely at possibilities of understanding and explaining aspects of sexual violence by using evolutionary theory. The article necessarily touches upon many controversies (and often heated) over specific theories and hypotheses regarding violence. Many of the quarrels seem to spring from an overall rejection of the relevance of evolutionary theory to explanation and understanding of human behavior. However, controversies are found also among those researchers who basically welcome the evolutionary framework. Some of the concerns regarding the possible moral and legal implications will be discussed in the concluding section of this article. The evolutionary approach has by no means resulted in a homogeneous field, but is one where several somewhat different approaches compete with each other, sometimes to the extent that one can discern different ‘schools’. The debates are many and often too long in technical detail to be dwelt upon in length here. The references to some sources of the debates might help those who wish to learn more of the issues involved. Evolution by Natural Selection Evolution by natural selection, as first described by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858, is a result of a few simple processes. First, living beings tend to produce more offspring than the environment can carry. This means

that there is competition for resources – be it overt or covert. Violence is one means of resolving conflicts over resources that have a bearing on survival and reproduction. Second, individuals of a population show variability in traits that are at least partly heritable. Traits that have to do with violence are heritable in many species. Third, the survival and reproductive success (RS) of different heritable variants is not random; some properties systematically enhance their bearers’ ability to survive and reproduce. For instance, if a species lives in an environment where competition for critical resources is part of everyday life, and it is possible to exclude competitors by force from resources, it is unlikely that a variant that is unable to defend resources would thrive. Finally, in the course of many generations, differential reproduction leads to an increase of the successful variants and a decrease or elimination of the less successful ones. Natural selection has no goal or purpose, but it will produce organisms that seem purposefully crafted to their environments. A variant that can better utilize a resource of the environment or better defend a resource against competitors emerges by chance, but once it has appeared, its chances of survival and reproduction are better than those of other variants. Hence, it can be expected that adaptations that emerge in the process of natural selection will help in competition. Competition can be indirect. For instance, one individual or group may be able to secure resources without others even noticing this fact (and only suffering from more limited options). However, competition can also be direct and open, so that more than one party confront each other at a time and place where the distribution of the limited resources is decided. Again, such a situation may proceed without the use of violence (or even its threat). In some cases, the situation may turn out to be even a cooperative win-win situation. However, some circumstances have tenaciously a zero-sum game character. The use or threat of violence is one possibility to decide the outcome of direct conflicts in many cases. Evolutionary theory views the evolution of violence in the context of its costs and benefits measured ultimately in terms of RS. It is, however, not about a single individual but about the average success of certain design features. An adaptation for aggression can be advantageous to the survival of copies of the genes that lie on its basis even if some individuals perish because of it. Evolutionary theory is also different from the outdated idea that selection would optimize the good of the species. The 1960s discovery of kin selection, the fact that selection operates on the combined or ‘inclusive’ fitness of the focal individual and its relatives, has led to new hypotheses and findings of the patterns of conflict, competition, violence, peace, and altruism. When these insights are applied to humans, many patterns of violence turn out to be consistent with the assumption that humans have evolved to be effective competitors and kin benefactors or ‘nepotists’.

Evolution of Violence 19

The potential rewards of violence include achieving (or preventing loss of) resources such as food, a favored nesting site, or access to a mate, but this comes with potential cost, such as increased risk of injury or death – often because of counterviolence. Hence, evolutionary variants that would aggress indiscriminately, without paying heed to the costs of aggression, would be less likely to succeed than those capable of calibrating their responses and aggressing only when benefits are likely to be higher than costs. Thus, we should expect that psychological decision mechanisms would have evolved that are sensitive to the prospects of success and the size of risks involved in different behavioral options. The basic options are often attack (or counterattack), submission, or flight. An oft-posed question about all evolutionary analyses of adaptation is: Are they testable? Is it not tautological to argue that particular traits of behavior or morphology are an ‘adaptation’ molded by natural and sexual selection to help its carrier to better survive and reproduce if the purpose of that ‘adaptation’ is inferred from the very features in question? The problem is real enough but can be largely avoided by deriving testable predictions from adaptation hypotheses. The adaptationist framework helps researchers to ‘predict’ missing pieces of a puzzle and to test assumed finds. Very often the design or even the existence of a proposed adaptive mechanism is unknown prior to investigation. For instance, inclusive fitness theory suggests that, other things being equal, people should use violence less readily against close genetic relatives than against nonrelatives. This theoretically derived hypothesis has led to surprising empirical findings that in many ways have supported the prediction (if also raised new questions). When a theory leads to the discovery of a fact that was unknown until it was predicted by the theory, it is not a tautological post hoc explanation. Another direction is to search for a function for a known mechanism, similar to how William Harvey discovered the circulation of blood after having started to wonder why there were one-way valves in the veins. Complementary Levels of Explanation for Behavior Explanations for a behavior, such as aggression, can be sought at different levels. First, one can look for immediate or proximate factors at play in situations that lead to aggression. They may be emotional (e.g., frustration), chemical (e.g., the status of hormones or neurotransmitters), or relate to aspects in the immediate social situation. Second, one can look at ontogeny, the development of individuals during their lives and try to find experiences – such as the behavior and example of parents or the gender roles proffered by the prevailing culture – that might influence the individuals’ aggressive and peaceful inclinations in adulthood. Third, one can delineate the evolutionary

history of a behavioral trait to arrive at a phylogenetic explanation. Finally, and this is the focus of evolutionary adaptationist analysis, one can look at behaviors such as aggression as expressions of a set of propensities that have been selected by evolution because they served the individual’s ancestors’ (inclusive) fitness. These types of explanations are called ultimate or distal explanations. Rather than contradictory, these four approaches are aspects of a potentially unified, comprehensive explanation, in principle at least. For example, one essential part of the proximate explanation for why red deer stags go to their regular mating grounds and prepare for fighting is an increased level of the male hormone testosterone. This is known because red deer stags given testosterone in experiments behave like that; they also lose the velvet covering on their antlers in preparation for territorial battles, even in the absence of females. However, from the evolutionary point of view, there is no point for red deer stags to head for their mating grounds and prepare for fighting just because of a surge of testosterone. The ultimate selectional causation of a trait is an account of how it helps to solve a (recurrent) problem related to survival and reproduction. The red deer stag is programmed, as it were, to head to the mating grounds at the time of the year when the hinds in estrus also gather there to select their mates. Once this breeding system was in place, any stag that failed to go there and fight may have preserved his life and limb longer but had fewer chances of passing on his genes. Gene-Based Evolutionary Theory and Inclusive Fitness As mentioned above, modern evolutionary theory has abandoned the idea that natural selection is for the ‘good of the species’ or a social group as a whole. It has also importantly tempered the notion of individual fitness. Thus, using expressions such as ‘selfish genes’ or the ‘gene’s perspective’, evolutionary theorists stress that selection ultimately acts not on the group nor on one individual, but on the alleles that are passed on to future generations. In a sexually reproducing species, individual genotypes are unique – apart from monozygotic offspring and artificial clones – and they cannot be passed on to future genotypes. However, alleles can be passed on, and near kin can also be helpful in this process. In humans (and other vertebrates), on average one-half of an individual’s genes are identical by descent with those of a full sibling or with his or her child. Grandparents and their grandchildren share one quarter, the same as an individual with a full sibling’s child. This number is called the coefficient of relatedness. For the reproduction of these genes, it does not matter whether they are passed on to the next generation via self or a relative. Reasoning like this is summarized in the notion ‘inclusive fitness’, which is defined as the total of an individual’s individual fitness (direct descendants) plus its

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contribution to the fitness of its relatives discounted by the coefficient of relatedness. Inclusive fitness explains how traits that help relatives at the expense of self can be selected. It also suggests that – other things being equal – an individual is less likely to behave aggressively toward its relatives than toward other conspecifics, because hostility toward relatives lowers one component of its inclusive fitness. Cooperation and Conflict Since Darwin published his work on the origin of species, there has been an ongoing – if partly unilluminating – discussion on whether natural selection and evolution ‘really’ mean struggle and conflict or whether the role of cooperation, harmony, and symbiosis have been underestimated. However, it seems that both struggle and cooperation are integral parts of life. Both exist and both can be fitness enhancing. William Hamilton’s kin selection theory gave a plausible account of why closely related organisms should help each other and cooperate. Robert Trivers’ theory of the evolution of reciprocal altruism between nonkin, and related theories on reciprocal relations, have interesting things to say about conflict, violence, and peace. Trivers’ model implied that selection, under some circumstances, discriminates against those who fail to reciprocate, the ‘cheaters’. This happens if cheating has later adverse affects on the cheater’s life that outweigh the benefit of not reciprocating. ‘‘This may happen if the altruist responds to the cheating by curtailing all future possible altruistic gestures to this individual.’’ Game-theoretical work by Robert Axelrod and others has shown that a reciprocating strategy is evolutionarily stable in the sense that it can be preserved by natural selection. In a computer simulation modeling a competition of various behavioral strategies in a series of recurring situations to choose either ‘cooperation’ or ‘defection’, a strategy called ‘tit for tat’ was the most successful, measured by the RS over generations. The strategy is simple: ‘Cooperate the first time and then match your opponent’s last move’. Later work has shown that a mild element of ‘forgiveness’ makes the strategy even more robust. However, it does not obviate the need to ‘punish’ a cheater. Rather, indiscriminate ‘forgiveness’, or all-out altruism, promotes cheaters. If reciprocal altruism develops, also strategies that take advantage of altruists develop easily, unless altruists develop counterstrategies, cheater detection, and punishment of nonreciprocators. Trivers termed such punishment ‘‘moralistic aggression’’ and assumed that it was selected to counteract cheating. ‘‘Much of human aggression has moral overtones,’’ Trivers observed. ‘‘Injustice, unfairness, and lack of reciprocity often motivate human aggression and indignation.’’ He added that moralistic aggression ‘‘often seems out of all proportion to the offenses committed . . . . But since small inequities repeated many times over a lifetime may exact a heavy toll in relative fitness, selection may favor a strong show of aggression when the cheating

tendency is discovered.’’ Sociologist Donald Black has reviewed convincing evidence that even a great proportion of crimes are moralistic: many crimes are reprisals for an experienced wrongdoing, often cheating.

Adaptations to Violence and Conflict It is improbable that random aggressiveness and violence in general would be adaptive. However, there are many recurrent situations in the life course of different animals where measured violence (or threat thereof) is most likely adaptive. Many animals exhibit complex species-typical morphological and behavioral traits that look very much like adaptations for violence. The stag’s antlers serve in competition over access to females, the male stickleback violently defends his young. Individuals that appear timid in other contexts aggressively defend their vital reproductive resources – such as food, territory, and offspring against threat of usurpation or harm. Some animals are quick to grab any resources that they have a chance to hold. Furthermore, they fight over access to mates. Aggression easily occurs where resources are scarce – or potentially scarce – so that some groups or individuals can deny others access to them by claiming ownership of them. Humans, for instance, have fought bitterly over ownership of cattle and arable land but far less over access to oxygen. Ecology has thus great potential influence on the level of aggressiveness. Many animals do kill conspesifics. When observation times are long enough, these instances are observed. Compared to humans, many apes and monkeys are violent. Nevertheless, one can say that animals (and people) often settle fights in a ‘ritualized’ way, or at least without all-out violence. It is the contestants’ own interest to settle the fight with as little cost as possible. This implies that the ability to assess the relative fighting power of the adversary would have been favored by selection. Actual fights carry big risks for the weaker party, but they are risky for the stronger as well. Even if an individual wins, a wound may have reduced his fitness.

Conflicts with Kin and Nonkin A central idea of applying modern gene-based evolutionary theory to the study of violence is to think of whose genetic interests may be served and whose interests harmed by a violent act. For instance, modern gene-based evolutionary theory predicts that – other things being equal – conflicts will be the more prevalent and intense the more the reproductive interests of different individuals, and groups differ. The closer genetic relatives two individuals are, the less intense conflict there should be, on average. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson and others have tested this idea in a series of studies since early 1980s and have found that it holds remarkably well.

Evolution of Violence 21

Relatives harm and sometimes kill each other. However, they also have many chances to do so, and once you control opportunity – say, look only at people who share a home – the picture changes. One of Daly and Wilson’s studies looked at the relative risk of homicide by relationship in co-residing people in a US city. Co-residing persons who were not genetic relatives experienced a homicide rate 11 times greater than relatives living together. Relatives are more likely to be conspirators in murder than targets. The coefficient of relatedness for victim–offender pairs is lower than it is for cooffending partners in many societies and historical periods. Even an analysis of kinship in Icelandic sagas revealed that murderers were seldom genetic relatives of their victims; and when they were, the stakes tended to be high. The notion of inclusive fitness, of course, does not say that it would never enhance one’s fitness to harm or kill a relative; it only says that the fitness gain from such an act ought to be greater than the relative’s fitness loss multiplied by the coefficient of relatedness. More fitness is lost than gained by killing a brother for a hazelnut, but killing for an autocratic kingdom with ensuing access to numerous wives might be a different matter. A woman and a man who have shared offspring, such as a married or cohabiting couple with one or more children, are not (usually) related to each other. However, they both have a genetic interest in their offspring that carries both of their genes. This is a basis (an ultimate basis, if you will) for their cooperation and mutual support. It is a sort of a common venture setup for the good of both of their genes that are carried forward by their shared offspring. Nevertheless, from this ultimate genes’ point of view, their relationship is much more dependent on the success or failure of their cooperation than is the case with genetic relatives who always share a considerable proportion of genes with each other whether they get along with each other or not. As Heikki Sarmaja has noted, humans do not abandon their own child so as to be able to adopt a more beautiful or gifted child from next door, even if the new child would be more beautiful and gifted, while many have found a new spouse next door. Breakups of married couples tend to be more dramatic and more irreversible than those between genetic relatives. During the relationship, both partner A and B may be tempted to try to make the other partner expend more resources in raising the children than they themselves are willing to. Likewise, it is possible that partner A tries to set up and advance other reproductive projects with a third partner C and in those projects invest resources that could have been used in A and B’s joint project. The Cinderella Effect and Conflicts of Reproduction As an example of evolutionary findings and discussions, the question of maltreatment by stepparents or the socalled Cinderella effect will be taken up here. According

to a now-famous study by Daly and Wilson, Canadian children who lived with a natural parent and a stepparent had 40 times higher abuse rates than children living with both natural parents. The risk of newborns to 2-year-olds of being killed differed even more, 70-fold. Results supporting the assumption that stepfamilies posit a greater risk of violent victimization to children than do families of two genetic parents have received support in many studies in various places. For instance, an Australian study found that 36% of the offenders in child-abuse deaths were nongenetic fathers, while only 3.8% of dependent children live with a male stepparent. However, some other studies do suggest nonsignificant or at least smaller excess risk to stepchildren. Temrin and co-workers found that in Sweden the risk of children to be killed in stepfamilies was indeed greater than in families with two biological parents, but some of the victims were in fact killed not by the stepparent but by the biological parent. Once those cases were removed, the excess risk from stepparents did not reach statistical significance. Of course, also the finding that the risk of being killed by the biological parent is higher in a stepfamily than in an intact family is consistent with evolutionary predictions. Similar to conditions that tend to accompany infanticides, the biological parent may be lacking social support for the raising of the child. Furthermore, the finding that the youngest children seem to have the highest excess risk of maltreatment in stepfamilies is in line with predictions from parental investment theory. The younger the child, the longer the time over which it requires care. Note that it is not only that the very youngest children are at a higher risk of being killed than somewhat older ones irrespective of the family type, but that even taking that into account, the additional relative risk in stepfamilies is greatest at the very early ages. Temrin’s results show that the excess risk to children from stepparents can vary considerably from country to country. Comparing the low excess-risk Sweden with US and other countries where the difference is greater, one might hypothesize that the difference may at least partly have to do with the societal support policies for families and children and how they might prevent or ease tensions in stepfamilies. Recently, in a noted book and related articles, David Buller has questioned Daly and Wilson’s theory and findings on stepchildren’s relatively higher abuse risks. One of Buller’s claims is that the image of overrepresentation of stepparents among perpetrators of abuse and murder is based on biased reporting. Daly and Wilson have responded. Based on the exchange, it seems to the present author that while it is possible that there is bias that increases reporting of stepparents as suspects, it is not plausible that the bias would be large enough to explain the results, particularly in the case of Canadian homicides against children. Buller also repeats another criticism of the evolutionary explanation for the high risk of stepchildren. This asks

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why adoptive children do not seem to suffer similarly high abuse rates. After all, they also have no genetic relation to their adoptive parents. However, Daly and Wilson did not predict that adopted children would be at greater risks, and they had good reasons not to. For one, while stepfamilies and adoptions by relatives have presumably been recurrent phenomena in our ancestral environments, adoption by unrelated persons most likely has been very rare. In modern societies adoptions are a result of a positive desire to raise the child, adoptive parents are screened, couples are usually financially stable, and the child can be returned if the arrangements do not work out. Furthermore, as the child is unrelated to either parent the promotion of one partner’s genetic interest does not exploit the efforts of the other, as may happen in a stepfamily. Also, to get a more complete picture one should look at those children who are put in foster homes or institutional settings. While those institutions are also screened and overseen in developed societies, there are reports that abuse of children is sometimes frequent. Again, there is the confounder that some children were put in these settings because they had some problems, but one cannot ignore the fact that they are taken care of by adults who are neither genetic relatives nor their adoptive parents. Parent–Offspring and Mother–Infant Conflicts An interesting projection from the gene-based evolutionary theory is the concept of parent–offspring conflict, suggested by Robert Trivers. When a parent nurtures its child, its own inclusive fitness is raised as long as the cost is not too high. Alternatively, both the child and the parent may gain in fitness if the parent produces another child. However, they would time a new child differently. To maximize the parent’s inclusive fitness, it should invest in a new child as soon as the new child’s fitness gain is greater than that of the extant child. From the point of view of the extant child’s fitness, however, a new full sibling should appear only when its fitness gain is twice that of the extant child because it must be discounted by one-half (and a half-sibling should wait even longer). Hence, extant mammal offspring tends to be ‘programmed’ to resist weaning and other expressions of diminished parental investment in itself. Trivers’ theory has shed light not only on sibling rivalry or the weaning conflict but also on complications of pregnancy, or the so-called mother–fetus conflict. However, the variables of parental offspring can also be seen in the patterns of very lethal conflicts between mothers and their infants. Killing one’s own child seems to fly in the face of evolutionary theory, because it seems to prevent rather than help the parent get his or her genes into the next generation. This seems particularly true of mothers killing their babies – not only because of our cultural image of mothers as caring for their babies above everything else, but also because of the evolutionary-informed

observation that unlike putative fathers, women giving birth can (or could in our evolutionary environment) always be sure that they are the mother of the baby. However, maternal infanticide is universally found in preindustrial societies and is a part of human motherhood. Since caring for a new child makes it more difficult for the woman to invest in other children (extant or future), in terms of her RS, a woman in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) was better off abandoning a nonviable infant as soon as possible. The situations in which women commit infanticide – and in which cases it is sometimes even condoned by cultural norms in various societies – agree with evolutionary reasoning. Daly and Wilson noticed that in many cultures the following reasons are given for infanticide: deformity or perinatal illness in the child, birth too soon after previous child or twins (when food is scarce, trying to raise both twins may lead to both of them dying while abandoning one and concentrating efforts on the other one of the twins may give a higher survival rate on average). Absence of male support is another factor that increases the likelihood of infanticide, particularly when other social support is also poor or absent. The rates of infanticide decline with the mother’s age: this fits the evolutionary observation that older mothers have fewer chances to try and reproduce at a more suitable time in the future. Compared with historical rates of infanticide, killing of babies is now very rare in advanced industrial societies. Better economic conditions and the lesser stigma for unwed mothers and birth control are cited as some of the reasons for the decline, but another reason certainly is abortion that has resulted in lower rates of unwanted babies. However, one can note that abortions are most common in situations similar in which infanticides were usually found: very young mother, lack of support from the father or other social network, uncertainty of the child’s father, and, indications of the poor health of the fetus.

Conflicts over Resources for Survival and Reproduction Competition is not only about food and other such resources that enable individuals to grow and survive. Very importantly, there is also intense competition for other kinds of opportunities and resources to reproduce. In sexually reproducing species, reproduction requires successful mating. This opens up a competition over mating opportunities and high-quality mates. Traits that help in this competition become potential targets of evolution. If the capacity to use violence helps in this competition it may be selected for. Sex Differences in Reproductive Opportunities In sexually reproducing species, the contexts and targets of competition for reproductive opportunities tend to be

Evolution of Violence 23

somewhat different for the different sexes. Both males and females would be helped by joining their gametes with the best available gametes of the other sex. In many respects, however, their situations differ. Particularly in mammals, the use of female reproductive resources is very costly. Individual eggs are huge compared to sperms but, more importantly, pregnancy and lactation greatly increase the parental investment that is required at a minimum to produce offspring. The minimum obligatory male investment can be as little as a single ejaculation. During pregnancy, the female cannot invest in producing other offspring of her own. Mating with many partners does not have much impact on the number of a female mammal’s offspring (although in some cases it may bring other benefits), while a male, whose body is not tied up in gestation or suckling, can theoretically multiply the number of his offspring by mating with many partners. Another asymmetry is that a mammal female can always ‘know’ for sure that the offspring she gives birth to are hers, while the male’s degree of confidence that a child is his can vary a great deal and depends on many circumstances. Thus, when males and females best promote their own RS in differing ways, they face different selection pressures, affecting their approaches to mate selection and parental investment, including the use of violence. It should be noted that while there are controversies over how these principles are applied, the main idea of differential parental investment is widely accepted. For instance, Stephen J. Gould, a well-known evolutionist very critical of what he considered ultra-adaptationism in evolutionary psychology, agreed that ‘‘this principle of differential ‘parental investment’ makes Darwinian sense and probably does underlie some different, and broadly general, emotional propensities of human males and females.’’ Similarly, another critical biology professor, Anne Fausto-Sterling, accepts ‘‘that males and females are likely to have evolved different approaches to courting, mating and infant care. Furthermore, those approaches may come into direct conflict.’’ Humans are a mildly polygynous species, meaning that although most people reproduce in monogamous marriages, the variance of male RS is greater than that of females – there are more childless men than women and there are more men with very high numbers of offspring than women. In effectively polygynous species males are usually bigger than females (effectively polyandrous species tend to exhibit the reverse). The more polygynous the species, the larger the size difference between the sexes tends to be. Human sexual size dimorphism is mild, lower than in the polygynous gorilla but higher than in the monogamous gibbon. Gender differences in traits that are relevant for fighting are larger than the average size difference. Men have almost twice as much strength in their shoulders, arms, and hands as females and have longer arms. Men are usually also more skillful in fighting, throwing objects, and using weapons.

The relative importance of genes and differential upbringing of girls and boys in bringing about this difference is controversial. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that males are also more spontaneously interested in learning to fight. To the extent that skill in use of violence is a trait that enhances a male’s fitness and if the development of the trait partially depends on childhood practice, then selection would favor males who have a robust appetite for such activities since childhood. This does of course not exclude other male strategies: for instance, peaceful, caring males with good story-telling abilities can also be favored by selection. A capacity to assess the social situation of one’s formative years and choose the best strategy regarding violent behavior would thus also be favored by selection. Females whose obligatory parental investment is large, such as mammal females, tend to be on average more peaceful and violence avoidant than males. In humans, the level of violence varies highly between different societies, but in every particular society males are more violent than the females of the same society, even if those females may be more violent than males elsewhere. Their offspring survival and success is presumably best helped when the mothers stay alive and healthy thus having better chances of carrying them to term, lactating, and giving them whatever shelter and nurture they require to grow into maturity. Males, on the other hand, may more often be in a position where they must face heavy competition from other males for the opportunity to mate in the first place. In this competition, violence is often used. For males, properties that predict success in sexual selection may simultaneously make life more risky in other respects. While in all human cultures females do most of the child care, humans are atypical mammals in that men contribute considerably to the care of children. This typically biparental care may create or exacerbate conflicts that are rare or nonexistent in other mammals. In principle, either parent can try to make the other spouse take an unfairly large share of this responsibility – and maybe allocate more of their own resources to serve competing reproductive projects, perhaps with another partner. Furthermore, unlike those mammal males that contribute nothing but sperm to their offspring, human males can end up being cuckolded, that is, contributing heavily, either knowingly or unknowingly, to the care and raising of children that are fathered by someone else. This is a role that cannot be favored by natural selection (unless caring for another man’s children somehow also raised the number or quality of his own biological children). On the contrary, based on selectionist and adaptationist reasoning, one would expect that males would have evolved to be vigilant against this possibility. This constellation is the basis for some typical conflicts over RS in which violence is often used.

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Evolution of Violence

Types of Violence Linked to Conflicts over Reproduction Gendered parental investment seems to be part of the ultimate explanation for some types of violence, most conspicuously rape and intimate partner violence. Rape is overwhelmingly committed by men against women (and disproportionately against women of reproductive age). Furthermore, despite the controversy over the gender distribution of victimization to intimate partner violence (whether physical violence against intimate partners, all forms and degrees considered, is gender symmetric or asymmetric) most experts on all sides agree that women are much more likely to be victims of partner violence with the most serious consequences. A commonly cited motive for much domestic violence is jealousy. In most cases of jealous violence, the context is consistent with an interpretation of a conflict over reproduction. Typically, the man suspects, accurately or inaccurately, his wife or girlfriend of sexual infidelity or of planning to abandon him – all scenarios that probably would threaten to lower his RS. Also typically, some women use violence against their male partners when they suspect them of having extra-pair affairs – something that, would threaten the females’ fitness, for instance, by decreasing support to her offspring. In addition to male–female rape and intimate partner violence between the spouses, also much of male–male violence can be seen as ultimately based in reproductive conflicts: it may be fairly direct competition over women or it may be fight over material resources or social status, for example, reputation, that are important criteria in mate selection. The use or threat of violence may discourage other men from competition. There is anecdotal evidence that some women are attracted to men with a violent reputation; for instance, many convicted murderers get surprising amounts of romantic letters from women. Skillful use of violence may also boost a man’s status in the social hierarchy and through this enhance his success in competition for women. In societies condoning polygyny, successful males may have a large number of wives and other female sexual partners resulting in huge numbers of children, while many men father no children. Female–female physical violence is much less frequent than male–female and male–male violence – particularly when looking at serious bodily harm – but it also happens and can often be seen as an element in female–female competition over desirable male partners, or as competition for success of the women’s respective children. Male–Male Competition The different reproductive opportunities of males and females seem to be part of the ultimate, evolutionary explanation of some stable patterns in distribution of violence. Men are in most respects physically more aggressive than females, as are males of other effectively polygynous

species. Human males do not fight each other as conspicuously over females as stags on traditional mating grounds or like black grouse males at a lek, but much of human intermale violence seems to relate either directly or indirectly to competition over women. High status could be gained by prowess in various skills, including fighting, and that in turn could be turned into RS. High-ranking men have more wives, more concubines, and more access to other men’s wives than men of low social rank. Young, low-status men often have no other means of challenging higher-status men than violence. Furthermore, many observations suggest that in many kinds of societies strength and skill in fighting have contributed to men’s reputation and their success – RS included. The data, however, are fragmentary and the issue is somewhat controversial. Females compete with other females over access to desirable males, but the payoffs, in terms of fitness, vary far more in intermale competition than in interfemale competition. Thus, intermale competition is expected to be fiercer. Greater variation selects for readiness to take greater risks. The male/female differences in reproductive options during human evolution seem to be an important part of the ultimate explanation for the universal overrepresentation of males in perpetrators of violent and predatory crimes. In virtually all jurisdictions from which there are data, males commit far more crimes of violence and serious theft than do females. Male representation is greater, the more serious the crime. For instance, males typically commit 90% or more of robberies and burglaries, while their share of shoplifting is much smaller. Daly and Wilson suggest that ‘‘the chronic competitive situation among [human] males is ultimately responsible for that sex’s greater felt need for surplus resources with which to quell rivals and attract mates.’’ The Yanomamo¨ Killers One oft-cited piece of data of a link between violence and RS is that reported by Napoleon Chagnon of the Yanomamo¨ people of the Amazon and Orinoco area. The Yanomamo¨ accord a special title for men who have participated in killing a human being: they are unokais. According to Chagnon’s data, unokais had significantly more children than other men in all four age groups of his data. Ignoring those under 25 years of age, few of whom were unokais or had children, the unokais had 1.2–1.8 times more children than other men. (The often made claim that unokais had three times more children is misleading since it refers to the total numbers irrespective of the men’s age and thus overlooks the fact that older men have had more time to have become both fathers and unokais.) On the face of it, this would seem like good evidence that in one society killers have more children than nonkillers. However, there are further problems in the data.

Evolution of Violence 25

The report includes no data on the mortality of the unokais and nonunokais; yet, if the unokais’ mortality were higher, their reproductive edge would go down or disappear. Furthermore, Chagnon’s age control of the fertility rates is not very strong; his age groups are wide and, as Douglas Fry has pointed out, the unokais likely have higher mean age than other men also within the age categories. Taking this into account will make the unokais’ reproductive advantage narrower, but (based on the present author’s calculation) does not seem to make it disappear. According to Chagnon ‘‘the higher reproductive success of unokais is mainly due to their greater success in finding mates, either by appropriating them forcibly from others, or by customary marriage alliance arrangements in which they seem to be more attractive as mates than nonunokais.’’ The unokais are also more often headmen than nonunokais are, and in many societies high status is known to help men find wives. If their violent capability helped them become headmen then it also indirectly may have contributed to their RS. The Yanomamo¨ are horticulturalists and are thus not very representative of the human hunter-gatherer EEA. Nevertheless, this study and other information from various societies suggests that at least some readiness for and ability in aggression may often have promoted men’s RS. Quite likely, in most human societies, high-ranking men have had more children and their children have survived better than those of low rank. If controlled aggression has helped these men to gain and retain their status, it seems that aggression has helped men to have more offspring in many kinds of societies, be they foraging, pastoral, horticultural, or state societies. Why Are Women On Average More Risk Averse? One might think that women’s lesser violence does not need a special ultimate explanation once the ultimate causes that drive men’s greater tendency to violence have been elucidated. Nevertheless, Anne Campbell has argued that females are more violence averse than males (also) for good reasons of their own. It is not just the absence of masculine inclination to risk-taking violence but is a part of a positive female adaptation that goes back to, in Campbell’s words, ‘‘the critical importance of the mother’s survival for her own reproductive success.’’ Mother is more important than father for the survival of children. Among the Ache of Paraguay, mother’s death increases age-specific child mortality rate by a factor of five compared to a threefold increase when the father died. If the mother died when the child was under 1 year, the child always died. There are similar findings from other societies as well. ‘‘If a mother wants her children to survive, then she must be equally concerned with her own survival.’’ Similarly, the mother’s injuries and illnesses might be great risks to her children.

Detlef Fetchenhauer and Bram Buunk’s evolutionary argument for why women are more fearful of crime than men while they are less-often victimized supports Campbell’s views. In their study of Dutch high-school students and their parents, female respondents were consistently more fearful than males regarding a variety of events, both criminal and noncriminal, that involved the risk of physical injury, such as robbery, assault, and car accident. Women also judged every single event to be more harmful. The findings suggest that women are in general more fearful of all kinds of events that might imply a physical injury. They concluded that the observed gender differences may be the result of sexual selection that favored risk taking and status fights among males, and being cautious and protecting one’s offspring among females.

Evolution of Sexual Violence Human sexual violence, particularly penile–vaginal rape, seems like a prime candidate for an evolutionary analysis looking at conflicts over RS, because rape is obviously closely related to the possibility of pregnancy. There are observations from many species, ranging from orangutans and dolphins to mallard ducks and scorpion flies, of cases that can reasonably be described as coerced sex. Forced intercourse appears to be the only way that very small orangutan males can breed. However, in general fairly little is known of the reproductive economics of coerced sex in any species, humans included. And the species from which rape has been reported are relatively few and often only remotely related. A human rape victim who becomes pregnant will have a large amount of her reproductive resources tied up in a project that has been forced on her. This would at least postpone and often also otherwise complicate her chances of getting children with a partner or partners of her own choosing. Furthermore, in human societies where the father and his family often support the child in an important way, a child conceived in rape would have lower chances of getting support. Thus, a rape victim’s RS would likely decrease. This could be an important part of the ultimate explanation of the great pain and suffering of rape victims, particularly the finding that victims of sexual coercion seem to sustain worse trauma than victims of other types of physical assaults when controlling for the degree of physical severity of the assaults. Rape would also hurt the inclusive fitness of the victim’s relatives and that of the victim’s spouse, which would help to explain the vindictive rage that the victim’s husband and kin often feel. For the rapist, on the other hand, sexual coercion may bring an increase of RS in a situation where nonviolence would not lead to this result. Of course, the effect on the rapist’s RS depends not only on whether the victim gets

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pregnant but also on his ability to escape retaliation which might drastically reduce his RS. Since rape seems so costly to human females in terms of RS it seems worth asking whether women have evolved mechanisms that increase their possibilities of choosing their mates and avoiding sexual coercion. In Neil Malamuth and others’ view, the evolution of antirape adaptations in women seems more probable than the evolution of specific rape-enabling mechanisms in men. Malamuth also remarks that even societies that are reported to have very low rape frequency have various mechanisms counteracting male tendencies for sexual aggression, suggesting that there may be a universal risk for such behavior. However, there is little convincing evidence that women’s rape-avoidance tactics would be specific adaptations rather than expressions of their more general sexual strategies, general risk avoidance, and learning. One proposed candidate for a specific antirape adaptation is that women would tend to avoid risky situations when ovulating (i.e., when conception is possible). However, studies reporting rapes as less frequent during ovulation have been criticized as unreliable. Furthermore, using a large survey dataset Jonathan and Tiffani Gottschall found that rapes of fertile-aged women lead to pregnancies more often than consensual intercourse (6.4% vs. 3.1%), which would also cast doubt on this mechanism, at least its effectiveness. Most of the evolutionary discussion and research on sexual violence, however, has centered on the male. Avisible topic in the discussion has been whether human rape is at least partly based on rape-specific adaptations in human males. This question seems to be undecided as the necessary data are scarce – and there seem to be slightly different views about the criteria that an adaptation must meet. A baseline finding consistent with the idea that rape may relate to conflicts over reproduction is that fertileage women are remarkably overrepresented among the victims. True, this overrepresentation is also consistent with a nonevolutionary routine-activity hypothesis: young women are more likely to be out alone at night or alone with men in dating situations, which means more rape opportunities. Richard Felson and Marvin Krohn used a US National Crime Survey dataset and looked at female robbery victims with the idea that an opportunity for robbery is often also an opportunity for rape. Those robbery victims who were also raped were 28 years old on average, significantly younger than those who were only robbed, whose mean age was 35. Thus, it appears that robbery offenders are more likely to rape a victim if she is young. Opportunity alone is not sufficient to explain the rape victims’ age patterns. It is clear that men prefer consensual sex, and no one has suggested that an inflexible use of sexual coercion would have brought ancestral men a better RS than seeking consensual sex. The interesting possibility – and a likely one in many researchers’ opinion – is that at least for some males in some situations during human

evolutionary history it was reproductively more advantageous to use sexual coercion than not to use it. Behind sometimes heated debates, there are several plausible suggestions about the role of evolution and adaptations in the ultimate causation of sexual coercion. One suggestion is that using sexual coercion had no recurring fitness consequences and therefore the human males have no psychological mechanisms that are relevant to sexual coercion. This alternative would mean that the ultimate causes of committing sexual coercion are unrelated to the fitness consequences of these acts; rape might be a totally unrelated by-product of adaptations to other problems or maybe caused by some random events in ontogeny, pathologies, or cultural norms. Another possibility is that rape would be a byproduct of evolved male–female differences in sexual desire that promoted male RS in contexts other than rape. Males seem to have evolved to be ready to shorttime sexual relations with much less discrimination than women, who are more selective. Add the fact that men are on average stronger than women and may be able to use physical aggression to achieve several kinds of goals and you get a situation where men sometimes resort to violence to achieve sex with unwilling women. This view can be silent on whether rapes as such increased or decreased the man’s fitness, but sees rape as a by-product of adaptations that in themselves probably did advance the RS of those male (and female) individuals who possessed them. Eric Alden Smith and others note that ‘‘males have a strong desire for sex and that they also have the ability to recognize when coercion can be used to obtain a desired goal’’ and they suggest that this is a more plausible explanation for many rapes than a specific male adaptation to rape. One can also think that sexual coercion had fitness consequences, so that males who could use violence in a discriminating way in sexual contexts (with a sense to the risks and possibilities of the situation) did increase their fitness, but there were no unique adaptive problems to using coercion in this context. Finally, there might have been unique adaptive problems associated with the use of violence in the sexual context such that specialized psychological mechanisms may have evolved as an adaptation. Malamuth points out that rape is different from most other uses of violence in that it requires the perpetrator to maintain an erection while coercing a victim who is unwilling and often fighting back. (Sexual arousal is not only unneeded but probably even counterproductive in most situations of nonsexual violence.) There are also several studies suggesting that human males show great variability in the extent to which they are sexually aroused by possibilities of coercive sex. Thus, sexual arousal specific to forced sex in males may be an adaptation that has helped some men to increase their RS. Smith and others provide a model for calculating the costs and benefits for the perpetrator of rape in the

Evolution of Violence 27

currency of RS. Their model and hypothetical data suggest that, in a traditional society, raping does not pay as the perpetrator’s losses (in terms of RS) are an order of magnitude greater than benefits. However, the result relies critically on the assumption that most rapes were reported or detected, which is necessary for the costs to be realized. Many of the same factors that prevent most rape victims in today’s industrial societies from reporting their rape (a typical reporting rate, based on victim surveys, is around one out of 20) would probably have applied to ancestral women as well: social stigma, the difficulty to prove the case, and possibility of being punished or abandoned by one’s consensual mate or family. Furthermore, if the rapist was a powerful man and the victim a woman from a poor and weak family (or had no family) he may have had little reprisals to fear. And raping outgroup women during wars or raids may have carried little risk of retaliation (additional to the otherwise great risks of violent group conflict). Also men who have little chances of enhancing their RS through consensual sexual relations or by helping their own kin might accept high risks of detection and retaliation, because they have little to lose. This may be one reason why low-status men tend to be overrepresented among convicted rapists. Discussion of sexual assault in terms of evolutionary theory has been very controversial since the early stages of modern sociobiology in the 1970s. A new round in the controversy followed the publication of A natural history of rape by Randy Thornhill and Graig Palmer in 2000. A collection of criticism and the authors’ rejoinder give a taste of the heated debate. Malamuth and others and Lalumie`re and others include evolutionary informed and cautious reviews of what is known of sexual assault in terms relevant to the evolutionary approach.

Conclusion Evolutionary approaches to violence today focus on various issues. Some researchers, for instance, many of those identified with evolutionary psychology, attend to hypothesized behavioral and psychological adaptations for peaceful and violent interactions that are thought to be fairly universal or panhuman. Others, such as behavioral geneticists, look more specifically at individual differences in violent behavior and the possible contribution of genes to these differences. Twin and adoption studies show that there is indeed such heritable variation in humans that partly explains variation in violence and criminality. Simultaneously there is general agreement that some great variations in levels of aggression cannot be explained by genetic variation – the most dramatic being swift changes in the level of violence within single societies. However, even a universal evolved psychology will produce variable behavior in different conditions such that the outcome cannot be well understood

without a description of the ‘mechanism’ that operates in these various environments. Still other researchers focus on the influence of individual development on the propensity of violence later in life, one idea being that early experiences of, say, the use of violence and the risks of violent injuries or death in one’s social environment might ‘calibrate’ the individual’s own response mechanism regarding the use of violence. For instance, perhaps a violent childhood and adolescent environment sets the individual’s threshold for violent action lower than a peaceful environment. It ought to be mentioned also that the theory of genetical evolution is also fruitfully used as an analogy or heuristic model for examining competition for limited resources through sociocultural evolution. For instance, the development of many forms of crime and crime prevention measures can be conceptualized as a coevolutionary process analogous to the coevolution in nature of predator and prey. Adaptations, Law, and Morality Evolutionary approaches to violence are often controversial – even more so than evolutionary approach to human behavior in general. However, the partial explanation of violence by reference to evolved adaptations does not imply that violence should be condoned. Something is not moral just because it has evolved as an adaptation. ‘‘If you tell the judge that your genes made you do it, she can tell you that her genes are making her throw you in jail,’’ as Edward Hagen wrote. Behaviors that are partially determined by evolutionary factors are not impossible to prevent because of that causation. It may have been adaptive for stepparents to abuse their stepchildren, for men to deceive or force women into sex, or for women sometimes to kill their newborns, but that does not mean that it is moral or should be approved. If males have evolved to feel possessive about females, it does not make it right that they act violently as an expression of that feeling. If the male ancestors of humans enhanced their RS by rape under some circumstances, this does not make rape morally any less objectionable. It neither justifies nor makes it inevitable. The condemnation of rape seems also evolved: rape may greatly diminish a female’s RS by committing her investment for a lengthy period to an offspring whose father she did not choose, by risking to estrange her partner, and so on. One issue that often adds to the confusion about the meaning of evolutionary explanations of behavioral traits is that many people still understand adaptation as optimizing the good of the species. However, few scientists conclude that the group level has decisive influence under most circumstances. Controlled violence often is useful for a whole group in its competition against other groups, but this is best seen as an effect of natural selection operating on lower levels. Heritable traits underlying such behavior

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cannot have evolved if they have not contributed to the relative success in competition against other traits within the population of those very genes responsible for that heritability.

Further Reading Buller, D. J. (2005). Adapting minds: Evolutionary psychology and the persistent quest for human nature. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Campbell, A. (1999). Staying alive: Evolution, culture and women’s intrasexual aggression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, 203–252. Campbell, A. (2005). Aggression. In Buss, D. (ed.) The handbook of evolutionary psychology, pp. 628–652. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1983). Sex, evolution, and behavior, 2nd edn. Boston: Willard Grant. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1997). Crime and conflict: Homicide in evolutionary psychological perspective. In Tonry, M. (ed.) Crime & justice: A review of research, vol. 22, pp. 51–100. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (2005). Reply to David Buller by Martin Daly & Margo Wilson. http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/buller/ reply%20to%20david%20buller.pdf (accessed on February 2008). de Waal, F. B. M. (1996). Good natured: The origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ellis, L. and Walsh, A. (1997). Gene-based evolutionary theories in criminology. Criminology 35(2), 229–276. Felson, R. B. and Krohn, M. (1990). Motives for rape. The Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 27(3), 222–242. Fessler, D. M. (2003). Rape is not less frequent during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle. Pscyhology, Evolution & Gender 5(3), 127–147. Fetchenhauer, D. and Buunk, B. P. (2005). How to explain gender differences in fear of crime: Towards an evolutionary approach. Sexualities, Evolution & Gender 7(2), 95–113. Fry, D. P. (2005). The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gottschall, J. A. and Gottschall, T. A. (2003). Are per-incident rapepregnancy rates higher than per-incident consensual pregnancy rates? Human Nature 14(1), 1–20. Groebel, J. and Hinde, R. A. (eds.) (1989). Aggression and war: Their biological and social bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hrdy, S. B. (1999). Mother nature: A history of mothers, infants, and natural selection. New York: Pantheon. Lalumiere, M. L., Harris, G. T., Quinsey, V. L., and Rice, M. E. (2005). The causes of rape: Understanding individual differences in male propensity for sexual aggression. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Malamuth, N., Huppin, M., and Paul, B. (2005). Sexual coercion. In Buss, D. (ed.) The handbook of evolutionary psychology, pp. 394–418. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Smith, E. A., Borgerhof, M. M., and Hill, K. (2001). Controversies in the evolutionary social sciences: A guide for the perplexed. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 16(3), 128–135. Temrin, H., Nordlund, J., and Sterner, H. (2004). Are step children overrepresented as victims of lethal parental violence in Sweden? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 271(supplement B), S124–S126. Thornhill, R. and Palmer, G. (2000). A natural history of rape. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Thornhill, R. and Palmer, G. (2003). A posse of good citizens brings outlaw evolutionists to justice. A response to Evolution, Gender and Rape (2003, ed. by Travis, C. B., MIT Press, Cambridge, MA). Evolutionary Psychology 1, 10–27. Travis, C. B. (ed.) (2003). Evolution, gender, and rape. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Trivers, R. (1985). Social evolution. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/ Cummings. Trivers, R. (2002). Natural selection and social theory: Selected papers of Robert Trivers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wrangham, R. and Peterson, D. (1996). Demonic males: Apes and the origins of human violence. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

Relevant Website http://www.hbes.com – Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview Andrew J Strathern and Pamela J Stewart, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Overview Classic Ethnographic Studies Studies in Religion, Witchcraft, and Sorcery Modes of Settling Conflicts, Including Ritual The Place of Language Forms and Discourse in Disputing Violence, Peacemaking, and Ethology

Glossary Cultural Materialism An anthropological theory in which it is argued that material factors are the primary causes of the development of cultural patterns.

The Anthropology of War, and Warfare in ‘Tribal’ Contexts Violence, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Violence, Individual Action, and the State Terror and Terrorism: The Role of the Imagination Further Reading

Divination A ritual act by which the causes of an event or the guilt or innocence of accused persons is determined. Egalitarian Society A society based on the idea of relative equality between groups and persons within it.

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Ethology The study of fixed motor patterns in animals and the way in which these contribute to social relationships. Genital Mutilation The act of surgically removing parts of human genitalia, for example, in rituals marking a transition from childhood to sexual maturity. Ritualization The process whereby a dispute or conflict is handled peacefully by transforming an aggressive signal into a peaceful one. Segmentary System A social system in which the groups are arranged in such a way that smaller, closely

related groups combine in opposition to similar more distantly related ones. Sociobiology A branch of biology in which it is argued that the maximization of individual reproductive success is an important determinant of behavior. Violence An act or a threat of physical force between persons, the legitimacy of which may be contested; discursive elaborations of such acts or threats.

Conflict involves disputing over issues and interests that may lead to violence or the use of force whose legitimacy may be contested. Anthropologists have made their greatest contribution in discussing these topics as they relate to small-scale, stateless societies in which a balance of power is obtained between the different groups. This article discusses this contribution and also considers a range of related themes on both states and stateless societies in contemporary circumstances, including the transnational issues of terror and terrorism.

taken to be less problematic here, referring to any situation in which the participants see themselves as at odds over an issue or set of issues and engage practically in attempts to settle the issue by negotiation, force, or other means). D. Riches has examined the definitional question in a collection of studies on the topic and points out that the choice lies between adopting a new definition of a general kind or building on what he calls Anglo-Saxon meanings. Opting for the latter, and stressing the intentional agency of social actors, he pinpoints a crucial feature: violent behavior is behavior that is subject to contested legitimacy, and this is inherent to it. Violence is thus not simply physical force, although it stereotypically involves the use of force. Rather, it is the use of force in contexts where one or more parties may consider it to be legitimate (and the definition of what is legitimate may also be subject to varying interpretations). Riches also speaks of the triangle of the performer, victim, and witness, in which the witness is often the agent who evaluates the question of the legitimacy of a violent action. His viewpoint enables us to understand how a state agency may undertake a violent action in order to curb violent offenders, since violence, in a sense, is in the eye of the beholder/actor. In particular, a performer of violence may consider it a justifiable or legitimate use of force while the victim disagrees and witnesses are divided in opinion. For our purposes here, without claiming this as a generally valid definition for all purposes, we shall adopt Riches’ viewpoint, focusing attention on violence as an action characterized by force (physical or otherwise) that is subject to contested interpretations of legitimacy. Finally, the placement of violence in a typology of forms of disputing and dispute settlement needs to be specified. Such a typology may have to do with: (1) social contexts of disputing, in terms of scale and the degree of closeness or distance between the parties; an act that is heinous between siblings (e.g., incest, fratricide) may be acceptable or even expected between major enemies; (2) the matters at issue; serious matters may elicit violent responses whereas trivial ones may, or should, not.

Overview Conflict and violence are long-standing aspects of human behavior and social relationships. As with many other such phenomena, explanations for this fact have appealed either to biological/genetic patterns or to cultural/historical ones, or to a combination of both. General explanations may certainly implicate biological characteristics, but specific ones require that we take into account at least cultural factors as they have developed historically in particular formations. Such an approach may also lead to further levels of sociological generalization. Given the prevalence of conflict andviolence in historical experience, our scope in this survey needs to be delimited. We have chosen a range of topics that have been recognized widely as anthropological, along with their extensions into contemporary arenas of conflict linked to ethnicity, nationalism, and globalization and ‘terror’. Hallmarks of the anthropological approach, as we see it, are (1) an emphasis on firsthand observation and fieldwork, augmented by the use of other sources; (2) a concern with the small-scale as well as larger scales of events and processes; (3) an interest in the interpretation of meanings and the expression of intentionality, agency, and the capacity for action, including sensitivity to language use; and (4) an understanding generally of the role of symbols and ritual in sociopolitical history. A concern with meanings obliges us also at the outset to consider the meaning of the term ‘violence’ (conflict is

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In terms of nonviolent disputing processes, Philip Gulliver made a clear distinction between settlement by adjudication, mediation, and negotiation. Adjudication occurs in a context where laws exist and decisions can be imposed according to them; mediation where a third party attempts to act as a go-between or broker between disputants and is given power to do so; negotiation typically occurs between the disputants themselves and their support groups, who may take on, in part, roles of mediators or adjudicators. In the context of negotiation, Gulliver further noted an alternation between coordination and antagonism, leading ideally to a coordination that in some way is ritually confirmed, beginning with the search to define an arena of dispute, through an attempt to narrow the differences, and then on to the final bargaining. The model presumes settlement but, in reality, negotiations often break down. Since breakdown is marked by antagonism, it is here that violence may come into play, either as a way of settling matters or as a way of postponing and complicating a settlement. Socially defined emotions also become involved, and enter into political definitions of what is done.

Classic Ethnographic Studies B. Malinowski, in Crime and Custom in Savage Society, introduced questions of individual motivation and emotion into the study of primitive law and overturned the notion of the savage who was supposed to follow blindly the dictates of custom and tradition within the group. His extensive case history account of a youth who committed suicide as a result of shame sparked off a long tradition of looking at the significance of self-regulated sanctions in behavior. His major stress, however, was on the positive incentives and ideals that keep people in conformity with expectations and remove a need for violence or for imposed punishments in situations of conflict. Certain elements of adjudications were, of course, present in the Trobriands case history he was describing, since chiefs could impose certain decisions and were also feared for the sorcery and magical powers they commanded (see section titled ‘Studies in religion, witchcraft, and sorcery’). This overall Malinowskian approach, via the study of emotions, has returned in contemporary anthropology after having been displaced for a while by the functionalism of Radcliffe-Brown and the structurally oriented work of Evans-Pritchard and Fortes. Evans-Pritchard, in The Nuer, discusses politics, law, social control, and violence in a tribal social system based on a balancing of forces between territorial segments and a principle of the merging of segments in widening scales of opposition or conflict. He developed his model to account for (1) order in a society without government (the ordered anarchy concept) and (2) the place of physical force in such a society. The Nuer people were warlike and had been expanding at the cost of neighboring peoples such as the

Dinka, who were captured and assimilated into Nuer local groups. Evans-Pritchard pointed out that bloodwealth or compensation for killings was likely to be paid only within the tribe, the largest political group. He also noted the important role of the leopard-skin chief or man of the earth in giving ritual protection to killers and mediating in discussions over bloodwealth. A combination of structural rules and ritual role-playing kept violence to certain limits within the tribe. The threat of forceful action, however, was equally important in ensuring the territorial spacing of people and their access to resources. Such an ordered anarchy requires a certain level of consciousness of violence to maintain itself. Both Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard were, from different angles, tackling the question of whether all societies have law, in some sense or the other. The same matter was explicitly at issue between P. Bohannan and M. Gluckman. Gluckman, in his study of the court system of the Lozi or Barotse people in Rhodesia (Zambia), argued that definite rules could be derived from the study of court cases heard by magistrates and that the principles of law involved could be compared with English-law concepts such as that of the reasonable man. Bohannan, on the other hand, stressed the local cultural contexts in which the Tiv people of Central Nigeria pursued disputes through moots, general meetings, rather than in introduced courts. Bohannan’s account therefore implied difficulties of comparison between societies, based on the problem of cultural difference. The debate between Bohannan and Gluckman has often been taken as an example of the conflict between the particularizing and generalizing moments in anthropology. More specifically the difference of viewpoint they exhibited can be derived from (1) the differences between Tiv and Lozi society (relatively egalitarian vs. relatively hierarchical) and (2) Bohannan’s stress on indigenous processes, Gluckman’s on a court system influenced by British colonial ideas. Comaroff and Roberts, in their survey of legal anthropology, settled the issue of rules versus processes by pointing out that even the most complex rules are formulated and brought to bear only in elaborate negotiated processes, whose outcomes are therefore unpredictable and multiplex. They demonstrated this argument with reference to Tswana (South Africa) succession patterns and marriage disputes. The debate between Gluckman and Bohannan was thus in a sense finally laid to rest. None of these studies was particularly concerned with violence, or the intersection between law and politics. Bohannan’s study, however, was of interest here because of his chapter on the moot at home, in which he discusses the concept of tsav. Leadership, and in fact ability generally, was thought by Tiv to depend on a substance called tsav. Men with tsav were said to repair the tar, or local community, through sitting in moots by day and settling disputes. But the same men also acted by night to protect

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the tar mystically against attacks by outsiders and were said periodically to require a human to be sacrificed as a victim for their work of mystical protection. Tsav in this context was a kind of witchcraft power. In other words, political power, seen as a form of witchcraft, depended also on notions of mystical violence. In times of political upheaval, Bohannan notes, the men with tsav were thought to kill for personal gain and the love of consuming human flesh.

Studies in Religion, Witchcraft, and Sorcery The use of sorcery and witchcraft as a means of controlling the acts of others is a common anthropological theme. It is often considered an illegitimate form of social control but examples also demonstrate its accepted and legitimate uses. Types of sorcery that are used include food sorcery (poison), leavings sorcery (taking something that has a part of a persons ‘soul’ in it and imprisoning it or subjecting it to torture to make the person ill or die), and assault sorcery (violently attacking someone from another community and causing their death). All these forms of sorcery are greatly feared and attacks of these sorts are repelled through proper actions and/or the assistance of healers who possess magical spells or means of divining who the sorcerer or witch is and thereby confronting the individual. In Melanesia among the Melpa, Pangia, and Duna peoples, sorcery and witchcraft are greatly feared and not generally considered to be a legitimate form of social interaction. Those who are witches are viewed as greedy persons who are attempting to take the health or life of another to satisfy their own desires. The fear of witches (kum koimb, in Melpa) who eat human flesh – stealing children and waylaying adults – has increased in conjunction with changing sociopolitical and religious circumstances. This description is paralleled in the African ethnographic records in which sorcery and witchcraft are socially condemned practices. In Africa, sorcerers use medicine to harm those toward whom they have an ill will, while witches are able to do extraordinary things beyond the capabilities of ordinary human beings in order to harm other people. In both the African and Melanesian contexts sorcery and witchcraft accusations have often been read as indices of conflict and tension. Sorcery accusations directed at enemy groups may increase ingroup solidarity and increase the likelihood that a war will be initiated against the accused group. In addition, among the Kuma of the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, war sorcerers were highly respected and legitimately used their powers to enlist the spirits of the dead and the ancestors to aid in battle against the enemy. Among the Wola of the Southern Highlands of Papua

New Guinea, sorcery is also used to attack the enemy in war in addition to appealing to the clan spirits and ancestors of the enemy side to ask that a longstanding dispute be resolved through a divination process in which the physical substance from the decomposing body of a sorcery victim is allowed to pass onto a pig that is to be eaten to determine who is guilty of the sorcery killing. The victim’s essence is thought to act as a poison that will kill those who are lying and their relatives. Just before eating the potentially lethal piece of pork, the accused swears an oath declaring the truth of his assertions of innocence. After the eating of pork the feuding ceases, and further revenge deaths will be caused, it is thought, by the ancestors if they judge that they are warranted. Ideas regarding sorcery and witchcraft are appropriate to consider here, since they both reflect and constitute modes of hostility between categories of people, and are experienced as forms of violent action. This is particularly true of notions of assault sorcery that effectively depict images of assassination and murder by a mixture of physical and mystical means as seen in the writings of Stewart and Strathern (1999a). As the example of the Wola indicates, the same forms of cultural logic that inculcate fears of sorcery can be brought into play in the service of divination and oath-taking (on the latter, see also section titled ‘Modes of settling conflicts, including ritual’). A major feature of the processes through which fears of witchcraft can lead to accusations and violence against suspects is the prevalence of gossip and rumor. This theme is explored in depth in Stewart and Strathern (2004) with references from a global context (see section titled ‘Terror and terrorism: the role of the imagination’).

Modes of Settling Conflicts, Including Ritual Within the category of settlement by negotiation we can distinguish between settlements that lead to an ending of the specific dispute, or at least a phase of it (partial settlement), and settlements that lead to a reconciliation or establishment of new positive relations between the parties. A number of writers have cautioned against the assumption that settlement means good feelings. Moore (1995) cites Gluckman’s description of ‘‘the case of the headman’s fishdams’’ and how it was cleverly settled at the time but how Gluckman later found that one of the parties involved had subsequently killed the other. Similarly, Elizabeth Colson in the same volume sums up materials on the Gwembe Valley Tonga of Zambia by arguing that moots and courts can settle individual claims but ‘‘have much less success in convincing contenders that they are in the wrong, and they do little or nothing to heal ruptured relationships or abate anger and contempt.’’ A dispute occasion may be a part of a longer-term and more deep-seated

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conflict involving persons other than the immediate parties. It has been argued for Melanesia that ongoing dispute is a part of a normal mode of social interaction and as with debt the aim is not to end but to continue it. While this may be overstated as a generalization there is certainly some truth in it. Nevertheless, in the Mount Hagen area, at any rate, there is an idea that a proper settlement should lead to an admission or confession of wrongdoing followed by a compensation payment to enable the offended party to recover good feelings. For Hagen, and for many parts of the Pacific and Indonesia, there is a special equation of wealth with human life itself, so that killings can also be compensated for by bloodwealth payments that may, in turn, lead to ongoing exchanges of wealth goods (pigs, shells, money) between the parties and their group-mates. If negotiations about the size of such a compensation payment break down, however, direct reprisals by way of retaliatory killings, destruction of property, or the confiscation of wealth goods may cut in. In contemporary disputes, settlements leading to productive exchanges have become harder to arrange and the possibility of violence has come much closer again, because of the increase in scale of social relations, a process that began with pacification in the 1930s and was evident already by the early 1970s. If disputes are ‘‘both theater and real contests’’ in Colson’s formulation, we might expect them to become a locus of the major tensions caused by the complicated overlapping and layering of institutions and processes in a postcolonial context, such as we find among both the Gwembe Tonga and in Hagen. Colson also has some sharp words to say about the potential of ritual for bringing about the healing of social relations. Compensation in Hagen would fall into the definition here, but it is important to note that where the ritual consists of the handing over of large amounts of wealth this carries its own potential for efficacy. It was Victor Turner, in his work on the Ndembu people of Zambia, who most powerfully expressed the role of ritual in these terms, but we should note the specific context into which much of his material was set, that is, rituals of healing for sickness in the bodies of particular persons. Turner was arguing that such healing rituals were constructed in terms of a specific cultural idea, that deepseated disharmony of feelings can cause sickness, and therefore sickness can be healed only by the (re)establishment of harmony. The idea of dispute as sickness is found in Papua New Guinea also. In Hagen, for example, there is a strong idea that frustration (popokl) can cause sickness and such sickness will again be healed only by overtly venting (confessing) the cause of one’s anger, leading at least to an attempt to put matters right. Ndembu and Hagen logic are at one within this fundamental, or cosmological, level, then. Turner’s approach therefore does not imply that harmony is always achieved, only that it is seen as a prerequisite for healing certain sickness conditions. Sickness prompts people to bring up matters of

dispute that have not been settled and to make a fresh attempt at dealing with them. Disputes where sickness is not (yet) implicated may nevertheless refer to the potentiality of both sickness and violence as their outcome if talk cannot solve them. Gulliver, in his book on disputes among the Arusha of Tanganyika (Tanzania), spends the bulk of his time explaining the modes of discussion that lead to settlements, mostly through the influence of age-mates. At the end of the book, however, he turns to the topic of additional means of coercion. The coercion he has been discussing is, as he says, ‘‘of a non-violent kind,’’ and it may have to be followed up with further modes of persuasion after an agreement is reached in order to make sure that a promised payment, for example, is made. Occasionally, physical seizure is resorted to, but ritual curses and oaths may be employed also. Both curse and oath appeal to an authority of power beyond the immediate context and they bridge the gap of doubt or mistrust that can arise between disputants. Arusha say that oaths are resorted to only when a dispute cannot otherwise be settled agreeably. The ritual mechanisms ‘‘all operate by producing illness or death in an offender,’’ and a diviner is employed postmortem to verify that the ritual has worked in this way. Effects can be warded off, however, by confession. The Arusha know several categories of oaths appropriate to different circumstances, for example, olmoma, to bring peace to two related men, involving the consumption of sacrificial meat as an embodied act: the meat is accepted by one party and offered by the other. This is a striking instance of the importance of the consumption of substances as a marker of truth on the body. These Arusha mechanisms are closely paralleled again by ideas from the Pacific. In Mt Hagen consumption or burning of the sacred mi plant that is a group’s emblem brings with it the putative sanction of death if one lies. Such mechanisms, going beyond words and into the bodies of the disputants, but invoking the deepest levels of cosmological notions, are perhaps important as backstops to Arusha discourse.

The Place of Language Forms and Discourse in Disputing The idea of disputing brings to mind words primarily: images of words spoken in contest, and therefore of the stylistic and rhetorical resources people bring to bear on an issue. It also makes one aware of how people view words and truth-telling. In Hagen, for example, it is assumed that people readily lie, but the group divination substance, the mi (or nowadays the Bible) can equally readily find them out. A refusal to swear on the mi is tantamount, therefore, to admitting guilt. The aim of an investigation is to ‘‘dig out the roots of the talk,’’ which are buried, entangled, and hard to bring to light but are at the bottom of the problem.

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Brenneis, in a survey article on this theme, makes a number of significant points. He refers to Mather and Yngvesson’s model of dispute transformation dealing with how and when/why issues are broadened or narrowed, and points out that analysis of the verbal ways in which transitions are made from one phase to another would be more productive. Brenneis also notes Maurice Bloch’s argument linking formalization of style to authority in the rhetoric of the Merina, a hierarchical society in Madagascar, noting that the argument works less well in egalitarian communities. In Bloch’s original edited volume, A. J. Strathern remarked on a variant of the Merina pattern found among the Melpa of Mt Hagen, in which stylized oratory called ‘arrow talk’ (el ik) stands for a ritualized statement of the outcome of an event as if it were authoritative, marking a stage of consensual agreement between competitive groups. Brenneis goes on to note that forms of expression may play different roles at different phases of a dispute. Insults, for example, may function as preludes to physical violence or as an understood way of expressing and discharging hostility, depending on the stage of a dispute or the relationship between the parties. Silence as an avoidance of talk may also be highly significant and, in effect, communicate meanings. In the Papua New Guinea Highlands the winners of contemporary parliamentary elections are often advised not to say anything about their win, not out of any false modesty but simply to avoid antagonizing the supporters of the jealous losers and provoking violence. The winner of the regional election in the Western Highlands in July 1997, a Catholic priest, mediated this problem by announcing that he would celebrate his victory by drawing all the other elected members of his Province together and ‘‘giving all the praise and thanks to God.’’ Brenneis outlines two different approaches to the relationship between language and social process in disputes. In one (called ethnomethodology) social organization is seen as produced through language interaction. The other is the ethnography of speaking, which takes speakers’ intentions, strategies, and extralinguistic power differentials more into account. While the second approach provides a valuable expansion of the first, Brenneis also notes that language does not just reflect relations, it also often brings them into being and gives them form. In this regard, it is worthwhile to add that he does not greatly take into account here the question of emotions in disputing nor does he discuss the markers of transition from verbal to nonverbal expression that occur when talking stops and physical violence begins. A. J. Strathern has discussed how in Hagen verbal behaviors may copy patterns of dominance and appeasement that can be expressed nonverbally. A. J. Strathern and P. J. Stewart’s study (2000) details that when such verbal rituals break down, violence may result, and peacemaking is thereby made harder.

Violence, Peacemaking, and Ethology The mention of dominance and appeasement reminds us of the question of peacemaking generally, and the distinction between peace founded on mutual agreement and peace imposed by winners on losers. It reminds us also of the general debate on aggression, territoriality, and ritualization stemming from the work of Konrad Lorenz and I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt. We are not concerned here with the aspects of debates stemming from Lorenz’s work that deals with the possible innate or genetic basis for aggressive behavior in humans and other animals. We are rather interested in the question of ritualization. In certain animals gestures of appeasement in conflict situations are made by motor actions that correspond to fixed dispositions. In human social interactions standardized rituals are developed that function in a similar way, within a shared cultural milieu, to move from confrontation to conciliation. The mechanisms involved may be verbal, but often are nonverbal. Human ethology can thus provide interesting pointers for the analysis of rituals of both aggression and peacemaking, whether or not we consider these to have an innate basis. Sociobiological theory provides a more focused, and more disputed, approach to conflict, arguing that the maximization of reproductive success is at stake, as argued by Napoleon Chagnon for the Yanomamo people. Chagnon presents the male war-leaders among these people as motivated in their violence not by protein scarcity but by polygyny, suggesting a correlation between killings and wives. Other scholars have taken a different view (see further). Eibl-Eibesfeldt has collected together several examples of appeasement behavior that are interesting: for example, the waving of plant fronds and flowers to indicate a wish for peace, and the inclusion of women and children in parades as an indication of a desire for a resumption of friendly relations. In Hagen, this is directly expressed in a verbal mode also, when men say they are coming ‘‘like women’’ to a meeting, not to fight but to settle. Merlan and Rumsey (1991) have depicted the roles of women too in these processes. Robert Dentan has argued that ‘peace’ rather than ‘war’ may be the ‘normal condition’ of societies, even though conflicts are common in practice.

The Anthropology of War, and Warfare in ‘Tribal’ Contexts R. Brian Ferguson has described war as ‘‘organized, purposeful group action, directed against another group. . . involving the actual or potential application of lethal force.’’ The anthropology of war is complex and can involve conflict over a myriad of diverse factors (e.g., political

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stakes, an expression of witchcraft beliefs, revenge, wealth, etc.). Ferguson has pointed out the importance of conflict over material resources such as land, food, and trade goods, suggesting that an analytical research strategy on the anthropology of war must not overlook cultural materialism. Robarchek (in Hass 1990) notes that commonly the explanations of conflict in preindustrial societies are materialistic. He suggests that a focus on the capacity of humans to decide to become involved in conflict at the individual level by examining motivations (defined as all the forces, factors, options, and constraints, both intrinsic and extrinsic that influence the choices people make) for participation is crucial and that in all conflicts and disputes multiple levels of causality and contexts of tension coexist. He goes on to state that ‘‘warfare or nonviolence, like other behaviors, occur when they are perceived and selected from among a field of possible alternatives as viable means of achieving specific, largely culturally defined, goals.’’ Robarchek does not deny the importance of biology or the environment in shaping the forces that lead to warfare but points out that cultural constraints and individual and collective behavior determine if war will ensue. As noted already, many different views have been taken of the causes of warfare and also of its prevalence in various kinds of social contexts. Materialist theories generally argue that warfare has to do with competition over resources and therefore with population growth and territorial expansion. These theories hold in many contexts, but not all. Some kinds of warfare take the form of tournaments more than actual war, becoming an arena for the pursuit of prestige, such as the Great Wars among the Enga of Papua New Guinea. Some are connected with religious imperatives, such as headhunting, although from within the people’s own life-worlds this may have to do with the aim of increasing fertility and population. The Marind-Anim of New Guinea undertook raids not only for heads but to obtain children in order to increase their population. Aside from the general debates, interesting discussions have been entered into with regard to the place of warfare in interactions between state and nonstate societies. Ferguson and Whitehead have argued strongly that warfare in nonstate (‘tribal’) societies has been greatly influenced by interactions with state societies, and that consolidated tribal formations themselves are sometimes the historical product of such interactions, especially in contexts of encounters with expanding states. The same argument applies to colonial contexts, as for example among the Nuer of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Ferguson and Whitehead’s argument is applied broadly to cases from Roman North Africa, early Sri Lanka, the Aztecs and the Spanish, the West African slave coast, the Iroquois, Eastern Peru, and Papua New Guinea, as well as to their own work in South America. Whitehead argues it both ways: tribes make states and states make tribes. (The term ‘tribe’ is used here in a neutral and technical sense.)

Ferguson uses a sophisticated version of cultural materialism to argue that Yanomami aggressiveness was greatly influenced by the historical impingement of Europeans bringing disease, different settlement patterns, and new wants, and thereby increasing the shortage of game and levels of tensions in social groups. The Yanomami emerge as much the victims of colonization as the warlike tribesmen projected in the work of Chagnon. Ferguson concludes: ‘‘The ‘fierce people’ represent Yanomami culture in an extreme conflict mode, a mode that is clearly attributable to the exogenous factors of Western contact.’’ This conclusion does not absolutely refute Chagnon’s view, but it does contextualize it considerably and provides another way of viewing the situation. That warfare has been a pervasive feature of human life is not in doubt, but the specifics of its historical development need also to be examined carefully, as we have repeatedly noted. A different argument concerns the place of revenge practices and feuding in cultural practice. Revenge and intergroup hostilities are closely connected in Melanesian histories of war. Otterbein has argued that these practices tend to be most marked where hostilities are based on fraternal interest groups. Feud, he argues, with its limited reciprocities of retaliatory killings, is a way of avoiding larger-scale warfare between such groups. One can comment here that if it is so, it nevertheless can escalate into war, and the more effective way to halt escalation is to pay compensation, as has happened in the historical development of New Guinea Highland societies. Feud without compensation could interestingly be compared with feud with compensation in this regard, a comparative study that waits to be done in detail. Stewart and Strathern (2002) discuss revenge in more detail. The social and historical construction of tribes feeds in topical terms into consideration of the construction of ethnicity and the relationship between nationalism, ethnicity, and violence in the contemporary world.

Violence, Ethnicity, and Nationalism The end of the twentieth century has seen a series of historical changes in the world that have forced a new alignment between the interests of historians, political scientists, and anthropologists. Nation-states have broken up, violent and lethal conflicts based on ethnic ideologies have arisen, and new claims to national status have been made with bewildering rapidity and complexity around the world. In general, these events can be attributed to the recent collapse of the Soviet Union and to the longerterm results of colonial and postcolonial history in Africa. Anthropologists have been forced to expand their scope of reference, while political scientists have had to contract theirs and attempt seriously to understand the

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intertwining of kinship and politics. Descriptive/analytical categories such as ‘warlords’, applied to political leaders in Somalia, have emerged in this new context. Here we use a selection of anthropological ideas to comment briefly on this situation. The first is that of the ‘segmentary system’ and the scale of politics. The ‘segmentary principle’ means that different ranges of persons may come into conflict depending on the social distance involved. This idea gives us a calculus for the rapid expansions and contradictions of arenas of conflict that can be seen in contexts of ethnicity. It does not, however, account for the fluidity and partiality of such arenas that are sometimes found. The same idea, however, also implies that a tribe may become an ethnic group tomorrow and a nation the next day, depending on the historical trajectory of conflict it may become involved with. The nation may thus draw on a naturalized symbolic repertoire of notions based on blood and kinship, thus creating itself as markedly different from others, a process EiblEibesfeldt calls ‘‘pseudo-speciation.’’ The phenomenon of physical violence tends to outrun the explanatory theories we apply to it. Allan Feldman has combined versions of anthropological and psychological theory to considerable effect in exploring ideas about violence in Northern Ireland; E. Valentine Daniel, among others, has given a moving account of how the experience of lethal violence is mediated in Sri Lanka. Both these authors manage to convey a sense of the construction of meaning even in an arena of mass killing that may lead us to reflect further on events in other parts of the world, such as Cambodia and Rwanda. Most scholars agree that we cannot simply ascribe violence to an aggressive human nature, yet neither can we argue that violence is simply a manifestation of culture. Rather, we need detailed studies of its social construction and the use of grounded generalizations such as the fact that in a cross-ethnic dispute, both sides may feel that they are the victimized minorities, depending in what majority is chosen for comparison. Processes of learned misunderstanding and extreme othering are also involved here. A combination of approaches from social psychology and anthropology could help greatly in rendering comprehensible the human capacity to kill. Where anthropology also needs to come into its own is in the study of the means, largely ritual and by no means always effective, whereby a measure of peace and healing can be constructed out of the destructiveness of warfare. New Guinea Highlanders, with their conversion of warfare via killings into compensation payments, and these into productive exchanges between groups, have in this regard been at the forefront of human political development. Their subsequent interactions with state systems and the new development of forms of violence and criminality within them, along with their own attempts to develop new compensatory rituals, have further shown how such a development can itself be overtaken by history.

Violence, Individual Action, and the State In a number of ways, the actions of authorities in society and of dominant or deviant persons in the community, may be seen as violent, and may produce violent responses, including that of self-punishment by suicide. In this section we look at a range of actions that belong under this heading, from capital punishment to domestic violence. Capital Punishment Capital punishment may be considered the supreme act of governmental violence in state contexts, and jurists point out that to distinguish it from mere execution or lynching, elements such as judicial interpretations and the stay of execution have to be brought into play. Recently, Austin Sarat has pointed out that the practice of allowing the kin of victims to make statements at the sentencing of persons convicted of violence has reintroduced elements of revenge found in retaliatory killings in nonstate societies. Homicide and Suicide Homicide may, in certain instances, take on some of the characteristics of capital punishment in societies without state institutions of control, as when suspected sorcerers or witches are killed for their alleged offenses. Community opinion, however, may be divided over such killings and they may represent the interests of a particular faction rather than a whole community. Bruce Knauft, in his study of homicide among a Papua New Guinean people, the Gebusi, found a surprisingly high rate of homicide among them to be related to male competition over marriageable women. There was a tendency for sorcery accusations and killings of sorcerers to be focused on those who had failed to reciprocate in marriage exchanges. Outbreaks of homicidal actions punctuated long periods in which harmony was stressed and the expression of anger or aggression discouraged. The Gebusi are unusual in terms of their very high putative homicide rate but not in terms of a cultural emphasis on male violence, which is found elsewhere in the world, for example, in other New Guinea societies and Amazonia, and is connected with warfare. Suicide may also sometimes be forced on persons in a manner reminiscent of capital punishment, as among the Duna people of the Papua New Guinea highlands in the precolonial past when female witches were, according to accounts, forced to hang themselves if found guilty. Stewart and Strathern (2003) have presented a contemporary update on such suicides among the Duna. The element of shame is powerfully involved here, as in other cases where persons found guilty of transgressing norms voluntarily choose suicide. The motivation of shame may be compounded further by a desire to protest against a situation and to bring shame on those considered to have

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caused it. Classically, a woman forced into a marriage or treated badly within it may, in male-dominated societies, protest in this way, either by drowning or hanging herself (examples can be found from New Guinea also). The sociologist E´mile Durkheim in 1897 classified suicide into three distinct types: egoistic, altruistic, and anomic. In the first, the individual is seen as insufficiently integrated in the group, in the second the individual is overidentified and may commit suicide out of shame or as an act of sacrifice, while in the third the cause of suicide is a social crisis in which individuals are unable to realize their aims. The first and third types are commonly found in contexts of rapid familial and social change such as have been commented on since the early 1970s for many parts of Micronesia in the Pacific. Rates of suicide in Micronesia are by far the highest for young males, indicating their problems of adjustment to society, their inability to find monetary employment, their use of alcohol and drugs, and the breakdown of kin structures such as lineage ownership of land that provided orderly patterns of resource control in the past. Conflicts of interest are always involved in all three types of suicide: quarrels over marriage and sexual activity, over the disposition or availability of resources, and the resulting feelings of shame and frustration, may all be involved. Suicide as protest is quite marked in Pacific contexts where the idea is that the suicide’s ghost may continue to bring trouble to the living. It may also be on the increase in contexts where other social sanctions on behavior have broken down or altered. Assault and Robbery Similar patterns of disintegration of social ties of control equally lead to an increase in violence on the part of young males who form into gangs and prey on social groups in urban contexts away from their home places. In Papua New Guinea such gangs concentrate their activities by robberies in the major towns and the highways that connect them, holding up travelers, killing them if necessary, and sometimes compounding their actions by rape and torture. Narratives of their activities circulate as cautionary tales and tales of horror among the rest of the community. We may call this, following Durkheim, a category of egoistic violence, prompted also by contexts where youths cannot easily meet their economic aspirations. Some of these gang members or ‘rascals’ in Papua New Guinea have voluntarily given up their ways when they received grants to start small businesses or been converted to Christianity. Stewart and Strathern (1999b) have presented narratives of ‘rascals’ and violence in relation to roads in Papua New Guinea. Torture Torture itself has most often been used as a means of domination to extract confessions of information about activities from enemies, from persons suspected of

witchcraft (internal enemies), or from dissidents. State authority may legitimize such forms of violence, as it does capital punishment and imprisonment. Torture need not be compounded by killing the victim, although it may do so, making a demonstration of the humiliation of the body as in the case of the ‘Shankill butchers’ in Northern Ireland, who were said to torture or kill both Catholics and, by mistake, Protestants in gruesome ways. Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland could expect that they themselves would be arrested by the authorities and interrogated violently with a view to breaking down their resistance and then extracting information. As Feldman points out, torture is concentrated on the captive’s body and creates its sense of power out of that concentration, as well as by the terror or threatened or simulated execution. Pointing the gun or the knife here is the same gesture as that exercised by the robber or gang member, but with the force of the state behind it. Further action, such as rape, is often enforced by means of a threat or other violence. One of the ways in which domination over others is exercised is through forms of torture and forced work, such as in the coercive contexts of slavery and forced child labor. Issues of how torture is to be defined and how coercive force may legitimately or otherwise be used in interrogation have arisen in the context of debates about the ‘war on terror’ in the early twenty-first century. Rape Rape is a form of violence directed mainly at females, although males may also be violently and forcefully sodomized, especially in prison conditions. During wartime, rape is often used as a form of terror and revenge-taking against enemy groups. A recent example is the Bosnian war where women were frequently raped in attempts to subjugate enemy groups. In contemporary Papua New Guinea violence sometimes erupts in the Highlands during and after local and national elections. At these times women who belong to groups targeted for violence are sometimes raped while males are beaten or threatened and property is destroyed. The form of rape on these occasions may involve a group of males attacking one female in what is known as gang rape. The same action may be undertaken as a form of humiliating ‘discipline’ exercised against a wife who has been defined as errant. Control of this sort is sometimes cited in other contexts as a reason for what has been described as female genital mutilation. Female Genital Mutilation Female genital mutilation can be discussed here under violence although this category, like suicide, falls into the grey zone of actions that are undertaken freely in some instances. Some outside (i.e., Western) observers have placed this practice under the rubric of child abuse since the female are generally very young when the operations are performed

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on them. The phrase ‘genital mutilation’ may be seen as placing a culturally accepted practice into an unacceptable category by relabeling it. Female circumcision has also been called a ‘maladaptive cultural pattern’ by those who would like to see the practice halted. One consideration here is that these practices are also followed when families move to the United States or elsewhere in the world where female circumcision is not an accepted practice. Thus, issues of religious and ideological freedom arise. There is some evidence that lowered fertility may occur in some individuals as a result of scar tissue, which may inhibit sexual activity, and from chronic infections that result in higher rates of miscarriages. Janice Boddy has pointed out that these same problems have entered into the social construction of female cults of possession in the Sudan, in which women take control of their bodies and express themselves in ways that modify male control over them and also express their own view of themselves in the wider patterns of life. In this context, they do not oppose, but support, the practices of female circumcision and infibulation. Domestic Violence Domestic violence is a common problem in many parts of the world and much of it is directed at women and children. According to a United Nations study on this subject, it appears that to one degree or another violence against women in the home is a problem that can be found across all cultures and in all countries. The issues that bring on domestic violence often center on establishing authority and control in the household over the sexual activity of the partner as well as availability and use of resources such as animals (pigs and cows) and garden spaces, or property (e.g., house and vehicle). At other times domestic violence arises because of overconsumption of alcohol and/or drugs, or as a means of releasing anger/frustration that has arisen from some event outside of the domestic sphere but triggers violence in the home solely as a ‘coping’ mechanism in which anger is released against an innocent third party who is in some sense an easier target. Frequently reported forms of domestic violence include: (1) punishment/discipline, when a person is beaten because they are to be ‘taught a particular lesson’, that is, forced into one or another action or behavior pattern; (2) preventive, when a household member is beaten in order to remind them who is in control of the relationship and the material goods that are associated with it; and (3) defensive, when one household member hits back after being hit or threatened. Of course, domestic violence often involves forms of verbal abuse in addition to physical violence which can be equally devastating and destructive to the individuals involved. Both forms of domestic violence are disturbing to children and may produce lifelong psychological problems in addition to physical scars.

Terror and Terrorism: The Role of the Imagination In recent years the themes of ‘global terror’ and ‘the problems of terrorism’ have come to play an increasingly important part in the worldwide political processes, and a number of anthropologists have responded to this situation by addressing it through their writings. The place of religion in the enactment of terror and violence has also become contested and has been addressed by political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists, as well as by anthropologists Juergensmeyer presented a benchmark study on this subject in 2000. More generally, the role of the imagination, whether pertaining to the arena of religion or otherwise, is a crucial factor to consider when one is trying to understand the phenomenon of terror as portrayed in the studies by Strathern, Stewart, and Whitehead in 2006. Terror, then, and its manifold representations have taken hold of the global imagination in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of radical political movements opposed to the ‘West’ not simply in terms of political ideologies but also under the banner of religious differences. The events of 9/11/2001 and the conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan have undoubtedly been central in this reconstruction of the global imagination as well as the recognition of a new era of practices in relation to violence, at least from the perspective of the USA, and mutatis mutandis in the expanding sphere of the European Union. Terror in the abstract and practical terrors in concrete reality have become very much a part of everyday media representations, making issues to do with terror palpably present in many people’s lives. Present terrors surround us, both in our imaginations and the processes and practices of violence which feed into the imagination. Imagination and practice are closely linked. It is equally important to note that violent practices constantly lead themselves to the intensification of imaginative concerns, and that representations of these practices as events in the news constantly stimulate further imaginations and further practices, fusing together actions and images of actions in repetitive cycles. Images themselves, conducted in a creative or fictional mode (such as newspaper cartoons), may have as their intended, half-intended, or wholly unintended consequence the provocation of violent episodes of actions. Images and messages also stimulate and facilitate the mobilization of masses of people in crowds, protesting against government actions and eliciting forceful, if not violent, actions from police or military authorities. Small-scale and large-scale processes of conflict, and the terror that accompanies phases of violence, share many fundamental features. Scale itself, however, makes a difference. The global village and the Papua New Guinea village are in many ways alike (and, certainly, villages in Papua New Guinea are greatly affected by the

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world at large). Differences between these contexts lie in terms of the types of conflict they experience and their relative intractability. The world, for example, does not have many very effective rituals of reconciliation such as the New Guinea pig festivals and marriage exchanges. Studies in Papua New Guinea have recently merged with the general sphere of anthropological discussions of violence. As discussed in some earlier publications (e.g., Strathern, Stewart, and Whitehead in 2006; and Stewart and Strathern in 2002), a transactional theory of interactions was pioneered by David Riches (1986). Violent acts can be seen as belonging to ‘the triangle of violence’ between performers, victims, and witnesses as depicted by Stewart and Strathern in 2002. In the context of intergroup fighting, both sides are both performers and victims and include also witnesses. And casualties in fighting seen as ‘warfare’ may be considered by their kinsfolk as ‘heroes’ who have sacrificed their lives to the cause of their group rather than as ‘victims’. Similarly, the killers of others may be lauded as heroes. Lethal acts in warfare are given fundamentally different meanings from those in other contexts. The assignment of labels and meanings is always context-dependent, depending on the side of the conflict parties align themselves with. Riches’ transactional model is useful, especially when combined with two other observations he made. He points out that acts of physical violence have their own peculiar effectiveness; and their legitimacy also is often contested and ambiguous. These contests regarding the legitimacy of violence take place to a good extent in the milieu of its witnesses. Acts of violence may therefore be regarded not only in terms of their immediate instrumental effects as practices from the viewpoint of their performers, but also in terms of their intended or unintended auras of meanings – meanings that they gather within the space of the triangle of violence as we have defined it. Violence is about meanings and thus enters into the world of discourse, representations, and imagination. ‘Terror’ refers to these worlds, worlds both beyond and yet constrained by physical acts. In many ways, terror also belongs distinctively to boundaries and borders, such as have existed in the historical past between Scotland and England (Strathern and Stewart 2001), or in the more recent past between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (Strathern and Stewart 2006). Furthermore, in terms of how meanings are created and communicated, rumor and gossip, whether spoken or in printed form, are often tremendously important, especially in the context of violence, threats of violence, and fears of violence. We have previously, in 2004, argued for this viewpoint, particularly in relation to accusations of witchcraft and sorcery, but also more generally in terms of issues and feelings that are conducive to conflictual acts. Rumor and gossip, like violence itself, are transactional acts, passed from person to person, often demanding reciprocity, and subject to disparate evaluations by ‘witnesses’ who then enter into the communicational network in which rumor flourishes. Rumor and gossip trade on fear, uncertainty, and ambiguity,

and they deal with the boundaries of legitimate action and speculations about those boundaries. They operate at different levels of societal complexity, from the interpersonal to the international. Intelligence agencies of governments essentially trade on hearsay as much as on direct observations and so may be regarded as purveyors (as well as evaluators) or rumors. Deliberate misinformation is often mixed with sheer inaccuracies as well as kernels of truth in these contexts of international life. And such acts of rumor-making and reception are not neutral; they are often political tools, and in any case they have consequences, leading to the mobilization of people in favor of certain causes. The study of events and physical acts inevitably, then, leads us back into the worlds of fluctuating, negotiated, constructed meanings, and thus, in turn, into representations of the events which form people’s memories and link to their desires and frustrations. See also: Clan and Tribal Conflict; Language of War and Peace, The; Peaceful Societies; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Aijmer, G. and Abbink, J. (eds.) (2000). Meanings of violence: A crosscultural perspective. Oxford: Berg. Bloch, M. (ed.) (1975). Political language and oratory in traditional societies. New York: Academic Press. Bohannan, P. (1957). Justice and judgment among the Tiv. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute. Brenneis, D. (1988). Language and disputing. Annual Review of Anthropology 17, 224–237. Caplan, P. (ed.) (1995). Understanding disputes: The politics of argument. Oxford: Berg. Chagnon, N. (1990). Reproductive and somatic conflicts of interest in the genesis of violence and warfare among tribesmen. In Haas, J. (ed.) The anthropology of war, pp. 77–104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Colson, E. (1995). The contentiousness of disputes. In Caplan, P. (ed.) Understanding disputes: The politics of argument, pp. 65–82. Oxford: Berg. Comaroff, J. and Roberts, S. (1981). Rules and processes. The cultural logic of dispute in an African context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Daniel, E. V. (1996). Charred lullabies: Chapters in an anthropograph of violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1979). The biology of peace and war: Men, animals and aggression. New York: Viking Press. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940). The Nuer. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Feldman, A. (1991). Formations of violence: The narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ferguson, R. B. (1990). Explaining war. In Haas, J. (ed.) The anthropology of war, pp. 26–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, R. B. (ed.) (2003). The state under siege. London: Routledge. Ferguson, R. B. and Whitehead, N. (eds.) (1992). War in the tribal zone. Expanding states and indigenous warfare. Santa Fe: School of American Research. Ferme, M. C. (2001). The underneath of things: Violence, history, and the everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gluckman, M. (1955). The judicial process among the Barotse. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Gulliver, P. (1963). Social control in an African society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Gulliver, P. (1979). Disputes and negotiation: A cross-cultural perspective. New York: Academic Press.

Theories of Conflict 39 Haas, J. (ed.) (1990). The anthropology of war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutchinson, S. E. (1996). Nuer dilemmas. Coping with money, war, and the state. Berkeley: University of California Press. Juergensmeyer, M. (2000). Terror in the mind of god: The global rise of religious violence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Knauft, B. M. (1985). Good company and violence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Leopold, M. (2005). Inside west Nile. Violence, history and representation on an African frontier. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Malinowski, B. (1926). Crime and custom in savage society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Merlan, F. and Rumsey, A. (1991). Ku Waru. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, S. F. (1995). Imperfect communications. In Caplan, P. (ed.) Understanding disputes: The politics of argument, pp. 11–38. Oxford: Berg. Otterbein, K. (1994). Feuding and warfare. Selected works of Keith Otterbein. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. Riches, D. (ed.) (1988). The anthropology of violence. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. J. (1997). Sorcery and sickness. Spatial and temporal movements in Papua New Guinea and Australia. Discussion papers series no. 1. Townsville: James Cook University, Centre for Pacific Studies. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (1999). ‘Feasting on my enemy’: Images of violence and change in the New Guinea Highlands. Ethnohistory 46(4), 645–669. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (1999). Death on the move: Landscape and violence on the Highlands Highway, Papua New Guinea. Anthropology and Humanism 24(1), 24–31. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (2002). Violence: Theory and ethnography. London: Continuum Publications. Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (2003). The ultimate protest statement: Suicide as a means of defining self-worth among the Duna of Papua New Guinea. Journal of Ritual Studies 17(1), 79–88.

Stewart, P. J. and Strathern, A. (2004). Witchcraft, sorcery, rumors and gossip. New departures in anthropology, no. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strathern, A. J. (1971). The rope of Moka. Big-men and ceremonial exchange in Mount Hagen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strathern, A. (1992). Let the bow go down. In Ferguson, R. B. and Whitehead, N. (eds.) War in the tribal zone, pp. 229–250. Santa Fe: School of American Research. Strathern, A. (1993). Voices of conflict. Ethnology monographs no. 14. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh. Strathern, A. (1993). Violence and political change in Papua New Guinea. Pacific Studies 16(4), 41–60. Strathern, A. J. and Stewart, P. J. (1997). The problems of peacemakers in Papua New Guinea: Modalities of negotiation and settlement. Cornell International Law Journal 30(3), 681–699. Strathern, A. and Stewart, P. J. (2000). Arrow talk. Transaction, transition and contradiction in New Guinea Highlands history. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press. Strathern, A. J. and Stewart, P. J. (2001). Minorities and memories: Survivals and extinctions in scotland and Western Europe. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Strathern, A. and Stewart, P. J. (2003). Conflicts versus contracts: Political flows and blockages in Papua New Guinea. In Ferguson, R. B. (ed.) The state under siege, pp. 300–317. New York: Routledge. Strathern, A. J. and Stewart, P. J. (2006). Narratives of violence and perils of peace-making in north–south cross-border contexts, Ireland. In Strathern, A. J., Stewart, P. J., and Whitehead, N. L. (eds.) Terror and violence. Imagination and the unimaginable, pp. 142–170. London: Pluto Press. Strathern, A., Stewart, P. J., and Whitehead, N. L. (eds.) (2006). Terror and violence: Imagination and the unimaginable. London: Pluto Press. Turner, V. (1957). Schism and continuity in an African society. New York: Humanities Press. Whitehead, N. L. (2002). Dark shamans. Kanaima´ and the poetics of violent death. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Whitehead, N. L. and Wright, R. (eds.) (2004). In darkness and secrecy. The anthropology of assault sorcery and witchcraft in Amazonia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Theories of Conflict Ho-Won Jeong and Eleftherios Michael, George Mason University, Centreville, VA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Paradigms on Social Conflict Sources of Aggression Relative Deprivation and Basic Needs Rationality and Social Order Social Identity, Gender, and Violence Exchange Theories Functionalism and Social Integration

Glossary Conflict Groups Organized either to defend or challenge the legitimacy of existing authority relations. Nonrealistic Conflict Not directed toward achieving specific goals; merely releasing tensions.

Class Conflict and Agency Structure of Authority Discourse and Domination Functions of Conflict Implications for Conflict Resolution Conclusion Further Reading

Rational and Legal Authority Based on the principles of the universal and impartial applications of rules. Realistic Conflict It serves as a means for obtaining specific outcomes. Relative Deprivation A perceived gap between the expected conditions of life and the actual conditions of life.

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This article focuses on the diverse social environments that generate conflict. Research on political violence and revolution has been popular among those who are anxious to understand the conditions for both social stability and the process of structural transformation. Several different theoretical traditions can be identified in understanding social conflict. Some focus on human nature and biological conditions. Others emphasize a social structure and relations within groups. The analysis of sources and the nature of conflict helps us explore the conditions needed for its resolution.

Paradigms on Social Conflict Conflict is a complex and dynamic phenomenon. Thus, developing theories to fully explain its dynamics, processes, and outcomes is a very challenging and complicated process. The root causes of conflict have been investigated from multiple perspectives for many years. Theories of conflict can be interpreted as conceptual maps that guide analysts and policymakers to correctly diagnose the root causes and dynamics of conflict at various levels of human relationships. One of the traditional paradigms in explaining conflict is the ‘real’ politics approach. It is a perspective that focuses its core assumption on the foundation that conflicts arise due to scarce resources. The original proponents of the realist theory were drawn to a variety of cases, from Thucydides’s history of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), to the Cold War. They highlighted violent struggles that arose from imbalanced power relations between the ancient Greek intercity-state system, monarchies and nation-states. Since the quest for absolute power is driven by inherent human nature, according to the realist politics paradigm, conflict is thought to be inevitable in various types of interaction. As conflict becomes part of power struggle between states, government elites attempt to have a tight control over intra-state, identity-type groups, or actors. The outbreak of several intra-state conflicts such as in Northern Ireland, Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Columbia, and El Salvador, go beyond the frameworks of the realist paradigm, however. The critics have argued that the realist perspective does not adequately address the root causes and conditions that lead to the rise of deep-rooted and identity-type conflicts. In contrast with the realist approach, human needs theorists illustrated that conflict is driven by a group’s need for maintaining collective identity, recognition, security, political participation, distributive justice, etc. Proponents of the needs theory, such as John Burton and Edward Azar, argue that intra-state and identity-type conflicts will not be satisfactorily resolved by suppressing them through military and other forms

of coercive state power. Nation-state and international structures have to be reconceptualized to meet the needs of all individuals, and provide justice to those who have been marginalized and made to feel insecure within existing structural and institutional arrangements. In addition to the realist and human needs paradigms, conflict can be examined in terms of the dynamics of group interactions. According to this paradigm, the causes of conflict have been investigated by the socio-psychological and structural analysis of human relations at micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. In particular, the existence of conflict can be ascribed to aggressiveness, relative deprivation, failure of organizational functions, asymmetric power relations, and dominant social structure. The roots of such theories of conflict can be traced back to Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. Some social-psychologists trace the sources of violent human behavior to the inner psychological environments. War and violence, according to this perspective, are inherent in human nature. Some of them believe that aggressive behavior is genetically fixed and biologically functional. Others explain conflict in terms of feelings of deprivation and frustration brought about by rapid social change. The collapse of social norms often allows the expression of frustration in violent forms. Social relations among and within groups have been the focus of another important paradigm in analyzing violent conflicts. Proponents of group-dynamic theory look at how patterns of conflict can be analyzed in terms of collective action. For example, social stability is maintained by the legitimation of authority relations between superior and subordinate groups. In its explanation about how to maintain harmonious relations, functionalism emphasizes that social disintegration results from the failure of basic functions of a social system. From this perspective, conflict is equated with social instability. Exchange theories explain the sources of power in terms of how normative structures and material incentives help maintain authority relations in organizations and society. In addition to the above paradigms, the sources and types of conflict can be studied in terms of how a hierarchical structure produces antagonistic relations among opposing classes or interest groups. Social and economic inequity generates class struggle in a modern political economy. In the Marxist paradigm, power relations between different classes are determined by an exploitative economic structure. Coercion is used to maintain unequal relations between the rich and the poor. Ethno-centric views of other groups may often emerge from the efforts to sustain social or economic and political inequalities, or unfair structural and institutional norms. While disagreeing with the Marxist emphasis on the sources of class antagonism, sociologists Lewis Coser and Ralph Dahrendorf challenged the assumption of functionalist approaches that conflict is pathological and dysfunctional. Under certain

Theories of Conflict 41

circumstances, conflict can contribute to social cohesion. The struggle between dominant and subordinate groups in a modern society has been stabilized through institutionalized mechanisms of dealing with social conflict.

Sources of Aggression Aggressive behavior, observed either psychologically or physically, has a negative impact on inter-personal and inter-group relations. The question arises as to whether human aggressiveness is inherent or intrinsic to all humans, or whether violent and antisocial behaviors are simply outcomes of failure of society to meet the expectations of its constituents. Some researchers argue that aggression stems from an instinct linked to an inherently violent human nature. Therefore, violence is explained by an inner cause. For example, several well-known social psychologists have pointed out particular psychological propensities as the origin of aggression. For traditional Freudians, a desire for destruction results from a death instinct. According to a slightly similar point of view, some others argue that most people have an autonomous source of aggressive impulses within them. If that is the case, could we then argue that pathological, psychological impulses largely account for outbreaks of war and mass killings? Competitive sports may also be considered as one of the means by which to express aggressive human nature. In one of traditionally known psychological approaches to conflict, most humans have a natural buildup of blocked energy that searches for outlets. Aggression stems from a genetically based innate drive that has to be satisfied; aggressive behavior is triggered by the excessive frustration of goals. Similarly, the perception of threats and uncontrolled emotion strengthen aggressive postures. Frustration might be further accumulated by the outside interference which prevents the achievement of certain objects. Thus, it is argued that failure of adaptation to frustration will lead to violence. If aggression is believed to be a response to certain biological and psychological stimuli, the origin of conflict is exclusively attributed to aggressive impulses that invite violent expression, no matter what the object might be. Given that aggressive energies have to be worked out by themselves, natural limitations are not likely to be imposed on the intensity of behavior. Since humans are assumed to be instinctually aggressive, conflict cannot be resolved peacefully. This innate propensity to aggression, therefore, is responsible for individual and group violence. The suppression of violent propensities within a group results in the pursuit of their outlets in relations with other groups. Violent conflict does not need to involve a contentious issue if we assume that violence is the result of the desire for the release of tension. The attainment of specific

outcomes does not necessarily mean the termination of conflict. Only external order would be able to control a tendency toward destructive behavior. However, if we believe that the motivational propensities for aggression are ascribed to the struggle for survival in a resource stricken world, then aggressive behavior can be reduced by creating a more caring world.

Relative Deprivation and Basic Needs Collective violence can be caused by feelings of relative deprivation and dissatisfaction with basic human needs. A prolonged period of economic and social development generates heightened expectations. There is a certain level of expectations for social and economic conditions to which people believe they are rightfully entitled. However, these expectations are not always met, even though people believe that they have the ability to achieve them. Relative deprivation exists when people feel that their expectations of conditions for life have not been satisfied. In presenting the relative deprivation theory, Tedd Gurr focuses on three major socio-psychological patterns behind collective rebellions. The first one, incremental deprivation, describes the potential for collective violence in a society where people’s value expectation for material, political, social, and other resources rises rapidly, but the political system’s ability to anticipate such demands remains rather unchanged. Unlike incremental deprivation, decremental deprivation refers to conditions under which peoples’ expectations remain relatively unchanged over time, but the political, economic, and social systems’ ability to keep up with its obligations declines rapidly, or even collapses. The last version of the theory describes conditions of progressive deprivation. These are conditions where both people’s expectations and system capabilities increase but they do so at a much different rate. For example, group expectations rise at a rate that creates a wider gap that cannot be reduced by material capabilities. The perception of deprivation tends to be often subjective. If people’s hopes and desires far exceed what they can realize, they may have more dissatisfaction with their current situation. The expectation to improve unsatisfied material and social conditions are likely to go up with time. However, the economic and social capacity to meet these expectations does not increase simultaneously. Thus, expectations are likely to rise disproportionately to what society can actually provide. Under such conditions, frustration is expected to deepen further when manifest reality does not match anticipated reality. An intolerable gap between expected social conditions and actual achievement of these conditions can be a precondition for widespread unrest and political violence. Poor economic performance, along with rapid social

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change, strengthens the belief that unfair economic and political conditions have been imposed on those who suffer loss. A lack of opportunities, as well as unequal distribution of benefits, generates contention of opposition to political authorities. A sharp reversal of gains, compared with others, in particular, leads to the increased perception of discrepancy between what people have and what they feel they are entitled to enjoy. Regardless of subjective perception, there are basic requirements for the survival and development of human beings in both physical and psychological terms. Some sets of fundamental universal human needs cannot be denied. The maintenance of decent human life requires selffulfillment, as well as physical survival. Food, shelter, and other basic material necessities are needed for physical survival. Love, affection, security, and self-esteem satisfy psychological needs. Human emotions are constructed within the framework of social life. No meaning in life is found if people’s self-esteem is destroyed. The denial of collective identity is a source of ethnic and other types of social conflicts. Needs can provide factual and objective criteria for analyzing a social situation that contains the potential for the emergence of conflict.

Rationality and Social Order Social relationships are based on mutual consent between groups of people. However, societies are not monolithic entities, and a specific interaction may have a different meaning to those who are engaged in it. People fight for control over advantages and opportunities. Actions may be taken intentionally to repress the resistance of others. To this extent, conflict is considered as a type of social relationship in which one party undertakes action against the other. Nonviolent and regulated conflict may be called competition. In the Weberian tradition, a legitimate social order is maintained by a set of rules and norms. Social action is affected by accepted norms and, in many societies, laws are used as a major means to contain conflict. Social tensions are regulated by agreed values and mechanisms. Thus, the acceptance and rationalization of conflict are made in terms of established sets of institutional procedures. While this approach legitimizes certain types of conflict, it gives power to a particular group of people who are in a position to make and enforce rules. The ideas of conflict management are based on rational approaches to all aspects of social problems. According to Max Weber, authority, justified in the light of rational and legal political order, is impersonal compared with charismatic authority, which depends on personal appeals and qualities. The principles of the universal and impartial applications of rules are the basis of a modern political system. The rational management of conflict legitimizes

the status quo and represents efforts to contain conflict within an existing political structure. To engage in conflict, parties must agree on certain formal rules of the game that provide the framework of their relations.

Social Identity, Gender, and Violence Every person has multiple individual and collective identities. Identities provide a reservoir of meaning and sense of who we are, but they are, to a large degree, fluid, situational, and socially and culturally constructed. Social discourse on collective traumas and national myths is an essential element to the construction and transformation of any ethno-political identity. In conflict situations, individuals’ social identities and group memberships color the perceptions about own-self in relation to others. The relationship between collective identities and conflict has drawn the attention of many theorists in social psychology, anthropology, and sociology over the last few decades. In considering that conflict occurs in many different types of social setting, many contemporary researchers have begun to investigate how inter-group dynamics can contribute to intra-group and inter-group relations and when identity becomes salient and politicized. In fractured societies, parochial identity exclusively based on ethnicity, race, and other primordial characteristics is often promoted to bring about group loyalty and cohesion in pursuit of political struggles. Identity-type conflicts are defined by seemingly incompatible goals, values, belief systems, influencing group behavior and attitudes. Various ethnic and religious groups have been victimized by genocides and mass murders, or have been socially discriminated and stigmatized over the years through stereotypes created to justify the dominant group’s superiority. Some social conflicts remain intractable and are reduced to a zero-sum game especially if each group sees the fulfillment of the other group’s need for security, recognition, and political participation as a threat to their identity and existence. Many individuals around the world are subjected to various forms of identity-type violence that limits their abilities and well-being in every aspect of life. While both men and women are victims of sexism, ageism, racism, and nationalism – among other ‘isms’ – the occurrence of gender-type violence is an important avenue in peace and conflict studies. Within the traditional perspective, gender identities are viewed as biological categories individuals are born into and the terms male or female are assigned to categorize men and women through the acquisition of locally defined attributes of masculinity and femininity. Within this paradigm, positive and negative stereotypes of gender roles are constructed and enforced by laws, acquainted through education and social norms, and built into

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cultural and social expectations in the multiple lifeworlds we are all part of. Within the same paradigm, the construction of masculine and feminine categories is linked to power relations arising from the practice of attaching meaning to gender identities and genderspecific tasks and attitudes. In many cultures around the world, gender-specific attitudes defined under masculinity or femininity have created gender dichotomies, patriarchal hierarchies of social order, and laws for domination. Gender differentiation is an essential element in understanding social structures and the origins of violence. According to Reardon’s critique of patriarchy, the root causes of violence are found in the privileging masculine values in the process of establishing social and cultural distinctions between different gender roles. Within the patriarchic tradition, which exists in many parts of the world, inequality of sexes and genders in favor of men are institutionalized at various levels, leading to many forms of gender-type violence. Modern feminist perspectives illustrate how various forms of latent and manifest violence impede the hierarchical structure in our societies at various levels. Feminist peace perspectives challenge traditional and hierarchical government policies and general public perceptions that are shaped by traditional concepts of security. Modern feminists also emphasize the need to provide security and protection of individuals from organized state violence and the fulfillment of individuals’ fundamental needs, well-being, and safety at all levels of social interactions.

indebtness are perpetuated by obligations. People can alter their behavior and or influence others in an attempt to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Conflict may originate in the failure to reciprocate benefits. Disagreement on norms of fair exchange, type of rewards, and unanticipated costs might not be objectively defined and can also produce tension. In the absence of mutual consent, exchange relationships may be forced on the other side. Threats and violence are used in the case of robbery. Explicit and implicit forms of coercion are employed to guarantee the continued supply of goods and services. One example would be the exploitative economic and political structure setup by colonialism. Organizational structure emerges from social interaction. Exchange processes produce the differentiation of roles within a group such as leaders and followers as well as types of authority. The unilateral supply of goods and services can be contingent on the acceptance of unequal power relations. The ability to provide resources, essential for the survival of the community or the group, fortifies distinctions between superiors and inferiors. Those who hold higher power ranks in a group tend to feel the greater pressure to share their wealth with others. In many tribal societies, superiority is established by distributing gifts or offering religious services. A differentiated status structure necessitates legitimation and organization. Norms of reciprocity are developed to maintain social associations. Collective approval gives legitimacy to the power of the leadership. The failure to distribute social and material rewards can generate opposition and the call for new leadership, or the breakup of the group or community.

Exchange Theories People in almost all cultures are pursuing diverse social and material objectives. Exchange is inevitable since individuals have limited resources. In general, an exchange relationship is based on voluntary actions of individuals who are motivated by the returns they want to get from others. Goods and services can be tangible or intangible. Social associations are formed by the process of exchange activities between at least two people. Exchanging goods and services serves not only to create the bonds of friendship, but also to produce power relations. Establishing and maintaining relations emanates from the calculation of benefits and costs. Depending on the level of satisfaction, some exchange relationships are more rewarding than others. Benefits ought to be reciprocated in order to continue to receive them. Though obligations may not be specific, commitments to the other party are involved in the relationship. The fulfillment of exchange obligations generates trust and bond. Social exchange is not likely to happen without a promise from others to reciprocate favors. Thus, trust is essential for maintaining stable social relations. Bonds and

Functionalism and Social Integration Functionalist theories view society as an entity that can be reduced to its constituent parts. A social system has a specific structure that is composed of relationships among the constituent parts, including polity, economy, and culture. These parts carry out basic functions for maintaining the whole society. Functions of a social system are defined in terms of processes that are essential for the survival of the system. The solidarity of a society relies on the integration of its components. Actors in a social system fulfill their required role assignments. Institutionalized patterns of interaction among actors are regulated by cultural and other patterns. The educational component of the social structure has the function of transmitting the existing culture to future generations. Socialization helps keep a kinship structure, which in turn has the function of sustaining family ties. Social structure is based on the consensus of values among its members. The overall pattern of interrelationship is geared toward order and harmony. An inefficient

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response to disturbances from an environment causes malfunction of the system. For instance, social instability can arise from the incompatibility between modernization and traditional value systems. The domination of a new religion or ideology follows changes in power distribution in various subsystems. According to functionalism, progress means increased specializations and complexities in the functions of society. The economic structure of any given society should be compatible with the political structure and normative values. More specifically, an increased capacity to mobilize economic resources is based on the development of modern political institutions, which support market operations. In addition, the penetration of a free market economy is accompanied by the replacement of traditional cultural norms by universalistic values and generalized rules. The dissatisfaction with the existing system demands the adjustment of relationships among components. Deviant behavior is treated like a disease that should be cured. Coerced change does not necessarily engender either the political solidarity or cultural legitimation that sustains commitment from members of a society. Coercive order is not stable unless it brings changes in cultural norms to subjugated people. The subjugated groups should be willing to accept the dominant group’s cultural orientations as well as institutional models. Society can fail to respond to the challenges coming from the disequilibrium between the demand and the supply of resources. The failure of normal functions leads to pathological states. Abnormal states are considered harmful to the survival of the system. Systemic crisis or stress disrupts normal patterns of interactions among components within a system. The failure of critical social functions creates conditions for radical social change, such as revolution. Since conflict is associated with disunity, it is seen as dysfunctional according to functionalist theories. The re-establishment of functional social relations and integration has become an important agenda for preventing recurrent violence especially in postconflict societies. Political, social, and economic integration can be achieved through psychological rehabilitation and power-sharing mechanisms. Well-functioning, integrated structures would permit the creation of institutions that transcend ethnocentrism and would allow every group to retain their own cultural and linguistic identities.

Class Conflict and Agency In the Marxist paradigm, conflict between classes arises out of dialectical struggle among differing material interests. The political economy of social relations is important in understanding the causes of conflict. A basic assumption of Marxism is that a social and political structure is

determined by the mode of production and those who control the means of production such as labor, land, and factory facilities. The economic structure determines forms of social consciousness as well as types of legal and political institutions. Conflict is rooted in class antagonism, which results from the historical conditions of production. In a capitalist society – a transitory stage toward socialism – two main classes can be identified: the proletariat and the bourgeois who owns and controls financial flows and allocation of material resources needed for production. The workers provide labor in exchange for the wages that are essential for the subsistence of their physical survival. The economic and political power of the bourgeois derives from the ownership of the means of production. The business class dominates the working class until the latter organizes to protest exploitation and alienation. The unfair exploitation of one class by another is the main source of conflict. Workers are alienated since their work is not related to the realization of their needs. The work does not reflect a worker’s desire or nature. It only serves the interests of the owner of the means of production. The ultimate cause of all crises in a capitalist system is poverty and restricted consumption of the masses. The emancipation of the working class results from the elimination of private properties. Class struggle is a vehicle for structural change. Conflict can be eventually eliminated in a classless society, a stage of communism. Class conflict is characterized by the absence of mobility and the concentration of power and property among a few elites, as well as the superimposition of economic and political interests on the masses. A clear correlation exists between the distribution of power and social stratification. The intensity of conflict in a capitalist society is linked to the concentration of political and economic power in one class. Postindustrialized societies have reduced the degree of class antagonism, in part, by introducing effective conflict regulation mechanisms such as mediation, arbitration and, in part, by allowing workers’ participation in electoral processes. Marxist theory has evolved over the years and has not been completely refuted, despite its theoretical and practical weaknesses. Neo-Marxist approaches suggest a construction of social life that shifts from Marx’s dialectic relationship between modes of production and exploitative class relations to the role of power and control embedded in various social and economic settings. Human action and interaction is affected by changes in intentions and beliefs that are derived from the ongoing transformation of technologies and institutions. New demand for change can be made not necessarily by representatives of a working class but by those who have agency defined in terms of will and capacity to bring about changes to existing conditions.

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Structure of Authority Status differences are found in most social relations. Power imbalance characterizes asymmetric relations. The unequal distribution of decision-making power is a source of latent conflict. The structural origins of group conflicts can be related to the arrangement of social roles attached to domination and subjection. The two distinctive sets of groups are produced by authority relations. One group has a position of domination with the other in a position of subjection. Opposing interests derive from power differences. Identical authority positions develop common group interests. Conflict groups are organized either to defend or to challenge the legitimacy of the existing structure. The creation of conflicting parties can be prevented by the lack of freedom of speech and associations. Communication among those who share the same interest is also essential in the formation of groups. Thus, the conditions for the formation of conflict groups do not exist in a repressive political system. The dominant group wants stability while the dominated group pursues change. The dominant group is interested in the preservation of a social structure that legitimizes their authority. Change is resisted by the party benefiting from the structure. Those on top interpret conflict in terms of law and order. For the subjugated group, the existing situation is perceived as unjust and exploitative. Those in a disprivileged position look for opportunities to establish a new set of relations. Conflict involves struggle between the forces of status quo and challenge. Opposing groups mobilize resources. The problems of maintaining or changing a given structure are interpreted in terms of the legitimacy of existing authority relations. Since conflict arises out of tensions between subordinate and dominant groups, solutions on individual issues do not eliminate the possibility of recurrent conflicts. Conflict regulation mechanisms may prevent violence but do not deal with sources of conflict. As far as asymmetric patterns of interaction exist, conflict cannot be avoided. Conflict resolution needs to be based on structural changes that lead to egalitarian relations.

Discourse and Domination In critical social theories, the social world is divided into a multitude of communities, cultural traditions, and knowledge. The primary forces of domination are not economic exploitation. The sources of conflict can be related to the subjugation of differing identities and understandings of reality that belong to particular groups of people. The process of discourse plays an important role in shaping subjectivity, social institutions, and politics. Language mediates between individuals and the conditions of their existence.

A discourse can be characterized as a set of rules for speech. Rules of discourse dictate who is accorded the right and the status to make authoritative statements. Mechanisms such as newspapers and television ensure the survival of a dominant structure under the mask of knowledge. There are close connections between knowledge and power. All knowledge claims are moves in power games. Methods of social control serve as instruments of those who have power. Subjecting and stereotyping individuals to specific identity groups contributes to the regulation of differences in a modern society. In a rationalized world, human beings are transformed into manipulative subjects. Modern industrial society allots each person to a specific role or an operation that characterizes the person. The individual is carefully fabricated in the social order. Hegemony is maintained by a complex web of conceptual and material arrangements producing the very fabric of everyday life. Hegemony at the workplace, for instance, is enforced by economic arrangements such as contracts and reward systems that are supported by laws. Discipline is based on more than physical coercion. The monopolization of economic and political power in the hands of corporations and state institutions illustrates the colonization of social spheres defined by German sociologist and philosopher Juergen Habermas. Absolute truth is controlled and manipulated to serve state interests or expand power of bureaucracies. Technocratic approaches to many contemporary political and social issues limit the role of citizen participation in public decision making at the expense of individual freedom and autonomy. Collective consciousness is fragmented and highly subject to a controlled flow of information provided by authorities. The goal of conflict-free society is based on emancipation from the dominant political structure by creating a social space that tolerates differences and favors autonomy. In terms of discourse, emancipation can be achieved by privileging local narrative over grand state ideologies favored by political elite. The dominant paradigm and its language need to be deconstructed by the analysis of the existing patterns of culture and political discourse. In empowering the marginalized narrative, one’s reality needs to be re-examined in terms of cultural and social circumstances that subjugate ecological and indigenous native people’s values to neoliberal political economic order. Reflecting on their specific locations in social space, identity based on gender, race, and class is fluid along with fluctuation in one’s reality.

Functions of Conflict While conflict may bring about radical social change, it can also enhance the function of a social system.

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Pressure for innovation and creativity prohibits the ossification of a social system. Social life is not entirely harmonious, and conflict does not need to be considered disruptive. A certain degree of conflict is, in fact, essential in promoting unity. Since conflict is natural in every society, productive relations may emerge from well-managed conflict. Group solidarity is more easily maintained by allowing conflicts. However, consensus on basic values is critical if the conflict is to be functional. The existence of established rules of competition can help the regulation of conflict within the system. If conflicts are superimposed on each other, they endanger social stability. In superimposed conflicts, the same groups face each other in various types of conflicts. The emergence of overriding interests increases the intensity of conflict with the concentration of emotional energies. On the other hand, the criss-crossing of conflicts cancel each other out. They prevent disintegration of a whole society along one primary line of cleavage such as class, religion, or ethnicity. Threats to consensus on core values would be reduced by the existence of multiple conflict groups engaged in many different issues. A conflict, which serves as a means for obtaining a specific outcome, can be called a realistic conflict. Particular demands are directed at the presumed objects. The antagonistic actions of labor unions against management are said to be realistic if these actions are organized to achieve results such as an increase in wages or benefits. The sources of realistic conflict exist in every social system as long as people raise opposing claims to power positions and economic resources as well as arguing about different values. If conflict is a means to an end, it can be resolved by achieving specific goals. Different forms of contention are assessed in terms of their effectiveness in promoting interests. In nonrealistic conflict, conflict is an end in itself. Finding a solution for the unsatisfactory situation is no longer a major concern. The aim of conflict is simply releasing tensions. Hostilities may be diverted toward substitute objects. Safety valve mechanisms function as channels for cathartic release. The weaker party in conflict especially uses displaced means to express feelings of frustration. However, the displacement of goals does not change the terms of the relationship. This distinction between realistic and nonrealistic conflicts has important implications for conflict management and resolution. A realistic conflict can be resolved if the desired outcome is obtained. Conflict is channeled into productive social activity. However, the hostility expressed in nonrealistic conflict is destructive and needs to be controlled. A safety valve function may be employed to avoid tensions between primary parties in conflict but does not solve the root causes of problems. Mediation is supposed to help adversaries direct their energies from engagement in the emotional aspects of nonrealistic conflict to discussion about substantive issues.

Implications for Conflict Resolution Depending on the assumptions of social order, different approaches to resolving conflict can be suggested. The emphasis on coherence and order may justify the use of force and other means of restricting behavior. If it is assumed that social order results from a general consensus on the core values of society that outweighs actual differences of opinions and interests, main concerns remain with conflict reduction and regulation. Since conflict appears to be avoidable, major efforts are made to strengthen the mechanisms of social control that minimize conflict. Social tension and strains may be ascribed to psychological maladjustment. Psychiatric approaches need to be used if problems are rooted in individuals. Stress is placed on the adjustment of individuals to given structures. The efforts to preserve existing institutional arrangements lead to the ignorance of pressures for change. An unstable social order is explained in terms of the breakdown of control mechanisms. The regulation of social conflict is more concerned with the way conflicts are expressed than understanding their causes. The functions of conflict regulation have been performed by conciliation, mediation, and arbitration. The ideas of alternative dispute resolution represent the philosophy of regulation by adopting a less costly method to handle the symptoms of conflict. Regulation methods have been designed to reduce physical violence. In this approach, the routinization of problems prevents the explosion of a superimposed conflict. In contrast with a consensus model of social order, society can be viewed as being held together by force and constraint. Changes are inevitable, given that coercive relations cannot be maintained forever. Social conflict could be eliminated only through structural change. Conflict resolution should address the causes rather than the symptoms of social conflict. If progress is made possible by a struggle, the task would be to overcome the resistance of those who benefit from the current system against changes. Since conflict is inherent in the social structure, the complete elimination of conflict is not possible and desirable. The suppression of conflict is not an effective means of dealing with its sources. Most importantly, efforts to ignore conflict are, in the long run, counterproductive. Conflict can be transformed and resolved by adopting nonviolence principles established by Tolstoy and Gandhi. Nonviolence has often been used as a strategy to break intolerable situations. The ideas of nonviolence suggest resolving conflict through persuading oppressors in a nonthreatening manner. At the same time, nonviolence can also be used to promote a culture of selfsacrificing love. Reconciliation is built in a nonviolent approach to conflict resolution which transcends dichotomization. Its aim is to resolve sources of problems rather

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than annihilate adversaries. All parties are encouraged to participate in the process to explore a just solution to the conflict.

Conclusion The struggle against dominant social relations and oppressive cultural norms has existed throughout human history. The large question for research on conflict analysis and resolution is, then, how we can identify the sources of dominant relations that generate conflict. Examining the impact of conflict on human well-being has to be one of the most important tasks in analyzing the causes and nature of environmental conflict, labor disputes, problems in urban communities, and a violent culture. See also: Gender Studies

Further Reading Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: AddisonWesley.

Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley. Burton, J. (1997). Violence explained: The sources of conflict, violence and crime and their provention. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Clark, M. (2002). In search of human nature. New York: Routledge. Colomy, P. (ed.) (1992). The dynamics of social systems. London: Sage. Conteh-Morgan, E. (2003). Collective political violence: Competing theories and cases of violent conflicts. New York: Routledge. Coser, L. (1964). The functions of social conflict. New York: The Free Press. Dahrendorf, R. (1959). Class and class conflict in industrial society. Stanford, CA: Stansford University Press. Freud, S. (1957). Repression. In Strachey, J. (ed.) The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (first publ. 1915) vol. 14, pp. 146–158. London: Hogarth Press. Gurr, T. R. (1970). Why men rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jeong, H. W. (2005). Peace building in postconflict societies. Boulder, CO: Lynn Rienner. Lorenz, K. (1966). On aggression. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Marx, K. (1906). Das kapital. New York: Random House. Reardon, B. (1985). Sexism and the war systems. New York: Teachers College. Sherif, M. (1958). Superordinate goals in the reduction of intergroup conflict. American Journal of Sociology 63, 349–363. Tajfel, H. (1981). Social identity and intergroup relations. London: Cambridge University Press. Weber, T. (1964). Theory of social and economic organization. (Intro. Parsons, T). New York: The Free Press.

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II. NEUROBIOLOGY, NEUROCHEMISTRY – ANIMAL MODELS

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Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence David LeMarquand, Regional Mental Health Care London, London, ON, Canada Peter N S Hoaken, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada Chawki Benkelfat, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Robert O Pihl, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Hormones Neurotransmitters

Glossary Agonist A compound that binds to a receptor and initiates intracellular processes. Amino Acids Monomers that are the structural building blocks of proteins; a small minority function as neurotransmitters. Androgens Male sex hormones; one class of steroid hormones in mammals. Antagonist A compound that binds to and occupies a receptor but does not initiate intracellular processes. Central Nervous System Part of the nervous system composed of the brain and spinal cord. Cerebrospinal Fluid Liquid produced by the choroid plexuses of the lateral, third, and fourth ventricles that fills the ventricular system of the brain and the spinal subarachnoid space. Hormone A compound released from neuronal or non-neuronal cells that circulates and acts at a site distant from its release site. Monoamine Oxidase An enzyme that degrades biogenic amines.

Introduction The biochemistry of human aggression has been studied for about three decades; over this period, a considerable but inconsistent literature has arisen. Much less research has been done on the biochemistry of human prosocial and affiliative behavior (e.g., cooperation, altruism, friendship); as such, the primary focus of this review will be the neurobiology of aggression and violence in humans. The primary dependent measures used in the study of the biochemistry of human aggression and violence include: (1) hormones and their precursors/metabolites, measured in saliva, blood, and urine; (2) neurotransmitters and their precursors/ metabolites, measured in blood, urine, and cerebrospinal

Other Neurochemicals Summary/Conclusions Further Reading

Monoamines A class of neurotransmitters, along with amino acids and peptides, consisting of three catecholamines (dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine), an indoleamine (serotonin), a quaternary amine (acetylcholine), and an ethylamine (histamine). Neurotransmitter A compound synthesized and released from the presynaptic membrane upon nerve stimulation of a neuron in the nervous system, inducing a physiological response on the postsynaptic membrane. Platelets Disk-shaped blood cells formed in the bone marrow whose primary physiological function is hemostasis. Receptor A protein in the neuronal membrane of a cell that is a binding or recognition site for a neuroactive compound which may result in a change in the activity of the cell. Reuptake Inhibitor A compound that blocks the reuptake of a neurotransmitter into the presynaptic membrane.

fluid (CSF); (3) neurotransmitter uptake and receptor functioning on blood platelets; and (4) neurotransmitter physiology and its effects on hormonal responses using neurotransmitter precursor, reuptake inhibitor, and direct receptor agonists/antagonists. The latter technique has been particularly useful in elucidating which specific neurotransmitter receptor subtypes may be involved in aggression, particularly with the development of agonists and antagonists with greater receptor specificity. Much of the literature is composed of correlational studies linking a particular biochemical to aggression; however, some experimental studies assessing human aggressive behavior following the administration of hormones or neurotransmitter precursors, agonists, or antagonists have also been conducted.

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Many of the aforementioned measures are limited in what they indicate about central nervous system (CNS) function. Urinary biochemicals (e.g., neurotransmitter metabolites) primarily result from metabolism in the periphery; therefore they tend to be less reflective of CNS function. The relationship between neurotransmitter (and precursor) concentrations in the blood and the function of CNS neurotransmitter systems is not well understood. As well, some cellular structures and physiological processes on blood platelets are thought to be analogous to those in synaptic membranes in the CNS. However, the environment of blood platelets is substantially different than that of neurons in the brain with potentially important consequences. It is not entirely clear how the levels of CSF neurochemicals, sampled from the lumbar spinal cord region, relate to brain neurochemical functioning. While studies have demonstrated correlations between CSF metabolite levels and levels of neurotransmitter metabolites in some brain regions, it is important to realize that it is unlikely that the former reflect neuronal activity in specific brain regions. This limitation also applies to the psychopharmacologic challenge paradigm. Despite their limitations, many of these measures have been correlated to CNS processes, and thus are held to be reflective of brain processes. As such, they are extensively utilized. It should also be noted that peripheral biochemicals may provide information on important peripheral processes pertinent to the understanding of the biochemistry of aggression and violence. A further difficulty in this field concerns how aggression and violence are defined, operationalized, and assessed. Aggression has been variously defined as any behavior directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another individual who is motivated to avoid such harm/ injury, or any behavior that is capable of damaging or degrading the integrity of other individuals or objects and that occurs within a social context. Violence has been defined as purposeless, antisocial aggression exhibited out of context: aggressive behavior that is no longer regulated by situational and social stimuli. A reactive form of aggression associated with high levels of emotional arousal has been distinguished from a more instrumental, proactive, calculated form of aggression associated with lower emotional arousal. The variability in the assessment of aggressive and violent behavior is equally great. Assessment techniques and measures include official records of violent and nonviolent criminal offenses, selfreport questionnaires of aggressive/violent traits and behaviors, and self-reported feeling states associated with aggression and violence (e.g., anger, irritability). Between-study differences on these parameters tend to hinder interpretation of the data, and may obscure relationships between certain biochemicals and specific types or components of aggressive/violent behavior (e.g., fighting, irritability, impulsivity).

Hormones Gonadal Androgens Hormones are secretions of endocrine glands that are transported through the bloodstream and act on target tissues throughout the body (including the CNS) to effect physiological and behavioral changes. Androgens, a particular class of steroid hormones, are primarily produced in the gonads (i.e., the testes and ovaries of men and women) and adrenal glands. They have two distinct sets of effects: androgenic (differentiation, growth, and development of the male reproductive tract) and anabolic (stimulation of linear body growth). During the pre- and perinatal organizational stage of sexual differentiation, androgens masculinize the fetus through the development of the male reproductive tract. At puberty, the activational stage begins, and androgen levels rise, leading to increases in bone growth, muscle mass, growth of the genital organs, development of the secondary sex characteristics, and increases in sexual motivation. The absolute levels of testosterone, one of the primary androgens, are substantially lower in women than in men, and decline with age in both sexes. Testosterone is the most abundant androgen, and is generally thought to have the greatest impact on behavior. Most of the behavioral effects of androgens are mediated through binding to androgen receptors widely distributed in the brain and other sites in the body. Hormonal action is terminated through the dissociation of the androgen from its receptor. Androgens are known to modulate the functioning of a large number of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. Testosterone is metabolized into dihydrotestosterone, androsterone, etiocholanolone, and estradiol, the latter of which may act at the estrogen receptor to mediate androgen effects. Thus, how a steroid is metabolized will have important functional consequences. Interest in the relationship between the androgens, testosterone in particular, and aggression is most likely due to the oft-noted gender difference in aggressive behavior. Human males engage in more physical violence, and are more often the victims of violence, relative to females. As noted above, gonadal hormones are involved in the expression of sex differences in anatomy and sexual behavior. Androgens have also recently been demonstrated to have an effect on energy levels, play activity, and gender role behavior in children. As such, a possible relationship between androgens and aggressive behavior might be expected. A number of comprehensive reviews demonstrate that violent males have higher testosterone levels relative to nonviolent males. This holds true for criminals with histories of violent crimes compared to those with histories of nonviolent crimes, as well as violent sex offenders relative to nonviolent sex offenders and adult volunteers. Interestingly, studies with women have noted higher testosterone in aggressive versus nonaggressive

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groups. Despite the general consistency of these findings, some studies with offenders have found no differences in testosterone levels between, for example, adolescent males convicted for repeated assault compared to those convicted for assault or for property offenses, or men charged with murder or assault versus those charged with property offenses. Even in the former study, however, adolescents from the most violent group tended to show higher testosterone levels than the other two groups. A higher than expected proportion of XYY individuals are involved in violent crime; these individuals also have higher testosterone levels than their adolescent peers. In more recent studies, impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder had high levels of CSF-free testosterone relative to healthy volunteers, whereas impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with intermittent explosive disorder and nonimpulsive alcoholic violent offenders did not. In these violent alcoholic offenders, high free-CSF testosterone was correlated with self-reported aggressiveness and sensation-seeking. The authors suggest that increased CSF testosterone may result from a lack of inhibition of luteinizing hormonereleasing hormone and luteinizing hormone by circulating cortisol. Alcoholic, impulsive violent offenders have been reported to have low urinary free-cortisol outputs (see further). Cortisol has negative feedback effects on anterior pituitary function, where luteinizing hormone, responsible for stimulating production of testosterone in the testes of males, is produced. Interestingly, one previous study found no differences in CSF testosterone between impulsive and nonimpulsive violent offenders. Also, a recent study of personality-disordered males found no correlation between CSF testosterone and selfreported aggression or impulsivity. There have also been a number of studies investigating hormone-aggression correlations in offenders. Many of these studies investigated total plasma (blood) testosterone rather than unbound (physiologically active) testosterone levels. Salivary testosterone levels are thought to provide a measure more reflective of unbound testosterone. In those studies that measured salivary testosterone in violent offenders, positive correlations were found with indicators of aggression. Studies using total plasma testosterone also found, by and large, positive correlations with aggression in violent individuals. Unfortunately, wide between-study variation in the measures of aggression and sample characteristics hinders interpretation. Socioeconomic status (SES) and age appear to moderate the testosterone-aggression relationship. Among military veterans with high SES, high testosterone did not predict higher risk of engaging in antisocial behaviors. Among military veterans with low SES, however, higher testosterone predicted a higher risk of antisocial behavior. A study in incarcerated females found that increasing age

was related to lower testosterone levels, reductions in violent crime, and less aggressive dominance in prison. Among young men, an earlier age of onset of criminal activities is correlated with higher testosterone levels. A number of studies have investigated testosteroneaggression correlations in normal volunteers including both men and women. As mentioned earlier, wide variability exists between studies on the testosterone measure assessed (total plasma vs. salivary (unbound) testosterone) and the measures of aggression used (self-report questionnaires, peer ratings, diary assessments). Overall, similar to studies with offenders, small positive correlations between testosterone and aggression have been noted (r
0.15). The magnitude of this relationship is smaller for studies using self-report measures of aggression, and slightly larger for studies using observer ratings (teacher, peer measures). Self-report inventories of aggression commonly measure aggressive traits or dispositions, suggesting that testosterone may be more related to aggressive behavior per se, rather than self-reported aggressive traits. Balanced against these findings are the studies finding no relationship between testosterone and aggression in normal volunteers, and some noting a negative relationship. In a recent study, aggressiveness in women was negatively correlated with both testosterone and estradiol. These incongruities are difficult to reconcile. Another study found estradiol to be significantly positively related to aggression in young men. This is not entirely unexpected, given that testosterone is aromatized into estradiol. There have been a handful of studies on boys at puberty, a time when an increase in aggressiveness might be expected to occur due to a rise in testosterone in males. These studies have provided only modest evidence of an association between testosterone and aggression. A longitudinal study using path analysis found that testosterone in boys at 16 years of age was associated with provoked aggression at age 16. Also, there was evidence that provoked aggression at age 13 was related to testosterone at age 16, suggesting that earlier experiences of provoked aggression may have led to subsequent elevations in testosterone. More recent analyses have shown that testosterone had a direct causal relationship with provoked aggressive behavior from grade six to grade nine. There was an indirect effect of testosterone on unprovoked aggression mediated by low frustration tolerance at grade nine. More longitudinal studies such as these are needed in order to test for causal relationships between testosterone and aggression. In terms of studies investigating the testosterone– aggression relationship in preschool or school-aged children, two studies measuring plasma testosterone did not find relationships with Child Behavior Checklist aggression scores, while two studies measuring salivary testosterone did find the expected relationship between

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testosterone and observations of more serious aggression in social interactions or staff-rated aggression. The major limitation of correlational studies is the difficulty in specifying the direction of the relationship. It is commonly hypothesized that higher testosterone leads to increased aggression through some as yet unspecified biochemical pathway. Alternatively, the effects of testosterone on muscle mass and body hair may lead to a more intimidating appearance, which may affect interactions with others, lead to changes in one’s self-perceptions, and ultimately increase aggressiveness. Alternatively, or additionally, aggression may increase testosterone. Increases in testosterone in male judo competitors were correlated with anger and violence during the competition, suggesting that these behavioral reactions produced the hormonal changes. Additionally, plasma testosterone was found to be elevated in healthy males following a laboratory pointsubtraction aggression task. Other findings suggest that elevated mood may increase testosterone levels. In one study, testosterone levels increased prior to a sports competition and remained high in the winners compared to the losers. In this study, testosterone levels correlated more closely with the individual’s mood than performance; those with a more positive mood prior to the competition had higher testosterone. Also, among the winners, those most satisfied with their performance had the highest testosterone levels. Another study demonstrated elevated testosterone levels in the winners of a contrived laboratory competitive reaction-time task. There was no such increase in losers, which suggests that physical competition is not necessary to demonstrate hormonal changes. Thus it may be more the cognitive/affective experience of the event that affects androgen levels rather than androgen levels affecting performance. Additionally, dominance may be associated with testosterone. Testosterone levels in humans rise after victory and fall after defeat in competitions. Testosterone levels rose in winning male tennis players and wrestlers relative to the losers. Testosterone levels in chess players at a tournament rose and fell following wins and losses, with the likelihood of winning increased with higher testosterone. In new recipients of an MD degree, testosterone rises, and this increase is related to elevated mood in these individuals. Moreover, vicarious success and failure are associated with elevations and reductions in testosterone, respectively. Soccer fans whose team won showed an increase in salivary testosterone, while those supporting the losing team showed a reduction in testosterone. Testosterone is also positively associated with self-rated elevated mood, well-being and alertness, and decreased anxiety, fatigue, and tension. These findings suggest that increases in testosterone may result from the internal experience of dominance, or having dominance socially attributed (‘eminence’), and concomitant

increases in status and subsequent feelings of well-being. Bidirectional influences are also possible. Higher testosterone levels may increase the likelihood of engaging and achieving success in competition; the increased status attained through victory might then increase testosterone levels. A longitudinal study of adolescent boys supports the notion that testosterone is associated with dominance and social success rather than physical aggression. Thirteenyear-old boys concurrently rated by unfamiliar peers as ‘tough’ and ‘leaders’ had higher testosterone compared to ‘tough-not leaders’ and ‘not tough’ groups. Conversely, longitudinal analyses revealed that those boys teacher-rated as physically aggressive from ages 6 to 12 (particularly those also rated as anxious) had lower salivary testosterone levels than nonaggressive boys. These physically aggressive boys were not socially dominant, as they were rated as less popular by their peers compared to nonaggressive boys, and were failing in school. Thus, high testosterone was found in boys who were successful in imposing their will on their peers (perhaps through aggression at times), but who remained socially attractive. The stress of social rejection in physically aggressive boys may have led to higher anxiety and activation of the adrenal axis, which suppresses the hypothalamic–pituitary– gonadal (HPG) axis. Aside from the effects of competition on testosterone levels, a number of other factors can impact on testosterone and other androgens. Stress decreases these neurochemicals; sexual stimulation and exercise can increase them. Alcohol can also alter testosterone levels, although the direction of the relationship is not clear. These factors also must be considered when interpreting studies in this area. Some studies with adolescent males have shown that aggressive behavior is related to lower levels of gonadal hormones (e.g., testosterone) and higher levels of adrenal hormones. It has been suggested that lower concentrations of gonadal steroids and higher adrenal androgens are related to antisocial behavior through (1) a heightened sensitivity of the HPG axis to stress-related secretion of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis hormones, resulting in HPG suppression, or (2) a predisposition in some individuals to heightened arousal following environmental stressors, resulting in HPA axis activation. Through its modulation, the HPA axis impacts indirectly on testosterone levels. Stress-induced HPA activation suppresses the HPG system, resulting in decreased androgen production. Finally, studies of aggressive behavior following androgen administration provide limited support for the notion that androgens increase aggression. A randomized, doubleblind, placebo-controlled crossover trial in which depotestosterone or conjugated estrogens were administered to adolescent boys or girls, respectively, demonstrated

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increased self-reported physical aggressive behaviors and aggressive impulses in both boys and girls, with no changes in verbal aggressive behaviors or inhibitions in both. However, in a number of other studies in which testosterone has been administered to either hypogonadal men or men with normal gonadal function, no increases in mood correlates of aggression (e.g., anger) were noted following testosterone treatment. At least one study reported that, following testosterone treatment, anger decreased in hypogonadal men who were significantly more angry than controls at baseline. Healthy volunteers administered an anabolic steroid (methyltestosterone) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, experienced increases in negative mood symptoms, such as irritability, violent feelings, anger, and hostility, but also increases in euphoria, sexual arousal, and energy. Adrenal Hormones/Neurotransmitters Cortisol has been studied as method of indexing physiological activation of the HPA axis. Some studies have demonstrated that violent offenders have lower levels of HPA axis biochemicals, possibly indicating underarousal, an overregulated HPA axis, or an increased threshold for stress. For instance, urinary cortisol has been shown to be lower in habitually violent criminals relative to nonviolent offenders. Impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder also had lower CSF adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH, or corticotropin, which regulates the synthesis of glucocorticoids such as cortisol) relative to healthy volunteers, with no differences in other adrenocortical stress response-associated neuropeptides (diazepam-binding inhibitor, corticotropin-releasing hormone, and arginine vasopressin). However, there have been opposing findings; violent alcoholics had elevated cortisol levels relative to depressed alcoholics and nonviolent, nondepressed alcoholics. The findings on the relationship between cortisol and aggression in children are equivocal. Some studies find lower levels of cortisol to be associated with aggressive behavior in children, which suggests reduced HPA activity. For instance, a negative correlation between the number of conduct disorder (CD) symptoms and salivary cortisol concentrations in preadolescent boys has been noted. In this study, boys whose fathers had CD followed by antisocial personality disorder had lower salivary cortisol compared to boys whose fathers had CD but not antisocial personality disorder, and boys whose fathers had neither diagnosis. Two additional studies have found lower urinary cortisol at baseline to be associated with aggression/hostility towards peers or the teacher. In another study, children with CD but no DSM-III-R anxiety disorder had lower cortisol levels when compared to children with conduct and a comorbid anxiety disorder, but not relative to children with neither diagnosis.

Similarly, low anxious/high externalizing boys demonstrated stress-induced cortisol decreases, while high anxious/high externalizing boys demonstrated large increases. Disruptive behavior disorder (DBD; i.e., a group including both oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disordered children) and normal control children did not differ in baseline cortisol levels, but the stressinduced increase in cortisol seen in the controls was absent in the DBD children. (Notably, antisocial children who demonstrate a cortisol response to a psychosocial stressor showed greater benefit from a structured therapeutic intervention.) In contrast, three other studies found no relationship between cortisol and aggression in disruptive children. This may be due to a failure to measure cortisol in children with aggressive and nonaggressive CD symptoms separately; however, a more recent study found higher salivary cortisol levels in boys with CD compared to those without, and boys with an aggressive form of CD with higher levels than with a covert form of CD. Furthermore, reactive aggression was strongly correlated with elevated cortisol. A few additional studies support the notion that aggression is related to reduced HPA axis function. Corticotropin-releasing hormone is released from the hypothalamus following a stressor. It induces the release of ACTH in the anterior pituitary. In pregnant adolescents, corticotropin-releasing hormone is negatively correlated with CD symptoms assessed postpartum. This finding is consistent with lower salivary cortisol in preadolescent males whose fathers had CD that later developed into antisocial personality disorder compared to boys whose fathers had no Axis I disorders or antisocial behavior. Also, prepubertal boys and girls characterized by low plasma cortisol levels at baseline that increased following a stressor had more CD symptoms than adolescents who either showed no changes or reductions in cortisol levels over time. Conversely, one study found a positive correlation between plasma cortisol and selfreported irritability and resentment (but not global aggressiveness) in healthy males. By and large, these studies, along with those reviewed in previous sections, suggest that reduced activity of the HPA axis is correlated with, and may be causally related to, aggressive and violent behavior. Cortisol levels have been shown to moderate the testosterone–aggression relationship. In one study of late adolescent offenders, among those offenders who were below the mean in cortisol levels, the correlation between testosterone and the extent to which the crime of conviction was violent in nature was higher, relative to those individuals above the mean in cortisol levels. Cortisol may moderate the testosterone–aggression relationship by inhibiting testosterone production directly (see ahead). Consistent with the notion that violent individuals may show reduced physiological activation under stress,

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several studies have demonstrated that violent offenders have reduced levels of plasma and/or urinary epinephrine. Epinephrine (adrenaline) is a neurotransmitter in the sympathetic nervous system and adrenal medulla; epinephrine levels may provide an index of peripheral sympathetic nervous system arousal. Plasma and urinary epinephrine were lower in men convicted of violent personal attack versus those convicted of arson, sexual, or property offenses. Urinary epinephrine and cortisol were also lower in violent offenders relative to nonviolent offenders, mentally ill, and healthy men following stressful environmental procedures. Conversely, a series of studies assessing urinary norepinephrine (NE) output found higher levels, particularly when anticipating a stressful experimental event, in violent incarcerated males relative to nonviolent controls. Plasma NE, a measure of peripheral presynaptic NE function, was positively correlated with risk-taking and self-reported impulsivity in personality-disordered individuals. Also, plasma NE in borderline hypertensives with suppressed aggression was higher following one of two mildly stressful laboratory tasks (mental arithmetic, Stroop task), with no changes in plasma epinephrine, relative to participants without suppressed aggression. Peripheral indicators of NE function are positively correlated with measures of aggression in healthy individuals as well. Self-reported irritability and resentment, as well as global aggressiveness reported by spouses and first-degree relatives, were positively related to plasma NE in healthy males. Also, plasma cortisol and growth hormone levels (but not prolactin) increased following a point-subtraction aggression laboratory task in healthy males with higher (vs. lower) basal aggressiveness. This was interpreted as a secondary response to increased plasma NE levels following the aggression task in these men. In another study, aggression on a laboratory task involving the administration of aversive noise to another person was weakly correlated with urinary methyladrenaline (methylepinephrine), but not with methylnoradrenaline (methylnorepinephrine) or creatinine, in healthy adolescent boys. Recent work with rhesus monkeys suggests that increased noradrenergic reactivity may be associated with state measures of aggressiveness and irritability. These results suggest that greater peripheral NE levels, and possibly function, is associated with aggressive behavior, particularly under conditions of stress. Also of importance are the androgens of adrenal origin, such as dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), and androstenedione. Children show a gradual increase in the adrenal androgens from approximately six years of age, a period known as adrenarche. The gonadal androgens, such as testosterone, become more important at puberty. As with the gonadal androgens, the hypothesis is that higher levels of adrenal androgens are associated with increased

aggressiveness. Three studies have measured plasma DHEAS levels in prepubertal boys; two of these three found these levels to be related to aggression and delinquency scores. Investigators were able to rule out the possibility that DHEAS levels were elevated as a consequence of the stress of psychiatric disorder, as might be hypothesized if higher adrenal androgen levels reflect the adrenal response to chronic stress. One of these studies also discounted the hypothesis that the association between DHEAS and aggression was due to the aggressive children (diagnosed with the Oppositional Defiant Disorder) being more physically mature than the children in the psychiatric and normal control groups by finding the groups similar on the development of their secondary sex characteristics. Taken together, the findings of studies on adrenal hormones and neurotransmitters in violent offenders, other clinical groups, and healthy individuals tentatively suggest that aggression is associated with reduced basal HPA axis function coupled with hyperresponsivity during stress. Secondly, the findings on cortisol in aggressive children suggest the need to distinguish between aggressive individuals with and without anxiety symptoms, as hormonal/neurotransmitter and aggression relationships may be different in these two groups.

Neurotransmitters Serotonin Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) has been hypothesized to play an inhibitory role in the expression of aggressive and violent behavior. This neurotransmitter is primarily concentrated in neurons of the raphe´ nuclei of the brainstem, whose processes project to a wide variety of subcortical and cortical areas. Serotonin is formed from the amino acid tryptophan. The primary pathway of 5-HT metabolism leads to the formation of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), which is commonly measured in the CSF and employed as an indicator of brain 5-HT turnover. Violent offenders, fire-setters, incarcerated personality disordered individuals with XYY chromosomes, and homicidal perpetrators who had either killed a sexual partner or their own child have been shown to have low CSF 5-HIAA levels, suggesting reduced brain 5-HT function. Low CSF 5-HIAA also predicts recidivism in violent offenders and impulsive fire-setters. Additionally, low CSF 5-HIAA in them is associated with a history of serious suicide attempts and paternal alcoholism. The association between lower CSF 5-HIAA and aggression has been found to be independent of suicidal behavior in aggressive psychiatric patients. In several of these investigations, violent offenders have been classified as either impulsive or nonimpulsive based on the qualities of their index crime (impulsive crimes being those in which the

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victim was unknown to the offender, the offender was not provoked, and the crime was committed with little chance of monetary gain). In these studies, it is the impulsive violent offenders that show reduced CSF 5-HIAA levels relative to nonimpulsive violent offenders and healthy controls. Thus it may be impulsivity, a characteristic of a subset of violent acts, that is related to low 5-HT functioning. These findings have contributed toward 5-HT being conceptualized as regulating behavioral inhibition/disinhibition. Some characteristics of the studies investigating the relationship between CSF 5-HIAA and impulsive aggression/violence suggest caution in the interpretation of their findings. For example, a number of the studies on CSF 5-HIAA and impulsive aggression have been carried out with samples of Finnish offenders; independent replication by other research groups with other samples is warranted. These violent offenders were comorbid for a number of other disorders (alcoholism, personality disorders), thus CSF 5-HIAA may be related to one of these characteristics rather than impulsive aggression. Also, in relating low CSF 5-HIAA to impulsive aggression, impulsivity has been defined as a quality of the index crime rather than a stable personality characteristic. The accuracy of such a characterization can be questioned; the description of the index crime may have been falsified by the offender in order to avoid more severe punishment. Despite these difficulties, a review of the studies judged to be the most methodologically rigorous concluded that low CSF 5-HIAA is related to aggression, particularly for relatively young, white, personality-disordered male criminal offenders. It has been hypothesized that the reduction in CSF 5-HIAA in impulsive violent offenders may be mediated genetically. The gene for tryptophan hydroxylase, the ratelimiting step in the conversion of the tryptophan to 5-HT, has at least two alleles, designated U and L. The L allele of the tryptophan hydroxylase gene has been associated with low CSF-5-HIAA in impulsive alcoholic violent offenders but not in nonimpulsive alcoholic violent offenders or controls. It has also been related to a history of suicidal behavior in the alcoholic violent offenders, irrespective of impulsivity. This suggests a possible reduced capacity to hydroxylate tryptophan to 5-hydroxytryptophan, the precursors of 5-HT. (In healthy men, however, the U allele has been associated with lower CSF 5-HIAA levels.) Questions remain as to whether the tryptophan hydroxylase polymorphism is associated with aggression/violence or suicidal behavior, as other studies have found conflicting results (e.g., no association between the tryptophan hydroxylase gene and suicidal behavior, or an association between the U allele and suicidal behavior in individuals with major depression). Other gene polymorphisms related to gene products involved in 5-HT synthesis, reuptake, metabolism, and receptor function that have been linked

to aggression or impulsivity include the 5-HT1B receptor (G861C allele), 5-HT2A receptor (T102C and 1438G/A alleles), and the serotonin transporter (5-HTT; 5HTTLPR allele). As one might expect, a similar relationship has been found between CSF 5-HIAA and aggression in personalitydisordered individuals and other clinical groups. For example, some of the earliest studies investigating the 5-HT/aggression relationship found an inverse relationship between CSF 5-HIAA and life histories of aggression and suicide attempts in personality-disordered men with no affective illness. Depressed individuals and alcoholic males who self-report high aggression have low CSF 5-HIAA. Low CSF 5-HIAA is also related to ratings of hostility and anxiety on the Rorschach inkblot projective test in depressed and suicidal individuals. These results suggest that the CSF 5-HIAA/aggression relationship represents a biochemical and behavioral trait association that cuts across clinical groups. There have been incongruous findings, however. A recent study found a positive association between CSF 5-HIAA and aggression in personality-disordered men, no association in borderline personality disorder individuals with a history of violence towards others versus those without such a history, and no differences in CSF 5-HIAA between violent and matched nonviolent patients with schizophrenia. It has been suggested that the inverse relationship between CSF 5-HIAA and aggression may be dependent on the severity of aggression, with the relationship being found in individuals with more severe aggression. This interpretation is not supported by one study that noted an inverse relationship between self-reported aggression and CSF 5-HIAA levels in normal volunteers (although a second study found that this relationship disappeared after controlling for age). CSF 5-HIAA has also been negatively correlated with aggression in children and adolescents with DBDs (characterized by hyperactive, impulsive, and aggressive behaviors), and was lower in these young people than in a comparison sample of pediatric patients with obsessivecompulsive disorder. CSF 5-HIAA significantly predicted the severity of physical aggression at two-year follow-up in these individuals. An alternate method of assessing central serotonergic functioning is through the measurement of the neuroendocrine hormones following the administration of a serotonergic compound. This method reflects the dynamic functioning of the serotonergic system in the limbic– hypothalamic–pituitary system, which regulates neuroendocrine hormones. Blunted prolactin responses following the administration of fenfluramine, a 5-HTreleaser and reuptake inhibitor, have been noted in murderers with antisocial personality disorder, suggesting a subsensitivity of central serotonergic systems, possibly due to reduced postsynaptic receptor numbers or functioning. This interpretation is

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supported by the findings of a peripheral indicator of 5-HT function, platelet receptor binding. Platelet receptor binding studies assess the density (Bmax) and affinity (Kd) of plasma platelet receptors using various 5-HT ligands. Significantly lower ketanserin binding to platelet 5-HT2 receptors was found in adolescent violent delinquents compared to controls, possibly indicative of lower receptor binding in the central serotonin system in violent individuals. Congruent with the studies in violent offenders, blunted neuroendocrine responses to challenges with various central 5-HT reuptake inhibitors, releasers, or receptor agonists have been found in personality-disordered patients as well as those of other clinical groups. Blunted prolactin and/or cortisol responses to challenges with 5-HT agents (fenfluramine, meta-chlorophenylpiperazine, ipsapirone) have been noted in individuals with past histories of suicide attempts, impulse control disorders (bulimia, substance dependence, pathological gambling), and personality disorders (borderline, narcissistic); borderline personality disorder patients with histories of impulsive and aggressive behavior; patients with histories of self-mutilation or suicide; men with antisocial personality disorder; and personality-disordered individuals, relative to healthy controls. One study in healthy males also negatively correlated cortisol responses to fenfluramine challenge with self-report Buss–Durkee hostility inventory total and aggression factor scores, with no relationship noted between prolactin responses and aggression, and no such relationships in females. Other studies have correlated the neuroendocrine response to 5-HT agonists with self-reported aggressivity. Prolactin responses to fenfluramine challenge have been inversely related to impulsive aggression in patients with personality disorders, Buss–Durkee hostility inventory ‘direct assault’ scale scores in personality-disordered individuals, a laboratory measure of aggression in personalitydisordered men, and self-reported life histories of aggression in personality-disordered individuals. Reduced neuroendocrine responses to other 5-HT agents, such as the mixed 5-HT receptor agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine, and the 5-HT1A receptor agonists buspirone and ipsapirone, have similarly been correlated to aggression and impulsivity. Interpretation of reduced neuroendocrine responses to 5-HTagonists is difficult at present. Blunted neuroendocrine responses to fenfluramine suggest decreased presynaptic availability of 5-HT. Blunted neuroendocrine responses to 5-HT receptor agonists may indicate decreased postsynaptic 5-HT receptor numbers or function; alternatively, they may be the result of adaptive changes in 5-HTreceptor numbers/ function in response to altered presynaptic 5-HTavailability. Recent neuroimaging studies using positron emission tomography (PET) have suggested altered 5-HT function in certain specific brain regions. In one study, impulsive aggressive individuals did not demonstrate an increase in glucose metabolism following a single dose of the

serotonin-releasing agent fenfluramine in the orbitofrontal cortex and medial frontal and cingulate regions. Such an increase was observed in healthy controls. In a second study, impulsive aggressive patients did not show increased metabolic glucose metabolism in the left anteromedial orbital cortex or in the anterior cingulate in response to the serotonergic agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP) relative to healthy controls. In contrast, the posterior cingulate gyrus was activated by m-CPP in the impulsive aggressive individuals relative to controls. A third study found reduced serotonin transporter availability in the anterior cingulate cortex of impulsive aggressive individuals compared with healthy subjects, possibly reflecting reduced 5-HT innervation. Together, these findings are consistent with the existence of reduced 5-HT function in the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in subjects with impulsive aggression. Reduced serotonergic function in aggressive individuals may be partly genetically determined. Twin studies with indicators of serotonergic functioning suggest that this neurotransmitter system is partly under genetic control. As well, a genetic vulnerability to aggression has been demonstrated. Furthermore, indicators of reduced serotonergic function have been correlated with family histories of impulsivity and aggression. Reduced prolactin responses to the 5-HT releasing/reuptake inhibiting agent fenfluramine in personality-disordered individuals are correlated with a greater prevalence of impulsive personality disorder traits in their first-degree relatives. Reduced prolactin responses to fenfluramine in aggressive boys are associated also with a parental history of aggressive behavior. Also, the density of platelet 5-HT2A receptors was lower in boys with parents with histories of incarceration or substance abuse compared to family history-negative boys, suggesting decreased central 5-HT2 postsynaptic receptor function. Finally, CSF 5-HIAA levels in newborns with family histories of antisocial personality disorder were lower than in those with no family histories of antisocial personality disorder. By and large, these studies suggest that low central 5-HT function is associated with aggression, and perhaps impulsive aggression. However, there have been conflicting results. Patients with compulsive personalities had higher impulsive aggression scores than noncompulsive patients, and had blunted prolactin responses to fenfluramine compared to noncompulsive patients and nonpatient controls. Additionally, there have been at least five studies showing no association, or a positive relationship, between neuroendocrine responses to 5-HT agonist challenge and impulsivity or aggressivity. Recent evidence suggests that the 5-HT neurotransmitter system in aggressive boys may show a different developmental trajectory than that of nonaggressive boys. Prolactin responses to fenfluramine challenge in younger aggressive attention-deficit hyperactivity

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disorder boys were greater compared to attention deficit/ hyperactive nonaggressive boys with the same disorder. Also, prolactin response to fenfluramine was related positively to self-reported aggressivity and adverse-rearing environmental conditions in younger brothers of convicted delinquents. However, in an older cohort of boys, prolactin response was slightly higher in the nonaggressive boys (and therefore slightly blunted in the aggressive boys), suggesting that normal boys may show a developmental increase in serotonergic functioning not found in aggressive boys. This potentially interesting finding awaits replication. A recent investigation noted that central 5-HT function in childhood, measured via the prolactin response to fenfluramine, was negatively related with adolescent aggression assessed seven years later, and accounted for a significant proportion of variance in adolescent aggression. In one negative study, preadolescent and adolescent males with DBDs showed no differences in prolactin or cortisol release following d,l-fenfluramine challenge relative to controls. The neuroendocrine response was unrelated to aggression levels in those patients with disruptive behavior. A recent study found enhanced growth hormone responses to the relatively selective 5-HT1B/1D receptor agonist sumatriptan in DBD children, suggesting an increased sensitivity of these postsynaptic receptors, possibly due to an upregulation secondary to reduced brain 5-HT availability. Adolescent males and females with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and comorbid conduct disorder also demonstrated elevated cortisol responses following fenfluramine challenge relative to those with AUDs and no comorbid CD and normal controls. Cortisol responses were also positively related to aggression in the total sample. Other putative peripheral indicators of central 5-HT function have been studied although their significance remains equivocal. The availability of plasma tryptophan, the amino acid precursor of 5-HT, for uptake across the blood–brain barrier in violent individuals has been studied. Tryptophan competes with other large neutral amino acids for the same carrier for brain uptake. Contrary to expectation, increased concentrations of tryptophan and competing amino acids were found in violent offenders compared to nonviolent offenders and nonoffenders and in violent male offenders with intermittent explosive disorder, compared to those with antisocial personality and healthy controls. In one of these studies, there was no difference in the relationship between tryptophan and its amino acid competitors between the violent offenders and controls. Contrary to the findings in violent offenders, tryptophan has been negatively related to aggressive behavior in studies with other clinical groups. One study with a small sample found preliminary evidence that impulsive adolescents have low tryptophan levels and a reduced ratio of tryptophan to the other large neutral amino acids competing for brain uptake. Two reports

have indicated that a low ratio of tryptophan to the other amino acids which compete for brain entry is associated with increased aggression in alcoholics, particularly early- (<20 years old) as opposed to later-onset. A final report found a positive relationship between tryptophan levels and self-reported extroverted aggression. Clearly, more studies measuring the ratio of tryptophan to the other large neutral amino acids in aggressive individuals are needed. The dietary depletion of tryptophan has been utilized to reduce brain 5-HT levels/function and experimentally study the impact of this neurochemical alteration on behavior. Only one study has looked at the effect of an acute dietary depletion of tryptophan on self-reported aggressiveness in small sample of aggressive patients. No effect of tryptophan depletion was found, possibly due to a lack of provocation. A number of studies have found increased aggressive responding on laboratory tasks following acute dietary depletion of tryptophan in healthy males, particularly following provocation, and in individuals who are higher in baseline aggression (e.g., normal males high in hostile or antisocial traits, and young men who score high on aggression on the Buss–Durkee hostility inventory). In other studies using laboratory measures of aggression, aggressive responding on ‘point subtraction aggression paradigm’ (PSAP) was reduced in healthy males following administration of the 5-HT1A/1B agonist eltoprazine; however, nonaggressive responding was also reduced, suggesting an overall sedative effect. Three weeks’ administration of the 5-HT reuptake inhibitor paroxetine led to decreases in impulsive and aggressive responding on the PSAP that could not be attributed to a general sedative effect in twelve male subjects with a history of conduct disorder and criminal behavior. Also, a study with d,l-fenfluramine, which releases 5-HT and dopamine, reported significant decreases in aggressive and impulsive responses among a group of CD males on the PSAP. Additionally, prolactin response to citalopram, a 5-HT reuptake inhibitor, was negatively correlated to experimental aggression on the PSAP in a small sample of healthy males. Future experimental studies in humans using serotonin precursors, reuptake inhibitors, and receptor agonists in combination with receptor antagonists may provide more detailed information on the serotonergic regulation of aggressive and violent behavior. Studies of blood serotonin have generally noted a positive correlation with aggression. This relationship has been noted in violent male juvenile offenders, and with violence in an epidemiological study as well. This same relationship has been noted in studies with the following samples: depressed inpatients, hyperactive youth, conduct-disordered youth, children and adolescents with behavior disorders, and individuals with episodic aggression. One study, however, found no difference in whole blood 5-HT between violent offenders and

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controls, while another found lower whole blood 5-HT in aggressive versus nonaggressive patients. An additional two studies also noted lower blood 5-HT levels related to aggression. Taken together, these reports suggest a positive relationship between blood 5-HT and aggression. This appears paradoxical when compared to the negative relationship between CSF 5-HIAA and aggression. This paradox may be reconciled if serotonergic neurons and blood platelets share increased serotonergic transport. The 5-HT metabolite 5-HIAA has also been measured in plasma and investigated for its relationship to aggression; two studies have found plasma 5-HIAA to be significantly lower in DBD children than in normal controls, and inversely correlated with other-rated and experimentally induced aggression. A final study measured plasma 5-HIAA and found no association between it and self-reported measures of anger and hostility in seven violent criminals. Peripheral measures of 5-HT function also suggest that a 5-HT dysfunction is associated with aggression. Platelet 5-HT uptake studies are consistent in their finding of a negative association between 5-HT uptake and impulsiveness and aggressivity (although there are two studies finding no relationship, and one finding the opposite relationship). Platelet Bmax (number of binding sites) was reduced in CD children, highly aggressive mentally-retarded adults and suicide attempters, and male outpatients with ‘episodic aggression’, compared to controls. The number of platelet binding sites has been inversely correlated with measures of aggression in one study of a combined sample of conductdisordered children and healthy controls, a second study of personality-disordered individuals, and a third of schizophrenic and conduct-disordered adolescents. Platelet serotonin uptake has also been negatively correlated with impulsivity. (Consistent with these findings, a recent study found decreased blood platelet 5-HT content to be associated with aggression in personality-disordered and normal control individuals.) It has been postulated that reduced 5-HT uptake might lead to increase synaptic availability, reduced sensitivity of terminal 5-HTautoreceptors, a greater release of 5-HT per neuronal impulse, and a subsensitivity of postsynaptic 5-HT receptors, with the net effect being reduced 5-HT neurotransmission. Finally, in some of the only studies to look at social affiliation in humans, four-weeks’ administration of the 5-HT reuptake inhibitor paroxetine (double-blind, placebo-controlled) in healthy volunteers reduced hostility (and more generally negative affect), had no effect on positive affect, and increased a behavioral index of social affiliation (cooperative behavior during a puzzle-solving session). Changes in negative affect and affiliative behavior were significantly related to plasma paroxetine levels. In a second study, tryptophan supplementation decreased quarrelsome behaviors and increased agreeable behaviors and perceptions of agreeableness in healthy individuals selected to be high in quarrelsomeness.

Catecholamines (Norepinephrine, Dopamine) and Related Compounds The catecholamines, norepinephrine (NE; noradrenaline), and dopamine (DA), are formed from the amino acid tyrosine, which itself is derived from the amino acid phenylalanine. Cell bodies of the noradrenergic system are primarily located in the locus coeruleus. High concentrations of NE are also found in the hypothalamus. Dopamine is present in high levels in the neostriatum, nucleus accumbens, and olfactory tubercules. In the CNS, the major metabolite of NE is 3-methoxy-4hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG). In the peripheral sympathetic nervous system, vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) is the primary metabolite of NE. In the human brain, the primary metabolite of dopamine is homovanillic acid (HVA), with a smaller amount of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and 3-methoxytyramine formed. Free MHPG diffuses from the brain into the CSF and general circulation, so estimates of its concentration in the CSF are thought to reflect CNS noradrenergic neuronal activity. A proportion of CSF MHPG derives from the plasma, because free MHPG diffuses readily through membranes, so correction for the plasma contribution must be made. Plasma and urinary free MHPG may be useful indices of total body NE metabolism, but are not valid indices of brain NE metabolism, as the brain accounts for only approximately 30% of the total body production of MHPG. CSF HVA levels are taken as an index of DA metabolism in the CNS. The few studies that have been done investigating CSF MHPG in violent offenders suggest reduced levels of this neurochemical are associated with violent behavior. Impulsive arsonists (relative to habitually violent offenders and nonviolent controls) and alcoholic violent offenders and impulsive fire-setters with histories of violent suicide attempts (relative to those without) have low CSF MHPG. Low CSF MHPG also predicted recidivism in these individuals. Two other studies have found no differences in CSF NE or MHPG concentrations between groups of impulsive versus nonimpulsive violent offenders, so the relationship between violence and CSF MHPG remains to be confirmed. The noradrenergic system contributes to the regulation of arousal and responsiveness to the environment. Increased locus coeruleus activity has been associated with reactivity to novel and particularly threatening stimuli, decreased activity with self-restitutive or vegetative activity such as eating, self-grooming, and sleeping. The few studies that did find lower CSF MHPG in arsonists and impulsive violent offenders may imply reduced arousal and reactivity in these individuals. This is consistent with psychophysiological studies of psychopaths showing reductions in sympathetic nervous system arousal (e.g., skin conductance activity) compared to nonpsychopaths.

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The relatively few studies investigating NE functioning in personality-disordered individuals suggest a positive correlation with aggression. CSF MHPG levels were positively correlated with self-reported aggression in personality-disordered military personnel (although the variance in aggression explained was low after controlling for CSF 5-HIAA). In another study, growth hormone responses to the alpha-2-adrenergic agonist clonidine were positively correlated with sensation-seeking and risk-taking behaviors, and self-reported lifetime irritability (but not assaultiveness) in both personality-disordered patients and normal controls. (Note that there was no correlation between growth hormone responses and overt aggression or impulsivity in this study.) In another study with personality-disordered individuals, growth hormone responses to clonidine were associated with irritability and verbal hostility. These results are difficult to reconcile with those found in violent offenders, which suggest that increased NE function is related to aggression and violence. It has been suggested that reduced presynaptic and increased postsynaptic NE function are related to aggression. Increased presynaptic alpha-2 NE receptor activity in the locus coeruleus (as has been suggested by increased locus coeruleus alpha-2 agonist binding in violent, but not nonviolent, suicides victims) may lead to reduced NE outflow (and thus reduced CSF MHPG) and an upregulation of postsynaptic alpha-2 NE receptors, thus increasing growth hormone responses to clonidine. Overall, this might lead to an augmented alpha2 NE signal in NE pathways in the presence of aversive, provocative stimuli, resulting in a heightened behavioral arousal (fight/flight response). Furthermore, alpha-2 heteroceptors terminating on presynaptic 5-HT neurons may be supersensitive, leading to greater inhibition of 5-HT firing. Such a synthesis is intriguing and provides a number of testable hypotheses. Less evidence in humans implicates the dopaminergic system in violent behavior. Studies on violent offenders have found no differences in CSF HVA levels in arsonists versus habitually violent offenders and nonviolent controls, convicted violent criminals who committed impulsive versus premeditated crimes, violent offenders and impulsive fire-setters with histories of serious violent suicide attempts compared to those with no such histories, or between impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder, impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with intermittent explosive disorder, nonimpulsive alcoholic violent offenders and healthy volunteers. Violent criminals with antisocial personality disorder had lower levels of CSF HVA compared to those with paranoid or passiveaggressive personality disorders. CSF DA levels and turnover were not different between five XYYassaultive patients and controls. No differences in CSF DOPAC or HVA have been found between convicted violent criminals who committed impulsive versus premeditated crimes.

One study has found that violent alcoholic offenders had slightly higher striatal dopamine reuptake site densities compared to nonviolent alcoholic offenders and nonalcoholic controls, suggesting that violence is associated with increased dopaminergic activity in the brain. Finally, two studies suggested that violent male offenders may be either higher or lower in their levels of free or conjugated plasma phenylacetic acid, the major metabolite of phenylethylamine following its breakdown by monoamine oxidase (MAO) B, compared to nonviolent offenders. Phenylethylamine, structurally related to amphetamine, has a similar pharmacological response to the latter when administered following pre-treatment with an MAO inhibitor. It is synthesized from the amino acid phenylalanine. It has been posited that increased phenylacetic acid levels in violent offenders may indicate increased phenylethylamine levels, the latter representing a compensatory increase to reduce aggressive tendencies, much the way amphetamine reduces hyperactivity in attention-deficit and hyperactive children. Peptides The relationships between the oxytocin and arginine vasopressin neurohypophyseal peptide systems and aggressive and prosocial behavior have been explored. A recent study found a positive relationship between CSF vasopressin and lifetime aggressive behavior in personality-disordered individuals. CSF vasopressin was inversely correlated with prolactin responses to d-fenfluramine, but not CSF 5-HIAA. Additionally, men perceived unfamiliar same-sex faces as less friendly and responded with more agonistic facial motor patterns following intranasal vasopressin administration, whereas women perceived similar stimuli as more friendly and responded with more affiliative facial motor patterns. Animal studies suggest an interaction between 5-HT and vasopressin, as 5-HT compounds reduce brain vasopressin levels and decrease aggressive behavior. A hyposensitive 5-HT system may result in enhanced CNS vasopressin and increased aggressive behavior. Yet, as mentioned previously, another study found no difference in CSF vasopressin between impulsive alcoholic violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder, those with intermittent explosive disorder, nonimpulsive alcoholic violent offenders, and healthy volunteers. The neuropeptide oxytocin has been implicated in prosocial and affiliative behavior in animal studies, and thus has been the subject of limited study in human prosociality as well. In one study, intranasal oxytocin significantly increased trust compared to placebo in male volunteers who were randomly assigned to receive intranasal oxytocin or placebo and then played a ‘trust game’, in which trusting the other player might lead to higher payoffs for both players, but with the participant running the risk that the other player may violate that

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trust. A control risk condition revealed that the effects of oxytocin were not simply due to an increased willingness to engage in risky behavior; rather, they were due to participants’ willingness to accept social risks, providing evidence for the involvement of oxytocin in human prosocial behavior. It has been suggested that oxytocin may increase trust and prosocial behavior by dampening amygdala responsivity to the potential dangers inherent in social situations (i.e., by dampening social fear). The impact of a reduction in caregiver emotional and physical contact on oxytocin and vasopressin have also been the subject of study. Children who spend time in orphanages immediately after birth were compared to controls with no such history and found to have lower basal vasopressin (but not oxytocin) levels, and lower oxytocin (but not vasopressin) levels following physical contact with their mothers compared to control. The only study in humans to investigate the role of endogenous opioids in aggression has found a positive correlation between CSF opioid-binding protein and self-reported assaultiveness in healthy males. Acetylcholine Evidence linking brain acetylcholine and human aggression/violence is limited to the effects of nicotine. Nicotine is an agonist of nicotinic cholinergic receptors in the CNS. Nicotine cigarettes decrease experimental aggression in a competitive task in healthy humans. Experienced aggressive smokers titrate their nicotine intake in part to reduce their anger. Withdrawal from smoking is associated with increased hostility and irritability. Conversely, one study found that the frequency of weekly cigarette smoking was weakly correlated with scores on the Buss–Durkee Hostility Inventory in healthy men.

Other Neurochemicals Monoamine Oxidase Monoamine oxidase (MAO) is one of the enzymes that metabolizes monoamine neurotransmitters. There are two forms of this compound; MAOA primarily oxidizes 5-HT, NE and epinephrine, while MAOB primarily oxidizes phenylethylamine and benzylamine. DA, tyramine and tryptamine are oxidized by both forms. Human blood platelets express MAOB primarily. Recently, a mutation in gene coding resulting in deficient MAOA activity has been associated with borderline mental retardation and aggressive/impulsive behavior (verbal threats, aggressive posturing, exhibitionism, attempted rape, arson) in several males of a large Dutch kindred. This MAOA deficiency was associated with decreased urinary 5-HIAA, HVA, and VMA. This finding compares well to a report of a similar MAOA

deficiency in a line of transgenic mice associated with increased aggression in males and high levels of brain 5-HT, NE, and DA. These findings suggest a different neurochemical mechanism leading to aggressive/violent behavior than commonly put forward (i.e., that low 5-HT is associated with aggressive/impulsive behavior). It has been hypothesized that a prenatal MAOA deficiency resulting in increased brain 5-HT in early development may alter receptor densities and/or serotonergic innervation, possibly resulting in an overall reduction in serotonergic functioning. Additionally, a polymorphism in the MAOA gene which codes for the MAOA enzyme has been linked to aggression in two studies, with an additional three not supporting this association. Further, individuals with a functional polymorphism in the gene encoding MAOA which conferred higher levels of MAOA expression and who were maltreated as children were less likely to develop all four antisocial behaviors measured. A recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study in healthy volunteers found that the low expression MAOA gene variant was associated with increased risk of violent behavior, predicted pronounced limbic volume reductions and hyperresponsive amygdalae during emotional arousal, with diminished reactivity of regulatory prefrontal regions, compared with the high expression allele. Platelet MAO (primarily MAOB) has been measured as a marker of the functional capacity of the serotonergic system, despite the lack of a correlation between platelet and brain MAO activities. CSF 5-HIAA and platelet MAO are positive correlated in healthy volunteers and pain patients, however, suggesting some basis for interpretation. Studies suggest that violent offenders may have lower platelet MAOB activity compared to nonviolent offenders, although some studies suggest no differences. Lower platelet MAO is also associated with psychopathy (a personality concept that may include individuals who are aggressive). Furthermore, platelet MAO is also inversely correlated with general aggressiveness and feelings of anger or frustration, as well as behavioral patterns associated with violent or nonviolent criminal behavior, including defiance of punishment, impulsivity, childhood hyperactivity, poor academic performance, sensationseeking, recreation drug use, alcohol abuse, and extraversion. Some personality traits and behavioral dispositions commonly associated with aggressive and violent behavior (e.g., disinhibition, impulsivity, externalizing behaviors, and sensation-seeking) have been inversely associated with platelet MAO levels in studies with normal volunteers. A recent study found that low platelet MAO activity and high tri-iodothyronine (T3) levels were found significantly more frequently than expected in violent offenders with an early behavioral risk pattern, defined as early criminal behavior, attention difficulties, and aggressive behavior. (Elevated thyroid hormones (i.e., T3) have been found to decrease the sympathetic activity and low

Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence 63

sympathetic activity has been demonstrated in criminal groups.) Clinical studies measuring MAO in children reveal somewhat contradictory findings, with lower platelet MAO in youth with dual diagnoses of CD and attentiondeficit disorder compared to those with CD alone, but higher platelet MAO activity in conduct-disordered sons of substance-abusing fathers relative to non-conductdisordered sons of substance-abusing fathers and conduct-disordered sons of nonsubstance-abusing fathers. Also, impulsivity in children with DBDs is positively correlated with platelet MAO activity. These discrepancies may be explained by developmental changes that might occur in MAO functioning. In sum, although evidence suggests lower MAO activity is associated with aggression/violence, contradictory evidence exists, and further clarification is needed, particularly concerning the functional significance of low MAO activity. Glucose Regulation Violent offenders and impulsive fire-setters have low blood glucose concentrations following the oral glucose tolerance test. This hypoglycemic response may be a consequence of enhanced insulin activity also noted in these samples. A low blood glucose nadir following oral glucose challenge predicts recidivism (however, an extension of this sample failed to replicate this finding). These studies should be interpreted with caution, as betweengroup differences in diet and alcohol use/abuse may have accounted for the observed findings. In particular, the violent offenders in these studies had histories of alcohol abuse; alcohol is known to enhance insulin secretion. The low glucose nadir/violence relationship was not replicated in drug abusers, suggesting that recent ingestion of drugs may affect responses on the glucose tolerance test. Congruent with the studies in violent offenders, a tendency toward reactive hypoglycemia was correlated with self-reported aggressiveness in healthy males. Nevertheless, these findings, together with those suggesting reduced CSF 5-HIAA in violent offenders, have led to a model of serotonin involvement in the production of impulsive aggression. In this model, reduced serotonergic innervation from the dorsal and median raphe´ nuclei to the suprachiasmatic nucleus leads to a disturbance in circadian rhythms, resulting in increased dysphoria or dysthymia, which prompts excessive alcohol use (and the acute release of serotonin) to ameliorate this subjective state. Reduced suprachiasmatic serotonergic functioning disturbs glucose metabolism, which results in lowered blood glucose levels and an increased propensity for impulsive, aggressive behavior. Excessive alcohol use subsequently lowers serotonergic functioning, which further increases the propensity for impulsivity. Further experimental tests of this theory are warranted.

Cholesterol An association between low plasma cholesterol concentration and violence has been prompted by the observation that programs designed to reduce total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol reduced heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths, but did not decrease total mortality. Total mortality remained high due to an increase in noncardiovascular deaths, including those due to suicide, homicide, and accidents. It has been hypothesized that lowered cholesterol may cause increased accidental and violent death directly, and that factors such as alcohol use, smoking, disease, medications, or socioeconomic factors may reduce cholesterol. Alternatively, these factors may cause increases in accidental or violent death as well as lowered cholesterol, with low cholesterol not causally implicated in accidental or violent death. While a 1990 meta-analysis demonstrated significantly greater deaths from accidents, suicide, or violence in groups being treated to lower cholesterol relative to controls, three more recent follow-up studies with large sample sizes have not confirmed an association between low cholesterol and death due to accidents, suicide, or violence. Also, a small number of studies have found low serum cholesterol levels in violent individuals relative to controls, particularly in those under the influence of alcohol. In one study, however, low fasting cholesterol concentration did not predict recidivism in alcoholic violent offenders and fire-setters. A more recent study investigated the relationships between plasma levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglycerides, apolipoprotein A-I (apo A-I), and apolipoprotein B (apo B) and self-rated aggression in young adult males with personality disorders and/or an aggressive propensity and controls. Apo A-I is the major apolipoprotein associated with HDL-C. Apo B is essential for the binding of LDL particles to the LDL receptors, allowing cells to internalize LDL and absorb cholesterol. In the controls, higher aggression was correlated with lower atherogenic lipoprotein levels (LDL-C and apo B). In the aggressive participants, higher aggression was related to lower anti-atherogenic lipoprotein levels (HDL-C and apo A-I) and higher levels of LDL-C. These researchers suggested that the apo A-I/apo B ratio might be a useful marker for increased risk for violence. It has been suggested that low cholesterol may lead to low impulse control, increasing the chances of violent death. Furthermore, the association between low cholesterol and accidental and violent death may be mediated by reduced brain serotonergic activity. There is limited evidence for the link between lowered cholesterol and reduced 5-HT function; in separate studies with macaque monkeys put on a low-fat, low-cholesterol diets, blunted prolactin responses to fenfluramine, and lower CSF 5-HIAA concentrations, possible indicating reduced central serotonergic function, were

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found relative to monkeys on high fat, high cholesterol diets. Monkeys on the low fat diet were more aggressive and less socially affiliative as well. Recently it was reported that hospitalized male personality-disordered cocaine addicts with a history of aggression had lower levels of HDL cholesterol, and that the latter was also correlated with blunted cortisol responses to m-CPP, suggesting a possible causal relationship between low cholesterol and alterations in 5-HT activity. Additionally, platelet serotonin uptake in humans increases in the presence of low serum cholesterol, possibly leading to decreased serotonin availability. Lowered cholesterol might also reduced brain serotonin activity by altering cell membrane permeability and microviscosity, reducing serotonin receptor numbers. Despite this suggestive evidence, the link between low cholesterol and violent behavior is tenuous. Confounding variables, such as side effects of cholesterol-lowering drugs, disease, or psychiatric disorders, may be responsible for the increase in accidental and violent deaths observed in some studies through mechanisms other than lowered cholesterol. It is also important to emphasize that low cholesterol concentrations have been primarily linked to deaths due to violence, not violent behavior.

Summary/Conclusions Clearly, the empirical study of the biochemistry of aggressive and violent behavior in humans has just begun. The most well-replicated relationship appears to be the inverse association between indicators of central serotonergic function and aggressive/violent behavior, or perhaps more specifically, impulsive aggressive/violent behavior. This general finding is supported by a large animal literature showing that experimental increases in 5-HT function result in decreases in aggression, while decreases in 5-HT function increase aggression. A positive relationship between testosterone and aggression/ violence is also suggested by a large number of studies. The magnitude of this relationship appears to be small, and it may be due, at least in part, to increases in testosterone following commission of aggressive or violent behavior. The inverse association between platelet MAO activity and aggressive/violent behavior is also intriguing; however, its significance remains questionable. It is important to note again that the large majority of studies on the biochemistry of aggression and violence in humans are correlational in nature; the direction of the brain–behavior relationship cannot be specified from these studies. A neglected area of research is the biochemistry of prosocial, affiliative behavior in humans. Presumably these relationships would be the inverse of those found for aggressive and violent (i.e., antisocial) behavior (e.g., the serotonin reuptake inhibitor paroxetine increasing affiliative behavior in healthy volunteers). Higher order relationships are

certainly possible, however. Greater emphasis also needs to be placed on experimental studies in humans in which neurotransmitter or hormonal functioning is altered and the effects on behavior observed. Such studies will help to elucidate the biochemical mechanisms contributing to human aggression and violence. Investigators are only beginning to map out possible neurotransmitter/neurotransmitter and neurotransmitter/hormone interactions in the regulation of human aggressive and violent behavior. Serotonin/norepinephrine and serotonin/testosterone interactions have been hypothesized; however, experiments designed to test these relationships in humans have only just begun. One of the difficulties in this field is the lack of easily measurable peripheral indicators of central neurotransmitter function. Hormonal responses to neurotransmitter agonist challenges represent one such indicator; whole blood serotonin may yet prove to be another. Future investigation of adrenal/gonadal hormonal interactions promise to provide a greater understanding of the relationship between hormones, stress, and aggressive behavior. Interactions between biochemistry and the environment will also need to be a focus of future investigation. A biochemical system may be tuned in such a fashion that it provides a template for the occurrence of aggression or violent behavior given the occurrence of certain environmental stimuli. For example, individuals with low serotonin may exhibit aggressive behavior specifically when provoked. Studies designed to demonstrate persons by environment interactions will help to illuminate the multitude of interactions that likely occur in the expression of aggressive and violent behavior in humans. An array of newer techniques have the potential to further enhance our understanding of human aggressive, violent, and prosocial behavior. In vivo imaging of brain neurotransmitter synthesis and receptor function will clarify the neurochemical systems regulating prosocial and aggressive behavior. Groups of well-defined individuals selected for specific behavioral characteristics (e.g., physical aggression, impulsivity) should be studied in order to advance our knowledge of the biochemistry of the components of clinical disorders (e.g., conduct disorder). Only through such finegrained analyses will the biochemical underpinnings of prosocial, aggressive, and violent behavior be illuminated. See also: Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology

Further Reading Archer, J. (1994). Testosterone and aggression. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 21, 3–25. Archer, J., Graham-Kevan, N., and Davies, M. (2005). Testosterone and aggression: A reanalysis of Book, Starzyk, and Quinsey’s (2001) study. Aggression and Violent Behavior 10, 241–261.

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates 65 Bartz, J. A. and Hollander, E. (2006). The neuroscience of affiliation: Forging links between basic and clinical research on neuropeptides and social behavior. Hormones and Behavior 50, 518–528. Berman, M. E., Tracy, J. I., and Coccaro, E. F. (1997). The serotonin hypothesis of aggression revisited. Clinical Psychology Review 17, 651–665. Brain, P. F. (1994). Hormonal aspects of aggression and violence. In Reiss, A. J. Jr., Miczek, K. A., and Roth, J. A. (eds.) Understanding and preventing violence, vol. 2: Biobehavioral influences, pp. 173–244. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Coccaro, E. F. (1996). Neurotransmitter correlates of impulsive aggression in humans. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 794, 82–89. Coccaro, E. F. and Kavoussi, R. J. (1994). Neuropsychopharmacologic challenge in biological psychiatry. Clinical Chemistry 40, 319–327. Coccaro, E. F., Kavoussi, R. J., Trestman, R. L., et al. (1997). Serotonin function in human subjects: Intercorrelations among central 5-HT indices and aggressiveness. Psychiatry Research 73, 1–14. Davidson, R. J., Putnam, K. M., and Larson, C. L. (2000). Dysfunction in the neural circuitry of emotion regulation – A possible prelude to violence. Science 289, 591–594. Eichelman, B. (1987). Neurochemical and psychopharmacologic aspects of aggressive behavior. In Meltzer, H. Y. (ed.) Psychopharmacology: The third generation of progress, pp. 697–704. New York: Raven Press. Ellis, L. (1991). Monoamine oxidase and criminality: Identifying an apparent biological marker for antisocial behavior. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 28, 227–251. Golomb, B. A., Stattin, H., and Mednick, S. (2000). Low cholesterol and violent crime. Journal of Psychiatric Research 34, 301–309. Hillbrand, M. and Spitz, R. T. (1999). Cholesterol and aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior 4, 359–370. Kanarek, R. B. (1994). Nutrition and violent behavior. In Reiss, A. J. Jr., Miczek, K. A., and Roth, J. A. (eds.) Understanding and preventing

violence, vol. 2: Biobehavioral influences, pp. 515–539. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Mann, J. J. (1995). Violence and aggression. In Bloom, F. E. and Kupfer, D. J. (eds.) Psychopharmacology: The fourth generation of progress, pp. 1919–1928. New York: Raven Press. Miczek, K. A., Haney, M., Tidey, J., Vivian, J., and Weerts, E. (1994). Neurochemistry and pharmacotherapeutic management of aggression and violence. In Reiss, A. J. Jr., Miczek, K. A., and Roth, J. A. (eds.) Understanding and preventing violence, vol. 2: Biobehavioral influences, pp. 245–514. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Moore, T. M., Scarpa, A., and Raine, A. (2002). A meta-analysis of serotonin metabolite 5-HIAA and antisocial behavior. Aggressive Behavior 28, 299–316. Pihl, R. O. and Benkelfat, C. (2005). Neuromodulators in the development and expression of inhibition and aggression. In Tremblay, R. E., Hartup, W. W., and Archer, J. (eds.) Developmental origins of aggression, pp. 261–280. New York: Guilford. Potter, W. Z. and Manji, H. K. (1993). Are monoamine metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid worth measuring? Archives of General Psychiatry 50, 653–656. Rubinow, D. R. and Schmidt, P. J. (1996). Androgens, brain, and behavior. American Journal of Psychiatry 153, 974–984. Santiago, J. M. and Dalen, J. E. (1994). Cholesterol and violent behavior. Archives of Internal Medicine 154, 1317–1321. van Goozen, S. H. M. (2005). Hormones and the developmental origins of aggression. In Tremblay, R. E., Hartup, W. W., and Archer, J. (eds.) Developmental origins of aggression, pp. 281–306. New York: Guilford. van Goozen, S. H. M., Fairchild, G., Snoek, H., and Harold, G. T. (2007). The evidence for a neurobiological model of childhood antisocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin 133, 149–182. Volavka, J. (1999). The neurobiology of violence: An update. Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences 11, 307–314.

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates Hanna Kokko, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Why Natural Selection Can Produce Aggressive Behavior Understanding Aggression in Animals: Game Theory in Evolutionary Studies Territoriality

Glossary Allele An alternative form of a gene. For example, in humans, eye color is genetically determined. Brown-eyed individuals have at least one copy of an allele that leads to the production of brown pigment,

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by John Paul Scott, volume 1, pp 57–66, ã 1999, Elsevier Inc.

Social Behavior, Reproductive Skew, and Dominance Hierarchies Aggression in Sexual Contexts Summary Further Reading

whereas the alleles of blue-eyed individuals do not lead to pigment production. Bruce Effect Apparently spontaneous abortion of fetuses when the female encounters an unfamiliar male (or is exposed to the scent of such a male).

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Dear Enemy Effect Reduced aggression toward familiar neighbors in a territorial context. Evolution A change in the frequency of different alleles in a population over time. Much of evolution is due to natural selection that favors different genotypes, but alternative mechanisms are possible too. For example, alleles can sometimes disappear by chance and ‘bad luck’, particularly in small populations. Evolutionarily Stable Strategy A strategy that, once established in a population, cannot be replaced by any other strategy. Replacement occurs if an alternative strategy leads to a higher rate of offspring production. Genotype The alleles of a particular individual. The definition of a genotype is context dependent. For example, two blue-eyed individuals can be said to have the same genotype when studying eye color, even if these two individuals are otherwise genetically different. Intrasexual Competition Competition for access to mates, which occurs between members of the same sex. Intrasexual competition is often more intense among males than among females, because there are usually more males available and ready to mate than females at any point in time. This, in turn, reflects the greater effort spent by females in parenting duties. There are also numerous examples in which the roles

Why Natural Selection Can Produce Aggressive Behavior It is easy to understand why a lion has evolved weapons such as sharp canine teeth and claws that allow it to kill prey efficiently. Likewise, it is easy to comprehend why a female lion tolerates playful bites from her cubs without using her powerful weapons against her own offspring: it is important to practice all skills required for survival later in life, and it is not in the interest of the mother to kill her own offspring. There are, however, numerous instances in which animals do behave aggressively against members of their own species. Male lions, for example, fight for dominance status and ownership of a female harem, and injuries can be fatal. Worse still, if ownership changes, the new male often kills all the young and defenseless cubs present in the harem. It may appear counterintuitive that natural selection can favor such behaviors. A common misconception among laymen is that natural selection favors the survival of a species, and killing young conspecifics appears decidedly counterproductive in this context. However, since the 1960s it has been clear to evolutionary biologists that species- or group-level explanations of selective pressures are often

are reversed (e.g., in fishes that care for offspring, the carer is usually the male). Natural Selection A major mechanism of evolution that is based on the fact that fitness (a measure of offspring production) often depends on the genotype of an individual. Genotypes that lead to low survival or low reproductive success, for example, due to low competitive ability in intrasexual competition decrease in frequency from one generation to the next. Prior Residence Effect The tendency of individuals to win fights over ownership of a particular area if they resided there first. Recognition Allele An allele that can be sensed by conspecifics, for example, alleles that lead to the production of a characteristic smell. Resource Holding Potential The ability of an individual to acquire resources or defend them when in competition with conspecifics. Sexual Conflict A difference in the optimal trait expression between males and females. One distinguishes between intralocus conflict, which means that the genotype that produces a highly fit male is not the best genotype when it is expressed in a female, and interlocus conflict, where the genotype expressed by males has direct effect on females (or vice versa) when the male and the female interact, for example, during mating.

wrong. The reasons were elegantly popularized by Richard Dawkins in his first major work The Selfish Gene (1976). The core of the argument is depicted in Figure 1. Even if a selfish behavior reduces population size, genes dictating such behaviors can spread at the expense of other, more benign alternatives, if this allows the aggressive individuals a greater share of resources (e.g., food, or prospects of paternity for a male) compared to conspecifics. In other words, evolution can be characterized as a very short-sighted process that does not necessarily promote the long-term survival of a species. For instance, infanticide by newly dominant males can be selected for because females who no longer lactate come into estrus more quickly than females who care for their previous young. The new estrus allows the newly dominant male to mate with his new females and produce more offspring of his own during his lifetime. Thus, genes that make males kill offspring are more efficient at replicating and this behavior can become the norm in a population, even if the population’s overall reproductive output is compromised. The threat of infanticide can even lead to the so-called Bruce effect, where female pregnancies are disrupted in the presence of a novel male (well documented in mice and voles). It may be energetically cheaper and hence advantageous for a female to abort

Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates 67 Generation 1 Generation 2

Generation 1 Generation 2

A A

A

A

A B B

A B

B

B

B

B

B

B

Figure 1 How selfish genes work, i.e., why selfish behavior can be selected for at the expense of species performance. Consider a species in which each individual, when foraging alone, can gather enough resources to raise three offspring. In the scenario on the left, two individuals (A and B) do just this; the total population size increases from two to six in one generation. In the scenario on the right, genotype B is a mutant who behaves differently: it spends some of its effort stealing food from A. Stealing is assumed wasteful: having some of resources stolen drops A’s offspring production more (by two offspring) compared to B’s increase (one offspring). Wastefulness can arise, e.g., because the resource has to be looked for twice, first by A and then by B who spends some effort in her stealing trips. The assumed 50% level of wastefulness of a selfish act is probably exaggerated for some natural situations, but even with this extreme level of waste that might be assumed to be weeded out by natural selection, the selfish behavior in fact spreads in the population. The proportion of individuals who have the genotype B increases in one generation from 1/2 to 4/5. Note that the whole population grows less efficiently (to five instead of six individuals) as a result.

fetuses than to invest more resources in them, if they are going to be killed anyway. If one is tempted to argue that females could ‘win’ by ‘refusing’ to become receptive to a male who has killed their offspring, the counterargument of short-sighted evolution once again applies. While it is certainly conceivable that genes could cause such refusal (without implying conscious thought or even emotions, as only physiological processes need to be involved), a female will only damage her own reproductive success by refusing to reproduce. Females who agree to produce offspring with the new male have higher reproductive success than females who do not. This short-term cost to the spread of ‘refusing’ genes prevents the potential longer-term benefit, that refusal could make the damaging male behavior futile, from operating in time. This example highlights two important principles. First, one has to take great care when developing evolutionary arguments, to avoid arguing at the level of group or species benefits, when genes in individuals can in fact benefit from acting against conspecifics. This is the principal reason why aggressive behavior can evolve. Second, evolution is fundamentally amoral. It does not necessarily produce behaviors that are considered morally correct

when applied to humans. Naturally selected behavior can be very cruel. The question of whether a behavior is adaptive is a separate one from whether its occurrence is desirable, and likewise it is a different one than asking whether and to what extent the behavior can be prevented or encouraged in the present-day world. Therefore, one should not fall into the trap of arguing that behavior X has to be considered acceptable because there is a reason to believe that it has improved reproductive success of individuals in the past of a species. This is an example of Hume’s Guillotine, according to which it is not logically possible to derive statements about ‘what ought to be’ based on ‘what is’.

Understanding Aggression in Animals: Game Theory in Evolutionary Studies There are examples of species in which lethal fights are common: for example, fig wasps routinely fight for the ownership of a fig (where eggs are laid) until only one wasp is alive. While the above section gave the basic reasons why such behaviors can evolve, lethal fighting is nevertheless not the norm in the animal kingdom. For example, territory owners of many birds, fishes, or mammals appear to have an established right to roam within their (often invisible) territorial boundaries, and neighbors only attack each other if the boundary is crossed. Whether in a territorial context or not, observed aggression also often appears to show signs of restraint. Instead of a straightforward attack typical of a predator–prey encounter, in conspecific aggression one often first observes signaling that involves ‘ritualized’ behaviors such as intense bird song, display of weapons, or behaviors that allow body size assessment to take place, such as side-by-side walking by male deer. Only if several stages of intensifying displays do not lead to one individual giving up, the fight escalates. A breakthrough in the understanding of animal conflict arose in the 1970s, when game-theoretic thinking entered evolutionary biology. Game theory has its roots in the economics, but evolutionary biology deals with many similar problems: in both fields the central question is to find out what behaviors best serve the interest of an individual in a competitive world. The problem has a game-theoretic nature whenever the payoffs (in an evolutionary context, offspring production, or the resources required for this) depend on the behavior of other individuals of a population. In economic theory, one has to make the assumption that individuals play rationally to maximize their payoffs. In studies of animal behavior, however, game theory requires no assumption of advanced cognitive capabilities of individuals. Instead, natural selection makes genes spread in a population if they cause behavior that yields high payoffs, which is the reason why existing behaviors are expected to perform well in payoff-maximizing tasks as

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long as the task has been encountered frequently enough in the evolutionary past of an organism. In the question of conflict over resources, the behavior in question is aggressiveness, and the first illustrative example is the so-called Hawk-Dove game, developed in the 1970s by pioneers such as John Maynard Smith, George Price, and Geoffrey Parker. Perhaps misleadingly, ‘Hawk’ and ‘Dove’ do not imply a predator–prey relationship here, but they are labels for strategies (that can be thought to reflect different alleles of a gene) used by individuals of one species. Consider that two conspecific individuals meet and they are interested in a resource that cannot be shared, for example, a cavity required to build a nest. If one of the individuals is more aggressive than the other – that is, one plays Hawk while the other one plays Dove – the Hawk strategy gains access to the resource, and Dove gains nothing but suffers no injuries either. Denoting the value of the resource by V (in units of fitness, e.g., the expected offspring production from this cavity), the Hawk gains V and the Dove gains 0. If both are equally aggressive (both play Hawk), they are assumed to fight until one gets injured and has to accept its loss. The injury costs C fitness units. Initially, the individuals are assumed to be equally strong; thus, pure luck is assumed to determine who wins, and both players can expect to gain, on average (V–C)/2 fitness units. If two Doves meet, on the other hand, there is no aggression but once again chance determines who wins the resource: the expected gain is V/2. Table 1 summarizes the game. In a population in which everyone plays Dove, it is clearly better to be a Hawk, as others will not challenge and ownership is secured (Hawk scores V > 0, Dove scores 0). The higher reproductive success of Hawks enables the Hawk strategy to spread in the population; this also means that Hawks increasingly meet other Hawks and thus have to risk injury in real fights. In a population consisting of a proportion p of Hawks and 1 – p of Doves, the expected payoff to a Hawk is p(V – C)/2 þ (1 – p)V, while the expected payoff to Doves is (1 – p)V/2 since Doves only gain fitness if they meet another Dove. Being a Hawk is favored by natural selection only if p(V – C)/2 þ (1 – p)V > (1 – p) V/2, which is true as long as p < V/C. Therefore, if the risk

Table 1 The payoff matrix of the Hawk–Dove game. The first value of each cell in the matrix gives the payoff to individual A, the second value gives the payoff to individual B Individual A

Individual B

Hawk

Dove

Hawk

V C V C ; 2 2

0, V

Dove

V, 0

V V , 2 2

of injuries C is larger than the value of the resource V, we expect the Hawk strategy to spread only up to a fraction p ¼ V/C in the population. This model is oversimplified, but it illustrates an important conceptual point: it may be adaptive to fight against conspecifics, but it may also be adaptive to avoid too risky behaviors. The proportion p of aggressive individuals is evolutionarily stable: if a population deviates upwards from this equilibrium, nonaggressive individuals reproduce better than aggressive ones who suffer many injuries, while if a population deviates downwards, aggressive Hawks reproduce better as they often gain access to resources by scaring off nonaggressive Doves without risking injury. The early Hawk–Dove games have been followed by a large literature of game-theory models of animal contests and their empirical tests. For example, models quickly established that stepwise fight escalation can be an evolutionarily stable behavior, based on the idea that each stage gives information about the relative strength of an opponent. It is not in the interest of an individual to fight in a situation that will lead to a guaranteed loss, and similarly it is not in the interest of the stronger opponent to fight if a display of superiority, that avoids any risk of injury, is sufficient to settle the contest. These models predict that the more closely matched the opponents are, the longer the displays are the higher the risk of escalation. These predictions are amply matched with empirical data on, for example, cichlids and lizards. It is also of interest to note that there is current evidence that costs of aggressionrelated traits can exist even if no injuries happen during the lifetime of an individual. Testosterone, for example, regulates aggressive behavior in a number of organisms, and heightened testosterone levels have been shown to compromise the functioning of the immune system of birds and mammals.

Territoriality Respect for Ownership In the context of territoriality, the central question is to explain why rules that indicate ‘respect for ownership’ can evolve. A male finch singing from a perch may signal two quite distinct messages: one is that females are welcome to join him, the other is that conspecific males better stay away. Intruders are, indeed, quickly chased away, and true takeovers occur only rarely. But there is not necessarily anything physically superior about this male finch: take him to a foreign territory, and he behaves like any intruder, being clearly subordinate to the owner of the other area. Such a ‘psychological’ home ground advantage begs for an explanation: if aggression is favored when it brings about selfish benefits in terms of resource use, how can we explain the orderly arrangement of individuals, each residing peacefully in their own territories?

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In the same era (1970s) that witnessed the introduction of game theory to the study of animal behavior, Nick Davies conducted a series of now classic experiments with a butterfly species called the speckled wood (Parage aegeria). This butterfly inhabits brightly sunlit patches in otherwise shady woodlands, sunlight being important for an ectotherm (cold-blooded) animal. Males defend patches to which females are welcome. If two males meet, their contests consist of rapidly circling flights, that continue until one individual gives up and flies away (note that injury does not appear to play a role in such a contest, but energetic costs, wear and tear, and time costs may be relevant to short-lived animals). Davies observed that the butterfly that had entered the patch first was always the winner of such contests. This so-called prior residence effect has since been found in a large number of animals from polychaete worms to mammals. Davies was able to experimentally trick both butterflies such that both perceived themselves to be the rightful owner, and the consequence was that contest flights lasted much longer, supporting the role of prior residence as a determinant of ownership. Explaining the prior residence effect has been an example of gradual progress in the evolutionary understanding of animal behavior. The basic Hawk–Dove game, described in the previous section, was quickly developed further to study the evolution of ownership. The so-called Hawk–Dove–Bourgeois game allows individuals to use the strategy termed Bourgeois, that dictates conditional behavior: in the role of an intruder (latecomer), the individual plays Dove, while if in the role of an owner (prior resident), the individual plays Hawk. If injuries are risky enough (high costs C), it can be shown that evolutionarily stable behavior is that all individuals use the Bourgeois strategy. Thus, evolution can favor population-wide respect for ownership, based on the argument that it is cheaper for both individuals to use an arbitrary role asymmetry (‘who was here first’) as a cue that settles the contest, if fights are risky enough. If the role asymmetry is arbitrary and not related to, for example, body size differences that could reflect true fighting ability, it is called a convention, based on an uncorrelated asymmetry. However, subsequent work has pointed out that the explanation is incomplete. The first problem is that the success of a model in producing an observed pattern is not yet proof that the model captures the essence of the evolutionary problem. There are alternative explanations that could apply: for example, animals may differ in their body size or strength (termed resource holding potential, or RHP), and perhaps strong individuals accumulate as owners while weaker ones remain non-territorial. In such cases there is a correlated asymmetry between the roles of owner versus intruder, and an intruder that gives up may do so because it respects strong owners rather than ownership per se. Also, owners may defend more vigorously

than intruders challenge them, because they have accumulated knowledge of their territory that makes this particular location more valuable to them than to a random individual: for example, a bird residing in an area has learned where the best food sources are, and where to seek refuge from sparrowhawks. An intruder who lacks this information should not value the resource equally highly. Additional explanations may apply in special cases: butterflies that have been basking in a sunlit patch for longer may be warmer and therefore more agile in a contest flight, and cichlids that have been residing in an area for longer may be closer to spawning and should hence value their breeding site more than a randomly chosen member of the population. An additional problem of the uncorrelated asymmetry hypothesis is that if the cue used to settle contests is truly arbitrary, there is no reason why owners should play Hawk and intruders Dove: the opposite behavior (anti-Bourgeois) is an equally logical outcome of the model if the role asymmetry reflects a truly arbitrary convention. In fact, Alan Grafen has argued in the 1980s that if individuals cannot breed at all unless they gain access to a territory, they have very little to lose and should be desperados who fight especially hard. Anti-Bourgeois is a paradoxical strategy, as it predicts that owners should give their homes to intruders whenever the latter request it – which is not the case in nature. New theoretical work has provided a theoretical solution to this problem, based on the fact that as fighting behaviors evolve, they will change the population-wide patterns of space use and availability of vacant breeding sites. Once this is considered, the prediction is that multiple factors may produce respect for ownership: conventions may underlie ownership respect without producing paradoxical anti-Bourgeois behavior, but the respect for ownership is further strengthened if individuals differ in their fighting abilities. The new models also predict that respect is rarely complete, which is in keeping with reality where forceful takeovers occasionally occur despite the home advantage of the owner. On the empirical front, experimental work has accumulated, allowing more sophisticated tests of the reasons why owners tend to win. In a new experiment on the speckled wood butterfly, for example, Darrell Kemp and Christer Wiklund have used controlled conditions (including a forest made of artificial Christmas trees!) to be able to control precisely for the previous experience and the temperature of individuals. They showed that all individuals appear equally motivated to fight, but intrinsically aggressive males accumulate as residents and tend to win in later fights too. Neighbors and Dear Enemies An often observed aspect of territorial animals is that they become habituated to familiar neighbors, but react much

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more aggressively to, for example, the song of a bird that belongs to an unfamiliar individual, or is heard from a different direction from the usual one. This phenomenon, called the dear enemy effect, makes good evolutionary sense whenever new intruders pose more of a threat than neighbors who have already established a territory and can be assumed to no longer be a threat to the resources held by the focal individual. Animals often not only recognize conspecifics individually, but may perform surprising cognitive feats. The hooded warbler Wilsonia citrina is a small songbird that weighs only 10–12 grams, and it not only discriminates between songs of different neighbors, but males also retain the memory of each of their neighbors’ songs after an 8-month period during which no singing occurs, and all individuals depart their territories to overwinter in Central America before they return to the same breeding territories. The complexity of potential responses to familiar neighbors versus strangers is also highlighted by the fact that sometimes neighbors are not dear enemies but instead present a bigger threat than strangers. Such a situation can arise, for example, in species that are not sexually faithful: for example, DNA fingerprinting has revealed that socially monogamous bird species often have multiple paternity in their nests. If territorial males, being dominant and strong, are also sexually preferred by females, the intrusion of a neighboring territorial male poses a larger risk of cuckoldry to a focal male than the intrusion of a young and inexperienced nonterritorial bird. There is evidence, for example, that male red-winged blackbirds Agelaius phoeniceus particularly distrust their neighbors if these are sexually attractive. Sexual competition also plays a role when new members are accepted to groups in species where several individuals defend the same territory. In Siberian jays Perisoreus infaustus, females behave aggressively toward new females, while males welcome these to the group – and vice versa. Where the dear enemy effect holds, it may be advantageous for an owner of a territory to maintain the ‘status quo’ as long as possible. Australian fiddler crabs Uca mjoebergi show highly intriguing behavior in this context. These crabs live in tidal mudflats, and each one has to survive the high tide by entering a burrow dug in the mud. Burrows are also regularly used during the low tide as a refuge from predators. Digging a burrow is very slow and tedious, and if a crab does not have one, it typically tries to fight for established burrows instead. Crabs vary in size as they grow from molt to molt, and Patricia Backwell and Michael Jennions have recently showed that large crabs often help their smaller neighbors when an intruder needs to be chased off. It appears that having a familiar neighbor is preferable to new boundary negotiations as these take time and energy that could be put to better use (foraging and breeding).

Social Behavior, Reproductive Skew, and Dominance Hierarchies Conflicts in Social Groups Nature abounds with different social organizations of animals. In the simplest cases, individuals exist solitarily, busy gathering enough resources for reproduction which sometimes does not even require a mate (asexual reproduction is not limited to ‘primitive organisms’: many vertebrate taxa such as lizards and fishes have asexual species). At the other extreme are social species that live in groups, for a variety of reasons that range from avoidance of predation to scarcity of potential nest sites. In animal societies, reproduction is often unequally divided, and the extreme example is an ant colony with only one or a few queens and a large number of female offspring that form the worker caste. Even among the queens (if there are several), reproduction is often unequal, a phenomenon described by the term reproductive skew. In low-skew societies most individuals reproduce, in high-skew ones such as wolf packs only dominants breed and others are assigned a subordinate role. In many but not all species, subordinates provide active help, feeding offspring, helping in territory defense, and performing other necessary tasks in the society. Given that natural selection should favor individuals who promote their own genetic interests, it is not trivial to explain why subordinates accept their role and do not always try to fight their way to the top of the hierarchy. Indeed, the question of the stability of dominance hierarchies (pecking orders) is similar to the question of respect for ownership. In both cases, the answer is that peaceful strategies may outperform aggressive ones during a sufficiently short time span (the lifetime of an individual) so that the evolutionary process favors peaceful behavior despite its short-sightedness. One example of a peaceful solution is that young individuals, who are not yet strong, do not benefit much from trying to replace the dominant member of the group, because the probability of winning is much too low; it is better to wait and grow. Another possibility is that even if individuals do not differ in fighting ability or expected future lifespan, it may be on average better to rely on luck that perhaps makes the focal individual outlive the current dominant and inherit its status, than to initiate a potentially dangerous fight that could involve injuries even if it was won. An additional reason for relatively stable dominance hierarchies is that social groups often consist of related individuals. Increasing the number of copies of one’s genes in the world can happen in a variety of ways, and direct reproduction is only one of them. If a subordinate female helps her mother to rear new offspring, she increases the production of siblings. Full sibs (that share the same mother and father) are equally related to each other as mothers are to their offspring, which implies that genes in the focal

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subordinate female would gain little if they promoted aggressive behavior when in the subordinate role, that is, making the subordinate try to take over her mother’s dominant status. However, since individuals in social groups are rarely clones of each other, their interests almost always differ to some extent at least. Animal societies therefore exist in a continuous state of tension, with benefits of cooperation interlocked with strong signs of conflict. The popular image of an ant or a bee colony is a superorganism in which every unit works for the good of the whole colony, but these species in particular show an amazing range of different conflicts. Ants and bees are examples of haplodiploid insects, which means that females are diploid (they have a double set of chromosomes, and develop from fertilized eggs), while males are haploid (they have a single set of chromosomes, and develop from unfertilized eggs). This creates a complicated web of relatedness values: for example, males do not have a father at all, and sisters are more related to each other than to their mothers. One consequence of fatherless males is that female workers, who could be supposed to work for the good of the colony, can instead spend their time laying unfertilized eggs and thus reproducing without ever having had a nuptial flight (the time during which queens mate and store sperm for the subsequent colony founding). It is not in the interest of the queen, however, to allow others to reproduce in the colony: she is more related to her own offspring than to the offspring of workers. Workerlaid eggs are indeed often detected and destroyed (eaten) by the queen. Fellow workers eat worker-laid eggs too, which is beneficial to them if workers do not always share the same mother and father, which diminishes the relatedness between a worker and another workers’ son. This phenomenon of removing unwanted eggs is called policing, and it provides another example in which destroying conspecific young can be beneficial. (It is of course not beneficial to the young victim itself, nor to the whole colony where productivity is partially wasted.) Insect societies offer many other examples of conflict too. For example, by varying the ratio of fertilized to unfertilized eggs, the queen may control the sex ratio of her offspring. She does not have the final say, however. Since workers are more related to their sisters than to their brothers (they share a father with the former but not with the latter), workers’ reproductive interests are best served with a female-biased sex ratio. Workers being numerically dominant in a nest, they sometimes use male offspring as nothing more than food storage units: rather than rearing them to adulthood, half-developed brothers of Formica excecta are killed and fed to their sisters whenever more food is needed. Thus, workers have many ways to increase the number of copies of their own genes

in future generations, even in cases where they do not manage to reproduce themselves. The examples above reflect nepotism, favoring one’s own relatives over others. Since the benefits of aggression in ant societies depend crucially on relatedness, natural selection should favor accurate detection of cues of relatedness. Efficient nepotism is sometimes based on rules of thumb: for example, in many bird societies individuals that grew up in the same nest are likely to be relatives. However, in ant colonies individuals have to be able to discriminate between individuals of different relatedness within the same nest. Much of kin recognition uses olfactory cues, which has particularly interesting consequences if these cues are broken down. Argentine ants that originate in the Americas have recently colonized large areas in Europe. In their native range, these ants are friendly toward near neighbors that reside within the same supercolony, but conspecifics from further away are vigorously attacked. Upon arrival in Europe, the ants formed the same population structure with supercolonies, but on this continent the supercolonies are truly gigantic. The whole European population exists as two supercolonies, of which the larger one is over 6000 km long, ranging from Italy to the Atlantic coast of Spain. When bringing together ants from anywhere within this vast supercolony, they show no aggression toward each other. Ants have recognition alleles that determine the olfactory cues that allow detecting kinship. It has been suggested that during the initial spread of a small introduced population it was beneficial to have whatever alleles were the most common, and intense between-colony aggression eliminated all rare alleles (genetic cleansing). After such a process has taken place, all ants have such similar genetic profiles that they simply cannot tell a familiar individual from a stranger. They consequently consider everyone a friend – which, incidentally, may have contributed to their invasion success too. Reproductive Skew Theory and Dominance Hierarchies We now know that factors such as relatedness and current and future reproductive prospects are important in determining whether a subordinate accepts its current status or if it would benefit from an attempt to ascend in the hierarchy. ‘Reproductive skew theory’, a currently popular theme in the study of animal societies, is a collection of game theory models that all share the aim of predicting patterns of how reproduction is divided among individuals in different societies. These models start by making a few simple assumptions regarding the options that individuals have in the society: for example, does the dominant have full control over who reproduces in the group, or not (e.g., the queen of a large ant colony cannot eat all worker-laid eggs, particularly if she is much larger than the workers and cannot enter most parts of the nest), or

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can dominants forcefully evict subordinates from the group. Then, the models derive the game-theoretic best response of each individual to the others’ best actions. For example, it can be shown that it may be in the best interests of a dominant individual to allow subordinates to reproduce to some extent, even if she could prevent subordinate reproduction, and even if it reduces the resources available to the dominant’s own offspring. The benefit can arise if this makes the subordinates less likely to benefit from an attempted takeover as a consequence. Such an allocation of reproductive rights is called a peace incentive. Whether reproductive patterns in animal societies really reflect such exchanges (transactions) of reproductive benefits is a currently much debated topic in behavioral ecology, as is the promise of reproductive skew theory that it serves as a comprehensive framework that can describe all social systems. What is clear, however, is that behaviors of social species in particular are not genetically fixed at birth but can feature complicated rules of how individuals respond to each other in behavioral time rather than over evolutionary timescales. (This, of course, does not imply that the rules of responding to each other could not be shaped by natural selection.) For example, dominants may behave more aggressively toward subordinates that have shown signs of transgressing (punishment). Also, there is strong evidence that dominance hierarchy formation can be influenced by winner–loser effects, which refer to situations where an individual who has won a fight is more likely to win future fights (winner effect), and losers likewise become more likely to lose again (loser effect). Winner and loser effects can exist independently of each other, and where they both operate together, they can easily lead to the formation of a stable dominance hierarchy. Showing that the effects are real requires disentangling the strength of an animal from its success in fights: if the winner effect operates, winning should improve an individual’s future success more than predicted solely based on the fact that a strong individual’s fighting ability exceeds many of its opponents. This has been shown in green swordtail fish Xiphophorus helleri, where randomly chosen fish were assigned to a winning or a losing role by pairing them with large or small fish, respectively. The fish that gained positive early experiences because they first encountered small opponents, later rose to the top of dominance hierarchies, while fish whose first fights were against large opponents became low-ranking fish later – even though the first opponents were no longer encountered in the trials that determined the final hierarchy. Fish thus form memories of their past fight outcomes. Whether this is real (cognitive) memory or a simpler physiological response to stress is an interesting question, but the behavioral outcome is the same either way: a dominance hierarchy is formed.

Aggression in Sexual Contexts The primary reason for aggressive behavior is competition for resources that are limiting the reproductive success of an individual. In many cases, the resources in question are different for males and females. In the majority of species (but by no means all), females care more for young than males do. This creates intense competition among males to find new females, as males are more free to roam around and seek for new females to be fertilized. In other words, male reproduction is often limited by access to females, whereas females suffer from a shortage of males much less often. Intrasexual competition among males is often associated with much aggression. The same rules apply as in the general discussion of aggression above: fights are often ritualized, which helps to avoid injury, but intense or even lethal combat is not an impossibility. Models predict that lethal fighting becomes more likely, if reproductive skew is very high among males, because this implies that the benefits are only reaped at the top of the hierarchy winning and they can be large. For example, only a small minority of male elephant seals Mirounga angustirostris ever get to reproduce; thus, the stakes are high and fights are accordingly severe. Often, evolutionary ecologists expect conflicts to be stronger among individuals of the same sex than between the sexes. In the past, this assumption was taken to the extreme: pair bonds were assumed to be harmonious, because both parents share an obvious interest in the well-being of offspring. However, the growing recognition that conspecific individuals can have strongly diverging interests in any given situation has also led to the study of ‘sexual conflict’. It remains true that conflict is much milder between a male bird and a female on the same territory, than between two male birds competing for the same territory: the former can do something constructive together, while in the latter case one individual’s gain is another one’s loss (except in unusual circumstances such as joint territorial defense, as in the fiddler crab example above). Nevertheless, there are also reasons why there can be conflict between individuals of different sexes. The simplest reason for this is that if offspring production requires time or energy, both individuals would benefit if the other did most of the work. Birds, for example, are typically able to work harder for their brood than they normally do, which is evident in increased food delivery rates by one parent if the other one dies. Experimentally increased workload of a parent, however, increases the parent’s mortality in the following winter, as has been shown, for example, for kestrels. Life appears to be full of tradeoffs. Recently found examples show how just intense sexual conflict can be. Males of numerous species harass females sexually, and in some cases females may get killed in the

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process, as has been found, for example, in feral sheep Ovis aries. Garter snakes Thamnophis sirtalis mate in large aggregations in which multiple males compete for the same females, who may get strangled to death. Obviously, killing a female prevents all subsequent offspring production too, so it cannot be selected for per se. But if generation after generation eager males gain more paternity than passive ones, extreme eagerness can be selected for, even if this sometimes leads to female killing as a form of collateral harm. On the other hand, in the case of nonlethal harm, direct selection favoring harmful male behaviors appears at least theoretically possible. For example, many insects possess spiky sexual organs that damage the female, and sperm of fruit flies contains seminal toxins that shorten the lifespan of females. Such traits can be beneficial to a male, if damaged females are less likely to mate with another member of the same species than healthy females: after all, the worst thing that can happen to a mated male’s offspring production is that his female mates multiply. However, it is controversial whether female-damaging male traits have evolved because they damage the female, or despite the damage they cause (which makes them again examples of collateral harm). For example, a spiky penis might simply form an anchor that makes copulations last sufficiently long for efficient sperm transfer. This can be important for male insects, in which copulations can last for hours, and the amount of sperm transferred is huge relative to the body size. Seed beetle females kick vigorously during copulation, presumably because it is potentially dangerous for an insect to be mounted, and foraging is difficult during copulation; for males the tradeoff is different as sufficient sperm numbers are required to outcompete conspecific males if there is a risk that the female mates with several males. In an experimental setting, females that were prevented from kicking during copulation mated for longer, and suffered more damage such that their lifespan was significantly shortened. However, they were not less likely to mate multiply than control females, which suggests that the harm was of a collateral kind. The fascinating world of arthropods offers still weirder stories of sexual conflict. A spider species, Stegodyphus lineatus, has an intriguing form of maternal care: the mother guards the eggs until hatching, after which the spiderlings are first fed by the female (by regurgitating), but they then switch to cannibalism. Eating the mother is an obviously efficient way to transfer nutrients to the next generation, essential for a good start in life for the young spiderlings. This ‘suicidal’ form of maternal care means that a male spider who comes across an egg-guarding mother benefits nothing from this encounter, if he is not the father of the brood, as the female will not be able to lay eggs ever again. Mating would therefore be pointless.

But if the male cannibalizes the brood, the mother’s situation changes: the best option for her is to try again and produce at least some eggs after mating with the current, cannibalistic male. This is indeed what happens. The male’s cannibalism forces a delay in the mother’s ‘suicide’, which is detrimental for her reproductive success, as she has fewer resources left and can no longer lay as many eggs as she was able to initially. Thus the same species can feature two different kinds of cannibalism, one representing a form of parental care, the other a form of extreme sexual conflict.

Summary Nature abounds with fascinating examples of aggression and conflict. In this context it is important to emphasize that despite the language of strategies and behaviors that serve the interest of a male, female, parent, offspring, or worker, the evolutionary analysis of behaviors does not assume that there is any conscious thought or intention involved. Evolutionary biologists use colorful language ranging from suicide to nepotism simply because concise words from everyday use are preferable to abstract, complicated expressions that are hard to remember. The mechanisms that make behaviors evolve are not goaldirected. Instead, genes that are present in individuals today are those that have caused individuals to behave in ways that tend to increase the number of copies of that gene in subsequent generations. What this argument means in specific circumstances is the topic of evolutionary behavioral ecology, which uses mathematical analysis as well as experimental and field studies. There are numerous cases in which aggressive behavior benefits an individual, but tradeoffs (e.g., the need to avoid unnecessary injury when rewards are modest) typically dictate that there is an optimal level of aggression, rather than more being always better. Also, the best behavioral option may often be context dependent rather than invariable over the lifetime of an individual: male ants are cared for or fed to their sisters, depending on food availability. Regardless of whether one is interested in fixed or flexible (plastic) behaviors, evolutionary arguments are obviously based on the premise that there is genetic variation in behavior on which natural selection can operate, such as genetic variation that controls the developmental pathways related to hormone production or hormone receptors. The successful creation of highly aggressive and very docile dog breeds shows that this is indeed the case, and studies on many wild organisms likewise support the notion. The findings of evolutionary biology are often viewed with unease. Most evolutionary biologists agree that one should not base moral arguments on potential

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adaptiveness of a behavior (or lack thereof). Stealing, for example, can probably be considered adaptive if done cleverly and often enough so that resources required for offspring production or well-being truly increase. Yet this does not prove parents’ efforts pointless when teaching their children that stealing is wrong – while the reader might want to judge herself to what extent it provides an explanation for the a priori existence of a temptation to steal, that every society then has to deal with. See also: Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates; Biochemical Factors in Aggression and Violence

Further Reading Arnqvist, G. and Rowe, L. (2005). Sexual conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Backwell, P. R. Y. and Jennions, M. D. (2004). Coalition among male fiddler crabs. Nature 430, 417. Chapuisat, M., Sundstro¨m, L., and Keller, L. (1997). Sex-ratio regulation: The economics of fratricide in ants. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 264, 1255–1260. Daan, S., Deerenberg, C., and Dijkstra, C. (1996). Increased daily work precipitates natural death in the kestrel. Journal of Animal Ecology 65, 539–544. Davies, N. B. (1978). Territorial defence in the speckled wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria): The resident always wins. Animal Behaviour 26, 138–147. Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dugatkin, L. A. and Druen, M. (2004). The social implications of winner and loser effects. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B (supplement 6) 271, S488–S489. Edvardsson, M. and Tregenza, T. (2005). Why do male Callosobruchus maculatus harm their mates? Behavioral Ecology 16, 788–793. Ekman, J. and Sklepkovych, B. (1994). Conflict of interest between the sexes in Siberian jay winter flocks. Animal Behaviour 48, 485–487. Giraud, T., Pedersen, J. S., and Keller, L. (2002). Evolution of supercolonies: The Argentine ants of southern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99, 6075–6079. Godard, R. (1991). Long-term-memory of individual neighbors in a migratory songbird. Nature 350, 228–229. Grafen, A. (1987). The logic of asymmetric contests: Respect for ownership and the desperado effect. Animal Behaviour 35, 462–467. Johnstone, R. A. (2000). Models of reproductive skew: A review and synthesis. Ethology 106, 5–26. Kemp, D. J. and Wiklund, C. (2004). Residency effects in animal contests. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271, 1707–1711. Kokko, H., Lo´pez-Sepulcre, A., and Morrell, L. J. (2006). From hawks and doves to self-consistent games of territorial behavior. American Naturalist 167, 901–912. Maynard Smith, J. (1982). Evolution and the theory of games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olendorf, R., Getty, T., Scribner, K., and Robinson, S. K. (2004). Male red-winged blackbirds distrust unreliable and sexually attractive neighbours. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271, 1033–1038. Packer, C. (2000). Infanticide is no fantasy. American Anthropologist 102, 829–831. Schwagmeyer, P. L. (1979). Bruce effect: Evaluation of male-female advantages. American Naturalist 114, 932–938. Wenseleers, T., Helantera¨, H., Hart, A., and Ratnieks, F. L. W. (2004). Worker reproduction and policing in insect societies: An ESS analysis. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 17, 1035–1047.

Animal Behavioral Studies, Primates Irwin S Bernstein, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Definitions Functions of Aggression Conflict, Competition, and Aggression Aggression in a Social Context The Control of Aggressive Sequences

Glossary Aggression Behavior that increases the probability of injury to the recipient. Agonistic Aggression and typical responses to aggression, including submission. Dominance A learned relationship between individuals that influences the directionality of agonistic signals. Proximal Cause Event that acts as a stimulus for occurrence of behavior that follows.

Losing, Dominance, and Territoriality Polyadic Social Aggression Restoring Peace Conclusion Further Reading

Reconciliation Behavior that restores relationships following agonistic encounters. Submission Behavior indicating that aggression will not be initiated, but aggression may be provoked by attacks. Territoriality A learned relationship between individuals, specific to a geographic location. Trained Loser An individual who, having lost a previous encounter, retreats or signals submission at the start of any future encounter.

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Definitions When we try to define aggression we often do so in terms of the motivations and intentions of the actor, and sometimes the recipient as well. We may define aggression as behavior that is intended to harm another, or behavior that deprives others of their rights, or freedom, against their will. Such a definition implies that we know that the motivation of the actor was selfish or spiteful, that the actor intended harm to the victim, and that the victim would rather have avoided the consequences imposed. Of course, we may find that after we have classified an act as ‘aggression’, the victim denies that s/he was forced to do anything against his/her will and/or, that the perpetrator denies any ill intent, insisting that s/he had no intention of actually harming the victim, that his/her behavior was for the victim’s own good, and that the victim was a willing participant (s/he had ‘asked for it’) or deserved the treatment received. The very existence of such arguments implies that the definition is subjective and judgmental rather than an objective description of observable behavior. If we can have disagreements about whether human behavior meets such a definition of aggression, think of how much more difficult it is to classify nonhuman behavior as ‘aggressive’. How would we know if an oyster or lobster were motivated to harm another or deprive it of its freedom or rights? Are these animals even aware that others have rights, or even that others exist? One can readily decide that an individual has been harmed, or deprived of a necessary resource, but this is not, in itself, evidence that the victim suffered as the target of another’s aggression. To invoke the concept of aggression we require that the ‘aggressor’ be at least aware of the existence of its victim and that she engages in the injurious behavior with some knowledge that the victim is motivated to avoid such treatment. This is particularly difficult for us to ascertain when dealing with invertebrates, but is it any easier to determine for nonhuman primates, even if these are the animals most like ourselves? We do not have the ability to ask them their motivations nor do they have the ability to reply and explain the state of their cognitive awareness. Believing that they must act and feel as we do, and that they share the same motivations as we do, is anthropomorphism. We are less tempted to engage in anthropomorphism when we deal with spiders but readily succumb to this temptation when monkeys and apes are viewed as ‘furry’ people. If we wish to study and understand aggression in nonhuman subjects and learn about the fundamental principles of aggression, we must define it in terms of observable behavior so that we can all, at least, agree what it is that we are trying to understand. Niko Tinbergen, in 1951, stated that we should begin by describing what we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell – the structure of behavior. Such a description is much like what a video

camera or other recording device would store. It is devoid of interpretation and, perhaps, relatively dry and uninteresting. It only becomes more interesting when we ask why it happened. According to Tinbergen, there were four answers to that question. The first answer can be obtained by identifying the situation in the environment that acted as the trigger for, or the stimulus, that elicited the behavior. This event, which releases or elicits the behavior of interest, is called the proximal cause. Proximal causes are observable events that can be described just as we can describe the behavior of interest, but they become more interesting to us when we think of them as being responsible for the occurrence of the behavior that follows. An extremely high correlation between the occurrence of a putative proximal cause and the behavior of interest (which follows in a brief temporal period) leads us to accept a hypothesis of causation. Of course, we know that individuals do not respond to the same situations in the same ways all through their lives. To understand why their behavior changes requires us to examine the second answer – the ontogenetic causes of behavior. Here we may explain the change in response to a stimulus over time as being due to maturational processes, physical alteration of the individual due to environmental events (injuries, amputations, the effects of exercise, etc.), and behavioral changes that result from learning. We may also note that different individuals (or species) respond differently to the same stimulus even when we control for ontogenetic events. In these cases we invoke the third answer – the concepts of evolution – to explain the differences in response to the same stimuli (or the different stimuli that produce the same responses), in different individuals or populations. The evolutionary cause of these differences relates to different evolutionary histories and the differences in selective pressures that operated on the ancestors of the subjects, thereby accounting for differences in the genetic material with which each began life. Of course, it is often very difficult to experimentally verify the effects of purported differences in selective pressures in the past and, as a consequence, research is often directed to animals with short generation times, such as fruit flies, so that evolution can be observed within the lifetime of the scientist. Finally, the ‘why’ question may be addressed to the functional consequences of the behavior. The consequences can be conceived of as the objectively described events that follow the behavior of interest, or may be perceived of as the long-term effects of the behavior on the genetic fitness of the actor, the adaptive significance of the behavior. Whereas the immediate consequent can be directly described, the question ‘What good did it do?’ requires a longer view of consequence and casts everything in terms of evolutionary theory.

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The two views of function lend themselves to a ready confusion of function with proximal cause. If the immediate consequence of the behavior is taken as equivalent to the motivation or intent of the subject just prior to or at the time of the response, then we are making a teleological error. Most of us are well aware of the differences between our intentions and the realities or results of our behavior. Why then are we so quick to gloss over this difference and to ascribe to an animal the intention to achieve the consequent observed? The second view of function leads to an even more egregious error when we assume that the animal was trying to improve its genetic fitness, as we later determined resulted as a consequence of its behavior. Of course, no one ever really assumes that animals understand evolutionary theory, nor that they are consciously attempting to improve their genetic fitness, but when we argue that the reason that the animal behaved in that manner was because evolution acted to select for individuals that behaved in a manner that maximized their genetic fitness, what are we implying? How could the individual have chosen among available alternative behavioral responses? What we are doing is hopelessly confusing proximal cause, evolutionary cause, and function. In dealing with aggression our task is made even more difficult by the fact that aggression is not a structure that can be objectively described. It is, instead, a class of behavioral responses linked to one another by some common consequent or function (as opposed to adaptive significance). We define broad categories such as feeding, reproduction, infant care, aggression, and locomotion based on the contribution of each element in the category to a particular function. Alternatively, we can postulate a common drive state, such as hunger, a maternal instinct, anger, etc. as the common cause of the behavior in a category, but with animals it is easier to observe what happens at the time of a behavior and what follows immediately from that behavior. How an animal felt (angry or not) and whether it intended to produce harm (meanness) are only subjects of conjecture. We can, however, note whether an injury occurred or whether the target individual was deprived of something as a consequence of the behavior of the actor. Losing something to another may occur as a result of several forms of competition and, in scramble competition, the competitors may even be totally unaware of each other’s existence. Being deprived of a resource due to the actions of another who is not even aware of your existence does not meet our subjective feel for what aggression is. On the other hand, an injury is believed to be a likely result of aggression, even if not all aggression results in injuries and not all injuries are a result of aggression. If an action is usually embedded in sequences where its presence increases the probability that the recipient is likely to suffer a physical injury due to the activities of

the actor, then we are inclined to see that action as aggressive. This is a probabilistic definition in that we say that the behavior increases the likelihood of an injury following, rather than that it always produces an injury. Verification requires sufficient data to determine what the usual consequent of such sequences are when the act of interest is, and is not, present. It does not require us to know what the intentions or emotions of the parties involved were at the time of the activity, nor does it ask if the long-term effects reduced or contributed to the genetic fitness of the participants. The latter become empirical questions and we can now independently ask what functions aggression serves in terms of long-term consequences. If aggression in some cases harms the recipient but benefits the actor it will be selfish; if it harms both the actor and the recipient it will be spiteful; if it benefits the actor and recipient it will be mutualistic; and if it benefits the recipient at some expense to the actor it can even be altruistic. At first it may seem contradictory to ask if aggression can ever be altruistic. On reflection, however, we readily perceive that aggression can modify the behavior of the recipient. Such behavioral modification may be brief or relatively long term (a learned response) and if it functions as a positive socialization experience, then it can modify the behavior of the recipient in such a manner as to enhance survival and reproduction. When we find that short-term injurious consequences can produce long-term benefits, we tend to search for new words like ‘punishment’ or ‘avoidance training’ rather than aggression to describe the very same motor acts with the very same immediate functional outcomes.

Functions of Aggression Nonhuman primates, lacking language skills, use relatively little positive reinforcement in the socialization of their young. They cannot explain that a reward was for not doing ‘bad’ behavior, or even for having done a particular good deed. Of course, they have no greater skill explaining punishment, but behavior that immediately elicits behavior in others with injurious consequences to yourself immediately receives your attention. The behavior of others that produces injuries to yourself, or the behavior of others associated with imminent escalation to behavior that produces injuries to yourself can powerfully alter behavior. Learning to avoid future injurious attacks is the basic element of avoidance learning. When an individual can respond to the threat of injury in such a manner as to avoid the injury, that individual has gained some measure of control over the behavior of the threatening individual. By providing a response that terminates sequences that otherwise escalate into exchanges that would be injurious to oneself, an individual has controlled

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the behavior of another. This is avoidance learning as opposed to punishment or negative reinforcement where a response is required to terminate a noxious or injurious sequence already in progress. Of course, there are many cases where aggression modifies the behavior of the recipient in ways that only benefit the actor. Although the target may avoid the aggressive consequences of the actor, the target must modify its behavior in some fashion such that it gives up a resource or engages in a behavioral pattern that it was not otherwise motivated to engage in. In contest competition, aggression is used as an instrumental act to gain preferential or exclusive access to a resource. The loser is deprived of the resource but one may question if the winner was ‘trying’ to harm the victim or only attempting to further its own selfish goals in obtaining the resource. In nonhuman primates ‘grudges’ and personal animosities generated during such competitions may occur, but they are not invariable consequents and must be independently measured and verified. They can be recognized when we note that a pair immediately resumes a fight on their next encounter even when there is nothing to provoke a new one and nothing to compete for. This is essentially a continuation of the previous fight, regardless of what the original cause of fighting was, and the relationship between the two parties may not be resolved until there is a clear winner and a clear loser. Even in such a case, where a fight might be described as occurring to determine who the winner or loser will be, one might not know if either combatant was motivated to harm the other rather than that each was just trying to elicit nonthreatening or submissive behavior from its opponent.

Conflict, Competition, and Aggression In nonhuman primates we can identify situations where individuals come into conflict (initiate different incompatible behavioral sequences), are in competition (both attempt to use the same limited resource at the expense of the other), or are engaged in aggression (one or both engages in behavior that is, or is likely to be, physically injurious to the other). Bill Mason has clearly differentiated conflict, competition, and aggression, and there is no reason to equate the three terms. Each can occur in the absence of the other two. For example, a conflict occurs when two individuals, who both want to remain together, want to travel in a different direction. Competition may involve ‘scramble contests’ where whoever gets there first wins the resource even if the ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ are unaware of each other’s existence. Aggression can occur when an individual attacks an uninvolved third party when attacked by another. Such ‘redirection’ is based on availability and proximity rather than any interaction with or behavior of the third party. Likewise, an individual

may attack an individual already in an ongoing fight with another. Aiding another in a fight does not require any prior conflict or competition with the individual against whom aid is directed. Aggression, then, is not an invariable outcome of competition or conflict, nor is it limited to contexts involving competition and/or conflict. This has promoted some to talk of different ‘kinds’ of aggression with each kind defined by the situation in which it occurs or the specific functional outcome. Thus, we get ‘predatory aggression’ when an animal attacks a victim that it will feed on; ‘instrumental aggression’ when the behavior is seen as directed toward achieving some specific goal; ‘infanticidal aggression’ when an infant is killed as a consequence of the aggression; ‘pain-induced aggression’ when no clear function is apparent but pain is ascribed to the actor prior to the aggressive response; and, perhaps, aggression due to just plain ‘meanness’, a hypothesized temperament variable. Each possible outcome and each possible cause then becomes a separate type of aggression. Such a plethora of terminology only confuses matters as all are called ‘aggression’ and the common feature in each is that the recipient is likely to be injured, either immediately or in further escalated responses in the same sequence. Such sequences, in some cases, can be terminated or altered by specific changes in the behavior of the recipient, and then we sometimes assume that the change in the recipient’s behavior was what the aggressor was trying to achieve.

Aggression in a Social Context Most nonhuman primates are social animals, and in many species most individuals spend all of their lives as members of a social unit. Individuals may transfer between units and/or spend some time as solitaries in transit between units. In some species, individuals may travel or forage independently but nonetheless have frequent contact with certain specified individuals with whom they preferentially interact. Whatever the level of sociality, social units are collections of individuals that may come into conflict, or that may compete for the same resources. Some of these conflicts and competitions may be resolved by resorting to aggressive techniques. Social relationships between individuals may be described on a dimension of affiliative to antagonistic based on the ratio of agonistic to affiliative exchanges. If aggression increases the probability of injury to at least the recipient, then life in a social unit will require the development of means to prevent and control aggressive solutions to problems engendered by conflict and competition in socially living individuals. If aggression is elicited, then it must be limited, controlled, and regulated in such a way that it terminates with minimal risk of injuries. The expression and control of aggression must be

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regulated in any social unit lest the costs of aggression outweigh the benefits of sociality. On the other hand, not all aggression is antisocial. Aggression can serve as a social means of protecting a group against external sources of disruption. It can also be used to modify the behavior of group members in ways that benefit the individual whose behavior is being modified as well as other group members. Aggression can be used to socialize individuals into a group and can be used to promote the interests of members of one group over members of another. Uncontrolled aggression within a group, however, can destroy the group. Aggression in nonhuman primate groups has a multitude of expressions. These may vary from intense stares and various body postures and facial expressions to locomotor displays, such as charging, lunging, and rhythmic leaping, to interactions involving physical contact with the potential for bodily injury, such as slapping, kicking, pulling, biting, and slashing. Many nonhuman primates, and especially males, possess formidable canine teeth with the potential to inflict lethal injury. Some, such as drills and mandrills, literally have canines as large as those of any of the great cats, although they are only a fraction of the body size of a great cat and largely vegetarian or, at most, omnivorous in their diet. Despite this formidable armament, relatively few agonistic encounters between or within primate groups result in severe injuries or deaths, although some dramatic outcomes do result and excite our imaginations. It would also be a mistake to equate the potential for producing injury with aggressivity. Even if formidable teeth do result in obvious severe injuries, whereas less impressive physical equipment fails to do so, it would be a mistake to count injuries inflicted as a measure of aggression. Despite the sexually dimorphic nature of most nonhuman primates and the fact that males do often inflict most of the injuries in or by a group, females may engage in very comparable levels of aggressive behavior. The question of whether sex differences in aggression exist is an empirical question and incompletely answered by evidence of injuries inflicted by members of the two sexes. Given this extensive potential for mayhem, the question arises: ‘‘Why does life in a social group not result in a continuous set of injuries and wounds resulting from daily conflicts and the inevitable competition evoked when similar individuals, all with similar needs, seek the same limited resources?’’ There is no single answer to this question but, thankfully, we find that there are multiple mechanisms that come into play. These include: ritualization of aggressive expression, such that the most damaging forms of expression are rare within the group; development of nonaggressive means of resolving conflicts and competitions; and development of mechanisms that regulate aggressive expression within a group, including social means of terminating ongoing agonistic encounters.

The Control of Aggressive Sequences Although there are multiple causes of aggression, few aggressive encounters begin with an all-out fight. The potential costs of fighting are such that natural selection has favored individuals that avoid taking risks when the cost to themselves is likely to exceed the benefits of anything obtained by engaging in that interaction. When a situation develops where aggression is one possible way to achieve a desired outcome, the individual involved should first attempt to determine the likelihood of resistance and, second, the likely magnitude of that resistance. In other words, is the target signaling readiness to resist or counter attack (is it threatening?), and, if it is threatening, then what will be the likely strength of its resistance and/ or attack in terms of the costs that will be imposed? Animals often use body size, indicators of strength and physical vigor, and a variety of bodily postures, facial expressions, and vocalizations as indicators of the potential costs that an opponent can inflict and the willingness of that opponent to inflict such costs. If insufficient information is available to decide whether to precede or to break off an encounter, based on available visual, auditory, chemical, or other signal modalities, then physical contact may follow. Physical contacts may gradually escalate such that initial contacts convey information about strength and ability without either participant running the risk of extensive injury. If such initial probing attacks do not provide sufficient information for one participant to break off the encounter, then further escalation to more damaging forms of aggression may follow. Finally, when one of the opponents has transmitted sufficient information to convince the opponent that the costs of further aggression will be unacceptable, that opponent may retreat, or use a ritualized signal of submission to end the encounter. The victor now has unrestrained access to whatever resource was being contested, or can now obtain whatever goal was being sought, and further attacks on the part of the victor would only serve as ‘spite’, since the victor risks further injury in resuming aggression against a retreating opponent. There is no further benefit to be gained and inflicting additional injury on a defeated rival at some risk to one’s self meets the definition of spite. Contest competition can thus be seen as being extraordinarily dangerous if the two opponents are nearly equal in ability and motivation so that neither perceives the other as a likely winner and both continue to escalate the encounter to obtain more and more information about the abilities of their rival. Alternatively, contest competitions can prove to be extremely dangerous to one or both participants even when there is a great disparity in abilities and if one or more of the opponents is incapable of recognizing that disparity. Monkeys reared in social isolation seem to lack the social skills required to assess: the willingness of a rival

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to engage in escalated aggression, the ability of the rival to inflict aggressive costs, and even the meaning of signals that a rival uses when conceding access to a contested resource. In these situations contests escalate rapidly and monkeys reared in social isolation may launch suicidal attacks against opponents who are clearly physically superior to them or, alternatively, may mount murderous attacks on opponents who are signaling submission and attempting to withdraw from the site of a contest. Every aggressive episode concludes when the parties involved cease further aggressive behavior. The individual who stops first may withdraw or otherwise show behavior incompatible with further aggression, and this individual is labeled the ‘loser’. The aggressive behavior of most winners ends when the goal is achieved, be that goal the attainment of a particular prize or the particular behavior demanded of the opponent (such as retreat).

Losing, Dominance, and Territoriality A winner and a loser emerge from a fight as a consequence of the sequence of events in that interaction. No further information is required to explain why one party retreated or ceased further aggression other than the events that transpired during the encounter. If every successive encounter followed exactly the same course as the initial encounter, then our explanation for the change in behavior observed in all encounters would be identical and limited to the exchanges that occurred during that encounter. The observer, on the other hand, may quickly recognize the similarities in the series of encounters and may soon learn to predict, with great accuracy, the outcome of each new encounter. This does not mean that the two opponents have established any special relationship or that either of them has learned anything, not if both go through exactly the same sequence on each new encounter. In this case only the observer has learned anything. If, on the other hand, there is a change in the directionality of agonistic behavior between the two opponents at the start of a new encounter, then we might believe that one or both were now more willing to attack or retreat and that this was due to the history of exchanges in prior encounters, that is, something had been learned. In most cases this learning means that one party immediately displays the behavior that it used to terminate the previous encounters. This is then the ‘loser’ and it is the loser who has learned something. The question now is what exactly was learned. If the learned component is so general that an individual who has lost previous encounters now immediately retreats or signals submission at the start of any future encounter, then we say that we have a ‘trained loser’. Such an individual is expected to break off any encounter whenever the opponent shows aggression. It has ‘learned’

because in the absence of such learning we should expect every encounter to proceed much the same way as the first. When there is no change in behavior, learning cannot be invoked in our explanations of behavior. If the loser has learned not to fight a particular opponent, but does not generalize to all opponents, then it will immediately yield to the aggressive signals of that particular opponent while continuing to respond aggressively to other opponents that it has previously defeated, and/or new opponents. What has been learned is specific to a particular individual and we can say that the subject has learned to be subordinate to that opponent, that is, a dominance relationship has been established. In future agonistic encounters, the subject will use the identity of its opponent in making its decision to submit or resist when faced with an aggressive challenge. Submission is in response to a perceived aggressive signal rather than a general response to the partner; dominant and subordinate partners can interact in nonagonistic forms of interaction. They may even come into conflict, or compete with one another, without aggression. When aggression is expressed, however, the subordinate will submit. Dominant animals can lose in competitions where scramble is involved and may yield resources whenever they are not willing to use aggressive means to claim them. In territoriality the relationship between the antagonists is complicated one step further. The individual that shows submission and the individual that shows aggression in a particular dyad will be determined by the geographical location of the encounter. When neither is on its territory, neither may show aggression, or both may do so, or some other mechanism will determine which of the two will be aggressive and which submissive. When a territorial individual is on its territory, however, we expect that the territorial holder will show aggression toward any member of a specified class of intruders. The key here is geography and not proximity. Whereas a territorial holder will cross any intervening distance to challenge a detected intrusion, many animals display flight and fight distances, or defense of personal space unrelated to geography. When another unexpectedly appears within a critical distance then the individual withdraws, but if the intrusion is within a smaller critical distance aggressive responses may be provoked. This should not be equated with territoriality as a ‘moving territory’. The physical laws of nature preclude two physical objects from occupying the same space at the same time but this would mean that all objects possessed territories if we followed this logic to reductum ad absurdum. Territoriality and dominance both regulate the expression of aggression between individuals, but slightly different, yet significantly, mechanisms are involved. Territoriality may be seen as the more complex of the two in that, in addition to the past history of interactions

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between the individuals, the location of the encounter determines which of the two will exhibit aggressive behavior and which one will retreat. Dominance relationships also influence which individual will show aggressive behavior and which one will withdraw, but this influence is independent of geographical location. In dominance, as a function of a past history of interaction between the individuals, there is a learned relationship specific to the two partners that is independent of geographic location. In territoriality, dominance, and encounters involving trained losers, the aggressive encounters are curtailed by learned elements so that only one or neither of the dyad displays aggressive behavior. Since the intruder or the subordinate or the trained loser leaves or submits immediately upon receiving an aggressive signal, escalation is rare and injuries are avoided. Assessments of opponents are based on membership in a class (trained losers) or individual identity (dominance) or individual identity and location (territoriality) rather than on displays and contests testing another’s abilities and resolve. Injuries often occur in aggressive encounters as part of the assessment process. In an aggressive encounter one or both participants uses aggressive techniques to modify the behavior of the other. Since the use of aggressive behavioral elements entails some risk of retaliation, the opponents must assess the value of the goal they seek and the likely costs to be incurred in attaining that goal. If an individual can anticipate costs greater than it is willing to bear to attain the goal, then retreat would be the better part of valor. Aggressive encounters thus may be seen as periods during which constant assessments are being made. For example, if two individuals are using aggression to compete for a particular resource, neither should be willing to sustain a cost greater than the value of that resource to itself. The value of the resource may not be equal to both and the costs that each can impose on the other may also be unequal. The antagonists therefore begin by assessing the value of the resource to themselves, and then the likely costs to be imposed by the antagonist based on indications of the antagonist’s aggressive potential and resolve. If sufficient information is available on the amount of cost that the antagonist can impose based on past interactions, and the resolve of the antagonist to impose such costs based on geographic location, then territoriality applies. If only the identity of the opponent is sufficient to assess the likely costs of aggressive resistance, then dominance applies. If all aggressive signals from any opponent are equally effective in eliciting retreat, then we have a trained loser. Of course, the application of these principles requires signals from the antagonist indicating that it is prepared to impose an aggressive cost – ‘threat’ behavior. Lacking such signals, a subordinate, or an intruder, or a trained loser should readily collect a valuable resource even if all the while monitoring the potential antagonist for any sign that an aggressive cost was about to be imposed.

Polyadic Social Aggression Aggressive episodes in nonhuman primates are not limited to dyadic encounters. Primates are social creatures and use social techniques to meet environmental (physical and social) challenges. Antagonists in aggressive encounters are often rapidly joined by others who take sides in the dispute. Assessment in these cases is not simply restricted to the opponents’ size, strength, and willingness to escalate, but also on the size and strength of the opponents’ allies and their availability and willingness to join in the encounter. When monkeys and apes become involved in agonistic encounters, the episodes are usually noisy, with each vocalizing its presence (and identity) and scanning the vicinity for potential allies and adversaries. Monkeys and apes often resolve fights based on the willingness of others to join on one side or another. In this way size and strength become much less important than the size and reliability of social alliances in resolving fights between individuals. It is no longer the largest and most powerful who will be the victor, but perhaps the most socially adept. The cohesion shown by all the members of a group when faced by a source of threat or disturbance from outside the group results in mobbing of predators, and joint attacks on rival groups. This same cohesion by subunits of a social group in resolving fights within a group results in cliques and alliances. Unresolved struggles between such cliques and alliances can cause fissioning or fragmentation of groups. To remain cohesive, groups must develop means of resolving conflicts between subunits within the group.

Restoring Peace Having developed methods to assess rivals and regulate and avoid fights, it should not be surprising to find that nonhuman primates have also developed techniques to restore peace and harmony in their all-important social units once fighting and/or conflict has occurred. Whereas fight interference, the joining in of uninvolved parties in an ongoing aggressive encounter, excited initial attention, more recently attention has been focused on the behavior that follows after an agonistic episode. Monkeys and apes have been noted to seek out former opponents in the minutes immediately following a fight, not to further the agonistic exchange, but to engage in positive affiliative contact. Such positive social behavior immediately following a fight exceeds the rate that would have been predicted based on positive social exchanges when no fight occurs and this has, therefore, been described as reconciliation. Either of the two former combatants, the winner or the loser, may be the first to initiate affiliative social interactions, although the loser is somewhat more likely to do so.

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If this is ‘reconciliation’ functionally, then the occurrence of positive affiliative behavior immediately following an agonistic encounter should mean that the former opponents can now interact or engage in behavior in proximity to one another without resumption of hostilities. Indeed, Marina Cords found that former combatants who were allowed to reconcile did indeed share resources and cooperate in matters where they had formerly done so, whereas in the absence of such reconciliations, tension continued and the animals were reluctant to come into close proximity. The functional definition of ‘reconciliation’ therefore seems to be firmly established. Following what was said about the polyadic nature of agonistic encounters it should be no surprise to discover that many monkeys and apes reconcile polyadically. Following an agonistic encounter the aggressor, and/or the victim, may initiate positive social interactions with the close associates (generally kin and close allies) of its opponent in the minutes immediately following a fight. Alternatively, an animal’s usual allies may initiate the positive interactions with its opponent. These indirect reconciliations may thus restore the relationships between alliances as well as the individual combatants. On the other hand, whereas consolation may be considered related to reconciliation, instead of the allies of a combatant showing positive behavior to the combatant’s opponent, positive behavior is directed to the combatant; nonetheless, evidence for consolation among monkeys is sparse indeed. Although some evidence is available to support its presence in apes, this evidence is not nearly as convincing as is the evidence for reconciliation. It has been speculated that reconciliation serves the immediate interests of the reconciling parties whereas consolation requires empathic ability on the part of the consoling agent that, itself, receives no direct benefit. Empathic abilities may be poorly developed in monkeys that do not readily take the perspective of another, and only rudimentary in apes where such cognitive skills seem at the upper limits of ape abilities. Research in these areas is still ongoing, new, and hardly conclusive.

Conclusion Aggression, then, is not disorganized antisocial behavior. It is not base and basic animal behavior. Aggression is of sufficient consequence to individuals so that all of an individual’s skills can be expected to be called into play in aggressive encounters. In nonhuman primates with extensive social and cognitive skills, these skills will be employed in aggressive conflicts. Extensive cognitive skills will be employed in the difficult assessments of opponents’ abilities and resolve. Well-developed social skills will be employed to establish alliances and detect the existence of opposing alliances. Social mechanisms

within a group developed in order to maintain social units so that group members would each receive the benefits of social living. These social mechanisms must include mechanisms that not only use aggression to preserve the social unit, but also ensure that aggression between members of the unit does not destroy the unit. Aggression occurs within a social environment in nonhuman primates and that shapes the expression of aggression and modifies the sequences of behavior in aggressive encounters. Social mechanisms have developed to restore social relationships threatened by disruption due to aggressive episodes, and both direct reconciliation and social reconciliation involving third parties can be demonstrated. Restoring the peace may be one of the more demanding social skills; elimination of aggression is virtually impossible. Aggression socializes newcomers into the group, protects the group from external threats, modifies the behavior of disruptive group members, and is used as an instrument to further the goals of a group in competition with rival groups. On the other hand, aggression between members of a social unit threatens the integrity of the group. Social and individual mechanisms exist to limit the expression of aggression within a group and to counteract disruptive consequences. Social relationships among individuals must be restored, for this is the very fabric that constitutes the social group, and that provides extensive advantages to nonhuman primates. All of a group’s highest capabilities will be expressed in dealing with problems associated with aggression and its consequences, not so much to eliminate what in some form is essential, but to control the consequences so as to reap the maximum benefits with the least risk. See also: Aggression and Altruism; Aggression, Psychology of; Animal Behavioral Studies, Non-Primates; Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology

Further Reading Aureli, F., Veenama, H. C., van Pathaleon van Eck, C. J., and van Hooff, J. A. R. A. M. (1993). Reconciliation, consolation, and redirection in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). Behaviour 124, 1–21. Bernstein, I. S. (1981). Dominance: The baby and the bathwater. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4, 419–457. Bernstein, I. and Ehardt, C. L. (1985). Agonistic aiding: Kinship, rank age, and sex influences. American Journal of Primatology 8, 37–52. Cords, M. (1994). Experimental approaches to the study of primate conflict resolution. In Roeder, J. J., Thierry, B., Anderson, J. R., and Herrenschmidt, N. (eds.) Current primatology, vol. II: Social development, teaming behaviour, pp. 127–136. Strasbourg: University Louis Pasteur. Cords, M. and Aureli, F. (1993). Patterns of reconciliation among juvenile long-tailed macaques. In Pereira, M. E. and Fairbanks, L. A. (eds.) Juvenile primates: Life history, development, and behavior, pp. 271–284. New York: Oxford University Press. Cords, M. and Thumheer, S. (1993). Reconciling with valuable partners by long-tailed macaques. Ethology 93, 315–325.

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de Waal, F. (1989). Peacemaking among primates. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. de Waal, F. (2005). Our inner ape. New York: Riverhead Books. de Waal, F. (2006). Primates and philosophers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. de Waal, F. B. and Aureli, F. (1996). Consolation, reconciliation, and possible cognitive difference between macaques and chimpanzees. In Russon, A. E., Bard, K. A., and Parker, S. T. (eds.) Reaching into

thought: The minds of the great apes, pp. 80–110. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Gust, D. A. and Gordon, T. P. (1993). Conflict resolution in sooty mangabeys. Animal Behaviour 46, 685–694. Mason, W. A. and Mendoza, S. P. (1993). Primate social conflict. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Tinbergen, N. (1951). The study of instinct. Oxford: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press.

III. PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL SUBSTRATES FOR CONFLICT, VIOLENCE AND WAR

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Aggression, Psychology of Leonard Berkowitz, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Conceptions of Aggression Situational Determinants of Aggression

Glossary Affective Aggression The violence or aggression that results from a decidedly unpleasant (aversive) situation, and is carried out with very little thought; contrasted with instrumental aggression. Association In general, a psychological connection that a person believes exists between one object (or other situational detail) and another object (or detail). In the present context, the principle that aggression in response to a negative event will be directed toward a target that is psychologically associated with the believed origin of that occurrence or that, because of its other associations, is otherwise regarded very negatively, even though this target may not be the actual cause of the event. Aversion A state of affairs in which there is a strong unpleasant feeling about a situation or object; the present article proposes that such a condition tends to generate anger and aggression, even in the absence of a perceived wrongdoing.

Introduction This article will focus on the theorizing and research of many of the leading social-psychological investigators of human aggression. Little attention will be given to psychodynamic and psychoanalytic conceptions since these ideas have only a very minor part in guiding the empirically oriented, largely laboratory-based research covered here. Moreover, because of the necessary space limitations, this article will concentrate on the sources of aggressive conduct, and will not deal with such important matters as the consequences of an aggressor’s assault and how aggressive tendencies can be controlled. The first section, reviewing the leading conceptions of aggression in contemporary psychology, will argue that there are different kinds of aggression, each originating in different ways, and governed by different psychological processes. The article will then turn to a survey of the major determinants of this behavior, beginning with situational influences, especially those promoting relatively impulsive reactions, and then

Persistent Dispositions to Aggression Conclusion Further Reading

Hostile Aggression Aggression whose primary aim is the injury or destruction of the target rather than the attainment of some other goal such as money or approval. Impulsive or Expressive Aggression The aggression that is an automatic, nonthoughtful response to the instigating circumstances; also see affective aggression. Instrumental Being useful for the attainment of some goal; in the present article the aggression whose main goal is some objective other than simply the injury of the target, for example, to acquire money or social approval. Priming The process in which a situational stimulus (such as the words just heard or read or the sight of others fighting) increases the likelihood that other ideas having the same meaning will come to mind. This article holds that priming may also raise the chances that semantically related actions will be carried out, as when the playing of a violent video game (the priming stimulus) heightens the probability of aggression toward others.

will look at the personality characteristics involved in the disposition to be assaultive.

Conceptions of Aggression Although most theoretical analyses of aggression define this behavior as a deliberate attempt to hurt (or even destroy) some target, they disagree in a number of important respects. One difference has to do with whether the attacker’s major goal is to injure the victim. Quite a few conceptions, basically viewing the aggression as instrumental behavior, hold that the action’s chief aim is to satisfy some noninjurious purpose, such as to preserve or enhance one’s status in a group or protect or restore a threatened self-concept or obtain money. Several interpretations along this line go even further and do not posit any desire to hurt the victim. Other theorists, taking a different stance, propose that there are different kinds of aggression, with the assault being, sometimes, mainly

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intended to injure and, on other occasions, being largely an attempt to attain some nonaggressive objective. Considerably overlapping this issue of the attack’s primary goal, other variations have to do with the extent to which any given assault is said to be controlled primarily by cognitive processes. Most discussions of this behavior, it is probably fair to say, regard the aggressive action as arising from the persons’ understanding of, and previously acquired knowledge about, the surrounding situation. These cognitions presumably shape the decisions that are made as to what to do. Yet another approach maintains that aggression is frequently impulsive, relatively automatic reactions to situational features. Here too, where many discussions take a one-sided stance, contending that cognitive processes virtually always control aggression, other interpretations prefer to speak of different types of aggressive acts varying in the degree to which they are cognitively controlled. Aggression as Instrumental Behavior Most discussions of aggression in the social sciences, and especially in psychodynamic circles, basically assume that when people assault others, they want to do more than only hurt their targets. For the aggressors, this view contends, the action is instrumental to the attainment of some noninjurious goal, such as money, physical protection, increased status in one’s social group, or perhaps the repair of a damaged self-concept. Gerald Patterson’s well-known studies of the interactions between aggressive children and their parents provide one example of this kind of instrumental analysis. On the basis of his research, he and his colleagues concluded that when hyperaggressive children are nasty to others, they, typically, are seeking to coerce these persons to fulfill the youngsters’ wishes. They, presumably, frequently believe they can best get their parents, siblings, or anyone else, to do what they want by direct or indirect acts of aggression. In keeping with this formulation, Patterson pointed out that if the children were successful in their attempts to steer the others’ behavior, their action would be reinforced, and their conduct would be repeated. Many discussions of domestic violence follow this instrumentalist line of thought. It is often held that the person who is clearly dominant in the domestic relationship (because of such matters as that individual’s control over the couple’s economic resources, and/or the societal definition of who in the couple should make the most important decisions) is likely to attack his (or her) partner when he (or she) thinks his (her) commanding position is being challenged. The assault asserts the aggressor’s dominance. A variation of this theme proposes that many people regard a perceived social threat as ‘devaluing’ their self-worth, so that they then attack to show the threatening agent, and any other onlookers, that they must be treated with respect. Felson, as an example, maintains that the aggressors in

these instances frequently seek to nullify the negative identity imputed to them by the threat, and attack the offender to demonstrate their ‘‘strength, competence, and courage.’’ Analyses of the role of ‘cultures of violence’ in criminal assaults also take this instrumentalist position. According to Wolfgang, some ethnic groups have a high rate of violent offenses because their culture has taught them that they must strike at those who insult or otherwise threaten them to maintain their ‘‘honor’’ – their value in the eyes of their fellows. Nisbett and Cohen have employed this ‘culture of honor’ conception in their explanation of why people in the US south have a higher rate of violent crimes than their northern counterparts. Presumably as a vestige of the economic importance of herding in the early southern society, Nisbett and his colleagues maintain, southern culture still believes its members must react violently to those who threaten them if they are to protect their interests. There can be little doubt, then, that aggression is often employed dispassionately as a way of obtaining what the perpetrators want. This is not to say, of course, that emotions never enter into instrumental aggression. As a dramatic example of how feelings can help propel an instrumentally aimed assault, in Dreiser’s novel An American tragedy, the protagonist murders his pregnant girlfriend because of his anxiety that she will keep him from fulfilling his social ambitions. For another illustration that is perhaps of greater worldwide import, attitude surveys testify as to how emotions influence what people in the Middle East think of terrorist actions by Islamic militants. A study of Lebanese college students, conducted by Levin, H. and co-workers soon after the events of 11 September 2001, indicates that the students who identified most strongly with Arabs, in general, were most likely to support terrorist organizations and think that the 9/11 attacks were justified. Judging from other findings, it appears that in these students’ eyes Arabs were being unfairly dominated by the West. Greatly disturbed by this perceived domination, they evidently believed al-Qaeda’s attacks on the leading Western country, the US, would benefit Arabs in a variety of ways. Whatever the specific instrumental purpose, it’s important to note, the aggressors believe they are reacting ‘rationally’. For them, the instrumental behavior is consciously controlled – reasoned and calculated. Perceiving a threat, which may or may not actually exist, and aware of how the threat might impede the attainment of valued goals, these aggressors presumably decide, consciously or unconsciously, to attack the threatening agent so that they can satisfy their desires. Seeking the Others’ Injury Yet another view, frequently held by research-oriented social psychologists, maintains that an aggressor’s

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‘primary’ aim sometimes is to hurt (or perhaps even kill) the target, whatever else he or she might also want to accomplish. Along with Feshbach, in 1964, these investigators recognize that many attacks are chiefly instrumental in nature. But they also contend that when people are angered or otherwise emotionally aroused by a decidedly unpleasant event, the main objective is very apt to be the target’s injury. Robert Baron’s experiments on ‘pain cues’ are illustrative. The participants in this research were told they were to administer electric shocks to a peer whenever that person made a mistake on his assigned task. If these people had previously been angered by this individual, they administered stronger punishment when they were led to think their shocks were painful to the target rather than just a mild signal to him. It is as if the information about the target’s pain had implicitly told the angry people they were close to satisfying their desire to hurt the one who had provoked them, thereby whetting their ‘aggressive appetite’ even more. Where Feshbach’s influential 1964 paper had called this latter type of behavior ‘‘hostile’’ aggression, it is also frequently labeled ‘‘affective’’ or ‘‘expressive’’ or even ‘‘emotional’’ aggression since it typically arises when the person has strong unpleasant feelings and/or is emotionally aroused. Other writers have favored a different set of terms. Zillmann, for example, spoke of incentive-motivated and annoyance-motivated aggression, with the first, clearly instrumental in nature, and the second dealing with the aggression evoked by aversive stimulation. Dodge and his colleagues have referred to proactive and reactive aggression, notions apparently similar to Zillmann’s concepts. Whatever the labels used, all of these theorists are here proposing two basically different types of aggression, one that is reasoned and controlled and that is primarily aimed at the attainment of a nonaggressive goal, and the other, that may or may not be planned out, that is mainly intended to hurt the target (the latter here called hostile aggression for simplicity). Different Types of Aggression Acts of aggression sometimes have both hostile and instrumental objectives. A good many of the US marines in World War II apparently had both motives as they attacked the Japanese on the latter’s Pacific islands. Journalists accompanying the marines have reported how the Americans often sought to kill their enemy out of hatred for them as well as because of the marines’ desire to capture the island and use it as a steppingstone to ultimate victory. And somewhat similarly, the Palestinian suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Israeli restaurants usually had a number of motives; they hated their victims, thinking of them as their oppressors, and also believed the terror they inflicted would eventually drive the Jews out of the country. Several independent experts also see the bombings as

having another purpose as well: In the experts’ judgment, the leaders of the anti-Israeli groups also regard these attacks as ‘theater’, a way of drawing the world’s attention to the Palestinians’ cause. But even though any given assault can have both instrumental and injury-inflicting aims, it is still worth distinguishing between these two kinds of aggression; the relatively pure instances of these two types of aggression can still be very different in nature and can originate in very different ways. Studies pertinent to the Dodge concepts of proactive and reactive aggression testify to the desirability of not regarding all aggression as basically similar. In this research, it is often found that reactive aggression is linked to emotional dyscontrol, whereas this lack of control is rarely seen in proactive aggression. It should be noted, though, that even if these two kinds of aggression are basically different, rewards received for displaying one kind of aggression can still heighten the likelihood that either one will occur again sometime later. The reinforcement generalizes to affect aggression in general, as Walters and Brown demonstrated experimentally. They showed that when schoolchildren had been rewarded for engaging in make-believe aggression (punching a very large rubber doll), those who were frustrated soon afterwards because they could not see a promised movie, later exhibited a relatively high level of more realistic aggression in their game-playing with a peer. Is all aggression the result of a decision to attack the target?

As was indicated earlier, many analyses of aggression, especially in the social sciences outside of psychology, hold that the attacks exhibited are chiefly controlled by the person’s cognitions at that time and result from a decision to assault the target. The proponents of this position essentially believe that the perpetrators consciously or unconsciously act in terms of what they know and understand about the situation before them. They, presumably, then use these ‘knowledge structures’ (or to use another term, appraisals) in deciding how to respond. In arguing for such a conception, Bushman and Anderson contend that the decision reached can be made consciously or even unconsciously, in the latter case through mental processes of which the aggressors are not aware. The question of automatic-impulsive aggression

Whether the attack is instrumentally oriented or aimed mainly at hurting the target, it often is premeditated in the sense that it is a calculated attempt at achieving the aggressor’s desired objective. At other times, however, especially (but not only) under strong emotional arousal, injury-directed aggressive actions are not thought out beforehand, but are relatively impulsive, even automatic, reactions to an aggression-compelling stimulus. On these occasions, as Bargh, the present writer, and others

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have emphasized, little attention is given to other, notimmediately-obvious features of the surrounding situation that may warn against attacking the target, and the assault proceeds virtually unthinkingly once initiated unless the process is strongly blocked by a strong intervening inhibition. The new psychiatric term ‘intermittent explosive disorder’ apparently refers to an inclination to display this kind of behavior. A developing movement within social psychology, emphasizing the automaticity of a great deal of social behavior, argues that people believe that they have far more control over their actions than they actually do, and that much of their behavior is produced by situational cues to which they are not consciously attending. Bargh, one of the major contributors to this increasingly influential analysis, has provided supporting evidence. In two of his experiments he and some of his colleagues first showed that African-American faces are so often associated with hostility that the mere subliminal presentation of pictures of African-Americans tends to prime hostile ideas in white people. Then, building on this demonstration, in the second study, the white participants in one condition again saw pictures of African-Americans subliminally after which they had to interact with a peer in a mildly frustrating game. We are told that even though these people had not been consciously aware of the hostility-priming pictures, they afterwards displayed more hostility toward their peer than did their counterparts who had not been so primed, perhaps, partly because their inhibitions were weak at the time. It is unparsimonious to argue that the primed persons had ‘decided’ to be nasty to their partner, whether unconsciously or consciously. They could have acted as they did because the aggression-related situational stimuli had automatically activated associated hostile reactions. A somewhat similar process could play a role in quite a few instances of impulsive aggression. Here too, aggression-related situational cues might well setoff impulsive aggressive reactions from those who were aggressively disposed for some reason and whose restraints were relatively low at the time, even if they were not fully aware of these cues. As this article soon argues, internally generated reactions to a distressing occurrence can also automatically elicit impulses to aggression. This article also proposes here that strong negative feelings frequently activate not only hostile ideas and a tendency to appraise other people’s ambiguous behaviors in a hostile manner, but also, at least at times, even an aggression-related motor program.

situation (such as a hostility-associated photo, as in Bargh’s research, or the words that one reads) tend to prime other, semantically related ideas. These ideas then become more accessible mentally so that they easily come to mind. Although this kind of influence is quite reliable under particular circumstances, later research indicates it is most likely to arise when people are not especially motivated to be accurate in their judgments and do not realize their thinking might be affected by the priming experience. Furthermore, both theory and research suggest that the people most likely to be primed by a certain feature of the surrounding situation are those whose minds possess a highly developed network of associations to that particular situational stimulus. There is some debate among psychologists as to whether the priming has only cognitive effects or can also activate motor tendencies. It seems apparent that several of the experiments by Bargh and his colleagues support the latter possibility. Weapon effects

Another notable example of the priming produced by external stimuli is the so-called weapons effect first identified by Berkowitz and LePage in 1967. As they showed, the mere sight of weapons can induce people to be more aggressive than they otherwise would have been. The weapons’ presence apparently brings hostile ideas to mind and may even activate aggression-related motor impulses. Berkowitz held, though, that the guns and/or knives will promote hostile ideas and aggressive inclinations only to the extent that they are regarded as ‘aggressive’ objects, instruments used to hurt or kill people. They, presumably, will not have an aggression-facilitating effect if they are associated only with sport and recreation or if they strongly activate ideas and feelings of danger and anxiety. Bartholow, Anderson, and their colleagues have provided supporting evidence. In one of their experiments, men who were either recreational hunters or nonhunters were exposed to pictures of either a hunting rifle or an assault weapon and then, under a suitable pretext, had an opportunity to deliver punishing noise blasts to a peer. As expected, the hunters were less aggressive than the nonhunters after both groups had seen the hunting rifle. And interestingly, again demonstrating the importance of the gun’s meaning, the hunters were more aggressive after being shown the assault weapon than after seeing the hunting rifle. Movie and television violence

Situational Determinants of Aggression Priming: Automatic Cognitive and Behavioral Reactions to Situational Stimuli Cognitive psychologists have repeatedly shown that thoughts activated by some aspect of the surrounding

Even though this is not widely recognized by the general public, there is a great deal of evidence that the violence portrayed on movie and TV screens has deleterious effects; generally speaking, the depiction of aggression in the mass media heightens the likelihood that susceptible members of the audience will act aggressively themselves. Research by Anderson, Bushman, and Huesmann, among

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others, has identified different reasons for this influence: There can be a relatively transient priming of aggressionrelated cognitions and motor impulses, and also, if a great deal of violence is seen over a substantial period of time, there may also be a long lasting learning of what is desirable behavior in particular situations as well as a lessening of concerns about the bad effects of aggression (the latter sometimes termed desensitization). This heightened likelihood of media-induced aggression is not always immediately apparent, however. The depicted violence might give the viewers hostile ideas, but they are unlikely to display an openly aggressive action afterwards if their inhibitions against aggression are strong at that time, perhaps because there are some indications that the display of open aggression on that occasion would be disapproved, or maybe because some cues in the situation bring their aggression-opposing moral standards to mind. Interestingly, the portrayed violence itself could influence what moral standards operate. Findings from a series of studies by Berkowitz and his collaborators, and replicated by other investigators, indicate how this can happen. When people see what they regard as morally justified aggression (as when a ‘good guy’ beats up a ‘bad’ person), for a short time afterwards they are apt to become more willing to attack the ‘bad’ people in their own lives. It is as if the supposedly proper action on the screen had temporarily shaped their idea of the propriety of their own aggressive behavior. Research conducted by Huesmann, Eron and colleagues indicates that this last-mentioned kind of influence, in which witnessed aggression affects the viewers’ judgments about the desirability of assaulting others, can be long lasting if they see enough violent programming over a long enough time. In this study, a sample initially comprised of 6- to 10-year-old youngsters, from a range of social backgrounds in the Chicago area, was reinvestigated approximately 15 years later. On assessing these people’s behavior, through their self-reports as well as the observations of others who knew them well, the psychologists found that those who continued to watch a great deal of violent TV as they grew older tended to be the most aggressive of all the participants as young adults. Their ideas of how they should deal with other persons apparently had been influenced to some extent by the actions they had seen frequently on the television screen. Of course, this media-induced influence will be stronger under some conditions than others. For one thing, some people are especially susceptible to what they see. Bushman, among others, has shown that violent scenes are particularly apt to activate aggressive inclinations in viewers with strong aggressive dispositions. Then too, according to several experiments, the priming experience (the sight of violence) is most likely to lead to aggressive behavior in a later situation if, on this later occasion, (1) they encounter a cue associated with the observed violence, and/or

(2) the available target is somehow associated with the victim in the previously witnessed violent scene. Aversive Conditions Frustration

It is widely recognized that many people become aggressive when they are kept from reaching a desired goal. With this phenomenon occurring so often, quite a few analysts of human social behavior have sought to incorporate frustration effects into their theoretical formulations. One such account, the strain theory of crime causation in sociology, initially advanced by Merton and then adapted by others such as Cloward and Ohlin, essentially traces antisocial deviancy to socially produced frustrations. However, the best-known conception of a relationship between frustration and aggression was offered by Dollard and co-workers, at Yale University in 1939. Defining a frustration as an external impediment to expected goal attainment and not as an emotional reaction, Dollard and his colleagues would not have regarded poverty-stricken persons as frustrated unless these individuals had anticipated getting some of the good things money can buy and then, unexpectedly, failed to have their wishes fulfilled. Such a state of affairs was, presumably, related to aggression in two ways. First, according to the Yale group, all aggressive behavior could be traced back to some prior thwarting. And second, they said that every frustration creates an instigation to aggression. Berkowitz has questioned the first of these propositions, pointing out that a good many aggressive actions are instrumental in nature; people are at times assaultive because they have learned that aggression can pay off. However, the second proposition is worth examining more closely. Critics of the ‘frustration–aggression hypothesis’ have generally argued that frustrations give rise to aggression only when (1) they regard the thwarting as improper, and perhaps also, (2) they had previously learned to react aggressively to barriers to their goal attainment. Although there can be no doubt that these two conditions heighten the likelihood of aggressive reactions to the impediment to goal attainment, research has shown that unexpected failures to obtain desired rewards can indeed produce aggressive responses even when the goal blockages are legitimate. And moreover, there is now suggestive evidence from experiments with human infants that the frustration– aggression relationship holds even when there was little opportunity for prior learning. In the most recent of these investigations, babies displayed angry reactions (in their facial expressions) when they were frustrated by the nonfulfillment of a learned expectation. All this is not to say that every failure to obtain a desired and expected goal will lead to open aggression. Prior learning can heighten (or reduce) the chances of a nonaggressive reaction to a thwarting – although the probability

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of an aggressive response increases if the nonaggressive actions prove to be unsuccessful and the frustration persists. And of course, inhibitions activated by the threat of punishment and/or prior learning can suppress the aggressive reaction. Perhaps most important of all, the thwarting might not be sufficiently unpleasant. In a major revision of the original frustration–aggression hypothesis, Berkowitz has proposed that an interference with goal attainment will produce aggressive inclinations only to the degree that this interference is aversive. This reformulation basically holds that it is the experienced decidedly negative feeling generated by the frustration rather than the frustration itself that creates the instigation to aggression. Aversive conditions as instigators to aggression

This interpretation of the frustration–aggression relationship rests on a rapidly growing body of evidence. As Berkowitz has noted, a good number of studies have now demonstrated that a truly impressive variety of decidedly unpleasant conditions – physically painful events as well as cigarette smoke, foul odors, high room temperatures, and repugnant scenes – can generate anger and aggression. In regard to the first of these factors, animal research, especially the experiments by Azrin, Ulrich, and their associates, and also investigations with humans, have shown that painful occurrences frequently produce anger displays and aggressive inclinations, especially when it is difficult to get away from the pain source. Anderson’s systematic investigations of the aggressionstimulating consequences of uncomfortable heat also provide good examples of this effect. Going beyond his earlier experimental and naturalistic studies (e.g., demonstrating that many of the urban riots of the 1960s burst out in unusually hot weather), one of his papers on this latter topic showed that there was a significant association between how hot US cities were and their rate of violent crime even when many alternative explanations of this relationship were ruled out statistically. Indices of the ‘southern culture of violence’ also forecast the violent crime rate in Anderson’s study but were generally not as good predictors as the temperature measure. Berkowitz’s cognitive-neoassociationist model attempts to account for these aggressive effects by positing a multistage process. According to this formulation, in the initial stage decidedly unpleasant feelings automatically activate at least two different emotional networks (or syndromes), one associated with aggressive inclinations and the other linked to escape/avoidance tendencies. Genetic, learning, and situational influences determine the relative strengths of the two opposing syndromes. Then, later, as the person thinks about the aversive occurrence, appraisals and attributions presumably come into play so that the initial, fairly primitive emotional reactions can be differentiated, intensified, or suppressed. Anderson’s analysis of the effects of aversive conditions, his general aggression model, is

somewhat similar except that he believes the afflicted person decides whether or not to attack an available target, whereas in Berkowitz’s model the intense negative affect theoretically activates an aggression-related motor program automatically, producing impulses to aggression which then may or may not be inhibited. Whatever the specifics of the theoretical analysis, we can extend the findings just mentioned and also propose that a broad spectrum of social stresses can spur aggressive inclinations and antisocial tendencies. One such stress has to do with the humiliation people experience when they believe that others have belittled them. It is often observed, for example, that a good deal of youth violence is precipitated by the youngsters’ sense that the others with whom they were dealing had in one way or another indicated they were of little worth (so that they felt ‘disrespected’ or ‘dissed’). This same sense of being humiliated operates in the international realm as well. As a notable case in point, Palestinian militants frequently maintain that much of their antagonism towards Israel stems from the way Israeli authorities have consistently devalued the Palestinian people. Quantitative research also testifies to the variety of stresses that can evoke aggressive reactions. Sampling from the many relevant studies, the women in a laboratory experiment who were afflicted by a relatively high level of task stress tended to be most punitive in their judgments of young children who were working nearby, and similarly, in the 1975 survey of a representative sample of US families, conducted by Straus and his associates, those respondents reporting the greatest number of life stresses (from a list of 18) were especially likely to have assaulted their spouses that year. Adding to these observations, Landau has noted that the level of stress in Israel, as indexed by objective measures of unemployment and hyperinflation as well as by more subjective reports of worry about political, economic, and national security conditions, was significantly related to violent crime indicators. It is possible to continue with the evidence, but we will here suggest only that sociological strain theories of criminality basically rest on these stress effects. Associations with the perceived source of the experienced displeasure

If decidedly negative events can produce angry thoughts and aggressive inclinations, it is not too much of an extension to propose that those people who are somehow associated with very distressing occurrences will also tend to prime aggression-facilitating reactions automatically, and thus, become targets for those who were aggressively disposed. The persons victimized by hate crimes are often attacked consciously and deliberately because they are clearly seen as threats to strongly held values. But in some cases, the hated targets might also draw hostile reactions impulsively and with little thought primarily

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because they are linked in their assaulters’ minds with something extremely unpleasant. Perceived associations can also be responsible for those instances in which aggression is displaced onto others not at all responsible for the negative occurrence. Discussions of aggression for the general public frequently refer to this kind of happening. But although this phenomenon is widely recognized, present day social psychologists, with the exception of Norman Miller and William Pedersen and their collaborators, give it relatively little attention. Perhaps, partly because of the paucity of research on this topic, the best-known psychological account of this hostility displacement (as it is often termed) is still Neal Miller’s 1948 stimulus–response generalization formulation. Applying the then dominant associationistic perspective, Miller showed how displaced aggression could be explained in terms of a possible target’s association with the perceived source of an aversive experience. In general, Miller’s argument went, even though some person or group had actually not caused the unpleasant occurrence, the more closely this person or group was perceived to be psychologically linked to the supposed origin of the negative event, the stronger would be the aggressive inclinations that would be elicited by the person/group. The aversively generated urge to attack a possible target generalizes to others in proportion to their degree of association with the perceived cause of the displeasure. However, if it is believed to be dangerous to assault the aversive source for some reason, inhibitions against aggression would also generalize from the perceived cause to the other possible targets. The provoked person would then refrain from attacking the perceived perpetrator and the other possible targets close to him/her on the psychological association dimension. Still, Miller postulated, since the strength of the inhibitory tendency often declines more rapidly than the strength of the aggressive urge as one moves away from the perceived aversive source on the degree-of-association dimension, at some intermediate position on this dimension, the aggressive urge would be stronger than the inhibitory tendencies. People having a moderate degree of connection with the cause of the aversive experience are then apt to be the victims of displaced aggression. The Norman Miller–William Pedersen group took a different tack. Dealing with what they termed ‘triggered displaced aggression’, they demonstrated that the aggressive inclinations generated by different unpleasant sources can cumulate. Suppose that Person A does something mildly annoying to us, so mild in fact that we have very little if any hostile reaction to him at that time. Then let’s say Person B comes along and provokes us to a much more substantial extent. Soon afterwards, when we are given an opportunity to evaluate the first person A, there is a good chance we will be surprisingly nasty to him. The fairly intense negative arousal produced by Person B evidently generalizes to the upsetting individual

we had encountered earlier and strengthens our urge to attack him. Appraisals and Attributions So far, in emphasizing the role of priming (and more generally, associations) in many aggressive reactions, we have said little about the part played by cognitions – more specifically, people’s interpretations of the situation they are in – in the generation of emotion. The leading approach to the study of emotions in contemporary psychology, typically called appraisal theory, stresses the overriding importance of these understandings. According to this line of thought, it is a given event’s meaning for us (i.e., the appraisals we make of its personal significance and also what we believe is the particular cause of the occurrence) that determines what emotions we will feel in that situation and what actions we will undertake. The objections raised against the frustration–aggression hypothesis when Dollard and co-workers first published their monograph essentially faulted the authors for having neglected people’s appraisals of the frustrating incident. Averill and others voiced these objections succinctly by maintaining that anger was basically an accusation of blame at having been wronged. In the past several generations, appraisal theory has guided a great deal of research into the genesis of emotions, with many of the investigations simply asking college students about the incidents that had aroused emotions in them. These studies have obtained many similar findings (but also, as Berkowitz and Harmon-Jones noted, some puzzling differences). In the case of anger, the research results have been generally in accord with the critics’ objections to the thesis offered by Dollard and his colleagues: as was mentioned before, almost all of these appraisal studies agreed that this emotion arises when an external agent improperly prevents the person from reaching her or his valued goal. Still, to repeat what was stated earlier in connection with the frustration–aggression hypothesis, a good number of other studies have demonstrated that many persons do become aggressively inclined when they are thwarted even when they do not interpret the event in the manner stipulated by appraisal theorists. It is quite possible that the situational interpretations identified by the appraisal theory investigations may be especially apt to produce aggressive reactions primarily because they are very unpleasant. Take the case of frustration being attributed to an external agent’s deliberate action. When we make such an appraisal we believe the frustrating agent had intended to harm us personally, and it is unpleasant to think this. At the other extreme, we are less likely to assault someone who we think had thwarted us only accidentally because we do not take his behavior personally and also because we may well realize that it is socially wrong to retaliate against a person who had not wanted to hurt us.

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Persistent Dispositions to Aggression Consistency in Aggressive and Antisocial Behavior People’s susceptibility to aggression-eliciting influences in the surrounding environment does not mean that their inclination to violence necessarily changes drastically as they move from one setting to another. Indeed, as a great many studies have now demonstrated, those persons who exhibit a relatively high level of aggression on one occasion – whether in a personality test or a laboratory experiment or in a ‘real-world’ interpersonal encounter – have a better than chance likelihood of being highly aggressive in other situations as well (especially if the antecedent measure and/or the outcome to be predicted is/are based on an aggregation of a number of situations). Longitudinal studies of aggression and antisocial proneness

Olweus was one of the first psychologists to document the impressive stability in aggressive patterns of conduct over time. In his survey of US, English, and Swedish studies of male subjects ranging from 2 to 18 years of age, published in 1979, he reported that initial measures of aggressiveness successfully predicted later aggressiveness in each of the 16 different samples he examined. This relationship was moderately high (average correlation ¼ 0.7) when the follow-up was a year or less after the first assessment, and then declined regularly to about 0.4 when there was a 21-year gap between the first and later measurements. Other psychologists have also seen this consistency over time in their own investigations. The best known of these longitudinal studies probably are those conducted by Farrington and his associates at Cambridge University, based on a sample of working-class boys in London, by Eron, Huesmann, and their colleagues, employing male and female schoolchildren from a rural county in upstate New York, and by Moffitt and Caspi, using a large cohort of both boys and girls in Dunedin, New Zealand. All of these investigations found that a good number of the youngsters changed their conduct with the passage of the years, but that a sizable fraction of participants tended to maintain their general level of aggressiveness. Early aggressiveness is a risk factor predicting the chances of aggression-proneness in adulthood. Going beyond these demonstrations of consistency in the disposition to violence, all of the investigations cited here also found that a persistent high level of aggressiveness is part of a general pattern of social deviation. Thus, seeing that many of his youthful English troublemakers had engaged in many different kinds of socially disapproved behavior, Farrington concluded that they had a general tendency to antisocial conduct. In the New York State sample, as another illustration, those persons, males and females, who had been regarded by their peers as the most aggressive members of their school classes at age

8 tended to have the greatest number of criminal convictions by the time they were 30 years old. And similarly, Caspi has reported that in New Zealand aggressively disposed, undercontrolled 3-year-olds grew up to be impulsive, unreliable, and antisocial young adults. All in all, it appears that quite a few of the extremely aggressive people uncovered in these investigations fit the psychiatric category of aggressive conduct disorder: ‘‘. . . a repetitive and persistent pattern of aggressive conduct in which the rights of others are violated, by either physical violence against persons, or thefts outside the home involving confrontation with a victim. The physical violence may take the form of rape, mugging, assault, or, in rare cases, homicide . . .’’ Some people change

Even though there is this impressive degree of consistency over the years in the disposition to violence and antisocial behavior, quite a few people do change with time, as Moffitt, Caspi, and their associates have shown. Based on this group’s research findings, Moffitt has noted that there are substantial individual differences in the extent to which people maintain the pattern of behavior they displayed in childhood. She believes a good fraction of those who engage in antisocial conduct in adolescence do so, in large part, because of situational pressures (such as peer influence) and then become more law-abiding as they get older. Moffitt calls them ‘‘adolescence-limited antisocials.’’ On the other hand, there are a relatively small number of people who continue their extreme antisocial pattern over time, and Moffitt terms them ‘‘life-course-persistent antisocials.’’ A later study of school boys between 7 and 17 years of age suggests that the ‘‘life-course-persistent’’ troublemakers tend to have lower verbal IQs and experience more abuse and neglect than the adolescents who outgrow their antisocial pattern as they get older. Aggressive Personalities: Hostile Expectations and Weak Restraints against Aggression People’s likelihood of becoming aggressive on any given occasion is a function of their personalities as well as the specific nature of the situation they are in. And so, as Bushman has demonstrated, those who become most aggressive to a peer soon after they see a violent movie are the persons having the strongest aggressiveness traits (according to their scores on a standard hostility inventory). Their personal qualities had made them especially susceptible to aggression-stimulating features of the surrounding environment. This section will be a highly restricted review of some individual characteristics that, in interaction with aspects of the immediate situation, can affect the probability that a person will attack a particular available and suitable target: First, we will look at how the individual is apt to interpret his or her ambiguous encounters with others. Then after this, we will consider

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the role of an inclination to impulsive aggression, and especially the impulsiveness stemming from a relative absence of restraints against aggression. Reactive and proactive aggressors: Perceiving hostility by others

A number of psychologists have shown that highly aggressive personalities typically carry around with them a general ‘social theory’ maintaining that the people with whom they are involved in a problematic encounter are likely to be hostile to them. There is a good chance, then, as Dill, Anderson, and their colleagues reported, that a characteristically aggressive individual, in having this broad-ranging hostile expectation, will interpret other people’s ambiguous actions as being hostile in nature. Dodge is one of the best-known investigators of this characteristic tendency to expect hostility from others. On the basis of his early work with children, Dodge and Coie believed it was advisable to distinguish between two kinds of aggressive boys (as was mentioned before) in terms of how they process information about social interactions. Some of these youngsters, labeled proactive aggressors, were essentially oriented instrumentally in that they, often, used their aggression to dominate and bully others. Their aggression was basically calculated and controlled. Other boys, called reactive aggressors, were much more prone to react quickly, even somewhat automatically, to perceived threats. Of particular interest to us here, these quick-to-anger aggressive youngsters are generally also quick to attribute hostile intent to other persons. When the participants in Dodge’s early research watched a videotaped series of interactions between two school-age boys, the two types of youths were equally accurate in recognizing clearly intentional hostility. In ambiguous situations, however, the emotionally reactive aggressors were especially apt to attribute hostility to the actors. And when the participants were asked what they would do in a similar situation, these boys were more likely than their instrumentally oriented, proactive peers to say they would respond with some form of aggression. Although Dodge and many other psychologists employing his typology emphasize the way reactive aggressors process information and make decisions, he and his colleagues have at times acknowledged that these persons’ emotional reactions could be, at least in part, an automatic and classically conditioned response to the threatening situation. They also believed that once the reactive aggressors make a hostile interpretation of the situation before them, this appraisal and accompanying emotion prevent any further information processing so that they do not evaluate the different possible actions they might undertake. The difference between the reactive and proactive aggressors could be largely due to the way their brains function. In his review of the relevant neuroscience literature, Blair proposed that the brain circuits involved in reactive aggression are different from those operating to

produce instrumental (proactive) aggression. The frontal cortex apparently is less operative in those prone to reactive emotional outbursts, whereas persons displaying predominantly instrumental aggression do not exhibit this reduced frontal functioning. Raine and his colleagues have made a similar observation. Comparing murderers who killed in a violent rage (probably reactive aggressors) and those who were predatory (instrumental) murderers, they found that the highly emotional killers in their sample had lower levels of prefrontal-cortical activity. Impulsive aggression

Turning from neurological to psychological considerations, the thesis offered here is that the impulsivity characteristic of reactive aggressors stems from two particular personality characteristics: incomplete and inadequate information processing, and especially, relatively weak restraints against aggression. Some suggestive evidence for this contention can be found in the research published by Barratt, one of the leading investigators of impulsivity as a personality trait. His chief self-report measure of impulsiveness embraces, among other things, a failure to plan ahead as well as a motoric impulsiveness. Then too, we can also see evidence of these two components in a study by White, Moffitt, and their colleagues. On factor analyzing a set of impulsivity indices, they identified two correlated but distinct types of impulsivity. One of these, termed ‘‘behavioral impulsivity,’’ appeared to reflect a lack of behavioral control. The second factor, called ‘‘cognitive impulsivity,’’ had more to do with inadequately thought-out effortful and planned cognitive performance. The proposal here is that the disposition to carry out impulsive attacks is more a matter of behavioral impulsivity or weak restraints, than of cognitive impulsivity or inadequate decision making. Here again, we find some support in the investigations by Caspi, Moffitt, and co-workers in New Zealand and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They tell us that a personality configuration comprised of ‘‘high negative emotionality’’ and ‘‘weak constraints’’ was significantly linked to juvenile delinquency. The researchers suggest that since these youngsters did not adequately control their impulses, their negative emotional experiences were all too likely to produce antisocial reactions. Since aggressive outbursts are part of these antisocial reactions, it could well be that weak inhibitions contributed greatly to their impulsive attacks on others.

Conclusion There is more than one kind of aggression even though in all instances the action is aimed at the injury or elimination of some target. For most analyses of aggression in the social sciences, however, the intended pain/destruction is only a secondary goal. These conceptions view the

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behavior as primarily instrumentally oriented actions, attempts to gain a nonhurtful objective such as the restoration of a wounded self-concept, the winning of a desired social approval, or the attainment of a position of power and dominance over others. Without denying the frequent occurrence of these instrumental attacks, other formulations maintain that many assaults are mainly directed at the injury or elimination of the intended target. Aggressive actions can also differ in the degree to which they are premeditated  calculated and more or less rational (from the actors’ viewpoint)  or are largely automatic, involuntary responses to aspects of the surrounding situation. Besides highlighting the different kinds of aggression, this article has summarized research pointing to some of the major situational influences on aggressive behavior and the role of persistent dispositions to aggressive conduct. But it has also focused to a considerable extent on impulsive assaults  quick, automatic, and relatively unreasoned reactions. If there are few restraints in operation at the time, these responses can be produced by an external stimulus having a clearly aggressive meaning or by the intense negative feelings created by a decidedly unpleasant occurrence such as the emergence of a perceived threat or highly stressful event, even when no one is blamed for wrongdoing.

of affective aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21, 434–448. Anderson, C., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., et al. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4, 81–110. Bargh, J. and Chartrand, T. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist 54, 462–479. Baron, R. A. and Richardson, D. R. (1994). Human aggression, 2nd edn. New York: Plenum. Berkowitz, L. (1989). The frustration-aggression hypothesis: An examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin 106, 59–73. Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes, consequences, and control. New York: McGraw-Hill. Berkowitz, L. (2008). On the consideration of automatic as well as controlled processing in aggression. Aggressive Behavior. Berkowitz, L. and Harmon-Jones, E. (2004). Toward an understanding of the determinants of anger. Emotion 4, 107–130. Blair, R. (2004). The roles of orbital frontal cortex in the modulation of antisocial behavior. Brain and Cognition 55, 192–208. Dodge, K. and Coie, J. (1987). Social-information-processing factors in reactive and proactive aggression in children’s peer groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53, 1146–1158. Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O., and Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven: Yale University Press. Miller, N. (1948). Theory and experiment relating psychoanalytic displacement to stimulus-response generalization. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 43, 155–178. Nisbett, R. and Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. White, J., Moffitt, T., Caspi, A., et al. (1994). Measuring impulsivity and exploring the relationship to delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 103, 192–205.

Further Reading

Relevant Websites

Anderson, C. and Bushman, B. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology 53, 27–51. Anderson, C., Deuser, W., and DeNeve, K. (1995). Hot temperatures, hostile affect, hostile cognition, and arousal: Tests of a general model

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~caa/ – Craig Anderson. http://www.personal.umich.edu/~bushman – Brad Bushman. http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/people/huesmann.html – L. Rowell Huesmann.

Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology Jordan B Peterson, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction: Atrocity for Its Own Sake Territoriality: Inside the Walls Is Safe, Outside the Walls Is Dangerous Territory Is Social The Stranger Is Unpredictable and Terrifying Strange Ideas and Experiences Are Terrifying Motivation for Aggression: The Strange Is Demonic and Should be Destroyed

Glossary Allostatic Load The total demand for energy and physiological resource expenditure placed upon an organism in a particular situation or state.

Temperamental and Personality Variables in Unexplored Territory Exacerbation of Territoriality through Aversion and Hostility to the Unknown Reduction of Territoriality through Expansion of Individual Competence Conclusion Further Reading

Amygdala A brain area specialized for fear and anxiety, among other functions. Atrocity The willful subjugation of another or the self to threat or punishment whose severity far exceeds any reasonable standard.

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Avoidance Willful blindness; refusal to engage in the effortful multistage processing of anomalous information axioms or assumptions: predicates of beliefs or models, unprovable from within those beliefs or models. Chaos The virtuality or possibility from which order emerges. Constructivism A form of philosophy predicated upon the assumption that the human personality and human models of reality are constructed from information generated during the course of exploration. Cortisol A hormone produced in response to uncertainty and stress, which causes neurophysiological damage when chronically produced. Evil The act of doing harm for the express purpose of doing harm. Exploration The voluntary act of transforming anomaly or unexplored territory into productive, explored territory through the analysis of its structure and the consequential transformation of presumption and action. Explored Territory That aspect of territory which has been mastered and rendered safe and productive. Hippocampus A brain area devoted (1) to memory and (2) to the comparison of expected and desired outcomes of action to actual outcomes.

Introduction: Atrocity for Its Own Sake In the initial stages of World War II, in the Pacific theater, Dr. Hisato Yoshimura of the infamous ‘Unit 731’ conducted a series of ‘experiments’ upon Chinese prisoners. This is the same Unit 731 that was established on the express order of Emperor Hirohito, and the same Dr. Yoshimura who was in 1978 (!) awarded one of the Japanese nation’s highest honors, The order of the rising sun, for his work in ‘environmental adaptation science’. In one such ‘experiment’, a Chinese woman was shackled outside in subzero weather to a device like a stock that held her arms out in front of her, parallel to the ground, encircled by a restraining device that fit around her upper arms. The ‘medical experimenter’ poured freezing water over her extended arms until they were frozen solid, and then brought her into the ‘laboratory’ to then pour hot water (more than 50 C) over her frozen limbs. The process was then repeated until in front of the horrified victim’s eyes her skin and musculature loosened and could be stripped off both arms to the bone leaving them bare and lifeless and useless and utterly terrifying to apprehend. This is only one of many tortures practiced by this ‘investigative unit’ and not necessarily the worst. Obviously, the point of such processes was the utter degradation, traumatization,

Left Hemisphere Half of the cerebral cortex, generally linguistic, and specialized for activity in explored territory. Order Predictable or habitable human territory or conceptual space. Orienting Reflex An instinctual pattern of bodily and mental response to anomaly. Reticular Formation a brain area responsible for increasing cortical arousal and associated consciousness. Right Hemisphere Half of the cerebral cortex, generally non-linguistic, and specialized for activity in unexplored territory. Territory The local space and time continuum in which an organism is inevitably embedded. Territoriality The instinctive response of a creature to defend its social structure and environmental locale. Thalamus A brain area which filters sensory information prior to its transmission to the cortex and its manifestation in consciousness. Totalitarianism The attempt to impose a comprehensive ideological interpretation upon all phenomena, past, present, and future. Unexplored Territory That aspect of territory which has not yet been mastered and which thus remains both threatening and curiosity-provoking.

and destruction of the victim’s body and soul rather than any scientific knowledge that might be accrued thereby. It should be pointed out that such events are by no means rare and also that there is little evidence that emotionless psychopaths are always or even most commonly the perpetrators. Furthermore, it is evident that the capacity for such atrocity does not seem simply limited to the members of any one or even several particular cultures. Rather, careful study of such phenomena indicates that the motivation for terrorism and atrocity is something central to the human condition and must be understood as such, rather than as mere aberration. It appears that innate and justifiable territoriality, common to men and animals alike, can combine under certain conditions with self-deception and existential resentment, both unique to human beings, producing motivation for terrorism and atrocity.

Territoriality: Inside the Walls Is Safe, Outside the Walls Is Dangerous Territoriality cannot be properly understood without careful re-conceptualization of the nature of emotional regulation among individual human beings. This re-conceptualization

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must include careful consideration of man as a truly social animal whose physical existence and whose psychological stability is dependent on maintenance of a predictable social environment. The most important neuropsychological work, relevant to this re-conceptualization and consideration, has been conducted over the last 50 years by Russian neuropsychologists, students of Aleksandr Luria. Their work is revolutionary, from an ontological and epistemological perspective, because it forces a comprehensive reconsideration of the modern view of anxiety. Among Western experimental psychologists following Skinner, anxiety has most often been studied as fear which is always fear of something particular. Such fear is learned, through simple association or conditioning. For the Western psychologist, satisfied complacency is the normative state, and fear constitutes the deviation. From the Russian perspective, this is precisely backwards. Anxiety is instead the a priori state, manifested axiomatically whenever a stimulus or situation appears whose features have not yet been mapped functionally by the cortex. Now, the idea of ‘stimulus or situation’, appropriate for the lab, appears somewhat too conceptually restricted to serve as the proper signifier in the present context. More generally, ‘stimulus or situation’ might be regarded as ‘unknown territory’ – the unmapped aspects of the space and time continuum in which the organism is continually embedded. It was O. S. Vinogradova and E. N. Sokolov who first described the orienting response or orienting reflex as the immediate and involuntary response of the organism to the emergence of novelty or anomaly – or unexplored territory. Vinogradova, Sokolov and later Jeffrey Gray outlined the structures of a system centered in the hippocampus, an ancient part of the brain, central to the emotionallimbic system, so described by James Papez and Paul Maclean. In the West, under the influence of Scoville and Milner, the hippocampus has been regarded as a brain area primarily devoted to the movement of sensory information from short-term attention to long-term memory, in the human case, or as a ‘cognitive mapping’ device in the case of animals. Although there is no particular reason for assuming that the emotion-regulating and memory functions are by necessity exclusive, the tendency for territoriality characteristic even of human researchers has made irritation with the competing viewpoints rather than attempts to integrate across them (excepting the case of Gray) standard practice. In 2001, shortly before her death, Vinogradova gave her final opinions on the function of the hippocampus and brain systems directly associated with it. She described the hippocampus as an interface between two neural systems: the first, in the brainstem, responsible for activating and deactivating more complex brain systems, emerging later in phylogenetic and ontogenetic history; the second, in the cortex, responsible for the regulation of thought,

emotion, perception, and behavior as a consequence of learning. Sensory information streaming in from the outside world is fed in a bottom-up fashion through these ancient brainstem systems into the hippocampus, providing it with a quick-and-dirty picture of those events occurring in the territory currently occupied by the organism. At the same time information about what is supposed to be happening, according to current plans and desires, is being fed downward into the hippocampus where it is simplified and compared to the ‘real-world’ input from the brainstem. If the two inputs match, then the hippocampus sends a message to the raphe nuclei in the brainstem. This suppresses activity of the ascending, excitatory reticular formation which is responsible, in general, for increasing brain arousal, heightening attention, increasing sensory throughput via the thalamus, placing the body in a state of alertness and preparation for action, disinhibiting anxiety, and potentiating exploration. What this means is that the organism is only calm, habituated, free of stress, and well-adapted when cortical and brainstem input match, as computed by the hippocampus. Under such conditions, what is going on in the world as observed by basic rapid sensory processes matches what is supposed to be going on as a calculation of higher thought and presumption. When reality is manifesting itself in accord with the desires of the actor, negative emotion, particularly anxiety, remains wellregulated and controlled. This means that it is security and familiarity that is the learned, and anxiety that is the normative, default response to unknown territory. This fact has been demonstrated in various other manners by other researchers using different research paradigms. In the Western psychological tradition familiarity is not learned, except most simply, through habituation, considered the simplest form of learning. It is instead assumed. When B. F. Skinner conditioned fear into his experimental rats, he had to set the stage, implicitly, in accordance with his model of learning. First, a lab rat was introduced into the experimental cage or container – known territory. Once that rat had habituated, he was presented with a conditioned stimulus, a light, for example, which was paired repeatedly with an unconditioned aversive stimulus, such as an electric shock or a loud and sudden noise, which when presented alone would make the rat freeze. This sequence of unexpected events demonstrated to the rat that he was not where he thought he was, at least when the light was on. Soon the rat would come to freeze to the light alone. Thus, according to Skinner, he had learned fear. What was of course glossed over was the fact that the rat would freeze immediately upon first introduction to the experimental cage or container and that he had to be left to get over his initial anxiety and explore before he was ‘habituated’ enough to learn fear. A rat’s a priori state in a novel environment is anxiety, heightened alertness, and a slowly developing

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inclination to explore, once its anxiety dissipates, as a consequence of activity in another ancient brain area, the hypothalamus.

Territory Is Social How then might the mapping of territory, so that emotional stability and familiarity might be established, be understood? In a nonverbal animal, such as a rat, the transition from anxiety and freezing in a new situation to active exploration and mapping begins with cautious sniffing. Such exploratory sniffing emerges after the animal has been immobilized by fear, when it does not know where it is, and under the spell of brain systems designed to minimize potential exposure to predators. After sniffing the animal switches to vision, using appropriate head movements, and then dares to move its body through the territory, assessing layout and the motivational/emotional significance of that layout as something that occurs in response to its own actions. For an isolated rat in a simple cage ‘territory’ may be construed as something as simple as the spatial layout of the cage – hence the primarily ‘cognitive map’ or ‘spatial’ models of hippocampal function buttressed by findings that the hippocampus does in fact contain ‘place’ cells. Other researchers, however, have made much of the ability of the hippocampus and closely related structures to enable ‘transitive associations’ – associations or relations between arbitrary stimuli – and have suggested that the place or location identification function of the hippocampus is actually identification of ‘context’. Context, which can mean place, can also mean ‘behavioral task demand’ or meaning of the place. A context or territory can be ‘a place to undertake some particular learned conception and action’ rather than a place to instinctually freeze or explore. Knowledge or memory of the appropriate learned conception and action inhibits the a priori instinctual responses. An animal – or a human being – is comfortable in those places where he knows how to act. Such places are successfully explored territory. However, the observer should not be fooled into thinking that ‘territory’ is simply physical space or place. After all, most complex animals – rats and primates included – are social animals. What this means is that their territories are not mere material places made of relatively predictable objects and their interactions but complex and dynamic social dramas whose behaviorally associated contextual meanings are very much dependent on the reactions of potentially unpredictable conspecifics, familiar and strange. Once the complexities of social being are added into the equation the situation becomes somewhat more difficult to understand. Territory that is unoccupied by other creatures tends to be rather predictable under most circumstances. However, territory that is occupied by societies is

characterized by the physical properties of the territory as well as the social structure of the society. That means that most of what is appropriate learned conception and action has to be negotiated with others. Thus, it is the establishment and maintenance of a social contract, implicit or explicit, that brings familiarity to territory. This of course means that any threats to the social contract are also simultaneously threats to the learned structures that inhibit or regulate terror.

The Stranger Is Unpredictable and Terrifying Most animals solve this problem by consorting, in the main, with a limited number of highly familiar peers whose potentially unpredictable behavior is strictly limited in its range by the strictures of the currently extant hierarchy of social dominance. Social dominance hierarchies are complex patterns of social behavior whose rulelike structure is encoded in the conceptual presumptions and behavioral rituals proscribed by each animal’s relative standing and role. The sensitivity of social animals to the disruption of their dominance structures – their implicit social contracts – can hardly be overstated. It is for this reason that human beings who break traditional rules are naturally regarded as immoral, threatening, and deserving of punishment. Their rule-breaking actions threaten the integrity of the structures that underlie cooperative behavior, regulate social interactions, and allow for familiarity and predictability in a given place and time. Interlopers – strangers – offer equivalent threat. No one knows where they fit, what they think, or what they are likely to do. Thus, they threaten the integrity of the social and psychological structures that inhibit fear. Even animals react violently to the unknown intruder, and it is for such reasons. If an experimenter removes a well-loved rat from its familial surroundings, washes it carefully, provides it with a new odor, and returns it to its peers, it will be promptly dispatched by those who once loved it. Rats determine familiarity by smell. The ‘new’ rat constitutes a threat to explored territory, physical and social – to everything secure. Chimpanzees act in much the same manner, and are perfectly capable of searching out and killing ‘foreign devils’, even if they were once familiar. Why do such reactions occur? Well, a familiar conspecific’s patterns of context-dependent behavior have been previously mapped and are additionally constrained and simplified by its particular placement in the dominance hierarchy and the ‘rules’ that govern behavior in that position. The cortex can thus render predictions about the outcomes of behaviors in interaction with that conspecific – can in fact strive with some success to ensure that those outcomes are positively beneficial. Those predictions/desires are very likely to match the sensory

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information about that conspecific’s behavior as it is occurring and as it is fed, bottom up, into the hippocampus through the ancient brainstem systems. Under such conditions, the hippocampus registers ‘match’ and the arousal systems (anxiety, aggression, panic, and exploration) remain under tonic inhibition. No threat is detected. No unnerving possibility for damage manifests itself. No stressful disinhibition of anxiety and aggression is necessary. No increase in computational or allostatic load, with its concomitant cascade of stress-induced physiological perturbation and damage, has occurred. An unfamiliar conspecific, by contrast, is unpredictable in his actions and something that presents a potential threat to the integrity of the entire dominance hierarchy structure, as his capacity for challenge and revolution remains unspecified. Familiar conspecifics are explored territory. Unfamiliar conspecifics are unexplored territory and evoke all the instinctual responses characteristic of reaction to the unknown, unexpected, and dangerous.

Strange Ideas and Experiences Are Terrifying Animals and human beings in social groups come to some shared implicit assumptions about the meaning of shared territory – about the nature of actions and reactions that are acceptable there. Any occurrences that violate those assumptions, whether they are natural or social events, threaten the integrity of the structure of the shared map of meaning that regulates emotional responding in that territory. In the human case, exposure to extreme anomaly or novelty or unexplored territory produces what JanoffBulman has called ‘‘shattered assumptions.’’ Such assumptions might be considered the axioms of the representation system, negotiated socially, then used by the nervous system to interpret, predict, and shape the world. The most fundamental of these, according to Janoff-Bulman, are ‘the world is safe’ and ‘I am a valuable asset in it’. These axioms correspond, respectively, to the stability and predictability of the social environment and the security of individual placement within it. The consequence of the violation of such by assumptions-shattering can be dramatic, neurophysiologically speaking. Individuals who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder – and, indeed, from other forms of severe negative emotion – suffer hippocampal damage brought about by chronically elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This means that the very system that regulates emotion is damaged by exposure to too much emotion (or by unexpected and assumption-shattering events). Elevated cortisol levels also increase propensity to a wide range of illnesses and degenerative conditions, including obesity, infectious illness, and heart disease. Recent research indicates that treatment with ‘antidepressant’ serotonin reuptake inhibitors – whose biochemical

effect essentially mimics the pharmacological state characteristic of stable high-dominance animals – allows for hippocampal neurogenesis, as well as improvement in memory functions associated with the hippocampus. Vinogradova’s work sheds substantive light on what an ‘assumption’ might be from a neuropsychological perspective and allows, in potential, for a developmental description of the relationship between the development of such assumptions and their relationship to the tonic inhibition of negative emotion. She points out that habituation of the orienting or novelty response should be regarded as negative learning and that the disappearance of that response is a consequence of the elaboration of an increasingly detailed world-model. This modeling occurs as a consequence of sequential learning in structures that receive outputs, sequentially, from the hippocampus. The higher up the chain of output from the hippocampus, the more sophisticated the brain area, and the more repetitions of the event necessary to shape the response. Vinogradova regards this sequential learning system ‘‘as a chain of integrators, where each one starts to respond only after reaction develops at the previous link, and as a delay line, preventing premature fixation of spurious, irrelevant, low probability signals.’’ She points out that the highest links in the system may be regarded as the ‘‘ultimate signal for information fixation’’ and presumes that these terminate in the language centers of the prefrontal cortex. Thus, what is fully understood and what inhibits anxiety most effectively is knowledge elaborated to the point of verbal comprehension and communicability. The most fundamental assumptions in the hierarchy of belief or representation, derived from exploration, are precisely those that govern the essential, implicit rules of social interaction as Jean Piaget suggested in his seminal work on the development of morality in children and adolescents. It is these ‘rules’, after all, that specify the nature of shared social territory and are encoded to some degree in our explicit conceptions of intrinsic human rights. Disruption of these most fundamental presumptions – the breaking of rules observed in action, or justification for such rule-breaking, presented verbally – thus presents a threat to the validity of the knowledge structures whose physiological instantiation inhibits and controls negative emotion and its associated arousal responses. The magnitude of this threat corresponds in intensity to the level of analysis such disruption affects. This means that the more fundamental the presumption threatened and the higher and more abstract the level in the sequential learning chain that presumption is instantiated, the more negative emotion will be disinhibited. It thus stands to reason that human societies with the most extreme explicit differences in opinion with regards to ‘intrinsic human right’ thus possess the most capability for mutual disruption of presumption and its attendant emotional regulation.

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Predictability, consequential to the establishment of an implicit and then explicit social contract, inhibits terror. Threats to the integrity of that contract, behavioral or abstract, hint at unforeseeable terrors to come. Thus people, and animals, fight to preserve their familiar surroundings. So much for territoriality. The pathological exacerbation of territoriality by resentment, however, is a process much more difficult to accurately describe and understand. Thus, we have to turn our attention to forms of cognitive representation represented earlier in the chain of integrators, so to speak, and attend to descriptions in art, mythology, and literature as well as hints available in the psychological literature.

Motivation for Aggression: The Strange Is Demonic and Should be Destroyed At about the same time that Sokolov and Vinogradova were outlining the gist of the orienting reflex theory, George Kelly (1955) was developing a model of human motivation predicated on the idea that human beings love, above all, to be right. We now know that to be threatened with evidence for error at fundamental levels of analysis is traumatic, we know why, and all this knowledge supports Kelly’s theorizing. Kelly also believed, however, that human beings were apt to repress or otherwise restrict the appearance of data that invalidated their conceptual models. These data might include actual human beings whose appearance and behavior speaks of the strange, or just the ideas of those human beings (which can certainly be more dangerous than the physical incarnations themselves). Kelly entitled this tendency ‘hostility’, and regarded it as ‘extortion of confirmation’ (a particularly apt phrase reminiscent, e.g., of the incomprehensible insistence by Stalinist Soviet officials that their inevitably-to-be-punishedanyways victims ‘confess’ before being jailed or killed). He states: ‘‘. . . a major revision of one’s construct system can threaten with immediate change, or chaos, or anxiety. Thus it often seems better to extort confirmation of one’s opinion – and therefore of the system that produced them – rather than to risk the utter confusion of those moments of transition’’ (1969: 238). The desire to deny or to refuse to confront evidence of systemic error, described by Kelly, is something central to our notions of individual psychopathology. Investigation of this relationship is what begins to sheds light on the contributions of resentment, cowardice, and hatred to the pathologizing of territoriality among human beings. Kellyan ‘hostility’ is clearly a category that could be extended to include Freudian mechanisms of defense, the Adlerian life-lie, the inauthenticity of the existentialists, the Jungian failure to identify with the hero, or the rigidity characteristic of personality disorders. Perhaps we could extend such notions to the social realm and begin

to speak of ‘social psychopathology’ – that is, the tendency to demonize evidence of conceptual insufficiency, or the bearers of that evidence, and to ‘morally’ attempt to eliminate it or them from existence. This seems something close to the essence of totalitarianism and the brutality with which it is always associated. Elkhonen Goldberg – who is, not coincidentally, another student of Luria’s – has posited that the human brain is divided into two subsystems, one of which deals with novelty and the other deals with familiarity. These subsystems are lateralized. In the right-handed individual, the right hemisphere, part of the system that generates negative emotion, preferentially deals with the unknown. It is fundamentally nonlinguistic in its operations which appear tightly associated with and even dependent upon the subcortical systems described previously, the amygdala and hippocampus. The left hemisphere, by contrast – part of the system that generates positive emotion – deals with what has been previously categorized and explored. Such things tend to become stateable in words, communicable to others. In keeping with such a suggestion, the left hemisphere system is linguistic in its essential nature. The linguistic system can think about things it understands in words (and, maybe, about things it only partially understands). The nonlinguistic system is stuck with the ineffable, however, and has to make sense out of what threatens the structure of familiarity itself. The question then becomes, ‘how does the mind begin to form representations of the events and situations (territories) that it does not yet understand, or has not yet mastered?’ The answer seems to be found in the twin domains of motivation and emotion, in association with the cortical operations of the right hemisphere. If an event is unexpected, or unmapped, its potential meaning is initially processed by very rapid neurological systems. These systems assume that the unexpected or unmapped is, first, potentially fatal and then, if not fatal, intrinsically dangerous. In the latter case, it is likely to manifest innate threat features – bared teeth, low growling, predatory eyes, aggressive quick movements, blood, dismembered body parts, looming, etc. If it manifests none of these, then it is compared to frightening or threatening events in the personal past. If it matches none of these, then it may be considered either ignorable (unless it repeats) or worth exploring – now, or at some point in the future. This might be considered a form of associative thinking, something perhaps generated or motivated by the amygdala characteristic of the amygdala. This means that the brain starts to make a model of the unknown event by assuming that it is like other unknown or threatening events and it does it under the influence of associative emotional systems. This means, in a sense, that the unknown occurrences are ‘contaminated’, a priori, with everything else that is dangerous or unpredictable and has to be carefully separated from such things in the course of exploration if such separation is deemed appropriate.

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The fact that such contamination does occur has been very clearly illustrated by Mircea Eliade in his work on basic religious ideation. Eliade states: ‘‘One of the outstanding characteristics of traditional societies is the opposition that they assume between their inhabited world and the unknown and indeterminate space that surrounds it. The former is the world (more precisely, our world), the cosmos; everything outside it is no longer a cosmos but a sort of ‘other world,’ a foreign, chaotic space, peopled by ghosts, demons, ‘foreigners’ (who are assimilated to [undistinguished from, more accurately] the demons and the souls of the dead).’’ More specifically, ‘everything outside’ occupies the same categorical space as chaos and disorder itself – often given the theriomorphized form of a terrible, predatory reptile lurking in an infinite darkness. This is likely because snakes/reptiles/predators and their features are innately terrifying, produce amygdalic responses, and may therefore be productively used as ‘root metaphors’ for the place of ‘fear itself ’. The ancient Egyptians regarded the Hyksos, ‘barbarians’, as equivalent to Apophis, the serpent who nightly devoured the sun, according to Egyptian mythology. The early Indo-Europeans equated the destruction of enemies in battle to the slaying of Vrtra, the precosmogonic ‘dragon of chaos’, by Indra, the world-creating hero. Finally, the archaic Iranians or Zoroastrians equated the mythic struggle of King Faridun (a culture-creating hero, analogous to Romulus or Remus, the mythic founders of Rome) against a foreign usurper (the dragon Azdahak) with the cosmogonic fight of the hero Thraetona against Azi Dahaka, the primordial serpent of chaos. The enemies of the Old Testament Hebrews suffer the same fate as the usurpers of Iran: they come to be regarded as equivalent to Rahab, or Leviathan, the serpent Yahweh overcame in his battle to establish the world [‘‘Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself ’’ (Ezekiel 29:3); also, ‘‘Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out’’ (Jeremiah 51:34).] What this all means is that any encounter with what is not understood – stranger, strange idea, strange occurrence – immediately evokes memories, perceptual schemes, and action patterns designed to deal with the horrifying, unacceptable, reptilian, predatory, and immoral.

Temperamental and Personality Variables in Unexplored Territory Everyone is implicitly primed to be afraid of the unknown. It is logical to implicitly fear strangers, strange ideas, and strange occurrences because their meanings are unspecified and potentially dangerous. However, everyone does not

respond to manifestations of the unknown in exactly the same manner. What is feared may also be hated and targeted for extortion or destruction. Under some circumstances, this makes the unknown vanish, at least temporarily – although it may fight back, particularly in the form of unknown people, and this can make the potentially threatening exceedingly dangerous. What is unknown may also be explored, however, after fear begins to disappear – in which case additional and potentially redemptive information may be garnered. This is, generally speaking, a useful response, if successful – in that the acquisition of additional information is generally useful from the perspective of personality expansion. More exploration means more ways of looking at the world, and more behavioral strategies at hand. What is it that determines whether the unknown is made subject to hostility or exploration? Social factors certainly play a role. As desired or necessary resources and opportunities for the acquisition of status become increasingly limited, the overall allostatic load on the organism increases, and the incremental costs of being thrust into novel social territory loom larger and larger. Thus, social instability – structural and unjust inequality of opportunity, unemployment, fiscal uncertainty – increases the probability that the bearer of unknown customs and ideas will be demonized and persecuted. However, individual differences in character must also play a determining role. These differences might be regarded as habitual responses to the unknown, and some of them are a consequence of experience – are learned.

Exacerbation of Territoriality through Aversion and Hostility to the Unknown Anything unknown can simply be avoided. In the short term, this simply makes the problem go away, or never even appear. Two strategies of avoidance appear most effective. The first is simple, and behavioral. Threats to the integrity of current territory, physical, social, and abstract, can merely be not encountered. Individuals who restrict their territory to very narrow parameters engage in this form of avoidance. They simply never put themselves voluntarily into a situation where they would have to do, think, or experience anything new. This keeps them safe – but poorly differentiated, inexperienced, fragile, and bored. The second strategy of avoidance is more abstract. If the limited actions and experiences characteristic of those who employ behavioral strategies of avoidance still produce unexpected events, they can still merely ‘refuse to engage in thinking about those events’. This does not mean that they repress them, in the classic sense, but that they merely will not engage in the effortful process that allows anomalous information to be fully processed, up the chain of integrators described by Vinogradova, such that new

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behavioral patterns and modes of perception might be established. Thus, all novel experience remains associated a priori with all things intrinsically and experientially terrifying and strange – and such things collect. Avoidance, in its two primary forms, means voluntary failure to update the framework guiding ongoing action, in consequence of desire to avoid uncertainty and fear. Unfortunately, such failure means existence in an evermore narrow frame. The domain of unprocessed novelty, defined prima facie by inaction and avoidance as ‘threat too intolerable to face’ expands inevitably with time when past knowledge is held as absolute. This is most simply because things constant in the past tend to change into variables as the future advances. More and more experience is therefore left intolerable, inexplicable, and chaotic as the cumulative effects of using avoidance as a mode of adaptation manifest themselves. Edwardes and Masters offer an interesting although perhaps mythological anecdote: ‘‘The Marabout [a West African Islamic spiritual leader] draws a large circle in the dirt, which represents the world. He places a scorpion, symbolic of man, inside the circle. The scorpion, believing it has achieved freedom, starts to run around the circle – but never attempts to go outside. After the scorpion has raced several times around the inside edge of the circle, the Marabout lowers his stick and divides the circle in half. The scorpion stops for a few seconds, then begins to run faster and faster, apparently looking for a way out, but never finding it. Strangely enough, the scorpion does not dare to cross over the line. After a few minutes, the Marabout divides the half circle. The scorpion becomes frantic. Soon the Marabout makes a space no bigger than the scorpion’s body. This is ‘the moment of truth.’ The scorpion, dazed and bewildered, finds itself unable to move one way or another. Raising its venomous tail, the scorpion turns rapidly ‘round and ‘round in a veritable frenzy. Whirling, whirling, whirling until all of its spirit and energy are spent. In utter hopelessness the scorpion stops, lowers the poisonous point of its tail, and stings itself to death. Its torment is ended’’ (Edwardes and Masters 1963: 128). The individual who lives in such a manner places himself in a spiraling process of entrapment (see Figure 1). His avoidance means that he is never called upon to master new territory. In consequence, his domain of mastery and confidence cannot grow. Furthermore, as what was once explored turns inevitably into something new, as the future advances, the ground on which he stands shrinks and more and more of the world surrounding him becomes chaotic and intolerable. Finally, his capacity for exploration diminishes as he refuses to engage in the process and cuts himself off from experiencing any of its potential benefits while his faith in that capacity diminishes in the same manner. At some point, he becomes both narrow and weak. Everything around him becomes unbearable and he can see no way out. Such conditions are optimal for the development of the kind of murderous resentment that

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Figure 1 The vicious circle of the adversary. This figure presents what might be regarded as the constituent elements of a mythological ‘journey to the underworld’. Totalitarian absolutism, rejection of the process of creative exploration, and consequent paralyzing fear of the unknown are viewed here as interacting parts of a process that inevitably produces dysregulation of individual emotion and increases meaningless suffering. This cycle produces an individual ‘inhabitant of chaos’ who is easily led to acts of resentment-motivated hatred. The ‘adversary’ is here conceptualized as the ‘archetypal’ and omnipresent enemy of courageous and creative thinking.

makes something truly pathological out of what started as mere desire to protect known territory. We can turn to mythology again, at this point, to try to obtain some sort of understanding of what conditions and states of mind such a looping process produces. The poet John Milton described the ‘‘vicious circle’’ created by the obedient/avoidant individual as spiraling down inevitably to a kind of hellish underworld of emotion: Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal Sky With hideous ruin and combustion down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire. (Milton, 1667/ 1991: 38, part 1:44–48)

Milton argued that it was precisely the failure to admit to error, and to rectify the consequences of that error, that placed Satan, symbol of totalizing rationality, ‘‘As far removed from God and light of Heaven/As from the center thrice to the utmost pole’’ (Milton, 1667/1961: 38, 1:54–1:74). He argued further that voluntary admission of inadequacy and guilt would have been sufficient for redemption. But ‘‘obdurate pride’’ and arrogance, associated inextricably with the tendency to refuse to accept error and accept ignorance, made such admission impossible. Totalitarian refusal to develop new skill and new modes of conceptualization when confronted with error makes life increasingly miserable. Individuals who are increasingly miserable become increasingly vicious, resentful, and full of hate. Such hate, in extreme forms, comes to be expressed in implicit identity with the source

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of archetypal evil, and is played out in active and often conscious revenge against the conditions of existence: - for whence But from the author of all ill could spring So deep a malice, to confound the race Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell To mingle and involve, done all to spite The great Creator? (Milton, 1667/1991: 71, part 2: 380–385)

What is the logical response of a victim to a terrible and unreasonable world apparently bent on his suffering and destruction? Hatred, contempt, and violence – and not because the manifestation of these motivations is going to do him any good. The fully resentful victim is perfectly willing to destroy himself while exacting revenge. The vengeful response to the injustice of existence is even more fitting, more esthetically pleasing, if it is just as damaging to the perpetrator as it is to the victim. That way the revenge on Mankind and Being is more complete. It is for such reasons that the two teenage killers at the Columbine high school, for example, killed themselves. It was certainly not for fear of post-crime imprisonment. The killers made their statement, and their own violent deaths merely drove the message home. Most investigators of the Columbine killings claimed that they could not understand the boys’ motivations. They could understand them. They just did not want to. Eric Harris, the most literate of the pair, explained himself as clearly as he could: ‘‘I hate the fucking world. Kill mankind. No one should survive. . . . I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts, but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit.’’ Milton captured such motivation perfectly: Farewell happy Fields Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell Receive thy new possessor – one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. (Milton, 1667/1961: 44, 1:249–1:253)

If this seems too literary, and not sufficiently psychological, try to otherwise make sense of the following diary entry made by Harris just the day before his mass murder and suicide: ‘‘About 26.5 hours from now the judgment will begin. Difficult but not impossible, necessary, nervewracking and fun. What fun is life without a little death? It’s interesting, when I ’m in my human form, knowing I ’m going to die. Everything has a touch of triviality to it.’’ Harris transformed himself, voluntarily, into the embodiment of the archetype of evil, into Satan himself, into Cain, murderer of his innocent brother, motivated by the following principle Goethe expresses: The spirit I, that endlessly denies. And rightly, too; for all that comes to birth

Is fit for overthrow, as nothing worth; Wherefore the world were better sterilized; Thus all that’s here as Evil recognized Is gain to me, and downfall, ruin, sin The very element I prosper in. (Goethe, 1832/1979: 75)

The human desire to ‘be right, above all’ – to presume personal omniscience – produces a state of being antithetically opposed to the process of exploration and the expansion of life and characterized by increasing environmental maladaptation and suffering. This is the process that was represented mythologically by Milton as the heavenly insurrection of Lucifer, the light of rationality, motivated by the desire to be placed above God in the ‘‘spiritual hierarchy’’ – motivated by the desire to assume complete knowledge. The suffering produced by such a totalitarian attitude breeds resentment and the desire for revenge. Vengeful desire and resentment broods, patiently, waiting for a forum of risk-free manifestation. When patriotism calls for brutality – during the ‘call to war’, for example – the individual is well-prepared. He can torment the ‘enemies of the state’, hide behind a mask of admirable social conformity – even bravery – and fulfill his darkest fantasies (Mayakovsy, in Solzhenitsyn, 1973: 41): With cohesion, construction, grit and repression Wring the neck of this gang run riot!

Thus the existential cowardice of the individual pathologically increases the danger of the intrinsic and necessary territoriality of the species – and atrocities committed ‘in the name of the state’ constantly and permanently threaten both human self-regard and the likelihood of long-term human survival.

Reduction of Territoriality through Expansion of Individual Competence Is there an alternative, given that the unknown and unexplored is threatening and dangerous? The developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, who adopted a constructivist stance with regards to the development of personality, presumed in essence that individual character was formulated as a consequence of the assimilation of information from the experiential world and subsequent accommodation of the structure of the organism to that experience. This might be best understood as pattern to pattern matching. The simplest organisms and the youngest human beings map the patterns of the environment directly onto patterns of action, changing their capacity for action. Perception may be changed in this manner, as well. New information gathered in the course of error-motivated exploration changes the structure of the systems that perceive the outcome of such exploration, as well as altering sensorimotor patterns at lower levels of the sensorimotor system. What this means, essentially, is that the organism

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builds itself out of the information that it gathers in the course of active exploration (and that such information is derived from the plenitude of patterns available for analysis in the world of experience). Thus, organisms that explore freely are more sophisticated, both with regard to the motor output strategies that they might employ in a given situation and the perceptual strategies or frames that they might use to construe the situation (and that serve as a guide to security, resource acquisition, and further exploration for information). This means that they have more means at their disposal to turn unexpected occurrences to their own advantage and to experience delight in what has not yet been mapped, instead of terror. Such individuals learn to positively appreciate the vicissitudes of life rather than hiding their light underneath a bushel. A vast clinical literature attests to the fact that voluntary exposure to things and situations that elicit anxiety and other forms of negative emotion is curative. Individuals need work to extend the boundaries of the frames that regulate their social existence, structure their goals, and modulate their emotion as well as merely maintaining those frames. New territories, new sources

of anomalous information – which threaten the structures that inhibit terror – can be confronted and mined for significance. This means voluntary tolerance of an interim period of anxiety, followed by re-establishment of stability, in an enhanced form (see Figure 2). This pattern of voluntary frame transformation has been conceptualized, simply, as ‘steady state, breach, crisis, redress’ (and is central to complex narrative – mythology – itself). This is a hero myth, fundamentally: voluntary encounter with the terrible, redemptive unknown, the dragon of chaos; death of the current personality, followed by rebirth. The same pattern underlies archaic rites of initiation, processes of theoretical transformation, and more abstract religious systems of thought, such as Christianity or Buddhism. The great rituals, dramas, and religions of mankind – our most profound narratives and proto-narratives – are erected upon the (meta)story of ‘paradise, encounter with chaos, fall, and redemption’. Individuals who explore when neither their actions nor their perceptions produce the desired outcome become, simultaneously, more differentiated and more unified as they gather more information and transform it into conception and skill. Thus, they are less threatened by anomalous occurrences as their range of apprehension and

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Figure 2 The ‘meta-frame’: transformation of the simple frame. This figure portrays the dissolution and regeneration of a stable frame. Sufficiently anomalous information can undermine not only the means to an end, but the end itself. Such disruption produces emotional dysregulation as the stable meaning attributed to events in the course of normal goal-directed behavior disappears and is replaced by more global and negative emotion (consequent to the ‘renovelization’ of previously categorized experience). The re-emergent frame – which will only emerge as a consequence of voluntary exploratory behavior – should be more ‘complete’ than the frame it replaces as it ‘consists’ of the constituent elements of the previous frame ‘integrated’ with the information exploration of the anomalous occurrence generated. The re-emergent frame should be more stable – that is, less easily disrupted by ongoing events (since it now accounts for an additional possibility: that is, the previously destructive anomaly). The re-establishment of a new frame might be considered another ‘stage’ in cognitive development.

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response widens. This means that individuals who admit to the limitations of their territory and constantly work voluntarily to overcome those limitations are healthier, more competent, and much less likely to adopt rigid, selfdefensively aggressive, or absolutely hostile stances toward what they do not yet understand.

Conclusion The territory that human beings inhabit is physical and concrete, but it is also social and abstract. The meaning of things and situations is stabilized by the implicit social contract that governs actions and perceptions in their presence. Strange occurrences, strange people, and strange ideas may threaten the integrity of the social contract that constitutes territory, and undermine and terrify the individuals who utilize knowledge of that contract and its associated meanings to stabilize their emotions. Thus, the threat from the strange may be met with fear and with force. Habitual individual response to the unknown can modulate the nature of such threat. Those who chronically shrink from anything unexpected cease to expand their territories of competence, and lose faith in their ability to prevail. In addition, they become increasingly maladapted, as things they take for granted change uncontrollably around them. This makes them increasingly resentful about the nature of life itself and increasingly likely to take revenge. Those who chronically explore in the face of uncertainty, by contrast, expand their domains of confidence and increase their faith in their individual abilities. This makes exposure to the strange less threatening – even welcome. Such individuals have something to rely on beyond certainty and do not have to bristle with anger and resentment every time their current beliefs are challenged. See also: Chemical and Biological Warfare; Civil Society; Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

Further Reading Becker, S. and Wojtowicz, J. M. (2007). A model of hippocampal neurogenesis in memory and mood disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11, 70–76. Blanchard, D. J. and Blanchard, D. C. (1989). Antipredator defensive behaviors in a visible burrow system. Journal of Comparative Psychology 103, 70–82. Blanchard, D. C., Blanchard, R. J., and Rodgers, R. J. (1991). Risk assessment and animal models of anxiety. In Olivier, B., Mos, J., and Slangen, J. L. (eds.) Animal models in psychopharmacology, pp. 117–134. Boston, MA: Birkhauser Verlag. Brown, E. S., Woolston, D., Frol, A., et al. (2004). Hippocampal volume, spectroscopy, cognition, and mood in patients receiving corticosteroid therapy. Biological Psychiatry 55, 538–545. Browning, C. R. (1993). Ordinary men: Reserve police battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. New York: Harper Perennial. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bunsey, M. and Eichenbaum, H. B. (1996). Conservation of hippocampal memory function in rats and humans. Nature 379, 255–257. Campbell, J. (1968). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Davidson, R. J. (1992). Anterior cerebral asymmetry and the nature of emotion. Brain and Cognition 20, 125–151. Dennett, D. C. (1984). Cognitive wheels: The frame problem in AI. In Hookway, C. (ed.) Minds, machines and evolution, pp. 129–151. New York: Cambridge University Press. Dennett, D. C. (1991). Real patterns. The Journal of Philosophy 88, 27–51. De Waal, F. (2000). Chimpanzee politics: Power and sex among apes. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Edwardes, A. and Masters, R. E. L. (1963). The cradle of erotica. New York: Julian Press. Eliade, M. (1958). Rites and symbols of initiation: The mysteries of birth and rebirth. New York: Harper–Colophon. Eliade, M. (1978). A history of religious ideas, vols. 1–3. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Eliade, M. (1987). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion (first publ. 1959). New York: Harcourt Brace. Goethe, J. W. (1979). Faust, part one. (first publ. 1832; trans. Wayne, P.). New York: Penguin Books. Goldberg, E. and Costa, L. D. (1981). Hemisphere differences in the acquisition and use of descriptive systems. Brain and Language 14, 144–173. Goldberg, E., Podell, K., and Lovell, M. (1994). Lateralization of frontal lobe functions and cognitive novelty. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 6, 371–378. Goodall, J. (1990). Through a window. Boston, MA: Houghton–Mifflin. Gray, J. (1982). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the function of the septal-hippocampal system. New York: Oxford University Press. Gray, J. A. and McNaughton, N. (2003). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the function of the septal-hippocampal system, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press. Grossberg, S. (1987). Competitive learning: From interactive activation to adaptive resonance. Cognitive Science 11, 23–63. Harris, S. H. (1994). Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–45, and the American Cover-Up. New York: Routledge. Howard, M. W., Fotedar, M. S., Datey, A. V., and Hasselmo, M. E. (2005). The temporal context model in spatial navigation and relational learning: Toward a common explanation of medial temporal lobe function across domains. Psychological Review 112, 75–116. Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions. New York: Free Press. Jung, C. G. (1967). Bollingen series XX, The collected works of C. G. Jung, vol. 5: Symbols of transformation: An analysis of the prelude to a case of schizophrenia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jung, C. G. (1968). Bollingen series XX, The collected works of C. G. Jung, vol. 12: Psychology and alchemy (trans. Hull, R. F. C.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jung, C. G. (1969). Bollingen series XX, The collected works of C. G. Jung, vol. 13: Psychology and religion: West and East. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kelly, G. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. New York: Norton. Kelly, G. (1969). The threat of aggression. In Maher, B. (ed.) Clinical psychology and personality: The selected papers of George Kelly, pp. 281–288. New York: Wiley. Kravitz, E. A. (2000). Serotonin and aggression: Insights gained from a lobster model system and speculations on the role of amine neurons in a complex behavior. Journal of Comparative Physiology 186, 221–238. Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain. New York: Simon & Schuster. Lorenz, K. (1974). On aggression. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch. Lubow, R. E. (1989). Latent inhibition and conditioned attention theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. MacLean, P. D. (1949). Psychosomatic disease and the ‘visceral brain’: Recent developments bearing on the Papez theory of emotion. Psychosomatic Medicine 11, 338–353. Mayakovsky, V. cited in Solzhenitsyn, A. (1973). The gulag archipelago I. New York: Harper and Row. McEwen, B. S. (2000). Allostasis and allostatic load: Implications for neuropsychopharmacology. Neuropsychopharmacology 22, 108–124.

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Milton, J. (1961). Paradise lost (and other poems) (first publ. 1667). New York: New American Library. O’Keefe, J. and Dostrovsky, J. (1971). The hippocampus as a spatial map: Preliminary evidence from unit activity in the freely-moving rat. Brain Research 34, 171–175. O’Keefe, J. and Nadel, L. (1978). The hippocampus as a cognitive map. New York: Clarendon Press. Ohman, A. and Mineka, S. (2003). The malicious serpent: Snakes as a prototypical stimulus for an evolved module of fear. Current Directions in Psychological Science 12, 5–9. Papez, J. W. (1937). A proposed mechanism of emotion. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 38, 725–744. Peterson, J. B. (1999). Maps of meaning: The architecture of belief. New York: Routledge. Peterson, J. B. (2006). Religion, sovereignty, natural rights, and the constituent elements of experience. Archives of the Psychology of Religion/Archiv fu¨r Religionspsychologie 29, 135–180. Peterson, J. B. and Flanders, J. L. (2002). Complexity management theory: Motivation for ideological rigidity and social conflict. Cortex 38, 429–458. Phillips, R. G. and LeDoux, J. E. (1992). Differential contribution of amygdala and hippocampus to cued and contextual fear conditioning. Behavioral Neuroscience 106, 274–285. Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Sarbin, T. R. (1986). The narrative as a root metaphor for psychology. In Sarbin, T. R. (ed.) Narrative psychology: The storied nature of human conduct, pp. 3–21. New York: Praeger. Scoville, W. B. and Milner, B. (1957). Loss of recent memory after bilateral hippocampal lesions. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 20, 11–12.

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Smith, D. M. and Mizumori, S. J. (2006). Hippocampal place cells, context and episodic memory. Hippocampus 16, 716–729. Solzhenitsyn, A. I. (1975). The gulag archipelago. New York: Harper and Row. Sokolov, E. N. (1963). Higher nervous functions: The orienting reflex. Annual Review of Physiology 25, 545–580. Swanson, L. W. (2000). Cerebral hemisphere regulation of motivated behavior. Brain Research 886, 113–164. Swanson, L. W. (2003). Brain architecture. New York: Oxford University Press. Tsuchiya, T. (2000). Why Japanese doctors performed human experiments in China 1933–1945. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 10, 179–180. Vermetten, E., Vythilingam, M., Southwick, S. M., Charney, D. S., and Bremner, J. D. (2003). Long-term treatment with paroxetine increases verbal declarative memory and hippocampal volume in posttraumatic stress disorder. Biological Psychiatry 54, 693–702. Vinogradova, O. S. (2001). Hippocampus as comparator: Role of the two input and two output systems of the hippocampus in selection and registration of information. Hippocampus 11, 578–598. Vinogradova, O. S. and Sokolov, E. N. (1955). Extinction of vascular component of orientation reaction. Zh Vyssh Nerv Deiat Im I P Pavlova (Journal of Higher Nervous Activity, named after I. P. Pavlov) 5, 344–350.

Relevant Websites http://www.mapsofmeaning.com http://www.eubios.info/EJ106/EJ106C.htm http://www.uoregon.edu/rbear/lost/lost.html

Social Psychology of Violence Daniel Christie, Ohio State University, Marion, OH, USA Michael Wessells, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Situational, Cognitive, and Systemic Sources of Violence Three Kinds of Violence: Episodic, Structural, and Cultural Analysis of Conflict and Violence at Multiple Levels

Glossary Enemy Images Exaggerated representations of the ‘other’ as thoroughly diabolical, aggressive, and untrustworthy. Dehumanization The mental process of stripping away the human qualities of the other. Fundamental Attribution Error The tendency to perceive the bad behavior of out-group members to bad character and to perceive the bad behavior of in-group members to situational factors.

Social psychology examines the psychological influence of people on people. Although violence such as the mass killing at Virginia Tech in April 2007 by a lone gunman is

Social Psychology of Peace-making Social Psychology of Structural and Cultural Violence Peace Psychology: The Pursuit of Peace-building Further Reading

Structural Violence Indirect violence through social injustice, inequity, and failure to meet basic human needs for items such as food and shelter. Superordinate Goals Goals that lie within the interests of each group in a conflict but that can be attained only through intergroup cooperation, which reduces tensions and destructive conflict.

often seen as individual aggression, social psychology analyzes such acts through the lens of social and situational influences.

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Situational, Cognitive, and Systemic Sources of Violence Following World War II, psychological analyses of violence often emphasized personality variables, such as the degree to which people are receptive to prejudice or have a tendency to endorse authoritarian beliefs. This emphasis arose as an effort to understand the rise of fascism in Europe and later, the problem of race relations in the United States. However, it soon became apparent that much violent behavior owes not to personality alone but also the powerful influence of social situations. The Power of the Situation Stanley Milgram demonstrated that under particular conditions, ordinary people would readily obey authority figures, even if it meant delivering what the participants believed to be painful and deadly shocks to a victim. Obedience enables violence by allowing perpetrators to attribute their actions to the authority figure who issued the orders and to avoid moral pangs by saying ‘‘I was only following orders.’’ Obedience to authority has been an important dynamic in genocides and mass killings, from the Holocaust to the My Lai massacre, in which US troops followed orders from their commander to slaughter more than 200 unarmed Vietnamese people, including women and children. Solomon Asch and colleagues demonstrated how individuals in a group tended to agree with the prevailing judgments of group members and resist breaking rank even when it was obvious that the group’s judgment was inaccurate. Pressures to conform also operate at the policymaking level among elites. Irving Janis has provided evidence that flawed decisions such as the Kennedy administration’s decision to launch the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba with a small number of poorly equipped and trained Cuban refugees, arose in part from groupthink. When groupthink occurs, members of decision-making groups seek unanimity and group cohesion at the expense of critical thinking and contingency planning. Groupthink is particularly likely to occur in groups that are highly cohesive and have members act as self-appointed mindguards to bring potential dissenters into line with the group thinking. Groupthink may also have contributed to the US decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003. Although this decision was based in no small part on the strong group expectation among policy leaders of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the evidence indicates that this expectation had little or no basis in reality. Phillip Zimbardo’s mock ‘‘prison study’’ had college students engage in a simulation in which some students were prisoners whereas others were guards. When the prison ‘guards’ began engaging in abusive behavior, the experiment had to be discontinued after six days for ethical

reasons rather than continuing for two weeks as originally planned. These results indicate the power of the situation to lead normal people to engage in abusive behavior. The outcome of the Zimbardo study bears an eerie resemblance to the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In both situations, US soldiers adopted abusive roles with the tacit approval of military commanders. In both cases, they appeared to have abdicated personal responsibility, regarding abuse as part of their job. An important difference is that official US policy at the time endorsed abuses of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay in ways that violate the UN Convention Against Torture. The legitimation of abuse by high government officials such as Donald Rumsfeld, then head of the US Department of Defense, helped to create strong command pressures for actionable intelligence. These pressures, coupled with the enshrinement of abuse in official policy, added significantly to the already enormous situational pressures to abuse detainees. Research by Albert Bandura on social learning theory demonstrated that children did not have to be frustrated or rewarded to exhibit aggressive behavior. Instead, they could learn aggression by merely observing a model behaving aggressively. Observational learning is believed to encourage copycat crimes that mimic other crimes that have occurred recently. Observational learning can occur even through exposure to media and video game violence. Taken in large doses, youth learn new ways to behave violently, perceive violence as normal, and exhibit desensitization to violence, as indicated by reduced levels of physiological responses to violent events. Extensive media violence may also lead viewers to have an exaggerated sense of danger in everyday life and to see the world as being even more troubled than it already is. Social learning also occurs through external rewards and punishments and also through the internalization of group-defined values and expectations. Gang violence, for example, exhibits many of these social learning processes. Young people who see older, respected people join gangs and engage in violence also tend to join gangs. Young people often join gangs to obtain social rewards such as respect, power, and a sense of safety and belongingness. Cognitive Influences in Social Contexts In addition to underscoring the power of the situation, a second emerging theme in social psychology, like the field of psychology in general, is an emphasis on cognitive processes. Accordingly, social behavior is viewed as a function of cognitive processes that intervene between situational variables and behavioral outcomes. From a social cognitive perspective, violent behavior takes place in a social context and is largely a product of the way in which the individual interprets and processes

Social Psychology of Violence

social information. The bully in the schoolyard, for example, may be particularly attentive to threatening cues in the social environment and have a repertoire of violent mental scripts that can be readily accessed from memory and quickly executed behaviorally. The importance of social cognition is highly visible in the use of political propaganda by groups in armed conflict. These groups tend to create mirror enemy images that portray the ‘other’ as thoroughly aggressive, diabolical, and untrustworthy. Often, the images are dehumanizing in that they depict the other as subhuman and rapacious. In World War II, for example, both the US and Japan used enemy images of each other to prepare troops to kill. After all, it is easier to kill someone who seems savage and subhuman. In the Rwandan genocide, enemy images were conspicuous in the calls over the radio for Hutus to kill their implacable enemies, the Tutsis, who were described as ‘‘cockroaches.’’ Cognitive factors also influence the decisions made by leaders. In situations in which there are high levels of fear and threat, for example, the complexity of thought tends to decline. People tend to be cognitive misers who limit potential burdens on their mental resources by adopting simplified views of the world. In violent conflict, groups tend to adopt black-and-white views of the Good Us versus the Bad Them, with each group typically deemphasizing the diversity of views that may in fact exist among the members of the opposition. Leaders, too, show a marked propensity to simplify when under stress. In analyzing the complexity of leaders’ speeches and writing before and during crises, Philip Tetlock has established that in the heat of a crisis, leaders show less tolerance of ambiguity, tend not to explore diverse arguments regarding the crisis, and tend to overlook differences that exist among the opposition. The net result can be oversimplification and misguided action. When facing a complex situation involving much uncertainty, people use, without conscious planning, fallible heuristics or shortcuts for making difficult decisions. Leaders, for example, may judge a current threatening situation by its similarity to the patterns of conflict that are most available in memory. If the Hitler-at-Munich pattern is highly salient and available in memory, then leaders may judge attempts at negotiation as inappropriate since attempts to negotiate with or to appease Hitler had disastrous consequences. In addition, leaders show strong loss-avoidance tendencies and are often willing to avoid losses by taking risks much greater than those they would take to obtain a goal they had not previously achieved. Systemic Interactions Although the origin of social psychology can be traced to Western intellectual traditions that emphasize

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individualism, contemporary social psychologists are mindful that individuals and their thought processes in the context of interpersonal relations often are manifest in actions and policies that take place on the larger stage of intergroup and international politics. For instance, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, had strong enemy images of Kosovar Albanians and a particular view of history, both of which he used to stir public opinion, fuel the fires of nationalism, and justify the invasion of Kosovo. Leaders such as Milosevic, to some extent, reflect the will of the people, but also exercise considerable impact as leaders who spread particular images of the other and legitimate discriminatory and hostile actions. In general, it is useful to think of social systems in which violence can arise at multiple levels such as family, community, ethnic group, societal, and international levels. The levels interact extensively, as the violence at one level may also fuel violence at other levels. For example, at an individual level, intrapsychic processes such as stereotypes can produce discriminatory behavior, which in turn can be part of a group process that supports exclusionary and violent national policies. Coming from the other direction, intergroup fighting can lead to increased pressure not to associate with ‘the other,’ and this can lead, in turn, to polarization at community and interpersonal levels. While it is recognized that different levels of social complexity have emergent properties, social psychological analyses of the interaction of cognitive and situational variables have provided a useful lens for understanding not only individual and interpersonal behavior but also group and intergroup behavior.

Three Kinds of Violence: Episodic, Structural, and Cultural The term ‘aggression’ has been equated with ‘violence’ and the emphasis has been on individual action. Both terms imply that harm has been done, but ‘aggression’ of the instrumental variety further implies actions that are intentionally carried out by an individual. It is important to recognize, however, that violence may or may not be intentional and may be carried out at various levels of social complexity. A more differentiated view of violence contrasts episodes and structural forms of violence, as illustrated in Table 1. Whereas people often think of direct forms of violence such as homicide and gang violence, some of the greatest harm comes from structural violence such as the caste system in India that discriminates systematically against ‘the untouchables’ and causes many deaths owing to deprivation of basic necessities such as access to quality healthcare. As Gandhi noted, poverty is one of the most potent forms of violence and harms people on a

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Table 1 Episodic and structural violence Episodic violence

Structural violence

. Also called ‘direct’ violence . Typically harms people quickly . Intermittently kills or harms people . Acute insult to well-being . Dramatic

. Also called ‘‘indirect’’ violence . Typically harms people slowly . Continuously deprives people of basic need satisfaction . Chronic insult to well-being . Normalized

large scale though there is often no particular person or group who causes the poverty. In general, episodes of violence are often intentional, personal, instrumental, and sometimes politically motivated. In contrast, structural violence is a result of the way in which institutions are organized, providing some people with material goods as well as representation and voice in matters that affect the well-being while depriving others. These structures are relatively impervious social arrangements. Although socially constructed, they cannot be imbued with motives or intentionality in contrast to many cases of episodic violence. Cultural violence occurs when the symbolic sphere of our existence supports episodes or structures of violence. Culturally constructed narratives, such as the ‘doctrine of just war theory’, specify when direct violence is justified. Cultural narratives may also be used to support structural violence, for example, the ‘protestant ethic’ and its emphasis on individual responsibility can be used to justify enormous gaps in wealth and health between different classes in a society. One of the most important tasks in limiting violence is to increase the relative strength of cultural narratives that support peace rather than violence.

Analysis of Conflict and Violence at Multiple Levels In violence-saturated contexts such as war zones or innercity neighborhoods controlled by gangs, violence in the family often spills over into the streets. Conversely, the violence witnessed in the society helps to fuel violence in families, as people bring home guns and violent habits learned in the streets. Violence at the individual level affects violence at national and international levels and vice versa. Interpersonal Violence Two prominent forms of interpersonal violence are spouse abuse and homicide. Spouse abuse is rooted in systems of patriarchy that create rigid gender roles and systematically privilege men over women and legitimate the use of violence as a means of disciplining one’s spouse and

demonstrating machismo. In most societies, men hold greater power than women, and members of both genders internalize values and hold to social roles that privilege men as the decision-makers. At household level, many men believe they have dominion over the home and may regard challenges to their authority as a transgression that must be answered by violence. In grim testimony to the potency of observational learning, men’s tendency to beat their spouse often increases significantly if the men themselves had grown up in families in which men beat their wives. In many war zones, rates of spouse abuse frequently rise as unemployed men, who have lost their role as providers, use spouse abuse as a means of venting frustration, reasserting control over their domain, and boosting their sense of power and manhood. Violence in communities often involves fighting between individuals, apart from gangs. Leonard Berkowitz has distinguished between hostile aggression that is emotionally driven by anger, hatred, or fear and evoked without much thought, and instrumental aggression that enables people to obtain particular goals. Both forms of violence may be strongly influenced by cognition. For example, people who are angry tend to engage in higher levels of violence if the situation contains cues such as the sight of weapons that people usually associate with violence. Instrumental violence is influenced by how people perceive themselves in relation to their social environment. In a very poor, urban neighborhood, for example, materially deprived youth may use violence as a means of taking coveted items such as expensive clothes, thereby demonstrating their power and gaining respect for their prowess. To maintain power, individuals may be highly watchful for the slightest sign of disrespect, which they respond to with violence. In such contexts, respect is very much in the eye of the beholder. Intergroup Violence There are multiple, complementary theories about the social psychological origins of intergroup violence. According to realistic conflict theory, intergroup hostility is likely to occur when members of two or more groups are in competition for some resource, particularly when the structure of the conflict is zero-sum – one side’s gain is the other side’s loss. Armed conflict in Africa and other areas has often been animated by competition over resources such as diamonds, oil, and timber. Similarly, disputes over land animate hostility between Israel and Syria, Turkey and Greece, India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and many other interstate contests. Realistic conflicts over diminishing resources are expected to increase in the future because of population growth, increasing consumption of natural resources, a growing income gap, and deteriorating supplies of resources such as clean water, arable land, food, extractable oil, and precious minerals. Competition for oil, for

Social Psychology of Violence

example, is likely to produce a growing number of violent episodes in regions such as the Persian Gulf, Caspian Sea Basin, and South China Sea that have large oil reserves. Conflicts can arise even when one side’s gain is not at the expense of the other side. Studies on relative deprivation theory have demonstrated that perceptions that one’s own group is deprived of money, jobs, status, or other coveted items may be as influential as differences that exist in reality. The mere perception of a discrepancy between one group’s current standard of living and the standard of living that members of the group believe they should be enjoying relative to another group can result in intergroup hostility. The spread of democracy and capitalism can leave in their wake intergroup prejudice as in the cases of South Africa’s transition to Black majority rule, a democratizing trend that produced an increase in the level of prejudice toward Blacks among White youth. Similarly, East Germany’s movement toward capitalism following the Cold War yielded a rise in xenophobia among youth who felt they were being left behind. Tensions over immigration also are amenable to a relative deprivation analysis. Henri Tajfel and others have developed social identity theory to explain how people, even in the absence of deprivation and conflict, tend to form mental categories that divide their social world into in-group and out-group members. Furthermore, people favor and identify with the in-group and derive a sense of self-esteem through their identification with the in-group. However, research on social identity also indicates that in-group identity precedes out-group hostility and intergroup conflict. Importantly, the formation of social identity and the division into in-groups and out-groups does not inevitably lead to out-group hostility and conflict. Social identity stirs hostility and violence when it is coupled with processes such as oppression, real or perceived threats or mistreatment at the hands of the out-group, hostile ideologies, hatred, and a sense of victimization. Social identity and categorization processes have been examined in the context of the conflict between Turkish and Greek Cypriots, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and Hutus and Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide, among others. That social identity alone does not cause violence is evident in the distinction between patriotism, defined as love of one’s country, and nationalism, which holds that one’s country or people are superior to others. Patriotism is a manifestation of social identity processes, and uses a host of symbols (e.g., flags, anthems, etc.) to bolster in-group cohesion and self-worth. In contrast to moderate patriotism, nationalism often fuels hostility and violence toward the out-group. Inflamed by extremist ideology and perceived threats, as in the case of Nazi Germany, nationalism simultaneously elevates the in-group and animates out-group enmity and violence. The combination of threatening situations and social categorization can lead to highly positive views of the

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in-group and highly negative views of the out-group. Often, the in-group views members of the out-group as homogenous and attributes their negative actions to immutable qualities of their character while attributing their positive actions to situational forces, a phenomenon called the fundamental attribution error. Conversely, positive actions by the in-group are viewed as evidence for their inherent goodness, while negative actions are seen as driven by situational forces. In its simplest form: they attack us because they are evil, while we attack them because the situation gives us no other choice. Their efforts to communicate with us are driven by the situation, while our efforts to communicate are due to our peace-loving disposition. When groups in conflict turn to violence, victim– perpetrator cycles of circular causality can develop as one or both sides develop a sense of victimization that is woven into their social identity, which is defined in part by opposition to the other group. Further, through social identity processes, victims are likely to perceive atrocities committed against members of their group as a personal affront, thereby linking group trauma and individual trauma. Communities often construct powerful collective memories of victimization, which are transmitted across generations and are honored publicly in rituals and memorials. In the former Yugoslavia, Serbs remembered their victimization by the Croat Ustasha during World War II, providing Slobodan Milosevic with a powerful dynamic to exploit. In apartheid South Africa, oppression and collective memories of mistreatment helped fuel Black consciousness, which contributed to violence against the apartheid regime. Among Jews in Israel, searing memories of their history of persecution and Hitler’s attempt to exterminate them became woven into their collective identity, creating a ‘never again’ mindset that helped fuel the already heated conflict between Jews and Arabs. Mass Violence At the societal level, the occurrence of mass violence, including political terrorist acts and genocide, owe in part to social psychological factors. Although terrorist acts have often been viewed as the product of mental illness or psychopaths, most terrorists appear to be normal and use terrorist acts as an instrument to achieve goals they could not attain through other means. For example, suicide bombers in Sri Lanka have, in videos left before their deaths, explained that their actions are necessary parts of their struggle for liberation from social oppression and injustice. Viewed in this manner, their acts of mass violence are not irrational but are rational expressions of a particular ideology that rationalizes bombing as an instrument for avenging past injustices inflicted upon their people and achieving liberation. Similarly, extremist suicide bombers in Iraq who kill US soldiers do so out of desire to end what they regard as

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an unjust occupation and an attempt of Christians to dominate Muslim people. Also, many Iraqis regard the violence against the US as payback for perceived wrongs such as the US support for Israel, which has dominated Palestinians. Regardless of the accuracy of such views, there is little doubt that radical ideologies shape how people perceive the actions of others, and these perceptions can fuel violence. Radical ideologies are particularly likely to incite violence when they are widely believed and leaders are skilled in using them to manipulate people into fighting. An important note is that the US, too, has been influenced by rather extreme ideologies such as the doctrine of ‘‘manifest destiny’’ at various points in its history. By 2007, many Americans came to the view that the 2003 war and occupation of Iraq was itself the product of extremist ideology and skilled manipulation of public opinion. Radical ideologies also play an important role in enabling genocide. Hitler’s regime, for example, embraced a thoroughly racist ideology that portrayed Germany as a body whose health was at risk due to the presence of Jewish people, gypsies, and other groups who were portrayed as imminent threats. Often, radical ideologies gain in following owing to absolute deprivation, which, like relative deprivation, can be a precursor for violence. Difficult life conditions, such as severe economic problems, frustrate the human need for satisfaction. In response, people may adopt destructive ideologies in which ‘others’ are viewed as barriers to need satisfaction. Taken to an extreme, the belief develops that those who constitute barriers must be eliminated. Through an analysis of case studies, Ervin Staub has demonstrated that absolute deprivation has been an important precondition for a number historical cases of mass murder and genocide including the Holocaust, the genocide of Armenians in Turkey, the Cambodian genocide, and mass killings in Argentina. The 1994 Rwandan genocide illustrates the interplay of diverse social psychological processes. In addition to the absolute deprivation described earlier, there was extreme competition for land. Hutus and Tutsis both experienced high levels of fear of the other group since historically there had been mass killings of each by the other in Rwanda and Burundi. Historically, animosity arose from the social injustice done when the Belgian colonials privileged Tutsis over Hutus, leading Hutus to turn the tables following independence. Hutu leaders used dehumanized images of Tutsis to quieten any moral angst over killing, and the people embraced an extremist ideology that made them easier to manipulate. Obedience animated much killing as local and national leaders issued orders to kill, and also fear motivated killing, as people who disobeyed demands to kill were themselves killed. In this manner, large numbers of ordinary people became elements in a societal killing machine that murdered approximately 800 000 people.

Social Psychology of Peace-making Around the middle of the twentieth century, Gordon Allport’s contact hypothesis proposed that groups could reduce their biases toward each other through contact as long as certain conditions were met. Subsequent research has generally supported the view that contact works when the groups (1) work together cooperatively, (2) have frequent and prolonged contact, (3) enjoy equal status, and (4) receive institutional and social support. Hence, contact alone will not reduce prejudice between groups. To the contrary, efforts to integrate schools in the United States, for example, often led to higher levels of prejudice between Blacks and Whites, largely because not all of the conditions for successful contact were met. Morton Deutsch has shown that conflict can be constructive if it is managed in a constructive way that prevents violent episodes. Conflict can be an opportunity for building constructive relationships at interpersonal and intergroup levels. In interpersonal relationships, for example, conflict can stimulate partners to express feelings, talk problems through, and solve issues in a mutually satisfying way that strengthens the long-term relationship. Between groups, conflict can enhance in-group cohesion, a common purpose, and yield mutually beneficial agreements. Two broad means of managing conflict in a constructive manner are negotiation and mediation. When individuals or groups engage in principled negotiation, as contrasted with hard bargaining, conflict is treated as an opportunity for joint problem-solving and resolution that meets the concerns and interests of all parties. The principled approach focuses not on stated positions but on interests that underlie positions. The approach also encourages (1) intergroup empathy in an effort to understand what each other really wants; (2) separating the people from the problem; (3) avoiding criticism of each other but being tough on the problem; (4) inventing options that yield mutual gains; and (5) using objective criteria to judge whether proposed agreements satisfy everyone’s interests. Principled negotiation tends to yield creative options, positional flexibility, and improved relationships though mutual learning and problem-solving. Mediation consists of a third-party facilitation that helps conflicted individuals or parties negotiate an agreement. Mediators do not have to be neutral in the conflict, but they must be trusted by the various parties. Mediation is used widely at local levels in child custody disputes, schoolbased conflicts among students, and labor-management disputes, among others. Mediation is used frequently in the international arena. Amidst hostility and distrust between warring parties that are reluctant to negotiate, a mediator can use leverage, rewards, and punishments (i.e., carrots-and-sticks approach) that can increase the parties’ motivation to engage in dialog and move toward a negotiated settlement.

Social Psychology of Violence

When, for example, US president Jimmy Carter brokered a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel at Camp David in 1979, he used promises of military and economic aid to encourage both parties to engage in dialog. When the talks stalled, he threatened them with withdrawal of US support. Carter also allowed the wary adversaries to save face by suggesting options (e.g., withdrawing Israeli settlements from the Sinai) that they themselves could not have raised out of fear of appearing weak to their counterpart and their respective right-wing constituencies. Effective mediators reframe ideas for conflicted parties, create perceptions of common ground, and build hope that a mutually satisfactory agreement is possible. At its best, mediation not only facilitates agreements but transforms relationships so that the parties can adopt what Morton Deutsch refers to as a cooperative orientation that entails a positive interest in the well-being of the other as well as one’s self. In interactive problem-solving workshops, Herbert Kelman has employed social psychological principles to explore the relationship between individual and social changes. Changes at each of these levels are conceptualized as linked to each other by continuous, circular processes so that change in an individual can produce social change and conversely, social change can produce individual change. In Kelman’s workshops, representatives of conflicted groups interact in a small group, neutral setting designed to induce change in the individual participants, as a catalyst for macrolevel changes in the policies and cultures of the parties in conflict. In the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, a typical workshop brings together three to six respected members of the Israeli and Palestinian communities for two-and-a-half days of intensive dialog. To encourage truth-seeking and flexible exploration of ideas, the workshops convene in a private academic setting and no records are kept. Agreements are nonbinding because participants are not representatives of their governments; they are however, respected political influentials and it is expected that their work will induce changes in wider political communities. Kelman has emphasized that the workshops are not substitutes for official negotiations but are useful in preparing the way for official negotiations, for managing problems that arise during peace negotiations, and for enabling effective implementation of official agreements.

Social Psychology of Structural and Cultural Violence Structural violence is ubiquitous and manifest in the enormous gap between people who have influence and material resources and those who are relatively powerless. At the time of this writing, one-fifth of the world’s population has 80% of the income while the bottom one-fifth

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has only 1% of the income. Johan Galtung has proposed that one way to define structural violence is to calculate the number of avoidable deaths. For instance, if people die from scarcities of food or shelter when both are available for them somewhere in the world, then structural violence is taking place. As Gandhi once noted, there’s enough food for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed. Structural violence is reduced when systems of production and distribution are more equitably organized. Cultural violence occurs when symbolic processes are used to justify and legitimize inequitable power relations in political and economic systems. Cultural violence and hierarchical structures are mutually reinforcing, highly resistant to change, and operate at the individual level of analysis where scripts that guide behavior are internalized and at the aggregate level where shared narratives support hierarchical social arrangements. Social psychological constructs that bear on cultural violence include the meritocratic ideology, a set of beliefs that support the proposition that rewards should be commensurate with one’s contribution to society. This ideology provides the value scaffolding for the capitalist notion, ‘to each according to his merit’. In turn, the capitalist ethos has built into it an acceptance of inequality and the continuous struggle for power within and between states, along with justifications for the use of force in the interest of domestic and international order. The protestant ethic, promulgated primarily by Western elites, emphasizes the values of individualism, hard work, and delay of gratification. The ideologically congruent notion of blaming the victim locates the origin of social problems in the purported deficits and failings of those whose basic needs are unsatisfied rather than in political and economic institutions. A cluster of companion beliefs cohere under the umbrella of just world thinking that rationalizes disparities in power and wealth by assuming the world is just. On this view, people get what they deserve.

Peace Psychology: The Pursuit of Peace-building While peace-making can prevent violence by managing conflicts between groups, the term ‘peace-building’ has been used to refer to the (1) pursuit of more equitable relations between groups, and (2) reconstruction of societies following large-scale violent episodes. Both approaches seek to address the root causes of violence. Pursuing more Equitable Relations The roots of violence can be found in structural and cultural conditions and therefore, the pursuit of a sustainable peace requires structural and cultural peace-building, a pursuit for which traditional psychological approaches

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are not particularly well suited. In its prototypical Western form, despite being local and indigenous, psychology has global pretensions. Its dominant narrative is decontextualized and emphasizes objectivity, mechanism, and individualism. Stripped of social context, the individual becomes the only legitimate locus of intervention for psychologists and the desired outcome is individual adjustment, despite unjust circumstances in which the individual is embedded. Hence, psychology, with an absence of an analysis of social and cultural conditions, fails to address systemic causes of the problem, and leaves the social order unaffected. In contrast, the emerging area of ‘peace psychology’ recognizes that violent episodes have structural and cultural roots. In domestic violence, for instance, the proximal cause may be interpersonal conflict that turns into violence. However, the violent episodes have structural roots in the power asymmetry between men and women and in women’s economic dependence on men. Similarly, organized forms of direct violence are often rooted in institutional structures that form a system of violence, a military–political–industrial complex, which is justified through cultural narratives embodied in ‘just war theory’, a set of propositions that spell out conditions under which war is acceptable and just. The violent acts of substate organizations such as Al Qaeda can also be viewed from the perspective of proximal causes as well as more deeply rooted structural/ cultural preconditions. A realistic conflict lens focuses on Western globalization as a proximal threat to traditional values of spiritualism, collectivism, and cooperation, a zerosum arrangement in which advances of Western values necessarily means a retreat of traditional Islamic values. Similarly, the proximal causes of the US war on terrorism have been examined. Drawing on ‘terror management theory’, social psychologists have demonstrated how events that raise an individual’s awareness of their own mortality produce a host of defenses in an effort to manage the terrorizing thought of one’s death. Applied to the attacks of 9/11, many Americans experienced a sense of vulnerability and mortality, which activated defenses, including a desire for in-group cohesion, strong leadership, denigration of out-groups, and retaliation. Examined from a peace psychology perspective, the violence of Al Qaeda, which targets civilians, can be viewed as a tool of the weak, a structural precondition that is supported by a host of cultural narratives. These narratives largely mirror US justifications for the use of force: the belief that there is no legal means to redress grievances, the ends justify the means, dialog is not an option, and only violence will work. Similarly, membership in Al Qaeda and the US military both engender obedience and conformity, in-group favoritism, depersonalization, sacrificing one’s life for a greater cause, and rewards for giving one’s life. Accordingly, sustainable

peace will require not only the removal of proximal causes of violence but addressing the structural and cultural roots of the problem. Reconstructing War-Torn Societies War shatters social trust, reduces social cohesion, and damages social capital. Following armed conflict, societies may remain deeply divided into subgroups that fear and hate each other and are ready to continue fighting. Weakened civil society and low government capacities may leave people unable to meet basic needs and easily manipulated by spoilers or political opponents of the state. This situation often sets the stage for ongoing cycles of violence. Social psychology offers numerous tools that complement wider political and economic reconstruction efforts and assist humanitarian efforts to support postconflict societies in moving toward peace. To strengthen social cohesion, it is useful to stimulate collective planning and action to meet community needs. For people who had been driven by displacement, fear, and desperation into isolation and lack of group planning to meet civilian needs, the process of participatory dialog, if managed well, can reestablish a sense of common purpose, reweave social ties, and enable different subgroups to act effectively as a community to solve their problems. Even in the early aftermath of an emergency, local people can organize themselves, often with outside facilitation, to plan how to most effectively distribute and use humanitarian aid. This approach fits with the methods of community participation and empowerment that yield the most sustainable results and benefits to survivors. To rebuild social trust and reduce social divisions, one can use the method of superordinate goals in which members of different groups cooperate on the achievement of a common goal. Following the war in Sierra Leone, for example, former combatants cooperated with other village youth in building schools and health posts that communities had selected as high priorities. Through cooperation, the two groups came to see each other as human and as people they could live with. Similarly, the community members who had previously feared the ex-combatants came to see them as citizens who give back to the community. The work that the formerly recruited youth performed served the needs for restorative justice since building the structures helped symbolically and physically to repay for the damage the soldiers had done. It is useful to complement such efforts with methods such as interactive problem-solving and indigenous methods of nonviolent conflict resolution and healing the invisible wounds of war. In Liberia, for example, the organization of peace festivals helped to reactivate traditional mechanisms of nonviolent conflict resolution and created a space in which people planned what they needed to do to support peace.

Institutionalization of Violence

Addressing poverty is a key need in postconflict situations. Through livelihoods programs that teach vocational skills, support prosocial values and behavior, and support income-generating activities, formerly recruited soldiers can enter constructive civilian roles, find meaning and hope in civil society, and change their social identity from soldier to civilian. Similarly, marginalized groups can receive the economic support needed to support social justice and transform the patterns of social exclusion that often animate war. By building government capacities to continue these efforts, it is possible to institutionalize the supports and simultaneously strengthen the links between local people and their government that are necessary for sustainable peace. See also: Aggression, Psychology of; Psychological Effects of Combat; Social Theorizing About War and Peace

Further Reading Allport, G. (1979). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Asch, S. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs 70, (Whole No. 416). Bandura, A. and Walters, R. H. (1963). Social learning and personality development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes, consequences, and control. New York: McGraw-Hill. Cairns, E. (1996). Children and political violence. Oxford: Blackwell. Christie, D. J. (2006). Post-Cold War peace psychology: More differentiated, contextualized, and systemic. [Entire issue]. /Journal of Social Issues, 62, 1–208. Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict: Constructive and destructive processes. New Haven: Yale University Press. Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. London: Sage. Janis, I. (1982). Victims of groupthink, 2nd edn. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kelman, H. C. (1965). International behavior: A social psychological analysis. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Kelman, H. C. (1996). The interactive problem-solving approach. In Crocker, C. A., Hampson, F. O., and Aall, P. (eds.) Managing global chaos, pp. 501–520. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Marsella, A., Friedman, M., Gerrity, E., and Scurfield, R. (1996). Ethnocultural aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues, research, and clinical applications. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Martı´n-Baro´, I. (1994). Writings for a liberation psychology. In Aron, A. and Core, S. (eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. New York: Harper & Row. Montville, J. V. (ed.) (1991). Conflict and peacemaking in multiethnic societies. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath. Sears, D. O., Huddy, L., and Jervis, R. (eds.) (2003). Oxford handbook of political psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C. (1986). The social indentity theory of intergroup behaviour. In Worchel, S. and Austin, W. G. (eds.) The social psychology of intergroup relations, pp. 7–25. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Volkan, V. (1997). Bloodlines. New York: Farrar, Straus and Girous. Wagner, R. V. (ed.) (1994). Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Earlbaum. Waller, J. (2002). Becoming evil. New York: Oxford University Press. Wessells, M. G. (2006). Child soldiers: From violence to protection. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. White, R. K. (1984). Fearful warriors: A psychological profile of US–Soviet relations. New York: Free Press. Zimbardo, P. G. (1969). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. In Arnold, W.J. and Levine, D. (eds.) Nebraska symposium on motivation, vol. 17, pp. 237–307. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Relevant Websites http://academic.marion.ohiostate.edu/dchristie/Peace%20Psychology %20Book.html – Textbook by Christie, D. J., Wagner, R. V., and Winter, D. D. (2001)./ Peace, conflict, and violence: Peace psychology for the 21st century/. http://www.apa.org/about/division/div48.html – Division (48) – Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology Division, American Psychological Association. http://www.ispp.org – International Society of Political Psychology. http://psysr.org – Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

Institutionalization of Violence Rajni Kothari, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Specter of Security and the Cult of Violence Global Context Emerging Scenarios The State as a Source of Violence

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 223–230, ã 1999, Elsevier Inc.

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‘Development’ and Violence Politics of Identity and the Growth of Violence Countervailing Tendencies Further Reading

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Glossary Anomie A widespread attitude of discontent, unrest, and uncertainty stemming from a general breakdown in the structure and values of a society; moral instability. Dacoities Physical attacks by a group of armed robbers. (From the Dacoit robber society that historically committed such crimes in India and Burma.) Dalits A social group in India, including those who were formerly designated in the Hindu caste system as the untouchables; that is, those completely beneath the main caste system and thus of lowest social status. Global Commons The sum of the Earth and its plant and animal life, thought of as a commons, or common

Institutionalization of violence generally refers to the process by which acts of violence or force are undertaken by an official group on behalf of, or at least with the tacit approval of, the society as a whole. Examples of such actions might include violence carried out by the society’s police against criminals, warfare by the armed forces against external enemies, and repressive measures by security forces against the society’s internal opponents, real or perceived. In this way institutionalized violence is typically contrasted with noninstitutionalized violence; that is, violent actions by individuals without any authorization or acceptance by the larger society, such as serial killings, gang violence, or spousal and child abuse. However, it can also be argued that these seemingly unsanctioned acts of violence are actually not the random behavior of deviant individuals, but an inevitable consequence of the inequities and pathologies of the society. In that sense the institutionalization of violence includes all types of violent acts that are prevalent within the society, not just those carried out collectively by official groups.

Introduction With the world moving from an era of well laid out assumptions about the path of human ‘progress’ and the institutional framework in which this was to take place to an age of growing uncertainty, ambivalence and groping towards a wholly unclear future, creating a growing sense of insecurity and anomie, violence seems to have become endemic to the state of human society. Increasingly, we are witnesses to a deepening of the social roots of violence and, at the other end of the spectrum, a growth of isolation and alienation of the individual. This tends to leave, in their wake, violent backlashes all the way from terrorist to neo-fascist responses to what many perceive as a decline in prospects for alternative futures.

area, to be protected and conserved by all humans and shared with all other species. Institutionalization A situation in which a certain behavior, condition, or phenomenon has become so established within a society that it can be considered an inherent aspect of the society rather than an incidental or subsidiary feature; for example, violence, though not ordained by a society and perhaps even officially described as an aberration, may actually be so widespread as to have become institutionalized. Polity The form or structure according to which the political system of a society is organized; the body politic.

We can identify many symptoms of the institutionalization of violence. There is an increasing sense of vulnerability at both the elite level and the level at which the common folk find themselves. There is a gradual erosion of the ‘state’ that had at one time given a sense of security to both levels. That at any rate was the basic presumption underlying Hobbes’s conception in his Leviathan. It is this sense of security that is, in the times we are living in, under siege. For today ‘security’ appears to be taking on an increasingly defensive stance, for both the ruling classes and the large masses of the people. Ruling elites the world over are creating walls of security around them and signing joint declarations against violence, terrorism, and the like, at a time when the mass of the people are being exposed to both state repression and the violence unleashed by militants of various types. It is with this loss of a sense of security at both ends of the social spectrum that we are witness to an increasing resort to violence. Other major symptoms widely observed include a growing role of corruption in human affairs which in turn is producing a culture of ‘mafia’ rule at the very grassroots of societies, a considerable growth in violation of human rights in many parts of the world, including atrocities against the weaker sections of society, especially women and children, the minorities and the dispossessed, and the poor at large, much of which is increasingly taking on an organized and institutionalized form. Many of us have been brought up on a belief in the sanctity of life in all forms and have for long considered violation of all sentient life as an aberration. The reality that faces us today, however, is that most nation-states and cultures tolerate oppression and rejection of basic rights and even endorse the institutionalization of such oppression and hence of violence. Violence is often hidden, especially violence against women but also violence against all beings that are victims of discrimination and exploitation. This is increasingly being brought out in investigations carried out by human-rights groups. (Women face

Institutionalization of Violence

violence all the way from family and neighborhood settings to arenas where modern technology is rendering them unwanted and forcing them into the highly vulnerable ‘unorganized sector’ in which single women, child labor, involuntary immigrants, and slum dwellers are huddled together.) Paradoxical and ironic though it may sound, the more such reports get publicized, the more the mass media are showing an obsession with violence even while they profess to abhor violence in their own surroundings. Indeed, this seems to be the case with so many of us. While we abhor violence, we find it attractive and enticing in the world of the mass media, of fiction, and of stories and gossip that we are getting accustomed to. Studies of violence in the media are demonstrating a strong affect on levels of violence in civil society. Films depicting violence in its most grueling forms seem to have a special attraction for us – for the younger generation, the bored and frustrated housewives, those seeking escapism from the realities of life, those dealt with harshly by society and seeking refuge in criminalized acts which they themselves often try to emulate. Nor is this limited to the more criminalized aspects of modern life. We are being constantly threatened by the abuse of religion for economic and political power, giving rise to a phenomenal growth in ethno-religious conflicts and in religious fundamentalism, causing potential damage to our psyches. Minds may be enslaved by the stereotyping that we see on television as indeed by the myths about ‘others’ that are perpetrated in the textbooks on which our children are brought up. In the meantime we find ourselves surrounded by pornography on the Internet.

Specter of Security and the Cult of Violence All in all we find ourselves surrounded by not just a growing scale of violence but in fact an emerging cult of violence that is spreading fast and may lie behind the growing sense of insecurity, especially in elite circles. Expenditures on the military, police, prisons, private security systems, and the upper strata are growing more and more fearful of the social reality that confronts them which they may have themselves to some extent given rise to but are unable to predict and deal with. It is this fear that lies behind what may be a pathological preoccupation with creating walls of ‘security’ from one and all, the cult of violence giving rise to a cult of security. What has come to be known as a national security state is not merely a reflection of nation-states constantly preparing themselves against both real and imagined ‘enemies’ (more the latter than the former) but also of the ruling class anticipating outbreaks of unanticipated violence resulting from growing turbulence and states of

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discontent and anomie in society at large. That bombs and explosives are blowing up here and there, that assassinations and political murders (including of people at the very top) have taken place, that more and more incidents of ‘indigenous terrorism’ are taking place, cannot any longer be blamed on outsiders. Yet no matter how much security is provided to a whole phalanx of ‘leaders’ and their large retinues and kins, and no matter how much diplomatic effort is expended to hold the forces of terrorism at bay (e.g., by designating some countries as ‘rogue states’ and pressuring allies to cut trade and other relations with them), fear of violence, both from within and from without, appears to be a dominant strain in the mental makeup of those in command of diverse states and perhaps the state system as a whole. As for the nonelite strata constituting more than 50–60% of the world’s population, the tendency is the opposite: rather than provide minimum security to them it is found more efficient to shove them out of the system, excluding millions from the institutional framework of the polity and the economy and treating them as dispensable. Poverty is increasingly ceasing to be seen as a problem to be resolved and perceived instead as an embarassment, especially as there seems to be a slow dawning on our consciousness that we may not for a very long time be able to eradicate it. This in itself and indeed above all is a most cruel manifestation of basic violence. Poverty is also a source of violence in reverse, as survival on the margins of society is becoming a breeding ground of a variety of violent acts – turning inward (hence the growing number of suicides among the poor as well as a growing resort to murders of one’s own kin). Violence is thus premeating primary units like family and immediate neighborhoods, along secondary channels of social castes and classes, as well as in sudden outbursts of anger and aggression against those belonging to the upper reaches of the social order. Criminality and the violence associated with it are not merely a function of ‘criminalization’ of the polity about which there is a lot of talk these days in a number of countries in which ‘antisocial elements’ and people with a criminal record are gaining access to the portals of power. It is something much more corrosive and comprehensive and consists of a whole social order – nationally and internationally – becoming vulnerable to the growing virus of crime and corruption of all kinds, from the flimsiest to the most grotesque, all the way from financial scams to the destruction of religious sites and the destruction of the global commons, in which a large array of otherwise prestigious institutions are found to be involved. Closely aligned with all this is the violence that is taking hold of the state itself, with armed police, paramilitary units, and even the official armed forces allegedly indulging in it wantonly, as some suggest for the sheer pleasure of shooting down people, raping women, indeed simply letting themselves go. The paradox is striking: the very

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custodians of law and of people’s safety, as well as the very segments that are expected to observe exemplary discipline in their behavior, are found to indulge in what appears to be a whole lifestyle of violence and disorder. All this leads to another insight: perhaps the simplest forms of institutionalization of violence lie in its routinization – violence as a ‘daily affair’, murders galore, incidents of rape of women, old and young and the very young among them on the increase, and a growing spate of shootouts in public places in metropolitan centers. We can also observe a growing incidence of inner violence in the form of suicides and suicide pacts, bands of ruffians from the upper classes carrying out massacres of segregated communities in rural areas and burning down their dwellings, hit and run killings of members of rival races and ethnic groups, sporadic as well as organized ‘riots’ between rival religious sects, a growing spate of assassinations of political cadres belonging to rival political parties, robberies and dacoities followed by killing of the victims of the same, and police firings on ‘mobs’ and processions of protesting demonstrators. Governments themselves issue ‘shoot on sight’ orders, and sanction ‘encounter’ killings mounted by police and paramilitary personnel on extremist groups belonging to separatist and/or revolutionary causes. So much of this is taking place regularly and on an almost daily basis.

All this is happening at time when it appears to many that the whole world is adrift. The twentieth century has been a century of violence – of wars, revolutions, a fascist cult of destruction and all-out devastation, ‘liberation wars’ gone awry in so many parts of the ex-colonial world, turning antipeople, repressive and particularly coercive toward the laboring classes, increasingly brutalized and dehumanized. Everywhere the state is found hand-inglove with special interests at home and in concert with neocolonial interests globally, in turn forcing the victims to turn anarchistic and violent. It is this phenomenon of the rise of national-security states opposed by the victimized turning unruly and turbulent, suffering continuously but at the same time displaying bursts of anger and contempt against those wielding power and authority, often becoming available to movements of insurgency and terrorism, in all of which violence is becoming the new language of discourse between the wielders of coercive power and those run over by them.

be seen in a general historical context. The point is that unless consciously checked and countered, violence often takes on an endemic state in a society so full of inequity and potential for basic protest and growing despair, extremes of both socioeconomic and cultural kinds, and political misuse of the power of the state in rich and diverse societies. As governments themselves increasingly feel threatened, they frequently resort to a ‘law-and-order’ approach to deal with what are basically deep social and psychological issues. This pushes them to retain large retinues of armed forces which are no longer aimed at an ‘enemy’ but rather at citizens who are found to engage in movements of protest, struggles for civil liberties, and generally in dissent against a system that is judged by them to be undemocratic and lacking in accountability. The result is often internal militarization in which since there is no longer any need to go to war with an outside enemy, an inner enemy has to be found and ‘crises’ created within the society. Small social groups, activists and intellectuals, and those struggling for survival in situations of growing want and destitution often become the targets. Once this happens, violence grows by leaps and bounds (violence as well as counter-violence). As we have learned during the last decade and more, once violence takes root in a society full of divisions and schisms, it rarely vanishes. It grows, seeks new outlets, looks for new enemies. As the basic principle of militaristic thinking is typically the suspension of all thought other than its own, those who dare to think become the ultimate enemy. The point is that one tyranny can face another tyranny. It can handle brute force. What it cannot handle is creativity that resists control and refuses to fall in line. The result is that the violence which was justified at one time by pointing to an outside enemy may gradually turn against its own people, against minorities, against women activists, against generalists who dare to write independently, against artist, and thinkers. This is what happened under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. For all of them a nuclear bomb in the possession of an enemy appeared less dangerous than a sketch drawn by an artist in one’s own society, a sketch that exposes the ills of the regime. For this artist is the more immediate enemy. Violence, then becomes endemic to a society when it reaches deeply into the social and cultural terrain. It is this that ultimately makes it truly institutionalized. In the foregoing the author has deliberately laid out a broad synoptic statement on the larger issues that underlie the institutionalization of violence. She now proceeds to take up the matter in different fields of human endeavor as structured by different agencies and institutions.

Emerging Scenarios

The State as a Source of Violence

To put it all in perspective, the reactions of surprise, despair, and intrigue at the various forms in which violence has surfaced and resurfaced in recent years need to

Having dealt with the evidence for a gradual increase in the repressive nature of the modern state in the face of growing assertions based on class, on the one hand, and

Global Context

Institutionalization of Violence

indigenous structures of civil society on the other, we may now examine how state violence has been institutionalized over time. There is a historical background to this. The modern state since the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, has had an expansive streak to it (almost following the homocentric thrust of modern man). Culturally too, the modern divorce between the secular and the religious domains set the stage for the tendency of secular authority to expand outwards both vis-a-vis voluntaristic structures at home and vis-a-vis other peoples and cultures. This led to the spread of a geopolitical, militaristic, and technologically outward looking and colonizing character of the modern state, beginning with Europe and, by stages, engulfing practically the whole world. The growth of population movements, for example (both from rural agricultural hinterlands to urban industrial enclaves following the enclosure movements in the industrializing countries and from high-density regions with overflowing populations to low-density regions), has led to ever new forms of conquests and wars (including civil wars). Also, the rise of linguistic nationalism and the proliferation of modern nation-states in Europe, in the wake of the decline of multicultural empires and the spread outward of these states toward distant lands, has led to the development of professionalized armies and advances in military technology. More recently, this process has been taken further with the growth of ethnicity and diverse forms of subnationalism, again following the weakening of empirelike formations (including that of the Soviet Union). In short, both the ‘integrative’ thrust based on superimposition of the expansionist drive of the European conception of the state and the ‘disintegrate’ thrust following the rise of cultural nationalism have precipitated a simultaneous surge toward ethnic conflicts, interstate rivalries, geopolitical conquests, and local and regional wars, all of these involving a great deal of violence. The current and latest phase of these developments occurs especially in postcolonial states created by the presence of artificial boundaries left behind by colonial regimes but lately also in the European region following the collapse of Cold War bipolarity. There has taken place a growth of armed militias fighting for capture of state power, the worst manifestations of which are to be found in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, and Chechnya. Some of these struggles also involve religious fundamentalism. An extreme form is found in the Taliban in Afganistan. Almost all of them have taken highly explosive and bloody forms, often verging on genocide. The scenario that is unfolding before us is hardly conducive to reducing the role of violence in human affairs. Indeed, as we move toward the end of the century we are witness to both a clash of cultures and ethnicities within nation-state boundaries and a clash of civilizations between and beyond nation-states and constellations thereof. Both forms of conflicts are also reinforced by

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counter-systemic movements, for example, for self-determination, for human rights, and even for social justice and economic and regional equity. Indeed, violence is often institutionalized even in the struggles for peace (conceived as resistance to violation of people’s right and their struggles for justice, often termed as ‘just wars’), found especially in Africa. As has been expressed by one of the most seasoned statesmen of Africa, Julius Nyerere, ‘‘Peace can only be a product of justice; it is not simply the absence of violence.’’ Even the processes associated with decolonization have produced a legacy of territorial disputes and brutal civil wars sometimes fought out of personal hatreds, or on account of tribal and ethnic aggrandisement. As regards the behavior of major powers, the post-Cold War promise of peace, disarmament, and a radical change in the psychology of competing power blocs has been totally belied by the continued use of military force in the conduct of international conflict. A few intractable conflicts of the Cold War era, like those in Indochina, have been dealt with as a result of a worldwide movement of protest. The worst manifestations of inhuman governance, such as apartheid in South Africa, have been successfully put to an end, but we can hardly say we are out of the woods. Over 50 conflicts continue to rage even today, some of them putting on display humanity’s basest instincts that many thought the march of human civilization would have brought under control.

‘Development’ and Violence Meanwhile, ‘development’, which was once thought of as an antidote to war and violence, and even the struggle for justice, are riddled with both social conflicts and a culture of violence. The idea that economic well-being, achieved through planned development, would reduce exploitation of various types does not seem to be that clear any more. The same is apparently true of the idea that the growth of economic independence of different social strata, as for example of women or of tribal groups (and what we in India call the Dalit ’, i.e., the ex-untouchables) will make them less vulnerable, for example, to the male atrocities and vandalism against the deprived groups in society which are now on the rise. Violence against women, as against depressed ethnic racial groups, is on the increase in much of the world. And as gaps widen and inequality in access to power and decision making grows, vulnerability to atrocities and exploitation grows as well, and with that grows both violence of the system and counterviolence against it. For there is still a considerable lack of security for ordinary people who can be shot at and killed, or be tortured by the police to force a confession, or be arrested and jailed, or be at the mercy of gangsters and kidnappers, even quite often at the mercy of ‘militants’ who are supposed to be waging a struggle on their behalf. In the

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meantime, the large hordes of migrants and refugees who come to the cities to escape persecution or social ostracism in the areas – even countries – they belonged to as well as tribal groups and other rural folk who resist being displaced and forciby evicted, as a result of the construction of large dams and nuclear and thermal plants, are branded as extremists and are pushed around, often arrested under some anti-terrorist act or subjected to the opposite end of state repression, namely handed over to the terrorist arms of the state, the police, the paramilitary, and even the armed forces.

Politics of Identity and the Growth of Violence Then there is the phenomenon of sectarian violence, usually waged by ethnic and religious majorities against minorities but sometimes also by minorities. In both cases people claim to seek justice but adopt organizational modes involving violence. Indeed, violence is often used for both forging and sustaining sectarian identities; what has baffled social scientists for some time now is the unabated continuation of violence in creating a sense of belonging among those who are driven to the wall. According to one estimate, nearly 120 million people have been killed in the present century on the sites of collective identities. It appears as though ‘genocide’ has become an integral part of many mass movements for self-definition. There is now taking place a phenomenal growth in the politics of identities which involve a growing recourse to violence. While much of the focus of social-science studies and investigative reports is on the state and its repressive arms, these being seen as the main agents of genocidal acts, there is relative neglect of the selves of people – individuals – who also participate in such acts, of course for more complex reasons. People are found to kill themselves and are ready to kill others, engage in collective self-immolation, often backed by religious cults. Even the aspiration at leveling the differences between the rich and the poor, between the privileged and those left out of the system, is often conceived in forms that are violent. There is no space here to go into the manner in which sacrificial altars are created on which human beings commit both suicides and murders, the variety of occult activities that are on the rise, the inner recesses of a psychological kind in which some residual evil allegedly resides and various other rituals that are performed in which violence is seen not as an aberration but as a mode of self-expression. Suffice it to say that we are moving into an era in which violence is represented at so many levels and across so many institutional structures that it would be foolish to wish it away or simply engage in some naive and innocent or romantic Utopian ‘vision’. Violence is getting increasingly institutionalized, of course more against the weak

(especially women and children and the poor at large) but also against the rich and the powerful, in opposition to whom banners of revolt and revulsion are being raised.

Countervailing Tendencies And yet the opposite tendency is also on the rise. There is evidence of growing exasperation with violence of both state-sponsored and militant varieties which is leading to a search for solutions that, if they succeed or even make slow headway, could lead to nonviolent ways of resolving conflicts and reconciling seeming opposites. There is of course still a long way to go on this path, but the process seems to have begun. We find this in the long beleaguered Middle East – the melting pot of two major Semitic cultures – of course in the apartheid-ridden South Africa, in the slow and painful but nonetheless continuing efforts in the former Yugoslavia (despite more recent aggressions as found in Kosovo), in the emerging way out of the long drawn out war of attrition based on an interface between bellicose religiosity and militarist confrontation in Northern Ireland, and even in the difficult and irrational dispute in the muddy terrains of hatred and suspicion in the Indian sub-continent. In each of these conflicts there are many hurdles to be crossed. In each of them new problems keep emerging. And in each of them not only the politics of military engagements but also the politics of ethnicities and identity formations, so often drawing upon deeply religious sentiments, are being tackled. But there seems to be no escape from continuing with the efforts that have already begun. As the specter of violence keeps haunting us and as the human urge toward a more peaceful and civilized existence persists despite it, and in both cases through ever new institutionalized forms, we are also witness to the growth of institutional structures that go beyond violence and nonviolence. This is occurring through the growing interface between state and civil society, the former being forced to become increasingly decentralized and the latter increasingly providing alternatives to mainstream politics, economics, and society, thereby returning to deeper roots of both human nature and human personality, and indeed also to a caring approach toward nature and toward diverse other species with whom the human species is bound in an organic way, both for sheer survival and for new flowering of potentialities and possibilities. This will not of course be realized merely on the basis of some naive hopes and some ‘grand vision’ (which is of course vital, for without it we cannot move out of the present crisis). Advocates of this alternative call for immense efforts to ensure that the rise of the poor and oppressed against the ‘system’, after an early phase of violent backlash, both against it and from within its own dynamics, can provide a basis for a more integrated and negotiated framework to

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reconcile conflicts and bridge the wide gaps that exist in livelihood patterns, in access to political power, and in the structuring of civil society. And by doing this we will also defuse, through new institutionalized expressions, the violence that has of late accompanied the politics of protest and the culture of identity formations and the deeper roots in both nature and human nature – and the human psyche – that violence has acquired and that needs to be contained. It may be no less necessary to collectively deal with the various disasters visited by floods and famines, ecological breakdowns, and the erosion of life-sustaining gases and the ozone layers in the atmosphere. The ecological

challenge faced by humankind, including the challenge for restraining ‘development’ from taking violent forms, calls for new institutional mechanisms that cut across nation-state boundaries, social identities, and political divisions of various kinds. Perhaps the struggle against violence might be waged by focusing first on these more basic challenges. Once that is done and a more balanced approach to cosmic issues is evolved, and human imagination moved along to deal with the same, and the Earth is seen as not only an ecosystem but also a sociopolitical arena, then the scourge of violence might automatically start receding. See also: Structural Violence; Terrorism; Torture (State)

Social Theorizing About War and Peace Hans Joas, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany; The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

War and Peace in the Social Sciences Today The Age of Enlightenment Marxism Classic Sociology

The Social Sciences after World War II The Contemporary Theoretical Situation Further Reading

The topic of social theorizing about war and peace involves two questions. First, what do sociology and the social sciences tell us about the genesis and causes of war and about the effects of war on the development of humanity? Second, what light is shed on the major theoretical projects generated by our disciplines and on these disciplines themselves if they are viewed in light of the first question?

the various trends in the peace movements quit the level of appeals to personal ethical convictions, they almost exclusively argue in terms of global analyses in the social sciences. The contradiction between these two observations resolves itself once it becomes clear that the social sciences have, to a certain extent, delegated the concern with war and peace to a separate area of its own. Peace research, military sociology, the study of international relations, the analysis of nuclear conflict scenarios in terms of game theory – none of these fields have had any noteworthy effect on the general development of the social sciences. Even new research on ‘post-heroic’ or ‘postmilitary’ societies, although of crucial importance for the possibilities of a type of warfare that leaves large parts of the population in a technologically superior country relatively unaffected by war, has not become a central part of most sociological diagnoses of the time. The reasons for this segregation are by no means coincidental. Rather, they are closely linked to the definition of the concept of ‘society’ that is constitutive for the social sciences. Alain Touraine and Anthony Giddens both criticized classic sociology for employing a concept of ‘society’ that expressed only the reality of the nineteenth-century European and perhaps also the North American nation-state. All the asserted regular laws of development thus refer clandestinely to

War and Peace in the Social Sciences Today In this context, if one casts an initial glance over the social sciences at present, the result is a highly contradictory impression. On the one hand, it looks as if pressing current global problems have had little impact on the dominating approaches in these disciplines. The major theories that are the subject of general discussion today – for example, those of Habermas, Luhmann, or the Poststructuralists – contain hardly any mention of war and peace. On the other hand, approaches derived from the social sciences are of considerable importance both for the development of nuclear strategies and for peace movements. Game theories and conflict theories often constitute the core of lines of argumentation employed in strategic analyses, and as soon as

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the reality of a state whose territories are clearly delineated and which is bound to a body of law, and administered in a modern manner, whereas the dynamics of the relationships between these states is regarded as a purely historical contingency and otherwise hardly warrants interest. Consequently, such an approach cannot adequately thematize the particular internal characteristics of a nation-state as opposed to other historical structures: the dependence of intrasocietal processes on global economic, political, and military processes, or on supranational cultural processes. The only exception, albeit not with regard to the fixation on the nation-state, but in the central treatment of war and peace, is a specifically German (and Austrian) tradition of historical humanities and political science. Yet, this tradition cannot simply be drawn on, given its strong connection to the glorification of power and chauvinism. If one criticizes classic sociology for neglecting to deal with international relations, one must at the same time ask whether the Enlightenment’s optimism with respect to peace was a worthless illusion that had necessarily to be abandoned in favor of a realism based on power politics or whether it can be made the subject of a serious reconstruction. The debate about Kant and the prospects for a ‘democratic peace’, that is, a peace between democratic states, has become crucial in this regard.

The Age of Enlightenment Thought on the conditions for peace began, of course, long before the Enlightenment. The late Middle Ages, at least, engendered a series of attempts to make the Christian religion, which linked the peoples of Europe, the core of a peaceful order patterned after the ancient Pax Romana. Such attempts, of course, hardly focused on the non-Christian world; and when they did, the conditions of a Christian peace would seem not to apply to it. It was the thinkers of the Renaissance as well as some from the radical sects of the Reformation who created a universalistic orientation toward peace. The historical impact of this was widespread and left its mark on many aspects of life in the North American colonies. The predominant line of development, however, lies in the subsequent period, namely in the consolidation of the territorial and/or nation-states of Europe and in the development of the ideology of the raison d ’e´tat and the balance of power. The discourse on peace can, to a certain extent, be regarded as a relatively quiet voice of the outsider being raised against the status quo; at this time, it was the way of thinking for which standing armies and perpetual conflicts of interest between the states became ever more a matter of course. The reemergence of the issue of peace in France during the early Enlightenment was perceived by contemporaries as abstruse rumination. Although the author of the early Enlightenment’s most

famous Utopian vision of peace – the Abbe´ de St. Pierre – cannot complain that his proposals failed to attract any attention, the crude and polemic retorts were initially clearly the order of the day. Nevertheless, it was the Enlightenment, which generated the first serious attempts to base the possibility of lasting peace on a change in the internal substance of the state, that continues to have an influence on the social sciences even today. A total of at least five such approaches can be discerned; they set their sights on guaranteeing peace, respectively, by means of the expansion of free trade, the founding of republics, the development of industrial society, the establishment of socialism, and, last, the existence of stable nuclear alliances. All of them have been, at least in the very basic form in which they were initially presented, sullied by historical events. This is not to say that they were falsified in some simplistic fashion. Their overall claims, however, were dashed by the emergence of wars which they had not foreseen and the causes of which apparently contradicted the expectations that had been nourished by theory. The two oldest relevant models in the social sciences are associated with the names of Immanuel Kant and Adam Smith. Adopting motifs from Rousseau, Kant established a link between the capacity of the state for peace and its internal structure and spoke in terms of the peaceful nature of republics. His concept of the republic, however, was not at all aimed at deposing the monarch, but rather signified the constitutionalization and juridification of the power of the monarch. The well-understood interests of the citizens would have the effect of helping to avoid war and promote mutually beneficial relations between the states if only these interests were taken into account when making foreign policy decisions. On this point this ‘republican’ model corresponds to the other great peace model that was represented in the emerging political economy. Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith sought to establish the pacifying impacts of free trade. It was, after all, possible to effect a peaceful exchange of needed goods instead of mutual threat, destruction, and pillage; the expansion of these exchange relations would serve the interests of both sides and render war superfluous. However, both models soon ran into difficulty due to historical developments. This comes most blatantly to light in the case of Kant’s position, which was totally in keeping with ‘republican’ thinking in general, both in Germany and in France. Just after 1789, hopes in France were high that the revolution would also be a step toward eliminating the cabinet wars of the eighteenth century. Thus, a republican victory in the wars that were being waged against France by the monarchies of Europe would have been a contribution toward the emergence of a peaceful world. Instead, the increasingly offensive character of the French war campaign plunged the republican model of peace into a severe crisis. It was in particular the German intellectuals of the time who discussed the

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consequences of this state of affairs. Was it right for revolutionary France to use violent means to convert other states into republics and should the intellectuals who sympathized with the revolution support expansion of this revolution by armed force? After Napoleon’s victory over Prussia in 1806, this issue necessarily became even more acute. It was now these same progressive intellectuals who began to regard the strengthening of a German national consciousness and, to an increasing degree, the armed struggle against the occupying forces as the only political conclusion. The justification of national consciousness still contained universalistic elements, yet the hope for a future peaceful world no longer played a role. As a result, in a peculiar about-turn, that philosophy gained the upper hand in the peace debate, which expected peace to come both from eliminating France as the source of unrest through reinstating the legitimate monarchy and from a new balance of power coordinated in the spirit of a reinforced Christendom. The question as to how strong the break was between the justification of war and the philosophy of peace as based on natural rights and the universalistic ideals of the Enlightenment is an important issue for assessing the further development of German thought of the nineteenth century. Smith’s theory of replacing war with free trade was not at all as simple as it sounded. He was well aware that even communities engaged in trade still remained dependent on military protection indefinitely just as he was conscious of the question as to how trade between states that were totally different in terms of their military strength could be kept free of the influence of this strength. On the whole, however, his optimism in peace-making policy surely predominated. After all, free trade itself bolstered those social strata within society that opposed the traditionally bellicose nobility. The free-trade, liberalist model of peace, however, had a covert particularistic undertone. For the hopes for peace it nourished were usually not truly universalistic but, rather, limited to the circle of ‘civilized’ people. Thomas More had already declared that such a war as was waged against a people that leaves land untilled while denying others use of that land was just. In many cases, ‘savages’ were expressly excluded from the proposals intended to foster peace. As an exception, Bentham had, as a consistent free trader, demanded as early as the end of the eighteenth century that the colonies be dispensed with; otherwise, it was to be feared that, even after curbing the power of war-mongering aristocrats, conflict over the colonies would give rise to ever more wars. In England, discussions that focused on peace and the appeal for free trade remained closely linked. For this very reason, those outside England felt that free trade in many cases merely served the interests of what was at that time the most economically and technologically advanced nation (England) and that it was therefore by no means simply an outgrowth of universalistic thinking.

Marxism In the nineteenth century, the two models of peace discussed above were joined by two additional models, both of which were also closely linked to the ideals of the Enlightenment. Marxism took the stance against the nonconstitutional state’s lack of a capacity for peace and leveled it at capitalism: it was not the republic but socialism that provided the social conditions for peace. Capitalism is ascribed a violent and expansive character; the struggle to overthrow capitalism thus goes hand in hand with the struggle for peace. This is why the Marxist-inspired movements have always regarded pacifist policies that did not give priority to critiquing capitalism or efforts to reach a peaceful settlement of international conflicts at the level of international law with a fair degree of arrogance. The late Engels, however, showed a new receptivity to both a nonviolent upheaval within society and the prospects for European disarmament. More recent Marxist attempts have been able to draw on this and have attested to the capacity for peace that capitalism, at least in principle, exhibits in the nuclear age. Mainstream Marxist thought, however, is shaped by the diverse attempts to draw up a theory of imperialism; this line of reasoning was developed immediately prior to World War I and found its view that capitalism inexorably drifts into an imperialistic ‘stage’ – in which conflict between the major ‘imperialist’ powers is inevitable – confirmed by this war. This view of things determined the way people thought after World War I and extended far into the social democratic camp, where admittedly older Enlightenment models of peace continued to have an effect. It was fueled by the impression that the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, being the only socialist state, was – regardless of what one thought of the precise nature of this socialism – nonaggressive and aiming toward peace. Outside the socialist and communist movements, the fear of a revolution within society of course allied itself early on with the fear that such a rebellion could be incited or supported by the Soviet Union or the Communist International. Within the working-class movement, however, the Hitler–Stalin Pact of 1939 was the event that undeniably shook the foundations of those things that had hitherto been taken for granted. This was true for the members of the resistance who were fighting the Nazis within the Third Reich but was also exemplified by the abrupt cessation of all contacts made with a view to possible cooperation between the German Social Democratic and the German Communist Parties. It was true above all for the exponents of Marxist thought. The entire range of reactions can be understood if one takes a look at the controversy between Rudolf Hilferding, the Social Democrat and theoretician of ‘Finance Capital’, and Walter Ulbricht, the later Communist leader of the East German State. At the end of 1939, convinced that

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Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union of Stalin were hand in glove, Hilferding concluded that both had totalitarianism in common and that social democracy consequently had to take up the cause of supporting Great Britain and France in the fight against both of them. Ulbricht reacted to this with a polemical attack that attracted international attention; in it he characterized British imperialism as the principal enemy. Precisely because of its willingness to establish a pact with the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, as Ulbricht saw it, had become the less aggressive form of imperialism. This, of course, demonstrated not only the bankruptcy of the Marxist theory of imperialism, which was completely functionalized to serve as a justification for Soviet foreign policy, but also its profound lack of consideration for the autonomous significance of democracy and constitutionality for an assessment of the capacity of states for peace. The German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 albeit led to a renewed shift in emphasis, as now the principal opposition to fascism was again undisputed. Yet Soviet policy in Eastern and Central Europe after World War II, and especially in the cases of military intervention to repress internal reform movements in socialist states (Hungary, 1956, and Czechoslovakia, 1968), provoked large-scale discussions on both occasions about the capacity of socialism for peace; the simple thesis that eliminating the interests of the capitalist military–industrial complex would result in peace was, in any case, put to a hard test and gradually lost any credibility. For the generation who rediscovered Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s and in so doing helped it to undergo a renaissance, with the exception of the suppression of the ‘Prague Spring’ the events outlined above were already too far back in time to leave their mark on political perceptions. For this generation, the military conflicts between the socialist states (above all, between China and the Soviet Union) and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 played a decisive role. For many former Marxists this meant a simple switch, for they adopted a realism of power politics or even one of geopolitical power. This transformation is not all that plausible, since, despite all the evident gaps in the explanatory power of a peace model centered on capitalism or ‘imperialism’, the basic question as to the internal economic, social, and political prerequisites for a capacity for peace in foreign policy cannot simply be abandoned.

Classic Sociology The theory of the peaceful nature of industrial society was constitutive for sociology. Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, the academic outsiders who propagated sociology as a new science without being able to give it institutionalized

academic foundations, undoubtedly perpetuated the peaceoriented thinking of the Enlightenment by attempting to prove the peaceful character of the nascent industrial society. Spencer’s distinction between two types of society, namely the ‘militant society’ and the ‘industrial society’, was particularly influential. According to Spencer, in the society of the militant type primacy was accorded to the collective capacity for violent action toward the outside. Such a society, he claimed, as a consequence completely subordinated the individual to a collective purpose; domination was structured around a unilinear hierarchy. By contrast, the industrial society tolerated relationships between individuals that were entered on a voluntary, contractual basis. In such a polity, individualism and the market flourish; the structure of domination is decentralized and multipolar. Such a polity aims externally at entering contractual relations with other polities for the purpose of mutual benefit. The evolutionist assumption that the ‘militant society’ will inevitably die out may seem incredibly optimistic to us today; however, these assumptions were representative of the nineteenth-century social sciences, especially in England and the United States. Even classic Marxism is more closely in tune with the optimism of these assumptions than may appear at first sight. It merely moves the dawning of the age of peace up one step in history, as it were: in this system, only the socialist industrial society is in itself peaceful in principle, not the capitalist society. The path leading to such a state leads via internal social changes, with an emphasis on violence. The success of these changes, however, as Engels puts it in Anti-Du¨hring , is evolutionistically guaranteed, for example, by the internal dissolution of capitalist militarism owing to the increasing inability to finance the arms burden and the arming of the class-conscious proletariat, which goes hand in hand with compulsory conscription. The period between 1815 and 1914, which was interrupted by only a few small wars, could serve as evidence supporting the assumption that industrial societies are peaceful. For this reason, the outbreak of World War I was a severe shock in that it called the philosophy of history behind the social sciences into question. Even if the war as such did not contradict expectations, the course it took was the source of profound irritations. The reaction of contemporary German sociologists to World War I is extraordinarily interesting, particularly with regard to the various ways the cult of war and chauvinism deformed the glorious tradition of German historical thought in the humanities and political science; however, it is least revealing with regard to the intrinsic problems of the thesis that industrial society is peaceful. For this thesis was least widespread in Germany; generally speaking, the German founders of sociology took a contemptuous view of Comte and Spencer and were far removed from liberalism and positivism. Werner Sombart, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel can be treated here as three clearly distinguishable types. Whereas Sombart had put forward a substantial social scientific theory about the

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connection between war and capitalism prior to the outbreak of World War I, during the war he boiled this down to the fateful struggle between British utilitarian commercialism and German antiutilitarian heroism. Although Max Weber steered clear of such hyperbolizations of the war in terms of the philosophy of history, he, too, failed to develop any sociological analyses of the emergence and impact of war. Those of his publications that directly intended to have a political influence are pioneering achievements in the analysis of the link between the internal constitution of a state and the capacity for action in foreign policy. Georg Simmel, in turn, interprets the war only in terms of esthetics and a philosophy of life and believes that the experience of war offers a possible escape from the tragedy of modern culture. Nor do the other authors of the period offer anything to overcome this failure of sociology; the only exception is the work of Emil Lederer, who does not fall prey to unrestrained speculations about either the question of war guilt or the meaning of the war. Rather, he attempts a sociological interpretation of the surprising features of the war, namely the concept of total war and an increasingly autonomous war machinery. The positions taken by the major sociologists of other countries at this time were just as favorable to their own respective national causes as they understood them. Yet, the relationship between such nationalistic positions and the universalistic Enlightenment ideals of a peaceful world order took a different form. In his political writings Emile Durkheim, the leading sociologist in France, did not believe that the war sounded the death knell for the pacifist ideal; rather, he regarded a victory for France as a contribution to the end of militarism and a step toward the ultimate triumph of peace. Theoretically, Durkheim differed from Spencer in predicting that the disappearance of war in industrial society would occur gradually and not in leaps and bounds. In a view that was nevertheless optimistic and evolutionist, Durkheim assumed a progressive adjustment from the continuous state of war in primitive communities to the permanent legislation of modern societies. But Durkheim failed to face up to the problem that a state structured by and through a legislative body could very well take a stand toward the outside world as a power-state bound by no law. Thus the events of the war proved too unwieldy for his categorizations. Durkheim could only attempt to prevent his normative ideals from being sucked into the vortex of nationalistic ideologies. American sociological thought at the time was characterized less by a belief that followed Spencer in promulgating the pacifying effects of individualistic contractual freedom and more by taking a specific understanding of the republic and democracy and transposing them onto an international context. According to this view, the steadily progressing process of internationalization in economy and the sciences would no longer permit a mere coexistence of the states.

The only alternative to solving conflicts without institutions, and this would always tend to be a violent solution, consisted in establishing a moral and legal level at which international disputes could be settled peacefully. For these sociologists, the outbreak of war was especially shocking since it contradicted their assumption of orderly progress and their strongly evolutionist belief in a decided trend toward the dissemination of democracy throughout the world. And indeed, the events of war in Europe were initially interpreted as being anachronistic, as the expression of European backwardness; it went without saying that America should stay out of such a war. During the course of the war, however, a line of argumentation became ever more prevalent which advocated America’s entering the war on the side of the Allies, for which it perceived a universalistic justification. Joining the cause of democracy and abolishing war by setting up a League of Nations and guaranteeing the right to selfdetermination for the small nations – these were, however, entirely noble war objectives in the eyes of American reformist intellectuals. The consequences of America’s entrance into the war on domestic policy, however, dashed all hopes that the war would provide an opportunity for reform. The analysis of the war gave rise to a few fruitful approaches in the social sciences which were derived, above all, from the assumption that a relationship existed between ‘democracy’ and ‘peace’. For the most part, however, these approaches considered the sociopsychological level: here the possibility of social integration through loyalty-fostering participation in public and consequential processes of will formation was contrasted with integration via opposition to external or internal enemies. With a few exceptions – such as in Thorstein Veblen’s 1917 book ‘The Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation’, for example – the relative weight of such sociopsychological factors, however, was only seldom considered in relation to economic, political, or military-technological factors in American social science at that time. It is interesting that Veblen quite clearly assumed that tension exists between democracy and capitalism. He views this as one of the reasons for modern nationalism to the extent that nationalism is promoted by the powers that be out of fear of demands for social equality. On the whole, however, he, too, considers nationalism obsolete and not modern enough or promising for the future. Here the sociopsychological considerations are not developed into an analysis of modern nationalism and the significance it had in the war.

The Social Sciences after World War II The four models of peace mentioned – free trade, the republican order, socialism, and the industrial society – continued to have a great deal of influence in modified form even after the end of World War II. However, all of

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them increasingly gave way to the realism of power politics. Just as the nuclear-armed superpowers and the alliances they set up confronted each other since the beginning of the Cold War, so, too, did the ‘proletarian internationalism’ of the one side and the democratic universalism of the other appear to be diametrically opposed, hostile, and mutually exclusive alternatives. In reality, both positions increasingly deteriorated into legitimatory ideologies that served the objectives of realists in the sphere of power politics. Although many social scientists made various declarations of their personal beliefs with regard to the problems of war and peace during the Cold War, or confessed that they could at best beat a retreat in the face of the intimidating horrors of nuclear strategies, they only rarely contributed more extensive analyses. The representative theorist of the time, Talcott Parsons, made little if any comment on the Cold War in the framework of his studies, and when he did, the statements did not go much beyond noting that international relations had become institutionalized to a slight degree. As leading representatives of NeoParsonianism themselves concede, Parsons had difficulty dealing not only with the present but also with the historical role of war when it came to fitting it into the framework of his evolutionary model based on the theory of differentiation. In his theoretical framework, wars, like social movements, are only the agents of overarching processes of differentiation; at worst, they can divert or hinder the course of these processes in a minor way but cannot really have any decisive influence on them. For Parsons, there can be no question of such contingent processes of collective action constituting the direction or extent of differentiation. The two most important voices in sociology during the 1950s and 1960s who consistently addressed the social meaning of war and the effects of the nuclear arms race were Raymond Aron and C. Wright Mills. Aron is being rediscovered in France and England with such enthusiasm because for decades he did not submit to the thematic repression of war-related problems and made an abundance of important contributions to the topic, both in his theoretical work and in his extensive political journalism. In his theories, he always remained a neo-Clausewitzian strategic realist whose work can be helpful as an antidote to economic reductionists, but in my view it still cannot open up any approaches that take us further. Mills was the actual dissident in the ‘orthodox consensus’ of an American-dominated sociology. His warning, which is still rousing today, on the ‘Causes of World War III’ was based on his analysis of the power structures of American society in which he identified an elitist complex that controls military-strategic and general foreign policy decisions. This thesis of course proved to be too simple in empirical terms; his analysis of contemporary society focused too strongly on the opposition of the two superpowers and did not go into sufficient historical depth to warrant being adopted. Nevertheless, here was someone

protesting against the carefree attitude with which the public and, implicitly, many social scientists believed in the stability of the system of deterrence. This belief was indeed very widespread. People called for at most the elimination of isolated elements that threatened the stability of this deterrence through arms control agreements; of course, the interest in the possibilities of conventional warfare below the nuclear threshold was kept alive in order to maintain the political scope for action.

The Contemporary Theoretical Situation The situation changed fundamentally in the 1980s. For postwar theory, that is the belief that peace is guaranteed through stable nuclear deterrence, this change plays the role of a ‘crisis experiment’, which can, like World War I, serve to make us aware of hidden assumptions. Innovations in weapons technology reduced the stability of deterrence or at least made us realize that radical destabilization is a possibility. This applies to the vision of a protective shield over the United States (Strategic Defense Initiative) as well as to new possibilities of a first-strike or limited nuclear war. The rapid escalation of international tensions in the early 1980s caused the populations of many European countries to become sensitive to the military nexus of conditions under which they lived. The extent of ecological problems that crossed all ideological bloc boundaries (Chernobyl) foreshadowed the need for global cooperation and to address the links between the economy, ecology, and armaments. All of these developments suggested that the world had moved beyond the deceptive security of this fifth model of peace, which in many ways is, of course, more similar to the old notion of a balance of power. From this viewpoint, the peace movements’ most important contribution may have been that they once again rocked the foundations of power politics and generally reopened a public discourse about peace and war among citizens in an international context. This debate was opened up, moreover, in a theoretical situation in which Marxism did not present itself as a convincing alternative. Major contributions by Marxists diverged greatly from the traditional ideas of Marxism; this is true of E. P. Thompson’s thesis of an ‘exterminism’, of an arms race that escalated primarily because of its own intrinsic dynamic and not because of economic or political interests, and it is equally true of Mary Kaldor’s thesis of the ‘Baroque arsenal’ with which she questioned the economic and military benefits of the new military technologies produced by the arms race. Most of the younger intellectuals in the social sciences, however, began, as already mentioned, to look more in the direction of Clausewitz and Aron or even to search for rejuvenated ‘geopolitical’ views. The point is, however, that here all the elements of the peace models that are potentially

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worth preserving even though they certainly cannot be upheld in their entirety are lost in the process. One way out of this situation is to undermine the tooeasy identification of social order and nation-state. Indeed, in particular, Alain Touraine and Anthony Giddens have called attention to the fact that tacit identification of the abstract concept ‘society’ with the concrete reality of territorially delineated nation-states tends to obscure rather than shed light on the dependency of social processes on economic, political, military, and cultural complexes of an international nature. In classic sociology, the relationship between state and society as expressed is not reflected upon in terms of its historical and geographical particularity. Relativizing the concept of society implies that the widest variety of social processes can be analyzed using the category of action and thus suggests that the degree to which they exhibit a ‘systemic’ character should not be prejudged in conceptual terms but rather be taken into account as being empirically variable. An approach that centers on the interweaving and intermeshing of actions and the consequences thereof yields a more differentiated picture than is afforded by the concept of system. The early transformation of Parsons’ work in Etzioni’s theory of the active society, Giddens’s development of a theory of structuration via a critique of Marxism, Castoriadis’s and Touraine’s contributions to a theory of institutionalization as a creative process, and Michael Mann’s historical sociology of power are cases in point. The general theoretical approaches of these authors have become even more pertinent because of specific features of war in the era after the end of the Cold War. The literature on new wars asserts a tendency toward a confrontation between states and nonstate actors. The research on genocide investigates the relationship between external and internal violence (directed against ethnic minorities, etc.). The debate about American foreign policy, particularly since 2001, has given rise to a controversy about the question whether a new form of empire has come up that is about to replace the system of nation-states and the institutionalization of peaceful conflict resolution through international bodies like the UN. New cases of nuclear proliferation will probably give the literature on nuclear strategy a new relevance. What all of these authors of general sociological theory have in common is that they renounce the granting of privileged status to one particular domain of society that then supposedly holds the key to understanding the totality of that society. Giddens, for example, attempted to analytically separate the dimensions of capitalism, ‘industrialism’, the organization of military power, as well as internal ‘surveillance’ and control, and to retain them as possible variables to one another. Castoriadis stressed especially that democracy is not to be viewed as a superstructure of capitalism, but rather that it represents an autonomous dimension of the history of humankind. Etzioni wanted to show how additional strata of inter- or supranational regulations

are established above the level of the nation-state; against this background, he appealed for a dismantling of the military blocs by means of regulated forms for their cooperation as opposed to their renewed disintegration into rivaling nation-states. Michael Mann consistently distinguishes between four sources of social power (ideological, military, economic, and political) and analyzes societies as organized power networks. The program of such a family of theoretical approaches permits us to set our sights on integrating the assumptions of the models of peace in the social sciences and the social philosophy discussed above. Despite the fact that all of them were shaken by historical events, this is no reason to cast them aside. The theory of the peaceful character of industrial society, at least with respect to the process of internal pacification, which extends all the way to ‘civilizing’ the military complex, has, after all, largely been proved correct in this narrower sense today. Kant’s idea of republicanism still raises important questions with regard to the public control of foreign policy as a condition for its defensiveness. The Marxist assumptions regarding the interests of the capitalist defense industry are not mere figments of the imagination. Free trade and the prevention of both protectionism and export monopolies have essentially contributed to peaceful relations between the Western industrial societies. However, it is necessary to reflect in theoretical terms on the relative accuracy of every single explanation and to bring it to bear in the narrative totality of the analysis of the causes of war. Thus, it is surely too simple to explain World War I in terms of the conflict of interests of various imperialist powers, the autocratic character of the German Reich, the existence of distinct export monopolies or Europe’s backwardness in relation to the United States as various people did at the time. The combination of the rational core of the various approaches into one ‘integrated’ concept of peace is the task of the day. This task has become even more pressing since the short phase of hope in ‘‘democratic peace’’ at the beginning of the 1990’ has been replaced by new worries about terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the possibility of the formation of new empires. See also: Aggression and Altruism; Economic Causes of War and Peace; Economics of War and Peace, Overview; Military Culture; Nuclear Warfare; Structural Violence; World War I; World War II

Further Reading Doyle, M. W. (1997). Ways of war and peace. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Giddens, A. (1985). The nation-state and violence. Cambridge, MA: Polity. Joas, H. (2003). War and modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Johnson, J. T. (1987). The quest for peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mann, M. (1988). States, war, and capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Senghaas, D. (2007). On perpetual peace. A timely assessment. Oxford: Berghahn.

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Structural Violence Kathleen M Weigert, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Origins of the Concept Development and Use of the Concept Relationships between Direct and Indirect Violence

Glossary Conflict As a noun, a relationship between actors in a system that is based on perceived or structurally embedded incompatible goals or values. Nonviolence Between individuals, refraining from using violent means to achieve one’s goals, either out of a religious or philosophical rejection of such means or because of a practical assessment that such means are the only ones available and/or are worth using in an effort to achieve one’s goals while simultaneously reducing violence.

Structural violence (also called indirect violence and, sometimes, institutionalized violence) is differentiated from personal violence (also called direct or behavioral) and refers to preventable harm or damage to persons (and by extension to things) where there is no actor committing the violence or where it is not practical to search for the actor(s); such violence emerges from the unequal distribution of power and resources or, in other words, is said to be built into the structure(s). This article discusses the origins, dimensions, development, and use of the term as well as the relationships between the two types of violence and examines various advantages and disadvantages for the concept’s use in peace research and peace action.

Origins of the Concept While other social sciences (and, indeed, other fields) examine peace, conflict, violence, and nonviolence, it is in the field of peace and conflict studies (or justice and peace studies) where these terms take on central significance and, as a result, where sustained attention is paid to them for an understanding of the preventing, waging, transforming, and/or ending of conflicts as well as, more generally, for the creation, maintenance, and transformation of structures and processes of peace from the personal to the global levels. The definitions and dimensions of these central concepts are rich and subject to much discussion and debate.

Structural Violence in Peace Research and Peace Action Further Reading

Power The capacity to effect change, differentiating power over others (to get others to do what you want) from power with others (to work together to achieve some common purpose). Structure Patterned relationships among components of a social system that, although creations of human actors, constrain human behavior. Violence Either the intentional use or threat of force to harm others in order to achieve some goal or harm that results to some because of the unequal distribution of power and resources.

In this article the focus is on the relationships among the terms as they relate to the particular concept of structural violence. While the idea of structural violence, at least in an embryonic way, may be as old as the study of conflict and violence, the actual concept was introduced into the field and given salience by Johan Galtung in his 1969 seminal essay. Both he and other scholars have developed the concept in an attempt to provide a tool for peace research, education, and, at least for some, action. Several distinctions merit attention. In his 1986 review essay on the concept of structural violence, Webb highlighted the debate in the field as represented by ‘subjectivists’ and ‘objectivists’. In addressing the issue of the ingredients needed to warrant labeling something a conflict, the distinction between these two groups focuses special attention on the role of actors and their perceptions in a conflict situation. The subjectivist model maintains that there must be at least some perception of incompatible values or goals by the actors involved to justify calling something a conflict. The objectivist model, on the other hand, argues that conflict can exist without the awareness of the social actors since conflict, in this view, has to do with ‘interests’ and interests are not a matter of the subjective definition of the actors but are instead ‘determined’ by the social structure. In short, conflict is incompatible interests embedded in the structure of the system where the conflict is found. A second key distinction focuses on positive and negative peace. This distinction was apparently first presented

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by Wright in a discussion of pacifists and internationalists in his 1942 classic, ‘A Study of War’. He attributed to the former an ‘unsophisticated interpretation’ of peace as negative (i.e., the absence of war) and contrasted this with the latter’s more complex understanding of peace as something positive (i.e., international justice), which in turn implies ‘orderly procedures and a spirit of cooperation’ in dealing with international problems which ‘can only be realized in a world-society’. Wright concluded, ‘‘The positive aspect of peace—justice—cannot be separated from the negative aspect—elimination of violence.’’ It was Galtung who advanced the distinction. In his editorial in the very first issue (1964) of the Journal of Peace Research’, Galtung referred to the two aspects of peace, calling negative peace ‘the absence of violence, absence of war’ and positive peace ‘the integration of human society’. In a 1968 essay, he defined negative peace as ‘‘the absence of organized violence between such major human groups as nations, but also between racial and ethnic groups because of the magnitude that can be reached by internal wars’’ and positive peace as ‘‘a pattern of cooperation and integration between major human groups.’’ This leads to a third distinction that between violence and nonviolence, which helps pull together ideas from the previous two and brings us to the concept of structural violence. While the nonviolence–violence distinction raises such topics as definitions, tactics and strategies, and outcomes and evaluations, for this article the fundamental issue is conceptual. In defining violence, some choose to restrict the term to the intentional use of force (foremost, but not exclusively, physical) against one or more ‘others’ (and in some definitions, to property) to inflict injury or death. Violence is seen as goal oriented; actors resort to violence in order to achieve some particular or general purpose(s). Thus, an actor, an action, and an ‘actee’ (adapting a legal convention that avoids relying on the word ‘victim’, a term which renders an individual, at least in ordinary usage, quite powerless) are necessary in this conceptualization of violence. For others, violence is conceived in broader terms. In his 1969 essay, Galtung began with the idea that ‘‘violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations’’ (italics in original). Violence, then, was defined as ‘‘the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual’’ (italics in original). Note that here there is no need for an ‘actor’ in the traditional sense of the term, while there is some kind of ‘action’ and an ‘actee’. This led Galtung to his formulation of structural violence. We shall refer to the type of violence where there is an actor that commits the violence as ‘personal’ or ‘direct’, and to violence where there is no such actor as ‘structural’ or ‘indirect’. In both cases individuals may be killed or mutilated, hit or hurt in both senses of these words, and

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manipulated by means of stick or carrot strategies. In the first case these consequences can be traced back to concrete persons as actors, whereas in the second case this is no longer meaningful. There may not be any person who directly harms another person in the structure. ‘‘The violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances (italics in original).’’ In a 1985 review of peace research, Galtung pinpointed the genesis of the term to his experience in what was then Southern Rhodesia, where he did statistical work on interracial violence. Acknowledging his debt to Gandhi (who apparently never used the term itself), Galtung commented that the concept of structural violence allowed him to get away from the actor-oriented perspective of much western social science. He elaborated by saying that structures are the settings within which individuals may do enormous amounts of harm to other human beings without ever intending to do so, just performing their regular duties as a job defined in the structure. . . . Structural violence was then seen as unintended harm done to human beings . . . as a process, working slowly in the way misery in general, and hunger in particular, erode and finally kill human beings. Galtung posited that the introduction of this concept offered a new thrust in peace research, namely a ‘‘critical analysis of structures and possibly to efforts to transform structures pregnant with violence into less violent ones.’’ His use of the term structure fits with a common approach found in the social sciences, namely, one that uses structure to refer to patterned relationships among components of a social system (although which patterns are discerned is related to one’s perspective). A social structure can be considered a ‘social fact’ (i.e., something external to individuals) with an independent reality that constrains their behavior and channels their actions. While that facticity suggests a determinism of some kind, many would hasten to add that structures are creations of human actors as well, a point to which we return in the section entitled ‘Structural violence in peace research and peace action’. In his 1969 essay, Galtung offered several illustrations of structural violence. One focused on hunger: ‘‘if people are starving when this is objectively avoidable, then violence is committed, regardless of whether there is a clear subject–action–object relation, as during a siege yesterday or no such clear relationship, as in the way world economic relations are organized today.’’ A second, perhaps more famous, example referred to husband–wife patterns: ‘‘Thus, when one husband beats his wife there is a clear case of personal violence, but when one million husbands keep one million wives in ignorance there is structural violence.’’ In the 1969 essay, Galtung proffered the word ‘social injustice’ as a substitute to describe the condition of structural violence but rejected the term ‘exploitation’,

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arguing that the latter belongs to a political vocabulary and, besides, it can all too readily change to the verb ‘exploit’, which might draw attention away from structure (‘‘and even lead to often unfounded accusations about intended structural violence’’). Galtung linked structural violence with positive peace (i.e., the absence of structural violence was seen as positive peace) and equated positive peace with social justice, a positively defined condition of an egalitarian distribution of power and resources. While structural violence did not prevent social change, it did constrain it, making it difficult to accomplish.

Development and Use of the Concept A number of scholars took up Galtung’s challenge to examine structural violence. Of those who did so in empirical research, the earliest operational definition of the concept took the form of life expectancy data (initially undertaken by Galtung and his colleague, Ted Hoivik) either within a country or between countries. The conclusion from this line of research was straightforward: there were unnecessary (i.e., theoretically preventable or ‘premature’) deaths, differentially distributed, and these deaths could be attributed to the structures of power and resource allocation in the particular arena (domestic or international) – in short, to structural violence. For some scholars in the peace research field and in international relations more generally, these kinds of data were framed in different conceptual terms, such as development, where premature or unnecessary deaths were taken as indicators of uneven or maldevelopment. While not always directly referring to Galtung’s work, researchers in other fields employed the term itself, for instance, in the areas of public health and preventive medicine. Gilligan, for example, following Gandhi, labels poverty as the ‘deadliest form of violence’ and examines it as a form of structural violence, defined as ‘‘increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively lower death rates experienced by those who are above them.’’ Whether such researchers did not know of Galtung’s work or simply found it not useful is an empirical question beyond the scope of this article. That in fact they employed the concept without reference to Galtung’s work, however, suggests an issue raised by various critics of academic specialization, including deconstructionist scholars. They find fault with the on-going practice of a narrow specialization of knowledge, arguing that such an approach raises barriers to the inter-, multi-, or transdisciplinary research they contend would better advance our knowledge and understanding of social realities. It appears that structural violence as a term has, nevertheless, entered the lexicon of peace studies and peace research and is used at least at a descriptive level, as

indicated by an examination of introductory texts and anthologies in peace studies. Certainly, some scholars have found the concept theoretically suggestive and have sought to employ and/or develop it. Brock-Utne, for example, paid systematic attention to the term in her analysis of peace and peace education from a feminist perspective. She extended earlier works by including in the negative peace concept the absence of collective, personal violence against women. She employed the distinction between unorganized and organized violence and drew attention to structural violence that leads to a shorter life span and structural violence that leads to a less fulfilling life; her typology is examined in the next section.

Relationships between Direct and Indirect Violence Granting for the moment the validity of the distinction between direct and indirect or structural violence, one of the important issues calling for attention is the relationship between the two types. In his 1969 essay, Galtung urged that the distinction between personal and structural violence be made the ‘basic one’ in peace research and peace action. He justified this in terms of the ‘unifying perspective’ it offered to the study of violence, plus the advantage of not prejudging which caused more suffering. After a discussion of the means of personal and structural violence, he turned to the relationship between the two types, first arguing that there is a logical distinction between them. He then examined several possible hypothetical relationships between the two types (e.g., does one cause the other?; does the manifest form of one presuppose the latent existence of the other?; is one the price of the other?) and rejected reductionism in each case. While originally eschewing the term ‘exploitation’, as noted above, Galtung later included it as one of the ‘mechanisms’ or ‘aspects’ of structural violence (along with penetration, fragmentation, and marginalization). In a 1990 essay, he further pinpointed exploitation as a ‘center-piece’ in his view of ‘the archetypal violent structure’. He combined the distinction between direct and structural violence with four classes of ‘basic needs’, yielding ‘a typology of violence’ (see Table 1). The distinction between Exploitation A and Exploitation B is that the former refers to the situation where the ‘‘underdogs may in fact be so disadvantaged that they die (starve, waste away from diseases) from it,’’ while the latter refers to the situation in which the underdogs ‘‘may be left in a permanent, unwanted state of misery, usually including malnutrition and illness.’’ Suggesting that it is possible to label this table ‘anthropo-centric’, Galtung noted that a fifth column (for the rest of nature) could be added at the beginning. As he did in 1969, Galtung urged acceptance of the direct violence–structural violence distinction because to do

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Table 1 A typology of violence Survival needs Direct violence Structural violence

Killing

Well-being needs

Identity needs

Freedom needs

Maiming, siege, sanctions, misery Exploitation A

Desocialization, resocialization, secondary citizen Exploitation B, segmentation

Repression, detention, expulsion Penetration, marginalization, fragmentation

Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural violence. Journal of Peace Research 27(3), 291–305.

Table 2 A summary of the concepts of negative and positive peace Negative peace

Positive peace

Unorganized

Absence of personal physical and direct violence Absence of, for example, wife battering, rape, child abuse, dowry deaths, street killings

Absence of indirect violence shortening life span Absence of inequalities in microstructures leading to unequal life chances

Organized

Absence of, for example, war

Absence of economic structures in a country or between countries so that the life chances of some are reduced or effects of damage on nature by pollution, radiation, etc.

Absence of indirect violence reducing quality of life Absence of repression in microstructures leading to less freedom of choice and fulfillment Absence of repression in a country of free speech, the right to organize, etc.

Brock-Utne, B. (1997). Linking the micro and macro in peace and development studies. In Turpin, J. and Kurtz, L. R. (eds.) The web of violence: From interpersonal to global, pp. 150–160. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.

otherwise (i.e., to restrict ‘peace’ to the study of direct violence) is ‘narrow’ and, furthermore, leaves out important interconnections among types of violence, ‘‘particularly the way in which one type of violence may be reduced or controlled at the expense of increase or maintenance of another.’’ In his 1990 article, Galtung expanded his work on direct and structural violence by introducing the concept of ‘cultural violence’, which he defined as ‘‘those aspects of culture, the symbolic sphere of our existence— exemplified by religion and ideology, language and art, empirical science and formal science (logic, mathematics)— that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence.’’ He conceived of three ‘super-types’ or overarching categories to make a ‘(vicious) violence triangle’ image, leading to a ‘violence strata’ image, and suggested that, generally, the causal flow is from cultural via structural to direct violence. Brock-Utne explored and expanded the relationship between direct and indirect violence as she applied it to the field of peace education in her 1989 work. Table 2 presents her summary frame. In her 1989 work, she argued that while the six cells are logically independent of one another, this does not mean that there are no relationships between them; whether and what connections exist is to be decided empirically. She suggested research questions within each cell. For example, a focus on cell I (unorganized negative peace) could lead to an analysis of patriarchy and macho attitudes since they are

relevant to both rapes and wife battery as well as to street killings. She also highlighted possible research questions for linking different cells. Is there, for example, more or less of cell I-type violence in periods of economic decline, which might lead to a type of structural violence, or in times of direct violence, that is, war and revolution? Or what is the relationship between organized direct and organized indirect violence (e.g., the relationship between the lives of women and children in developing countries and the money spent on weapons)? While just briefly referring to one of Galtung’s works, Eisler is also concerned with the relationships between kinds of violence. She approaches the issue in her examination of human rights, calling for ‘‘a new integrated approach to both violence and human rights.’’ As Table 3 shows, Eisler differentiates between two models of social organization. In the dominator model, differences are ‘automatically equated with inferiority or superiority’ and the superior dominates the inferior. In the partnership model, difference is not automatically equated with inferiority or superiority. She argues that the domination and violence that occur in the private sphere provide the basis for domination and violence in the public sphere; partnership and peace are juxtaposed with domination and violence. The evolving concern with human rights is at the heart of much of the dialog in the early twenty-first century about the relationships among concepts such as violence, terrorism, war, poverty and inequality, globalization, development, and democracy. The realities of genocide and civil

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Table 3 The dominator and partnership models Basic configurations Component

Dominator model

Partnership model

Gender relations

The ranking of the male over the female as well as the higher valuing of the traits and social values stereotypically associated with ‘masculinity’ rather than ‘femininity’a A high degree of institutionalized social violence and abuse, ranging from wife- and child beating, rape, warfare to psychological abuse by ‘superiors’ in the family, the workplace, and society at large A predominantly hierarchic and authoritarian social organization, with the degree of authoritarianism and hierarchism roughly corresponding to the degree of male dominanceb

Equal valuing of the sexes as well as of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ or a sexually egalitarian social and ideological structure where ‘feminine’ values can gain operational primacy A low degree of social violence, with violence and abuse not structural components of the system

Violence

Social structure

A more generally equalitarian social structure, with difference (be it based on sex, race, religion, or belief system) not automatically associated with superior or inferior social and/or economic status

The terms ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ as used here correspond to the gender stereotypes appropriate for a dominator society (where ‘masculinity’ is equated with dominance and conquest) and not with any inherent female or male traits. b As used here, the term ‘hierarchic’ refers to what we may call a domination hierarchy or the type of hierarchy inherent in a dominator model of social organization based on fear and the threat of force. Such hierarchies should be distinguished from a second type of hierarchy, which may be called an actualization hierarchy (e.g., of molecules, cells, and organs in the body: a progression toward a higher and more complex level of function). Eisler, R. (1997). Human rights and violence: Integrating the private and public spheres. In Turpin, J. and Kurtz, L. R. (eds.) The web of violence: From interpersonal to global, pp. 161–185. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. a

wars in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries contributed to this concern as did the more positive work emanating from the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 and the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A human rights orientation calls for protecting and promoting the human dignity of each person as the foundation to the diminishment of violence, terrorism, war, poverty, and inequality, and to the augmentation of a more humane and inclusive kind of globalization, development, and democracy. Nevertheless, it is not clear that the focus on human rights is seen as related to structural violence; the author has found little evidence of such linkage.

Structural Violence in Peace Research and Peace Action In considering the future of the concept of structural violence, at least two issues arise. First, how useful is the concept for those doing peace research? Second, how useful is it for those involved in action for peace? As indicated in the above review, at least some scholars in peace research have found the term helpful. Perhaps an answer to this question depends, in turn, on how peace research is defined – another subject of differing perspectives. In his 1969 essay, Galtung argued for an enlarged version of peace research, ‘‘defined as research into the conditions—past, present and future—of realizing peace,’’ one that would of necessity be ‘‘equally intimately connected with conflict research and development research; the former

often more relevant for negative peace and the latter more relevant for positive peace, but with highly important overlaps.’’ In asking if research should emphasize negative or positive peace, Galtung cautioned that ‘‘too much research emphasis on one aspect of peace tends to rationalize extremism to the right or extremism to the left, depending on whether one-sided emphasis is put on ‘‘absence of personal violence’’ or on ‘social justice’, and that the two types of extremism are related formally, socially, and ‘in a dialectic manner: one is often a reaction to the other’. He urged attention and action to both types of peace and rejected the ‘pessimistic’ view (i.e., that one could not meaningfully work for both negative and positive peace) by pointing to the many forms of social action (citing e.g., the field of nonviolent action); the theoretical work on symmetric, egalitarian organization; the theory of vertical development; and approaches to arms control and disarmament issues. Finally, he concluded that peace research could make ‘a real contribution’ by recognizing the double goal (i.e., concern with the conditions for promoting both aspects of peace) and aiming for both: ‘‘there is no reason to believe that the future will not bring us richer concepts and more forms of social action that combine absence of personal violence with fight against social injustice once sufficient activity is put into research and practice.’’ In his 1996 comprehensive work, Galtung highlights the notion he used in earlier works that views peace studies as ‘‘an applied science similar to medical studies or health science, informed by an underlying D, P, T paradigm (diagnosis, prognosis, therapy).’’ In peace studies, diagnosis refers to states of violence, prognosis to processes of

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Table 4 Systematization II of peace and conflict studies: Some examples of fields of education, research, and actiona Direct violence (DV) N: ‘‘survival of the fittest’’ P: violence to self, suicide S: violence across fault lines W: war geography; genocide C: culturocide T: history and future of violence, war Structural violence (SV) N: ecocide P: psychopathologies S: patriarchie, racism, class W: imperialism, trade C: cultural imperialism T: history and future of exploitation and repression Cultural violence (CV) Religion: transcendent Law: democracy, human rights Ideology: universalist, singularist Language: sexist, racist Art: patriotic, patriarchy Science I: Western logic? Science II: to destroy life Cosmology: Occident I? Sinic? Nipponic? Buddhic? School: militarization University: militarization Media: war/violence journalism

Direct (positive) peace (DP) N: ‘‘mutual aid and cooperation’’ P: intra-, interpersonal growth S: nonviolent liberation W: peace movements; alternative defense C: cultural liberation T: history and future of peace Structural (positive) peace (SP) N: non-homocentric eco-peace P: intra-, inter-personal peace S: development, parity, equity W: peace regions; governance, UN C: cultural coexistence T: sustainability of the above Cultural (positive) peace (CP) Religion: immanent Law: democracy, human rights Ideology: particularist, pluralist Language: humanist/non-speciesist Art: humanist/non-speciesist Science I: Daoist? Buddhist? Science II: to enhance life Cosmology: Occident II? Indic? School: peace education University: peace study and research Media: peace journalism

a Key: N ¼ nature; P ¼ person; S ¼ social; W ¼ world; C ¼ culture; T ¼ time. Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. Oslo, Norway: PRIO, International Peace Research Institute.

violence (increase, same, decrease), and therapy to processes of violence reduction (negative peace) and processes of life enhancement (positive peace). Table 4 presents Galtung’s detailed systematization of peace and conflict studies, and the place of ‘structural violence’ in that system. As pointed out earlier, structural violence is seen as one of three violences that must be addressed if we are to better understand social reality and if we are committed to reducing violence at all levels. In his recent collaboration, Galtung and colleagues have formed TRANSCEND, ‘‘a peace and development network for conflict transformation by peaceful means,’’ which builds on his work and that of others to advance peace research with the explicit goal of ‘searching for peace’ that includes explicit attention to the ‘violence triangle’, that is, direct, structural and cultural violence. Nevertheless, as noted above, not all scholars in the peace research movement have embraced the concept of structural violence. Three basic arguments can be cited. First, some argue that the term cannot be made adequately operational. Second, some contend that even if one could make it more operational, it would still not be helpful to theory building because it is rooted ultimately in ‘value’. Here, two critiques are offered. On the one hand is the observation that not all researchers (or participants in a system) would agree on the importance of the implicit

values which seem to under-gird the term; for example, equality, basic needs, and so on. Some would go so far as to say that structural violence equals whatever the researcher does not like. On the other hand are those whose concern is that the use of such a term will undermine the ‘objectivity’ of the science project (although this charge can be made as well against other concepts, such as development with its implicit values). Third, for some the term does not seem to go beyond what basic stratification theory and research already have to offer, so there is no advantage to using a term like structural violence. For those who employ the term, on the other hand, several arguments are put forth in its favor. Some contend that in enlarging the focus of violence from the behavioral to the structural, the concept provides a means for moving beyond psychologistic interpretations (which can seem to suggest ‘fitting’ an actor into an existing system) and thus, quite importantly, allows for challenges to that system itself. Second, the enlarged view is an advantage to those who are interested in decentering the ‘state’ as the only or main actor of any importance in global analyses, making room for an examination of other actors, issues, and social forces which, they argue, are necessary for an understanding of peace. In this vein, structural violence calls for attention to a particular historical situation as well as for studies of that concrete reality in comparative

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perspective. Which leads to a third advantage to the term, namely, that researchers from other disciplines not viewed as centrally involved in the peace research movement (e.g., humanities and philosophy) may be interested in making contributions from their perspectives because of this more expansive view of peace. In the process, a richer understanding of the complexities of peace and violence can be advanced. Finally, for some, precisely because structural violence does imply value(s), as would-be critics contend, it is more appealing to them as researchers; they do not subscribe to the paradigm of ‘value-free’ knowledge. Some extend this position by pointing out that such a value position is important because it allows for links between the academy and the peace movement, which leads to the second major question: How useful is the structural violence concept to those involved in peace action? There are both disadvantages and advantages. On the negative side, there is for some a simple antitheory stance. Concepts at the level of abstraction that structural violence seems to be are to be avoided because they obfuscate reality. For others, there is the possibility that the term may evoke a determinism. Structural violence seems, in effect, to reduce if not eliminate the notion of human agency. Worse yet, the concept may engender a fatalism which precludes action. If things ‘are as they should be’, one can do nothing except become resigned – hardly the impetus to individual or collective action. Relatedly, it can imperil those who are less interested in more macro-analysis to the extent it seems to overcomplexify the situation, enervating them in the process or adding to their sense of powerlessness. It can also discourage those who are simply less experienced in structural analysis because, as with any structural analysis, there are not always clear, obvious implications for action. The impulse is to retreat to the local scene, restricting one’s vision and energies to what can be ‘done’ in one’s own backyard. The challenge then becomes to engage in more holistic thinking, to diagnose structures in such a way that individuals can see their positions in them but can also perceive the possibilities for change, which leads to a discussion of the advantages of the term for those involved in peace action. To label something as ‘violent’ often carries with it a general cultural valence of negativity which can elicit, at least theoretically and possibly in concrete actions as well, the rejection of any such situation so defined; it is ‘wrong’ and it should be ‘righted’. Second, structural violence contributes to a focus on the larger system and helps deflect the commonly used ‘blame-the-victim’ approach for the cause of social problems. Third and relatedly, for some actionists an analysis that calls attention to structural issues, as long as it is done in conjunction with attention to the individual level, can encourage (if not in fact demand) work on both levels: actions to alter the violent structures and processes, and personal decisions to lead one’s own life

in a conscious way so as to lessen the suffering of others. Here the theoretical as well as experience-based redefinitions of power from ‘power over’ and power as ‘zero-sum’ to ‘power with’ and ‘power to’ become central to individual action as well as to community capacity-building in attacking roots of structural violence. Fourth, with the concept of structural violence, the links between justice and peace become key and the question of nonviolent action essential. Here, concepts such as interdependence, solidarity, and conscience constituency and metaphors such as the ‘web’ and ‘spaceship Earth’ can help sustain and motivate those working for peace. Here, too, the importance of developing skills of imagination and of working to construct cultures of peace and new identities (e.g., ‘world citizen’ as Wright called it or ‘global citizen’ or even ‘planetary citizen’ as some use today) take on more urgency. Fifth, this leads as well to a discussion of social change, social movements and actions to reduce or eliminate structural violence. How one defines ‘democracy’ and ‘democratic structures’ becomes key. If, for example, democratic structures are conceived as those in which people have some voice in the decisions that most affect their well-being, the call for changes in the current world system as well as systems at lower levels of analysis (down to and including the family) becomes imperative. And finally, peace action calls for an examination of education. Learning about structural violence is a beginning step in acting against it. Gleaning principles of action against direct, indirect, and cultural violence becomes essential if indeed the purpose of the study of peace and violence is not simply to advance theory but also to contribute to the decrease of violence and the increase of structures and processes of peace in the global community. See also: Institutionalization of Violence; Peace Culture; Social Theorizing About War and Peace

Further Reading Brock-Utne, B. (1989). Feminist perspectives on peace and peace education. New York: Pergamon Press. Brock-Utne, B. (1997). Linking the micro and macro in peace and development studies. In Turpin, J. and Kurtz, L. R. (eds.) The web of violence: From interpersonal to global, pp. 150–160. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Coicaud, J. -M., Doyle, M. W., and Gardner, A. -M. (eds.) (2003). The globalization of human rights. New York: United Nations University Press. Eisler, R. (1997). Human rights and violence: Integrating the private and public spheres. In Turpin, J. and Kurtz, L. R. (eds.) The web of violence: From interpersonal to global, pp. 161–185. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Galtung, J. (1964). An editorial. Journal of Peace Research 1(1), 1–4. Galtung, J. (1968). Peace. In Sills, D. L. (ed.) International encyclopedia of the social sciences, vol. 11, pp. 487–496. New York: The Macmillan Company and The Free Press.

Structural Violence

Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research 6(3), 167–191. Galtung, J. (1985). Twenty-five years of peace research: Ten challenges and some responses. Journal of Peace Research 22(2), 141–158. Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural violence. Journal of Peace Research 27(3), 291–305. Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. Oslo, Norway: PRIO, International Peace Research Institute. Galtung, J., Jacobsen, C. G., and Brand-Jacobsen, K. F. (2002). Searching for peace: The road to transcend. London: Pluto Press in association with Transcend.

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Gilligan, J. (1996). Violence: Our deadly epidemic and its causes. New York: Putnam’s. Shiva, V. (2005). Earth democracy: Justice, sustainability, and peace. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Webb, K. (1986). Structural violence and the definition of conflict. In Laszlo, E. and Yoo, J. Y. (eds.) World encyclopedia of peace, vol. 2, pp. 431–434. Oxford, UK: Pergamon World report on violence and health. (2002). World Health Organization, Geneva. http://www.who.int Wright, Q. (1942). A study of war, vol. 2. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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IV.

WAR PRECURSORS

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Warriors, Anthropology of Andrew Sanders, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Londonderry ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction The Tribal Warrior

Glossary Age Set Formally organized group of persons of a common age range. Genipa Bluish-black pigment of the fruit of the tree Genipa americana. Mana Personal mystical power associated with Polynesians of high rank, causing them to be, to varying degrees, sacred.

Warriors, as the term is used here, are persons whose vocation is warfare and who engage in the actual physical activity of fighting. In contrast to soldiers, and in particular to conscripts, they fight for personal glory. Consequently, they often fight as individuals rather than as members of disciplined military formations. To warriors, warfare is a way of life and its values dominate much of their behavior. In contrast to modern soldiers, warriors supply their own weapons. With the development of the state, warriors (such as medieval knights) fought in a more disciplined way, but their lives continued to be dominated by values of personal and military glory. It is not possible to make an absolute distinction between the warrior whose vocation is warfare and the soldier whose profession is warfare, and today’s professional soldiers still demonstrate some aspects of warriorhood. Personal honors are awarded for military deeds of outstanding bravery, and battle honors are given to successful military units and services. But personal glory and individual prowess have become subordinated to military strategy and technical efficiency.

Introduction In discussions of ‘primitive’ societies, the term ‘warrior’ is often applied to any fighting man. This is particularly true in popular literature, where ‘warrior’ and adult male are used as if they are synonymous. In most human societies all able-bodied men were at least potential fighters and engaged in military activity when necessary, but there are This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 3, pp 773–784, ã 1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

The Warrior in Centralized Polities Further Reading

Military Associations Men’s social groups of the Native American tribes of the North American Great Plains, which carried out military activities. Tipi Conical skin tent of the North American Plains Indians. Tsantsa Shrunken human head trophy of the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador.

fewer examples of persons to whom warfare was a vocation and whose lives were dedicated to military pursuits. In the great majority of human societies, the role of fighting with weapons was culturally restricted to men. There were notable exceptions, the Amazons of Dahomey being the most famous authenticated example. These were women soldiers in the service of the West African kings of Dahomey in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1845 Dahomey had a standing army of 12 000 soldiers, of whom 5000 were women. The Amazons were organized in brigades with their own female officers and were billeted in special apartments in the royal palace. They formed the king’s bodyguard and were recruited by the king, to whom they were said to be devoted, from among both free Dahomeans and captives. They should remain celibate until middle age, when they could marry on receiving permission from the king. Their historical origins appear to have been the women employed to hunt for game for the royal table, and the elite corps among the nineteenth-century Amazon companies was the Fanti company, which was recruited from elephant huntresses. Amazon companies wore the uniform of Dahomean regular soldiers and were armed with muskets and bayonets, or bow and arrows in the case of young recruits. Dahomey was a politically and socially complex precolonial West African state. In some tribal societies (see below) in which men’s and women’s activities were not strongly differentiated, such as the Ojibwa Indians of the North American Great Lakes region, women warriors were not unusual and their war exploits were accorded social recognition. Other nonindustrial societies have produced individual female warriors, such as Celtic warrior chieftainesses and Jeanne d’Arc, but either their warlike activities were an aspect of their special

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status (they belonged to cultural categories different from normal men and women) or they were regarded as abnormal and their exploits explained in supernatural – or similar – terms.

The Tribal Warrior A common anthropological classification of human societies is to divide them into four types (bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states) on the basis of complexity of social organization and political structure. This is a useful classification for a general examination of warriors, as patterns of warfare are related to general types of political structure. Bands and tribes are egalitarian forms of political organization that lack formalized political hierarchy or a social division into dominant and subordinate political groups. Leadership is based on achievement and is for limited purposes only. The power an individual can acquire depends on his ability and is influential rather than coercive. Because of this, bands and tribes are classed together as uncentralized structures, in contrast to chiefdoms and states, which are hierarchically organized. Bands constitute the simplest form of political organization. They are associated with a hunting and foraging way of life and usually contain between 30 and 100 persons. They are of fluid composition: size and membership fluctuate with local and seasonal changes in the availability of natural resources. A band’s members have relatives in many neighboring bands, may change their band of residence relatively frequently, and often marry persons from other bands. Consequently, important social and personal ties often link persons residing in different bands. Under these circumstances there is no formal organization for warfare and war is not an important activity, although actions such as homicide and wife-stealing may provoke retaliatory attacks between families. Bands do not produce fighting men who are warriors by our definition. Tribes usually consist of a number of residential groups – villages, hamlets, or homesteads. These settlements are made up of close kinsmen and have a high degree of political autonomy. They are confederated through the operation of kinship groups, political and recreational associations, and ritual organizations, which are organized on a tribal basis. In some cases a tribe may constitute a single large village, but common residence is cemented through village-based organizations and activities. Tribal organization is associated with horticulture, the large-scale keeping of livestock, and with more complex patterns of hunting. (However, tribes are not the only forms of social organization to be based on these ways of life.) Tribes were more effectively organized for warfare than were bands. The typical fighting unit was a small group of kinsmen mobilized to carry out a raid in retaliation for a

perceived offense against one of its members. Recruited on the basis of obligations of mutual assistance between close kinsmen, it was a temporary unit, informally organized and lacking authoritative leadership. Raiding was the major form of military activity, but if hostility developed between communities or tribes over a long period, it might culminate in a battle in which, at most, the victorious group could kill its opponents or drive them away. Men usually lacked extensive training in military activities and tended to act on their own initiatives during fighting. Although all able-bodied adult males fought as the occasion required, warfare was not usually a vocation. It was one of a man’s several cultural roles and was not the principal means of attaining prestige. Warrior Societies However, some tribes placed a strong value upon warfare and war-like achievements. Warfare was a cultural value, exalted in itself, and assumed the character of a personal vocation. Outstanding fighting men received honor and prestige. Warfare was integrated with other aspects of culture, such as religious beliefs and ritual practices. Pierre Clastres terms these societies ‘warrior societies’ because of the special place given to war and violence in their cultural ethos. Some warrior tribes had special organizations whose members carried out military activities. The equestrian Indians of the North American plains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries possessed men’s social and recreational associations that competed with each other in military activities, and many East African pastoral tribes had age-based organizations that pursued warfare. However, the diagnostic characteristic of warrior tribes is a matter of cultural ethos and personal calling rather than the presence of specialist military organizations. Keith Otterbein lists six possible goals of war: subjugation and tribute; acquisition of land; acquisition of plunder; trophies and honors; defense; and revenge. (To this we should perhaps add a further category, ritual goals – e.g., acquiring heads for religious purposes or prisoners for human sacrifice.) Revenge or retaliation is generally regarded as the most common motive for the warfare of bands and tribes, as they lack the organization to subjugate a defeated foe, but there are also economic motives in some situations. For example, pastoral peoples in East Africa, Central Asia, and southern Siberia fought for control of pastures to graze their flocks and herds, and the Indians of the Gran Chaco in Paraguay fought for control of water. In warrior societies, personal glory (Otterbein’s ‘acquisition of trophies and honors’) was a particularly important motive for participating in warfare. Military activity continued to be an individualistic enterprise characterized by limited discipline, informal controls over individual warriors, and restricted powers of leaders. Many anthropologists argue that underlying the individual motives and social goals of warfare are deeper influences.

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For example, Otterbein claims that changing patterns of warfare in southeastern Africa in the nineteenth century, and the associated political changes, resulted from pressure on land caused by population increase. In contemporary anthropology, the most influential of these explanations are material ones; patterns of warfare are the product of ecological influences or of (often hidden) economic factors. It may be argued that idealistic motives really mask more fundamental material ones. Or that warfare operates to maintain favorable ecological and demographic relations – by reducing the pressure of population on land or by producing a more ecologically efficient distribution of resources, for example – and that ecological and demographic problems generate particular patterns of warfare that serve to resolve them. In some tribes a warrior ethic was associated with intergroup competition for scarce material resources. For example, pastoral tribes often fought for pasture, and some tribes of the New Guinea Highlands fought for land. But material causes do not appear universal. In the peripheral areas of the New Guinea Highlands, warfare was endemic in the precolonial period, but there was no shortage of land and acquisition of land was of little importance as a goal of warfare. A warrior ethic may not be simply a cultural response to material conditions. Competition for material resources may have been of little importance in the creation of a warrior ethos among the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador, the Indians of the North American plains, or the Indians of northeastern North America. Clastres argues that a society may develop a warrior ethic in a variety of ways. It may be a response to external social influences or be an internal cultural development. The transformation may not be permanent. He also suggests that warrior societies have the potential to become predatory, looting societies through raiding their neighbors for booty, and cites the North American Apache as an example. However, anthropological accounts of many warrior societies describe them after they had been subjected to the influences of European colonial expansion, which may have stimulated warfare through dispossession and competition for land, demand for European commodities, or the development of more efficient weapons and military techniques. Warrior ideals were sometimes created by this process, while existing warrior ideals often came to be more strongly expressed. Seventeenth-century Iroquois militarism exemplifies the latter development. As a result of contact with Europeans, the Iroquois (a warrior society of the New York–Pennsylvania region) developed new military tactics that gave them a commanding position in the intertribal conflicts that were generated by European colonialism and gave new goals to warfare. Recent studies of South American warrior societies argue that Mundurucu militarism was intensified through their use as mercenaries by the Portuguese and that

Euro-American colonial and commercial activities intensified Jivaro warfare. The Integration of Warriors in Tribal Social Structures In warrior societies, there was often a marked differentiation between the proper social role of the warrior and that of the elders, with the latter directing community policy making. War was primarily a young man’s occupation, and the warriors’ passion for war often conflicted with more pragmatic policies advocated by their elders. Consequently, the elders sought to exercise some control over the activities of the warriors. In East African pastoral societies such as the Masai, male roles were allocated within a formal system of associations recruited on the principle of socially recognized age. Initiation into an age set created a common identity and a strong esprit de corps among its members. The members of the elder’s age sets were expected to decide policies in matters vital to the well-being of the community. The warriors’ age sets acted to defend land, cattle, and other resources and to raid enemies. The impulsive glory-seeking warriors should be under some control from their elders. Among North American Plains Indians such as the Crow, influential civil leaders, whose status in part depended on their war performance in the past, decided policy through consultation with their peers. They used the military associations of the tribe to implement their decisions. Within the tribe, competition for prestige between different military associations may have acted both as an outlet for the aggressive values of young men and as a mechanism to reduce the likelihood of conflict arising from the differing interests and values of the young and the old. However, assaults from more powerful societies might promote an increase in the power of warriors and their leaders over the direction of community policy. This development occurred among many Native American societies during the European colonization of the Americas. Training In warrior societies, warfare was strongly integrated with religious and social values, and from childhood a male was socialized into warrior ideals and trained in military activities. Among South American tribal groups such as the Tupinamba and the Guarani, boys were taught that they must avenge warriors killed by enemies by capturing prisoners to sacrifice as compensation for their loss. The primary aim of a Jivaro boy’s upbringing was to make him a brave and skillful warrior. A father sought to inculcate his hatred of his enemies into his sons, and young boys were taken on war expeditions. At puberty a Jivaro boy

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drank a narcotic prepared from the bush Datura arborea, which caused him to hallucinate. Ancestral spirits appeared to him, to help him become a valiant and successful warrior. Throughout his life he would take narcotic drinks in order to consult the spirits for advice in military matters. Among the Indians of the North American plains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a boy was taught from infancy that bravery provided the route to social success and that old age was an evil and it was good to die young in battle. He was taught to admire and emulate eminent warriors. (Boys who showed no inclination toward this way of life might be allocated to a nonmasculine gender and allowed to pursue a lifestyle different from other men.) In coastal Melanesia, boys were taught to regard allies and enemies as significantly different persons. The enemies were defined as external, negative objects against which one’s self and one’s group were defined. The successful taking of enemy life was associated with joy and prestige, and the torture and cannibalizing of enemy prisoners might be relished. In some tribal societies, adulthood was entered through initiation rituals, which might involve ordeals. In warrior societies successful passage of initiation might be necessary to qualify for warrior status, as in parts of East Africa and Melanesia. War Honors Where warfare was exalted and the warrior was an ideal, particular achievements often provided the criteria of personal success. They were demonstrations of worthiness. To become an important man, a Jivaro should have participated in successful war expeditions and killed at least one enemy. To be elected as war leader, he had to be a renowned warrior who had taken part in many wars, killed many enemies, and taken at least one enemy head and participated in the subsequent tsantsa feast. Accumulation of war honors increased social status. A Bagobo man of Mindanao in the Philippines who had killed two persons was entitled to wear a chocolatecolored kerchief as a symbol of his achievement and was believed to be protected by two great spirits. Four killings entitled him to wear blood-red trousers, and when he achieved six he was entitled to a suit of blood-red and could lead war parties and assist in annual ceremonies. War achievements were ranked, and the highest might stress the bravery involved in the exploit. Warriors achieved prestige and became war leaders by performing the higher-ranked deeds. Among Plains Indians, the highest war achievement, the coup, involved touching the body of a living or dead foe with a special stick. This testified that the warrior had been at close quarters with the enemy. It was an expression of personal bravery, and counting coup on a foe usually ranked higher than killing

him, which could be done from a distance. Achievements had to be socially recognized to be valid, which usually meant that they had to be witnessed. Consequently, a man counting a coup in battle would call out his exploit aloud, and war exploits were recounted at public gatherings. The nineteenth-century Cheyenne Indians allowed three persons to count coup upon the same body, the first coup ranking highest. Other high-ranking deeds involved saving a wounded comrade, having a horse shot from under one, being the first to locate the enemy, and charging a body of enemy alone. The Crow allowed four coups, ranked according to the order in which they were struck. They recognized four categories of war honors: striking a foe, leading a war party, stealing a picketed horse from an enemy camp, and snatching a bow or gun from a foe in hand-to-hand combat. To be recognized as a distinguished warrior, a man had to have achieved at least one deed of each type. Honors were displayed in dress and personal decoration and painted on the warrior’s tipi. Ranking of military achievements engendered competition between warriors. War was fought as an individual activity, for personal glory. The successful warrior was driven continuously to seek greater achievements, so that he became an individual who invited death. Formal single combats between noted warriors or between champions of groups are reported from warrior societies around the world. They are frequently reported for nineteenth-century Plains Indians. Sometimes they involved behavior comparable to the medieval European idea of chivalry. A classic example is the American artist George Catlin’s account of a duel between the noted Mandan leader Mato-Tope´ (Four Bears) and a prominent Cheyenne warrior. When a party of Mandans met a much larger Cheyenne war party, Mato-Tope´ rode toward them and thrust his lance into the ground. He hung his sash (the insignia of his position in his military association) upon it as a sign that he would not retreat. The Cheyenne leader then challenged Mato-Tope´ to single combat by thrusting his ornate lance (the symbol of his office in his military association) into the ground next to that of Mato-Tope´. The two men fought from horseback with guns until Mato-Tope´’s powder horn was destroyed. The Cheyenne then threw away his gun so that they remained evenly matched. They fought with bow and arrow until Mato-Tope´’s horse was killed, when the Cheyenne voluntarily dismounted and they fought on foot. When the Cheyenne’s quiver was empty, both men discarded bow and shield and closed to fight with knives. Mato-Tope´ then realized that he had left his knife at home, and a desperate struggle ensued for the Cheyenne’s weapon. Although wounded badly in the hand and several times in the body, Mato-Tope´ succeeded in wresting the Cheyenne’s knife from him and then killed him and took his scalp. Consequently, among his war honors

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highest honors for risk-taking behavior, but Plains culture also regarded high loss of life on one’s own side as an unacceptable price for success. A successful war leader who had never lost a follower ranked higher than one who, however successful in terms of other war honors, had done so. A Cheyenne’s rank as a warrior was created by a combination of his score in personal war honors and his ability to lead successful raids in which Cheyenne losses were low. Trophies

Figure 1 Mandan warrior, Mato Tope´ (Four Bears), displaying his war honors. Watercolor sketch by Karl Bodmer (1834). (Salamander).

Mato-Tope´ wore a red wooden knife in his hair to symbolize the deed, and the duel was one of the 11 war exploits painted on his buffalo robe. He also wore in his hair four small yellow sticks, one blue stick, and one red stick to symbolize wounds received in battle. His coups were indicated by yellow horizontal stripes on his arm and a yellow hand painted on his chest showed that he had taken prisoners (Figure 1). Although some war honors might exalt risk, others might not require it. War was not usually indulged in for risk: honors might be awarded for any homicide. Among the Bagobo of Mindanao, killing a sleeping enemy and killing from ambush ranked equal to homicide carried out in more dangerous circumstances, as did killing a faithless wife and her lover. The Jivaro tried to kill their enemies by ambush and surprise attack and avoid open fights, but a warrior was expected to show valor and contempt for death. He was taught not to run away or abandon his fellows. Melanesian warfare eulogized hit-and-run tactics, the killing of women and children, and deeds that entailed little risk. Plains Indian raiding and warfare gave the

Warriors often had to obtain trophies to demonstrate their power and achievements and sometimes for ritual reasons. A famous example is the taking and shrinking of heads by Jivaro warriors. The Jivaro shrunken-head trophy (tsantsa) was not only a victory token, it was a repository of supernatural power for the slayer and it gratified his ancestors’ desire for revenge and secured their good will. The more valiant the enemy, the greater the power of the tsantsa made from his head. Taking a head and celebrating a tsantsa feast brought honor to the slayer and was believed to promote his material success, future victory, and long life. Head-taking was a common form of trophy acquisition. It often involved religious motives, as in Indonesia and Melanesia. For example, headhunting in the Purari delta of New Guinea was interpreted as taking the life force of other communities to augment the spiritual force of one’s own clan spirit-ancestors. These were given the form of large wicker monsters that were fed enemy heads, which were placed in the mouth of the effigy and shaken into its stomach. Like war honors, war trophies might be graded in importance and prestige. Among the South American equestrian tribes of the Gran Chaco, there was a hierarchy of scalps. The Chulupi placed highest value upon scalps from their inveterate enemies, the Toba. (According to Clastres, the Chulupi claim that during the Chaco War of 1932–35 between Bolivia and Paraguay, they killed so many Bolivian soldiers that their scalps depreciated in prestige to the point where warriors only bothered to scalp officers.) Killing and the collecting of trophies might be accompanied by some degree of cannibalism, performed for ritual purposes and restricted to parts of the body considered to be the seat of particular virtues. The Bagobo ate the heart of a courageous foe in order to obtain his courage. Sometimes a more systematic form of cannibalism was carried out on war prisoners. The warrior societies of eastern North America often ate the remains of a prisoner in a cannibalistic feast after he had been killed by systematic prolonged torture. The Tupinamba Indian tribes of the Brazilian coast practiced the ceremonial killing and cannibalizing of war prisoners after they had

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enjoyed a period of freedom within their captors’ community. (Prisoners did not attempt to escape. Their own communities rejected them and to be killed and ceremoniously eaten was an honored fate.) The executioner of a prisoner scarified himself in order to create upon his body a permanent mark of his prestige. Although Tupinamba cannibalism was performed for religious purposes related to warfare and general cultural values, it also involved a genuine enjoyment of human flesh. In some Melanesian societies cannibalism had strong ritual and cosmological significance. It was believed that by incorporating the enemies’ life-force the victors acquired strength, well-being, and spiritual rejuvenation. In others, cannibalism was more a culinary delicacy or a way of insulting an enemy. Preparations for War Going to war in warrior societies involved ritual preparations to promote a successful enterprise. Throughout native South America, omens were consulted to gauge the likely outcome of a proposed raid. If a Tupinamba warrior dreamed of a meat-rack full of enemy flesh, this was a good sign. Should he dream about corpses of his own people, this was a bad omen and the war party would be aborted. Rites were performed to protect the warriors and make their expedition a success. The Araucanian Indians of southern Chile, who became equestrian warriors through Spanish contact, observed strict chastity before going to war. They drew magic symbols on their weapons and inoculated themselves with magic powders to make themselves invulnerable. They rubbed their horses with feathers of vicun˜a skins to make them swift. Shamans performed rituals and consulted oracles to discern the future. On the march, warriors continued to look for omens and would return home on sighting an inauspicious animal or hearing the call of an inauspicious bird. When a Jivaro expedition was being planned the warriors, and particularly the war leader, repeatedly drank narcotic drinks in order to consult with ancestors and other spirits. They paid special attention to dreams. For several nights before the expedition, the war party performed a ritual dance as an exhortation to war and an attempt to secure victory. Armed warriors were organized in two lines, and they performed the ritual in pairs, each pair engaging in a stereotyped dialog. While the party was away, the women assembled each night and danced. This was believed to protect their men and lull the enemy into a false sense of security. Before attacking an enemy household, the Jivaro warrior dressed for battle. Rafael Karsten describes the symbolism of the warrior’s dress and armaments. To give him strength and valor, he wore a necklace of jaguar’s teeth, long ear tubes, and a belt of boa’s skin – or he might wear a belt of human hair, as it was believed to have supernatural properties, hair being the seat of the

soul. He painted his face, limbs, and the exposed parts of the body black with genipa, to make him resemble a demon and give him the strength and ferocity of this spirit. His lance of chonta palm had special power, as the palm is the abode of a spirit; and his shield was decorated with paintings of spirits and animals intended to inspire him with strength and courage and strike fear into his foe. Ritual preparation for war was not only a symbolic act to promote success. It created a frame of mind conducive to performing acts of violence, which often involved physical risk and required courage. Even in the most war-like cultures aggression and courage have to be fostered in the individual. The Yanomano¨ Indians of Venezuela and Brazil are noted for their fierceness. Violent responses to personal slights are lauded. Yet even here, fighting cannot rely upon the existence of a violent temperament. Young warriors practice simulating rage as a tactic in interpersonal confrontation, and men use drugs to put themselves in a fighting mood. The attitudes of warriorhood in coastal Melanesia involved intense anger projected onto a dehumanized enemy. This was accomplished through war cults that transformed the warrior into a virulent persona of enragement and aimed to reduce the enemy to fear. In Avatip, a community on the middle Sepik river in Papua-New Guinea, headhunting involved rituals associated with the village men’s cult, intended to put warriors in a depersonalized state where their spirits were believed to act through them. Men were emotionally transformed so that they perceived others as quarry and were capable of killing anyone. They killed in order to become ritually significant individuals. A man went out to kill with an ornament in the form of a face clasped between his teeth. It went before him and obscured his real face. Simon Harrison argues that ritual transformation did more than create an attitude that enabled killing. It enabled men to break strongly held moral conventions that governed everyday behavior and social relationships. By attributing their actions to Spirit acting through a disassociated self, they were able to explain why they did so and to distance themselves from their ‘antisocial’ behavior. This practice was common in warfare on the middle Sepik. Avoiding the Demands of Warriorhood In warrior societies, not everyone wished to pursue the demanding life of the ultimate warrior to its logical conclusion by constantly courting death in seeking to outdo his fellows. It was a way of life that appealed to relatively few. Consequently, there were institutionalized ways in which a warrior could avoid such a course without losing honor. The equestrian tribes of the Gran Chaco each had a warriors’ association, membership of which was the ultimate recognition of warriorhood and conferred high social status. In late adolescence, boys underwent a

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painful rite of passage which entitled them to bear arms; but to attain full warrior status by entering the warriors’ association a man had to bring back the scalp of an enemy killed in combat. Many men who could qualify did not wish to commit themselves to constant engagement in situations of personal danger, so when they killed an enemy, they chose not to take the scalp. Provided they continued to fight bravely when the occasion demanded, they lost no honor thereby. Among the Crow Indians of Montana, men joined one of several named associations that operated as military and recreational clubs and competed with each other for military renown. Each club possessed its own insignia and songs and had a number of club offices to which eminent or aspiring warriors were appointed each year. Four officers were standard bearers who carried special staffs and were pledged not to retreat in the face of the enemy. Because of the danger, many men refused to accept these offices. A reluctant candidate might be compelled to do so by having a ceremonial pipe forced against his lips.

The Warrior in Centralized Polities Centralized polities are hierarchically organized, with administrative functionaries who act as agencies for the redistribution of goods. In states, this agency takes the form of an organized, centralized government that claims a monopoly over the use of force within the society. Centralized polities are inegalitarian, with marked differences in rank and with social strata that are differentiated from each other in terms of prestige and often of power. Chiefdoms A chiefdom is characterized by hereditary chiefs, drawn from high-ranking kinship groups, who are the foci for the redistribution of goods and services. In addition, they may direct cooperative labor. Chiefly, status is sanctioned by ritual, and chiefs perform important religious duties affecting the whole polity. Some anthropologists argue that warfare was an important factor in the evolution of tribes into chiefdoms, suggesting that ecological pressures intensified warfare between polities and produced centralization. Others argue that increased warfare may be a consequence of increased centralization and social stratification – centralized organization enabled the development of a more efficient military force. Whichever view is taken, it is usually argued that once chiefdoms have developed, they are likely to expand by incorporating territory – and often by subjugating its population – through warfare and that, consequently, neighboring polities are likely to adopt more centralized institutions in their own defence.

The immediate motives for conflict between chiefdoms were usually chiefs’ desires to revenge what they perceived as slights against themselves. Within chiefdoms, hostilities involved grievances and clashes of interest between paramount chief and subchiefs. Warfare might result from, or be influenced by, economic considerations such as retaliation for trespass or seizure of territory when a chiefdom’s land was no longer able to support its population. Military practices in centralized political systems tended to be characterized by hand-to-hand combat, fortifications, and sieges, whereas in uncentralized political systems war was generally fought with projectiles. Chiefly armies averaged about 100 persons, but in larger, more strongly hierarchical chiefdoms they might be as large as 5000 individuals. Military encounters were battles rather than raids and resulted in much higher loss of life than was usual in the military activities of uncentralized peoples. The military organization of chiefdoms was much more complex than that of tribes. It was based upon the hierarchical structure of the polity and had a permanent, hierarchical command structure where senior members could transmit orders to their subordinates. This situation contrasts with uncentralized societies, where involvement in fighting was an individual decision or a group decision in which the individual fighter participated. In chiefdoms, war was decided upon by leaders who had the power to compel subjects to participate. A chief ’s status was hereditary and sanctioned by his prestige and ritual position, including his association with rituals of war. But he also had at his command a retinue of personal retainers who would enforce his decisions. War leaders were usually chiefs or their representatives (who were appointed from among their close kinsmen), and consequently the role of the warrior was to some degree hereditary. In a typical chiefdom, the paramount chief led his army and established military alliances with other chiefdoms. It was usual for the heir to the chieftainship to be trained from childhood in the martial arts. The chief not only led his forces; often he was expected to demonstrate his personal bravery in combat. Although he might command support, he led by example. Chiefs and renowned warriors might engage in single combats. For example, the leaders of Maori war parties were usually high-born chiefs and their military training, rank, and mana were supposed to make them brave men and successful leaders. If hostile Maori forces met in the open, renowned warriors might challenge each other to single combat. The fight was supposed to be conducted with some degree of chivalry. However, the ideal was not always followed, and a warrior might seek to disadvantage his opponent by tricking him. Although single combats might give individual renown, the military strategies of chiefdoms often involved trickery, treachery, and ambush.

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Members of a chief ’s domain could be mustered for combat at the chief ’s demand, but personal bravery and individual military success (measured in terms of enemies killed and prisoners taken) were applauded and outstanding performance socially rewarded. In contrast to uncentralized polities, warfare was more organized, often with military campaigns aimed to restrict the power of other chiefdoms. But fighting was a personal action that required skill and bravery. The encouragement of these qualities meant that in many chiefdoms, particularly those where warfare was endemic, fighting men, and not only those of high rank, were also warriors. A Fijian who clubbed an enemy to death was given an honorary title, and commoners who distinguished themselves in battle could be raised in rank to a position just below that of town chiefs and priests. However, genealogy was important in determining social status, and a man’s war exploits only enabled him to elevate his rank within certain social limits. Among the Maori, a courageous and successful warrior was given the title of toa. Among the Chibchan chiefdoms of the Cauca Valley in Colombia, where warfare was intense, the principal way a man could raise his status was by taking prisoners in war. Killing enemy warriors also merited prestige, and a brave and successful warrior could raise his rank and might achieve the position of war captain.

and preserved as trophies in a special house belonging to the paramount chief. Treatment of prisoners varied with culture and social circumstances. The Maori feasted on the flesh of dead enemies. The survivors might become slaves of chiefs and perform menial tasks. However, although they might be killed as human sacrifices or to provide part of a feast, the physical conditions of their servitude were not severe. In the Cauca Valley and in Fiji, obtaining prisoners to cannibalize became an increasing factor in promoting war. Robert Carneiro argues that in neither region was there any reason for large numbers of captives for economic exploitation, and consequently prisoners were usually killed and eaten. Preparations for War

From his comparative analysis of Fiji and the Cauca Valley, Carneiro argues that courage-instilling rituals prior to war were more elaborate in chiefdoms. He considers this to be a consequence of the increased risk of death in battle. Presumably, it was also related to the fact that participation in war was compulsory and no longer a matter of individual choice. Before going to war, the forces of a Fijian chiefdom would assemble to undergo a review in which each man would boast of how he would kill the enemy (Figure 2). The chief would encourage them by promising rich rewards for their valor.

Trophies

States

Success in warfare increased the prestige of the chief; it could strengthen his power by increasing the number of his subjects and consequently the amount of tribute he received. War trophies gave prestige to the chieftainship. The Maori smoke-dried and preserved the heads of defeated enemy chiefs and publicly insulted them. In the Cauca Valley, skulls and dried heads were hung from the bamboo palisades and walls of temples and houses and heaped on platforms in village plazas. In at least one Cauca Valley chiefdom, enemy corpses were smoke-dried

The hierarchical organization of chiefdoms enables them to become larger and more complex by incorporating defeated populations. The evolution of early states was a development of processes and structures already present in chiefdoms. The importance of warfare in the creation of the first states is debated, but there is universal agreement that once they evolved, warfare was a major factor in their expansion, which generated new states. The simplest states often did not contain warriors or professional soldiers. Waging war was only one of a man’s

Figure 2 Fijians performing war dance. Original photo: Henry King (Sydney, Australia).

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cultural roles. The army was organized and mobilized on the basis of local divisions that incorporated all the ablebodied men of a district, often fighting under the command of their local chief. Other simple states had standing armies and made war into a young man’s profession. The great Zulu king Shaka (d. 1828) organized his army on the basis of age regiments, each with its own name, leader, and barracks. Young men of equivalent age were initiated together to form a new regiment, whose members lived together until middle age, when the king gave them permission to marry. Under these circumstances, each regiment developed a strong esprit de corps. While bravery was encouraged and rewarded, warfare was a disciplined activity and Zulu fighting men were more like professional soldiers than warriors. Such standing armies appear associated with expansionist warfare. With the development of aristocratic states, an aristocratic class dominated the highest military offices. S. P. Reyna describes these states as organized on the basis of two major social classes, aristocracy and peasantry, with differential property ownership, occupations, and political rights. Often, the aristocracy was a military caste of professional warriors, as in the case of medieval knights and Japanese samurai. War was a major means by which the aristocratic class acquired land, tribute, and rents. It was carried out principally in pursuit of aristocratic interests, and it has been claimed that warfare was necessary to maintain an aristocratic ruling class. In aristocratic states warriorhood was an occupation, closely associated with the ruling class and with a strong hereditary aspect. The Greek heroes of Homer were born of high rank. War was their main means of attaining wealth, and their lives were given over to warfare, government, religious ceremonies, and sports – the only activities worthy of a warrior. Their personal qualities were those proper to the warrior – courage, strength, and skill. Similarly, to the medieval knight war was a noble profession and the main purpose of life. He fought because it was his legal obligation to his feudal lord and because war provided the opportunity for material gain, but also out of love of war and to defend his honor. European feudal nobility lauded the skills and characteristics of the warrior. Courage and contempt of death were valued. Unwarlike persons (villeins) were despised. The knight was driven to perform feats of arms, both in his military activities and in his private life. The only civil activities with which he was likely to concern himself involved the exercise of judicial responsibilities. Proper peacetime pursuits involved demonstration of skill and courage, such as hunting and participating in tournaments, and a prodigal and luxurious lifestyle was the ideal. During the second feudal age the ideal knightly qualities became defined in a code of chivalry, which from about 1100 was described by the word ‘courtesie ’. A knight should use his sword in good causes

and to defend the Holy Church. He should not slay a vanquished or defenseless enemy. He should eschew any part in false judgement or acts of treason and aid those in distress. Although the reality was far different, the ideal was supposed to set the noble class apart as a special category of persons, superior to other classes. A trained warrior, the knight provided his own specialized equipment and fought in armor from horseback. The superiority of aristocratic armaments, their personal use, and skill in their use, enabled the operation of a warrior ethic as part of the aristocratic way of life. Knights formed the heavy cavalry core of shock troops of medieval armies, and with the invention of the stirrup in the tenth century their characteristic weapon became the long heavy lance. Armies consisted of a core of aristocratic warriors, with foot soldiers drawn from their feudal subjects. By 1250 knighthood had become hereditary, an aspect of the noble class of medieval European kingdoms. From the second half of the eleventh century, a new knight formally received his vocation through a ritual in which he was given his weapons by an established knight, who struck him a blow with the flat of his hand. This ritual of ‘dubbing’ became a Church service performed by a priest, in which the knight took an oath to abide by the knightly code, and there developed the concept of knighthood as an order to which all knights belonged and into which an initiate was religiously ordained. Archaic or aristocratic empires created mercenary groups from conquered populations or from groups living on their borders, such as the barbarians who were settled within the later Roman Empire as feodorati and the Cossacks of Imperial Russia. They were recruited to form military units in imperial armies, often because they held warrior values. Now, however, they were fighting in disciplined formations under imperial command and were professional soldiers rather than warriors. In a similar manner, the recent Age of Imperial Expansion resulted in certain groups – such as Ghurkas, Senegalese, and Scottish Highlanders – becoming associated with war-like abilities and recruited for imperial armies, with a corresponding development of a tradition in military careerism. With the development of industrialization and the nation-state, armies have become huge and intensely specialized with complex and sophisticated command hierarchies. Modern military personnel undergo intensive training to equip them with the skills and values of their occupation, which set them apart from the civilian population. Senior personnel are not exclusively drawn from ruling classes. Status within the military organization depends more on ability than birth. Women are recruited to military occupations. Material factors and class or national interests are the main causes of modern warfare. Combined with modern technology, this makes modern warfare a highly organized and disciplined activity and makes the true warrior, pursuing personal glory in battle, redundant.

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However, there are elements in modern military life that are universal aspects of a military vocation and consequently are shared with the warriors of tribal societies and of simpler states. It is not possible to draw a clear line between warriors and professional service personnel. Courage remains valued within the military services and is given special honors. There are medals for personal valor. Honor is associated with regiments and services and symbolized in battle honors. Rituals, often of a secular nature, continue to be used to generate military values and promote esprit de corps. This is particularly the case with officers, and officer-recruits may have to prove themselves during a long, humiliating period of initiation which resocializes the apprentice officer and creates commitment to the values of the military profession and establishes a strong identity with fellows and loyalty to comrades, as well as instilling discipline and obedience to orders. See also: Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview; Military Culture; Warfare, Trends in

Further Reading Bloch, M. (1965). Feudal society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Carneiro, R. L. (1990). Chiefdom-level warfare as exemplified in Fiji and the Cauca valley. In Haas, J. (ed.) The anthropology of war, pp. 190–211. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Catlin, G. (1973). Letters and notes on the manners, customs and conditions of North American Indians, vol. 1. New York, NY: Dover. Clastres, P. (1994). Archaeology of violence. New York: Semiotext(e). Ferguson, R. B. (ed.) (1984). Warfare, culture and environment. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Ferguson, R. B. and Whitehead, N. (eds.) (1992). War in the tribal zone: Expanding states and indigenous warfare. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Gilchrist, R. (2003). Introduction: Towards a social archeology of warfare. World Archaeology 35(1), 1–6. Haas, J. (ed.) (1990). The anthropology of war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harrison, S. (1989). The symbolic construction of aggression and war in a Sepik river society. Man (N.S.) 24, 553–599. Jones, D. E. (1997). Women warriors: A history. Washington, DC: Brassey’s. Karsten, R. (1923). Blood revenge, war, and victory feasts among the Jibaro Indians of eastern Ecuador. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin No. 79. Keeley, L. H. (1996). War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Knauft, B. M. (1990). Melanesian warfare: A theoretical history. Oceania 60, 250–311. Lowie, R. H. (1956). The crow Indians. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Me´traux, A. (1963). Warfare, cannibalism, and human trophies. In Steward, J. (ed.) Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 5, pp. 383–409. New York, NY: Cooper Square. Otterbein, K. F. (1970). The evolution of war. New Haven, CT: HRAF Press. Otterbein, K. F. (1973). The anthropology of war. In Honigmann, J. J. (ed.) Handbook of social and cultural anthropology, pp. 923–958. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Otterbein, K. F. (1994). Feuding and warfare: Selected works of Keith F. Otterbein. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach. Redmond, E. (1994). Tribal and chiefly warfare in South America. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Publications. Reyna, S. P. (1994). A mode of domination approach to organized violence. In Reyna, S. P. and Downs, R. E. (eds.) Studying war: Anthropological perspectives, pp. 29–65. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach. Reyna, S. P. and Downs, R. E. (eds.) (1994). Studying war: Anthropological perspectives. Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach. Schmidt, B. and Schrøder, I. (eds.) (2001). Anthropology of violence and conflict. London, UK: Routledge. Vayda, A. P. (1960). Maori warfare. Polynesian society maori monographs 2. Wellington, New Zealand: The Polynesian Society.

Gangs Glen D Curry and Scott H Decker, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gangs in History The Magnitude of Contemporary Gang Problems Theories of Gang Involvement Correlates of Gang Involvement

Glossary Gang (James F. Short, Jr.) Groups of young people who meet together with some regularity, over time, on the basis of group-defined criteria of membership and

The Dynamics of Gang Involvement Responding to Gangs Further Reading

group-defined organizational characteristics. In the simplest terms, gangs are unsupervised (by adults), self-determining groups that demonstrate continuity over time.

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Gang (Malcolm W. Klein) Any denotable group of youngsters who are (a) generally perceived as a distinct aggregation by others in their neighborhood, (b) recognize themselves as a denotable group (almost

invariably with a group name), and (c) have been involved in a sufficient number of delinquent incidents to call forth a consistent negative response from neighborhood residents and/or enforcement agencies.

Reason for two definitions. The operational definition of what constitutes a gang is one of the major debates in research on gangs. Both sides in the debate agree that gangs are groups and are recognized as such by their members and those outside the group. The controversy is over whether the definition of gangs should include participation in delinquent or criminal behavior as part of the definition. Among senior gang researchers, James F. Short and Joan Moore are among those favoring the exclusion of delinquency criteria from the definition of a gang. They argue that discussions of the relationship between gangs and delinquency become tautological when the definition of gang requires such a relationship. On the other hand, a larger number of researchers, including Walter Miller, Malcolm Klein, and Irving Spergel, argue that the exclusion of delinquent or antisocial behavior from the definition of gang diffuses any study of the phenomenon beyond practicality. Since this definitional issue is far from resolved, one of each kind of definition is offered.

the 1920s. This was the first such increase and decline to be recorded. This and subsequent rises and declines in gang activity have led some researchers to hypothesize that gang activity in the United States follows decadeslong cyclical patterns. While the youth gangs were very different organizationally from the adult gangs of the prohibition era, it is worth noting that Al Capone and a number of his peers were members of delinquent youth gangs before moving into organized crime in adulthood. One of the most important of all gang researchers, Frederic Thrasher, did his work on the gangs of this period. Based on his observations of Chicago gangs, Thrasher concluded that gangs developed out of the spontaneous play groups of children and adolescents and were strengthened by conflict with other groups and community adults. The major activity of gangs, he noted, was the search for thrills and excitement. Fighting was the predominant activity, and fights with members of one’s own gang were as likely as those with members of rival gangs. During the depression and World War II, the United States again experienced a decline in gang activity. The postwar gangs differed from the gangs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For the first time, large numbers of African-American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican-American youths were involved in gangs. Also, levels of violence were higher than in previous periods of gang activity. This increased lethality has been attributed to guns and automobiles, a condition that would be magnified in the next great wave of gang activity. The most recent wave of gang activity emerged in the 1980s. At the beginning of that decade, gang problems were recognized in only a few large cities, particularly Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. By the end of the decade, gangs taking on the symbols and names of the Blood and Crip ‘nations’ from Los Angeles and the People and Folk ‘nations’ from Chicago were appearing in large and medium-sized cities across the nation. Levels of violence were much higher than during any previous wave of gang problems, perhaps corresponding with even more widespread availability of automobiles and firearms. The spread of gangs in this most current wave of activity has been attributed on the one hand to the emergence of an urban underclass hopelessly separated from available economic opportunities and on the other to a youth culture that makes gang symbols, clothing, and language commodities available in large and small cities.

Gangs in History At least one biographer of Napoleon described his youthful participation as a leader in gang fights. The Sons of Liberty were described by British sympathizers as no more than a gang of delinquent youth. Accounts of the American Civil War include the threats against Lincoln made by a Baltimore gang and the effort of Jefferson Davis to intervene in a dispute between rival adolescent gangs in Richmond. Urban industrial development in the latter part of the nineteenth century brought a large influx of European immigrants into American cities. The children and adolescents of these immigrants became members of groups identified as gangs. In the late 1800s, youth gangs emerged in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. In those decades, Italians and Irish immigrants were overrepresented in the ranks of gang members. These gangs roamed the streets of their neighborhoods engaging in petty forms of property crime and conflict with members of rival gangs. As with today’s gang members, these youth represented what were regarded as the lowest levels of the economic strata of their communities. There was an apparent decline in gang activity between the last decades of the nineteenth century and

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The Magnitude of Contemporary Gang Problems National surveys of law enforcement agencies have served to provide the most widely accepted assessment of the magnitude of the US gang problem. In 1988, Irving Spergel and his colleagues found that 76% of 98 cities screened indicated the presence of organized gangs and gang activities. From reports from 35 of these jurisdictions, 1439 gangs and 120 636 gang members were tabulated. In 1994, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention established the National Youth Gang Center (NYGC) in Tallahassee, Florida. In 1995, the NYGC conducted its first assessment survey of the national gang problem. Of 3440 responding agencies, 2007 reported youth gang problems. The survey’s total of 23 388 youth gangs and 664 906 gang members suggested that the most recent wave of gang activity is the largest ever experienced in the nation’s history.

Theories of Gang Involvement

by Robert Bursik and Harold Grasmick as an enhancement to classic social disorganization theory. Under systemic control theory, interpersonal ties between community residents are only one level of social control. Two other levels are also important. These are control of parochial institutions such as schools and businesses and public resources such as government and police protection. Gangs can then emerge in communities where interpersonal ties are strong, but parochial or public control are weak. Levels of Explanation Gangs are collectivities. In terms of social organization, gangs fall somewhere between their individual members and their greater community context. Most studies of gangs have treated individual gang members or communities as the level of analysis. Very few studies have incorporated differences in individual gangs into the analysis. In his 1997 presidential address to the American Society of Criminology, James F. Short called upon social scientists to attempt to include all three levels of explanation into their research on gangs.

Cultural Theories Two major bodies of theory have most frequently been offered as explanations of gang activity. The first of these are cultural theories. Subcultural theory has been characterized by two very different kinds of explanations. In one view, lower-class youths find that they are failing to measure up to ‘middle-class measuring rods’. As a result these youths undergo what has been called a ‘reaction formation’ and turn middle-class values ‘upside down’ to create subcultural norms. Youth gangs become repositories and mechanisms for transmitting these antisocial subcultural values. A very different perspective suggests that gang behavior reflects preexisting focal concerns of lower-class culture. Hence, lower-class youth who join gangs are not rebelling against the values of the adults in their lives but are simply taking on the values of lower-class adults. Social Disorganization Theories Of the two major types of theories, social disorganization theory has the longer history. From Thrasher’s research on 1920s gangs, he concluded that gangs were interstitial in the sense that they filled gaps in the institutional fabric in which youths grew into adulthood. Where families or schools were weak or ineffective in socializing a youngster, the gang took their place. In this earlier form, social disorganization theory placed its emphasis on interpersonal ties between members of a community. This led to a powerful critique of social disorganization theory as an explanation of gangs, because gangs existed in many comparatively poor communities where interpersonal ties were strong. Systemic control theory has been offered

Correlates of Gang Involvement Ethnicity and Gangs Ever since the post-World War II resurgence of gangs, law enforcement records have indicated an overrepresentation of minority youth among the ranks of gang members. A national survey of police departments conducted by the National Institute of Justice supported this overrepresentation especially for African-Americans and Latinos. According to that study 48% of gang members were African-Americans, 43% Latinos, 5% Asian-Americans, and 4% white. It has been argued, however, that police, and thereby police data, overly criminalize the activities of minorities. Survey research projects conducted in Denver, Colorado, and Rochester, New York, have reported far more white gang members than were found in surveys of police departments. Gender and Gangs From a study of police records conducted in the late 1970s, Walter Miller suggested that 10% of gang members were females. Several studies suggested that police departments have consistently underestimated gang involvement by females, at least until recently. A number of surveys based on different community contexts have reported that as many as 30% of all self-reported gang members are females. Her study of female gang members in New York City led Ann Campbell to suggest that female gang members were becoming more independent of males in their gang involvement. Joan Moore and Meda

Gangs

Chesney-Lind have challenged the perspective that gang involvement by females can be a ‘liberating’ experience. From their separate research efforts in Los Angeles and Hawaii, they have argued that gang involvement for females results in levels of social injury sufficient to overshadow any level of personal actualization. A view that accepts both the findings of Campbell and those of Moore and Chesney-Lind suggests that gang involvement can provide females some level of agency in coping with the deprivations of their day-to-day existence, yet still result in social injury and enhanced risk of victimization. Gangs and Community As noted above, gangs can be considered as interstitial groups that are able to develop to the degree that other community institutions are weak. For this reason, one strategy for understanding gangs places them in the broader social context of other community institutions. Five social institutions that have been shown to have an impact on gangs are (1) families, (2) schools, (3) the criminal justice system, (4) politics, and (5) the labor market. The family or household is the primary institution in community life and particularly in the lives of children and adolescents. The proposed connection between the emerging urban underclass and the most recent increase in gang activity is very important, since the institution most affected by the emergence of the underclass is the family. Where families were once the key socializing and supervising institutions for young people, families where they still exist are preoccupied by the struggle to survive. As a consequence, many young children grow up with little or no direction, and the need for socialization and order in their lives is often found on the streets. In many instances, gangs filled the void in juveniles’ lives. Another factor linking families to gangs is the growing intergenerational character of gangs in some locales. When gang members and former gang members become parents, their children are at increased risk for gang membership. After the family, schools are the most powerful socializing agent in the lives of adolescents. As is the case with families, the strength and stability of inner-city schools have suffered as a result of national-level changes in the economy over the last two decades. Just as strong families produce strong communities, strong communities have historically been associated with effective schools. This principle has an obvious converse. Weakened communities with struggling households produce schools that have a tenuous place in those communities and a limited capacity to prepare students for participation in mainstream society. The relationship between school and gangs has been conceived in two ways by researchers. In one perspective, gang involvement in schools drive students to skip school or to drop out in fear of gang violence.

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There is limited empirical support for this view. The more likely scenario is that it is gang members themselves who are pushed or pulled away from schools. Gang members are usually poor academic performers and are more likely than other students to violate school discipline codes. Administrators and teachers facing such unpromising and disruptive charges may do everything possible to force them out of school. On the other hand, the gang and its thrills and excitement may have a greater appeal to the student gang member than anything that the school can offer. Another important institution, particularly in the lives of gang-involved youths, is the juvenile justice system. Research suggests that while most adolescents engage in some level of risk-taking or delinquent behavior, sanctions are more likely to be leveled against the minority youths most likely to be involved in gangs identified as such by law enforcement. In communities where families and schools are stronger, youths who do get in trouble with the juvenile justice system have more resources available to them with which to recover from the stigma of a delinquent label. There is a great deal of evidence that incarceration may be an extremely important factor in increasing a youth’s ties to gangs. In some juvenile facilities, gangs are extremely active. The incarcerated youth must choose between taking care of himself or relying on a gang for some margin of safety and protection. At the same time, being incarcerated can provide gang members with additional status when they return to the streets. In the past, researchers have viewed gang involvement as a transitional phenomenon filling the gap between childhood and adulthood. The primary mechanism by which the transition was effected was through the young adult getting a job and eventually forming a family. A predominant feature of the urban underclass is the absence of linkages to the mainstream economy. Under the dramatic economic restructuring of the last two decades, there are few if any jobs to motivate a gang member to leave the gang. When there is no prospect for a job, there is even less likelihood of stable family formation. From family to labor market and back to family, the dearth of opportunities result in community conditions that foster the emergence and continuity of gang activity.

The Dynamics of Gang Involvement Gangs and Delinquency One consistent research finding has been that gang youths engage in more delinquency than nongang youths. Surprisingly enough these findings come not from law enforcement data, but from surveys where both gang membership and delinquency are self-reported. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys conducted in a variety of social settings have shown that youth who

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report being gang members also report higher levels of delinquency. In studies conducted in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Rochester (New York), and Denver, males were found to report more frequent and a wider range of delinquency than girls. Male gang members surpassed female gang members, but female gang members surpassed male nonmembers. Across all of these studies, gang members reported approximately three times as many delinquent offenses as did nongang members. Longitudinal studies have shown that levels of self-reported delinquency go up after youths join gangs and decline again after youths leave their gangs. Gangs and violence

In a national survey conducted in the late 1970s, Walter Miller found that by far the most common defining characteristic of gangs offered by representatives of agencies dealing with gangs was violent behavior. Field researchers in the decades since have reached a similar conclusion. In a study of Milwaukee gang members, John Hagedorn reported that gang members were well armed and had unactualized potential for engaging in violence. From another field study in St. Louis, Scott Decker described how gang members’ lives were permeated with thoughts and actual incidents of violence. Many gang members report joining their gangs out of fear of gang violence only to discover that their risk of violent victimization is actually increased. Violence serves as a method of initiation for many gangs through ‘beating in’ rituals or requirements to commit an act of violence against members of rival gangs. The day-to-day activities of gang members were characterized by violence, and even gang members’ own proposed solutions for gang problems were violent in nature. Of the 99 gang members included in Decker’s study which was published in 1996, 16 were dead by New Year’s Eve 1998. In order to explain cycles of gang violence at the community level, a contagion model has been suggested. In such a model, subsequent acts of violence are directly linked to preceding acts of violence through an expanding network of retaliation. The central role of violence in gang life is evident in recent patterns in gang homicide rates. Between 1987 and 1992, the number of gang-motivated homicides in Chicago increased five times. In Los Angeles County, the number doubled in that same period of time. Most large cities with gang problems reported that in the early 1990s a larger and larger proportion of their city’s homicide victims involved gang members. Some cities such as Chicago and St. Louis report that about one in four homicide victims are gang members. In Los Angeles County, authorities claim that nearly half of homicide deaths are gang members. Gangs and drugs

There are two very different opinions among researchers about the role of gangs in drug sales. The first argues that

gangs run well-organized narcotics distribution operations. The other presents the contrary view that while individual gang members may engage in drug sales and especially drug use, organized drug-selling operations by gangs as organizations is comparatively rare. Interestingly enough, both of these very different perspectives originated from studies of crack distribution in California. One study was based on interviews with prison inmates and representatives of law enforcement agencies. Its authors concluded that many gangs are organized solely for the purpose of selling drugs. They characterized involvement of gangs in drug distribution as disciplined and structured. A principal conclusion was that many gangs in California effectively controlled the drug markets in their territory. The second study analyzed the official records on drug-related crimes in Los Angeles and several other jurisdictions. The authors of this study concluded that gangs did not control a significant portion of crack distribution and that drug-related crimes involving gang members were no less likely to involve violence than those that did not involve gang members. Subsequent studies of drug sales by gang members in other cities have supported one or the other of the two perspectives. The key question underlying gang involvement in drug markets revolves around the nature of gang organization. In order for gangs to participate in drug distribution with any kind of organizational effectiveness, a stable leadership structure, member roles, shared goals, mechanisms for consistently disciplining members, and the ability to manage collective resources would all be required. Few studies of gangs have substantiated the existence of any of these features in contemporary gangs. In an extensive report issued in 1992, the District Attorney’s Office of Los Angeles County concluded that gangs did not control drug sales in that jurisdiction because of their disorganized and loosely confederated structures. Entering and Leaving Gangs Gang members have been said to be both ‘pulled’ and ‘pushed’ into gang membership. Those pulled into gang membership are attracted by the camaraderie and excitement promised by membership. In many communities, especially Latino and Hispanic, gangs represent a source of cultural pride and identification. A number of studies also quote gang members as stating their motivation for joining the gang to be profits from drug sales and other crimes. There is a general distrust of such professed gains from gang-related criminal activity among most researchers. Youths are pushed into gangs by the perceived threat of violence from other gangs and by the lack of other alternatives. As noted above, the supposed security provided by gang membership often is accompanied by greater risk of victimization. The lack of other alternatives can be represented by both a lack of economic opportunities and deficits in what James S. Coleman called social capital.

Gangs

Whether a member is pulled or pushed into joining the gang, becoming a member is agreed by most researchers to be a gradual process requiring an extended period of trust building and progressive participation. Most gangs do, however, have a recognized initiation process to mark the point at which a gang associate makes the transition to gang member. Most often this initiation involves violence. The most widespread procedure is being ‘beaten in’. In the beating in process, the new initiate usually experiences a brief infliction of violence by current members. The next most common ritual is a requirement to inflict some kind of harm on a member of a rival gang or at least issue through some action a challenge to a rival gang’s sovereignty. Such challenges usually involve assault on a rival gang member or committing an act of vandalism or a robbery in the rival gang’s territory. Any initiation requirement is, however, likely to be waived for a younger sibling or cousin of a current member with some level of prestige. Several incidents given attention in the media involve the initiation of female members by male gang members in mixed-sex gangs through a process described as ‘sexing in’. The veracity of the most highly publicized incidents of this type have been subsequently challenged. In most cases, female gang members enter the gang in initiations similar to those required of males, most often being beaten in or required to perform a violent act against a rival gang. Most often the initiation of females is the responsibility of other females. In some incidents recorded by researchers, female gang members have ‘set up’ females whom they did not really intend to include in their group for group rape or other abuse by male gang members. There exists considerable mythology about leaving the gang among gang members. Media reports and gang members have attested that it is simply impossible to leave the gang. In some gangs, there is a myth that the member must kill a parent in order to leave the gang without experiencing the gang’s wrath. The truth is that no such exit from a gang has ever been recorded. In some gangs, there is a ritual ‘beating out’ comparable to the ritual ‘beating in’. Based on studies from a number of cities, though, it is a very simple matter for members to leave their gangs. The major problem is that former gang members find little else to do outside of the gang. Gang members who try to leave too often find themselves hanging out with the same old associates and engaging in many of the same activities that they did as a gang member. The gang is where the former members’ friends are, and there are few opportunities, social or otherwise, to take their place.

Responding to Gangs Types of Response Irving Spergel led a team of researchers in conducting a 1988 national study of promising gang intervention programs.

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From this study, four basic strategic responses to gangs were identified. These were suppression, social intervention, community organization, and economic opportunities. First, suppression was the most common reaction to gang problems in the 1980s. On one hand, it involved traditional criminal justice efforts to identify and incapacitate serious offenders. On the other, it involved enhanced networks between criminal justice agencies and the implementation of sophisticated intelligence-gathering techniques. The rise of suppression as the dominant response to gang crime problems in the 1980s may have been a function of growing political conservatism, or suppression may have simply been the easiest and most rapid response to implement in reaction to increased levels of gang violence. In most cases, the institutional instrument of suppression strategies has been police department gang crime units, many modeled after Los Angeles Police Department’s Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) program. A 1992 national survey reported specialized police gang units in 53 of the 79 largest city police departments. Of these units, a majority were created after 1986. The second most common strategy used as a response to gangs in the past has been social intervention. Social intervention strategies primarily have taken one of two forms – agency-based service programs and street outreach programs. In the agency-based programs, youth centers usually offer adolescents a secure setting in which to participate in structured recreational activities while receiving other kinds of services. One of the oldest and without question the most widespread agency-based program involved in gang response is the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Frederic Thrasher evaluated a gang intervention program at a New York ‘Boys Club’ in 1928. In a typical Boys and Girls Club in St. Louis, a gang prevention and intervention program is provided to specifically targeted youth at high risk of gang involvement. At the same time, the club offers water recreation activities (including kayaking), organized sports programs, music and art lessons, and even a free dental clinic. The other kind of social intervention program is street outreach. These programs have been called detached worker or street worker programs. In street outreach programs, workers approach and interact with youths on the streets of their neighborhoods where risk of gang involvement and youth violence is greatest. On the street, the worker provides counseling. From the street, the worker makes referrals to agencybased social intervention programs. Social intervention programs were the most common response to gangs in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. A study published by Malcolm Klein in 1971 on his research in Los Angeles questioned the effectiveness of social intervention strategies. When such strategies dealt with gang members within the context of their gangs, Klein concluded that programs could increase the cohesion of the gangs.

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The first large-scale gang response program was implemented under the leadership of Clifford Shaw, a University of Chicago professor, who had conducted extensive research on gangs in 1929. The Chicago Area Project was in its philosophy and structure a community organization strategy – the third type of strategic response. Residents were empowered to elect the leaders of the Chicago Area Projects, of which the major goal was the strengthening of interpersonal ties within the community and greater community control over key institutions such as police, schools, and government. Subsequent community organization strategies were implemented in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. A major criticism of these earlier community organization programs has been their inadequate or inconclusive evaluations. The fourth response strategy to gangs has been opportunities provision. This response strategy is based on the importance of access to legitimate opportunities for avoiding and ending gang involvement. Opportunities provision strategies are financially costly and difficult to implement. Under this response strategy fall programs that provide job preparation, training, and placement for gang-involved youths, as well as programs that reintegrate younger gang members back into schools or alternative educational programs that can enhance their future employability. The 1988 national survey found that opportunities provision strategies were the least common of all strategies. Major Gang Initiatives In 1982, Walter Miller advised that any significant reduction in collective youth crime would require major federal initiatives. In the 1990s more federal and local initiatives responding to gangs were in place than ever before. In 1988, under the Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the Youth Gang Drug Prevention Program under the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF), US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), was implemented. Between 1989 and 1996, this program established gang program consortiums in 16 cities and a diversity of single-agency gang prevention and intervention programs (including programs designed specifically for females, new immigrant youth gang members, and intergenerational gang families). Each year between 1991 and 1994, ACYF sponsored an annual conference designed to build skills, communication, and understanding among representatives of funded projects and other agencies with shared goals. Although the Youth Gang Drug Prevention Program was eventually phased out, it provided a model for a number of programs that would follow. Programmatic responses to gangs have emerged in conjunction with an unprecedented level of federally funded research on gangs. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention undertook a longitudinal research program in four cities to identify the

causes and correlates of delinquency. The first wave of data was gathered in 1990. In 1991, an initiative on research on gangs was undertaken by the National Institute of Justice. Many of the findings cited in this article were generated by these research efforts. In addition to longitudinal research on gang involvement in Rochester, New York, and Denver, and the national surveys of law enforcement agencies about record keeping and levels of gang activity, research was conducted on gang activity in correctional facilities, patterns of gang migration, and other topics with relevance for policy. In 1995, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention established the National Youth Gang Center in Tallahassee, Florida. The center is responsible for maintaining updated information on the level of gang problems nationwide and serving as a clearing house for current information on gangs. At least three major gang program initiatives with strictly defined evaluation guidelines were in place in 1997. The first was the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gangs implemented by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency in five cities. The Community-Wide Approach is generally known as the ‘Spergel model’ because it was developed by Irving Spergel from his surveys and program analyses conducted between 1988 and 1992. The Spergel model is primarily a community organization strategy with integrated social intervention, opportunities provision, and suppression components. Training manuals were produced for law enforcement, grassroots organizations, schools, youth service agencies, prosecution, the court, probation, and corrections. Once the mobilization is underway, any of the component agencies can be the lead or mobilizing agency. The model was designed to be tailored to the special needs of each individual community. The program’s flexibility encourages local program planners to assess the special features of local gang problems and take advantage of local agency strengths. The guidelines for community mobilization are intended to facilitate interagency cooperation and minimize interagency conflict. The Spergel model was funded for implementation in five sites. The results of evaluations at each site revealed areas of success and failure that can be incorporated in future programs. At the same time that the Spergel model was being developed, the Causes and Correlates Program was developing a systematic response to serious, chronic, and violent offending by juveniles. The model was based on a social development model emphasizing protective and risk factors and focusing on the influences of family, school, and community. A key principle of this response model (called the ‘comprehensive strategy’) required the juvenile justice system to become part of a comprehensive continuum of services and sanctions for youth. Officials at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention had become convinced that the problems of serious, violent, and chronic offending and gang-related

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crime were related. In their most commanding initiative to date, the agency undertook the implementation of a combined program called Safe Futures in four urban sites, one rural site, and one Indian reservation. The Safe Futures Program combines both the Spergel model and the comprehensive strategy. Initiated in 1996, funding for Safe Futures projects was larger and extended over a longer period of time (5 years) than funding for previous comparable efforts. Each program was required to incorporate a local evaluation and cooperate with a national evaluation. The program implementation evaluation was positive, but outcome evaluations were incomplete or inconclusive. Some sites terminated their programs early failing to spend all of the funds available. In addition to community organization initiatives, two other kinds of gang response programs were implemented in the 1990s. A law enforcement strategy that tied suppression to community organization is community orienting policing. In 1996, the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office in the Department of Justice launched a 15-city Anti-Gang Initiative. The 15 target cities were selected on the basis of their consistency in providing gang-related crime statistics to national surveys in the preceding decade. The local programs were encouraged to choose among a number of community policing strategies, including the improvement of data collection, the integration of law enforcement agencies into community-wide responses to gangs, and the provision of a safer setting in which less-suppressive response programs could be given a chance to develop. Evaluations of the programs published by the Department of Justice showed mixed results.

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The final contemporary gang response program of note is school based. Gang Resistance Educational Assistance and Training (GREAT) was modeled after the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program. Under GREAT, uniformed police officers provide in-class training to fourth- and seventh-grade students. GREAT is funded by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) of the US Treasury Department. Initial evaluation results of GREAT suggested that the program was successful in reducing gang participation by middle-school children in the short term. However, a longitudinal evaluation revealed the positive effects of the GREAT program to diminish with time. ATF redesigned the GREAT program curriculum, and the revised GREAT program is undergoing a stringent evaluation. See also: Ritual and Symbolic Behavior

Further Reading Curry, G. D. and Decker, S. H. (2002). Confronting gangs: Crime and community, 2nd edn. Los Angeles: Roxbury. Decker, S. H. and Van Winkle, B. (1996). Life in the gang: Family, friends, and violence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Huff, C. R. (1996). Gangs in America, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Klein, M. W. (1995). The American street gang. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, J. A. (2001). One of the guys: Girls, gangs, and gender. New York: Oxford University Press. Moore, J. W. (1978). Homeboys: Gangs, drugs, and prison in the barrios of Los Angeles. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Short, J. F., Jr. (1990). New wine in old bottles. In Huff, C. R. (ed.) Gangs in America, 1st edn, pp. 223–239. Newbury Park: Sage. Spergel, I. A. (1995). The youth gang problem: A community approach. New York: Oxford University Press.

Clan and Tribal Conflict Keith F Otterbein, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Fraternal Interest Groups Types of Societies Feuding Military Organizations

Glossary Cultural Unit An ethnic unit composed of contiguous political communities that are culturally similar. In most instances the cultural unit is the same as a society or culture.

Warfare Summary Further Reading

External War Warfare between political communities that are not members of the same cultural unit; that is, they are culturally different. There are two aspects of external war that can be measured separately: political

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communities of a cultural unit can either attack or be attacked by culturally different political communities. Feuding A type of armed combat occurring within a political community in which, if a homicide occurs, the kin of the deceased take revenge through killing the offender or any member of his kin group. Feuding with Compensation Feuding that occurs if the relatives of the deceased sometimes accept compensation in lieu of blood revenge. Feuding without Compensation Feuding that occurs if the relatives of the deceased are expected to take revenge through killing the offender or any close relative of his. The possibility of paying compensation does not exist. Fraternal Interest Groups Localized groups of related males who can resort to aggressive measures when the interests of their members are threatened. Internal War Warfare between political communities within the same cultural unit. Matrilocal Residence Marital residence rule that requires the groom to reside with the bride, either nearby or in the home of the bride’s parents. Often referred to as uxorilocal residence. Military Organizations A type of social organization that engages in armed combat with other similar organizations in order to obtain certain goals. Multilocal Residence Marital residence in which the bride and groom establish a household either nearby or in the home of either the bride’s or groom’s parents. Also referred to as ambilocal residence. Neolocal Residence Marital residence in which the bride and groom establish a household independent of

the location of the parental home of either partner. Unlike matrilocal and patrilocal residence, a rule requiring an independent location is rarely specified. Patrilocal Residence Marital residence rule that requires the bride to reside with the groom, either nearby or in the home of the groom’s parents. Often referred to as virilocal residence. Political Community A group of people whose membership is defined in terms of occupancy of a common territory and who have an official with the special function of announcing group decisions – a function exercised at least once a year. There is usually more than one political community in a cultural unit. Polygyny The marriage of one man to two or more women at the same time. Self-Redress One disputant takes unilateral action in an attempt to prevail in a dispute or to punish another. Also called self-help, coercion, or folk justice. War, Causes of The causes of war – that is, the reasons that military organizations go to war – include subjugation and tribute, land, plunder, trophies and honors, revenge, and defense. These are goals of war. Warfare Armed combat between political communities. Warriors, Nonprofessional Military personnel who have not had intensive training in the art of war. Warriors, Professional Military personnel who devote a substantial part of their time during their early adulthood to intensive training, which may involve practice not only in the use of weapons but also in performing maneuvers. They may be members of age-grades, military societies, or standing armies.

Clan conflict is feud; tribal conflict is war. Feuding takes place within a political community, war takes place between political communities. War between culturally similar political communities is internal war, while war between culturally different political communities is external war. Figure 1 shows the interrelationship among these several forms of armed combat. Armed combat is fighting with weapons.

and violence. These fraternal interest groups constitute the vengeance parties that engage in feuding in tribal societies as well as in modern polities, and they form the backbone of the military organizations of the majority of tribal societies.

Fraternal Interest Groups What They Are Fundamental to the understanding of clan and tribal conflicts is the recognition that when conflict of a violent nature arises among nonliterate peoples, as well as among ethnic groups in modern nations, localized groups of related males – fraternal interest groups – pursuing their own interests are likely to be responsible for the conflict

Cause of Feuding and Internal War In 1960, in one of anthropology’s seminal papers, H U E Thoden van Velzen and W van Wetering demonstrated that the presence of fraternal interest groups is responsible for the conflicts that occur within local groups. Fraternal interest groups – power groups of related males – arise by following a rule of patrilocal residence and/or practicing polygyny. In a cross-cultural study, that is, a study examining ethnographic descriptions of practices of a sample of societies, K F Otterbein and C S Otterbein showed that fraternal interest groups, using either patrilocal residence or polygyny as an index of

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3 1 2

Key Circles: Solid circles represent fraternal interest groups Broken-line circles represent political communities Solid-line circles represent cultural units Double-headed arrows: 1. Feuding 2. Internal war 3. External war Figure 1 Diagram of major concepts.

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types; not all societies neatly fit into one of them. Yet, fraternal interest groups, rape, feuding, internal war, and capital punishment are interrelated; rape can lead to feud, while the military organization whose core is a fraternal interest group can on one day attack a member of a kinship group within the political community (an act leading to feuding or continuing a feud) and on the next day ambush a member of another political community (an act of internal war). Thus, the emergence of societies in category 1 (mentioned earlier) helps to explain the widespread occurrence of violence in tribal societies. These are the societies that W T Divale and M Harris argue have the male supremacist complex. The complex arises through patrilocal residence, polygyny, internal warfare (including feuding), and female infanticide. Extreme mistreatment of women follows, including beatings and rape. Bands

the presence of fraternal interest groups, predict feuding. K F Otterbein, in other cross-cultural studies, showed that the presence of fraternal interest groups in a society predicted rape, often a cause of feuding, and internal war. In another study Otterbein showed how fraternal interest groups, feuding, and capital punishment were interrelated in tribal society. In tribes with fraternal interest groups, executions of wrongdoers are carried out by members of the wrongdoer’s own clan. The homicides that occur between feuding clans are not capital punishment. In tribes without fraternal interest groups but with councils of elders, executions are performed only by political leaders; thus, capital punishment in these tribes can serve to limit the occurrence of homicide. Executions of recidivist killers in tribes without fraternal interest groups does not lead to feuds, and the execution assures that the recidivist is prevented from killing again. Facilities for holding prisoners in permanent incarceration are rare in bands and tribes.

Types of Societies Although societies with fraternal interest groups based on patrilocal residence are a majority of those described by ethnographers (about 70%), there are nevertheless numerous societies without fraternal interest groups, which have matrilocal, multilocal, or neolocal residence. Thus two categories of societies can be delineated and contrasted: (1) societies with fraternal interest groups have much conflict, rape, feuding, internal war, and intraclan executions, whereas (2) societies without fraternal interest groups have little conflict, no rape, no feuding, no internal war, and politywide executions. Self-redress occurs but it does not lead to feuding. These are ideal

These two categories of societies cut across the traditional typology of bands and tribes. Bands can be divided into seven types, and tribes into five types. Bands with feuding and warfare include Big Game Hunters. Australian Aborigines, Settled Fishermen, and Mounted Hunters. These types of bands make their appearance in prehistory in the order given. They are characterized by the hunting of land and marine animals, often by groups of related males who reside patrilocally, and by armed combat within and between political communities. Bands without feuding and warfare include Simple Foragers, Symbiotics, and Incipient Tillers. Simple Foragers also appear in prehistory, Symbiotics after the rise of agriculturalists to whom the foragers can become attached through trade, and Incipient Tillers appear after the foragers begin to grow crops to supplement their hunting and gathering. These bands are characterized by plant-gathering; residence patterns that are matrilocal, multilocal, or neolocal; and individual self-redress rather than feuding and internal war to attempt to right wrongs. Fraternal interest groups are absent. Three of the four warring types extend back to the Upper Paleolithic; they hunted medium to large game animals – the Big Game Hunters, the Australian Aborigines, and the Settled Fishermen, if they whaled. The Mounted Hunters came later, but before getting horses their predecessors hunted big game (e.g., the Clovis hunters of ancient North America). Settled Fishermen in the Upper Paleolithic probably had war because similar villages in the nineteenth century engaged in warfare. The Australians and the fishermen are virilocal; the hunters probably were not although small fraternal interest groups could form. The present author believes hunting, armed combat, and virilocality occurred in the Upper Paleolithic, category 1 societies.

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This analysis allows for category 2 societies – peaceful people who gathered, did not engage in armed combat, and who were multilocal or matrilocal. Tribes Tribes with feuding and warfare include all five types. All tribes make their appearance in prehistory after the domestication of plants and animals. This also means they emerged after the development of complex societies in the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia. The criteria used to delineate tribes include sociopolitical structure, settlement pattern, and mode of subsistence. Similar criteria were used to distinguish bands. The Autonomous Village is based primarily on crop production. Villages may form a Village Cluster where they are linked by kinship, marriage, trade, or military alliance. Villages may also be organized into a two-level system with a formal or informal leader, the former referred to as a chief, the latter as a big man. The leader resides in a central village. Other villages in the polity have leaders who follow his direction. Such tribal peoples can be described as a Minimal Chiefdom. (Although the author studied such a people in northeast Nigeria in 1965, he has still not decided whether he should classify the Higi as a tribe or a chiefdom. They had a hereditary chief.) If the tribesmen are herders they can become Pastoral Nomads. As the first three types of tribes are conquered and incorporated into expanding states, they become Dependent Native Peoples. Just as bands may follow a developmental sequence (simple foragers to symbiotics to incipient tillers), so may tribes. Any of the first three types may become a Dependent Native People, which in turn will probably eventually become a peasant community. Pastoral Nomads generally maintain a degree of political autonomy by resisting incorporation. Fraternal interest groups are frequently found in all five types of tribes. Although Settled Fishermen and Mounted Hunters are included in most comparative and cross-cultural studies of bands, they are also included in discussions of tribal societies. This taxonomic ambiguity arises because the subsistence of Settled Fishermen and Mounted Hunters is based exclusively on hunting and gathering, while their political organization is like that of tribal societies. These societies, nearly without exception, engage in frequent internal and/or external warfare. Where one places them taxonomically affects the interpretation of how warlike bands and tribes are. Their inclusion with the five band types, two of which frequently are characterized by feuding and warfare, produces a high percentage of hunting/ gathering bands with warfare. Their inclusion with the five tribe types, all of whom engage in frequent feuding and warfare, produces a large category in terms of types and numbers of societies in which warfare is nearly universal. The removal of Settled Fishermen and Mounted Hunters

from the band category makes it possible to classify bands as relatively peaceful (i.e., the percentage of hunting/ gathering bands with warfare may drop below 50%). If bands include only category 2 societies, they do not have warfare.

Feuding Essential Elements K F Otterbein’s review of definitions of feuding revealed two essential elements. First, kin groups are involved, homicides occur, and the killings take place as revenge for injustice (the terms duty, honor, righteous, and legitimate appear in discussions on the motivation for the homicides). Second, three or more alternating killings or acts of violence occur. Nonetheless, if an unsuccessful attempt at a counter-killing leads to the killing of one of the attackers, as occurred in the Turner–Howard feud in nineteenth century Eastern Kentucky on several occasions, Otterbein would classify the sequence of killings as feuding. Incidentally, mortality in that feud was onesided: 13 Turners died, and no Howards. However, one element of feud is in dispute: whether the unit within which feuding occurs is political or ethnolinguistic. It appears that in politically developed societies the unit is the political community, and that in acephelous (meaning headless) societies without any formal overall political authority (the identification of headmen is nearly impossible) the unit is the ethnolinguistic group. Nevertheless, in only a small number of societies is it difficult to identify the political community. Compensation In many feuding societies the feud can be ended by the payment of compensation. Indeed, feuding societies can be classified into two categories: (1) feuding without compensation, in which there is no institutionalized means by which compensation can be paid and (2) feuding with compensation, in which payment of compensation can either prevent a counter-killing or stop a feud. In a sample of 50 societies, Otterbein and Otterbein found that 16% fell into the first type, while 28% fell into the second type. The majority of cases (56%) fell into a third category that included societies in which homicides were rare, or in which, following a homicide, a formal judicial procedure came into effect, leading to either settlement through compensation, or the killer being executed. Christopher Boehm argues that feuding with compensation is a means of controlling conflict; in his view it is an alternative to warfare. Feuding arises, Boehm suggests, because the potential combatants realize that uncontrolled warfare at close quarters would be disastrous. In a 2002 review of feuding Otterbein questions the positive

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social role that Boehm, Fry, and others have attributed to feuding with compensation. Compensation is an unreliable mechanism for stopping feuds. Otterbein views revenge-based killings as crimes. This judgment pertains to internal war, feuding, and individual self-redress. Legitimacy of and Target of Vengeance In addition to whether compensation can be paid, two other dimensions to feuding have been considered. Karen Ericksen and Heather Horton in 1992 used a range of six categories to describe the legitimacy of kingroup vengeance: (1) moral imperative, (2) most appropriate action, (3) circumstantial, (4) last resort, (5) formal adjudication only, and (6) individual self-redress. The second dimension used three categories to describe possible targets of vengeance: (1) anyone in the wrongdoer’s kin group; (2) the wrongdoer if possible, otherwise selected members of his kin group; and (3) wrongdoer only. Otterbein questions whether feuding is a legitimate course of action for a kin group that believes itself to be wronged. For some researchers, feud occupies an intermediate position between law and crime, and thus has been designated quasi-law or self-help. Although feuding may be carried out following a large body of culturally defined rules, the political leaders and members of kinship groups not involved in the feud are usually highly desirous of seeing the feud end or be settled. Political leaders – it is the nature of the status role – almost always attempt to abrogate to themselves the exclusive right to judge whether a crime has been committed and to do the punishing. For these reasons, Otterbein views feuding not as a legal action, but rather as a highly disruptive sequence of antisocial acts. Actions taken by political leaders to prevent feuding are viewed as legal, the revenge killings of kinship groups as extralegal. The feuds of nineteenth century Eastern Kentucky illustrate this well. Wilson Howard, who admitted to killing five Turners, was hanged. In the French–Eversole feud, Tom Smith, a French supporter and killer of six Eversoles was also hanged. Furthermore, in the Martin–Tolliver and Baker–Howard feuds, the governor of Kentucky sent in troops to prevent further killings. Extent of Feuding The extent of feuding can be inferred from two crosscultural studies, one by Otterbein and Otterbein, the other by Ericksen and Horton; each examined ethnographic descriptions of the feuding practices of a sample of societies. The former found that 44% of their sample societies had feuding, the latter found that 54% of their sample viewed violent action as legitimate. A crosscultural study of homicide conducted by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson found that 95% of their sample

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societies harbored the idea of taking a life for a life. To achieve near universality the researchers needed to include capital punishment as evidence of the desire for blood revenge, a result which is not surprising since Otterbein found, using the same sample, that 51 of the 53 societies, or 96%, for which there was information had the death penalty. The results of these studies lead to the conclusion that although approximately 50% of the world’s societies practice feuding, the desire for revenge – a life for a life – may be nearly universal. Feuding versus Internal War Can feuding be distinguished from warfare in small-scale societies? Otterbein believes that these two types of violent conflict can be distinguished if a political community can be identified. He looks for a political leader who announces group decisions. The group is often small. Some researchers, including Melvin and Carol Ember, have despaired of distinguishing feuding from warfare and include feuding under the rubric of internal war (war within the same cultural or ethnolinguistic unit). But to most researchers feuding and warfare appear to be qualitatively different. One of the few societies whose armed combat had not been influenced by Western contact when they were first studied by anthropologists is that of Bellona Island, a small Polynesian outlier. Rolf Kuschel recorded ‘‘feuds’’ stretching back 21 generations and ending only in 1938. Application of the concept of political community to a specific case leads to reclassification of Bellona feuding as warfare. On Bellona Island the clans were politically autonomous fraternal interest groups. The feuding of these clans can thus be classified as warfare. It can also be argued that since the kinship group and the political community are coterminous, Balona armed combat is simultaneously both, feuding and warfare. Further support for this interpretation arises from Kuschel’s contention that the intent of a raid was not to ‘‘even the score’’ but to reduce enemy manpower. Once a pattern of mutual raiding was set in motion it was likely to continue until one group was nearly annihilated.

Military Organizations What They Are Military organizations, which can be viewed as a type of social organization, engage in armed combat in order to obtain certain goals. They differ, however, from other organizations in that the goals or objectives they pursue are usually directed at military organizations in other political communities. The goals of war include subjugation and tribute, land, plunder, trophies and honors, defense, and revenge. All these objectives can be achieved

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only at the expense of other political communities. When two military organizations engage in an armed combat, the outcome will depend upon the efficiency of their respective military practices. A victorious military organization makes a political community militarily successful and increases its likelihood of survival in conflicts between political communities. The successful political community will almost undoubtedly expand territorially. Composition of Military Organizations The warriors comprising a military organization may be either professionals or nonprofessionals. Professionals, in contrast to nonprofessionals, devote a substantial part of their time during their early adulthood to intensive training, which may involve not only practice in the use of weapons but also in performing maneuvers. They may be members of age-grades comprising all males of a given age, of military societies, or of standing armies, or they may serve as mercenaries employed for a specific purpose. Political communities with age-grades, military societies, and standing armies are considered to have military organizations composed solely of professionals. Political communities that employ mercenaries to lead, train, or assist untrained warriors are considered to have both professionals and nonprofessionals in their military organizations. If all members of a military organization are warriors who have not had specific intensive training in the art of war, the military organization is considered to be composed solely of nonprofessionals. If both professional and nonprofessional warriors are absent, there is of course no military organization. Otterbein’s cross-cultural study of war examined the military practices of 50 cultures. He found that 9 political communities had military organizations composed of professionals, 13 had military organizations that included both professionals and nonprofessionals, 24 had military organizations composed of nonprofessionals, and only 4 had no military organization. The vast majority of tribal peoples have military organizations composed only of nonprofessionals. These military organizations are frequently composed of fraternal interest groups. Indeed, a political community composed of either a Village Cluster, a Minimal Chiefdom, Pastoral Nomads, or Mounted Hunters may have several military organizations, each of which is a fraternal interest group. Even an Autonomous Village or a village of Settled Fishermen may have several military organizations. Why Military Organizations? The fact that few political communities have no military organization raises the fundamental question: why do most political communities have military organizations? The answer seems to be that if a political community is to have contact with other political communities and yet

remain a social entity, it needs to have the means to defend itself from the attacks of neighbors and to retaliate if the attacks have been successfully made against them. The four political communities without military organizations, mentioned earlier, are all found in isolated locations. Their members are descendants of groups that had been driven from other areas and had taken refuge on an island, in arctic wasteland, or on the top of a mountain. Relocated in an area where they were protected by their isolation, they no longer found it necessary to maintain a military organization. Thus a political community that does not have a military organization capable of defending it, will probably be annihilated and absorbed into other political communities unless it is able to flee and protect itself, not by arms, but by hiding in an isolated area. Robert Dentan’s ‘‘geographic refuge’’ inhabited by foragers who adapt to slave raids by their ability to disperse and regroup elaborates this theme. The foragers in Dentan’s ‘‘geographic refuge’’ become nonviolent and develop values of peace. The Semai of South-East Asia are a prime example. This does not always occur. The Waoroni of the western Amazon who occupy a geographic refuge were until recent years able to keep foreigners at bay with their long thrusting spears. A further indication that a military organization is a necessity, if a political community is to persist through time, is to be found in the fact that defense and revenge are universal causes of war. Several studies have shown that all known military organizations go to war at sometime or the other for defense and revenge. For the Andaman Islanders Raymond Kelly has argued that hunters who trespassed were ambushed, using shoot-on-sight tactics, thereby initiating cycles of defense and revenge that led to the emergence of distinct bands. The destruction of a political community does not necessarily mean the disappearance of tribesmen. The conquest and incorporation of peoples without written language creates Dependent Native Peoples. Feuds may continue. Groups of warriors may try to seize by force the government into which they have been incorporated, or may serve as soldiers in their new nation. Native Americans are an example of the latter situation. By the twentieth century only in a few remote places in the world could anthropologists find native peoples who had not been deprived of their political autonomy. These included Amazonia, Highland New Guinea, and the Central Sudan spanning East and West Africa. Brian Ferguson has argued that the expansion of Western civilization into regions occupied by native peoples either creates warfare where it had not existed or transforms their warfare into a more violent form. His prime example are the Yanomamo of northern South America. His approach contrasts with that of Lawrence Keeley, who argues that war existed before civilization.

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Warfare Types of Warfare Warfare, which is defined as armed combat between political communities, is conducted by military organizations. If the political communities are culturally the same, the armed combat is classified as internal war. But if the political communities are culturally different, the armed combat is external war (see Figure 1). Two types of external war can be distinguished: a political community can either attack (offensive external war) or be attacked by (defensive external war) a culturally different political community. In tribal societies, the military organizations that carry out the armed combat are apt to be fraternal interest groups. If the members of such a military organization make an attack on someone who is a member of their own political community, they are engaged in feuding or the initiation of a feud. If the next day these warriors ambush a member of another political community, they are engaged in war. Thus, a fraternal interest group employing ambushing tactics, can be responsible for both feuding and warfare. Otterbein showed in a crosscultural study that fraternal interest groups lead to frequent internal war. This apparently occurs because most cultures with fraternal interest groups probably contain a large number of such military organizations because of the large number of localized kinship groups in the constituent political communities. The presence of a large number of small-scale military organizations creates the strong likelihood that there will frequently be internal war in a society. Presumably because of the greater distance between most political communities that are in different cultures, fraternal interest groups do not produce either the offensive or the defensive type of external war. Frequent offensive external war is related to a high degree of military sophistication of the political community. Such efficiency leads to territorial expansion, provided neighboring polities have military organizations with a lower degree of military efficiency. Goals of War Wars occur when military organizations do battle in order to obtain certain goals. These goals may vary from war to war, and may change over time. Thus for the military organizations of a political community there will probably be several goals of war. At a given period in the history of a political community, if sufficient ethnographic information is available, the order of the importance of the goals can probably be ascertained. The political leader of the political community may determine the goals and send the military organizations to war in order to achieve these goals, or the leaders of the military may make the decision as to which goals will be pursued. Thus it can be argued that wars are caused by the decisions of men as members

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of organizations, whether they be military organizations or political systems. There are six basic reasons for going to war: subjugation and tribute, land, plunder, trophies and honors, defense, and revenge. Some social scientists have argued that states, which are political communities headed by kings or dictators, go to war for subjugation and tribute. On the other hand, political communities headed by chiefs and headmen go to war for economic, social, and defensive reasons. These reasons for going to war are likely to be pursued at one time or another by the military organizations of states. They also constitute the major reasons stateless political communities go to war. An important economic reason for attacking other political communities is to capture land by defeating and driving back or killing the inhabitants. The land may be used for fields, hunting, or grazing. Another goal of war, primarily economic, is to obtain plunder. Plunder includes forms of wealth, such as animals, material goods, and money and also captives for use as wives, slaves, hostages, adoption, or sacrifice. Trophies and honors are social or prestige goals. Military organizations and political communities often go to war, just as individual warriors do, to obtain honors. Simply the prestige of victory in armed combat may be the sole reason for going to war. The capturing of trophies, cherished items usually of little economic value, is another way of obtaining prestige. Revenge – the desire to retaliate for the killing of a member of one’s political community and even the score – is another reason military organizations go to war. And the final reason military organizations engage in war is defense – the organized attempt by a group of armed men to defend their own lives, the lives of their families, their property and homesteads, and their political community from enemy attacks. Basic Pattern of Warfare The ambush and the line are two components of the warfare pattern of most tribal peoples who engage in war. In his study of warfare, Otterbein distinguished between each type of tactic and classified each society in terms of whether its warriors used ambushes only (23 cases), lines only (5 cases), or both (18 cases). Detailed analysis of numerous cases since has revealed, however, that both tactics are probably used by all societies at war. An ambush consists of either laying a trap or surrounding the enemy, usually a village at night. A line consists of warriors drawing parallel to the enemy forces. A distinction that is important, but that was not made in the original study, separates mutually arranged battles, perhaps on a traditional fixed battlefield, from encounter battles. An encounter battle arises when a raiding party intent on laying an ambush encounters a band of warriors either hunting or intent on laying their own ambush. When two raiding parties meet in the field, they line up facing each other

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and a battle that is often more noise than combat ensues. If the sides are relatively equal, they may withdraw before there are serious woundings or fatalities. If one side greatly outnumbers the other, the smaller side may be annihilated except for the warriors who can run the fastest. Whether battles are prearranged or unexpected encounters, they constitute one of the two components of the warfare pattern of all warring peoples. Since ambushes are part of the basic two-component warfare pattern, Otterbein now considers attacks by a group of armed men on a single individual or a group of individuals from a different political community to be examples of war, even if the object of the attack is unarmed, and thus armed combat has not occurred. When groups attempt to destroy each other, they will choose the most effective means they can find to accomplish the task. The basic pattern provides two ways of waging war; if one way is not effective, the other may be. If neither is effective, another means may be developed. For example, the Dani of Highland New Guinea had arranged battles that produced few casualties, ambushes that produced a few more, and massive dawn raids that killed hundreds. Battles were a means of testing the strength of an adversary. If one polity appeared weak, two others might join forces and annihilate the weaker in a dawn raid.

Summary Major Conclusions 1. Fraternal interest groups are a major cause of rape, feuding, and internal war in many societies. Military organizations in tribal societies are frequently fraternal interest groups. Defense and revenge are universal reasons for going to war. 2. The peoples of the world fall into two categories: those with fraternal interest groups that are violent and conflict-ridden, and those without fraternal interest groups that are relatively peaceful within their culture. Two types of bands fall into the first category: Big Game Hunters and the Australian Aborigines. Three types of bands fall into the second category: Simple Foragers, Symbiotics, and Incipient Tillers. All five types of tribes fall into the first category: Autonomous Village, Village Cluster, Minimal Chiefdom, Pastoral Nomads, and Dependent Native Peoples. Settled Fishermen and Mounted Hunters, which are taxonomically in limbo, usually fall into the first category. 3. Feuding peoples may or may not use compensation to terminate a feud. Revenge for injustice drives feuds. Without the means to settle feuds they may persist for centuries. 4. Political communities with neighbors have found it necessary to have military organizations to defend themselves. Those that cannot defend themselves will be annihilated and any survivors absorbed into other

political communities or driven into refuge areas. Those with efficient military organizations are likely to expand territorially. 5. The warfare pattern of most tribal peoples consists of the ambush and the line. In a confrontation, the more effective tactic will be chosen. See also: Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview; Peaceful Societies; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Boehm, C. (1984). Blood revenge: The anthropology of feuding in Montenegro and other tribal societies. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyder. Dentan, R. K. (1992). The rise, maintenance, and destruction of peaceable polity: A preliminary essay in political ecology. In Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (eds.) Aggression and peacefulness in humans and other primates, pp. 214–270. New York: Oxford University Press. Divale, W. T. and Harris, M. (1976). Population, warfare and the male supremacist complex. American Anthropologist 80, 379. Ember, C. R. and Ember, M. (1992). Warfare, aggression, and resource problems: Cross-cultural codes. Behavior Science Research 26, 169–226. Ember, C. R. and Ember, M. (1997). Violence in the ethnographic record: Results of cross-cultural research on war and aggression. In Martin, D. L. and Frayer, D. W. (eds.) Troubled times: Violence and warfare in the past, pp. 1–20. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach. Ericksen, K. P. and Horton, H. (1992). ‘Blood feuds’: Cross-cultural variations in kin group vengeance. Behavior Science Research 26, 57–85. Ferguson, R. B. and Whitehead, N. L. (eds.) (1992). War in the tribal zone: Expanding states and indigenous warfare. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Fry, D. (2006). The human potential for peace. New York: Oxford University Press. Heider, K. (1997). Grand Valley Dani: Peaceful warriors, 3rd edn. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Keeley, L. (1996). War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. New York: Oxford University Press. Kelly, R. C. (2002). Warless societies and the origin of war. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Kuschel, R. (1988). Vengeance is their reply: Blood feuds and homicides on Bellona Island. pt. 1. Copenhagen: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag. Murdock, G. P. (1968). The current status of the world’s hunting and gathering peoples. In Lee, R. B. and DeVore, I. (eds.) Man the hunter, pp. 13–20. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Nettleship, M. A., Givens, R. D., and Nettleship, A. (eds.) (1975). War, its causes and correlates. The Hague: Mouton. Otterbein, K. F. (1970). The evolution of war: A cross-cultural study. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files. Otterbein, K. F. (1977). Comparative cultural analysis: An introduction to anthropology, 2nd edn. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Otterbein, K. F. (1986). The ultimate coercive sanction: A cross-cultural study of capital punishment. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press. Otterbein, K. F. (1994). Feuding and warfare: Selected papers of Keith F. Otterbein. Langborn, PA: Gordon and Breach. Otterbein, K. F. (1996). Feuding. In Levinson, D. and Ember, M. (eds.) The encyclopedia of cultural anthropology, pp. 492–496. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Otterbein, K. F. (2000). Five feuds: An analysis of homicides in Eastern Kentucky in the late nineteenth century. American Anthropologist 102, 231–243.

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Pearce, J. E. (1994). Days of darkness: The feuds of Eastern Kentucky. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Robarchek, C. and Robarchek, C. (1998). Waorani: The contexts of violence and war. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace and Company. Thoden van Velzen, H. U. E. and van Wetering, W. (1960). Residence, power groups, and intra-societal aggression. International Archives of Ethnography 49, 169–200. van der Dennen, J. M. G. (1995). The origin of war: The evolution of male-coalitional reproductive strategy. Groningen, The Netherlands: Origin Press.

Otterbein, K. F. (2002). Feuding. In Levinson, D. (ed.) Encyclopedia of crime and punishment, vol. 2, pp. 691–696. Great Barrington: Berkshire Reference Works/Sage. Otterbein, K. F. (2004). How war began. College Station, TX: A & M University Press. Otterbein, K. F. (2005). Hunting and virilocality. Current Anthropology 46, 124–127. Otterbein, K. F. and Otterbein, C. S. (1965). An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth: A cross-cultural study of feuding. American Anthropologist 67, 1470–1482.

Gender Studies Lynne M Woehrle, Mount Mary College, Milwaukee, WI, USA Donna Engelmann, Alverno College, Milwaukee, WI, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overview What Is Gender? Patriarchal Gender Relations and Violence

Women and Peacebuilding Conclusion: Viewed through a Gendered Lens Further Reading

Ecofeminism An academic and activist movement which applies feminist analysis to theorizing about and acting on environmental issues. Equity Feminists Those feminists whose goal is to achieve equality of rights, opportunity, and social standing between women and men. Feminism Theories and practices that challenge male dominance and privilege. Critiques patriarchal power relations. Gender One’s socially constructed identity as male or female. May or may not be identical to one’s biological sex characteristics. Glass Ceiling The invisible barrier that keeps members of a less-powerful group from advancing into the top-tier leadership and decision-making positions in a society or group. Intersectionality A theoretical perspective that analyzes social structures and relations from and at the

points where various categories (e.g., race, class, gender, etc.,) intersect. Argues that oppression is not an additive model (e.g., race þ class þ gender) but a dialectical model. Marginalization Placing a person, group, theory, or practice to the edge of society. It utilizes exclusion from institutions and social relations. Strategies may include silencing, severe disempowerment, and the exclusion from participation in the creation of dominant knowledge. Patriarchy A hierarchical system of power relations that is based on male privilege. Privilege Access to or control over social power and resources that provide power. Often its presence seems invisible, or if visible, natural. Radical Feminists Those feminists who seek to dismantle theoretical frameworks and institutional arrangements, based on gender, which create and maintain patriarchal dominance and oppression.

Gender studies is a multifaceted field of inquiry into social structures and social relations that has important implications for the study of violence, peace, and conflict. Gender analysis provides tools that are applicable to a wide range of social concerns. This article summarizes key aspects in the field of gender studies in order to consider the contributions that gender analysis brings to inquiries into violence, peace, and conflict. A discipline in

its own right, gender studies focuses on the implications of values, actions, and systems formed on the basis of definitions of and beliefs about masculinity and femininity. Suppositions in the theories of gender mesh well with the normative approach of peace and conflict studies. This essay considers the influence that gender studies has and can have on thinking about violence, nonviolence, war and peace, and conflict transformation.

Glossary

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Gender Studies

Overview Gender studies as a field of study does not offer a single, unified approach to understanding the phenomenon of gender. The interdisciplinary nature of the topic and the variety of areas from which gender analysis has emerged means that there are multiple and at times conflicting streams of thought about gender and its meaning and origins. Where gender comes from (learned or innate), what purpose(s) it serves in society, and its relation to other forms of oppression, are central concerns to the field. Although processes of sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, and ableism vary in the specific ways in which they operate in social structures, each shares a dependence on a hierarchical system of power relations for continued existence. Identifying the operation and effects of those power relations is a central component of gender studies. For this reason, gender studies cannot merely analyze gender but it must also cast a critical eye on the larger systemic nature of social inequality – power and privilege. While research often focuses on the problems of the oppressed, gender studies have opened a discussion of the importance of identifying the role of privilege (the access to and control over social power and economic capital and the ability or recognized ‘right’ to invoke that power) in perpetuating systems of inequality. The power of privilege is its ability to combine multiple levels of exclusion and oppression based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, ability, sexual orientation, nationality, and/or global location. Gender studies work at the intersections of these sources of privilege and oppression to shed light on how systems of inequality are maintained and enforced and this can assist the project of emancipation. It also points to the responsibility the ‘haves’ bear in creating social change and reminds us that the categories of ‘have’ and ‘have not’ are a false dichotomy that oversimplifies the complex web of relations of power. The relevance of gender to the study of violence, peace, and conflict is significant. Our intent is to show how the analysis of gender has over time opened new insights into each of these areas.

What Is Gender? Theoretical Explanations of Gender It is generally accepted across the field of gender studies that sex and gender represent different entities in society. Sex is used to refer to the biological categories, most often described as male and female. While the strict division between male and female sexes seems rooted in biology, seeing sexual identities as polar opposites masks a continuum of sexual identities: intersexed individuals, hermaphrodites, and transsexuals. A well-known

feminist who argues that gender is a continuum is Judith Butler. She supports this claim by pointing out that even on the level of human physiology the existence of intersexed individuals demonstrates that there are in fact more than two biological sexes. She points out that in spite of social stigma around atypical gender behavior in dominant cultures, there is a great variety in the ‘performance’ of gender. Gender refers to the social processes that fit us into the highly distinct (though falsely so) categories we have named male and female. Gender involves action and agency. West and Zimmerman refer to this as ‘doing gender’. Gender can come from either individual actions or institutional structures or systems. In other words, one can put on the clothing and style the hair in ways recognized by society as either male or female and thus reify one’s location in the social structure. More persuasive though in shaping individual actions are institutional rules such as dress codes or even less explicit cultural expectations which may influence or even enforce the practices of gender. For example, female flight attendants were required to wear makeup until they fought their employer in court. And in the late nineteenth century in the United States women could be arrested for wearing pants. If we accept that sex categories exist on a continuum rather than in a dichotomous relationship, it is much more difficult to establish membership in distinct groups and to create a hierarchical ordering of society. Gender analysis points out the ways in which a series of rather discrete variations are treated as categories that can be used to reify the hierarchical systems of power. Once gender is seen as an action rather than as a static role, it is possible to understand how gender can be the basis for enforcing a system of privilege and oppression. We have such deeply embedded structures of gender in society that we will risk everything to fit ‘properly’ into one group or the other. And those who transgress strict gendered social codes are marginalized and stigmatized. Theorists continue to debate how much of an individual’s gender-oriented behavior is culturally induced and how much relates to biological predispositions. Since socialization begins early, often even before birth, separating the biological and the sociological is very difficult. It is apparent that there are some sex-linked chemical differences in the brain, however most scholars agree that the experiences of socialization solidify and exaggerate these differences. Thus gender studies tend to emphasize the social processes of teaching, learning, and enforcing gendered behaviors and beliefs. Within gender studies there is significant variation on how to address and change the gender dichotomies and power relations. Some feminist thinkers and activists, sometimes called ‘equity feminists’, have accepted the socially prevalent structure of gender difference and focus their efforts on rectifying the unjust distribution of

Gender Studies

social goods between males and females in society. Others, who might be termed radical feminists, seek to question and ultimately overthrow the gender categories themselves. Yet others suggest maintaining the differences in role and ability associated with gender categories but eliminating the hierarchy that privileges that which is male. Each of these approaches adds valuable ways for reworking our thinking about peace. More generally what we can draw from gender studies is the concept of gender as socially constructed and the idea that such distinctions provide the opening for destructive systems of inequality, such as patriarchy. This provides important insights for the analysis and understanding of violence, conflict, and peace. Gender in Society Worldwide, the consequences of the use of categories of gender to create hierarchies of political and economic power can be seen in the material conditions of women and children. In the United States, the feminization of poverty – the increasing tendency for those in poverty to be primarily women and their children – has been documented over the last several decades. During this same period, it has also been conclusively demonstrated that women in the United States are paid less than men for work in the same occupation. An important factor contributing to this situation is women’s lack of access to positions of influence and decision-making in government and business – the glass ceiling. Of the CEO’s of the Fortune 500 companies in the US in 2005, only eight were women. Outside the US, especially in the Third World, the political and economic situation for women is very difficult. Despite important strides forward during the United Nations Decade for Women (1985–95) gender inequality is still rife on the global stage. In many countries in the developing world, gender roles restrict women’s access to education, to political participation, and to many sectors of the workforce. In some societies, where there are limited social goods available, such as resources for food, healthcare, and school fees, the resources go to men before women, male children before female children. And in countries with government-imposed, or scarcityimposed restrictions on child-bearing, female fetuses are aborted in favor of bearing male children. Responses of gender theorists to these inequities have taken several forms. Some feminists have argued for the extension and modification of the available theoretical tools of Western notions of human rights. For instance, Charlotte Bunch has argued that the traditional notion of human rights is incomplete because it does not universally encompass women’s rights. In many societies legal protections are not extended to women in the private sphere, such as protection against domestic violence. Other feminists,

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especially postmodern and Third World feminists have recognized the gap between the guarantee of procedural rights and the inequity of social outcomes for men and women. They have argued that the Enlightenment notion of human rights is inherently flawed, in that it assumes that the bearer of rights is an independent, white, male property-owner. At its inception and ever since, this notion of rights has operated only in the public sphere for the benefit of men, and has not been extended to guarantee the political, economic, and social rights of women. Even countries that champion human rights still fail to recognize the necessity of protecting women’s rights, as is seen in the United States’ failure to ratify the United Nations Convention on Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) enacted in 1981. Moreover one could argue that, the insistence by Westerners on imposing their notions of human rights on nations whose cultures do not value individualism, capital and property accumulation, and competition, or share Western ideas of gender and family relations, is a type of cultural imperialism. Responding to these cautions against cultural imperialism, Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have proposed a capabilities approach to development and rights issues. Nussbaum and Sen argue that there are certain characteristic activities of human beings – capabilities – that can provide a basis for determining what is just in the distribution of resources. These include, among other capabilities, the ability to live out a normal span of life, to have good health, food, shelter, the ability to move around at will, to be educated and to participate in political life, to have choice in reproductive matters and to have sexual and other forms of lifeenhancing pleasure, and to avoid unnecessary pain. These capabilities as articulated by Nussbaum and Sen strongly resemble the rights outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which ground many international and local development schemes. They also parallel the work of Johan Galtung and his concept of structural violence which articulates that violence is not merely the direct physical attack but can also come from institutional inequalities. What might seem basic needs to some is to others a potential trip-wire for cultural imperialism. For example there are arguments about whether the capabilities or rights represent a false, and thus unacceptable, essentialism or universalism. This debate is at the center of academic and policy discussions about development and aid for ameliorating the condition of women and children worldwide.

Patriarchal Gender Relations and Violence Violence and Masculinity Gender studies, which grew out of feminist social critique and the feminist movement to end sexism, concerns much

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more than studying the ways in which women are oppressed in various social conditions. Recognizing the way in which gender operates in a society demands that we understand the experience of males. This is not a singular experience because other sources of categorization, such as race, class, and sexuality, enter into the larger picture of male experiences. The naming of ‘male privilege’ hides important adjectives that go along with that expression. When we look more closely at the intersections of race, class, and gender, we can see that the privilege of being male is a different experience for White, middle/upper-class males than it is for other groups of men. This can affect men’s relations with women. The most privileged men may view their advantage as natural and can justify it based on the rationale that they are better equipped to wield political and economic power. It is to their benefit to exclude women on the basis of gender and to view the power that they have as a failure on women’s part to be strong enough or masculine enough to compete. Thus men’s power over the so-called ‘weaker sex’ is justified in biological and historical terms, and the social structures of oppression and exclusion are ignored. Male power is often reinforced with physical violence, an arena in which men generally have a clear advantage over women. Men who are not in the most privileged categories may have more of a sense of inferiority and thus have a different and more complex relationship with women’s oppression. As author bell hooks suggests, men in the traditionally oppressed and under-represented groups can be an ally for social change if they embrace the goal of ending sexist oppression. On the other hand, these men can also contribute to perpetuating sexist oppression if they believe that exercising their physical power over women is a means for joining the club of the elite privileged male. In this way, Manning Marable in his essay in Messner and Kimmel’s book, Men’s Lives, suggests that men of color and with lower incomes manipulate women in order to try to make up for the disempowerment that they feel elsewhere in their lives. Perhaps controlling women or the family as a whole is their one means of feeling good about themselves. As John Stuart Mill wrote in ‘On the Subjection of Women’ in 1869, the poor man ‘‘exercises . . . his share of power [over women] with the highest nobleman.’’ Studying the impact of cultural assumptions about masculinity and the intersections of gender with other categories is an important strategy for understanding violence and nonviolence, and conflict and peace and the various experiences of these social interactions. Studying ‘domestic violence’ as an important issue in peace studies means unpacking the complex layers of gender in which it is embedded. If we can see beyond a

sense of isolated victims and bad individuals we can explore the ways in which gender, race, and class structures of inequality are an integral part of violence that happens on a seemingly personal level. Connecting the societal to the individual level resonates with the familiar feminist slogan which insisted ‘‘the personal is political.’’ Violence against women by men is a means of controlling women and maintaining or enforcing male privilege. Male privilege is the mainstay of a patriarchal system. Work in gender studies has also shown the intertwining relationship of militarism and patriarchy. It is argued that violence against women is linked to all other forms of violence that are perpetuated by the model of dominant and dominated that is basic to Western forms of hierarchical rule. One example is provided in the intersection of gender and peace studies. Scholar/activist Betty Reardon described the reinforcing relationship of patriarchy and militarism pointing out that the virtues of patriarchy are the virtues of martial culture. The justifications for the domination of women and the use of violence against them to maintain male power in the domestic sphere, parallel the arguments used to justify military aggression. Another example is provided by a range of theorists who argue that the analysis of rape and sexual assault should look at them as products of patriarchal relations where men utilize violence to maintain power. Thus it is a system of rule and not a biological function to dominate and violence, including war, functions to maintain those in power. Power is not exclusively abused by men. As bell hooks argues, there are many ways in which women also use this system to dominate others, including other women. Violence is seen as a means for achieving security and wide latitude is given to the state for violent acts committed in the guise of nationalism and protection of citizens. As children we are consistently exposed to the idea that violence is the most effective way to deal with conflict. Feminism points to violence and gender distinctions as mutually reinforcing each other. As we have seen, violence is used against women on the interpersonal level to enforce patriarchal rule. Social institutions such as competitive sports and the military provide examples of negative views of weakness being associated with the archetypal female. In these settings the insult of being or acting like a ‘weak woman’ is attached to men and women who are unwilling or unable to participate. Women are not only placed as the victim they are also blamed for the system. For example, women who have been raped have been accused of bringing the sexual assault on themselves through their own promiscuity, choice of clothing, social image and status, participation in sex work, or even natural beauty. An important part of the patriarchal gender system is the privileging of heterosexual intimate relations. The social construction of heterosexuality as the norm – what feminists have called

Gender Studies

‘compulsory heterosexuality’ – is achieved in a number of ways, one of which is the repression of homosexuality through homophobic violence. Many people are surprised to learn that with the increasing public presence of homosexuals in social institutions and throughout daily life, violence against homosexuals has increased. Besides ridicule, discrimination, and general social exclusion, homosexuals are constantly faced with threats and acts of physical violence if they make their sexuality public knowledge. Women and the War System Sex and sexism are used to limit and control women within many institutions; international relations and war provide important examples of this process. In patriarchal social structure women are viewed as property. Many historical precedents in Western legal code are based on this objectification of women’s bodies as property of men. For instance, Carole Pateman has argued that the social contract which governs relations among male citizens in patriarchal liberal democracies has its foundations in an unspoken agreement among them to treat women and children as property. We still have not moved beyond patriarchal arrangements that pass a woman from her father to her husband to her son. It is this objectification of women as property that makes it possible to believe that violence against women is a plausible means for gaining power over women or over other men related to the women against whom the violence is directed. It is also the rationale that makes women targets for the enemy. Violence against women can enter into struggles to maintain culture against outside influences. Women are often pawns in the practice of state politics. And women as a group seldom have much say in the processes of foreign relations. Sometimes women are the victims of violence used in resistance against unwanted foreign political and cultural influences. Two examples of this are explored in Moghadam’s work, including sati, the tradition of wifeimmolation in India, which has been revived in recent years by religious traditionalists in resistance to the introduction of values perceived to be Western and the increasing influence of modernity. Also the sometimes violent enforcement of hijab and seclusion is argued by some to be a resistance to the cultural colonialism of Western economic and military powers. Women feel the violence of state politics in wartime. They are the most likely to be displaced and along with children make up the vast majority of refugees of conflict. There are plenty of examples throughout history where the rape of women is a conscious strategy of warfare and cultural genocide. But this is not a new concern; perhaps more surprising is that it is still used as a strategy in the twenty-first century despite a clear exposure of its basis in

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power rather than in sexuality. War shares with sexual assault the characteristic of being a mechanism for shoring up masculinity through power assertion and the controlling of another. Cultural offense through the sexualization of a situation has also entered into wartime practices such as torture, as exemplified by the case of the sexual and physical torture of Iraqi prisoners by US military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in the Second Iraq War. Women have also served as soldiers in war for both the state and for rebel groups. This phenomenon has been extensively studied and many scholars conclude that it rarely leads to the elimination of sexism or the long-term empowerment of women. The presence of women soldiers has led to increased visibility of instances of sexism in the military, but thus far women have not gained significant political or social power through military service. Governments formed by rebel groups have usually expected their female participants to return to tending what are considered the gender appropriate responsibilities in that society once the conflict is over. The association of female with weak and male with strong and successful is rife throughout military organizations and the history of modern warfare. An excellent analysis of the embedded masculinity in military organizations appears in the work of Carol Cohn, writing in her 1987 article in Signs, Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals, about her firsthand observations of ‘nukespeak’ among military leaders and strategists. This, coupled with accounts of misogynist training rituals in the preparation of military recruits and the barring of women from positions of power and honor in the military, suggests means by which we can do a structural analysis of gender inequality and its relationship to masculinity. The practices of institutionalized prostitution, female sexual slavery, and human trafficking are important examples of the treatment of women (and other disempowered groups) as property to be used rather than as beings with agency. In some cases women become bounty in war, claimed as slaves by the enemy and often later traded or sold into prostitution. One force for the expansion of prostitution globally has been the military. Enloe has observed the pattern of locating houses of prostitution near military bases. Historically women have been encouraged to support war and conflict by making sure that soldiers receive sexual gratification. The claims of Korean women against the Japanese government for their use as ‘comfort women’ for Japanese troops in World War II is a prime instance of involuntary sexual servitude in war. Whether voluntarily or involuntarily providing sexual outlet for male soldiers, women’s bodies are integrally connected to their experience of international politics.

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Women and Peacebuilding There are three stages that occur in the process of integrating the study of women and women’s experiences into theorizing. In the first stage the history of participation of the silenced actor or concept is reclaimed, named, and included. Feminist movements over the years have left a wake of books and articles about women’s contributions. In the second stage women are included in the larger picture, and books written by women may be included in the curriculum or cited by scholars. A research study may include a more diverse sample or the category of gender becomes a variable for analysis. This stage is often referred to as ‘add-and-stir’ gender studies. In the third stage, gender or female is not merely a variable but it becomes a paradigm of analysis. So, for example, in studying social inequality one would not just control for gender, but rather the larger social context of patriarchal systems would guide the development of the analysis. Two books written in the 1980s helped guide the emergence of the third stage in US gender studies: Carol Gilligan, In A Different Voice (1982), and Mary Field Belenky and colleagues, Women’s Ways of Knowing (1986; 1996). Perhaps a more important influence, however, is the theories of intersectionality that have been generated by womanist theorists writing about feminism from the margins of society. The work of postcolonial critics such as Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Chandra Mohanty, and Patricia Hill Collins, among others chart the way for seeing the multi-dimensionality of gender and oppression. The four sections that follow provide examples of the potential for integration of gender analysis into peace and conflict studies. Ecofeminism and Peace Analyses of the intersectionality of race, class, and gender oppression have been applied in the arena of environmental activism. Ecofeminism has developed as an international movement that includes academic feminists and first and third world environmentalists. Ecofeminism encompasses a variety of approaches to thinking about and acting on behalf of the environment, but all ecofeminists recognize the necessary linkage between a healthy ecology and healthy lives for women and children. Ecofeminists view patriarchy as responsible for both the oppression of women, the poor, and indigenous people and for systems of production and consumption which view nature as a commodity to be used and discarded. Vandana Shiva has argued that in pursuit of an illusion of progress, Third World development projects designed to promote industrialization on the Western model have enriched their Western sponsors while doing little if anything to alleviate the poverty of Third World people.

Worse, they have tended to replace small-scale indigenous ecological practices with large-scale degradation of the environment. Shiva distinguishes between material poverty and spiritual poverty. While Third World material poverty is real and highly visible, it is also relative to the supposed superior standard of living of the developed nations. The spiritual poverty in the midst of material plenty of the developed nations – demonstrated by high rates of mental illness, drug addiction, and personal violence – and the relation between spiritual poverty and estrangement from nature, is less visible to Westerners themselves, but still very real. Sandra Harding and other feminist philosophers of science have argued that science and technology have played a leading role in worldwide patriarchal dominance. The supposed value-neutrality and objectivity of scientific method has cloaked science and its resulting technological advances in an aura of certainty and inevitability. In reality, science has been firmly in the control of and has conferred its benefits upon the wealthy and powerful. Its pretense to being a progressive force for all humankind has served to conceal such damaging results as destabilizing and polluting military technologies, exploitation of natural resources, and unchecked consumption. Harding and others have argued that it is important to recognize the validity of non-Western and indigenous methods of acquiring knowledge. It is also necessary to acknowledge that social contexts and value systems influence all forms of knowledge production, including Western science, so that these practices and their results can be properly examined and critiqued. In the absence of these critiques, science and technology will continue to be a force for widening the gap between the richer and poorer nations, resulting in increasing misery and political instability. Conflict Transformation/Mediation For centuries women have played central roles in conflict and in resolving conflict. As discussed above women’s bodies have been violently abused as a strategy of escalation in conflict. Women have become workers in the wartime industries, making it possible for more men to join combat. Women in significant numbers have joined revolutionary armies, particularly in colonial and postcolonial societies. Alternately women have participated in and led nonviolent confrontations throughout the world, documented at least as far back as when Hebrew women hid their sons in the bulrushes to protect them from the Pharaoh. Carrying the precepts of gender studies into research on conflict demands that gender (and thereby other relevant social categories as discussed earlier) be introduced into the analysis. In studies of conflict and conflict resolution, gender is currently introduced primarily as a

Gender Studies

variable rather than as a social paradigm. Therefore, most study of gender in conflict has tended to look at the influences of sex category differences in behavior rather than in the way in which gender operates in conflict and conflict resolution. Exceptions to the ‘variable approach’ are evident in work that views conflict and conflict resolution as situated in a particular social system, such as patriarchy. This research then considers how a woman’s identity as female and her experience growing up as a female in a system of male dominance impact on her attitudes and approaches to conflict. There is also comparison in this approach of male and female views toward conflict situations and toward the possible range of solutions. A further step is to see that the very conflicts and any possible resolutions themselves are embedded in the system of power relations in a particular social structure. In many cases power is controlled mostly by men, by whites, by heterosexuals, and by the upper and middle classes. The ways in which dominant systems of gender shape our experiences of conflict are also apparent in research on communication. Deborah Tannen and others have argued that in the process of learning how to be masculine or feminine we also learn different styles of communicating. Women and men also develop different expectations for when and how communication should happen. These differences are thought to be an important source of conflict between men and women. Conflict styles also seem to differ, not for biological reasons but because of social messages that encourage women to please and to submit (and thereby women practice conflict-avoiding behavior), and that teach men that conflict is a contest of wills and that winning is what is ultimately important. But how we conflict and communicate is not only about gender. It is also about race and class and the many other social categories that place us either in positions of power or of dominance. The work of bell hooks in Feminist Theory from Margin to Center highlights that there are alternatives to the two major White Western models of dealing with power: (1) dominant/submissive relationships where someone must be in a position of superior power, or (2) a separatist model in which the answer to power inequalities is for the submissive party to exclude the oppressor. As a woman who lives at intersections of race, class, and gender oppressions, she rejects the White feminist claim that gender oppression is the root of all other oppressions and calls for a multifaceted understanding of power relations. In the early 1980s an important contribution was made by feminist theoreticians to the field of conflict resolution. Early writings on mediation as an alternative to litigation had extolled its promise for resolution of conflict in a way that achieved win-win solutions rather than winner take all outcomes. With the development of the literature of

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feminist jurisprudence, new critiques emerged that broke down the dominance of male-centric theory and practice in the field. One important critique shared by feminists and critical legal theorists recognized that the private and non-precedent setting nature of alternative dispute resolution made it inappropriate for addressing conflicts arising over the rights of women and other oppressed groups, who deserved their day in court and place in the legal record. Another concern was that existing power imbalances between men and women in US patriarchal culture were not being recognized in practice by mediators, who assumed a level playing field and equal negotiating ability on the part of the parties in conflict. These inequities emerging in conflict resolution practice led to a rethinking of the meaning of the requirements of neutrality and impartiality on the part of mediators. Maintaining neutrality between unequally socially situated parties might not mean treating them the same, but rather recognizing differences in their interest in and competence to negotiate. Particularly telling examples of gender power imbalances arose in mediation of divorce and custody cases, where women’s submissiveness to the men in their lives often resulted in their surrendering their interests in mediation. As Deborah Kolb suggests in her 1988 book Her Place at the Table, having learned different negotiation styles and having different levels of power, women may be at a disadvantage in current practices of mediation and arbitration. Knowing what we do about cultural differences in handling conflict and the power implications of race and class, it is likely that our options for negotiating and solving problems are really much wider than current literature and practice suggests. Thus we might treat the facility for particular styles of communication and negotiation among women and other marginalized groups as a resource rather than as a liability. If women and people of non-Western cultures prefer and are good at transformative approaches to conflict resolution that aim as much at preserving relationships as at maximizing interests, a wider role should be found for these approaches in not only domestic and local conflicts, but international ones as well. The study of how social categories (e.g., race, class, gender) and cultural factors may deeply change how we relate to, define, enact, and resolve conflicts is a desperately needed area of research. Gender and Nonviolence One of the more interesting debates to emerge from the intersection of gender analysis and the study of peace, violence, and conflict is whether women are more peaceful than men. Some in society carve out a particular place for women as peacemakers. They claim that by nature and through the experience of mothering, women are more apt to oppose violent responses to conflict. In a sense

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peacemaking is a niche that women can claim. Sara Ruddick provides an analysis that transcends simple gender distinctions. Instead she argues that women engage in caring labor and thus view negatively the impact of war on society. So the explanation is that women are socialized to nurture and thus prefer peaceful means of settling conflict. That said, she also points to the ways that women have participated in and supported wars. The question in gender analysis then is not a static association of women with peace or men with war; rather, it is to ask whether the gender system in any way shapes our relations to violence or nonviolence. In this regard, the theoretical understanding of women’s relationship with peace parallels the development of other areas of gender theory. Feminist theorists in the 1970s and 1980s tended to give essentialist accounts of women’s experience and capabilities, rooting their analyses in innate differences between men and women. As feminist theorists subjected one another’s work to critique, they moved to more nuanced and multiple understandings of women’s experiences, based on similarities in socialization processes across historical periods and cultures. Looking at women’s participation in nonviolence provides an example of more deeply integrating gender analysis into the study of peace. Ruddick proposes the concept of maternal nonviolence. Other women work on the historical reclaiming of memories about women’s nonviolent actions. There are hundreds of books and articles that document the nonviolent actions of women around the world, throughout history. But there is minimal recognition of gender as a means of analyzing the philosophy of nonviolence or the specifics of nonviolent action. The small group that works on the latter project exists among the margins of theorists in the field. The system of gender assignment often teaches women to be passive and to solve conflicts by avoiding violence to others and by absorbing the consequences themselves. Because of this, women’s passivity is often seen as nonviolence. But nonviolence, as Barbara Deming so often pointed out, is active, not passive. Some women’s silence is a form of violence either to themselves or others. Nonviolence teaches respect and boundaries. Deming describes it as the two-hand method, protecting my needs while offering you what you need. For those without social power (e.g., women or people in post-colonial societies) the first step towards nonviolence is awareness and rage. Often this rage has to be expressed and then can be constructively shaped into a very powerful nonviolent force – such as the tree-hugging movement in India or the Greenham Common protests of the 1980s. There are many critiques of the ‘woman is peaceful’ motif. Critics point out that historically women have played all sorts of roles in society and many of them

have perpetuated violence. Another problem with the ‘woman as peaceful’ analysis is that it marginalizes women who participate in violence, such as members of liberation armies, into the category of bad women. It makes essential a particular approach and experience of being a woman. And that approach emerges predominantly from the experiences of the colonizers rather than the colonized. Women intellectuals have extensively considered the relationships of women, peace, war, and international politics and roundly rejected the assumption that women are naturally peaceful or nonviolent while at the same time reserving a special place in society for women doing peacemaking work. Another approach suggested is to view the act of gendering war and peace as a product of a patriarchal system. Assigning certain activities to each gender helps to establish a sense of difference between male and female. That sense of difference is exploited into definitions of masculinity and femininity. So rather than attributing women’s participation in peacemaking to the fact that they have the resources and the power to make it their responsibility it is instead attributed to their gender. At the same time the violence of men is made more acceptable because it is argued that it is in the nature of the male to solve problems in this way. Christine Sylvester argues that one perspective is to see that the war system and the peace system are really two halves of a whole. To affix a gender association to war and to peace is actually to reify patriarchal definitions of world politics and systems of power relations. Peace Movement Organizations The work of peace-building stretches well beyond the processes of caring for returning soldiers or working for human rights. While many aspects of international politics have been closed to women until recently, peace movement organizations have long benefited from the efforts of women as both members and leaders. Women have participated both in single-gender peace organizations and in mixed gender groups. Peace has been defined in a variety of ways by women. In many parts of the world it is related directly to issues of development and daily survival. For example, Mertus shows the importance of postwar economic development in improving the situation of women in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmental activist who won the Nobel Prize for peace in 2004 for her role in creating the Green Belt movement, insists that there can be no peace unless we care for the environment and provide for appropriate development. Women have often been able to use their groups to press for peace and the end of war or conflict. The Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was

Gender Studies

critical in the formation of the initial League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations. Because it had formed alliances with many different groups the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition was central to the formulation and success of the talks that in 1998 produced a peace agreement. In Argentina, women who were seen as outside of politics used their social role as mothers to bring local and global awareness of the government’s policy of ‘disappearing’ activists and critics. Antiwar groups have also utilized women’s identities to criticize foreign policy. In 2003, the group Code Pink was established in the United States with the purpose of opposing the Iraq War and related wars on terrorism. The group uses the highly gendered symbolism of pink but plays on it to give leaders the ‘pink slip’ or to suggest the absurdity of color coding security (yellow, orange, red). The organization Women In Black utilizes the image of women in mourning dress to protest the impact of war throughout the world. They stand in silent protest in places where violence tears apart society. The group Raging Grannies juxtaposes the wisdom of the elder with the power of rage to provide political commentary at public protest – usually through song. And a popular bumper sticker reads ‘‘wellbehaved women rarely make history.’’ Even within peace movement organizations women have found it necessary to address systems of sexism and to push for positions of leadership. Antiwar posters from the

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Vietnam War era provide an example of the problem: some against a military draft read ‘‘Women say yes to men who say no.’’ These are no longer considered acceptable because women spoke up. And women are more often now in leadership positions in mixed-gendered peace organizations. Yet even so there continue to be moments of re-creation of gendered roles within peace movement organizations and women find themselves working on both sexism and antimilitarism simultaneously.

Conclusion: Viewed through a Gendered Lens Bringing gender studies into research on violence, peace, and conflict is essential. A gender analysis helps to show that even the most basic systems that we may assume are ‘natural’ are in actuality socially constructed and culturally embedded, and serve to perpetuate larger systemic values. In the case of gender analysis it makes the institutional structures of patriarchy more apparent. If gender is approached from a view of the intersectionality of privileges and oppressions, then it also becomes apparent that male privilege connects to White privilege, to class privilege, and to heterosexual privilege. Noticing these intersections may complicate analytic work, but it gives us a more complete view of the issues and events that we study.

Table 1 Intersection of gender with violence, peace, and conflict Gender and. . .

Personal

National

Global

Economic Status

Glass ceiling

Sweatshops and Maquiladoras

Militarism

Misogynist military training

Violence

Domestic/family violence

Nonviolence

Nurturing approaches in families and neighborhoods

Conflict Transformation

Use of alternative styles of conflict resolution and communication

Social Change

Empowerment of women and girls through education, leadership development, and political participation Consumer choices, everyday conservation activities

Lower wages for comparable work; feminization of poverty Rape in war, military and prostitution, sex and torture Cultural images of violence toward women Collective protest (hunger strikes, witness for the disappeared . . . etc.) Influence on inclusion of affect and power relations into training for conflict intervention skills Policy making to insure infrastructure that supports the empowerment of women

Environment

Theoretical

Feminist consciousnessraising

Advocating for policies that protect the health of children, reforestation projects, challenging environmental racism Making gender central to analyses of issues in peace and conflict

Women as refugees Female sexual slavery Women’s movements for peace Recognizing and including women’s particular experiences of war and violence Creating and participating in coalitions with broad spectrum of marginalized peoples Making the links between healthy environment, appropriate development and peacebuilding Developing global scholarly community that utilizes theories about the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual identity.

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Gender Studies

A preliminary picture of how gender analysis might shape the work of the field of peace studies is charted in Table 1. On a theoretical level, gender analysis requires that we renegotiate the meaning of several concepts: violence, power, justice, difference, and social movement theory. The typologies listed in Table 1 suggest that gender studies expands the traditional definition of violence studied in peace research. Thus, issues of personal violence and structures that perpetuate violence against women are defined as types of violence that are socially unacceptable in our vision of peace and justice. Table 1 also begins the project of de-centering Western experiences of violence and inequality by pointing to the connection of individual levels of gender inequality with global levels of social and economic inequality. Feminist scholarship and experience offer several ways of altering our traditional definition of power as the ability to control and to have or to own. This traditional definition of power focuses on the tangible accumulation of symbols of wealth, including money, women, land, industry, food, shelter, and slaves or employees. However, we can alter power by redefining what it means and who has it, recognizing that power has always existed – if unacknowledged – in the form of competence, passionate commitment, self-determination, and effective collaboration. While the academic study of violence, peace, and conflict has tended to focus on the nation-state, a gender analysis demands that analytic work be done across all levels of human interaction. Moreover, the definition of politics is extended to cover those whom it affects, not just those who have a voice. A gender analysis can help point out where other analytic frames have privileged the male perspective on a particular subject such as nonviolence theory or mediation training. A gender analysis demands that we ask in each moment of theory building: In what ways is gender influencing what is happening here? The emphasis is on realizing that gender is not natural, objective, or neutral. Rather, gender is always a product of dominant cultural systems and of the structure of power relations in a given society.

Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., and Tarule, J. M. (1996). Women’s ways of knowing. New York: Basic Books. Brownmiller, S. (1993). Against our will: Men, women, and rape. New York: Ballentine Books. Bunch, C. (2000). Encyclopedia of women: Global women’s issues and knowledge: Women’s human rights, an introduction. New York: Routledge Press. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble. New York: Routledge Press. Cohn, C. (1987). Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. Signs 12(4), 687–719. Confortini, C. (2006). Galtung, violence and gender: The case for a peace studies/feminism alliance. Peace and Change 31(3), 333–367. Deming, B. (1981). Remembering who we are. Kansas City, MO: Naiad Press. Enloe, C. (2001). Bananas, beaches, and bases. Berkeley, CA: University of CA Press. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harding, S. (1998). Is science multicultural? Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Harris, A. and King, Y. (1980). Rocking the ship of state: Toward a feminist peace politics. Boulder, CO: Westview. Hooks, B. (1984). Feminist theory from margin to center. Boston, MA: South End Press. Kolb, D. (1988). Her place at the table. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law School. McAllister, P. (1983). Reweaving the web of life: Feminism and nonviolence. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers. Mertus, J. (2000). War’s offensive on women. Bloomfield, CA: Kumarian Press. Moghadam, V. (ed.) (1994). Identity politics and women. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Nussbaum, M. and Sen, A. (eds.) (1993). The quality of life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Pateman, C. (1988). The sexual contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Reardon, B. (1996). Sexism and the war system. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Ruddick, S. (1989). Maternal thinking: Towards a politics of Peace. New York: Ballentine. Shiva, V. (1989). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. Atlantic Heights, NJ: Zed Books, Ltd. Smith, K. (2005). Prebirth gender talk: A case study in prenatal socialization. Women and Language 28(1), 49–53. Sylvester, C. (1995). Riding the hyphens of feminism, peace, and place in four (or More) Part cacophony. Women’s Studies Quarterly 23(3–4), 136–146. Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York: Morrow. West, C. and Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing gender. Gender and Society 1(2), 125–151.

See also: Conflict Management and Resolution; Military Culture; Peace Culture; Warriors, Anthropology of

http://www.codepink4peace.org/ – Codepink Women for Peace. http://www.feminist.org/ – Feminist Majority. http://www.huntalternatives.org – The Initiative for Inclusive Security, Hunt Alternatives Fund. http://www.twnside.org.sg/ – Third World Network (TWN). http://www.womenforwomen.org/ – Women for Women. http://www.womenwarpeace.org/ – WomenWarPeace.

Further Reading Allen, B. (1996). Rape warfare. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Relevant Websites

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Ritual and Symbolic Behavior Philip Smith, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Brad West, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Concepts of Ritual and Symbolic Behavior Ritual and Symbolic Behavior among Animals Ritual and Symbolic Behavior among People

Glossary Ritual Forms of associative human activity organized around symbolic sets denoting the sacred and profane. Can also be used to denote repetitive, conventionalized forms of human activity and/or forms of human action which lack an obvious practical utility.

Studies of ritual and symbolic behavior look at the signifying practices and expressive actions that underpin both peace and violence. An emphasis is therefore placed on symbols and communication practices and the contexts within which they operate. Two broad theoretical traditions can be identified, one rooted in evolutionary biology and the other in cultural theory. In this article, greater attention is given to elucidating this cultural strand, with biological understandings used as a counterpoint.

Ritual and Conflict Ritual, Symbolic Action, and Building Peace Further Reading

Symbolic Behavior Activities organized around a process of communication, usually involving the transmission and reception of information. Can also be used to describe deeds that have a normative or cultural component which is expressed in the action itself. The concept of symbolic behavior is often contrasted with ideas of purely rational or utilitarian action.

is one of symbolic action rather than behavior. There is usually a greater emphasis placed on voluntarism and reflexivity, seeing symbolic systems as a resource with which humans construct meaningful worlds. Notwithstanding these divergent roots, both traditions give a central place to processes of communication and to describing the roles which participants take up.

Ritual and Symbolic Behavior among Animals Concepts of Ritual and Symbolic Behavior It has long been noted that many violent behaviors of both humans and animals cannot be accommodated within commonsense understandings of ‘real’ violence and ‘rational’ action. Observers have pointed to play, pretense, and mock violence and to elaborate preparations and displays that appear to have no obvious utility for the conduct of battle or to social norms which replace bloody combat with elaborate but harmless games. These sorts of disparate phenomena tend to be accounted for in terms of ideas of symbolic and ritual behavior, which to some extent operate as catchall residual categories for explaining the apparently inexplicable. In the biological sciences, understandings of symbolic behaviors are framed within the discourse of evolutionary biology and, in particular, game theory. This gives rise to a mechanistic and strategic model of action, with animals seen as engaging in expressive actions in order to obtain an evolutionary advantage. In the social sciences, a greater emphasis is placed on culture and the imaginative faculties of the human species. Here the preferred vocabulary

The seminal text in the study of ritualistic violence in animal populations is Konrad Lorenz’s work in 1966 On Aggression. In this work Lorenz pointed to the tendency of many animal species to engage in ritualized, nonlethal displays of aggression, especially in the context of mate selection. There may also be ceremonial displays of dominance and deference which animals conduct through the careful production and reading of the signs that are exchanged. Among African wild dogs, for example, a defeated combatant will signal when it is bested by posturing in submission and will usually be allowed to escape unharmed. Lorenz argued that such activities carried evolutionary advantages. They provided a harmless outlet for violent instincts, allowed superior specimens to locate mating partners (thus improving the gene pool), and provided a means of strengthening group bonds in social animals such as geese and rats. More recent work argues that Lorenz wrongly specifies the level at which natural selection works. Instead of looking for benefits at the level of the species or even the individual,

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we should see natural selection operating at the level of the gene. Consequently, ritualized combat behaviors should be seen as a manifestation of ruthless, genetically programed competition between gene-carrying organisms of the same species rather than as a more or less cooperative adaptation that allows a species to compete with other species. A fundamental problem for this sort of tooth-and-claw view of the animal world has been to explain why animals do not kill their opponents once they have defeated them in a ritual encounter. The current orthodoxy is to suggest that escalated fighting carries a risk of serious injury even for a dominant animal. Natural selection will favor genes that prevent animals from engaging in this activity too frequently. Accompanying the shift to the gene level of analysis has been the rise of game theory as a means of explaining animal behavior. Using mathematical models it is possible to interpret and numerically represent displays of ritualistic behavior as a form of competition in which players (genes carried in organisms) engage in competition with other players. Strategies (escalation, bluff, submission, flight, etc.) are determined by the costs (e.g., time, energy), benefits (e.g., potential access to mates, food), and risks (e.g., danger of injury) of particular lines of action. It is generally argued that ritualized displays of aggression are common in the animal world because they provide players with a low-cost, low-risk means of attaining benefits. Dominant animals can assert their power, and weaker animals can challenge, without either risking fatal injury. And both can obtain objective information about their position in the pecking order and their odds of future success. Because such a system will eventually work to the benefit of participants, ensuring the survival of their genes, evolutionary process will work to effect a gradual improvement in the transfer efficiency of signals between actors and reactors, leading to sophisticated mechanisms for signaling ‘intentions’ and future lines of action. With communication replacing (or at least augmenting) real force, possibilities arise for organisms to obtain an evolutionary advantage over other members of their species through specializing in or manipulating ritualized communication systems. It has been suggested this might account for hypertrophied display organs, such as the peacock’s tail, which are, in other respects, possibly cumbersome and dysfunctional for survival. Such an analysis can also help interpret bluffing behaviors. For example, a bird might signal to its flock the arrival of a predator in order to have exclusive access to a food resource. In the case of ritual aggression, a skilled mimic could sound or look like a bigger animal or could fake the ‘intention’ of being willing to fight to the death. To sum up, current research on ritualized aggression and symbolic behaviors in animal populations is driven by evolutionary biology and game theory. Emphasis is given to the selective advantage that accrues to genes from

participation in this kind of encounter rather than in escalated fighting. While the language of game theory speaks of the ‘strategies’ and ‘ploys’ that might be involved in a symbolic conflict, it is important to remember that these are linguistic conventions that assist in the application of a rationalistic game theory to a behaviorist context. Most biologists see animal behavior as a blind product of genetic programing. By contrast, social scientific understandings of ritualistic aggression in humans tend to point toward the culturally meaningful nature of such forms of conflict. The broad consensus is to see them as products of broader social values and specific human choices rather than as the expression of a utilitarian survival function. Despite these divergent paradigms there are some important areas of overlap. Sociobiologists such as Edward O Wilson, Lionel Tiger, and Konrad Lorenz have suggested that the resources of biology might be of use in explaining ritualized violence in areas such as human territoriality, male bonding, and group cohesion. Other scholars exploring more microlevel issues of body language, emotions, and facial expressions have also tried to draw analogies from animal behavior to human experience. Symbolic interactionists have also, albeit rarely, looked to animal studies in developing a broader understanding of routinized and ritualistic aspects of face-to-face human interactions. For example, although he was attentive to the creative, meaning-making qualities of human actors, Erving Goffman’s work in areas such as frame analysis and interaction ritual evinced an awareness of ethology. This is reflected in some of his terminology (e.g., deference and demeanor, grooming talk) and in the influence upon him of Gregory Bateson’s work on the metacontexts that frame the interpretation of behavior among animals. Despite these linkages, the dominant stream in cultural anthropology has been profoundly antithetical to biological understandings of ritualized encounters and violence, seeing them as deterministic and insufficiently attuned to the complexities of human symbolic systems. This article now turns to this more cultural tradition.

Ritual and Symbolic Behavior among People One of the most significant findings across the anthropological and sociological record has been the centrality of symbolic and ritual behavior to forms of violence. In traditional societies war is often regarded as a ritual activity as much as a utilitarian activity for gaining political or economic power, with violence strongly linked to the attainment of manhood. Indeed one commentator sees it as ‘‘a rough male sport for underemployed hunters, with the kinds of damage-limiting rules that all competitive sports have.’’ Conflicts are often on a small scale with tribes agreeing to limit the force that is used. In parts of Highland New Guinea, for example, wars are called off

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when someone is wounded and warriors use inaccurate arrows without feather flights. Among the Native Americans of the Great Plains, the highest honor came from ‘counting coup’, not killing. This involved approaching an enemy without carrying weapons and touching him. Comparative studies of war and violence across civilizations, like that of Quincy Wright, suggest that the shift to more utilitarian, rationalized, and unrestrained forms of violence organized around conquest and domination emerged with agriculture and large-scale civilizations. In hunting-and-gathering societies there was no fixed wealth worth taking and people could easily run away. With the shift to agriculture, people had to stand and fight if they wished to eat. Along with agriculture there also came larger population densities and complex hierarchies, the emergence of military specialists, and full-scale wars associated with imperial expansion. These trends reached their logical conclusion in the militaristic empires of antiquity (Egypt, Rome, etc.), with their planned, ‘pragmatic’ approach to violence. This saw mass killing replace the ritualized killing of small-scale societies, with defeated populations often put to the sword. The shift toward more ‘rational’ and secular but also larger-scale forms of violence has continued up to the present day. Indeed, the rise of industrial capitalism and modernity in the West has seen the process accelerate thanks to a growing reliance on advanced technology and systems of coordination and control that operate at a distance from the points of battle. This move from symbolic and ritual violence toward norms advocating a rational and utilitarian organization of combat is in degree rather than in kind. Throughout history we can identify ritualistic elements in fighting styles and ethics. Noted examples include the combat codes of European knights and Japanese samurai, and the individualistic flair demonstrated by Cossacks and cavaliers. While contemporary combat styles have been rationalized by technowar, many scholars argue that conflict and violence is still underpinned by nonrational factors at levels from those of everyday life to full-scale war. Moreover, normative constraints often play a role in limiting the intensity of violence. To a certain extent, then, contemporary violence can be still considered a form of symbolic action, even if its ritualistic qualities are sometimes latent rather than manifest. Consider the following examples from everyday life:

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. Crimes against women such as domestic violence and rape are often interpreted as expressive acts which dramatize male power and resentment and which are often underpinned by an irrational culture of machismo. . Studies of urban gangs have pointed to the value system that leads young men to risk their lives and kill to protect their territory and gang colors. In addition, the following are examples from war: . Ethnic, racist, and/or nationalist beliefs have played a role in every war since the French Revolution. Today ethnonationalist beliefs remain important in arenas such as Iraq, Aceh, and Chechnya. . Many states voluntarily subscribe to the Geneva Convention, a document that provides minimum rights for those involved in war. This might be seen as an endorsement of the idea that war should be limited and constrained by human values. . Religious beliefs and motivations remain important factors behind war (e.g., in the Middle East). It could also be argued that apparently secular beliefs in democracy, reason, and equality that underpin some pro-war rhetoric amount to a civil religion. . Extreme atrocities, such as genocide or acts of terrorism, are difficult to interpret as rational or instrumental actions that contribute much to winning a war. They can be better understood as dramatizations of power and hatred. . The legitimization for going to war is often supported by quasimythological themes. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and Western allies these included the demonization of Saddam Hussein and apocalyptic narratives concerning his intention to employ weapons of mass destruction against his enemies. Few commentators would claim that contemporary war is directly analogous to its more ritualistic counterparts. Similar to other major social processes it has been bureaucratized and its conduct is usually rational and strategic – in intention, if not in enactment. However, it is important to realize that ritualistic and symbolic beliefs provide for its legitimacy in wider society and offer an important source of motivation for participants.

Ritual and Conflict . Anthropological research shows that casual bar-room brawls tend to follow a ritualistic sequence of threats and blows, with informal rules preventing fighters from using weapons like knives. . Anthropologists and sociologists studying sport have pointed to the symbolic and ritualistic qualities of violence in sports such as boxing, wrestling, cockfighting, and bullfighting.

So far this article has discussed the symbolic and ritualistic dimensions of violence in animals and humans. These have been described as the ways in which conflict is patterned, generated, or limited by meanings embodied in codes, signs, and symbols. This last section looks at theories of ritual itself and the ways in which theories of ritual have been used to explain peace, war, and violence.

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The contemporary study of ritual in the social sciences has its foundational moment in Emile Durkheim’s masterwork The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Here Durkheim drew upon Australian aboriginal ethnography to argue that societies must periodically come together to renew their bonds. He claimed they achieved this through rituals characterized by physical proximity and the manipulation of the symbols of the sacred and the profane. In his understanding, these rituals worked to generate social stability and harmony. The broad thrust of Durkheim’s work, then, is to suggest that ritual activity is important for allowing peaceful coexistence within groups. Despite his data being drawn from a small-scale society, Durkheim claimed that his theory had a more general applicability. He argued, for instance, that the flags of modern nations were analogous to aboriginal totems. Important arguments to this effect have come from scholars like Lloyd Warner and Edward Shils. Drawing upon ethnographic data from a small Massachusetts town, Warner suggested that Memorial Day ceremonies dedicated to fallen soldiers constituted a kind of cult of the dead that united citizens. Shils made a similar point about the 1952 coronation of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, arguing that it enabled the nation to come together. These kinds of claims are now generally perceived to be simplistic. In a seminal article, Steven Lukes suggested that we need to explore the relationship between rituals and social conflict. Pointing to sectarian Orange Day parades in Northern Ireland, Lukes maintained that rituals are often used to divide as well as to unite communities. He also argued for ideas of agency and strategic action to be included in thinking about rituals as a replacement for the vague and systemic causal attributions of the Durkheimian functionalists. Over the past 30 years the kind of agenda instantiated by Lukes has come to predominate in ritual studies. Functionalist models that locate ritual causality in ‘social needs’ for harmony have been replaced by studies attentive to power, inequality, and interests. Here an emphasis is placed on the ways that rituals and ritual exchanges legitimize and reproduce structures of power and inequality. Important contributions within this critical tradition have come from scholars like Marc Auge and Pierre Bourdieu. Another significant feature of contemporary research has been inputs from structuralist and poststructuralist theories. These have enabled ideas of discourse, narrative, and semiotics to be incorporated into an understanding of ritual dynamics, providing for a more sophisticated understanding of the ways culture works. Early contributions from Mary Douglas on purity and pollution and Victor Turner’s processualist analyses of liminality remain important sources of inspiration. Also significant are borrowings from Le´vi-Strauss on cultural codes and Bakhtin on the carnivalesque. While also vital to critical understandings of ritual, this line of cultural elaboration has provided the basis for a recent revival in neo-Durkheimian

scholarship. This research seeks to hold on to what is best in Durkheim’s Elementary Forms (such as ideas about the autonomy of culture, solidarity, and emotion) while jettisoning what no longer seems viable (the assumption of social consensus, functionalism). This emerging research tradition also draws upon the critical theories discussed earlier so as to be able to put forward a more hard-headed and empirically grounded understanding of ritual dynamics. At present, links between ritual studies and peace studies remain underdeveloped. Scholars in the ritual studies area often use phenomena like nationalist and military parades as sources of data, but do not have issues of peace and violence at the center of their research agenda. They are often more interested in theoretical issues concerning the structure and process of rituals themselves. To be sure, ideas about domination, conflict, and exclusion can be found, but rarely are these translated into a central preoccupation with issues of physical violence or peaceful coexistence. On the other hand, scholars in the peace studies area often refer to the ritualistic qualities of violence (e.g., when discussing the kinds of themes listed in the section entitled ‘Ritual and symbolic behavior among people’), but do so in passing and without reference to core theory in the ritual studies area. The result has been two literatures that have passed each other like ships in the night. This is unfortunate as the core issues of ritual theory, such as the dynamics of solidarity and exclusion, the importance of sacrifice, and the roles of quasireligious symbolic codes and the collective memory in the legitimation of the social order, are obviously of very direct relevance to understanding peace and conflict. Nevertheless, in recent years a number of studies have become influential in thinking through these latent and potential connections. Important characteristics of the literature include an interdisciplinary theoretical input centering on the textuality of social life, the idea of ritual as an arena of struggle and violence as well as consensus, a concern with the autonomy of culture as a ‘variable’ that makes possible violent and nonviolent outcomes, and, finally, a concern with the need for historically and culturally specific, process-driven explanation. Perhaps the best way to get a feel for this expanding, interdisciplinary literature is to briefly review some representative examples. . Bruce Lincoln’s explorations of ritual and violence are rooted in critical theory. Lincoln makes use of Roland Barthes and Maurice Bloch in developing a model of social life that sees symbolic and ritual activity as closely associated with the reproduction of, and challenges to, structures of power. In Lincoln’s view, social integration through ritual always benefits some groups more than others. This is evinced in his discussion of the Swazi Ncwala, an annual ritual ostensibly celebrating harvest, death and rebirth, and kingship. Lincoln shows

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how a covert subtext of the ritual was a sustained, but coded, critique of colonial domination. This affirmation of a universal Swazi identity worked, however, to reinforce the power of the Swazi king over his subjects by symbolically trumping internal conflicts between factions within the Swazi nation. So a ritual constructing solidarity in the face of one form of domination ended up reproducing another. . The work of Randall Collins shares with Lincoln an interest in the relationship between ritual and power. Collins, however, believes that acting together is more important than a shared symbolic code in building solidarity. Central to his argument is the concept of ‘emotional energy’. For Collins, it is in situations of high emotional energy that symbols endure by being inculcated in people’s minds, carried through time by ‘ritual chains’. High and low emotional energy emerges from the relative intensity of situational characteristics such as communicative gestures, emotional rhythms, flows, and mutual focus. These, in turn, produce motivating forces in which individuals will instrumentally seek out interaction rituals that contain maximum emotional energy, whether they are positive emotions such as altruism and love or negative emotions such as anger and fear. For this reason individuals and groups can often find a kind of desire for conflict and crisis, such as in individual acts of violence or the undertaking of military action. . The ability of ritual to bridge social divides in plural Western societies is explored in an alternative dramaturgical way by Jeffrey Alexander. Alexander argues that a more nuanced understanding of ritual in contemporary society can be achieved through conceiving of cultural traumas and periods of crisis in performative terms involving actors, audiences, props, scripts, and plots. In a study of the terrorist attack on New York’s Twin Towers, Alexander argues that Al Qaeda not only wished to inflict death and destruction but also create political and social instability in the United States through an act in which American culture would be seen as weak and morally corrupt. While the performance was initially successful in threatening to disrupt social order, the terrorists failed in their aims as a counter-performance was constructed in the United States’ public sphere that reinterpreted the event and resulted in a new social solidarity. From this perspective we can understand how the attacks eventually produced exactly the opposite effect and meaning than Al Qaeda had in mind. . In his book Why War Philip Smith compares different nations’ narrative constructions of crisis leading up to the Iraq war, the Gulf war, and the Suez conflict. Contrary to the dominant academic theories of warfare that privilege economic and material interests, Smith argues that narrative understanding itself can be the

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reason that warfare is chosen by the state over alternatives such as diplomacy. Drawing upon the work of narrative theorists such as Northrop Frye, Smith decodes the national discourses of the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Spain for his case studies. He concludes that genre interpretations align with war in ways that are regular and predictable. For example, in the Suez crisis the narrative employed in the American public sphere could be classified as ‘‘low mimetic,’’ with an ‘everyday’ and bureaucratic nature. The result was opposition to military intervention against Colonel Nasser’s regime. By contrast, prior to the Gulf war and Iraq war, a ‘‘high mimetic’’ apocalyptic genre developed in the United States that portrayed Saddam Hussein as an evil, Hitler-like figure, and allowed for the justification of human sacrifice. Smith’s narrative classification model helps us develop a cultural interpretation of war where discourse and narrative are not merely used as tools for legitimation by powerful elites but which also directly influence the decision to go to war. In a sense, all wars are symbolic actions as they are launched from platforms of meaning-making activity. . In Theorising the Standoff, Robin Wagner-Pacifici explores similar kinds of narrative themes of crisis but relates them to symbolic action at the level of the individual as well as the group. She analyzes various standoff cases in the United States such as Wounded Knee, Waco, and Ruby Ridge, to understand moments of social contingency. In such threshold episodes in which violence is imminent, the normal guiding principles of action become unstable and ambiguous. A siege mentality occurs on both sides where new interpretive and symbolic frameworks apply. Seemingly banal actions and objects, such as the sirens of fire engines, can result in situations of danger and confrontation. Wagner-Pacifici’s analysis informs us that while such potential violent episodes are created by structural forces such as religious, ideological, and political clashes, it is often situational behaviors by individuals in particular cultural environments that ultimately determine peaceful conclusion of the standoff.

Ritual, Symbolic Action, and Building Peace Ethological studies belong to an intellectual field which borders on the morally dubious territories of Social Darwinism and eugenics. In the wrong hands, such as those of Adolf Hitler, such theories can be used to question the belief that peace is either possible or good. On the contrary, they can be taken to lead to the conclusion that conflict is not only inevitable, but also an ennobling duty.

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Through military triumph over the weak and through programs of ‘ethnic cleansing’, the strong can claim their birthright and purify and refine their bloodstock thus fulfilling some kind of ‘racial destiny’. Fortunately, it is possible to derive a more constructive lesson from the ethological literature once it is realized that there is no inevitable connection between scientific knowledge derived from observations of animal behavior and a pseudo-Darwinistic moral philosophy. Humans are different from animals, and one of the most important differences is their ability to construct moral codes and institutional arrangements which modify or transcend the effects of nature. An important argument along these lines is William James’ essay on ‘The moral equivalent of war’. James recognizes the existence of martial traits in modern people that have arisen as a result of thousands of years of war but suggests that these can be channeled into nonviolent avenues such as public service. In this way, he argues, society could retain the constructive ‘‘character building’’ qualities of military service but avoid bloodshed. In a similar vein, the biologist Richard Dawkins has denied that his analysis of the ‘‘selfish gene’’ is a justification for selfish, free-market individualism as some of his critics have suggested. Rather, he contends, scientific knowledge allows us to be aware of the operation of genetic conditioning and, consequently, to be able to sit down and discuss rational strategies for thwarting genes and nurturing genuine altruism. In this way, we can ‘‘rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.’’ Knowledge about ethology allows for reflexivity and an awareness of the negative traits of our species – the instinctual and selfish behaviors which are to be avoided. We can also look to the ethological corpus for more positive suggestions for constructing peace. Two potential themes stand out. The first of these is that the literature can be used as a resource for strategy analysts who are attracted to rational choice and game theory. It might be possible to locate in the animal kingdom and the adaptive behaviors of its members exemplars for constructing distributions of resources, threats, and balances of power that encourage ritualistic rather than escalated fighting. The attraction (and also weakness) of these kinds of solutions is that they do not require changing people’s minds. Rather they permit peaceful coexistence to be built into situations where human competition remains every bit as fierce as it is between genomes. An example of such a situation was the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, which underpinned the nuclear deterrence strategies of the United States and the Soviet Union in the post-World War II period. The idea here was that the costs of full-scale nuclear war, such as global destruction and nuclear winter, would be too high for either side. Consequently, expressions of their mutual hostility were limited to regional wars (e.g., Nicaragua, Vietnam) and symbolic and diplomatic skirmishing. This is perhaps

analogous to the de-escalated violence we find in animal combats, where threat of death or serious injury prevents even dominant contestants from using full force. A second possibility afforded by animal studies is that they can be creatively misread to serve as a kind of moral exemplar. While animal behaviors might be selfish from the perspective of science, they can often appear to be altruistic or moral to common sense. The shift toward postmodernity is seeing nature resacralized in contemporary popular culture as a zone of purity and symbiosis. This provides a fertile setting for distributing positive imagery that sees ritualistic, restrained violence in animals as a role model for morally aware human action. We can already see signs of this kind of discourse emerging in popular advocacy for animals like dolphins, whales, and gorillas. Such animals are often attributed an almost spiritual ability to live in peace and harmony with their environment and each other. The diversity of human cultures equally provides a rich resource with which to think creatively about building a peace culture. The literature on small-scale societies can be studied for ideas about how to replace a culture that valorizes escalated violence with one that recognizes the superiority of low-harm alternatives. An enhanced understanding of the ritual and symbolic foundations of contemporary violence can lead to greater reflexivity about existing practices and promote the search for nonviolent alternatives. By the same token, we can look in a pragmatic way for forms of symbolic action that seem to offer more positive alternatives. In the case of ritual, for example, the weight of academic research suggests that militaristic parades do little to build peace and understanding. Alternative commemorative forms, however, can play an important role in breaking down barriers and building pacifist solidarity. In their book Dark Tourism John Lennon and Malcolm Foley show how sites of death, disaster, and atrocities have increasingly become sites of modern pilgrimage. From fieldwork at places such as the Auschwitz death camps and tours of World War II battlefields, they argue that tourism at these sites promote doubt about the project of modernity and the questioning of the infallibility of science and technology. In a more detailed ethnographic study on tourism at the World War I Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey, Brad West similarly demonstrates how international tourism can foster sentiments of tolerance and peace. From interviews with young Australian budget travelers, he argues that a new national collective memory of the campaign has developed in which former foes Turkey and Australia/ New Zealand have been reimagined as friends that share common historical event of sacrifice. By looking at these kinds of success stories, and through analyzing their symbolic and ritual foundations for generalizable principles, peace activists can start to construct lines of action that might make a difference.

Folklore 177 See also: Aggression and Altruism; Clan and Tribal Conflict; Folklore; Gender Studies; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Alexander, J. (2004). From the depths of despair: Performance, counterperformance, and ‘September 11’. Sociological Theory 22(1), 88–105. Alexander, A. and Smith, P. (eds.) (2005). The Cambridge companion to Durkheim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnard, C. J. (1983). Animal behaviour. London: Croom Helm. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton: University of Princeton Press. Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Durkheim, E. (1915). The elementary forms of religious life. London: Allen and Unwin.

Dyer, G. (1985). War. New York: Crown. James, W. (1942). The moral equivalent of war. In Essays on faith and morals, pp. 311–328. New York: Meridian. Lennon, J. and Foley, M. (2000). Dark tourism. London: Continuum. Lincoln, B. (1987). Ritual, rebellion, resistance. Man 22, 132–156. Lorenz, K. (1966). On aggression. London: Methuen. Lukes, S. (1975). Political ritual and social integration. Sociology 9(2), 289–308. Smith, P. (2005). Why war? The cultural logic of Iraq, the Gulf War and Suez. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sperber, D. (1975). Rethinking symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wagner-Pacifici, R. (2000). Theorizing the standoff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. West, B. (2005). Independent travel and civil religious pilgrimage. In Down the road, pp. 9–32. Perth: API Press. Wright, Q. (1965). A study of war. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Folklore Sanja Magdalenic´, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What is Folklore? Identifying Themes of Violence, Peace, and Conflict in Folklore Research

Glossary Genre Traditionally, a system for collecting and classifying folklore material. In recent perspectives, orienting framework for the production and interpretation of cultural discourse.

What is Folklore? Folklore generally refers to cultural expressions, such as narratives, jokes, beliefs, proverbs, legends, myths, music, songs, dances, costumes, food, and festivals, through which individuals and groups shape and disseminate a shared identity. There is, however, hardly any consensus among folklorists on either how to define folklore or how to explain the issues with the meaning and the function of it. The interest in folklore emerged primarily out of the Romantic nationalism of the early nineteenth century. Enthusiastic intellectuals, amateurs, and artists started to collect different kinds of folklore material in order to be able to study various aspects of ‘the folk’ and folk-life.

The Dilemmas of Folklorists Regarding Research on Violence and Conflict Prospects for Future Research Further Reading

Performance Repeated artistic practices that shape individual and group identity. Tradition A continuous process in which individuals and groups construct their future by reference to past experiences.

During this early period, folklore was viewed as ‘the lore’ – the materials of folklore – of ‘the folk’ – the people who utilize the materials. The discoverers of folklore identified the ‘folk’ as peasant society or rural groups, regarding them as the main carriers of distinct traditions that were slowly dying out due to urbanization and industrialization during the transition to modernity. The bourgeois nostalgia for the ‘paradise lost’ motivated the efforts to examine and preserve different aspects of folk-life. In some countries, the rising interest in folklore studies was also motivated by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Within this perspective, the folk and their traditions were regarded as primitive and therefore had to be studied in order to be transformed. Early folklorists focused

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primarily on oral traditions, such as ballads, folktales, epics, and sagas, and how these were transmitted within rural communities. During the 1960s, a paradigm shift occurred in the theory and methods of folklore studies. Folklorists became aware of the class, gender, and national bias embedded in the old concept of folklore. Moreover, contrary to earlier research that approached folklore as authentic and ahistorical artifacts, new research streams pointed out that folklore was always situated within some particular space and time. Recent folklore studies tend to view folklore as processcentered, context-sensitive, and performance-oriented. According to a contemporary influential conception of folklore, ‘folk’ refers to any group of people who share some common grounds, such as occupation, language, religion, or ethnicity. Most people are members of several and not just one folk-group. The paradigm shift allowed the expansion of folklore studies into new areas of inquiry that previously received little attention. Folklore studies (alt. folkloristics) as a discipline continues to struggle for its place in the academic world, where it rarely has achieved an autonomous status. In most countries, folklore is studied within the neighboring fields of ethnology, anthropology, cultural studies, literature, or history. Folklore material is primarily collected through fieldwork, participant observation, and interviews. Various kinds of secondary sources, such as archival materials, diaries, autobiographies, letters, and photography, serve as excellent sources of folkloric imagination. The availability of sources, however, varies both geographically and chronologically. Inasmuch as ‘folk culture’ was long considered to be of low status and was denned in opposition to ‘high culture’, records of it sometimes exist only as selected and filtered by the latter. When folkloristics as a scholarly endeavor emerged in the West, it was primarily oriented toward documenting Western folklore. Collecting folklore from other parts of the world was done occasionally by missionaries, travelers, and anthropologists. There are also examples that colonial powers not only actively discouraged but even banned native scholars from collecting folklore expressions. In recent discussions on the state of folklore scholarship, there have emerged claims that contemporary folklorists must direct attention even toward the political aspect of folklore research in order to be aware of who is studying whose traditions and on what terms.

Identifying Themes of Violence, Peace, and Conflict in Folklore Research Recent research approaches tend to view folklore as a system in which and through which individuals and groups interact. The assumption underlying this perspective is that folklore takes shape in social relations within

groups and is strengthened in communication with other groups. The group’s image of itself as well as its images of other groups is often reflected in its folklore repertoire. In general, folklorists have been predominantly concerned with documenting and analyzing customs and traditions that emerge in peaceful conditions and deal with identity formation or social cohesion, while neglecting the dark sides of social life. Even though folklore archives contain such material, entries such as aggression, conflict, violence, and war are seldom found in folklore journals and monographs. Some folklorists have suggested that the fact that such studies are rare is to a great extent related to the two perspectives that influenced the development of folklore studies. The perspective of Romantic nationalism considered folklore to represent the best of a given national culture. Such a point of view, however, hindered folklorists from acknowledging that the folk, the idealized object of their study, could even have destructive beliefs and traditions. The political perspective of the Enlightenment, on the other hand, perceived folklore as a primitive culture that had to be studied in order to be changed. From this perspective, it was justifiable to collect destructive elements if the aim was to condemn them and eliminate them through social reforms. Even though these two perspectives were opposed to each other, they created a similar outcome: folklorists experienced considerable difficulties when confronted with the violent behavior and aggressive ideas of their informants. This in turn created the remarkable avoidance of such topics and placed them on the margins in folklore research. The absence of these issues is also explained with reference to the character of knowledge production in folkloristics, the lack of funding, and personal dilemmas related to the topics. Comparative research, in particular, cross-cultural research in this area, has been less common. Over the past few decades, however, the interest in the dark side of folklore, in aggressive and violent practices about which groups invent traditions, seems to have found its way onto the research agenda. The change of paradigm in folklore research brought to light awareness that peace, conflict, and violence are an inherent part of human existence, and that folklore can be as much a mechanism of social cohesion and identity affirmation as of conflict and violence. The examples of folklore expressions considered in this article have different forms and take place in a variety of contexts; they are loosely grouped along a continuum from primarily peaceful settings, ritualized versus real violence to war. Folklore in Primarily Peaceful Contexts There is a wide variety of ways in which people use folklore to negotiate identities and boundaries between different groups as well as express beliefs, anxieties, aggression, conflict, and violence. Such practices most

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often take place in primarily peaceful settings and do not necessarily lead to open conflict or violence. Narratives, urban legends, jokes, children’s games, and nursery rhymes are some examples of folklore expressions that enable dealing with cultural values, norms, conflict, and violence in peaceful contexts. Fairy tales, this popular children’s literature that derives from folktales, have entertained generations of children over the last two centuries. Tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, and Hansel och Gretel have appeared in various forms and have become part of a cultural legacy. Fairy tales deal with a broad spectrum of themes from love, affection, happilyever-after romance, and heroic deed to family conflict, child abuse, punishment, aggression, murder, cannibalism, torture, and spectacular violence. As Maria Tatar in 2003 has shown, violence has a special place in this folklore genre that is often narrated to children at bedtime. Some of the pioneering work in collecting folktales was done by the Grimm brothers who at the beginning of the nineteenth century collected and edited an anthology of fairy tales that almost immediately gained enormous popularity. Tatar indicates that one of the reasons behind this success can be attributed to the fact that fairy tales were in accordance with the moral standards of the emerging bourgeoisie during the nineteenth century. She shows how the Grimms selected particular versions of the tales and sometimes transformed them so as to serve the pedagogic visions considered as appropriate. Violence was sometimes removed from, disguised in, or added to fairy tales for didactic purposes. In such edited versions of fairy tales, violence was turned into an instrument for controlling behavior of children, socialization, and acculturation. Folklore can reflect symbolic hostility between different groups and individuals who participate in the mutual exchange of stereotype attitudes so as to define their identity and establish their place in an imagined social hierarchy. Sociocentrism and boundary work are some of the conceptual tools that folklorists utilize when studying ‘the will to differentiate’. Some folklorists believe that people need hate figures in order to be able to project onto outsiders the hostilities and tensions that exist within the community. Projection is a type of psychological defense mechanism that is defined as the unconscious ascription of one’s own feelings and qualities to a source in the environment. Some of the common examples in folklore of how attitudes of suspicion and hate can be projected toward outsiders include projections on witches and scapegoating. Manifesting indifference and/or feelings of superiority are used as a device in practices that facilitate the formation of individual and group identity. From time to time, folklore can serve as a channel through which people are able to express attitudes and behavior that otherwise might be considered socially unacceptable.

Examples from the area of folklore research on humor and jokes reveal the existence of a complex hierarchy among folk-groups and their subgroups. Groups employ different strategies to regulate joking so that it does not get out of hand and become a destructive force. Regulation of joking, for instance, is easily observed in gender differences in joke-telling traditions. Contemporary folkloristics emphasizes the importance of paying attention to context in the study of jokes, claiming that variations in text and structure of jokes are related to the particular situation within which jokes are told. Furthermore, contextual variation offers multiple interpretations of jokes. The person telling the joke and the audience listening to it are identified as two of the most vital constituents of contextual structure. A joke often reflects a concern of society. Thus, the existence of racist jokes is seen as an indication of the society’s racist attitudes. In a comparative study of ethnic jokes, Christie Davies in 1990 has examined jokes as a means of ascribing different traits to other groups in a comical manner. According to her findings, the most popular and universally spread are ethnic jokes in which groups either are depicted as stupid, inept, and ignorant, or are portrayed as canny, calculating, and craftily stingy. Every country has its own repertoire of ethnic jokes about ‘stupid’ and ‘canny’ groups. By means of telling ethnic jokes, people strengthen their own identity. Davies also emphasizes that joke-telling patterns and patterns of social stratification are strongly related to each other in an asymmetrical manner. The members of the dominant ethnic group in a given society never make jokes about their own group but only about others. The joke patterns of subordinate and marginal groups, on the other hand, include their own group but are even more directed toward superior groups in the hierarchy. Over the past few decades, folklorists have turned attention to a variety of ways in which ethnicity is used to construct identity and solidarity as well as the category of the ‘other’. Collecting and analyzing narratives, the classic folklore genre, has enabled to study how different majority and minority groups deal with ethnicity through folklore expressions. On the one hand, there are narratives of immigrants who attempt to negotiate their position in the new country and to preserve traditions that they consider as valuable. Such narratives can be used to form ethnic identities and strengthen ethnic communities. On the other hand, folklorists have also collected narratives told by majority groups about immigrants. These narratives, which often include remarks on specific traditions and practices that are perceived as culturally different, become a channel through which majority groups construct and articulate their images of minority groups. Narratives, along with other folklore expressions, play an important role in negotiating the imagined rather than fixed boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

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Folkloristic collections include even numerous examples of how traditional wisdom, but even cultural and ethnic stereotypes as well as racial prejudices are transmitted through proverbs. Proverbs are among the most universal expressions within the genre of traditional verbal folk art. They are found in all human cultures, and they display similar structural features across languages and societies. A proverb is a saying that is assumed to express a general truth, a wisdom of the elders, that everyone can approve of as important and useful to recall. Folklorists have indicated that proverbs often reflect the norms and values of some particular society in which they circulate. In this view, a complete interpretation of a proverb has to take into account what is being promoted and in which context. One classical example in point is the incorporation of proverbial expressions aimed at degrading the undesirable members of the population, the Jews and Gypsies in particular, into the propagandistic vocabulary that supported the political program in Nazi Germany. Wolfgang Mieder in 1997 has explored the mechanisms of how proverbs are created and transmitted, and how they often continue to be used in daily communication. He draws attention to the ways in which various political leaders have used and misused proverbial expressions, aware of the great manipulative power of this folkloristic material. Mieder also examines more closely the origins and the meaning of two American proverbial stereotypes ‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian’ and ‘No tickee, no washee’. As regards the first, even though it is not certain who coined this proverbial slur, its appearance in documents and speeches suggest that by 1886 its use was already well established. This proverb was used as a battle slogan in the massive campaign that started after the American Civil War with a purpose to physically and culturally exterminate the Native Americans. Even today this proverb is widely spread in the United States and continues to transmit the negative stereotype of Native Americans. Moreover, Mieder has noticed that an internationalization of the basic proverbial formula ‘The only good X is a dead X’ has occurred. This essentially racist saying has been practiced against military enemies in many ‘national’ variants. For example, during World Wars I and II , the original pattern was adequately adapted and utilized as a slogan against the German enemy. The same formula was also found during early Spanish conquests in South America. There seem to be no limits for how this particular proverb can be modified as a national stereotype or be used as a generalization about any racial minority. Even the other proverbial slur, ‘No tickee, no washee’, has been and still is used to transmit stereotypes about minorities, in this case Asian-Americans. Hence, the study of proverbs can significantly increase the awareness of the psychological and ethical implications of the strategies for transmitting stereotypes and prejudices in everyday verbal interaction.

Folklore and Violence This section considers ritualized or festive canalization of inter- and intragroup antagonisms, where performed aggression, in particular circumstances, may turn into real aggression, as well as how folklore expressions may be used to deal with actual violence. Analyses typically indicate that the mechanisms for control of violence are closely related to the outbursts of it. Folklorists have shown that mock battles, football matches, festivals, or carnivals often are accompanied with both ritualized and real violence. Festive violence can be found in many countries, for example, Spain, Peru, and Trinidad. One example of a festival that includes a performed battle is Tomatina, which is held at the end of August in the Spanish town Bun˜ol. Perhaps the most spectacular part of this festival is the tomato fight. About 30 000 people come from all over the world to participate in this ritual battle and throw ripe tomatoes at each other. Similar to other rituals, the tomato fight is regulated by special rules that the participants are expected to follow for safety reasons. Firing water cannons signals both the beginning and the end of the battle, which goes on for exactly one hour. Carnival is another example of ritualized canalization of festive violence. The tradition of Carnival – an annual festival held in days preceding Ash Wednesday – has European origins and is particularly strong in the Mediterranean and Central European area. Folklorists have identified food, sex, and violence as three main themes of Carnival festivities. Violence, however, especially the relationship between ritualized aggression and real aggression seems to have attracted the least scholarly attention. Folklorists view Carnival as a cultural performance that allows social roles to be temporarily inverted. Carnival is a time of institutionalized disorder, when adults and children dress in costumes and are encouraged to insult others and criticize authorities under controlled forms. Some folklorists believe that festive violence has a meaning, and that it should not be understood simply as an unintended consequence of festive behavior or alcohol consumption. In an inquiry on carnival in a Brazilian city, Daniel Touro Linger in 1992 has observed that people even tend to judge Carnival by its level of violence and they see it as a disturbing indication of the community’s underlying anxieties. Carnival violence often takes the form of briga, a physical fight between two individuals, and entrudo, a practice of throwing various substances, such as mud, urine, sewer water, and rotten eggs, at other members of the Carnival procession. In Linger’s view, there is an apparent class component in violent Carnival actions: people always attack either their social equals or social inferiors, never those in a superior position within the internal social hierarchy of the given community. Within the analysis of rituals in public places in Sweden, attention was directed to the ritual of honoring

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the anniversary of death of Charles XII (1682–1718), which occurs on 30 November. In the beginning of the 1990s, the ritual (which at that time took place around the statue of Charles XII in Stockholm) often escalated into violent conflicts that required police intervention to separate the two opposing groups that took part in it. One group consisted of nationalists and skinheads, who marched together in a procession toward the square, determined to place a wreath at the king’s statue. Antiracists and members of immigrant groups formed the opposing group. At the moment when the first group approached the square, they were confronted by the opposing group, which attempted to prevent them from achieving their task. At this point, the manifestation typically evolved into a conflict about conquering and defending an imagined territory around the statue. The celebrators of Charles XII believed that they had to reconquer this particular territory and defend the right to pay homage to their national symbol. Although they differed in ideological standpoints, both sides in the conflict sang the national anthem – yet two different versions of it – and both used the flag as their main symbol. Folklorists even observed that the media used war rhetoric and words such as front line, attack, and war scenario when reporting this ritual conflict. In media accounts, the conflict came to symbolize an annual struggle between good and evil forces in the society, which is a well-known theme in the realm of folklore. An interesting detail is that the day of death of Charles XII coincides with the day of birth of Arthur Hazelius, the creator of Skansen, an open-air museum in Stockholm, which was built to represent Swedish nature and folk culture. During a short period after World War II, on 30 November, homage to both Charles XII and Arthur Hazelius was paid in Skansen. In the view of the celebrators of Charles XII, Skansen continues to stand for genuine Swedish values and culture, which, they believe, are being threatened by foreign influence. These groups tend to romanticize the peasantry, mythologize the past, promote the ideas of cultural purity – which originate from the ideas of racial purity – and see themselves as keepers of the ancient traditions. Folklore expressions vary among different subgroups. The folkloristic study of gangs focuses on particular aspects of a phenomenon that can be observed in the larger cities throughout the world. Poor social and economic conditions, loosening of family ties, domination of female heads of households, lack of male adult identification, and spatial segregation from the rest of the society are usually indicated as the main reasons behind the formation of a gang subculture. Most gangs recruit their members from racial or ethnic minorities, for whom membership in gangs becomes an important source of identity. In a now classical study of African-American oral tradition, based on fieldwork carried out at the end

of the 1950s in what at that time was a lower-class black neighborhood in Philadelphia, Roger D. Abrahams was able to observe distinctive characteristics of gang formation and gang behavior. This folkloristic inquiry into traditional oral performances of the people from the ghetto contains numerous insights into gang patterns in the neighborhood. For the youngsters living on the streets, the gang becomes one of the main forces of socialization. Organized as a loosely formed grouping, the gang gives the individual, who is generally male, the sense of belonging to a particular neighborhood and it offers protection from aggression by other similar groups. Obscene rough talk, a distinctive, colorful dress style, a characteristic way of walking and hairstyle have been indicated as parts of the image of gang members. A gang lifestyle emphasizes and promotes manliness in both words as well as actions, ranging from general toughness, roughness, and mistrust toward women, via choices of profession and favorite heroes, to actual physical violence. In this context, folklore – in the form of proverbs, jokes, taunts, toasts, or catches – is used as a weapon in verbal battles and provides an important channel for control of expressions and dealing with anxieties. Winning verbal contests affirms the masculinity of the winner and demonstrates the femininity of the defeated. Such verbal battles generally follow specific rules by which the boundaries of the game are strictly predetermined so as to provide the means for the control of aggression. In a study of Chicano gang subculture in Southern California, James Diego Vigil in 1988 employed the concept of multiple marginality to explain why some members of this particular ethnic minority join and identify with gangs. He also draws attention to a characteristic style of appearance called ‘cholo’, a particular street identity required by everyday life in the street. Cholo, which actually appears marginal to both Mexican and American culture, consists of: (1) cholo front: dress, forms of speech, gestures, and body language; (2) street rituals: initiation and exit rites, gang warfare; and (3) symbols: tattoos and graffiti. According to this study, this particular image becomes a source of identification with the gang and with the territory that is under its control. Affiliation with gang style may be of varying duration: from short to lifelong membership. In Vigil’s view, the difference among regular, peripheral, temporary, and situational gang members is central to an explanation of gang behavior, since it influences not only gang entrance and exit but even the likelihood of engaging in violent behavior. Scarcity of resources, discrimination, drugs, delinquency, and frustrations that result from an awareness of the inescapable cycle of poverty are listed as the main generators of violent behavior. Even though the presence of conflict is found in many aspects of gang life, Vigil’s analysis points out that manifestation of conflict and violence within some particular gang formation is regulated

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and restricted. For example, a member who too often causes confrontation within the group runs the risk of being expelled from it. On the other hand, violence is considered obligatory when it is directed toward nonmembers of the gang, especially when it is used to defend the territory claimed by the gang, the boundaries of which are symbolically marked out by graffiti. The inquiry confirms that fighting between gangs is the main reason behind most contemporary gang violence. Such conflicts are increasing and they create numerous problems, especially in the large cities. A rivalry between gangs often has a long tradition that tends to be reproduced by group solidarity based on perceived differences in gang organization and culture. One of the ways in which people cope with the increasing rate of violence in urban areas is by transforming their experiences into narratives. Particularly in the United States, folklore about crime in general, and narratives that deal with violence and criminal behavior in particular, have been identified as a part of the common cultural heritage. Eleanor Wachs in 1988 collected and analyzed crime-victim stories that circulated in New York, a city that occupies a special place in American folklore as regards the issues of crime and violence. Crime-victim stories fall within the genre of urban folklore. Some of these stories are versions of urban legends, which is another folklore expression. Mugging, murder, and rape are three types of narratives that Wachs has distinguished. The stories typically focus on three characters: the victim (hero/heroine), the offender, and the occasional witness to the event. The pattern of resolution is predictable and appears in three forms: the offender manages to flee the scene, the victim somehow sneaks away from his/her pursuers, or the police are called to intervene. Unlike the media reports on crime, the tellers of crime-victim stories are highly reluctant to talk about violence in concrete terms and tend to use euphemisms instead. To a certain extent, however, these narratives transmit racial prejudices, since the offender in stories most often is black. As folklore expressions, crime-victim stories have several functions. They are used to transmit attitudes about life in New York, they provide information about required cultural and social codes for living, or they are told as cautionary tales to warn women, who make up the majority of victims, about how to protect themselves as well as how to avoid dangerous situations. It is believed that the wish to show others how not to become a crime victim is one of the main reasons that these stories continue to circulate. Personal narratives about domestic violence are related types of folklore materials. Along with documenting violence against women they provide insights into the ways in which women deal with traumatic experiences by narrating their stories of violence. For example, storytelling may also be a way to achieve personal empowerment.

Elaine J. Lawless in 2001, who collected and examined narratives of abused and battered women in a women’s shelter, questions the ‘cycles of violence’ narrative (‘his’ violent behavior and ‘her’ responses to it), which has become the master narrative in the institutions that work with abused women. In her view, storytelling is as an important element in this particular context. In order to get aid and shelter, battered women must give an account of their traumatic experiences in contacts with different officials, such as the police, the shelter workers, counselors, and in the courts of law. According to Lawless, the stories they tell in these different contexts are often only fragmentary as the women almost immediately learn how to ‘tell their story’ in order to achieve best assistance. Paradoxically, the ‘system’ that helps the women compels them to frame their narratives according to the existing institutional practices and language. The women learn what to tell, and how, and what to leave out of their accounts. In order to provide a ‘herstory’ of domestic violence, and bring in the perspective of the battered women into the discourse, Lawless asked the women to tell their entire stories in their own words. The narratives that she collected in this way revealed that all of the women whom she interviewed have been abused most of their lives and that spirals or cycles of abuse often occur across generations. Lawless also noticed the tendency of women to narrate ‘around’ violence when being unable or unwilling to recount particular incidents. Through personal narratives about violence, the women survivors are able to make sense of their experiences. This ‘transformational remembering’ enables them to gradually find ways to escape violence and move toward a life beyond abuse. Folklore and War Folklore collections contain reminiscences of war in various forms of folklore materials. War is a context of extreme and unpredictable violence. Folklore expressions are part of the strategies that people use to cope with traumatic experiences of chaos, terror, and dehumanization. Folklorists have not systematically analyzed wars. In studies on war, they typically examine some traditional folklore expression and the ways in which it is used and transformed within the context of war. Collecting folklore material seems to be the main interest and the context of war is seldom problematized in these studies. Studying folklore and war does not imply that folklorists necessarily focus on violence, shooting, and killings. Wartime humor, public displays, and peace rituals have also attracted folklorists’ attention. For example, as Kathleen Stokker in 1995 has shown, wartime humor helped the Norwegians who were opposed to Nazism to develop and promote a sense of solidarity during Norway’s World War II Nazi occupation. Jokes that ridiculed the Germans were used to raise morale and

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encourage resistance. Occupation humor also provides insights into how people dealt with different aspects of daily life during occupation, such as food shortage. Furthermore, through wartime humor the Norwegians were able to disseminate information about actual war developments that was censored from the media. A focus on public displays, that is, various events, performances, and artifacts, also sheds light on the nature and the evolvement of some particular conflict. In his analysis of what he terms a guerilla war in Northern Ireland, Jack Santino in 2001 drew attention to the ways in which the two sides of the conflict (Protestants and Catholics) use public displays – such as parades, flags, assemblage, fireworks, bonfires, murals, and spontaneous shrines – to shape and reconstruct their particular version of collective memory and national identity. During the Gulf War in the 1990s, folklorists observed that many houses and public places in the United States were decorated with yellow ribbons and American flags. Two related traditions merged in this custom: the public assemblage and the symbolism of yellow ribbon. The custom of decorating public and private spaces with assemblage has become quite common during recent decades. The old tradition of displaying a yellow ribbon as a sign of remembering the absence of a dear person emerged anew during the 1970s crisis with Iran. During that period, many Americans tied yellow ribbons to trees, on doors, and on facades of buildings. Two meanings of this custom were identified: showing absence and expressing welcome. During the Gulf War, the yellow ribbon became a patriotic symbol. During the calendrical holidays that occurred at the time of war, holiday decorations were combined with war symbols, which made the signification of assemblage even stronger. By displaying flags and yellow ribbons people not only declared their support for American troops but also found a way to cope with uncertainty and their inability to control and influence the war situation. Moreover, putting up war-related assemblage was a folkloric expression of community solidarity. The Gulf War often included updated folkloristic materials from earlier periods (and earlier wars). According to Alan Dundes in 1997, the Gulf War folklore in the form of xerographic cartoons and jokes was frequently based on masculine symbolism. He draws attention to sexual undertones that are often present in male ritual combats where the invasion by an enemy force is perceived as a metaphorical rape. Specific rituals in the form of nonviolent protests against the war, such as calls for peace, marches of refugees with candles and songs, and mass gatherings in town squares, have also been observed when the war in Croatia broke out in the early 1990s. Through these, people were able to express their feelings and deal with the traumatic events through folklore. A variety of folklore expressions were observed. For example, with the outbreak of war, the

intellectuals as a group were confronted with a dilemma of what to write and whether to write at all during the war, or whether their position ought to be on the front line instead. For some of them, this dilemma resulted in an intense need to write about war and to inform others about the situation. An important part of the activity that emerged included sending letters and appeals to existing or symbolic addresses in foreign countries, which was meant to give the war an international dimension and provide a Croatian perspective on the evaluation of events. The sending of appeals was most intensive at the very beginning of the war, when it was believed that the confusion in international scientific and media reports was a result of a lack of information. Since most of the appeals received little attention abroad, as the existing image of the Balkans as ‘the other’ in Western press and academic reports and of the war as a tribal conflict was difficult to change, this activity slowly died out. To some extent, folklore studies on war deal with different aspects of military folklore. The existence of a soldier subculture and its masculinity as manifested in clothes, songs, dance, slang, and various kinds of rituals, was observed already during the early modern period. It was not unusual among ordinary people at that time to have warriors and soldiers, whom they probably considered a form of protection, painted on cupboards. In many parts of the world warriors prepared for battle or celebrated victory by ritually performing the conflict. War dance is a highly specialized form of folk dance with great variation in form and style. It can be performed by men, women, or men and women together. In some parts of the world, such as in the Far East, dance performances may include acrobatic scenes with weapons, or, as in some countries of South America, require specific masks. One of the most common forms of war dance is a stylized combat mime usually performed with weapons. Various types of sword dances still performed in Europe are some of the examples of ritually performed reminiscence of battle and war. The origin of sword dances, as folklorists believe, derives from ancient victory dances or military training exercises. Sword dances, such as Moresˇka and Moros y Cristianos, are today only performed during festivals and the original meaning of these performances has been completely transformed. Even though these dances are based on conflict or symbolic struggle for freedom, folklorists emphasize that one of the main purposes of this kind of dance today is to reinforce the integrity of the particular community within which the dance performance takes place. Some analyses of folklore expressions have pointed to the existence of taboos within the context of war. Taboo, the principle of social prohibition or the method of social control, can be found in most cultures. It can appear in diverse forms, such as actions, words, names, sexual relationships, food, or social contacts. Emmanuel Chiwome in

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1990 observed that practicing various kinds of taboos was common among both the guerrilla soldiers and peasants in Zimbabwe during the War of National Liberation of the 1970s. The taboos regulated different kinds of actions. For example, it was forbidden for combatants to eat certain kind of food, to mate, to sleep in houses, as well as to allow anyone not engaged in combat to carry weapons. It was even prohibited for menstruating girls to make food and enter the military base. Since the taboos had their origins in the precolonial era, they helped to establish a sense of solidarity among the combatants. Folk songs are considered another important means for establishing a sense of belonging and homogeneity among group members. Collections of folk songs performed during war consist mainly of military occupational folk songs, but still provide a specific inside perspective on the war. In the War of National Liberation in Zimbabwe, folk songs were an important part of oral traditions used by the liberation movement in the armed confrontation with the white colonial regime. According to Chiwome, the Chimurenga (Uprising) songs helped the combatants to emotionally cope with the war situation and raised their fighter spirit as well as their awareness of oppression. At the same time, folk songs documented and preserved the radical social transformation Zimbabwe was passing through. Folk songs, together with the rock and roll music of the 1960s, had an important role among American soldiers in the Vietnam War as well. Even references to popular music found their way into the language of the war: ‘rock and roll’ meant fire from an M-16 on full automatic. Some of the collected folk songs were created especially for Vietnam and both the words and music were original. Otherwise, it was more common to set new lyrics to the already existing folk, country, or popular tunes. Most of the songs, however, were actually a part of the traditional military folklore of earlier wars: World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and even RAF and British Army songs. These songs display traditional themes of the military folk song: praise of the great leader, celebration of heroic deeds, laments for the death of comrades, disparagement of other units, and complaints about incompetent officers. The civilians serving in Vietnam developed their own traditions and had a different song repertoire. It is interesting to note that the majority of folk songs from Vietnam were not collected by a professional folklorist, but by an air-force general stationed in Vietnam. His collection of occupational folk songs provides folklorists with an inside perspective on the ways in which soldiers expressed emotions and the strategies they developed in order to cope with violence, fear, and frustration during the war. Marching chants, a particular military tradition, have attracted only minor attention among folklorists. This part of military training programs circulates not only from company to company but even from war to war.

In times of war, marching chants make the recruits adopt the role of front-line soldiers, whereas in peacetime, they are intended to help them remember their predecessors. Folklorists who have studied the lyrics of this particular form of military folklore have indicated that marching chants provide valuable information about how some traditions and attitudes characteristic for military life are transmitted to new recruits. Offensiveness, whether in the form of insult to a superior, slaughter of innocents, or sexist objectification of women, has been identified as the main characteristic of the chants. The chants assist the transition from civilian to military life through the verses that celebrate the displacement of sexual energy from the female left behind to the enemy waiting on the battlefield. The existence of particular projective folk characters was indicated in the lyrics of marching chants during the Vietnam War: ‘Jody’, a reference to a trainee’s nonprofessional life, the trainee’s car, his girl, or his sister; ‘Charlie’, a personification of the military/civilian enemy, ‘Slippery Sam’, a marine soldier who fights against ‘Charlie’, and ‘Mama’, a character who is addressed to approve the use of violence. To a great extent, marching chants are used by soldiers as a way of controlling emotions, of establishing group cohesion, and of easing the strain caused by the demands of military training. Recently, some efforts have been made to prohibit the transmission of the most sadistic versions. How individuals use folklore expressions to deal with their experiences of the Vietnam War has also attracted folklorists’ attention. One of the examples is the analysis of dioramas created by a disabled Vietnam veteran, in which he portrayed scenes of battle and military experiences, such as firefights, prisoner of war (POW) camps, torture pits, and ambushes. Three types of dioramas were identified: those dealing with situations familiar to most Vietnam veterans, those reflecting personal memories, and those based on stories told by other veterans. For folklorists, this work is an interesting example of folk creativity that is directly related to such narrative forms as war stories and ballads. The fact that dioramas are not for sale makes them characteristic of folk art. This example shows how personal war traumas can be dealt with creatively through artistic expression. When the war in Croatia broke out in 1991, scholars and folklorists found themselves within the war. Accounts on war from an insider position, such as those collected in Fear, Death and Resistance, provide various insights on how the war transforms everyday life and about the strategies, including folklore expressions, which people used to cope with the war situation. The war transformed the existing political rituals on the one hand and generated new manifestations on the other. The context of war made the soldiers become visible as a subgroup. Folklorists observed changes regarding dress style, music, and speech. Some of the soldiers transmitted warrior images

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from films and television series. The war transformed even many of the rituals of commemorating Croatian soldiers killed in the war. For example, civilian occupation was no longer mentioned in obituary notices. Instead it was indicated that the deceased soldier was a member of the Croatian armed forces. Funerals changed into soldierly funerals, with uniformed soldiers in the funeral procession, the coffin covered with the Croatian flag, the decorations often in the shape of the Croatian coat of arms, and the national anthem at the end of the ceremony. Furthermore, folklorists drew attention to the emergence of rituals with respect to a commemorative board with photographs of soldiers that was placed at the central square in a small Croatian town. Besides being commemorative, the board became a site of mourning ritual. When one of the photographs was taken down, rumors started to circulate about the event. The site was visited not only by relatives and friends of dead soldiers but also by the official delegations that came to town. The board was decorated on the name-day of soldiers with wreaths, flowers, and candles. Even the annual holidays, such as Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter, were marked by placing ribbons or decorations characteristic for the holiday underneath the board. Through these folklore expressions, the community, which experienced the war only indirectly through the death of its young men, managed to preserve and strengthen its integrity. Folklorists also collected narratives and letters of refugees from Eastern Slavonia, a part of Croatia that was occupied by Serbian troops during the war. The potential of these documents is significant, inasmuch as they provide accounts of personal experiences of having to deal with violence and fear as well as raising awareness about the human tragedy of the war. Some of the themes that can be illuminated through narratives include identity formation and the ways in which refugees construct and narrate their history, memories of war and life in exile. On the basis of personal narratives, researchers were also able to analyze nutrition, which is a traditional research topic in folkloristics, in the context of war. Personal narratives revealed how everyday life during the shellings turned into everyday struggle for survival in food shortages and chaos. People baked bread in ashes, as they had seen in an educational program on Australian aborigines. These documents also have the potential to show how refugees shape and/or transform their traditions. However, researchers emphasized that the study of refugees, from all other possible war themes, caused the greatest moral and scientific dilemmas.

The Dilemmas of Folklorists Regarding Research on Violence and Conflict Many folklorists who have studied violence and related themes in folklore have pointed out serious personal as

well as professional dilemmas in connection with such research efforts. The mentioned dilemmas, however, do not seem to be as apparent among folklorists who study archival material as they are among those who personally encounter their informants during fieldwork. An issue that has been discussed concerns the potential effects of publishing studies that deal with material that can be viewed as delicate or provocative. There is always the risk that such publications will be perceived as sensational. Doing folklore research on political violence and on war in particular raises a number of ethical issues. Researchers also must be extremely cautious when interviewing refugees in war conditions or other victims of violence to carefully protect their anonymity. The researcher also has to be able to cope with his/her own emotions when confronted with the traumas of others. Studying violent topics may in some cases even involve personal danger. Finally, there is a dilemma as to whether researchers should collect folklore material without questioning the circumstances in which some of the informants or groups of informants live. On the whole, doing folklore research about conflict and violence is a complex and demanding effort that raises important ethical, methodological, as well as theoretical problems.

Prospects for Future Research During recent decades, the awareness that the dark side of folklore often has been neglected and left out of the research agenda has created a growing interest in the mutual relationship between identity-affirming folklore and its opposite destructive component. There is a trend towards studying the issues of conflict and violence from within the location in which they take place. Like other scholars who deal with similar issues, folklorists will have to solve problems connected with dangerous fieldwork, emotional dilemmas, or veracity of data. Having realized that comparative studies are necessary for mapping the historical and geographical distribution of folklore expressions as well as for their interpretation, many folklorists now call for the exchange of scholarly information across cultural and disciplinary borders. In this contemporary vision of folklore as transdisciplinary and integrative, folklorists will have to be prepared to accept multiple interpretations and to capture the interplay between national and international influences brought about by processes of globalization. Understanding folklore as partly universal and partly embedded into some particular cultural context benefits the systematic field research necessary to elaborate a conceptual framework within which to study and explain different aspects of the interrelation among peace, conflict, and violence. The existing folklore studies form a solid foundation for future research.

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See also: Aggression and Altruism; Gangs; Military Culture; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Peaceful Societies

Further Reading Abrahams, R. D. (1970). Deep down in the jungle: Negro narrative folklore from the streets of Philadelphia. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Bauman, R. (ed.) (1992). Folklore, cultural performances, and popular entertainments: A communications-centered handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bendix, R. and Roodenburg, H. (eds.) (2000). Managing ethnicity: Perspectives from folklore studies, history and anthropology. Amsterdam: Het Sphinus. Burke, C. (1989). Marching to Vietnam. The Journal of American Folklore 102(406), 424–441. Cˇale Feldman, L., Prica, I., and Senjkovic´, R. (1993). Fear, death and resistance: An ethnography of war (Croatia 1991–1992). Zagreb: Matrix Croatica and X-Press. Chiwome, E. (1990). The role of oral traditions in the war of National Liberation in Zimbabwe: Preliminary observations. Journal of Folklore Research 27(3), 241–247.

Davies, C. (1990). Ethnic humor around the world: A comparative analysis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Dundes, A. (1997). From game to war and other psychoanalytic essays on folklore. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Klein, B. (ed.) (1995). Gatan ar var! Ritualer pa offentliga plaster (The street is ours: Rituals in public places). Stockholm: Carlssons. Lawless, E. J. (2001). Women escaping violence: Empowerment through narrative. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Linger, D. T. (1992). Dangerous encounters: Meanings of violence in a Brazilian city. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mieder, W. (1997). The politics of proverbs: From traditional wisdom to proverbial stereotypes. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Santino, J. (2001). Signs of war and peace: Social conflict and the use of public symbols in Northern Ireland. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Stokker, K. (1995). Folklore fights the Nazis: Humor in occupied Norway, 1940–1945. London: Associated University Press. Tatar, M. (2003). The hard facts of the Grimms’ fairy tales. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press. Vigil, J. D. (1988). Barrio gangs: Street life and identity in Southern California. Austin: University of Texas Press. Wachs, E. (1988). Crime-victim stories: New York City’s urban folklore. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Weaponry, Evolution of Dave Grossman, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Weapons as Devices to Overcome Physical and Psychological Limitations A Brief Survey of Weapons Evolution

Glossary Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AVIDS) The ‘violence immune system’ exists in the midbrain of all healthy creatures, causing them to be largely unable to kill members of their own species in territorial and mating battles. In human beings this resistance has existed historically in all close-range, interpersonal confrontations. ‘Conditioning’ (particularly the conditioning of children through media violence and interactive video games) can create an ‘acquired deficiency’ in this immune system, resulting in ‘AVIDS’. As a result of this weakened immune system, the victim becomes more vulnerable to violence-enabling factors

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 3, pp 785–800, ã 1999, Elsevier Inc.

The Role of Weapons Evolution in Domestic Violent Crime Conclusion: The Future of Weapons Evolution Further Reading

such as poverty, discrimination, drugs, gangs, radical politics, and the availability of guns. Chariot A two-wheeled platform pulled by horses (usually two) generally carrying a driver and a passenger. Of limited value for commerce due to its small capacity, the chariot was primarily an instrument of war and the hunt. Its greater mobility gave it a high degree of utility in the pursuit of a defeated enemy. The passenger was usually an archer who would fire from the platform while on the move or during brief halts. Conditioning A type of training that intensely and realistically simulates the actual conditions to be faced in a future situation. Effective conditioning enables an

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individual to respond in a precisely defined manner in spite of high states of anxiety or fear. Phalanx A mass of spearmen in tight ranks, carrying spears approximately 4 m long and protecting themselves with overlapping shields, highly trained to move in a formation organized in depth (i.e., moving and fighting ‘in column’ as opposed to ‘in line’) and trained to strike the enemy as a coherent mass. First widely utilized by the ancient Greeks. Physical Limitations The physical limitations of the human body which, when overcome, will assist in physically enabling killing. These can be broken down into force, mobility, distance, and protection. Posturing In the territorial and mating battles of every species the individual who puffs itself up the biggest or makes the loudest noise is most likely to win; this process is referred to as ‘posturing’. Humans engaged in close combat are invariably profoundly frightened, and in such individuals primitive, midbrain processing often causes the actual battle to be, from one perspective, a process of posturing until one side or another turns and runs, after which the real killing usually begins. Thus posturing is critical to warfare and victory can be achieved through superior posturing. Bagpipes, bugles, drums, shiny armor, tall hats,

Humans have proven themselves to be infinitely ingenious at creating and using devices to overcome their limitations. From one perspective human history can be seen as a series of ever-more-efficient devices to help humans communicate, travel, trade, work, and even to think. Similarly, the history of violence, peace, and conflict can be seen as the history, or the evolution, of a series of ever-more-efficient devices to enable humans to kill and dominate their fellow human beings. The concept of an ‘evolution’ of weaponry is very appropriate, since the battlefield is the ultimate realm of Darwinian natural selection. With few exceptions, any weapon or system that survives for any length of time does so because of its utility. Nothing survives for long on the battlefield simply because of superstition. Anything that is effective is copied and perpetuated, anything ineffective results in death, defeat, and extinction. There are fads and remnants (the military equivalent of the appendix) but, over the long run, everything happens for a reason, and a valid theory of weapons evolution must make these reasons clear, explaining all extinctions and all survivals.

chariots, elephants, and cavalry have all been factors in successful posturing (convincing oneself of one’s prowess while daunting ones enemy), but, ultimately, gunpowder proved to be the ultimate posturing tool. Psychological Enabling Factors The processes that can be manipulated as a weapon to psychologically enable a human, or a group of humans, to kill. These can be broken down into posturing, mobility, distance, leaders, groups, and conditioning. Weapon A device or system that is designed to permit humans to overcome natural physical and psychological limitations in order to enable the killing and domination of other creatures, particularly their fellow human beings. Weapons Evolution The process of Darwinian natural selection in the development of a series of evermore-effective weapons. Weapons Lethality A factor of the effectiveness of the weapons used to kill and the ability of medical technology available to save lives. Thus, weapons lethality can be thought of as a contest between weapons effectiveness (the state of technology trying to kill you) and medical effectiveness (the state of technology trying to save you).

Weapons as Devices to Overcome Physical and Psychological Limitations Ultimately the nature of humans determines the nature of their weapons. There is the nature of the body ‘and’ the nature of the mind; let us first examine the nature of humans’ ‘physical’ limitations and the evolution of weapons to overcome these limitations. Overcoming Physical Limitations The physical limitations of humans are a key factor in their search for weapons. The need for force, mobility, distance, and protection have been the key requirements in this realm. The need for force

The physical strength limitations of humans led to a need for greater physical force in order to hit an opponent harder and more effectively, resulting in the development of more-effective methods to transfer kinetic energy to an opponent. This process evolved from hitting someone

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with a hand-held rock (providing the momentum energy of a greater mass than just a fist), to sharp rocks (focusing the energy in a smaller impact point), to a sharp rock on a stick (providing mechanical leverage combined with a cutting edge), to spears (using the latest material technology (flint, bronze, iron, steel) to focus energy into smaller and smaller penetration points), to swords (which permit the option of using a thrusting, spear-like penetration point or the mechanical leverage of a hacking, cutting edge), to the long bow (using stored mechanical energy and a refined penetration point), to firearms (transferring chemical energy to a projectile in order to deliver an extremely powerful dose of kinetic energy).

harm (in the form of kinetic energy) upon one’s own forces. This evolution generally followed the latest development of material technology, incorporating leather, bronze, iron, and steel, until the invention of firearms created a degree of force so great that the human body could not carry sufficient steel to stop a penetration, and the only remnant of armor was the helmet to stop fragmentation (grenade and artillery) wounds to the vulnerable and crucial brain area. Today this evolution continues in tank and ship armor. Interestingly, in recent years, human-made fiber technology (such as Kevlar) has again made body armor practical, and for the first time in centuries the average combatant, in both law enforcement and military realms, once again wears body armor.

The need for mobility

Limited by the constraints of a bipedal body that could be outrun by a majority of ground-based creatures and recognizing that a human who has cast off weapons and armor is hard for a human carrying a weapon to catch and kill, humans’ cross-country speed limitations created a need for a mobility advantage, resulting in a succession of weapons to provide more-efficient means to go around or to chase an enemy. These weapons evolved from the chariots of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians (which were without horse collars (an invention of the Romans) and were thus quite inefficient since the mounting system choked the horse); to the cavalry of the Greeks and Romans (which, without stirrups, limited but did not completely prevent the ability to strike from horseback); to the cavalry that dominated the battlefield throughout the age of the European knights (since the introduction of stirrups made it possible to deliver a powerful blow from horseback without danger of falling off) and continued to play a key (but ever-decreasing) role up to the beginning of the twentieth century; to modern mechanized infantry; tanks; and (the ultimate form of mobility) aircraft. Simultaneously, a similar evolution of evermore-effective forms of mobility took place with ships at sea until the introduction of aircraft (originally based on ships (aircraft carriers), but increasingly ground-based, long-range aircraft) came to dominate this realm. The need for distance

Similarly, human limited reach created a need for a range advantage in an effort to attack more people than just those in immediate reach (i.e., to increase the zone of influence) and to do so without placing oneself in danger. This need resulted in increasingly more efficient means to kill at a distance, moving from the spear, to the long spear of the Greek phalanx, to the throwing spears of the Roman legionary, to the bow, the crossbow, the English longbow, firearms, artillery, missiles, and aircraft. The need for protection

Physical vulnerability resulted in a continuous need for armor that would help to limit an enemy’s ability to inflict

Psychological Enabling Factors These physical needs for force, mobility, distance, and protection interact with each other in the evolution of weapons, but man’s psychological limitations are even more influential in this process. Lord Moran, the great military physician of World Wars I and II, called Napoleon the ‘‘greatest psychologist,’’ and Napoleon said that, ‘‘In war the moral is to the physical as three is to one.’’ Meaning that psychological advantage, or leverage, is three times more important than physical advantage, and modern studies support Napoleon’s contention. The resistance to killing

At the heart of psychological processes on the battlefield is the resistance to killing one’s own species, a resistance that exists in every healthy member of every species. To truly understand the nature of this resistance to killing we must first recognize that most participants in close combat are literally ‘frightened out of their wits’. Once the arrows or bullets start flying, combatants stop thinking with the forebrain (which is the part of the brain that makes us human) and thought processes localize in the midbrain, or mammalian brain, which is the primitive part of the brain that is generally indistinguishable from that of an animal. In conflict situations this primitive midbrain processing can be observed in the general, widespread existence of a powerful resistance to killing one’s own kind and in particular the fellow adult males of one’s own species. During territorial and mating battles, animals with antlers and horns slam together in a relatively harmless headto-head fashion, rattlesnakes wrestle each other, and piranha fight their own kind with flicks of the tail, but against any other species these creatures unleash their horns, fangs, and teeth without restraint. This is an essential survival mechanism that prevents a species from destroying itself during territorial and mating rituals. One major modern revelation in the field of military psychology is the observation that this resistance to killing one’s own species is also a key factor in human combat.

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Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall first observed this during his work as the Chief Historian of the European Theater of Operations in World War II. Based on his innovative new technique of postcombat interviews, Marshall concluded in his landmark book Men against Fire that only 15–20% of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their weapons at an exposed enemy soldier. Marshall’s findings have been somewhat controversial, but every available, parallel, scholarly study validates his basic findings. Ardant du Picq’s surveys of French officers in the 1860s and his observations on ancient battles, Keegan and Holmes’ numerous accounts of ineffectual firing throughout history, Paddy Griffith’s data on the extraordinarily low killing rate among Napoleonic and American Civil War regiments, Stouffer’s extensive World War II and postwar research, Richard Holmes’ assessment of Argentine firing rates in the Falklands War, the British Army’s laser re-enactments of historical battles, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s studies of nonfiring rates among law enforcement officers in the 1950s and 1960s, and countless other individual and anecdotal observations all confirm Marshall’s fundamental conclusion that man is not, by nature, a close-range interpersonal killer. The existence of this resistance can be observed in its marked absence in sociopaths who, by definition, feel no empathy or remorse for their fellow human beings. Pit bull dogs have been selectively bred for sociopathy, bred for the absence of the resistance to killing one’s own kind in order to ensure that they will perform the unnatural act of killing another dog in battle. Breeding to overcome this limitation in humans is impractical, but humans are very adept at finding ‘mechanical’ means to overcome natural limitations. Humans were born without the ability to fly, so we found mechanisms to overcome this limitation and enable flight. Humans also were born without the ability to kill our fellow humans, and so, throughout history, we have devoted great effort to finding a way to overcome this resistance. From a weapons evolution perspective, the history of warfare can be viewed as a series of successively more effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms to enable or force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing. Posturing as a psychological weapon

The resistance to killing can be overcome, or at least bypassed, by a variety of techniques. One technique is to cause the enemy to run (often by getting in their flank or rear, which almost always causes a rout), and it is in the subsequent pursuit of a broken or defeated enemy that the vast majority of the killing happens. It is widely known that most killing happens ‘after the battle’, in the pursuit phase (Clausewitz and Ardant du Picq both commented on this), and this is apparently due to two factors. First, the pursuer doesn’t have to look in

his victim’s eyes, and it appears to be much easier to deny an opponent’s humanity if you can stab or shoot them in the back and don’t have to look into their eyes when you kill them. Second (and probably much more important), in the midbrain, during a pursuit, the opponent has changed from a fellow male engaged in a primitive, simplistic, ritualistic, head-to-head, territorial, or mating battle to prey who must to be pursued, pulled down, and killed. Anyone who has ever worked with dogs understands this process: you are generally safe if you face a dog down, and you should always back away from a dog (or almost any animal) in a threatening situation because if you turn around and run you are in great danger of being viciously attacked. The same is true of soldiers in combat. Thus, one key to the battle is simply to get the enemy to run. The battlefield is truly psychological in nature, and in this realm the individual who puffs himself up the biggest, or makes the loudest noise, is most likely to win. The actual battle is, from one perspective, a process of ‘posturing’ until one side or another turns and runs, and then the real killing begins. Thus posturing is critical to warfare and victory can be achieved through superior posturing. Bagpipes, bugles, drums, shiny armor, tall hats, chariots, elephants, and cavalry have all been factors in successful posturing (convincing oneself of ones’ prowess while daunting one’s enemy), but, ultimately, gunpowder proved to be the ultimate posturing tool. For example, the longbow was significantly more accurate and had a far greater rate of fire and a much greater accurate range than the muzzle-loading muskets used up to the early part of the American Civil War. Furthermore, the longbow did not need the industrial base (iron and gunpowder) required by muskets, and the training of a longbowman was not really all that difficult. Thus, mechanically speaking there are few reasons why there should not have been regiments of longbowmen at Waterloo and the 1st Bull Run cutting vast swaths through the enemy. (Similarly there were highly efficient, air-pressure-powered weapons available as early as the Napoleonic era (similar to modern paintball guns), which had a far higher firing rate than the muskets of that era, but were never used.) However, it must be constantly remembered that, to paraphrase Napoleon, in war, psychological factors are three times more important than mechanical factors. The reality is that, on the battlefield, if you are going ‘doink, doink’, no matter how effectively, and the enemy is going ‘BANG!, BANG!’, no matter how ineffectively, ultimately the ‘doinkers’ lose. This phenomenon helps explain the effectiveness of high-noise-producing weapons ranging from Gustavus Adolphus’ small, mobile cannons assigned to infantry units to the US Army’s M-60 machine gun in Vietnam, which fired large, very loud, 7.62-mm

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ammunition at a slow rate of fire versus the M-16’s smaller (and comparatively much-less noisy) 5.56-mm ammunition firing at a rapid rate of fire. (Note that both the machine gun and the cannon are also crewserved weapons, which is a key factor to be addressed shortly.) Mobility as a psychological weapon

Once it is understood that most of the killing (and thereby the ‘true’ destruction and defeat of an enemy) happens in the pursuit, then the true utility of weapons that provide a mobility advantage becomes clear. First, a mobility advantage often permits a force to get in the enemy’s flank or rear. Combatants seem to have an intuitive understanding of their vulnerability (both psychological and physical) from an opponent in their rear, and this almost always results in a mass panic and rout. Second, it is during the pursuit of a defeated enemy that a mobility advantage is needed if a pursuing force is to kill the enemy. An opponent who has cast aside his weapons and armor can generally outrun an armed pursuer, but a man on foot cannot outrun chariots or cavalry, and it is here, in stabbing and shooting men in the back, that chariots and cavalry had their greatest utility. Distance as a psychological weapon

Another key factor in overcoming the resistance to killing is distance, which has been partially addressed earlier. The utility of weapons that kill from a distance cannot be truly understood without understanding the psychological enabling aspect of distance, which, simply stated, means that the further away you are the easier it is to kill. Thus, dropping bombs from 20 000 ft or firing artillery from 2 mi away is, psychologically speaking, not at all difficult (and there is no indication of any noncompliance in these situations), but firing a rifle from 20 ft is very difficult (with high

High

incidence of nonfirers) and from a few feet away it is virtually impossible to stab an opponent. John Keegan’s landmark book The Face of Battle makes a comparative study of Agincourt (1415), Waterloo (1815), and the Somme (1916). In his analysis of these three battles spanning over 500 years, Keegan repeatedly notes the amazing absence of bayonet wounds incurred during the massed bayonet attacks at Waterloo and the Somme. At Waterloo Keegan notes that ‘‘There were numbers of sword and lance wounds to be treated and some bayonet wounds, though these had usually been inflicted after the man had already been disabled, there being no evidence of the armies having crossed bayonets at Waterloo.’’ By World War I edged-weapon combat had almost disappeared, and Keegan notes that in the Battle of the Somme, ‘‘edged-weapon wounds were a fraction of one per cent of all wounds inflicted in the First World War.’’ Indeed, all evidence indicates that ancient battles were not much more than great shoving matches, until one side or the other fled. This can be observed in the battle record of Alexander the Great, who (according to Ardant du Picq’s studies of ancient records) lost a ‘total’ of approximately 700 men ‘‘to the sword’’ in all his battles put together, and this is simply because Alexander the Great always won, and the actual killing happened only to the losers ‘after’ the battle (Figure 1). The only thing greater than the resistance to killing at close range is the resistance to ‘being’ killed at close range. Close-range interpersonal aggression is the universal human phobia, which is why the initiation of midbrain processing is so powerful and intense in these situations. Thus, one limitation to killing at long range is that greater distance results in a reduced psychological effect on the enemy. This manifests itself in the constant thwarting of each new generation of air power advocates and other adherents of sterile, long-range, high-tech warfare and a constant need for close combat troops to defeat an enemy.

Hand-to-hand combat range

Resistance to killing

Knife range Bayonet range Close range (pistol/rifle) Handgrenade range Midrange (rifle) Long range (sniper, antiarmor missles, etc.) Max-range (bomber, artillery)

Low Close

Far Distance from target

Figure 1 Distance vs. resistance. From Grossman (1993).

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Leaders as a psychological weapon

Milgram’s famous obedience research demonstrated the tremendous influence that can be wielded by an unknown individual in a white lab coat in a laboratory situation, but on the battlefield the influence of a respected leader, with the trappings of true power, wielding authority over life and death, can far transcend Milgram’s results. Marshall is one of many who have noted that soldiers will invariably fire if an officer stands over them and demands that they do so, but this firing will generally decrease as soon as the officer leaves. The modern concept of a combat leader usually calls up visions of a hardened veteran moving behind a battle line of his men, exhorting, encouraging, punishing, rebuking, correcting, and rewarding them. However, combat leadership has not always been like this. Armies have always had leaders, but the Romans were the first to take proven warriors and systematically develop them into professional leaders, starting at the lowest levels. Prior to this time leaders were usually expected to get into the battle and lead from the front, but the Romans were the first to place leaders ‘behind’ their men in an open order of battle. The influence of this kind of leadership was one of the key factors in the success of the Roman way of war, and this process of having a respected, proven, small-unit leader, who moves behind his men and demands effective killing activity from them (but does not himself necessarily have to kill) continued to be a key factor in effective combat in the centuries that followed. This kind of leadership initially disappeared with the Roman Empire, but it appeared again sporadically in the firing lines of English longbowmen and then as a systematically applied factor in the firing lines of the successful armies of the gunpowder era and continued into the present. Groups as a psychological weapon

Konrad Lorenz observed that ‘‘man is not a killer, but the group is.’’ This fundamental observation of human nature has great utility in helping to understand the effectiveness of what are generally referred to as ‘crewserved’ weapons. These are weapons that require more than one individual to use, which provides a form of mutual accountability and a diffusion of responsibility, which is very effective in enabling killing. Marshall noted in World War II that the firing rates of individual soldiers was very low, but crew-served weapons (primarily machine guns) almost always fired. Such weapons have generally done the majority of the killing throughout the history of warfare, beginning with the chariot, which was the earliest crew-served weapon. The chariot often employed a driver and a ‘passenger’ who generally fired a bow (which added the factor of distance in the killing-enabling equation) and was most effective in the pursuit, when their mobility advantage gave them the ability to shoot large numbers of fleeing enemy in the back.

The powerful group dynamics of the chariot (along with its mobility) were to show up again, over 2 millennia later, in the tanks of the twentieth century. The Greek phalanx was a mass of spearmen in tight ranks, carrying spears approximately 4 m long and protecting themselves with overlapping shields, highly trained to move in a formation organized in depth (i.e., moving and fighting ‘in column’ as opposed to ‘in line’) and trained to strike the enemy as a coherent mass. As such it was a form of crew-served weapon in which newer members were placed in the front and were thereby under direct observation and accountability by the veteran warriors behind them. The phalanx was of such utility that it has shown up repeatedly throughout history and around the world. The first systematic military use of gunpowder was in cannons, and these crew-served weapons immediately began to dominate the battlefield. Unlike the early muskets, cannons were effective killers from the beginning. Not only did they provide the best form of posturing (i.e., noisemaking) ever to be seen on the battlefield, but they were also a highly effective crew-served weapon (being generally manned by numerous individuals and directly commanded by an officer or a sergeant with sole responsibility for that gun and its crew) whose crew members almost never showed any hesitation or mercy in killing the enemy. At close range the cannon fired ‘grape shot’ into tightly packed enemy formations, thus becoming, in effect, a great shotgun capable of killing hundreds of men with a single shot. Napoleon, the ‘greatest psychologist’, demonstrated his understanding of the true killing utility of the cannon (and the comparative ineffectiveness of infantry) by ensuring that his armies always had a higher percentage of cannons than his enemies and by massing those cannons at key points in the battle. In the twentieth century the cannon became an ‘indirectfire’ system (i.e., firing over the heads of friendly combatants from a great distance away), and the machine gun (with its ‘gunner’ and ‘assistant gunner’ or ‘loader’) came to replace the cannon in the crew-served, ‘direct-fire’ role on the battlefield. In World War I the machine gun was called the ‘distilled essence of the infantry’, but it was really just a continuation of the cannon in its old, crew-served, masskilling role. The crew-served machine gun is still the key killer on the close-range battlefield, but the evolution of groupenabling processes can continue to be seen in tanks and armored personnel carriers. At sea the dynamics of the crew-served weapon have been in play since the beginning of the gunpowder era – that is, crew-served weapons, distance, and the influence of leaders. Conditioning as a psychological weapon

By 1946 the US Army had completely accepted Marshall’s World War II findings of a 15–20% firing rate

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among American riflemen, and the Human Resources Research Office of the US Army subsequently pioneered a revolution in combat training that replaced the old method of firing at bulls-eye targets with that of deeply ingrained ‘conditioning’ using realistic, humanshaped pop-up targets that fall when hit. Psychologists know that this kind of powerful ‘operant conditioning’ is the only technique that reliably influences the primitive, midbrain processing of a frightened human being, just as fire drills condition terrified school children to respond properly during a fire, and repetitious, ‘stimulus–response’ conditioning in flight simulators enables frightened pilots to respond reflexively to emergency situations. Throughout history the ingredients of posturing, mobility, distance, leaders, and groups have been manipulated to enable and force combatants to kill, but the introduction of conditioning in modern training was a true revolution. The application and perfection of these basic conditioning techniques appear to have increased the rate of fire from near 20% in World War II to approximately 55% in Korea and around 95% in Vietnam. Similar high rates of fire resulting from modern conditioning techniques can be seen in FBI data on law enforcement firing rates since the nationwide introduction of modern conditioning techniques in the late 1960s. One of the most dramatic examples of the value and power of this modern, psychological revolution in training can be seen in Richard Holmes’ observations of the 1982 Falklands War. The superbly trained (i.e., ‘conditioned’) British forces were without air or artillery superiority and consistently outnumbered three-to-one while attacking the poorly trained but well-equipped and carefully dug-in Argentine defenders. Superior British firing rates (which Holmes estimates to be well over 90%), resulting from modern training techniques, have been credited as a key factor in the series of British victories in that brief but bloody war. Any future army that attempts to go into battle without similar psychological preparation is likely to meet a fate similar to that of the Argentines.

A Brief Survey of Weapons Evolution Having established an understanding of the physical factors required for effective weapons (force, mobility, distance, and protection) and the psychological enabling factors required to effectively employ these weapons (posturing, mobility, distance, leaders, groups, and conditioning), an overall survey of weapons evolution becomes possible. Although parallel evolutionary, weaponry processes have occurred around the world, the process is most easily observed in the West, and it is in Western civilization that the evolutionary development

of weaponry achieved a degree of ascendancy that permitted Western domination of the globe starting as early as the sixteenth century and culminating in total Western domination in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Combat throughout ancient history generally involved more and more effective applications of force, moving from rock, to sharp rock, to sharp rock on a stick, to swords and spears using the latest metal technology. This aspect of close-range, hand-to-hand combat remained the same until the late nineteenth century when reliable, repeating gunpowder weapons replaced swords and bayonets as the weapon of choice to kill repeatedly at close range. Some aspects of distance weapons have been present, in the form of archers and slingers, since ancient Egypt, but until the introduction of the longbow the available armor (generally just a shield) was sufficient to stop these weapons from becoming decisive. The Chariot The chariot was introduced to ancient Egypt early in the second millennium BC, and subsequently it was to become the first major, evolutionary weapons innovation. As a system it was made possible by the domestication of the horse, the invention of the wheel, and the invention of the bow and arrow – particularly the compound bow. The chariot was a two-wheeled platform pulled by horses (usually two) generally carrying a driver and a passenger. It was of limited value for commerce due to its small cargo capacity and was primarily an instrument of war. Its mobility gave it a high degree of utility in attacking vulnerable flanks or in the pursuit of a defeated enemy, and the passenger was usually an archer who would fire from the platform while on the move or during brief halts. The ascendancy of the chariot for well over a millennium has been called ‘inexplicable’ by some historians, but an understanding of the chariot’s powerful psychological contribution makes its role clear. The chariot undoubtedly had many limitations: the horses were very vulnerable to archers and slingers and if just one horse was disabled the whole chariot was out of action, and the absence of a horse collar meant that the mounting system choked the horse, thus making the chariot’s effective range a fraction of that of the cavalry, which would later replace the chariot in its mobility role. And yet, in spite of these limitations, the mobility advantage of the chariot (useful primarily in the pursuit, when most of the killing occurred) combined with some group processes (driver plus archer) and some distance processes (archer firing from a mobile platform) made the chariot the dominant weapon of an era ranging from the Egyptian to the Persian Empires. Ultimately it would be defeated by the phalanx and replaced by cavalry.

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The Phalanx One limitation of the chariot (and later of cavalry) is that horses consistently refuse to hurl themselves into a hedge of sharp, projecting objects such as a phalanx, with its deep ranks of tightly packed men carrying 4-m spears and protecting themselves with overlapping shields. The Greek phalanx required a high degree of training and organization, but starting around the fourth century BC, the Greek city-states were able to use it to negate the impact of the chariot in battle. The tightly packed ranks of the phalanx created a group process that apparently permitted it to act as a vast, crew-served weapon. This factor, along with some distance (through the long spears) and the simplicity and economic viability of the phalanx, made it the dominant weapon system of its era. These aspects of the phalanx ‘combined’ with the later Greek mastery of horseback riding (albeit absent stirrups) in order to approach an enemy from vulnerable flanks and to exploit pursuits permitted the Greeks to conquer a vast portion of the world. The Greeks were defeated by the Romans, but the inherent simplicity of the phalanx combined with its psychological fundamentals were so powerful that after the fall of the Roman Empire the phalanx again became ascendant, with the Swiss achieving the epitome of perfection of the phalanx in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The armies of the early gunpowder era continued to use phalanx formations of pikemen combined with formations of primitive, early muskets. The pikemen were replaced with the advent of the bayonet, which made every man a potential pikeman, and a remnant of the psychological dynamics of the phalanx could be seen in the great, column-based bayonet charges of Napoleon’s armies. The Roman System It must be remembered that the Roman Empire lasted for approximately half a millennium (and longer if we count the Eastern Roman Empire) and that to say ‘the Romans did this’ or ‘the Romans did that’ would generally be inaccurate when referring to a military system that evolved and changed constantly across the centuries. However, certain things did stay somewhat constant over the centuries in the Roman legions, and it was these constant factors that can be generally attributed to the extraordinary military success of the Roman Empire, starting in the second and first centuries BC and continuing for around 500 years. The Greek phalanx required a high degree of training to be effective, but an efficient phalanx could still be achieved, for example, as the product of a local militia who trained in their free time. However, the Roman system was a highly complex professional army that

devoted itself full time to the development of its skills and to the development of a leadership structure with systematic professional advancement based on merit, taking soldiers from the ranks and placing them in charge of larger and larger groups of men as they demonstrated competence at each level. The Roman open order of battle permitted their small-unit leaders to move behind the battle line, holding their men accountable and rewarding skill and valor with advancement and reward. Today most professional armies are designed around a professional small-unit leadership drawn from the ranks with advancement based on merit, and small-unit leaders who have proven themselves in combat (except in emergencies) are expected to stay behind their men in order to directly influence their actions in battle, but it must be remembered that the Romans were the first to truly, systematically introduce these factors to the battlefield on a large scale over a long period of time. Another key aspect of the Roman way of war was the fact that each of their soldiers carried a variety of throwing spears (the number and type varied over the years) with which they were highly proficient. An approaching enemy was greeted with a series of volleys from these spears, which served to break up an enemy’s ranks and often to strip them of their shields. These ingeniously designed distance weapons often included light javelins, which were thrown at a long range, followed by a standard heavy spear (or pilum), which was thrown at a medium range, followed by a lead-weighted pilum, which was hurled, with enormous force, as one final volley before closing with swords. After shattering an approaching enemy force from a distance with a series of spear volleys, the Romans closed with short swords designed and intended for stabbing. These swords were often qualitatively no different from those of their opponents, but the Romans were systematically trained to use their swords to stab and thrust in a highly effective way that was largely unprecedented prior to this. Like the post-World War II training that was to be developed two millennia later to condition men to fire in combat, Roman training used constant, repetitive training, to the point where it could be accurately described as conditioning, in order to insure that their soldiers would thrust in combat rather than use the more natural hacking and slashing blows. This was a technique that was to be used in later centuries to train some elite warriors in fencing and swordsmanship, but never before, nor probably since, has an entire army been trained to this degree of perfection. This combination of projectile weapons, intense training, and the presence of effective small-unit leaders who moved behind their men and demanded effective killing activities was a devastating force that smashed approaching enemy formations, including the phalanx. The final ingredient in a Roman battlefield victory was the

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organization of their forces into small units with reserves; with dispassionate, highly trained, small-unit leaders operating behind their men; ready to maneuver their unit to exploit any exposed enemy flanks or penetrate deep into the enemy rear. Once the enemy was defeated, the final blow (and most of the killing) was executed by cavalry auxiliaries (which, still without stirrups, were little different from the cavalry of the Greeks), who would pursue and kill a broken, fleeing enemy. The result of this complex process was the Pax Romana: hundreds of years of relative stability and peace in the Western world. However, it was a fragile strength, created through complexity and economic abundance, difficult to sustain in the best of times, and impossible to replicate (at least in Western Europe) for almost a millennium after the Roman Empire collapsed. The Mounted Knight With the fall of Rome the complex Roman way of war collapsed, to be replaced by simpler systems, such as the phalanx, and one new system, which was the mounted knight. The introduction of the stirrup (coming to Europe from China and India around the tenth century AD) made it possible for a man on horseback to strike an opponent with remarkable force without danger of being unseated. Furthermore, horse breeding had developed increasingly larger and more powerful mounts who could carry sufficient weight of armor to make both horse and man virtually invulnerable. A devastating blow could be delivered by a spear, or lance, which could be ‘couched’ or semiattached to the knight. Charging at full speed, the spear point would strike an opponent with the combined momentum and weight of horse, man, and armor approaching at full gallop. After the initial blow with the lance the knight could continue to plow into an enemy formation, delivering blows from above with heavy weapons (sword, mace, flail, or morning star) assisted by the force of gravity and downward momentum. A formation of such knights, striking together, was an extraordinarily frightening and almost overwhelming force, combining high degrees of posturing, force, and mobility, which could only be stopped by a hedge of spears and the horse’s complete and consistent unwillingness to impale itself. Thus, the answer to the knight was a phalanx, but the horse’s mobility made it possible to maneuver around a phalanx, or any enemy formation, in order to attack from a vulnerable direction and to pursue the enemy after they have been broken. This created the need for spear- or bayonet-equipped ground troops to form a ‘square’ that faced outward in all directions while keeping other units inside the protection of the square. This was an effective defensive maneuver as long as the infantry kept their nerve (if only a few men broke and ran the knights could move into that gap and break the entire formation),

but until the introduction of the longbow and (later) gunpowder the forces inside the the square were completely neutralized and could often be held at bay by a small force of knights. The longbow (and, later, gunpowder weapons) spelled the doom of the mounted knight and, ultimately, of all individual armor until the twentieth century. Cavalry would continue to exist on the battlefield for centuries, but their economic cost and their increasing vulnerability to small arms fire meant that by the late nineteenth century the utility of cavalry had reverted to that of the Greek and Roman era: useful for reconnaissance, to move riflemen rapidly to key a location where they would dismount and fight, and for mobility in the pursuit. During the twentieth century mechanization (trucks, tanks, etc.) would almost completely supersede the horse’s mobility contribution to the battlefield. The Age of Projectile Weapons Humans had always thrown rocks or fired arrows, but usually these could be neutralized by armor. With the advent of the longbow (c. 1400), for the first time the average combatant could single-handedly fire a weapon, from a distance, that would penetrate even the best of available, man-portable armor. This was a revolution that introduced a combination of distance and force that would continue in its basic format up until the present. The longbow began the process of rendering the knight extinct, but the advent of gunpowder introduced powerful posturing processes into the equation that quickly (in evolutionary terms) led to the extinction of both the knight and the longbow. Once individual gunpowder weapons were introduced and widely distributed (c. 1600), the evolution of closerange, interpersonal weaponry subsequently moved along a single, simple path of perfecting this weapon. The early, crude, primitive, smoothbore, muzzle-loading, gunpowder weapons were pathetically ineffective. They were almost impossible to aim, very slow to fire, and useless in any kind of damp conditions. And yet their posturing (i.e., their noise) combined with their absolutely overwhelming force (when they could hit something) was so great that they soon came to dominate the battlefield. Gunpowder was invented in China, but China was under a comparatively centralized government that appears to have seen gunpowder weapons as a threat to the established order and made a conscious decision not to develop this weapon. (Over a millennium later the Japanese would do something similar.) A powerful argument can be made that this single decision in weapons development resulted in the eventual subjugation of the East and the inevitable domination and colonization of the world by Western Europe. In Europe there were constant wars and turmoil and a complete absence of

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centralized authority, which created an environment that pursued a continuous development and refinement of gunpowder weapons. This process led to weapons that could be fired in wet weather (percussion caps), fired accurately (rifled barrels), loaded from a prone position (breech loaders), fired repeatedly without loading (repeaters), and fired repeatedly with no other action than pulling the trigger (automatics). Almost all of this development of gunpowder weapons occurred in the nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century this developmental process had reached its culmination. One common myth in this area involves the increasing ‘deadliness’ of modern small arms, which is largely without foundation. For example, the highvelocity, small-caliber (5.56-mm/.223-caliber) ammunition used in most assault rifles today (e.g., the M-16 and the AK-74) was designed to wound rather than kill. The theory is that wounding an enemy soldier eliminates three people: the wounded man and two others to evacuate him. These weapons do inflict great (wounding) trauma, but they are illegal for hunting deer in much of the United States due to their ineffectiveness at quickly and effectively killing game. Similarly, since World War I and until recently the US military’s weapon of choice in pistols was a .45 automatic (approximately 12 mm). In recent years the military weapon of choice has become the 9 mm, which has a smaller, faster round that many experts argue is considerably less effective at killing. What these new, smaller ammunitions (5.56 mm for rifle and 9 mm for pistol) ‘do’ make possible is greater magazine capacity, and this has increased the effectiveness of weapons in one way, while decreasing it in another. The point is that there has ‘not’ been any significant increase in the effectiveness of the weapons available today. The shotgun is still the single most effective weapon for killing at close range and it has been available and basically unchanged for over 100 years. Long-range killing technology (missiles, aircraft, and armored vehicles) have all evolved at quantum rates, but the basic technology of close-range killing through transferring kinetic energy has apparently achieved an evolutionary dead end in this century. Enabling the Mind to Kill Thus the basic, close-range killing weapon has not changed fundamentally in nearly a century, but there ‘has’ been a new, evolutionary leap in the conditioning of the ‘mind’ that has to use that weapon to kill at close range. The development of a psychological conditioning process to enable an individual to overcome the average, healthy, deep-rooted aversion to close-range killing of one’s own species is a true revolution. By changing from bulls-eye targets to pop-up, human-shaped targets that

fall when hit, modern armies and police forces have learned to operantly condition their combatants to respond reflexively even when literally frightened out of their wits. This process has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to raise the firing rate among individual riflemen from a baseline of around 20% in World War II to over 90% today. This is a revolution on the battlefield, and it is a revolution that has also had an absolutely unprecedented influence on civilian violence and domestic violent crimes.

The Role of Weapons Evolution in Domestic Violent Crime Weapons play the same role in domestic violent crime as in war. The resistance to killing also exists in peacetime, and weapons provide psychological and mechanical leverage to enable killing in peace, as well as in war. Weapons Lethality Weapons lethality (in peace ‘and’ war) is a factor of the effectiveness of the weapons used to kill and of the ability of available medical technology to save lives. Thus, weapons lethality can be thought of as a contest between weapons effectiveness (the state of technology trying to kill you) and medical effectiveness (the state of technology trying to save you). Like weapons lethality, the difference between murder (killing someone) and aggravated assault (trying to kill someone) is also largely a factor of the effectiveness of available weapons versus the effectiveness of available medical life-saving technology. Advances in Weapons Effectiveness Throughout most of human history the effectiveness of weapons available for domestic violence was basically stable, relative constant. The relative effectiveness of swords, axes, and blunt objects has been basically unchanged, and killing (as an act of passion vs. a premeditated act like poisoning or leaving a bomb) was only possible at close range by stabbing, hacking, and beating. Bows were kept unstrung, not in a state of readiness for an act of passion. It required premeditation plus training plus strength to kill with a bow. Early, muzzle-loading, gunpowder weapons were also often not kept in a state of readiness. It required time, training, and premeditation to load and shoot such a weapon. Once loaded, the humidity in the air could seep into the gunpowder, and the load could become unreliable. Only in the late nineteenth century, with widespread introduction of breech-loading, brass cartridges, was a true ‘act of passion’ possible with state-of-the-art weapons technology. Powerful weapons could now be kept in state of readiness (i.e., loaded), and

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Table 1 Landmarks in the evolution of weapons effectiveness

Table 2 Landmarks in the evolution of medical lifesaving

c. 1700 BC

c. 1690

c. 400 BC c. 100 BC c. AD 900 c. 1350 c. 1400 c. 1600 c. 1800 c. 1850 c. 1870 c. 1915 c. 1915 c. 1915 c. 1915 c. 1915 c. 1940 c. 1945 c. 1960 c. 1960 c. 1970 c. 1980

Chariots provide key form of mobility advantage in ancient warfare Greek phalanx Roman system (pilum, swords, training, professionalism, leadership) Mounted knight (stirrup greatly enhances utility of mounted warfare) Gunpowder (cannon) in warfare (Battle of Crecy, 1346) Widespread application of longbow defeats mounted knights (Battle of Agincourt, 1415) Gunpowder (small arms) in warfare, defeats all body armor (30 Years War and English Civil War) Shrapnel (exploding artillery shells), ultimately creates renewed need for helmets (c. 1915) Percussion caps permit all-weather use of small arms Breech loading, cartridge firing rifles, and pistolsa Machine gun Gas warfare Tanks Aircraft Self-loading (automatic) rifles and pistols Strategic bombing of population centers Nuclear weapons Large-scale introduction of operant conditioning in training to enable killing in soldiers Large-scale introduction of media violence begins to enable domestic violent crimea Precision-guided munitions Kevlar provides first individual armor to defeat state-of-the-art projectiles in 300þ years

Represents developments influencing domestic violent crime. Note: Dates generally represent century or decade of first major, large-scale introduction.

a

they now required minimal strength or training to use. This achievement in weapons effectiveness has been virtually unchanged since the 1870s. Colt’s revolver or a double-barrel shotgun is basically equally effective to any small arms available today (Table 1). Thus, the effectiveness of weapons available for domestic violence has remained relatively stable throughout most of human history. It then made one huge quantum leap in the late nineteenth century and has not moved since then, with the sole exception of the psychological conditioning to enable killing. Advances in Medical Effectiveness Since 1957, in the US, the per capita aggravated assault rate (which is, essentially, the rate of ‘attempted’ murder) has gone up nearly sevenfold, while the per capita murder rate has less than doubled. Vast progress in medical technology since 1957 to include everything from mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, to the national ‘911’ emergency telephone

c. 1840 c. 1840

c. 1860 c. 1880 c. 1930 c. 1940 c. 1945 c. 1960 c. 1970 c. 1990

French army institutes first scientific, systematic approach to surgery Introduction of anesthesia overcomes surgical shock Introduction in Hungary of washing hands and instruments in chlorinated lime solution reduces mortality due to ‘childbed fever’ from 9.9 to 0.85% Introduction by Lister of carbolic acid as germicide reduces mortality rate after major operations from 45 to15% Widespread acceptance and adaptation of germicides Sulfa drugs Penicillin discovered Penicillin in general use and ever-increasing explosion of antibiotics thereafter Penicillin synthesized on a large scale Cardiopulmonary resuscitation introduced on wide scale 911 centralized emergency response systems introduced in US on wide scale

Note: Dates generally represent century or decade of major, large-scale introduction.

system, to medical technology advances is the reason for this disparity. Otherwise murder would be going up at the same rate as attempted murder (Table 2). Furthermore, it has been noted that a hypothetical wound that 9 of 10 times would have killed a soldier in World War II would have been survived 9 of 10 times by US soldiers in Vietnam. This is due to the great leaps in battlefield evacuation and medical care technology between 1940 and 1970. And we have made even greater progress since 1970. Thus, it is probably a very conservative statement to say that ‘if ’ today we had 1930s-level road networks, evacuation vehicles, communications, distribution of medical care, and medical technology (no penicillin, etc.), ‘then’ we would have 10 ‘times’ the murder rate we currently do. That is, attempts to inflict bodily harm upon one another would result in death 10 times more often. Consider, for instance, some of the quantum leaps in medical technology across the years. Just a century ago, ‘any’ puncture of the abdomen, skull, or lungs created a high probability of death. As did any significant loss of blood (no transfusions) or most large wounds (no antibiotics or antiseptics) or most wounds requiring significant surgery (no anesthetics, resulting in death from surgery shock). Also consider the increasing impact of police methodology and technology (fingerprints, communications, DNA matching, video surveillance, etc.) in apprehending killers, preventing second offenses, and deterring crime.

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Each of these technological developments, in their place and time, should have negated the effects of weapons evolution and saved the lives of victims of violence. When assessing violent crime across any length of time we could and should ask what proportion of trauma patients survive today and what proportion of those would have died if they had: 1940s-level technology (no penicillin), 1930s-level technology (no antibiotics), 1870s-level technology (no antiseptics), 1840s-level technology (no anesthetics), or 1600s-level technology (no doctors, no anatomical knowledge, etc.).

Increases in Worldwide Violent Crime Thus, instead of murder, we have to assess attempted murder, or aggravated assault, or some other consistently defined attack as an indicator of violent crime, and the increase in this indicator is staggering. Between 1957 and 1992 aggravated assault in the US, according to the FBI, went up from around 60 per 100 000 to over 440 per 100 000. Between 1977 and 1986 the ‘serious assault’ rate, as reported to Interpol: . Increased nearly fivefold in Norway and Greece, and the murder rate more than tripled in Norway and doubled in Greece.

. In Australia and New Zealand the ‘serious assault’ rate increased approximately fourfold, and the murder rate approximately doubled in both nations. . During the same period the assault rate tripled in Sweden and approximately doubled in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England–Wales, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, and the US; while all these nations (with the exception of Canada) also had an associated (but smaller) increase in murder. All of these increases in violent crime, in all of these nations, occurred during a period when medical and law enforcement technology should have been bringing murder and crime rates down. It is no accident that this has generally only been occurring in Western, industrialized nations because the same factor that caused all of these increases is the same weapons factor that caused a revolution in close combat (Table 3).

Military Conditioning as Entertainment for Children The tremendous impact of psychological ‘conditioning’ to overcome the resistance to killing has been observed in Vietnam and the Falklands, where it gave US and British units a tremendous tactical advantage in close combat,

Table 3 International violent crime rates Serious assault

Australiaa Belgium Canadab Denmark England–Walesa France Greece Hungaryc Netherlandsd New Zealanda Norway Scotlande Sweden United States

Murder

1977

1993

Increase

1977

1993

Increase

21.9 65.9 447.0 78.7 163.0 59.8 14.4 45.1 101.1 83.4 12.8 53.0 17.3 241.0

81.3 125.0 916.0 179.0 362.0 99.0 68.4 76.9 196.0 313.0 62.0 123.0 51.1 440.0

þ3.7 þ1.9 þ2.0 þ2.3 þ2.2 þ1.7 þ4.8 þ1.7 þ1.9 þ3.8 þ4.8 þ2.3 þ3.0 þ1.8

2.8 2.2 3.0 2.5 1.4 3.4 1.2 3.5 8.3 1.8 0.7 8.4 4.8 8.8

4.5 3.1 2.0 4.8 2.5 4.9 2.5 4.5 27.4 4.0 2.5 11.4 8.8 9.5

þ1.6 þ1.4 þ1.9 þ1.8 þ1.4 þ2.1 þ1.3 þ3.3 þ2.2 þ3.6 þ1.4 þ1.8 þ1.1

Data are only through the following dates when the indicated nations stopped reporting to Interpol: Australia, 1988; England–Wales, 1991; India, 1991; New Zealand, 1992. b Canada does not report crime data to Interpol; Canadian data are from Canadian Center for Justice. c Data begin in 1980, when Hungary started reporting to Interpol. d Netherlands did not begin reporting serious assault data to Interpol until 1981, but murder data begin in 1977. e Scotland’s serious assault data begin in 1977, but murder data begin in 1985 (when they apparently started reporting murder under a broader definition) and both murder and serious assault data only run through 1991 when Scotland stopped reporting to Interpol. Note: All data represent incidents per 100 000 population, as reported by each nation to Interpol and recorded in Interpol International Crime Statistics, vols. 1977–1994. (Except for Canadian data, as stated in footnote ‘b’). Different nations use different criteria to define ‘murder’ and ‘serious assault’, therefore ability to use this data to compare between nations is limited, but comparisons of increases within each nation across time are valid. This information was previously reported in a different format in On Killing, ã 1996, Dave Grossman. a

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increasing the firing rate from the World War II baseline of around 20% to over 90% in these wars. Through violent programming on television and in movies, and through interactive point-and-shoot video games, Western nations are indiscriminately introducing to their children the same weapons technology that major armies and law enforcement agencies around the world use to ‘turn off ’ the midbrain ‘safety catch’ that Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall discovered in World War II. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics research indicates that law enforcement officers and veterans (including Vietnam veterans) are statistically less likely to be incarcerated than a nonveteran of the same age. The key safeguard in this process appears to be the deeply ingrained discipline that the soldier and police officer internalize with their training. However, by saturating children with media violence as entertainment and then exposing them to interactive ‘point-and-shoot’ arcade and video games, it has become increasingly clear that society is aping military conditioning but without the vital safeguard of discipline. The observation that violence in the media is causing violence in our streets is nothing new. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the American Medical Association, and their equivalents in many other nations have all made unequivocal statements about the link between media violence and violence in our society. The APA, in their 1992 report Big world, small screen, concluded that the ‘‘scientific debate is over.’’ And in 1993 the APA’s commission on violence and youth concluded that ‘‘there is absolutely no doubt that higher levels of viewing violence on television are correlated with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior.’’ The evidence is quite simply overwhelming. Dr. Brandon Centerwall, professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, has summarized the overwhelming nature of this body of evidence. His research demonstrates that anywhere in the world that television is introduced, within 15 years the murder rate will double. (And remember, across 15 years, the murder rate will significantly underrepresent the problem because medical technology will be saving ever more lives each year.) Centerwall concludes that ‘if ’ television technology had never been introduced in the US, ‘then’ there would today be 10 000 fewer homicides each year in the United States; 70 000 fewer rapes; and 700 000 fewer injurious assaults. Overall violent crime would be half of what it is. Centerwall notes that the net effect of television has been to increase the aggressive predisposition of approximately 8% of the population, which is all that is required to double the murder rate. Statistically speaking 8% is a very small increase. Anything less than 5% is not even considered to be statistically significant. But in human terms, the impact of doubling the homicide rate is enormous.

Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome There are two filters that a human mind has to go through to kill at close range. The first filter is the forebrain. A hundred things can convince the forebrain to take gun in hand and go to a certain point: poverty, drugs, gangs, leaders, radical politics, and the social learning of violence in the media – magnified when the child is from a broken home and is searching for a role model. However, traditionally, all of these influences slam into the resistance that a frightened, angry human being confronts in the midbrain. With the exception of sociopaths (who, by definition, do not have this resistance) the vast majority of circumstances are not sufficient to overcome this midbrain safety net. However, if you are conditioned to overcome these midbrain inhibitions, then you are a walking time bomb, a pseudo-sociopath, just waiting for the random factors of social interaction and forebrain rationalization to put you at the wrong place at the wrong time. An effective analogy can be made to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in attempting to communicate the impact of this technology. AIDS does not kill people, it simply destroys the immune system and makes the victim vulnerable to death by other factors. The ‘violence immune system’ exists in the midbrain, and conditioning in the media creates an ‘acquired deficiency’ in this immune system, resulting in ‘Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome’ (AVIDS). As a result of this weakened immune system, the victim becomes more vulnerable to violence-enabling factors such as poverty, discrimination, drugs, gangs, radical politics, and the availability of guns. In weapons technology terms this indiscriminate use of combat conditioning techniques on children is the moral equivalent of giving an assault weapon to every child in every industrialized nation in the world. If, hypothetically, this ‘were’ done, the vast majority of children would almost certainly not kill anyone with their assault rifles; but if only a tiny percentage did, then the results would be tragic and unacceptable. However, it is increasingly clear that this is not a hypothetical situation. Indiscriminate civilian application of combat conditioning techniques as entertainment has increasingly been identified as a key factor in the worldwide, skyrocketing violent crime rates outlined above. Thus, the influences of weapons technology can increasingly be observed on the streets of nations around the world.

Conclusion: The Future of Weapons Evolution Wars are fought by one group of humans to force another group to submit to their will. Weapons are tools to help

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humans overcome their physical and psychological limitations in order to inflict their will upon others. Democratic nations seldom, if ever, go to war against each other, choosing instead less-destructive methods of influence. Thus, with the coming of the age of democracies, the time of wars may be coming to an end, and the passing of war may also mark the passing of some of the instruments of war. Indeed, a precedence for an end to war can be found in weapons evolution. It has become increasingly obvious that each act of violence breeds ever-greater levels of violence, and at some point the genie must be put back in the bottle. The study of killing in combat teaches us that soldiers who have had friends or relatives injured or killed in combat are much more likely to kill and commit war crimes. The world is just now recovering from the most violent and bloody century in human history, and the streets of the Western, industrialized nations are the scenes of a level of violence that is unprecedented in human history. Each individual who is injured or killed by violence provides a point of departure for further violence on the part of their friends and family. Every destructive act gnaws away at the restraint of human beings. Each act of violence eats away at the fabric of our society like a cancer, spreading and reproducing itself in ever-expanding cycles of horror and destruction. The genie of violence cannot really ever be stuffed back into the bottle. It can only be cut off here and now, and then the slow process of healing and resensitization can begin. It can be done. It has been done in the past. As Richard Heckler has observed, there is a precedent for limiting violence-enabling technology. It started with the classical Greeks, who for four centuries refused to implement the bow and arrow even after being introduced to it in a most unpleasant way by Persian archers. In Giving up the gun, Noel Perrin tells how the Japanese banned firearms after their introduction by the Portuguese in the 1500s. The Japanese quickly recognized that the military use of gunpowder threatened the very fabric of their society and culture, and they moved aggressively to defend their way of life. The feuding Japanese warlords destroyed all existing weapons and made the production or import of any new guns punishable by death. Three centuries later, when Commodore Perry forced the Japanese to open their ports, they did not even have the technology to make firearms. Similarly, the Chinese invented gunpowder but elected not to use it in warfare. However, the most encouraging examples of restraining killing technology have all occurred in this century. After the tragic experience of using poisonous gases in World War I the world has generally rejected its use ever since. The atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty continues after three decades, the ban on the deployment

of antisatellite weapons is still going strong after two decades, the US and the former USSR have been steadily reducing the quantity of nuclear weapons for the past two decades, and we have seen a Nobel Peace Prize awarded to a new movement to eliminate land mines. As we have de-escalated instruments of indiscriminate mass ‘destruction’, so too can we de-escalate instruments of indiscriminate mass ‘desensitization’ as entertainment in the media. Firearms probably will not go away any time soon, but their abuse will almost definitely be strongly influenced by technology that will make guns ‘keyed’ so that they can only be fired by a designated individual and will thereby be useless to all others. Similarly, violence in the media will not go away as long as there is a market for it, but there will probably be movement ‘away’ from indiscriminate violence enabling of children through violent video games and violence in the media and ‘toward’ protecting children from these things while still permitting their availability to adults, in much the same manner as alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs, pornography, and guns. Heckler points out that there has been ‘‘an almost unnoticed series of precedents for reducing military technology on moral grounds,’’ precedents that show the way to understanding that we do have a ‘choice’ about how we think about war, about killing, and about the value of human life in our society. In recent years we have exercised the choice to move ourselves from the brink of nuclear destruction. In the same way, our society can also take the evolutionary steps ‘away’ from the technology that psychologically enables killing in children. Education and understanding is the first step. The end result may be for weapons evolution to take a considered step backward and for our civilization to come through the dark years of the twentieth century and enter into a healthier, more self-aware society. See also: Military Culture; Psychological Effects of Combat; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior; Warfare, Trends in; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Dyer, G. (1985). War. New York: Crown. Griffith, P. (1989). Battle tactics of the civil war. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Griffith, P. (1990). Forward into battle. Novato, CA: Presidio Press. Grossman, D. (1995). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York: Little, Brown. Holmes, R. (1985). Acts of war: The behavior of men in battle. New York: The Free Press. Keegan, J. (1994). A history of warfare. New York: Knopf. Keegan, J. and Holmes, R. (1985). Soldiers. London: Hamish Hamilton. Marshal, S. L. A. (1978). Men against fire. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith. Stouffer, S. (1949). The American soldier: Combat and its aftermath. Princeton, NJ: Princeton.

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Civil Society Martin Shaw, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Meaning of Civil Society Civil Society on a Global Scale Civil Society, Violence, and War in Historical Perspective

Glossary Civil Society A sphere of association in society in distinction to the state, involving a network of institutions through which society and groups within it represent themselves in cultural, ideological, and political senses. Global Civil Society The extension of civil society from national to global, regional, and transnational forms, involving the development of globalist culture, ideology, and politics.

Civil society refers to a sphere of association in society in distinction to the state. The term has been used in a variety of ways, and this article will explore the meaning of civil society by examining the understanding of it in the modern social sciences and its relevance to the understanding of violence, peace, and conflict in major periods of modern history.

The Meaning of Civil Society The origins of the concept of civil society lie in key phases of modernity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Then writers in classical philosophy and political economy began to distinguish systematically between the spheres of state and society. In feudal society, the same social relations between superiors and inferiors had embraced both production and family life, on the one hand, and political and military authority, on the other. With the dissolution of feudal relations, these two areas of social life became more clearly demarcated in modern conditions as ‘society’ and ‘state’. The term ‘civil society’ was first used to distinguish a sphere in which social relations were based on the free association of individuals, rather than a fixed hierarchy of legal institutions. For classical writers like the philosopher Georg Hegel and the revolutionary theorist Karl Marx, civil society was an inclusive concept of ‘society minus the state’, and very definitely included what we would now call ‘the economy’. Civil society was defined, indeed, by the emergence of a distinct political economy in which individuals

Civil Society and the Cold War Civil Society in Contemporary War and Peace Further Reading

Hegemony The cultural, ideological, and political dominance, in civil society, of a social class or group or bloc of social classes and groups. Social Movements Collective actors in civil society distinguished by mass mobilization or participation as their prime source of social power, typically concerned to defend or change society or the relative position of a group within society.

related to each other as independent agents rather than as people who filled prescribed social roles. The major classical theorists had, however, different ideas about civil society and its relation to the state. Hegel saw civil society as a sphere of contradictions which could be resolved in the higher institution of the state, which embodied the highest ethical ideals of society. Marx believed, in contrast, that civil society was a sphere of conflicts between competing private interests, and that far from being reconciled in the state, these conflicts would take the form of class struggles in which the state itself would be overthrown. (In Marx’s later work, the concept of civil society is largely replaced by that of the capitalist mode of production.) Although these classical ideas of civil society are still influential, as we shall see, the concept has been refined by later writers in ways which have made it, while still a broad concept, arguably more relevant to contemporary social analysis. The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, writing in the 1930s, referred to civil society in a more specialized sense than that of ‘society minus the state’. He argued instead that ‘‘between the economic structure and the state with its legislation and coercion stands civil society.’’ Civil society for Gramsci was a set of institutions through which society organized and represented itself autonomously from the state. Although representative institutions of the economic sphere, such as employers’ associations and trade unions, were among the institutions of civil society, there were also churches, parties, professional associations, and educational and

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cultural bodies. The economic sphere itself, with its functional institutions (firms, corporations) responsible for organizing production, was not on this definition part of civil society. Gramsci built an argument about comparative political change on this concept of civil society. Whereas in the East, where civil society was weak, revolution succeeded through a direct violent assault on the state (as in Russia in 1917), in the West, where civil society was strong, this would not be possible. The institutions of civil society formed the ‘outer earthworks’ of the state, through which the ruling classes maintained their ‘hegemony’ or dominance in society. It was necessary to transform civil society, indeed to create an alternative hegemony of the subordinate classes, before it would be possible to challenge state power. Gramsci’s hegemonic theory of civil society saw transformation as a cultural, as well as political, process, and specified an important role for intellectuals. According to Gramsci, each class developed its own intellectual groupings. While some traditional groups, such as priests and lawyers, continued from previous phases of society, many new groups had been created ‘organically’ through the development of capitalism – managers, educators, social workers, etc. These groups, playing central roles in the institutions of civil society, contributed to maintaining the existing hegemony. A counter-hegemony, which Gramsci conceived of in Marxist terms as led by the working class, would require its own organic intellectuals and beliefs. For him, the Communist Party should be the collective organic intellectual of the proletariat. Gramsci’s ideas were newly influential in the 1970s, both among Western social science academics and in inspiring the ‘Eurocommunist’ strategy of the Italian and some other West European communist parties. Another strong stimulus to the development of civil society thinking came around the same time from oppositional thinkers in the communist states of East-Central Europe. In an interesting advance on Gramsci’s ideas, many oppositionists believed that because the authoritarian character of the communist regimes made a direct challenge to their legitimacy very difficult, it would be easier to develop civil society based on social movements and cultural institutions which made an indirect challenge to the values of the system. In the repressive atmosphere of the late 1970s and early 1980s, even this was difficult, although in Poland the autonomous trade union Solidarity developed as a mass national movement. In the more liberal situation of the later 1980s, however, civil society mushroomed in many communist countries. The growth of autonomous cultural and social institutions played the role of preparing the foundations for a challenge to political power, very much as Gramsci had argued. As communism collapsed and competitive party politics developed, however, key

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intellectual elites often moved from civil society to parties and the state, leading to a crisis of civil society practice and thinking. Nevertheless, the more advanced Central European countries, especially, are characterized by much more extensive civil societies based on voluntary associations than was the case under communism, although the political significance of these civil societies has changed. Implicit in these ideas of civil society was the notion of it as a sphere of peaceful civility in contrast to the coercion, authoritarianism, and violence of nondemocratic states. At the end of the twentieth century the development of civil society is coming to be seen, therefore, as a significant criterion of the development of democracy. Democracy is seen as involving not merely the formal establishment of certain rights, institutions, and procedures – important as these are – but also the consolidation of the social relations which support these. These supports include the development of an educated middle class and a framework of civil institutions which can support democracy. Just as in former communist states, so in many countries of the Third World: as democratization has advanced in the early twenty-first century, the creation of civil society is widely viewed as a concomitant of democratic change. Similarly in the West, the strength of civil society is often seen as a criterion of democratic health and stability. A central question in Western analysis, however, is the role of mass media in civil society. Traditional representative institutions of civil society, such as trade unions, parties, and churches, have decayed in many Western societies, with membership and participation rates often (although not always) in decline. Even where some of these institutions remain strong, they exercise their representative functions to a large degree through mass media, above all television. Participation in Western civil societies (and democracies) increasingly depends on the openness of communications media. Media can be seen both as constituting the framework of contemporary civil society and as powerful actors within it. The centralized mass media of the early twentieth century are partially giving way to more participatory media such as the Internet, in which civil society is renewed. There are key differences between media and other civil institutions, to do with the informational character of much media activity and the quasi-instantaneous communication between communicators and audiences. Nonmedia institutions largely take for granted the information which their members or audience possess and are more concerned with influencing the value framework within which information is evaluated. Media, on the other hand, are always heavily concerned with communicating information, and have highly divergent relationships to evaluation. Much television eschews open commitment to value-frameworks (except those concerned with information), while at the other extreme, many newspapers are

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highly committed to propagandizing particular values. On the Internet, a diversity of both, information sources and opinions, transforms these tensions. Frequency of communication between media and audiences is another key differentiator between them and other institutions. Many newspapers publish daily, and television and radio broadcast continuously, sometimes updating news and interpretation hourly or even more frequently. Computer communication is virtually instantaneous. Political and religious leaders, educators, movement activists, and other civil leaders, on the other hand, communicate with their audiences intermittently and update their analyses of specific situations episodically; they are not required in the same way to inform or comment regularly on every social development, but only on those that particularly concern their institutions. A related difference is that media news analysis claims, implicitly or explicitly, to provide a total context of information relevant to given situations (whether or not media do this is, of course, another matter). The views of political and religious leaders, educators, activists, and others are ‘parts’ while the media provide the ‘whole’ picture. In this sense media contextualize and relativize the outputs of other institutions.

Civil Society on a Global Scale A primary tension in the development of civil society has been between the universal values which civil institutions have often professed – and which many see as characteristic of civil society as such – and the national forms of civil society which supplies much of their real content. Both religious ideologies like Christianity and secular political ideologies like liberalism, socialism, and conservatism have fostered universal beliefs. Nevertheless, institutions like churches, parties, trade unions, schools, and media were characteristically highly national institutions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, civil society as a whole has been a national sphere, generally involved in mutually sustaining relationships with the nation-state. Civil institutions have generally fostered national versions of universal belief systems and values, including loyalty to the state, and have been supported in turn by states. In the second half of the twentieth century, much of the nation-state framework of civil society was transformed. During the Cold War, both state and civil society changed in the West. National forms were maintained, but they lost much real significance. There was a huge internationalization of Western military, economic, cultural, and ideological power. Western states increasingly shared frameworks for organizing their monopoly of violence and their management of economic life. They created the conditions for massive processes of economic and

cultural globalization. In this context, the old national civil society declined. The weakening of many of the forms which were most characteristic of it in midcentury – churches, mass political parties, and trade unions – was partly related to this transformation of the national context. Civil society has been partially renewed in new institutions which are less formal, less tied to particular social interests and less national. Sociologists have given most attention to ‘new’ social movements (i.e., those based not on class but around other social identities or issues). Mass-participatory social movements tend to be episodic, but there are other institutions – single-issue campaigns and voluntary organizations, especially global development and human rights agencies – which are more enduring if often less activist-based. These nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are particularly important not only in that, although based in the West, they operate across the globe, but also because many (e.g., Amnesty, Greenpeace, Me´dicins sans Frontie`res) are ‘globalist’ organizations with a specifically global orientation, membership, and activity. There are, however, other major types of institutions which comprise the emergent global, regional, and transnational civil society. These include networks and formal organizations linking national parties, churches, unions, professions, educational bodies, media, etc. The growth of mass media has also tended to transcend the nation-state context, and not simply because of trends towards transnational ownership and diffusion. Media also have different relationships to the tension between the universal values (religious, political, educational, informational, etc.) on which civil society institutions claim to be based, and their essentially national character, based on the aim of representing nationally defined social interests and viewpoints. Insofar as media fulfill their function of providing information on the widest possible (i.e., global) basis, they inevitably tend to transcend the national limitations of state and civil society, although of course many remain highly national in content. Although the worldwide expansion of civil society – in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere – has often taken highly national forms, it has rested on the globalizing forces of education and cultural diffusion. The present growth of civil society combines global and particularistic aspects, even the nation is a universal idea in the modern world. These changes in civil society – the decline of some traditional national forms, the rise of global (or globalist) social movements, NGOs, and media, and its worldwide expansion – have led many to discuss a movement from national to global civil society. Recent debates in international relations have extended the analysis of civil society to the transnational and global levels. They have often

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ascribed to it considerable normative and political importance, although they have not always dealt with the empirical problems involved in hypothesizing ‘global civil society’. Civil society and social movements have become leading concepts of critical theory, more sociologically-based approaches and especially of radical political visions in international relations. As international theorists have moved beyond realism and neorealist ideas, they have increasingly seen social movements as a third major category of international actor after states and transnational corporations. These movements have been seen as especially significant forms through which society outside the state is represented in the global and international arenas. Social movements are seen as having unique characteristics, but in reality they have many features in common with the other civil society institutions to which we have referred. It cannot be assumed that social movements are more effective than other bodies in civil society: their relatively informal, spontaneous character brings advantages but also disadvantages in both the mobilization of support and the achievement of leverage. Linkages of social movements and informal networks (e.g., of women’s, gay, and peace groups and movements) are only one kind of global development. A particular problem in the definition of global civil society is to specify its relationship with state forms. The emergence of global civil society can be seen both as a response to the globalization of state power and a source of pressure for it. There is no one, juridically defined global state to which global civil society corresponds, even if a de facto complex of global state institutions is coming into existence through the interaction of Western state power and the legitimation framework of the United Nations. The emergence of global civil society in fact corresponds to the contradictory processes of globalization of state power, and the messy aggregation of global and national state power which comprises the contemporary interstate system. The forms of global state power are often inadequate from the point of view of civil society organizations, for example, power can be mobilized to deal with developments seen as problems for Western strategic interests, but not coherently to deal with genocide, environmental crises, or world poverty. Civil society organizations often find themselves, at the end of the twentieth century, arguing for a different kind of crystallization of global state power from those favored by state elites. The development of global civil society, as of the global state, is moreover still limited. Civil society institutions are still generally defined in terms of national bases, and because of this there is a deep structural difficulty in their relationship to interstate relations, let alone transnational forms of state power. These problems are especially significant in the case of social movements.

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Whether social movements are demonstration-based or mobilize utilizing a wider range of methods, they rely more on cultural impact than on articulated connections with the political system. The cultural strength of social movements derives partly from their location outside the formal party and parliamentary structures of the state, but this can also be a weakness when it comes to seeking particular concessions from the state. The political power of social movements does not arise from occupying positions within formal political institutions (as in the case of parties) but largely depends on their cultural mobilizing power, that is, the extent to which they can achieve symbolic impact on the streets and/or in the media. In the case of demonstration-based movements, leverage is dependent on the relationships between physical mobilizations and media coverage. There are cycles of mobilization within social movements, mediating the internal momentum of the movement and the politicocultural context in which it is operating. It is very difficult for the leaders of a movement to ensure that the peak of the mobilizing cycle coincides with the greatest opportunity for influence on the state. Leverage is often a somewhat hit-and-miss affair. If social movements generally have such difficulties with the state, then clearly they are greatly magnified in relation to interstate (rather than intrastate) politics. To influence interstate relationships, social movements need to move beyond the national base which is still their most common framework. They need, implicitly, to influence all of the states involved in a particular set of interstate relations, which in turn requires equivalent movements within each state and developed transnational linkages, including ideally a common strategy. All of these requirements represent an inherent strain on the resources of social movements, which typically respond locally, regionally, and nationally to issues, expressing feelings and beliefs within these limited frameworks. The problem of international leverage expresses the general contradiction between the modes of bottom-up and top-down politics in its most extreme form, since interstate relations have traditionally been the area of politics most removed from popular or electoral influence. At the turn of the twenty-first century, however, the ‘anti-globalization’ or ‘alternative globalization’ movements achieved considerable impact through regular demonstrations at global summits, the most famous protest being at the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in 1999. Given these structural limitations of social movements within interstate politics, how should their role be understood? From the point of view of states (and hence also of statist theorists of international relations), social movements represent a relatively unpredictable (often even ‘irrational’) intrusion into the balance of power. From the standpoint of a broader conception of international politics, in which states are the organizing but not the only

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level of analysis, the effects of including social movements (and other civil society organizations) are to complicate ‘pure’ interstate relationships. In this perspective, international politics is one subcontext of the larger framework of global politics. States can be seen as parts, in Justin Rosenberg’s (1994) phrase, of the ‘empire of civil society’ within which they originated and on which they depend. In this context, rather than seeing social movements or other civil society organizations as intruders, or categorizing them residually as ‘nonstate actors’, they are recognized as normal actors within global politics. As the increasing ‘turbulence’ of global politics and the relative decline in state autonomy break down the insulation of international politics from politics in civil society, international relations theorists are finding the ‘conceptual jailbreak’ to postinternational – indeed global – concepts more and more necessary. Within recent international theory, both substantive and normative arguments have been developed concerning the significance of global civil society. It has been argued that international governance, in the twenty-first century, involves international organizations and global civil society as well as the system of states. The moral and political significance of global civil society has also been elaborated, in two principal ways. On the one hand, writers like the Marxist Rosenberg and the Hegelian Mervyn Frost have revived classically inclusive concepts of civil society and argue correspondingly (in the former case) for a broad social transformation as the context of changing international relations and (in the latter) for an ‘ethical’ approach to international order. On the other hand, however, a broader range of radical writers have argued for approaches to global politics based on a concept of civil society closer to the narrower Gramscian approach. Richard Falk, for example, argues for a ‘humane global governance’ based mainly on civil society, in the sense of civil associations and especially social movements, as opposed to the ‘inhumane global governance’ of states and multinational corporations. In his project, civil society is the core of a democratic ‘globalization from below’ to be counterposed to the dominant trend towards an authoritarian ‘globalization from above’. In this humane alternative, the development of civil society is seen as working against the militarism of the state system towards a democratic world peace.

Civil Society, Violence, and War in Historical Perspective This positive reading of the role of civil society in war and violence is only partially supported by a reading of the historical evidence, although is not to deny that the emerging global civil society of the early twenty-first century may have different relationships to war from

those of the national civil societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Perhaps because of the positive reading of civil society which characterizes most of the literature, little has been written on the role of civil society as such in the violence of the European empires and the world wars. We can, however, construct an argument from historical literature on all aspects of social life in the wars of this period. The study of ‘war and society’ has been a staple of modern historiography. Vast literatures analyze the ways in which warfare has hardly been an exclusive concern of states and armies, but has transformed and been transformed by social relations. From the mid-nineteenth century especially, warfare has been industrialized, adopting technologies from the civilian economy, as well as functioning as a motor of technological change in the economy as a whole. The relations between states and arms corporations have been a central facet of political economy since the late nineteenth century. Thus beneath the surface of the pacific commerce which mostly reigned in Europe from 1815 to 1914 (if not in the United States where the civil war foretold twentieth-century horrors), the industrial capitalist societies which developed in the nineteenth century engendered the classic modern form of militarism. Everywhere in Europe toward the end of the century, militarist ideologies flourished in social life: from the propagandist militarism of army and navy leagues to new paramilitary youth organizations and the militarist saturation of popular culture. In this climate, no institution or profession of the national civil societies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries escaped militarization, although the degree and forms varied. Industry, schooling, and religion showed the influence of military methods and values. Newspapers and advertising, and later radio and cinema, were often enthusiastically and voluntarily militarist, before they were conscripted to the cause of the nation-state. The paradigmatic social movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the social–democratic parties and trade unions, fell under the sway of militarism, putting aside the pacifist tendencies of their ideologies once war was declared. In the practice of total war, civil societies took almost wholly national forms. The internationalization of professions and science, which had a long history even before the nineteenth century, largely succumbed to the nationalism of the early twentieth. As in almost all civil institutions, national content prevailed over universal forms. Internationalization prevailed only within the framework of military alliances, and even then was often limited by nation-state interests. The most that could be claimed was that the universalizing values of civil society lent a special character to the war aims (and later Cold War aims) and the political–intellectual culture of the democracies, as

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opposed to totalitarian fascist and communist states, where autonomous civil societies ceased to exist. The historical sociologist Michael Mann has pointed out, moreover, that civil society hardly had a pacific character in colonial wars. Settler civil societies were often more militaristic (and racist) than even colonial empires. They generated their own systematic violence of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and even genocide against indigenous populations across the continents, wherever Europeans migrated, whether in North or South America, Africa, or Australasia. Settler societies were often more aggressive, even genocidal, toward pre-existing societies than were colonial states. They continued as sources of violence into the era of decolonization, playing key roles in wars to defend ‘white’ or ‘European’ power, from Algeria to South Africa. Total war, in both its major interstate and minor guerilla forms, transformed civilian populations and their institutions into factors in warfare. Civilians and civil society generally became both instruments and targets of war. However, in some cases civil society and civilian populations were seen as ‘enemies’ in their own right – undesirable groups who should be removed from society. In these cases, total war mutated into genocide, which can be defined as a form of war against civilian populations. Wars were fought against peoples and cultures (for Hitler, the war was against the Jews as well as his conventional state adversaries). Attempts were made to expel peoples, to eliminate their ways of life and histories, to abolish their civil society and institutions, and even to physically exterminate them. Thus, in the militarization of civil society by total war, some versions of civil society triumphed, others were destroyed; all changed. Guerrilla war involved a special version of the totalwar militarization of civil society. Guerrillas fought directly in and through civil society, hiding behind civil institutions just as states sought to secure them against guerrilla takeovers. Thus guerrilla war, even more than total war between conventional state military forces, was a form of warfare centerd on the shape and control of civil society. However, although guerrilla war has been seen as war fought by ‘armed civilians’ rather than professional soldiers, blurring the boundary between combatants and noncombatants, there are always tensions between armed groups and civilian populations, so that the basic idea of civilian as noncombatant tends to re-emerge, and with it the idea of civil society as distinct from armed struggle. Indeed the era of total war also saw specific forms of resistance (to occupation) based on civil society, which have been called ‘civilian resistance’ (Semelin 1993). Although often from necessity, since armed resistance was difficult, civil society developed its own forms of struggle for specifically civilian ends, to defend society rather than to overthrow the occupier. (This model has also inspired some recent resistances, e.g., in Kosovo.)

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This emphasized that members of civil society were ‘civilians’ from the point of view of armed conflict. Although civilians often supported armed struggle, they had very different relationships to it than combatants did.

Civil Society and the Cold War During the Cold War there was a major transformation of warfare. Total war in the form that had dominated the first half of the twentieth century declined. Certainly, the totally destructive, degenerate character of war was accentuated by the development of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Yet at the same time, these systems made redundant the mass mobilization and participation of the total war era, inaugurating a ‘postmilitary society’. Civil society began to develop therefore beyond its dominant national and militarized forms in international and global directions, in which a new postmilitarist character was strong. Thus during the Cold War, ‘new’ social movements developed with implicitly or explicitly transnational and global reference. Some, like women’s movements, were movements with broad social and cultural aims which had a wide-ranging influence on international politics. Others, however, like peace movements represented the opposite case: movements with very specific political goals designed to affect the workings of the interstate system and particularly to affect the dangers of war and the possibilities of peace. The genocidal character of nuclear warfare, with its total threat to society, stimulated new mass participatory movements against state strategies. Although peace organizations of various kinds have existed continuously for many decades, peace movements have tended to develop because of particular conflicts or crises. Unlike some other social movements, peace movements have tended to rise and fall quite dramatically in conjunction with particular international crises. In recent times, they have been of two main types: to halt or prevent particular wars (this type of movement is discussed ahead in relation to the 2003 Iraq war) and to oppose particular weapons developments (chiefly nuclear weapons). The latter, ‘nuclear disarmament’ movements emerged, primarily in Western Europe and North America, in two main periods (1958–63 and 1979–85) but almost disappeared in the intervening years and again at the end of the twentieth century. The author concentrates on the most recent phase of these movements, when they arose almost simultaneously in 1979–80 in a number of Western European countries, following the NATO decision to introduce new nuclear systems, especially cruise missiles, into five states (the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium). From the beginning, although antinuclear campaigns arose locally and nationally within each state, the common

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framework of the NATO decision, while varied according to the missile installation timetable and national political situation, imposed a common agenda on the new European peace movements: to prevent the deployment of the new systems. In European states not directly affected, such as France and Spain, parallel movements arose with different national agendas. In the United States, a similar movement arose around the broader demand for a ‘nuclear freeze’. These movements were successful in mobilizing largescale demonstrations and influencing public opinion. While they imposed some delays in implementation, they failed however to prevent deployment of the new missiles, which was mostly completed by 1984 (or in the American case, to secure a general freeze on new nuclear deployments). Ironically, new disarmament proposals between the superpowers, which developed from 1986 after the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR the previous year, appeared after the peace movement had gone into decline as a mass movement. In the short term, therefore, failures of nuclear disarmament movements were substantive and their successes largely symbolic. Their influence on European public opinion was significant: in all states designated for the deployment of cruise missiles, opinion poll majorities consistently opposed the deployments. They also influenced established civil society institutions like social– and liberal–democratic parties, media, and churches. The movements partially succeeded in their cultural goals: movement culture, in which pacifist, environmentalist/ green and feminist strands were strong, which had a powerful impact on many sections of society, especially the young. At a deeper level, the peace movements were less successful in shifting support for existing nuclear systems or for NATO, or in deflecting US and Western nuclear strategy. The movements stimulated a different political climate around nuclear weapons issues, forcing governments to justify and debate their policies; the bottom line, however, was that they failed in their manifest political aim of preventing missile deployments. A major reason for this is revealing: despite the movements’ influence on both public opinion and opposition parties, the parties which adopted or were more influenced by their demands were resoundingly defeated in national elections (notably the German Social– Democratic Party and British Labour Party in 1983, the American Democrats in 1984). The structural problems of social movements in the context of interstate politics largely account for the failures of the peace movements. The mutual solidarity of NATO governments helped them to withstand the separate (and variable) pressures of their national peace movements. The European peace movements faced the difficulty that the major center of NATO decisionmaking, the USA, was outside their reach. The difficulty

of stimulating a large-scale parallel peace movement in the Warsaw Pact states was a major additional factor, since it enabled NATO governments to claim that for them to halt their deployments would be ‘one-sided’ disarmament in the face of Soviet weapons modernization. Nonetheless, although the disarmament of the later 1980s arose primarily from interstate politics and the domestic politics and economics of the Soviet Union, the peace movements were an important part of the context which produced these changes. First, since peace movements stimulated strong popular support in Western Europe for detente and disarmament, they ensured Gorbachev of a positive Western European response to his disarmament proposals. Second, Ronald Reagan’s ‘zero option’ proposals for eliminating intermediate nuclear missiles, were initially produced as a propaganda measure to help counter the peace movements, but were picked up by Gorbachev and became an important element in the move towards agreement. Third, the small independent peace and human rights movements in Eastern Europe, stimulated by deliberate actions of the Western movements, helped to lay the foundations for mass opposition to the communist regimes. This led in turn to the East German and Czechoslovak revolutions of 1989 which overthrew the system and completed the ending of the Cold War. The 1980s began with one kind of social movement, the peace campaigners, on the streets of Western European capitals, and ended with another, the movement for democracy, on the streets of Eastern European capitals. These two movements, together, represented important moments in the complex processes – both within civil society and within and between states – which unravelled the Cold War system. Neither set of social movements could by itself claim direct and decisive responsibility for this change, but their actions contributed both directly and indirectly. Any account of the end of the Cold War which seeks to interpret it without reference to them is certainly lopsided. Peace movements and the wider civil society context which they helped to transform were significant factors in the processes of transformation.

Civil Society in Contemporary War and Peace Since the end of the Cold War, there have been new, dramatic transformations of global politics, the longerterm results of which are still uncertain. Economy and culture have become significantly more globalized, due particularly to the removal of the major political barriers between the former communist states and Western-led world economic and communications systems. War between Russia and the West has become as unthinkable as war between the major states of North America, Western Europe, and Japan became during the Cold War.

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Yet since the Islamist terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the USA has proclaimed a ‘global war on terror’, redefined five years later as a ‘long war’, a global conflict that could be as durable and fundamental to world politics as the Cold War. Civil society had a new centrality to what were called the ‘new wars’ of the 1990s (Kaldor 1999). With the diminution of classic interstate conflict, most major wars of this first post-Cold War decade were wars of state fragmentation in the former Soviet region, former Yugoslavia, and many regions of Africa. In these wars, the central issues were often the very composition of society and the character of civil society, as well as of the state. Two visions of civil society and its relations with the state have been in contest. On the one hand, ethnic nationalists have sought to define civil society and state in exclusivist terms. On the other, pluralists and democrats have contended for open and inclusive ideas of society and the state. Ethnic nationalism has arisen because of how political elites – in the post-Soviet and post-Yugoslav states, often old communists in new guises – have sought to maintain or carve out political power. They have exploited old ethnic differences to mobilize support and maintain legitimacy, and have utilized parts of the state and military apparatuses to create ethnically homogenous mini-states or fiefdoms. Many wars have been, like Hitler’s war against the Jews, wars against civilian populations and against civil societies and cultures. While these wars have often been directed against ‘other’ ethnic cultures, plural civil society has also been a key target of ethnic nationalism. In Bosnia, multi-ethnic Sarajevo, where intermarriage and ‘Yugoslav’ identification was relatively high, was a prime target of Serbian nationalists. Intellectuals who organized pluralist civil institutions – local officials, teachers etc. – have often been prime victims of the new genocidal politics. So-called ‘ethnic cleansing’ (since the term derives from the Serbian practitioners of violent expulsion, it is hardly adequate for social science) has targeted pluralists as well as people of other ethnicities. Although these elements of the ‘new wars’ are not really novel, the particular configuration of contemporary genocidal wars is distinctive. The trends towards global and transnational forms of civil society work in these wars in a number of different ways. On the one hand, the protagonists typically mobilize ethnic-national civil society in a trans-state and global manner. The Israeli state, for example, has long been dependent on the American Zionist lobby. More recently the Palestinians have also organized themselves with increasing effectiveness as a diaspora, not merely in the refugee camps of neighboring states but in the wealthier West too. Irish Republicanism has long depended on Irish–American support. Serbian and Croatian ethnic nationalisms were trans-state in the dual sense of being organized on a transrepublican basis

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within the former Yugoslav territory, and in drawing on the global Serb and Croat diasporas, again in North America but also in Western Europe and Australia. In these and other contemporary cases, the organization of civil society on an ethnic-national basis threatens to undermine the idea of a plural, often pan-ethnic civil society not only in the zones of conflict but also in areas of the advanced West where diaspora communities are strongly organized. The role of these civil societies in wars and even genocide shows a heightened tension between national and universal interpretations of civil values, which we noted existing in earlier periods. On the other hand, some sections of war-zone populations have defended the idea of plural, nonsectarian civil society, creating ‘islands of civility’ (Kaldor 1999). Some wars have been recognized as global political crises, so that civil society linkages have generated international support for victimized groups. Not only the protagonists of plural civil society, but the representatives of abused ethnic groups, have pressured Western states and the United Nations to provide protection against genocide and violence. Because Western states often fail to perceive traditional strategic interests in the plights of victims of war and genocide, and are reluctant to commit people and resources to helping them, the appeal of the oppressed is often directed at Western civil society, and linkages between civil society in zones of crisis and in the West are strengthened. These links can be seen as elements in the forging of global civil society. Two kinds of responses originating in Western civil societies have been crucial in generating support and protection. On the one hand, mass media have been the main agencies through which some (but by no means all) wars have become recognized as global crises, and through which political pressure for aid and intervention has developed. While the attention of mass media, especially television, to wars is undoubtedly selective, brief and episodic, and often led or circumscribed by the access for cameras and portable satellite dishes which determine picture availability, there is no doubt that it can have powerful effects. The intensive television campaign by news broadcasters during the Kurdish refugee crisis following the 1991 Gulf War, for example, helped push the American and British governments towards an unprecedented ‘humanitarian intervention’ in northern Iraq, which reversed their previous stance of nonintervention. The possibility and success of this campaign depended very much on the prior nexus of responsibility between Western leaders and Iraq, and in this sense was atypical. But elsewhere, media have still nudged governments, however unevenly, towards interventions, and once intervention has taken place, have made them aware of the responsibility that goes with it. On the other hand, humanitarian agencies, human rights campaigns, and other NGOs have been principal

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means both of mobilizing political pressure within Western societies, and of delivering aid within zones of crisis. Aid organizations mediate between donors and victims: in the zones of crisis, they are the physical representations of a substantial minority of Western public who donate and raise funds for the downtrodden in war zones; within Western societies, they are the symbolic representatives of the victims, seeking to mobilize support. Aid organizations have some of the aspects of social movements: the goal of mobilizing a large popular base, and the aim of changing social conditions (if only in an ameliorative sense). Of course, many agencies have longer-term development as well as short-term aid objectives, and some seek to organize people in a more campaigning mode to alter general perceptions of Third World problems. To this extent, these organizations operate in a social-movement mode; yet their primary relationship to their supporters is a passive financial one and so they fail the participatory or mobilizing test of a social movement. The international crises of the 1990s failed, indeed, to precipitate classic social-movement responses in Western societies. The Gulf and Kosovo Wars produced only brief intimations of antiwar movements of the kind seen over the Vietnam War. Despite the enormity of the mass killings in Bosnia, Rwanda, etc., which were extensively publicized in the mass media, these sorts of situations neither appeared as simple, nor was there a clear nexus of responsibility involving Western governments. Their challenges did not fit, moreover, into established ideological paradigms: Western governments could not be represented so easily as ‘imperialist’, nor could the demand for military intervention to protect victims of genocide be accommodated simply within the pacifist, or at least antimilitarist, traditions of most social movement activism. The Iraq War of 2003 was different. In response to the 9/11 attacks, the US attacks on the Taliban regime and al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan seemed to many like a legitimate response. But when President George W. Bush extended his ‘war on terror’ to attack the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, which had no connection with al-Qaida, on the pretext of its possessing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ despite UN inspections providing no evidence of these, this was widely seen as illegitimate. Opposed by most major states, including key Western allies like France and Germany, and widely viewed by international lawyers as lacking UN authorization (thus becoming illegal aggression), the prospect of an Iraq invasion aroused huge public opposition on a scale unseen since the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and the nuclear disarmament movements of the 1980s. Although these movements had also coordinated demonstrations across many countries, the February 15, 2003 protests took global coordination to new levels, with tens of millions on the streets of cities worldwide. The marches failed to

prevent the war, which Bush launched the following month, but contributed hugely to a worldwide perception of its illegitimacy. Even more than in previous cases, this movement failed to sustain mass street protests after the outbreak of war. Once the morally simple and overriding goal of preventing war was no longer the issue, the movement lacked clear foci in the more complex political landscape that succeeded in Iraq. Despite the debacle of the illprepared US occupation and the murderousness of the ensuing insurgency and counter-insurgency, social movement politics failed to make a strong impact on US policy. Nevertheless the legacy of the protest provided a moral background for the growing public disillusionment in the USA itself and ‘coalition’ countries like Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair was fundamentally damaged by his support for the war in the face of protests and public opinion. Although street protest movements faded, civil society organizations were able to make effective protests which affected public opinion and government policies over issues like the ill-treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay internment camp and in Abu Ghraib prison, Baghdad. In the twenty-first century, therefore, profound changes in world politics are posing new dilemmas of violence in which the nature and role of civil society is being transformed. The plural, global idea of civil society is central to the politics of peace, but the relations between this and the national framework in which civil society has historically been cast still contain many tensions. See also: Mass Media, General View; Peaceful Societies; Religious Traditions, Violence and Nonviolence; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior

Further Reading Clark, H. (2000). Civil resistance in Kosovo. London: Pluto. Cohen, J. L. and Arato, A. (1992). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Falk, R. (1995). On humane governance. Cambridge: Polity. Frost, M. (1996). Ethics in international relations: A constitutive theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gill, S. (ed.) (1993). Historical materialism and international relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaldor, M. (1999). New and old wars. Cambridge: Polity. Mann, M. (2005). The dark side of democracy: Explaining ethnic cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosenberg, J. (1994). The empire of civil society. London: Verso. Scott, A. (1990). Ideology and the new social movements. London: Unwin Hyman. Seligman, A. (1992). The idea of civil society. New York, NY: Free Press. Semelin, J. (1993). Unarmed against hitler: Civilian resistance in Europe, 1939–1943. Westport, CT: Praeger. Shaw, M. (1991). Post-military society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Shaw, M. (1996). Civil society and media in global crises. Pinter: London. Shaw, M. (2006). The concept of genocide. Cambridge: Polity.

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Military Culture James Burk, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Elements of Military Culture Technology and the Experience of War Military Education and Training Collective Memory

Glossary Ceremonies The rituals of collective action that mark (and often celebrate) certain events or passages to new rank or status within the life of the military unit. Cohesion The emotional bond of shared identity and camaraderie among soldiers within their local military unit; in sociological terms, horizontal or primary group integration. Esprit de Corps The commitment and pride soldiers take in their military establishment and its effectiveness; in sociological terms, vertical or secondary group integration. Etiquette Normative prescriptions that guide or control interpersonal behavior especially between those of different rank or military status.

The study of military culture combines institutional and cultural analysis. It does not encompass every cultural contribution (or response) to the preparation for or conduct of war, but is limited rather to the study of those particular beliefs, values, rituals, and other symbolic productions that organize and sustain military organization. It does include the reception of these by the larger society to which the military belongs. Even with these restrictions, the subject matter is vast. A complete treatment would include detailed comparisons of military cultures from ancient times to the present and include societies from around the globe. Of particular interest would be comparisons based on the different approaches to war that characterize military culture in Europe, India, and China. Historically, the so-called Western way of war has, with few exceptions, emphasized the importance and glory of war, aiming at a decisive victory over one’s enemy through battles of annihilation; it elevated the warrior to a position of high status, second only to the political leader, who was often a warrior-king and the highest-ranking member of society. The strategic culture was quite different in India, where following the Vedic age and over a long period of transition, the Brahman priestly caste established its dominance over the (still elite) Kshatriya warrior caste. Particular Brahmans

Political and Social Trends Relation of Military Culture to the Larger Society Further Reading

Military Culture A symbolic ‘toolkit’ of rituals, ceremonies, assumptions, and beliefs that grow out of and guide a military force. Military Discipline Behavior of military personnel – as individuals or in group formations, in battle or in garrison – in conformity with previously prescribed rule, usually in response to command and the result of instruction and drill. Professional Ethos Normative understandings that define the corporate identity, code of conduct, and social worth of the officer corps.

sometimes ruled by military means, but that was not typical and not the basis of their power. More generally, the Brahmans were committed to the principle of nonviolence and thought violent acts degraded the ritual purity on which their high status depended. Similarly, in China, much has been made of the rule of Confucian scholars over military warriors and of the Confucian strategic culture, which downplays the use of force. Rather than engage in all-out wars of attrition, Chinese rulers favored the use of stratagems or minimum force. As may be expected, however, such broad contrasts are sometimes more misleading than helpful. In an important recent study of China during the Ming dynasty, Alastair Iain Johnston provides clear evidence that in addition to the better-known Confucian culture there was another ‘parabellum’ culture. The parabellum culture more closely resembled Western notions of ‘strategic realism’ than the Confucian ethos and was the primary guide to Chinese military practice. Even more could be done. Archeaologists writing since the 1990s, spurred by the ethnic violence of that decade, launched new enquiries into the origins, conduct, and social commemoration of war in prehistoric as well as more recent societies. L. H. Keeley’s influential War Before Civilization (1996) debunked the ‘‘myth of the

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peaceful savage,’’ arguing that earlier anthropological and archaeological studies had artificially ‘‘pacified’’ the human past. Also critical of earlier theories, J. N. Thorpe finds fault with universal theories about the origins of war because they suppose uniformity in practice when the archaeological evidence documents an enormous variation in the onset and scale of conflict and warfare – and so presumably also in the cultures of violence in prehistoric times. Similar ideas about cross-cultural and historical variations in the meaning of warriors and warfare are evident in what Roberta Gilchrist (and others) call the ‘‘social commemoration’’ of violent conflicts. In related work, Jonathan Lear examined the problems of belief and meaning posed for a Native American tribe when its warrior culture (central to tribal life) collided with the military culture of the United States. To avoid problems of misleading generalization, it is clear that boundaries must be placed around the inquiry. This treatment of military culture will focus on the experience of Western armed forces in the modern era broadly conceived. This emphasis is due also to the ready availability of sources and may also be justified on substantive grounds by the relative predominance of Western military organization over the last four centuries. Three themes are covered in this article: (1) the elements of military culture, (2) the sources of continuity and change in military culture, and (3) the relation between military culture and the larger society.

Elements of Military Culture Modern military institutions are organized and supported by states to wage war and enforce domestic order. The precise balance between these two tasks has varied by state and historical circumstance. At any one time, armies are usually engaged in one task or the other. So the European armies that fought in the Napoleonic Wars early in the nineteenth century spent much of their time over the next 30 years suppressing internal rebellions. The army of the United States occupied by preparing for and fighting wars in the twentieth century spent the 30 years following the Civil War enforcing Reconstruction in the South, opening the frontier against the resistance of native Americans, and quelling labor disputes. Sometimes, however, armies perform both tasks simultaneously. The British army, for instance, from the 1970s until the end of the Cold War, maintained order in Northern Ireland and was deployed in Germany to help deter war with the Soviet Union. Only on rare occasions have states – such as Costa Rica and, to a lesser extent and for quite different reasons, Japan – maintained armed forces only for domestic and limited defensive purposes. Before the age of nation-states, however, one could not so clearly distinguish between these tasks. Preparing for and fighting war was the military’s

central mission and arguably its only mission. Despite the proliferation of humanitarian and peacekeeping assignments, which armed forces have taken on since the Cold War, war-fighting still determines the central beliefs, values, and complex symbolic formations that define military culture. Military culture is no more homogeneous than human culture or war itself. Like all cultures it is, to use Ann Swidler’s term, a kind of ‘‘tool kit’’ and it holds at least four distinct and commonly used tools: discipline, professional ethos, ceremonies and etiquette, and esprit de corps and cohesion. In general, however, one finds in each element an attempt to deal with (and, if possible, to overcome) the uncertainty of war, impose some pattern on war, control war’s outcome, and invest it with meaning or significance. That is not to assert a simple functional theory of culture, in which the elements of culture operate together as mechanisms to adapt armed forces to war’s turbulent environment. It is especially not to assert that these cultural elements are instrumentally rational, ‘fitting’ armed forces to the task of fighting wars. Historically, there is abundant evidence to show that they may or may not be functional or instrumentally rational for military organization and that they may or may not operate cooperatively. Although intended to facilitate the effective functioning of its forces, a political and military culture may also blind military leaders to certain facts of a situation and inhibit their strategic capabilities. Svetlana Savranskaya’s analysis of Soviet documents and memoirs from the period of Soviet invasion in Afghanistan suggests, for example, that preconceptions about tribal society and the role of Islam in Afghan culture prevented the Soviet military from making wise strategic choices. Nor is it to conceive of military culture as simply derivative from the experience of war, as if war were an external stimulus evoking military culture in response. Rather, military culture is an elaborate social construction, an exercise of creative intelligence, through which we come to imagine war in a particular way and to embrace certain rationalizations about how war should be conducted and for what purposes. While it is a response to war, one effect of military culture (perhaps its most important effect) is to influence the likelihood and form of war itself. Discipline Military discipline refers to the orderly conduct of military personnel – whether individually or in formation, in battle, or in garrison – most often as prescribed by their officers in command. A high level of discipline begins with instruction and is perfected through repetitive drill that makes the desired action a matter of habit. (This may explain why many believe that the military is an institution that requires uncritical and instant obedience to orders.

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The belief is exaggerated.) An obvious aim of rituals of discipline is to minimize the confusion and disintegrative consequences of battle by imposing order on it. Discipline provides military personnel with a repertoire of patterned actions that they may use on their own initiative or in coordination with others quickly to adapt to and (hopefully) prevail in battle. Another aim, perhaps less obvious, is to ritualize the violence of war, to set it apart from ordinary life. Following the discipline reassures soldiers, telling when and how they (and not others) are ‘authorized’ to violate the usual taboos against killing and destruction. In modern militaries, this is a formalized and deliberate practice. As David Grossman argues, a major goal of contemporary military training is to overcome a soldier’s ‘‘natural resistance’’ to killing other humans. What kind of discipline the military requires and how it is achieved varies historically. At least two patterns can be discerned. One is ancient and has to do with the relative importance of individuals versus military units in waging combat. The other is modern and has to do with changing methods for enforcing discipline. Individual versus group discipline

Historically, it is common for military organizations to be little more than a charismatic band of individual warriors, each fighting for his own reputation and honor. Occasionally, but characteristically in our time, military organization entails a high level of coordination with fighting carried out by well-drilled units in formation. War as combat among individual ‘warrior heroes’ is not without discipline or ritual, as readers of Homer’s Iliad will know. Fighting of this kind is frequently governed by complex conventions and rituals. In any case, it requires extraordinary personal discipline to overcome the fear of close combat, to endure the physical strain of battle, and to express oneself through skill in wielding weapons. Such warfare was not confined to primitive infantry. It characterized war dominated by cavalry from the ancient charioteers to the ritualized feudal warfare of European knights or the raids of Cossacks swooping across the steppes of Central Asia. Air combat among fighter pilots continues the tradition in the midst of modern war. In these cases, military discipline is a personal attainment achieved, if at all, through individual competence and exertion. In sharp contrast is warfare based on the group discipline of well-drilled infantry. Whether we look at the hoplites of ancient Greece, Swiss pikemen fighting feudal knights, the armies of Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus harnessing the power of gunpowder, or the conduct of joint force operations as prescribed by contemporary air–land battle doctrine, fighting with these forces envisions the coordinated and simultaneous movement of soldiers as a group in response to their leaders’ commands. This is only possible to do after countless hours of instruction and much practice in the arts of close-order drill. In these armies,

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individual will is subordinate to the group. The results of group discipline have often been astonishing, enabling well-disciplined troops to deliver an enormous shock when on the attack and to remain intact while bearing the brunt of enemy fire. But the results were gained at a cost. Because group discipline requires continuous drill in preparation for war, whenever it gained influence, it encouraged formation of either a military class, as in ancient Sparta and in Japan under the Samurai, or a professional standing army, as it has done in Europe since the seventeenth century. One exception to this usual occurrence is found in the mass armies industrialized countries raised in the late nineteenth century and used to wage world wars in the twentieth century. Mass armies depended on group discipline but were staffed by conscription and so reflected the heterogeneous identities and outlooks of the whole population. This posed problems of integration – some still unresolved even in professional militaries – to diminish the importance of differences based on race or ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. As Carol Burke has shown, traditional rites of passage – military haircuts on entry, uniform dress, off-color ‘Jody’ songs chanted on an infantry march, or degradation ceremonies to mark a sailor’s first crossing of the equator – were designed to suppress individuality and forge a common (stereotypically male) identity. Neither the looser discipline of individual warriors nor the stricter discipline of well-drilled infantry guaranteed victory or survival in battle. Historically, the dominance of one kind of discipline or the other depended largely on what kind of weapons were used, a matter to which we will return. For now, it is enough to observe that modern military cultures assume a high (perhaps even an increasing) level of group discipline as part of their operational strategy, and have done so, with some exceptions, since the seventeenth century. From punitive to positive social control

Discipline, of course, is a means of social control. It may be defined by customary beliefs about how to wage war, but is enforced by authority. When we confine attention to modern militaries, we observe an important shift in the methods authorities use to enforce their discipline away from harsh corporeal punishment to a more positive leadership by persuasion, manipulation, and example. It is no exaggeration to say that group discipline in the new militaries formed in the seventeenth century was enforced by the lash and continued to be so through the nineteenth century. British soldiers serving during Queen Victoria’s reign could expect to receive 150 lashes for failing to answer roll call, more for stealing a pig, more still for failing properly to perform one’s duty as a sentinel, and many more for stealing money from a comrade. Major crimes were punished by death. Yet these nineteenthcentury punishments were more moderate than those

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meted out before – King George III limited (to 1000) the maximum number of lashes that could be inflicted for a serious breach of discipline – and they became more moderate still. Flogging was abolished before the end of the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, British officers punished soldiers by confinement to barracks or, for more serious offenses, by turning the case over for adjudication by court-martial. Following World War I, the use of court-martial to impose death penalties was restricted. This moderation did not mean an end to discipline but marked a different perception of how discipline should be achieved. Morris Janowitz noted a similar trend in his classic study of the American military, The Professional Soldier (1960). In his terms, discipline based on domination declined in effectiveness as war industrialized. With industrialization, military organization became more complex and its discipline required coordination of technological specialists stretching from the front lines to the home front. For such an organization, authoritarian discipline was no longer effective. Rather, leaders had to influence behavior by emphasizing the importance of achieving group goals, to gain the benefits of discipline by building consensus. No doubt, Janowitz is right to emphasize the importance of industrialization and the growing complexity of military organization as a cause of this change in the means of enforcing discipline. Not less important, however, was the preindustrial rise of the mass armed force whose power was demonstrated by the French Revolutionary Armies led by Napoleon. Before the French Revolution, enlisted personnel were typically outcasts, misfits, or worse, who were impressed from the lower reaches of society and forced to serve. While the eighteenth-century officer corps were careful not to waste scarce military assets, they did not strongly identify with these men or regard them as people entitled to respect. The power of the mass army, harnessed to nationalist democratic social movements, changed the social composition of military forces in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As the officers of World War I learned through bloody trial and error, a mass army, representative of the population, could not be led to fight by authoritarian means; it had to be convinced of the technical competence of its leaders and of the reasonableness of the goals it was asked to achieve. Military discipline is not absolute, but must conform to the expectations of the society it represents. Professional Ethos Depending on how one defines ‘military professional’, it is anachronistic to speak of a professional military before the seventeenth century or even later. To be sure there are earlier examples of warrior castes or groups (like the Roman legions) for whom war-fighting was the chief means of employment. And one may say, at least in

terms of ideal culture, that the warrior knights of feudal Europe conceived of themselves as engaged in a calling, not very different from a religious vocation. A professional officer corps, however, entails more than this. It possesses a corporate identity based on expert knowledge of and control over the means of violence, with that knowledge and control deployed in the service of the state and rendered in accordance with a relatively explicit normative code of conduct. Not until the seventeenth century do we begin to discern development of such a corps. Its beginnings are due largely to requirements of the ‘military revolution’ in discipline and organization. The newly forming standing armies of the (then) absolutist nation-states needed a relatively large number of officers serving full-time to instruct, drill, and command soldiers in the new techniques of close formation fire, to use scientific, engineering, and tactical knowledge for inventing new guns, cannon, or other weaponry, and to manage the increasingly heavy logistical demands these new armies imposed. While still important, traditional hereditary qualifications and part-time service, central to feudal military organization, were not sufficient to accomplish these tasks. Over time, they lost importance. A key element distinguishing the emergent modern officer corps was its professional ethos. Its ethos, a set of normative understandings, defined its corporate identity, its code of conduct, and (for the officers at least) its social worth. It expressed the ideal commitments of the modern military officer. It was and still is a complex amalgam of (1) the heroic traditions of knighthood inherited from the feudal past, (2) the technological traditions associated with modern weaponry’s design and use, and (3) the managerial traditions of modern bureaucracies that emphasize skilled leadership and coordination of human effort to achieve group goals by rationally efficient means. The knightly heroic traditions emphasize bravery in combat and loyalty to one’s comrades and liege. They retain power today, as shown in the symbols used in advertisements for military recruiting and, more importantly, in the high prestige accorded those who have faced combat. Modern officers are normatively proscribed from turning down a combat command and are always supposed to deplore ‘desk jobs’ as a distraction from their ‘true’ calling. This is so even in the twenty-first century when combat arms represent only a small proportion of the total military establishment. Preparing for and facing battle remains the central commitment. It is a shared commitment that presumes personal willingness to kill and accepts the risk of being killed, for oneself and for those one commands – not indiscriminately, of course, but in defense of the state and in the context of war. This commitment underlies the professional soldier’s corporate identity, as the pursuit of truth underlies the corporate identity of scholars. Fulfilling the commitment, however, requires more than a knight’s bravery. Over time, it required increasingly

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specific theoretical and technical knowledge that could not be obtained without formal study. Once recognized, early in the nineteenth century, it led states throughout Europe and North America to establish military academies to train junior officers and staff colleges and other advanced schools to train field-grade and senior officers. First in Germany, then elsewhere, formal training was put to use under the direction of a general staff of senior officers who engaged in formal planning for the waging of possible future wars. This imposition of formal education had normative overtones. The virtue of professional officers rested and rests still on their ability successfully to accomplish their mission. Though offering no guarantees, formal training was necessary for officers to be competent in the use of modern weapons and tactics. Encompassing bravery and technical competence, the professional ethos rests also on beliefs about effective leadership. Willingness and skill at facing combat are not enough. To be effective in combat, soldiers must believe that they are being asked to risk their lives and others’ for some higher good, and typically that they are waging war not for its own sake but for the sake of their country. They must also believe that their leaders hold their well-being in high regard. These beliefs are earned, if at all, by the officer’s managerial competence to discern and provide for the needs of those he (or she) commands. Meeting these needs demands bureaucratic skill to organize and supply basic provisions of food, shelter, clothes, medical care, and the means to fight. But moral competence is required as much as bureaucratic skill: to know when battle serves a purpose; to calculate that battle has some fair chance of success, consistent with the risks being run; and to possess the rudimentary decency and integrity to refrain from useless slaughter. In short, the professional ethos of the officer corps sets a high standard. The ideal of heroic, technically and morally competent combat leaders is rarely, perhaps never completely, realized. Its importance, however, for us and for those in the military, lies in what it imagines professional officers to be. It defines their virtue and worth in terms of their preparation to fight war. Since the end of World War II, the foundations of this professional ethos have been subject to erosion. Professional officers may wish still to define themselves in its light. But the ethos is rooted in assumptions about the inevitability and in some sense the positive value (or justice) of interstate war. The changing nature of war over the last 50 years, perhaps longer, challenges the relevance of both assumptions. If nothing else, the threat of nuclear war has caused militaries to prepare more for deterring than for fighting war. Following the logic of deterrence, preparations for war are successful when no war actually occurs. This stands in sharp contrast to the logic of war-fighting that judges success at war preparations by victory in battle. The shift in outlook has meant the military spends much time engaged

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in what Martin van Creveld has called ‘‘make-believe’’ war – in the simulation of combat to demonstrate both to oneself and potential adversaries that any real war would be selfdefeating. Under these circumstances, the traditional ethos of professional soldiers based on combat seems no longer appropriate. Yet no suitable alternative has developed to take its place. Meanwhile, departure from tradition risks turning the professional soldier’s vocation into an ordinary career; rather than a special calling, it is just another job. Justifying its importance, which is necessary to gain funding and other social resources, becomes a more difficult task. Increasingly, justifications are based on the performance of new military tasks such as peacekeeping and humanitarian relief. But, however similar these are to war, they are not war; the ethos of the professional peacekeeper, unlike the ethos of the professional warrior, has yet to be defined. Ceremony and Etiquette Outside of war, perhaps, the ceremonial displays and etiquette that pervade military life are the most readily observable elements of modern military culture. These displays are connected to the business of war. Brightcolored uniforms and unfurled flags were an aid to commanders and soldiers in early modern warfare, if only because they helped to distinguish friendly from enemy forces. Similarly, the drum rolls and bugle calls that punctuated a day in garrison helped maintain a system of communication to direct force movements. Foot parades and the more contemporary air shows by military aviators exhibit excellence in close-order movement and maneuver on which well-drilled militaries depend for success in battle. But the connection of military ceremonies and etiquette to war is looser and more subtle than these illustrations suggest. Today’s battlefields call for camouflaged dress, electronic communication, and dispersed movement in motor vehicles, but military uniforms for dress occasions remain brightly colored and drummed cadences still pace military parades. Military ceremonies and etiquette make up an elaborate ritual and play the role that ritual typically plays in society: to control or mask our anxieties and ignorance; to affirm our solidarity with one another; and to celebrate our being, usually in connection with some larger universe. No matter how it’s fought or when, war presents harsh realities of death, disease, and destruction, realities that have not grown less harsh over time. These are difficult to experience and, once experienced, difficult to contemplate, much less to comprehend. They can only be approached at a distance, through the filters of social forms. Some few, like the British poet Wilfred Owen, use their art to help with the task. Most in the military (and elsewhere) are not so creative and rely instead on already constructed rituals to guide their conduct and to preserve a semblance of order and meaning in a situation that

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threatens to overwhelm both. The effectiveness of military rituals to control anxiety about facing war arises from their familiarity, acquired by use in garrison, long before battle is joined. Ceremonies of induction and promotion or change of command, for military weddings, retirements, and funerals – these mark the life cycle of soldiers as formations at dawn and dusk, ceremonies for changing the guard, marching in review, and periodic inspections mark the passing of the soldier’s working day. No doubt, in peace time, they also occupy and make up part of a boring, seemingly endless routine; they may degenerate, in peace or war, into burdens soldiers rightly call ‘‘chickenshit.’’ Yet, when tragedies occur – a plane crash killing a company of peacekeepers on their way home for Christmas, a terrorist bomb ripping a barracks, or death in battle – they provide a ready framework for survivors to mourn and commemorate the dead and to uphold, albeit fragilely, the structure of a world where (in their lives) chaos took root. Apart from tragedy, military ceremonies and etiquette are rituals that mark collective identity and group affiliation. They take a variety of forms but are usually highly visible and officially sanctioned. Almost universal among militaries is the practice of saluting as a sign of deference and the wearing of distinctive uniforms that bear emblems of one’s unit, one’s rank, and one’s achievements. They may be illustrated best perhaps by the traditions surrounding the British regimental system. Some dating back to the seventeenth century, these regiments often wear the colors and crest of the royal who led them. They have a flag of their own, traditions of dining, reunions with former members, and annual celebrations of the day they won their major battle honor. Such practices forge a common identity and symbolize a common fate. And, while the strength of the regimental system today is not what it once was, similar practices in the military establishments of other nations suggest that they are unlikely to disappear. One can point for instance to the Canadian military’s attempt in recent times to institute a common uniform to be worn by members of the air force, army, and navy. Probably cheaper and certainly emphasizing the importance of joint operations in the present age, the attempt at uniformity was nevertheless enormously unpopular and finally abandoned. A common military identity bears the marks of its various services, branches, and units, and of the history associated with each one. They are not easily abandoned. They are totems around which one’s military identity and purpose are formed. It would be a mistake to assume that this ceremonialism is an anachronistic persistence of tradition into modern times. Not the least important role they play is to celebrate or honor unique achievements by those who have served. The practice is as old as the laurel crowns given to heroes in ancient Greece and probably older. Membership in honorary orders, like the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or the Order of the Garter, began

in the Middle Ages as a means of recognizing extraordinary service by particular knights. But the institution of decorations and medals for gallantry in combat or other kinds of service only began in the nineteenth century. The French Legion of Honor and the German Iron Cross were first awarded during the Napoleonic Wars, the British Victoria Cross in 1857 to veterans of the Crimean War, and the US Congressional Medal of Honor in the Civil War. The French Croix de Guerre was not introduced until 1915. The importance of these awards to the honor of military personnel was illustrated tragically in the United States in 1996 when its Chief of Naval Operations committed suicide, in part because of accusations that he wore a badge for valor that he had not earned. More recently, a federal judge assigned the stiffest possible penalty to two men convicted of making and selling unauthorized tokens of the Congressional Medal of Honor. An important purpose of these awards and other public military ceremonies is to connect the burdens of military service with the larger society the military serves. The connection is largely symbolic, of course, but weighted with meaning. Sometimes the ceremonies are grave as they are when heads of state lay wreaths on the tombs of unknown soldiers. Sometimes the ceremonies are joyful, as are commemorations of the Queen’s Birthday in Britain, of Bastille Day in France, or Independence Day in the United States. Grave or joyful, they hope to convey the full meaning of military service, to show how central military service is to the life and well-being of the country. Precisely because this is their aim, they can also arouse controversy. So, for instance, President Reagan’s decision to lay a wreath in a German cemetery in Bitburg horrified some Americans (including veterans of World War II) who thought his act might seem to honor Nazi war dead buried there. And so it was a powerful symbol when some Vietnam War veterans returned medals they had earned, in protest against policies continuing the war. Cohesion and Esprit de Corps Less visible than ceremonies or displays of etiquette, but hardly less important to military effectiveness, is the morale of military personnel, whether high or low. Morale is a product of cohesion and esprit de corps; and these are intangible, highly changeable elements of military culture. Military cohesion refers to the feelings of identity and comradeship that soldiers hold for those in their immediate military unit; it is an outgrowth of face-to-face or primary group relations or, in formal terms, of horizontal integration. Esprit de corps, in contrast, refers to the commitment and pride soldiers take in the larger military establishment to which their immediate unit belongs; it is an outgrowth of secondary group relations or, again formally, of vertical integration. Both result to an important degree from structural factors of military

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organization, but are primarily matters of belief and emotional attachments. They refer in particular to beliefs and attachments that shape the willingness of military personnel actually to perform their mission. They refer, in short, to the soldiers’ willingness to fight. Appreciation of the importance of cohesion and esprit de corps as aspects of military culture has grown over time. The reasons for this are twofold. The French Revolution introduced the idea of the military as a ‘nation in arms’. Those in the military were not a class separate from society. They were drawn from and representative of the society as a whole, preparing or mobilized for war. But they were not professionals. The rank and file were civilians conscripted into service, in peace for a short term of training and in war, particularly the world wars, for the duration of the conflict. How they would respond to military discipline and the stress of combat was open to doubt. At the same time, industrialization of war – which introduced long-range artillery, smokeless gunpowder, and machine gunfire – required troops to be widely dispersed over extended battle lines, a requirement that unfortunately took some time to grasp. No longer in close physical proximity with one another, soldiers had to exercise initiative in carrying out their orders and they had to be confident that their comrades would do the same. Initially it was thought that the beliefs that underlay high levels of cohesion and esprit de corps derived from the love of country and attachment to ideological commitments of the state. Many writers at the turn of the twentieth century dwelt on the importance of statesponsored efforts to inculcate patriotic sentiments in youth in schools and to provide opportunities to enact these sentiments through paramilitary clubs and other military training programs, voluntary or compulsory. These ideas intensified during World War I. The British Army, for example, instituted an extensive program of political education in response to worries of senior officers that their men did not understand what they were fighting for and so might not fight at all. During World War II, American soldiers (and civilians) were shown short movies of high quality, directed by Frank Capra, and other leading Hollywood directors, to explain and justify ‘‘why we fight.’’ In both wars, countries on all sides printed posters relying on simple slogans and graphic images to convey ideas (often ideas for action) the government wanted people to believe. These programs may have had some positive effect on esprit de corps, providing a vague sense of the justice of one’s cause and the basic goodness of the society for which one fought. But a long stream of social science research has shown that factors other than ideology are more important in forming military cohesion. Cohesion among soldiers, especially in war, rests on concrete and primary experiences. The historian William McNeill has recently suggested that cohesion results from military drill, that there is a kind of ‘‘muscular bonding’’ arising from the practice of marching together in time, not

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very different from the bonding that occurs among those engaged in a collective dance or enacting a common religious ritual. There may be something to this claim. But there is more to cohesion than ‘‘muscular bonding.’’ In their classic essay studying cohesion and disintegration of the Wehrmacht during the last months of World War II, Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz directly challenged the argument that German soldiers continued to fight from commitment to Nazi ideology. More important, they argued, was the capacity of the soldiers’ immediate unit, their company and platoon, to meet their basic needs for food and shelter, and for affection and esteem. These were more important because war posed a genuine threat to their sense of security and the recognition of their worth as human beings. So long as these needs were met, soldiers believed themselves part of a powerful group and felt responsible, even empowered, to fight for their group’s well-being. When these needs were not being met, soldiers felt alone and unable to protect themselves; the unit disintegrated and fighting stopped. Esprit de corps is an important factor affecting smallunit cohesion. Small units, to be effective, must be tied to a larger group. Their capacity to operate depends on links with larger units (the battalion, the regiment, the division, etc.), which provide their supplies, maintain symbols of the homeland, and regulate their exposure to war’s danger through the exercise of command. Clearly, more is involved than material organization. Small-unit nesting within a hierarchical organization constructs a situationspecific context within which unit operations gain or lose meaning and become objects of pride or disgrace. The defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge illustrates the point. The American general commanding the defense of the city, encircled by Germans, was confident when refusing German terms of surrender. He knew that holding the city was critical to Allied war plans and that relief was on the way from Patton’s Third Army. His confidence and commitment, communicated to the rank and file, reinforced their cohesion, strengthened their pride in their division, and increased their willingness to fight despite being surrounded by the enemy and perilously short on supplies. In the same way, members of Patton’s army drove hard through foul weather and overcame stiff German resistance to relieve the besieged city. They did so knowing that their local sacrifice was meaningful: to rescue one’s countrymen from an enemy and to stop the Germans from advancing into France. Without the sense that sacrifice is worthwhile, esprit de corps declines, threatening military discipline, effectiveness, and cohesion. This was true, for instance, for US forces in Vietnam during the last years of American involvement in that war. The relationship between esprit de corps and cohesion, however, is more complex than these examples suggest. While esprit de corps cannot be high when cohesion is low, the reverse is not necessarily true. French soldiers

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who survived Verdun and the Somme in 1916 mutinied after another failed and bloody offensive in April of 1917. But their mutiny did not signal the disintegration of small units. On the contrary, cohesion remained high. It was their esprit de corps, their pride and dedication to the larger military command, that unraveled. What they refused to do was fight for generals who would lead them into another offensive slaughter. Their obedience was regained and discipline restored, but only after a change in command and an agreement to deploy troops defensively. A Cautionary Note A cautionary note is in order. Those concerned with the effectiveness of military institutions may wish to conclude that while military culture is heterogeneous, its elements are reinforcing. If discipline is strong, professional ethos is well-developed, military ceremonies and etiquette are fully observed, and esprit de corps and cohesion are high, then military institutions presumably operate at their best. Yet it is unwise to argue this way for at least two reasons. First, this list of elements of military culture is not exhaustive. The present author does not think any description of military culture could ignore the elements included here. They are necessary. But they may not be sufficient. Social historians in particular may wish to pay attention (say) to soldiers’ songs and religious beliefs or to the moral life of military encampments; philosophers and legal scholars may wish to pay attention to the laws and conventions regulating the justice and just conduct of war; and students of language may wish to examine how military terminology (often euphemisms) clarify or obscure our reasoning about war. In any case, military culture does not live in isolation. It breathes – influences and is influenced by – the air of the larger culture of the society the military serves. The full effects of military culture on military performance are determined in this larger context. Second, it is not at all clear that these various cultural elements are mutually reinforcing or that they enhance military effectiveness. The cohesion of French mutineers is only an obvious case in point. Consider another. Close observance of ceremonies and etiquette handed down from the past may reinforce a corporate identity on which professional ethos rests. But the ceremonialism and etiquette that reinforced the professional ethos of mounted cavalry officers hindered their military effectiveness in World War I, as it hindered the Mamelukes who faced Napoleon more than 100 years before. Examples could be multiplied. Certainly future studies should examine how cultural elements are related and trace the effects of these relationships on military organization and performance. We may find some reasons for the persistence of dysfunctional military cultures, say, in the all-too-human habit to repeat in the future ways of acting that worked in the past or else in the practice of

many modern militaries to rotate leaders from one job to another, thus limiting their ability to undertake long-term or fundamental reforms. But it is idle to expect a general theory of military culture that precisely prescribes cultural relationships that invariably enhance that performance. Like all cultures, military culture varies in form and substance, and for many of the same reasons. Military culture is handed down across generations. Some, of course, are attached to the status quo, whether critically or not, and they try to reproduce in the future what they inherited from the past. The strength of this attachment no doubt is stronger for victorious than defeated militaries. Yet even with victorious militaries, passing on a military culture is difficult to do. Successful transmission is selective at best. Many factors push military culture to change. It changes from within when basic patterns of military action change, usually in response to new technologies, from stirrups and gunpowder to jet planes and nuclear bombs. It changes as military innovators such as Maurice of Nassau or Gerhard von Scharnhorst reflect on the experience of war and devise new practices or promote new beliefs that they hope will, if adopted, increase the likelihood of wartime success. And it changes in response to influences from the larger society, as memories of war shape beliefs about what the military can or ought to be like and as other social and political trends alter the context within which judgments are made about the quality of military life.

Technology and the Experience of War That technology affects culture is an old and welldocumented belief. In the case of military culture the rationale for it is often simple and direct. Technology, particularly weapons technology, profoundly affects the experience of war and the military culture that is in large part a response to that experience. To illustrate the point, consider first the effects of industrialization on war and military culture, effects that have already been mentioned in passing. Industrial development of the means of communication (e.g., telegraph, radio, radar, computer, and satellite) and transportation (e.g., steamships and railroads, trucks and tanks, airplanes and rockets) radically reshaped the ability to move, supply, and control the power of armed forces at war. For the first time, militaries were deployable largely without regard to the seasons, which is to say without remission. Application of industrial technology to the weapons of war (from rifled projectiles and machine guns to nuclear weapons of mass destruction) radically increased the lethality of military firepower and the geographical theater of battle. The force of these developments were first shown in the American Civil War but were not fully felt until the world wars of the twentieth century. The effects on military culture were profound. Horse-mounted

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cavalry and the bayonet charge, with their associated culture of brave warriors seeking glory in war, were abandoned as suicidal in the face of long-range and rapid-fire weapons. For similar reasons, traditional bright-colored battle attire, and the spectacle that went along with it, gave way to camouflage and the search for cover in trenches and foxholes. Not less important was the transformation of the ethos of the professional officer corps. Industrial war required military leaders who were more than heroic characters. Indeed, senior officers who planned campaigns might not see the battlefield at all. What counted was their ability to mobilize and command the new technologies of destruction and their ability to organize and manage the huge logistical demands of an industrial army at war. Most radical, industrialization increased the destructive power of weapons to such a degree that serious military thinkers now believe that the use of modern weapons, without restraint, would be self-defeating. The idea challenges the previously taken-for-granted belief that war is an inevitable (if lamentable) feature of social life. Consider also organizational differences and the still intense rivalry among army, navy, and air forces. The bases for these differences can be explained in part by the self-interested competition for scarce resources; money spent building stealth bombers means less money for building aircraft carriers or tanks. Yet more is at work than competitive self-interest. Each service fights in a unique environment to gain effective control over the land, sea, or air. The unique features of these environments affect weapons technology, the way force is organized and controlled and, as a result, the culture of the service and fundamental beliefs about the nature of war and the qualities of effective leaders. In Command, Control, and the Common Defense, Kenneth Allard has examined how these differences molded the doctrine and professional ethos of US army and navy officers. For the army, success in battle depends on the application of mass force at the decisive point of the battle line, which requires a division of authority organized and coordinated hierarchically. This belief rests on the army’s need in land battles to maintain flexible control over the movements of large numbers of soldiers through subordinate commands. Successfully acting on this belief depends on communication technologies (whether messengers, flags, drum rolls, bugle calls or, now, computers and radio) that enable the commander to instruct subordinates on how to deploy. For the navy, in contrast, success in battle depends on the exercise of the undivided and unchallenged authority of the ship’s captain. Historically, this belief rested on the small number of ships most navies could afford, which were typically deployed alone or in small squadrons. And it rested, before the age of radio, on the technical impossibility of exercising central control over a squadron once battles began. Commanders could not readily extend their influence beyond their own ship.

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Not surprisingly, navies developed a unique service culture that cherishes decentralized organization and distrusts concentrated authority, while the army culture cherishes centralized organization and distrusts authority that operates outside a chain of accountability and policy control. The navy cultivates a professional ethos that rewards a field commander’s willingness to act independently. The army cultivates a professional ethos that rewards a field commander’s willingness to act interdependently. We would nevertheless be mistaken to believe that the technology of war determines military culture. In fact, the relationship is a complex one of mutual influence. The prevailing military culture affects whether or how new military technologies are received or rejected. Samurai warriors in sixteenth-century Japan, for instance, were quick to adopt and manufacture firearms once they were introduced on the island. But the social leveling effects of firearms in battle seriously threatened the military and political dominance of the warrior knights (and indeed of the existing social order). Early in the seventeenth century the ruling Tokugawa lord moved effectively to ban firearms from Japanese warfare. He established an effective monopoly over the manufacture, purchase, and use of firearms and, over the course of the seventeenth century, restrictions on the use of firearms multiplied and their manufacture decreased virtually to nothing (despite Japan’s relatively advanced technological capacities). In this case, the military potential of the new technology was recognized, but after a trial its adoption was rejected in order to preserve the samurais’ rule and to support what they thought was a superior military culture. Their rejection of firearms continued for 200 years. In other cases, the military potential of an invention may lay unrecognized for long periods of time. Though invented centuries earlier in China, the military value of the stirrup was not realized until the eighth century, when the stirrup arrived in Frankish realms and was adopted by Charles Martel and his sons to permit a new and devastating mounted shock combat. The effect (as we know thanks to Lynn White, historian of this event) was to establish feudalism as a new type of warfare, dominated by knights, and with it a new social and cultural order in Europe, elements of which persist to this day. Most often, a new technology will be received, but how it is deployed or developed reflects the military culture of the particular armed force. Many differences in the design of ‘rugged’ Russian versus ‘sophisticated’ American fighter jets, for example, owe more to differences in their respective beliefs about the nature of air combat than to differences in their technological capacities.

Military Education and Training Before the nineteenth century, formal military education was rare, and state-sponsored institutions to promote the

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education of the officer corps were rarer still. Military education, such as it was, consisted largely of military drill and hands-on weapons training. In some cases, officers were sent to observe when others fought in war. Technical schools were founded in the seventeenth century to promote the application of science to artillery, but this was an exception, not a model. Only in the nineteenth century were schools established for advanced officer education. Even then, it was after World War I that noble but (relatively) untrained officers were finally displaced by the professionally educated. Three reasons can be suggested to explain why schools for advanced officer education were established at this time. First, Enlightenment thought emphasized the capacity of reason and the applicability of scientific thought in particular to explain and regulate all human affairs. The general influence of Enlightenment ideas made it possible to think that war was more than a practical art; that it was also a subject governed by scientific laws that might be discovered through a positivist, empirical study. The greatest product of this belief is Karl von Clausewitz’s still influential work On War. A second reason was the shock of defeat in war. Military defeat had the effect of discrediting the competence of the officer corps and encouraging a search for new methods to organize and fight war. It is not surprising therefore that the first important school for advanced military education was the Prussian Allgemeine Kriegsschule founded in 1810 in reaction to Napoleon’s defeat of Prussia at Jena in 1806. This school set a standard for excellence in training an elite corps of officers in the operational art of war, training that was thought so effective that the Treaty of Versailles formally abolished it, along with the German General Staff, following World War I. (The school was continued in disguise and openly resurrected under Hitler.) The French and British also established schools for advanced instruction in the wake of defeats. The first French school was established in 1818 after Napoleon’s downfall, but was notably ineffective. In 1876, after the Franco–Prussian War, a more effective institution replaced it that closely copied the German example. Emphasis on schooling was weakest in Britain. Yet even there, in 1856, owing to dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Crimean War, the Camberley Staff College gained an independent existence from the Royal Military College (founded in 1799). It did not become an important institution for advanced officer education however, until the Haldane reforms of 1906 were instituted in response to the Boer War. Finally, schools were needed to train officers in the military uses of the new industrial powers. Officers serving on the general staff had to plan for the movement, arming, protection, and supply of large militaries in the field. This meant having to master the military uses of new industrial means for transportation and communication

and to harness new industrial production techniques as they applied to the manufacture and invention of new weapons of war, from machine guns to battleships. These schools had both conservative and innovative effects on military culture. They were innovative most notably in defining service in the officer corps as a profession through which one advanced by education. They helped (albeit slowly) to dissolve the inherited feudal belief that only aristocrats were suited to lead men into battle. These institutions were innovative also insofar as the practice of industrial war forced them to reexamine inherited beliefs about the tactics and scale of war. They were conservative in a narrow sense because they encouraged systematic study of military theory and history. The schools became literal bearers of military tradition, explicitly preserving, codifying, and passing down knowledge about previous beliefs and practices that influenced the conduct of war. More broadly, to the extent of their own prestige, which varied by nation, they also elevated the status of the military profession, indirectly promoting respect for military values in the larger society.

Collective Memory A diffuse, but still important, influence on military culture is the collective memory or imagination of past war that is widely shared among members of the military and is frequently relied on as a normative guide for behavior in the present. In the last century, memories of World War I for European militaries and the Vietnam War for the American military have been especially powerful in shaping the professional ethos of the officer corps. For both France and Britain, the experience of World War I quickly crystallized into a narrative about the stupid slaughter of high-minded but innocent men misled by general officers who seemed incapable of adjusting their tactics to the realities of trench warfare or to minimize the cost in lives of the men they sent into battle. Perhaps lower-ranking soldiers and civilians were more prepared to accept this narrative than the officers who conducted the war and who might prefer a more qualified and generous account of their endeavor. But, collective memories are not histories, characterized by concern for detail and accuracy; they are symbolic constructions condensing events to communicate their essential meaning simply and powerfully. Ironically, one cause of this (for the officers) unflattering memory and the tragic circumstances on which it was based was the stubborn persistence of an earlier collective memory that extolled the efficacy of the bayonet and infantry charge. That memory was accurate enough before war’s weapons were industrialized. It held only woe for those who relied on it to guide their conduct in 1914. Certainly after 1918, if not sooner, French and British officers gave up this earlier vision and were guided

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instead by the cautionary tale of World War I. They were more careful with the lives of their men in World War II. For the American military, the experience of loss in Vietnam was equally profound. Unlike World War I, there was no one narrative widely shared (if differently valued) to summarize the American experience in Vietnam. Yet for the officers who fought there and remained in the military, the experience nevertheless forged a common memory of ‘‘lessons learned’’ that have not been forgotten. Four lessons, in particular, have become articulated as a political doctrine on the use of force and incorporated into American military culture: (1) do not go to war without public support, (2) clearly specify the military objective to be achieved, (3) send overwhelming force to ensure (as far as possible) the mission’s success, and (4) do not micromanage commanders in the field. These may seem rudimentary lessons, part of the taken-for-granted discipline with respect to the use of force. But, in memory at least, all four lessons were followed with success in World War II and violated in Vietnam to the detriment of military cohesion, discipline, and effectiveness. On reflection, it is clear that these lessons are directed as much to civilian political leaders as they are to military leaders. They shape the military professionals self-understanding of how to act responsibly. But they also shape the culture of civil– military relations in a democratic regime. Up to now, there has been no serious disagreement between US presidents and the military elite over whether these lessons should be applied. The potential for conflict, however, raises questions about how to manage civil–military relations when there is a clash between military and political cultures.

Political and Social Trends Military culture is not and cannot be hermetically sealed from the rest of society. As our discussion of industrialization has already shown, societal trends may exert tremendous influence on the content of military culture. (How military culture affects the culture of the larger society is discussed in the concluding section.) Here, two other trends merit attention. One trend is toward reduced confidence in the power of central governments, manifest in demands to end government regulation of (and intervention in) economic markets, to lower individual and corporate taxes, and to abandon conscription of soldiers in favor of professional all-volunteer forces. The other, more recent, trend is toward expanding the circle of citizenship, to devalue exclusionary practices based on race, religion, or gender, and to institutionalize practices of equal opportunity throughout the public sphere. Confidence in the power of central governments has fallen steadily over the last generation and led to contraction of state power to gain or control social resources by coercive means. For our purposes, the most relevant symptom of this decline has been the end of conscription

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for military service. This end came first in the Englishspeaking nations, all of which abandoned conscription by 1973. After the end of the Cold War, other Western European states moved quickly in this direction. At the moment there are comparatively few national (and fewer comprehensive comparative) studies that examine the causes and consequences of this event. Based on British and American experience, however, we can say that transition from a conscript to a volunteer force has had enormous effects on military culture. Some are quite predictable. For instance, because they rely on volunteers, the militaries of both countries have been freer than they were to separate from the ranks soldiers who for whatever reason are unable to conform to the rigors of military life. This practice encourages stricter discipline. Perhaps more important, freedom to select who should join and stay in the military, narrows the range and diversity of values represented in the force. Self-selection and anticipatory socialization reinforce the narrowing. At the same time, ironically, some new value conflicts have developed, particularly with respect to the priority of military over family life. Unlike the conscript forces, in which relatively few enlisted persons were married, volunteer forces have seen a steady rise in the number of military personnel who are married with children. The result tests traditional military solidarity manifest through esprit de corps and cohesion. The bonds of loyalty on which esprit de corps and cohesion depend are bonds among a community of warriors. They entail a commitment to self-sacrifice that places the well-being of the outfit above all else, including the responsibilities of family life. In practice, these bonds can be sustained only if the military provides practical social and material support for its members’ families, to limit worries about family well-being while on the job. (Someone had to care for the children of single-parent soldiers sent to the Gulf War.) Nonetheless, when the military uses scarce resources to support military families in hopes of maintaining esprit and cohesion, it often provides a perverse incentive encouraging young military personnel to marry. The average age at first marriage of British army enlisted personnel is far below that of the society at large. (The same is true in the United States. A century ago, it would have been much higher, as lower-ranking enlisted personnel were prohibited from marrying.) This only increases demand for the resources, compounding the problem, all the more so because younger married couples are less mature and less wealthy and so are more likely to require assistance. The second trend – expanding the circle of citizenship, encouraging inclusionary policies that are blind to distinctions based on race, religion, and gender – has had enormous consequences for military culture as well. Excluding citizens because of race or religion from the enlisted or officer ranks and reserving the most prestigious positions for members of the dominant group are both practices that

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have declined over the course of the century. In the United States, in particular, the military over the last 50 years has become a model institution for racial integration. This is not to say prejudice and discrimination are absent. But in the face of social and legal pressures to include minority groups, and worried about the effects on cohesion, the military over time developed a relatively strict policy of intolerance toward discrimination and made advancement through a military career depend on effective leadership in sustaining good intergroup relations. It has proved more challenging to integrate women into military service. The problems here are subtle and defy brief description. Traditionally, military culture has been thoroughly masculine; military service was often said ‘‘to make a man’’ of those who served. Emphasis on male military culture was reinforced in the larger society. Women were defined in terms quite opposite those of a warrior, by their capacity for nurturance and by their need for male protection. Of course, the truth was more complex. (Against aggressive acting out of male strength as a warrior one must juxtapose the usually sublimated homoerotic elements of love for one’s comrades.) In this context, integration of women into the armed forces has been incomplete. In Britain and in the United States the number of women serving in the military increased with the need for recruits in all-volunteer forces. Once serving, women were entitled to legal protections against sexual harassment or sex discrimination. Yet women have been barred from holding most combat jobs; they were assigned instead to branches in combat support and combat service support. Military culture, however, is still rooted in the culture of combat. Failure to have combat experience or to hold combat positions limits one’s ability to rise in the profession. Dealing with this is made more difficult owing to legal and social pressures that value equal opportunity. Increasing promotion opportunities for women with limited exposure to combat or training for combat erodes the central value on which military culture depends. Failure to do so reproduces gender inequality. Increasing women’s exposure to combat assignments is a possibility, of course; and some have proposed using gender-blind tests of physical abilities and assigning jobs without regard to gender. Yet, despite broad support to include women in the military service and to ensure that they receive fair and decent treatment, there is only limited support to require women to kill or be killed in combat on the same basis as men. In any case, it is unknown how complete gender equality (or a gender-blind policy) would affect cohesion and esprit de corps, especially in time of war.

Relation of Military Culture to the Larger Society Military culture spreads by various means beyond the boundaries of military organization. What the effects are

is a matter of some controversy. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, from the writings of Immanuel Kant to those of Herbert Spencer, hope was expressed that the influence of military culture and the culture of war was waning; that the cultures of democracy, sweet commerce, and industry (not to mention reason) were leading modern society to the possibility (in Kant’s words) of ‘‘perpetual peace.’’ It was a hope that made military affairs and culture seem retrograde. Complete confidence in this thesis was shaken, as the need for it was intensified, by the twentieth century experience of world wars. There is no wonder why. Yet, the earlier hope, if not yet realized, was not baseless. The political organization of Western nation-states emerging from the Middle Ages did rest on a historical differentiation of civilian political and military elites and the subordination of military to political power. If wars in the twentieth century have been all too many and too intense, it is still true that Western states have spent fewer years at war than in previous centuries. There is also much evidence, carefully combed in recent years, to support the hypothesis that modern democratic states have been less likely to use force against one another, however likely they have been to war against others. It is in the context of these larger trends that we consider who carries military culture into civilian society and what reception awaits it there. Bearers of Military Culture in Civilian Society Relatively few people in contemporary society actually serve in the military and fewer still see combat. Yet representations of military culture and the experience of war are not foreign to everyday life. They are conveyed by a variety of means, ranging from the use of camouflage patterns in high-fashion clothing to public ceremonies remembering past sacrifices in war and current news reports carrying home images of the effects of armed conflict (say) in Darfur or Rwanda, in Afghanistan or Iraq. The wide range of means by which military culture is carried into society makes an adequate discussion of the topic more difficult. What is possible here is to identity the key groups that are bearers of military culture in civilian society and to indicate what forms their representations of military culture may take. The principal creators and bearers of military culture are those that belong to and lead the military. Military life is not entirely isolated from civilian life. Service members directly carry military culture with them into the civilian society. They make an impression on civilian society when they are on parade, wear their uniform to travel home on leave or on recruiting trips to schools, or when they give public lectures or testify before congressional or parliamentary committees. They are direct embodiments of the military ceremony and etiquette and intimations of the kind of discipline and ethos that military service entails. The strength of this influence

Military Culture

depends in part on the size of the military or on the military’s presence within the civilian population. It is naturally greater in towns and in state capitals where the military are garrisoned. More pervasive perhaps are representations of military culture carried in newspapers and magazines, in novels and movies, and on television. These are the creation of journalists and artists, who are sometimes remarkably schooled in military affairs. Their creations are not always independently done. They often depend for information and support and, under some circumstances, even the approval of the military to produce their work. (That is especially true for the production of motion pictures that may require military cooperation for props and staging.) Through them, the military exerts an indirect yet substantial influence on how military culture and war are represented to civilian society. But the point should not be exaggerated. Like all organizations, the military is concerned about presenting a favorable public image. During wartime, given the need to maintain public support for the war effort, presenting a positive view of military culture will seem essential to the government and its supporters. To accomplish this, censorship can be exercised. But symbols often carry more meaning than censors can control. A World War II poster urging Germans to hold Frankfurt nevertheless shows the city in rubble and flames and suggests that Frankfurt’s defense depends on the efforts of women, old men, and children. Sometimes symbols censors approve of carry little or no persuasive power as (one may guess) was true of an early World War II exhortation from the British government that ‘‘Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory.’’ In any case, in war or peace, the productions of artists are hard to rein in, whether the works are paintings by Goya and Dix, sculptures by Luytens and Kollwitz, movies by Gance and Kubrick, poems by Owen and Jarrell, or novels by Graves and Vonnegut. Perhaps to a lesser degree, the same is true of journalists’ reports, television documentaries, and scholarly writing. Not to be overlooked as culture bearers are veterans. Recruiters for today’s volunteer forces are well aware that veterans among family and friends greatly influence the attitudes of young people toward enlisting in the service. Once discharged, some veterans have been sufficiently affected by the experience of military service to join veterans’ associations. These associations typically provide opportunities for socializing in clubs with people who have shared experiences similar to one’s own. But they are also engaged in local community service or vaguely patriotic civic education projects. And they are integrated into larger national networks that keep them apprised of military affairs and lobby for veterans’ benefits. On occasion, veterans’ associations can form an important national social movement as they did, for instance, in France after World War I, to win pensions, to seek relief for disabled men, and to promote a conservative yet still democratic politics that would steer

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clear of war. Nor was theirs the only activist movement. In 1932, in the US, 25 000 unemployed veterans, some with their families, marched on and encamped for months in Washington demanding that Congress relieve their economic misery by paying immediately a $500 bonus the government had promised in 1924, but not intended to pay until 1945. In the end, they were forcibly decamped by federal soldiers under the command of Douglas MacArthur. Veterans’ representation of military culture is as varied as the culture itself and is sometimes so diverse that veterans are divided among themselves. That was so in the United States during the 1970s when veterans disagreed about whether to support the Vietnam War and veterans from previous wars were reluctant to recognize the claims of Vietnam veterans who were described as suffering from exposure to Agent Orange or from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. To be effective , the claims of veterans in these organizations must clearly convey to their civilian audience something of the experience, the worth, and the culture of military life. Civilian Reception of Military Culture Civilian response to military culture depends on the context within which it is represented and the form it assumes. On ceremonial occasions or days that celebrate important events in the nation’s history, it is not unusual to see a military presence. Few are offended by it and many take pride or pleasure (say) at watching the Horse Guards on parade to and from Buckingham Palace. Yet generalizations are always hazardous. Britain is not a society haunted by memories of recent defeat in war nor one accused of harboring a militarist past. In contrast, in Germany in the 1960s, the military had to beware of conducting simple evening exercises (or tattoos) for fear of stirring protests and controversy. And while Muscovites might have taken pride in the Soviet Union’s May Day military parades, civilians elsewhere seeing highlights of the event may have had a more fearful response. Another key difference between these events is that the German and the Soviet displays, however different in scale, were displays of ready forces. The Horse Guards parade in a ceremonial dress that no military deployed for war would wear today; the fangs of yesterday are no threat today. In the era of total war, when weapons of war are against civilians as well as soldiers, reactions to military culture have been understandably extreme, both pacifist and militarist, either wholly rejecting or wholly accepting (even celebrating) military beliefs, values, and symbols. These extreme reactions were strikingly evident after World War I. In the 1920s, an international peace movement flourished whose numbers far exceeded those who belonged to traditional pacifist religious groups. Its members believed that the horrid experience of trench warfare had proved beyond doubt that modern war on such a scale could not be waged again. In Britain, France, and the United States, they launched a campaign to outlaw war.

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They wrote antiwar plays and songs for school children to perform and lobbied heads of state on the need to outlaw war. In 1928, they achieved what seemed a victory when these three powers, joined by Japan and others, signed the Kellogg–Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. Unfortunately, the pact had less capacity than the League of Nations to bring about this happy result. The movement that led to its signing was animated in part by the knowledge that other forces loose in the world pushed in the opposite direction. Germans showed another way of responding to the experience of war. Offended by the harsh peace and persuaded (wrongly) that the military had been ‘‘stabbed in the back’’ by its civilian leaders, many believed that Germany’s future would be determined by its military strength. This belief was supported by government policy that sought to avoid complying with the Versailles Treaty and it supported in turn large paramilitary movements in the 1920s, with parades and marches and field exercises held in remote forests. These movements had roots in the old Prussian militarism but were not simply reactionary. Trench warfare imposed a regimented and egalitarian experience, literally a primitive nationalist socialism, that some Germans wished to use as a model for building a new Germany. Reactionary or not, it was an embodiment of militarism, celebrating military values above all other social goods. It found partners in Italy and Japan where similar social currents had strength. Where that partnership led is too well known. Since World War II, civilian reaction to military culture remains divided. One may point to the hysteria for building bomb shelters, to fantasies of redemption by Star-Wars weapons systems, and to the episodic protests against nuclear weapons, the draft, and the military actions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. The liberal democracies of the West and elsewhere confront a ‘moral defense dilemma’. Some would so enhance military organization for the sake of security as to undermine liberal democracy, while others would enhance liberal democracy to undermine military organization and security. The difficulties of steering between the horns of this dilemma were obvious during the Cold War when major powers adopted the logic of deterrence, the validity of which relied on the grim promise of mutually assured destruction. The difficulties have not disappeared with the end of the Cold War. They may have increased with the onset of the ‘war on terror’, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the increased number of failed states. Armed forces still prepare for – in hope of deterring – general war. They also engage in peacekeeping and more difficult counterinsurgency operations, intervening in conflicts hoping to contain them, using armed forces to hold the lid on war until

diplomatic solutions can be worked out. How military culture works to exacerbate or resolve this dilemma remains an important but unanswered question. See also: Warfare, Trends in; Warriors, Anthropology of; Weaponry, Evolution of

Further Reading Allard, K. (1990). Command, control, and the common defense. New Haven: Yale University Press. Burk, J. (2001). The military’s presence in American society, 1950–2000. In Feaver, F. D. and Kohn, R. H. (eds.) Soldiers and civilians, pp. 247–274. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Burke, C. (2004). Camp all-American, Hanoi Jane, and the high and tight. Boston: Beacon. Dawson, J. G. (in press). The military and movies and television. In Bradford, J. C. (ed.) Blackwell companion to the American military. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Dunivin, K. (1994). Military culture: Change and continuity. Armed Forces & Society 20, 531–547. Gilchrist, R. (2003). Introduction: Towards a social archaeology of warfare. World Archaeology 35, 1–6. Grossman, D. (1996). On killing. New York: Back Bay Books. Hynes, S. (1990). A war imagined. New York: Atheneum. Johnston, A. I. (1995). Cultural realism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Keeley, L. H. (1996). War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manning, F. J. (1991). Morale, cohesion, and esprit de corps. In Gal, R. and Mangelsdorf, A. D. (eds.) Handbook of military psychology, pp. 451–470. New York: Wiley. McNeill, W. H. (1995). Keeping together in time. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Milner, M. Jr. (1993). Status and sacredness. New York: Oxford University Press. Nath, R. (1990). Military leadership in India. New Delhi: LancersBooks. Paret, P., Lewis, B. I., and Paret, P. (eds.) (1992). Persuasive images: Posters of war and revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Prost, A. (1992). In the wake of war. Providence, RI: Berg. Segal, D. (1996). The social construction of peacekeeping by US soldiers. Tocquevilk Review 17, 7–21. Shils, E. and Janowitz, M. (1948). The cohesion and disintegration of the Wehrmacht. Public Opinion Quarterly 12, 280–315. van Creveld, M. (1990). The training of officers. New York: Free Press. White, L. (1962). Medieval technology and social change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Winter, J. (1996). Sites of memory, sites of mourning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Relevant Websites http://hrw.org – Human Rights Watch http://iusafs.org – Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/army-leadership/militaryculture – Military Culture Studies, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College http://peacewarconflict.org – Peace, War and Social Conflict Section, American Sociological Association http://www.oft.osd.mil/initiatives/tmc/ – Transforming Military Culture, Office of Force Transformation, US Office of the Secretary of Defense

V.

WARS

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Warfare, Trends in James K Wither, George C Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Germany ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Nature and Character of War Trends in Warfare: The Modern Historical Context The Impact of Nuclear Weapons The Trend toward Irregular Warfare

Glossary Collateral Damage Unintended damage during military operations, usually referring to the deaths of civilians or the destruction of their property. Conventional War A war fought between two or more states using legally constituted and controlled uniformed regular armed forces. Cyber Warfare The use of computers or the internet to spread propaganda, access classified information, disrupt electronic surveillance systems, or attack information technology-dependent infrastructure targets. Globalization The increase in global economic, social, technological, and cultural communication, integration, and interdependence. Insurgency An armed rebellion against the authority of a government intended to secure political, economic, or social objectives. Irregular War A war that does not involve direct combat between the regular armed forces of nationstates, but is characterized by armed conflict between state forces and nonstate guerrilla fighters or between rival militia groups. Mass Casualty Terrorism An act of politically motivated violence using methods deliberately intended to cause the deaths of large numbers of civilians.

The Nature and Character of War War is organized and politically motivated violence, destruction, and death. It is a phenomenon where rationality and order coexist with chance and uncertainty and the most intense human feelings of determination, honor, greed, fear, and ignorance interact and conflict. The fundamental nature of war has remained unchanged over the centuries, which accounts for the continued interest in venerable analysts of warfare such as the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, the Greek historian Thucydides, and the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Their works remain on the reading lists of military staff colleges around the

The Decline of War Contemporary Trends in Warfare Future Trends in Warfare Further Reading

Network-Centric Warfare The achievement of information dominance on military operations through the electronic linking of sensors, decision-makers, and weapons systems, enabling shared awareness, a faster reaction time to events, and greater lethality. Precision Guide Munitions Munitions that can achieve unprecedented accuracy through the employment of laser, infrared, radar, or satellite guidance systems, colloquially known as ‘smart bombs’. Proxy War A war where major powers use third-party actors to advance their policy objectives as a substitute for fighting each other directly. Revolution in Military Affairs A dramatic change in the character of war caused by political, social, technical, or doctrinal changes. Total War A war characterized by the mass mobilization of a nation’s resources and fought largely without limitations or restraints on the geographical area of hostilities, the means employed to wage war, or the targets selected for attack. Weapons of Mass Destruction A weapon with the power to kill large numbers of people; the category includes nuclear, chemical, bacteriological, and radiological weapons.

world even in an era of stealth technology, networked information systems, and satellite communications. In contrast, the character of war is ever changing. From ancient times, developments in technology, social organization, and political systems have shaped the ways wars have been fought. Warfare itself has in turn affected the evolution of each of these factors. Therefore, trends in warfare do not take place in isolation and cannot be divorced from broader national and international societal, economic, and political developments. For example, the invention of gunpowder led to the introduction of firearms that rendered obsolete the armored knights that had dominated European battlefields for centuries. As gunpowder artillery also allowed rulers to

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breach the once impregnable walls of medieval fortresses, it also enabled them to destroy the independence of warlords who challenged their authority and lay the foundations for the growth of modern, centralized nation-states. In the contemporary world, the process of globalization has both facilitated new forms of warfare and likewise been affected by their impact. The terrorist network Al Qaeda has exploited the unprecedented global exchange of information, people, and finance to wage its self-declared war against the West, demonstrated most spectacularly with the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001. These attacks are estimated to have cost the world economy more than a trillion dollars and called into question the sustainability of the openness and freedoms that are indispensable to the globalization process. Changes in the character of war have tended to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Different trends in warfare often run parallel to each other and developments are frequently uneven rather than linear. The longbow, for example, remained a more effective battlefield weapon than primitive handguns long after the advent of gunpowder. Nevertheless, scholars are fond of identifying significant developments and labeling them ‘revolutions in military affairs’. These are periods when technological breakthroughs, profound sociopolitical changes, or radical new ideas have had a seismic impact on the character of war. There have been many of these so-called revolutions in military history. The French leve´e en masse, the largescale mobilization of citizenry made possible by the political and social changes of the French Revolution, not only enabled Napoleon to overwhelm the smaller professional armies of his continental opponents, but also served as the blueprint for the mass conscript armies that fought the major wars of the twentieth century. The advent of nuclear weapons in 1945 perhaps uniquely deserves the epithet ‘revolutionary’. The introduction of weapons of previously unimaginable destructive power made the prospect of war between nuclear-armed states practically unthinkable and forced major powers to find safer ways to advance their national interests. Many have argued that developments in information systems have created a contemporary revolution in military affairs, although the advances in microelectronics that have made these technologies possible were already starting to have an impact on warfare in the 1970s.

Trends in Warfare: The Modern Historical Context The Trend toward Total War Despite the invention of firearms, a medieval or even Roman commander would not have found a Napoleonic-era battlefield an entirely alien environment.

Because the scope and scale of war had increased only slowly over the centuries, commanders could still exercise direct control over their troops and the battlefield was still the preserve of men and horses rather than machines. In the century after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the character of war was transformed as technological advances greatly increased the destructive power of weapon systems and the strategic reach of military forces. Brass cartridges and breech-loading weapons extended the range and accuracy of artillery and firearms and magnified the killing power of armies on the battlefield. Steamships and railways allowed the projection of military force on land and at sea over hitherto unthinkable distances and at previously unimaginable speeds. The invention of the telegraph gave commanders the ability to control and direct military operations in locations hundreds of miles away. The pace of technical innovation accelerated in the first half of the twentieth century, not least because of the spur provided by the two World Wars. The invention of the internal combustion engine led to the mechanization of warfare on land, in the skies, and under the seas with the appearance of tanks, aircraft, and submarines. Research in the new science of electronics created breakthroughs in communications, target acquisition, and fire control systems. Radio sets, for example, linked armor, artillery, infantry, and aerial units and facilitated the rapid fusion of mobility and firepower that characterized German blitzkrieg warfare. The introduction of radar allowed targets to be identified far beyond visual range at sea and in the air by day and night. Toward the end of World War II, German scientists developed the world’s first operational jet aircraft and ballistic missiles, although these weapons came too late to affect the outcome of the war. In 1945, American physicists won the race to build atomic weapons. The single atom bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused death and destruction on a scale that had previously required the employment of hundreds of conventional bomber aircraft. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, industrialization in Western states hugely expanded the wealth of the major powers and similar advances in public health allowed rapid increases in their populations. Modern bureaucracies enabled the mass mobilization of citizens in the name of nationalism or universalistic ideologies. Thinkers as diverse as Hegel and E H Carr viewed war in a positive light, arguing that it provided a legitimate means of promoting social and political change. Popular commitment was as important as industrialization in providing the means to wage total war. The growth of economic power and national consciousness allowed huge armies, navies, and later air forces to be equipped, sustained, and motivated. Consequently, World War I (1914–18) and World War II (1939–45) were massive wars of attrition with victory ultimately granted to the side with the

Warfare, Trends in

greatest reserves of men, material, and money. If World War I was characterized by battlefield slaughter and destruction on a massive scale, in World War II this slaughter and destruction extended to the homelands and civilian populations of the combatant states. World War II truly merits the description of ‘total war’. The major combatants mobilized to the limit of their technical and manpower resources to achieve war aims that were grandiose and uncompromising. The scope of the war was global, no continent or ocean remained free of combat or the effects of the war. Unlike the limited European wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the focus of violence was enemy armies on the battlefield, societies and civilian infrastructure became regarded as legitimate targets. Bomber fleets were employed to terrorize civilian populations and attempt to break the will of their governments to continue fighting. Attacks on German cities alone killed over 600 000 civilians. In Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China, civilians were deliberately killed during military operations in vast numbers as extreme ideological and racial theories unlocked a savagery unprecedented in modern conflicts. Whereas 90% of the deaths in nineteenth-century wars had comprised military personnel and a clear majority of the casualties in the World War I were also soldiers, over half of the estimated 50 million dead in World War II were noncombatants. The magnitude of the deaths in World War II compared with a selection of other wars of the twentieth century is illustrated in the chart in Figure 1.

The Impact of Nuclear Weapons Global politics between 1945 and 1990 were dominated by the rivalry between the two principal victors of World War II, the United States (US) and the Soviet Union. The relationship between these ideological opponents was characterized by political, economic, and military competition on a global scale, but because a direct military engagement between the two states was avoided, the period is most frequently referred to as the Cold War. The advent of nuclear weapons reversed the trend toward total war that had developed over the previous century. War had always been an expensive and risky undertaking, but the unlimited destructive power of nuclear weapons made interstate war between major powers an act of potential national suicide. The implications of the nuclear age were not fully appreciated in 1945. At first, atomic weapons were few in number and monopolized by the US. However, within ten years, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom (UK) had become nuclear-armed states and France and China had their own nuclear weapons’ programs. Above all, the introduction of thermonuclear hydrogen bombs in the early 1950s, with far greater destructive power than those used in 1945, eliminated any lingering illusions that nuclear weapons could be employed in a similar manner to conventional ordnance. From the 1960s, the creation of huge arsenals of nuclear-armed intercontinental, ballistic missiles created the phenomenon known as mutually

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assured destruction (MAD), which appropriately described a situation where the homelands of both the US and the Soviet Union would have been utterly devastated in the event of a full-scale nuclear exchange. By the end of the Cold War, there were around 30 000 nuclear warheads based on missiles in underground silos, on mobile launchers above ground, in nuclear submarines, and on aircraft. With no viable defense against nuclear missiles, deterrence rather than defense was the main focus of strategy during the Cold War and both superpowers sought to avoid a direct, bilateral armed clash that could escalate to nuclear war. Consequently, the US and the Soviet Union limited the scale and scope of the wars they fought in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan and constrained armed conflicts fought by their allies and clients. After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the US and Soviet Union came close to nuclear war, both superpowers also made formal efforts to diminish the risk of war through confidence-building arms control and antinuclear proliferation measures. The Western democracies relied on nuclear deterrence to keep the peace during the Cold War. However, they also recognized that if deterrence failed it would be necessary to resist a possible Soviet conventional military assault in Europe. The standoff between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Warsaw Pact alliance in Europe was the most visible manifestation of the military confrontation between the rival superpowers. Both alliances maintained large numbers of troops with armored vehicles, combat aircraft, and warships at a high state of readiness. By 1980, in the European theatre alone, 11 000 NATO battle tanks and 3300 tactical aircraft confronted over 27 000 Warsaw Pact tanks and nearly 6000 aircraft. During the Cold War, continuous improvements took place in mechanization and the rate of fire and accuracy of weapon systems. By the 1970s, advances in microelectronic guidance systems allowed bombs, shells, and missiles to strike targets with ever-increasing precision. Military planners prepared for a conventional war in Europe similar in form to World War II, with combat between mechanized, armored formations; long-range aerial bombardment; and naval battles on the North Atlantic supply routes. However, technological trends suggest that such a war would have involved a hitherto unprecedented rate of casualties, attrition of military hardware, and expenditure of munitions. Conventional military operations would have resulted in the rapid exhaustion of the combat power of the forces involved. Given NATO’s numerical inferiority, its leaders might have been faced with the dilemma of surrender or escalation to the use of nuclear weapons relatively soon after the outbreak of hostilities. Contemporary simulations of nuclear war in Europe involving relatively low-yield, so-called tactical or theater nuclear weapons, predicted continent-wide devastation and millions of casualties.

The fact that neither alliance could view the prospects of even a conventional war in Europe with equanimity increased the perception that war between the major powers would hardly advance any rational policy objectives. Nuclear weapons inhibited but did not eliminate interstate wars during the Cold War period. The Soviet Union and the US were not adverse to exploiting local conflicts to advance their own or their allies’ interests. Some regional wars such as those between Israel and her Arab neighbors were treated as proxy wars by the two superpowers. During the 1973 Arab–Israeli war, for example, the US and Soviet Union supported and supplied weaponry to opposing sides, even during the fighting, and intervened to end the conflict when it threatened to escalate to a wider war. The superpowers could not control the behavior of all states and some military clashes were largely outside of their control. For example, India fought wars with Pakistan and China, China conducted a border war with Vietnam in 1979, and in 1982 the UK and Argentina went to war over the Falkland–Malvinas Islands. Interstate wars of the Cold War period, fought under the nuclear shadow of the superpowers, were generally localized and characterized by restraint. The Iran–Iraq war (1980–88) was an exception to the prevailing tendency. Poison gas was employed by the Iraqis and both sides mounted indiscriminate missile and air attacks against each other’s cities. However, despite infantry combat that resembled the trench warfare of World War I, neither Iran nor Iraq possessed the necessary industrial, technological, or military muscle to fight a truly total war.

The Trend toward Irregular Warfare For the world’s richest and most technically advanced states, the Cold War was a time of unprecedented freedom from war. However, this was not the experience of people in the developing world where civil wars and wars of national liberation in states as diverse as China, Vietnam, El Salvador, Guatemala, Algeria, Angola, and Mozambique led to the deaths of around 40 million people between 1945 and 1990. Irregular warfare has become a term used to describe any armed conflict that does not involve set-piece battles between the uniformed armed forces of nation states, though the category embraces wars of very different scale and complexity. In China and Vietnam, large-scale armed conflicts inspired by Mao Tse Tung’s concept of People’s War involved concurrent irregular and conventional military operations. In small, densely populated territories, the predominant form of irregular warfare was urban terrorism, such as the campaigns against the British in Palestine, Aden, and Northern Ireland. Irregular warfare is just one term used to classify these wars; they have also been variously described as guerrilla wars, small wars, insurgencies, revolutionary wars, low-intensity wars and, most

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recently, asymmetrical wars. The plethora of terms reflects the difficulty of classifying armed conflicts that do not fit the traditional model of war between nationstates fought by legally constituted and controlled military forces. Major definitional problems have also arisen over attempts to distinguish between a guerrilla fighter and a terrorist as illustrated by the cliche´ that ‘one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’. In practice, fighters in irregular wars conduct both, guerrilla operations against government security forces and perpetrate acts of terrorism, to inspire fear among the civilian population. Irregular warfare is by no means only a modern phenomenon. Since ancient times, guerrilla tactics have been employed by the militarily weak against stronger opponents, although prior to 1945 such operations were usually subsidiary to the campaigns by regular armed forces that decided the outcome of wars between states. The impetus for irregular warfare after 1945 arose from many interrelated factors. The decline of the European colonial empires caused political and social upheaval on a grand scale and unleashed anti-imperialist and nationalist aspirations for statehood. In this context, revolutionary socialism appeared to offer ideological inspiration to many oppressed people in much of the developing world. Consequently, the geopolitical rivalry between the superpowers acted as an additional stimulus to warfare. The Soviet Union and its allies supplied many guerrilla movements with arms and training and the US and its allies in turn supported counterrevolutionaries. Improvements in global communications allowed guerrilla movements to mobilize support and influence public opinion across the world and the ready availability of weaponry, in particular the ubiquitous Kalashnikov assault rifle and rocketpropelled grenade (RPG) launcher, ensured that irregular fighters were usually well armed. Traditionally, guerrilla warfare has been characterized by small-scale, hit-and-run operations by lightly armed fighters who exploit deception, surprise, and the ability to merge into the local population and terrain. In wars fought for anticolonial, nationalist, or ideological objectives, guerrillas sought to exploit popular grievances to build mass support for their cause. Where persuasion failed, judicious use of terrorism was made to coerce the local population and undermine their confidence in the ability of government security forces to protect them. Because guerrilla fighters sought to undermine their opponents’ political will rather than destroy their material means to make war, irregular wars tended to be protracted. Guerrillas in Indo-China fought the Japanese in the 1940s, the French in the 1950s, and the US in the 1960s before attaining a unified, independent state of Vietnam in 1975. In a very different theater of operations, the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s military campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland lasted 25 years.

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The major powers of the postwar period had ample experience of small-scale, colonial constabulary operations dating back to the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the strategic focus on the nuclear and conventional military balance of power during the Cold War tended to obscure the fact that irregular warfare was the predominant type of war after 1945. While the armed forces of the major powers trained and equipped for a large-scale interstate war, they were more likely to find themselves deployed on counterinsurgency operations. In these campaigns, where success was determined by political rather than military factors, measures of progress in conventional warfare, such as the attrition of enemy forces, were usually of lesser importance. Neither the US in Vietnam in the 1960s, nor the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s was able to prevail against irregular opponents. Their massive arsenals of nuclear missiles and sophisticated conventional weaponry were largely irrelevant to the outcome of these wars. In campaigns where the guerrillas were able to gain popular support, governments often faced the dilemma of accepting defeat or attempting ruthless repression of the insurgents by means widely perceived as illegitimate, especially for modern democracies. During the campaign in Algeria (1954–62), the French armed forces successfully suppressed the guerrillas of the National Liberation Front, but the brutality of the counterinsurgency campaign, including the use of torture, undermined public support for the war in France, brought down the metropolitan government, and ultimately failed to prevent Algerian independence. Elsewhere, notably in Malaya and Oman, guerrillas were contained or defeated by effective counterinsurgency techniques in which civil administrative, police, and military responses were coordinated and integrated. In these campaigns, military forces played a supporting role to the political initiatives that were the main ingredients of successful strategies. Nevertheless, the failure of insurgent campaigns between 1945 and 1990 was due more to the inability of guerrilla movements to capture mass popular support than specific counterinsurgency measures or outright repression by the governments of states that opposed them.

The Decline of War The Impact of the End of the Cold War A marked trend since 1990 has been the significant reduction in the number and magnitude of armed conflicts worldwide. However, the decline in warfare is not evenly distributed across the world. In the early twenty-first century, wars are largely confined to sub-Saharan Africa and south-central Asia. Europe and North America, by contrast, continue to enjoy a historically unprecedented era of peace and stability. The prospect of a conventional war between major powers remains uniquely low, not least

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because of the continued existence of substantial arsenals of nuclear weapons. Contemporary wars are liable to occur in weak or failing states and are civil rather than interstate conflicts. Poorly governed countries plagued by corruption and poverty, ethnic or religious divisions, and rapidly growing populations provide breeding grounds for warfare. The twentieth century was the bloodiest in human history with an estimated 200 million deaths directly or indirectly associated with armed conflicts. It is too early to conclude that the twenty-first century will be any less violent than its predecessor, but a number of trends have contributed to the resolution of disputes between states by nonviolent means and reduced the likelihood of war. The end of the Cold War in 1990 had a major impact as it lowered international tensions and stopped American and Soviet support for proxy wars in the developing world in countries such as Angola and Nicaragua. The 1990s also brought what has been called a ‘peace dividend’ as states reduced their military spending and cut the size of their armed forces. Only a few nations, most notably the US and China, have increased military spending in the last decade. Overall, per capita global military spending has declined by one-third since 1985 and most developed states no longer measure their security and influence in terms of military capabilities as was formerly the case. Globalization and Democratization Most states have benefited from the growth of trade and attendant prosperity arising from globalization. Since entering the global trading system, for example, the Chinese economy has grown by more than 10% per annum. Economic interdependence is the predominant feature of globalization, a factor that makes it harder for states to act independently or pursue unilateral, selfish state interests with impunity. War or the threat of war can drive away investment, destroy business confidence, and jeopardize economic progress and prosperity. Major wars can bankrupt even the most powerful trading nations as the UK found to its cost in the first half of the twentieth century. The current globalization process is characterized by unprecedented integration through formal international institutions and informal transnational professional and social networks. Finance and industrial production are now organized on a worldwide scale. Although pessimists point out that an earlier age of globalization ended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, current levels of interdependence suggest that contemporary globalization could prove a more robust restraint on war than its predecessor. The eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant is credited with the origin of what has become known as the concept of ‘democratic peace’. Kant argued that constitutional republics, where rulers required the consent

of the people to govern, were much less likely to go to war, particularly with each other. Empirical evidence appears to support his theory as fighting between democracies is rare. The creation of nearly 80 new democracies in the last 20 years suggests that wars might become even rarer in future. The ideal of democratic peace has reached its most advanced form in the institution of the European Union (EU), which has united former perennial enemies, such as France and Germany, and made the idea of war between them an anachronism. International Efforts to Prevent War The proposition that war can only be justified in a limited set of circumstances dates back to ancient times. For most of history, efforts to limit the incidence of war through the international rule of law have been trumped by notions of state sovereignty and national interest. However, the total wars of the twentieth century generated a new urgency in efforts to curtail war. The League of Nations was set up as an international body in 1919 to promote the negotiated resolution of disputes between states. This initiative was followed in 1928 by the Kellogg–Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of national policy. After the failure of these measures to prevent World War II, the international community tried again with the establishment of the United Nations (UN) organization in 1945. The aims of the UN are to maintain international peace and security and outlaw war. Although the UN has obviously failed to prevent interstate and intrastate wars since 1945, it has nevertheless succeeded in establishing a new norm that the use of force in international relations without the sanction of the UN Security Council contravenes international law. States seeking to use military force attempt to justify their actions on the grounds of self-defense or make considerable diplomatic efforts to gain UN support, as the US and the UK tried to do prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. War has not been delegitimized out of existence but, in contrast to the late nineteenth century, the existence of the UN and the attendant body of international law governing the use of force (jus ad bellum) has helped to establish a trend that war is something pathological in international relations. Up until 1990, the antagonism between the Soviet Union and the US and its allies obstructed the work of the UN Security Council. The five permanent council members – China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US – exercised their individual veto rights to prevent the Council from taking effective action to keep the peace as intended by the UN’s founders. The end of the Cold War unlocked the Security Council and the UN has been able to conduct or sponsor a sixfold increase in conflict resolution and peacekeeping operations since 1990. This includes peacekeeping activities by regional collective security organizations, such as NATO, the Organization

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for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the African Union. The rise in peacekeeping activities is illustrated in Figure 2. UN activities remain constrained by a number of factors, for example, it is still hard to achieve unanimity in the Security Council and the quality of troops sent by many states on operations is poor, but overall, peacekeeping contributes significantly to the prevention and control of armed conflict throughout the world. Constraints on Warfare States in the developed world are no longer confronted by existential threats. War appears a distant prospect for citizens living at a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The heroic, common national causes that inspired the will to sacrifice in the era of the World Wars of the twentieth century seem to be largely absent. Consequently, it is harder for governments, especially in liberal democracies, to persuade their public of the need to use military force or to accept the risks associated with its use. Although troops have been deployed frequently since 1990, some states appear unwilling to use their armed forces for tasks other than humanitarian missions or benign peacekeeping operations where there is little danger of combat. Governments fear the impact of casualties on already tenuous public support for military operations and many contingents deployed on recent operations have been subject to national caveats placing restrictions on their use. Although less casualty-verse than its European allies, the US is not immune from this trend. During

operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, American troops have relied on force-protection measures and precision aerial bombing to keep soldier casualties to a politically tolerable level. The reluctance to expose small, expensive professional military forces to debilitating losses is reminiscent of the approach to military operations in eighteenth-century Europe, when commanders were equally disinclined to risk their troops in battle. Laws governing the conduct of warfare (jus in bello) also act as a constraint on the abuse of military power. Attempts to limit the savagery of war through reciprocal agreements and customs are as old as warfare itself. However, formal international laws governing the conduct of war, including the first of the Geneva Conventions, were not introduced until the mid-nineteenth century. Since 1945, the body of humanitarian law covering armed conflict has grown substantially. Laws governing the conduct of war include measures to limit or ban the use of certain weapon systems, restrict the range of legitimate targets and stipulate behavior toward noncombatants and prisoners of war. Soldiers and their leaders are increasingly liable for prosecution for alleged war crimes in national or international courts. In contemporary conflict zones, military lawyers are on hand to advise commanders on the legal implications of their actions. During the Kosovo campaign in 1999, for example, military lawyers assessed all proposed NATO targets in Yugoslavia in terms of the Geneva Conventions. The 24-hour media presence in contemporary conflict zones has also helped to reinforce the laws of war as the conduct of even the most junior soldiers in the heat of battle is

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potentially subject to global news coverage. Compliance with the laws of war is still far from universal. Powerful states are often criticized for ignoring international law when they feel vital national interests are at stake. The US has been widely condemned for denying legal rights to suspected terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo in Cuba. During wars against Chechen rebels in the 1990s, the armed forces of the Russian Federation frequently violated international humanitarian norms. A massive bombardment of Grozny in 1995 alone is estimated to have killed as many as 27 000 civilians. Irregular fighters generally disregard the laws and conventions of armed conflict, not least to even the odds in what would otherwise be very unequal military contests. Insurgents in Iraq have murdered hostages, used religious buildings for military purposes, and reportedly transported arms and fighters in ambulances, all actions that are in breach of the Geneva Conventions. Western sensibilities regarding casualties and the laws of war have been deliberately exploited by nonstate fighters in contemporary conflicts. The images of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993 were instrumental in persuading the US government to withdraw its forces from the peacekeeping mission in Somalia. During the Lebanon war in August 2006, Hezbollah fighters deliberately intermingled with the civilian population, taking advantage of Israel’s reluctance to cause civilian casualties. Even the most accurate air strikes in urban areas cause so-called ‘collateral damage’, usually a euphemism for civilian deaths. In a notable double standard of contemporary warfare, it is the armed forces of the state concerned that tend to take the full blame for civilian casualties in such circumstances rather than local irregular fighters.

Contemporary Trends in Warfare Information Age Warfare The Cold War rivalry acted as a stimulus for scientific research and many of the technologies that currently define the information age, most notably the internet, were originally developed for military purposes. During the Gulf War in 1991, advanced microelectronic technology gave the US forces a decisive advantage over their Iraqi foes. American aircraft were able to outsmart Iraqi air defenses and their armored vehicles could navigate accurately across the desert at night and engage targets at long range with a 90% hit probability. An Iraqi army that had stood up to eight years of combat with Iran collapsed rapidly with the loss of an estimated 10 000 battlefield deaths. In contrast, casualties in the US-led coalition were minimal. The wars against the former Yugoslavia (1999), the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003) further demonstrated the futility of engaging American forces in conventional combat. In these campaigns the US

demonstrated its unchallenged ability to conduct devastating, large-scale, precision-guided missile and bombing strikes. Improvements in the miniaturization and data-handling capacity of digital information systems throughout the 1990s gave rise to the concept of network-centric warfare (NCW). NCW seeks to defeat an opponent through total information dominance at all levels of military operations. A worldwide grid of networked communication systems provides the foundation of the system. Data from electronic sensors on satellites, aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles are transferred into the network to provide real-time surveillance and allow commanders to acquire targets rapidly and accurately. Commanders can then choose to engage and destroy these targets with a range of precision-guided munitions. A hypothetical visual representation of NCW is shown in Figure 3. NCW has the potential to transform military structures and consequently the ways that wars are fought. Networking, for example, enables the integration of army, navy, and air force units, thus removing the tendency for each service to fight separately. Networked forces also have the potential to achieve greater lethality with fewer weapons’ platforms and the wider dispersal of battlefield units enhances flexibility and survivability. Just as in business enterprises, networking favors flatter organizational structures. This development might render traditional military hierarchical structures obsolete as the fleeting operational opportunities provided by real-time battlefield data can best be exploited by delegating decision-making down to the lowest levels of leadership. Advocates of NCW believe that the exploitation of information technology offers the prospect of wars that can be won rapidly with few casualties and, thanks to precision targeting, a minimum of noncombatant deaths. Impressive results were achieved by networked units and precision-guided bombing during the conventional phases of operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in March–April 2003. However, both Taliban and Saddam Hussein’s armed forces were weak and no military competitor has yet emerged armed with sophisticated electronic countermeasures to challenge US information superiority. Historical experience suggests that no state can sustain a decisive military technological lead for long. China, for example, is investing heavily in cyber-warfare resources and methods to disrupt the satellite surveillance systems on which American information dominance depends. Irregular, rather than conventional, warfare remains the prevalent form of war in the early twenty-first century. High-technology sensors and communication systems, as well as precision bombing, can play a useful role in such wars, but cannot substitute for large numbers of relatively low-tech light infantry soldiers. The techniques of guerrilla warfare continue to be effective in contemporary conflicts against opponents armed with greatly superior military

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Figure 3 Network-centric warfare.

technology, as illustrated by the improvised roadside bombs that have caused over 70% of US casualties during counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. Irregular fighters have also proved adept at exploiting the technology of the information age. Al Qaeda has created its own form of sophisticated networked warfare, giving its campaign a global reach that was impossible for earlier terrorist groups. Al Qaeda maintains affiliated cells in over 40 countries, coordinated and motivated through the exploitation of modern communication systems. The group has used the internet to facilitate financial transfers, recruit and train fighters, and pass encrypted instructions and intelligence. During the war with Israel in August 2006, Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon demonstrated the extent to which modern technology can empower well-trained, nonstate militias. Hezbollah fighters operated advanced command and control equipment to coordinate missile strikes against Israel, eavesdropped on Israeli military radio and telephone communications, and employed unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance. The Changing Character of Irregular Warfare The character of irregular war has continued to evolve since 1990. Guerrilla fighters of the Cold War, such as the Vietcong, typically belonged to disciplined, hierarchically organized political movements. Contemporary equivalents are groups such as the Taliban or Hezbollah, although their ideology is political Islam rather than Maoism or Marxist–Leninism. However, such unified movements are relatively rare. Most contemporary war zones are populated by disparate groups of irregular fighters with differing objectives and motivations. The insurgents in Iraq, for example, include Sunni and Shiite militias, Al Qaeda jihadists, and criminal gangs.

Terror was used by guerrillas and state security forces during irregular wars of the Cold War era, but normally its purpose was to coerce or frighten political opponents rather than kill large numbers of people. However, in some recent wars, entire ethnic or religious communities have been targeted in campaigns of terror, a trend stimulated by the collapse of central governments and the splintering of states along ethnic, religious, or tribal lines after 1990. During the wars that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, combatants committed atrocities, including massacres and mass rape, to force ethnic opponents to flee their homes; a process that became known notoriously as ‘ethnic cleansing’. In the war in the Republic of Congo (1998–2003), an estimated 3.8 million people, almost all noncombatants, died in fighting that primarily involved tribal militias. As is frequently the case, economic rather than political objectives sustained the war, as different groups of fighters struggled for control of Congo’s rich natural resources. The withdrawal of state sponsorship following the end of the Cold War forced some guerrilla groups to sacrifice any pretense of ideological purity and turn to organized crime to finance their activities. This is the case in Columbia where Marxist–Leninist insurgents have merged with the major narcotic trafficking gangs. Many contemporary conflicts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, resemble large-scale turf wars between rival criminal gangs and bear little resemblance to the popular image of warfare. Urban terrorism, rather than rural-based insurgency, is now the dominant form of irregular warfare. To an extent this is the result of accelerating global urbanization, but it also reflects contemporary terrorists’ desire to cause the maximum number of civilian casualties. The dramatic rise in deaths due to terrorist attacks is illustrated in Figure 4, which covers the period from 1983–2006. The

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Marxist–Leninist or nationalist-inspired groups of the Cold War period were prepared to act ruthlessly to achieve their objectives, but mass casualty attacks on civilians were rarely a feature of traditional insurgencies. The Spanish experience of terrorism provides an illustration of the difference between traditional and contemporary terrorist campaigns. Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna (ETA) has fought the Spanish government since 1959 with the aim of establishing an independent Basque homeland. ETA has killed over 800 people, but its violence has largely been restricted to representatives of the Spanish government and security forces. Indiscriminate attacks on civilians have been avoided, with warnings sent to the authorities before bomb attacks on infrastructure targets and a tacit understanding on rules of engagement established with the security forces. The bombing of commuter trains during the morning rush hour in Madrid on 11 March 2004, which killed 191 people and injured over 1600, provided a stark contrast to ETA’s methods. The Madrid attack perpetrated by Arab immigrants affiliated with Al Qaeda was mounted without warning with the deliberate intention of causing maximum casualties. Unlike the local grievances that have motivated campaigns by groups like ETA or the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the Madrid bombings were representative of a new trend in terrorism, both global in its reach and as extreme and uncompromising in its objectives as any ideology of the total war era. With a campaign restricted in scope to intermittent if devastating terrorist attacks, Al Qaeda’s violence cannot be compared to World War II

in its scale or intensity. Terrorism is not generally thought to represent an existential threat to Western states comparable to that of the former Nazi Germany or Soviet Union. However, just as in World War II, the civilian population is in the front line of the war. Al Qaeda’s leadership has openly stated that civilians in the US, the UK, and elsewhere are legitimate targets because they share responsibility for the perceived aggression by their governments against the Muslim world. Terrorist organizations are known to be seeking weapons of mass destruction and the prospect of the use of chemical, biological, or radiological devices in an Al Qaeda-inspired attack provides contemporary security analysts nightmares. The employment of such weapons would certainly bring parallels with the era of total war frighteningly closer. The growing tendency toward indiscriminate mass casualty attacks since the 1980s has been accompanied by a rise in suicidal terrorism, justified by the perpetrators on both strategic and ideological grounds. Suicidal bravery is not uncommon in conventional and irregular wars, but deliberate acts of suicide have been comparatively rare. Suicide bombing was not a technique of classical guerrilla warfare. For example, suicide bombings have only recently occurred in Afghanistan; it was not a technique employed during the struggle by Afghan guerrillas against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The era of suicide terrorism began in Lebanon in the early 1980s and suicide bombers have become a major feature of irregular warfare campaigns in Palestine, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya. Suicide was also used for the mass casualty terrorist attacks of September 2001 in the US

Warfare, Trends in

and in London in July 2005. Although frequently identified with so-called martyrdom operations by organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Qaeda, suicidal terrorism is not restricted to Muslim groups. Until recently, it was the Tamil Tiger separatist fighters in Sri Lanka that made the most frequent use of suicide bombing as a technique of warfare. The obvious reason for the use of suicide bombers is their effectiveness. On average suicide attacks cause six times as many deaths as conventional terrorist bombings, generate more propaganda value, and are more likely to result in concessions from target governments. Consequently, suicidal terrorism is no longer merely a tactical device, but rather has become a basic strategy of irregular warfare. Campaigns based on suicidal terrorism were instrumental in coercing Israel into withdrawing from Lebanon in 1985 and from the West Bank in 1995. Al Qaeda has employed massive suicide car bombs in a largely successful attempt to promote sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq.

Future Trends in Warfare Despite the contemporary decline in the frequency and magnitude of armed conflict, historical experience suggests that war will not disappear. It is even possible that the contemporary era will be viewed in retrospect as a particularly peaceful one, as there are a number of threatening developments on the horizon. Some of the more dire predictions of the impact of global warming include the return of old-fashioned interstate wars over territory and resources. These wars could erupt because of shortages of water, food, and fuel or climatic changes that force millions of people to migrate. Vulnerable states could collapse under these pressures creating further opportunities for savage interethnic and tribal civil wars. Nuclear proliferation is another threatening trend as more states seek to acquire nuclear weapons and the danger of them falling into the hands of terrorist groups increases. A nuclear arms race in the volatile Middle East region, for example, could potentially create a greater risk of a nuclear exchange than existed at the height of the Cold War. There is no guarantee that future nuclear powers will manage their rivalry as carefully as the US and the Soviet Union. New nuclear-armed states may not have the technological and administrative fail-safe procedures of the established nuclear powers and small, unsophisticated nuclear arsenals might tempt rival states to risk disarming first-strike attacks. It is possible to identify three major trends that will affect the way that future wars will be fought. One future scenario is based on emerging technical innovations, which have the potential to fundamentally alter the character of war, such as robots, directed-energy weapons, genetically engineered clones, and nanotechnology. Aircraft, warships, and armored vehicles could operate without human crews and robots may take over from fallible human beings in the network that links

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surveillance, acquisition, and target engagement. In this environment, future human soldiers may be computer scientists and women rather than the physically fit young men that have traditionally supplied societies with their warriors. While interstate conventional wars are likely to remain rare for the foreseeable future, there will still be states and nonstate groups willing to use force to further their political objectives. These actors are likely to continue to employ the techniques of irregular warfare to offset the military advantages of the major powers. In this scenario, the primary threat is likely to come from superterrorism inspired by ruthless, uncompromising ideologies similar to those that currently motivate Al Qaeda and its offshoots. Quite apart from weapons of mass destruction, advances in explosive devices, personal weapons, and cyber-warfare threaten to place ever greater destructive potential into the hands of smaller groups or even radicalized individuals such as Thomas McVeigh, who perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people. Another significant trend is that states appear to be losing the monopoly of armed force that has been a defining feature of sovereignty since the emergence of nationstates. Advanced, nonstate militias, such as Hezbollah, are emerging with greater military capability and will to fight than the cash-starved and poorly motivated armed forces of many nation-states. On the other hand, many military services have been privatized or outsourced by advanced military powers. Civilian companies have taken over logistic, training, and security roles on operations that were previously undertaken by military personnel. Some private companies that offer combat services have emerged and the UN has even contemplated the privatization of peacekeeping operations. The current tendency to outsource warfare to nonstate agencies seems set to continue. Predictions of the future of warfare must be approached with caution. History is full of examples where states have been taken by surprise by novel ideas, sociopolitical changes, or technological breakthroughs. Predicting future trends in the early twenty-first century is particularly problematic as the boundaries between conventional and unconventional, regular and irregular warfare, civilian and military, political and criminal, and public and private are becoming increasingly blurred in many conflict zones. See also: Chemical and Biological Warfare; Civil Wars; Clan and Tribal Conflict; Guerrilla Warfare; Nuclear Warfare; Peacekeeping; Terrorism; World War I; World War II

Further Reading Berkowitz, B. (2003). The new face of war: How war will be fought in the 21st century. New York: The Free Press. Bobbitt, P. (2002). The shield of Achilles: War, peace and the course of history. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

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Boot, M. (2006). War made new: Technology, warfare and the course of history, 1500 to today. New York: Gotham Books. Ferguson, N. (2006). The war of the world: History’s age of hatred. London: Allen Lane. Gray, C. S. (1999). Modern strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hammes, T. X. and Respondents (2005). War evolves into the forth generation. Contemporary Security Policy 26(2), 189–285. International Institute for Strategic Studies (2005–2006). Complex irregular warfare: The face of contemporary conflict. In The military balance, vol. 105, ch. 9, no. 1, pp 411–420. New York: Routledge. Kaldor, M. (1999). New and old wars: Organized violence in a global era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Keegan, J. (1989). The Second World War. London: Pimlico. Leitenberg, M. (2006). Deaths in wars and conflicts in the 20th century. Occasional paper no.29, 3rd edn. Cornell University Peace Studies Program. Luard, E. (1989). The blunted sword: The erosion of military power in modern world politics. New York: New Amsterdam Books. Luttwak, E. N. (1995). Towards post-heroic warfare. Foreign Affairs 74 (3), 109–122. Marshall, M. G. and Gurr, T. R. (2005). Peace and conflict 2005: A global survey of armed conflicts, self determination movements, and democracy. Baltimore, MD: Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland. Metz, S. (2000). Armed conflict in the 21st century: The information revolution and post modern war. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/ display.cfm?PubID=226. (accessed on February 2008). Murray, W. and Sinnreich, R. H. (eds.) (2006). The past as prologue: The importance of history to the military profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pape, R. A. (2003). The strategic logic of suicidal terrorism. American Political Science Review 97(3), 343–361. Shultz, R. H. and Dew, A. J. (2006). Insurgents, terrorists and militias: The warriors of contemporary conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Smith, R. (2005). The utility of military force: The art of war in the modern world. London: Allen Lane. Special Report Civil Wars (2003). The global menace of local strife. The Economist 24, 23–26 May 2003. van Creveld, M. (2000). Through a glass, darkly: Some reflections on the future of war. Naval War College Review Autumn 25–44, http://www. d-n-i.net/creveld/through_%20a_glass_darkly.htm (accessed on June 2008).

Relevant Websites http://www.cidcm.umd.edu – Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland. http://www.defac.ac.uk – Conflict Studies Research Centre, Defence Academy, UK. http://www.d-n-i.net – Defense and the National Interest. http://www.mipt.org – Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. http://www.rand.org – RAND Corporation, National Security Research Division. http://www.sipri.org – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil – Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College. http://ccw.politics.ox.ac.uk – The Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War, University of Oxford.

Economic Causes of War and Peace Jon D Wisman, American University, Washington, DC, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Overview A Brief History of the Economic Causes of War and Peace Is War Natural? What Economists Have Had to Say about War and Peace

Glossary Financial Capital An ownership claim on real wealth. Stocks, bonds, bills of exchange, and money are examples. Free-Rider Problem Within a market economy, the problem of not being able (without undue costs or appeal to government) to exclude someone from receiving benefits that others have paid for. It results from the failure of markets to efficiently allocate resources in certain instances.

The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peoples at War and Peace The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peace Creation Further Reading

Game Theory A procedure for mapping the strategies and corresponding payoffs available to competing participants such as two firms, a firm and a union, or two nations where their decision making is interdependent. That is, the effectiveness of one agent’s strategy, depends upon the decisions taken by the other agent. Gene-Culture Co-Evolution An evolutionary theory that argues that genetic change and cultural change mutually affect each other. This is the dominant view among evolutionary biologists of how the human species has evolved.

Economic Causes of War and Peace

Negative-Sum Game Where the sum of losses exceed the sum of gains for all parties taken together. War is typically an example of a negative-sum game.

Overview On the most general level, it is hardly surprising that economic forces have been significant in setting the stage for war and peace, since humans are necessarily and fundamentally economic beings. In order to survive and reproduce in a world of scarcity, humans must struggle with nature to meet their needs. But this very condition of scarcity also establishes a reason why groups of humans might fight for limited resources. Yet even though economics and war seem related, no general theory of war and peace has evolved that is widely embraced within the economics profession. This may be due in part to the fact that economists are generally concerned with resource allocation through peaceable means – especially markets – and have not given a great deal of study to the economic causes of war and peace. And, those who have attempted to develop broad general theories of war and peace have not managed to convince their colleagues – much less the wider body of scholars who study the domain – of the explanatory power of their approaches. During the earliest part of human existence economic surpluses were extremely meager such that war offered limited economic benefits. However, with the rise of agricultural society, war came to offer more substantial economic payoffs to the victors. Indeed, for likely victors, war could be more economically beneficial than economic production. Yet war is a negative-sum game. That is, the economic gains of the winner are less than the losses to all participants taken together. Therefore, peace has always offered a higher collective payoff. There has always been an economic motivation for peace. Where the outcome is obvious, it may be better for the likely losers to bribe the likely winners not to attack. It must be emphasized, however, that because humans are social beings, the motivations for war or peace are more complex than such mere calculation of advantage. Indeed, as society became more complex, so too did these motivations. In any event, the evolution of capitalism eventually changed the equation: economic production came to offer greater benefits than waging war. The economic benefits of peace increased. The technological sophistication and social coordination that accompanied the maturation of capitalism made war increasingly destructive.

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Neolithic Revolution The beginning of humanity’s adoption of agriculture about 10 000 years ago. It was the greatest economic revolution in human history. It was a precondition for the evolution of civilization.

Indeed, the level of destructive capacity of potential combatants eventually came to mean that even a victor would lose economically. Yet even as war became ever more destructive, and hence ever more economically irrational, it continued all the same. However, in the latest chapter of humanity, a major war has come to mean potential species suicide, and this, combined with the critical selfinterested individualism that ever-expanding capitalism nurtures, provides grounds for optimism that major wars belong to the past. Yet if the threat of major wars seems attenuated, this does not appear so true of local and more limited wars, especially in the less-developed world. Participants in these wars have often been funded and armed by the world’s major powers. These wars are often driven by population pressures, ethnic hatred, and a struggle for control over resources. Also, the superpowers, following their own geopolitical and economic interest, have frequently intervened militarily in the internal workings of Third World nations. Some of these external incursions have been especially violent and costly in terms of human lives, some major examples being the US in Vietnam, the Soviets in Afghanistan, and more recently the Russians in Chechnya and the US in Iraq. To gain a broad appreciation of the manner in which economic forces have generated the conditions for both war and peace, it is useful to survey broadly the history of humanity. To make this task manageable, this history will be divided into several stages of economic development. Surveying this history will constitute the first part of this article. The second part will examine the question of whether war is natural. Part three will briefly survey the spectrum of theories that economists have formulated concerning war and peace. Part four will focus on the social dynamics of peoples at war and peace. The concluding section will look at the future potential for peace from an economic perspective.

A Brief History of the Economic Causes of War and Peace As human culture has evolved, the specific economic causes of war and peace have not only varied, they have also become increasingly complex. Consequently, a useful overview of the topic can be gained by briefly examining

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war and peace over the historical stages of economic development. As will become evident, for much of human history – indeed until rather recent times – there was no clear distinction between an economy and warfare. War and Peace among Hunters and Gatherers Hunters and gatherers were typically nomadic. They would hunt and gather an area until it was fairly well picked over and then move on, often following the migratory patterns of animals. Because of their nomadic ways, foragers could not accumulate significant material wealth. What material wealth they might possess would be in the form of crude primitive weapons and tools, perhaps clothing and hides for shelter, and ornamental jewelry. Such meager material wealth offered groups little incentive to attack so as to steal others’ possessions. This does not mean, however, that hunting and gathering peoples did not war with each other. Indeed, the personal and social skills necessary for bringing down prey were highly suited for war. And there were motivations for belligerence toward other groups. They might fight for women, or for hunting and gathering rights to specific territories. Until fairly recently, the dominant view was that such warring was quite limited in scope and damage was unlikely to be severe. The reasoning was that unless there was a shortage of promising hunting and gathering territory, groups would not so readily risk death in battle. An economic form of reasoning was believed to have prevailed, one balancing the risk of death from starvation against death in battle. And because groups could usually move on to other territories, conflict was believed to have been more in the form of bluffing, an attempt to convince the opposing group of their fighting superiority and their willingness to do battle. This highly ‘economistic’ view is now challenged. Evidence suggests that warfare in pre-agricultural societies was incessant, driven more by the sexual rewards of being a successful warrior than by economic advantage. Those warriors who had succeeded in killing an enemy sired more children, thereby passing more of their genes into future generations. In this manner, a genetic proclivity for warlike behavior was presumably selected. This proclivity would work even should a warrior be killed. Most hunter–gatherer societies were patrilocal. Wives are sought from outside the band and moved to live with the husband’s family. This means that most of the males in the band were relatives. Thus if one were killed, some of his genes would still pass into future generations. Interestingly, our closest primate relative, the chimpanzee, whose genome is 99% identical to ours, are also patrilocal and share our earlier propensity for murderous raids on other groups. None of this, of course, negates the economic benefits of successful warfare. Annihilating one’s enemies meant reduced competition for scarce resources.

To minimize risks, such warfare was apparently carried out as raids, ambushes, and surprise attacks. The ideal was to gain or protect territory and to annihilate or exterminate the opponent so as to preclude revenge. According to anthropologist Lawrence Keeley, 65% of pre-agricultural societies were at war continuously, and 87% fought more than once a year. They killed their enemy, taking no prisoners, excepting perhaps women. It has been estimated that about 30% of males were killed in warfare (about the same rate as for chimpanzees). War and Peace in the World of Early Agriculture Although the adoption of agriculture – the so-called neolithic revolution – is typically dated to about 10 000 years ago, it did not begin of a sudden. Groups planted crops at first to supplement food from hunting and gathering. Nor was agriculture chosen because it seemed to be a superior mode of existence. In fact, evidence suggests that given the choice, hunter–gatherers will not voluntarily adopt agriculture. Instead, it is generally believed that the adoption of agriculture was forced by the decline of productivity in hunting and gathering as populations expanded. It was over-hunting and over-gathering, perhaps combined with climatic changes and new technologies, that made necessary the adoption of agriculture. Agriculture means greater human command over the physical world. Rather than foraging for food, humans gained a greater degree of control over their food sources. But agriculture introduced a new problem of major importance. Agriculturalists do not live hand-to-mouth. Instead, they invest long periods of labor in their future food supply. They must await the harvest, or wait until their animals have birthed young and nurtured them to an independent age. The problem is that marauders can sweep in and steal the harvest or poach their herd animals. And after they have done so, the victims are highly vulnerable to starvation. Consequently, the adoption of agriculture created a need for effective defense. Agriculturalists needed to defend their investment in their future food supply, even to their deaths, since they would likely starve if the marauders should win. The existence of a saved food supply, whether in grains or animals, made war far more economically attractive. Harvests and herd animals could present all but irresistible pickings. Agriculture created greater differentials in group sizes, division of labor, and technological sophistication. Clear military superiority could well enhance the chances of plundering raids, or the ability to withstand such raids. Yet if agriculture created surpluses worth stealing, it also greatly increased the potential benefits of trade. A proclivity for trust and coordination was rewarded with the economic benefits of increased trading. Humans were encouraged to calculate the costs and benefits of cooperation with nonkin others.

Economic Causes of War and Peace

Pastoral Nomadic Horsemen and Continual War One form of agriculture – pastoral nomadism – became especially prone to warlike behavior. Pastoral nomads herded animals from one grazing area to another. Once horses became domesticated and nomads began moving about on horseback, they became ferocious warriors. Their wealth was in their herd animals, and the skills they needed to develop to protect this wealth against both animals and other groups of humans kept them continually prepared for combat. Their equestrian skills gave them the capacity to strike with lightning speed and terrifying effectiveness. Virtually all adult males would serve as warriors. Thus they had two principal means of acquiring their needed resources: They could tend and breed their herds and they could attack agricultural settlements or other nomadic bands to steal all that was worth carrying off. Their economic well-being depended upon both. Not surprisingly, then, the skill and courage required for attack made war a noble activity within their cultures. Yet their mobility posed serious limits to their economic and cultural development. Without giving up nomadism, they could accumulate only limited wealth. Because of their nomadism, they could not develop a high degree of division of labor or specialization. Consequently, they typically remained poor and illiterate. Nevertheless, their aggressiveness had serious economic consequences. It was to severely retard economic development in many areas of the world, such as Eastern Europe, which suffered continual waves of nomadic attack from the East. Because of their mobility and military skills, they were all but impossible for more settled powers to constrain or control. War and Peace and the Rise of the State As agricultural settlements grew, defense became increasingly specialized. Social power came to be based increasingly on political relations as opposed to kinship relationships. Sociologist Max Weber saw this evolution of the state as a consequence of a group gaining a relative monopoly on violence. In a similar vein, economic historian Douglass North has developed a theory of the state according to which a group with a comparative advantage in violence specializes in offering defense in return for a portion of the output of all producers. This group becomes the state. It should be noted that from the vantage point of economic science, the state can be viewed much like a monopoly business firm, albeit one with unique characteristics. An implicit contract exists between the state and its subjects: in exchange for protection from both external and internal aggression, subjects provide the state with resources in the form of tribute or taxes. Its superior fighting power, and hence its high degree of monopoly

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on violence, gives the state the temptation and potential ability to extract a maximum of taxes from producers. However, the state’s ability to exploit the people within its domain is checked by the threat of revolt and the availability of substitutes. If the state’s tax burden is deemed excessive, subjects might be tempted to give their allegiance to a rival group offering to provide protection for less. They might even prefer the assumption of power by a foreign force. Paradoxically, peace is necessary for economic progress, yet peace can make despotism more readily possible. If a state faces no serious internal or external competition for the allegiance of its subjects, then these subjects have no recourse to substitutes. If the state has no internal competitors, then it need not be so solicitous of its people. If no external competition is in evidence, then factions of subjects cannot flirt with foreign powers in a manner that places checks on the sovereign’s power. Thus, without internal or external substitutes, the state can more readily oppress its people. Its people have no other defense options. A classic example is pharaonic Egypt. With a sea to the north, deserts to the south and east, and semiarid lands to the west, Egypt was relatively well insulated from external aggression. Also, with periodic exceptions, there was little or no internal competition. Consequently, the power of the pharaohs was nearly absolute and their exploitation of their peoples supposedly quite extreme. A second example is that of Rome. The Roman state developed military technology that was superior to that of other states and peoples. Yet more importantly, it developed the economic power and highly sophisticated social organization that gave it clear military superiority over contending political entities. The consequence was that competing political powers were typically defeated. The evolving Roman Empire had, then, two sources of income: It could tax its own citizens, and it could demand tribute from conquered peoples. The Roman state developed a fairly high degree of monopoly power over violence for a theretofore-unparalleled geographic range. This high degree of monopoly resulted in the pax romana, a degree of peace in the Empire that enabled the growth of trade and economic development. This economic dynamism increased the tax base and hence the revenue accruing to the state. Yet the far-flung nature of the Roman Empire meant that internal competition for power was ever-present. This placed a check on the ability of the state to exploit not only Roman citizens but also others within the Empire. Eventually, however, Rome lost its comparative advantage in violence. The challenge was both internal and external. Internally, factional fighting weakened the state. Externally, political contenders, adopting similar technology and organization strategies, succeeded in opposing Roman forces on the frontiers of the Empire.

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If the state is viewed as a unique type of economic agent, then like all other economic actors, the state will attempt to maximize its income. But its power to do so, as noted above, is constrained by the availability of substitutes. If an internal or external contender offers protection for less, then the ruled may switch allegiance. It is for this reason that rulers, like all economic firms, will constantly strive to eliminate all competition. The invasion of the Roman Empire by ‘barbarians’ offered peoples in the Empire substitutes. The invasions may have been successful in part because the invaders offered a better deal – better protection for less taxes or tribute. Once a state is weakened by competition, it may find itself on an ever-accelerating decline. The dynamic works as follows: An attack means that more resources must be allocated to defense. At some point these increased costs will force the state to increase the amount of surplus it takes from its citizens. It must increase taxes, tribute, or confiscations. Such highly unpopular measures cause allegiance to waver. In addition, if the state takes more, economic incentives may be impaired. Why work hard to create a large harvest or amass a large stock of animals if the state is likely to take them away? Instead of putting their wealth into productive assets, people have an incentive to convert it into nonproductive forms of property, such as precious metals, that can be hidden from a confiscating state. Obviously, such behavior reduces a society’s potential economic output, and thus is also likely to erode the state’s revenue base, handicapping its chances of amassing the resources necessary for fending off contenders for power. Ideology can, of course, play a significant role. The state would wish that subjects express ‘product loyalty’. If possible, the state could be expected to appeal to higher motivations such as defending the ‘fatherland’ or ‘motherland’. It would wish to convince its subjects that its cause is the will of a god or gods, a just cause against the forces of evil. Typically a priestly class helped create and maintain such state-supportive ideology. Rulers might even portray themselves as gods, as was the case with Egypt’s pharaohs, or divinely chosen, as was the case in much of medieval Europe. A state’s capacity for waging war is constrained by the amount of surplus output that can be produced. For instance, if people faced such material hardship that they would have to expend absolutely all of their energies producing for bare survival, then no one could be freed from production to engage in fighting. By contrast, if 90% of the population could produce enough subsistence for the entire population, then conceivably 10% could engage in fighting. Of course, the amount of surplus created by those in production limits not only the capacity for waging war, but also the size and luxury of the governing or priestly classes.

The Rise of Capitalism In premodern agricultural societies, war was frequently a more promising route to wealth than economic production. The spoils of war could potentially make the victors instantly wealthy. The two principal factors of production and hence the two principal forms of wealth were land and labor. Both could be obtained through military conquest. To be useful, conquered land had to be controlled and defended against competing forces. Captured peoples could be returned as slaves to work the land of the victors. Indeed, the taking of slaves was an especially good economic coup. Those taken would typically be old enough to work. The conquered peoples had paid the substantial expense of raising them to that age. Thus the capturing of adults to serve as slaves was a better deal than domestically breeding and raising slaves until old enough to work. Hard work in production, saving, and investment, by contrast, could promise to improve one’s lot, were it not for the fact that brigands or the state stood too frequently ready to take it all away. Indeed, a principal reason why economic development has been so slow to evolve in human history is that property rights have been too fragile. The superiority of war over economic production was expressed in the status relationships of premodern agricultural societies. The highest prestige was held by those in government or in military service. Frequently, the two were indistinguishable. In fact, the only acceptable careers for the nobility were in politics and the military. As the Marquis de Vauvenargues put it in the mid-eighteenth century, ‘‘a man of quality, by fighting, acquires wealth more honorably and quickly than a meaner man of work.’’ Those in production, by contrast, typically commanded little if any esteem. Those in agriculture – the overwhelming majority of the people – were generally not free, being tied to the land as slaves, serfs, or in debt bondage. Those in crafts, although generally freer than cultivators, had relatively little prestige prior to the rise of capitalism. In most premodern societies, those in trade and finance were especially looked down upon. Indeed, their domains were viewed with such disdain and distrust that they were frequently not accepted as full members of society. Instead, trading and banking functions were often performed by metics or resident aliens. Incidentally, the state periodically found it ideologically useful to blame society’s ills on these metics, making it easier to confiscate their wealth. The slow rise of capitalism in Western Europe became one of humanity’s great watersheds. It set in motion forces that would create not only unparalleled wealth, but also the eventual promise of an end to war. As nation-states evolved in Europe, fueled by the new technology of gunpowder that could lay waste to feudal castles, and by the wealth of expanding trade and

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commerce, these states found themselves in the unique political situation of a general balance of power. After the fall of Rome, no single political power succeeded in conquering and sustainably controlling all of Europe, not that there were not notable attempts such as those of Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Hitler. This prolonged general balance of power was unique to Western Europe and helps explain its economic success. The consequence of no one power being capable of establishing hegemony over Europe had three major related consequences. First, nations faced the constant insecurity of being attacked by other more or less equally insecure political entities. This nation-state competition created an arms race in which to fall too far behind meant possible conquest by a more advanced enemy. This competition also placed a premium on improving the economic foundations of military might. Second, nation-states had a collective interest in no single power becoming overly strong. Alliances would thus form to preclude an already strong nation from becoming yet stronger by annexing a neighboring territory. Third, nation-state competition made it more difficult for individual nation governments to suppress new ideas, practices, and technological progress. Repressed or fearful intellectuals could often flee to neighboring states to find sanctuary. Some of the best-known examples of this were Re´ne´ Descartes, John Locke, Voltaire, and Karl Marx. In addition, intellectuals, unable for political reasons to publish a work within their own nation, often successfully sought publishers abroad. European nations that attempted to repress technological innovations frequently were forced to relent. A striking example was France’s attempt to outlaw the printing press in order to protect the livelihood of copyists. The consequence was that authors sent their manuscripts abroad for publication, thus not only outflanking the prohibition, but also depriving France of an important industry. Eventually, France was obliged to permit the evolution of printing within its own borders. While capitalism made states stronger by strengthening their economies, it also tended to weaken states’ ability to act tyrannically. It did this by dividing authority or power into two spheres: the political and the economic. As capitalism evolved, the state was forced to withdraw progressively from intervention in the workings of the economy. Although this withdrawal has never been total and there have been reversals, it has generally meant that the political sphere occupies itself with the functions of statecraft such as waging wars, making and maintaining alliances, maintaining order, and promulgating laws and regulations (setting the rules of the game). The second sphere of power and authority is the economy. It concerns itself with production and distribution, both of which came increasingly to be ruled by market forces. States discovered, and are still discovering, that

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economic dynamism is frequently better promoted by leaving most economic matters to the workings of this market sphere. The market sphere grew to serve as a countervailing power to the political sphere. The evolution of capitalism has slowly replaced the premodern logic of economic reward. The potential for attaining wealth through war has declined as the technology of destruction has become ever more sophisticated and widely dispersed. The increasing cost of this technology, along with the rising amount of destruction of wealth that it promised, reduced the probability that the spoils of war could make war economically worthwhile. Further, under capitalism, growing productivity in agriculture meant that this sector would decline in relative importance. With the exception of a few natural resources such as oil and minerals that are highly unevenly dispersed geographically, capturing land promised too little in terms of wealth. Two forces were also generated to serve against the capturing of labor in the form of slaves. First, the growing sophistication of production technology made the use of bonded/slave labor less productive. Second, markets work best if all are free to enter and exit them without coercion. The expansion of markets helped increase the value of freedom generally. Slavery came to be seen as morally wrong. The logic of reward shifted from war and violence to peaceable production. And, although the potential risks and rewards of a military career would continue to confer social prestige upon its practitioners, leaders in production found their social standing continually improving as capitalism evolved. The fuller manner in which the maturation of capitalism favored production over war can be seen by examining the changing relative importance of the factors of production. Economists have long identified the three major factors of production as land, labor, and capital. As agriculture declined in relative importance, so too did land. As manufacturing and services increased in relative importance, capital became increasingly important. The traditional aristocratic class held its wealth in and derived its power from land. As land’s relative importance declined, so too did the power, influence, and status of the aristocracy. The bourgeois class, by contrast, holds its wealth in and derives its power from the ownership and control of capital. The rising importance of capital resulted in the ascendancy of bourgeois power, influence, and values. Unlike land, capital is fairly mobile. Machines can be moved. But even more mobile is the ownership claim on capital, financial capital, which provides the capitalist class with great power vis-a-vis the state. Because this wealth is highly mobile, it can more readily escape the control of any particular government. This was noted by Montesquieu in the early eighteenth century. He wrote of how, with the evolution of a form of financial capital, the

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bill of exchange, ‘‘the richest trader had only invisible wealth which could be sent everywhere without leaving a trace . . . a contrivance which somehow lifts commerce right out of [the ruler’s] grip.’’ The market sphere came to serve as a countervailing power to the political sphere. If government threatened capitalists’ freedom or wealth, capitalists could threaten to flee with their wealth to friendlier locations abroad. Because military strength ultimately depends upon economic power, governments had to be careful not to frighten off capital. They had to provide capital with security. Social thinkers were beginning to recognize that this new economy promoted nondespotic government. For instance, in the mid-1760s, political economist James Steuart observed that a ‘‘modern economy . . . is the most effectual bridle ever was invented against the folly of despotism.’’ As governments became increasingly aware that military strength was dependent upon economic strength, property rights were established that provided producers with greater assurance that their property was secure. Property came to be better protected by more clearly defined and better enforced laws. Note, for instance, the concerted efforts to eliminate piracy on the high seas. The state also offered greater assurances that property could not readily be confiscated by the state itself. Note here, for instance, the protections against confiscation provided by the US Constitution. The consequence was, of course, the unleashing of private incentives, greater economic dynamism, as well as more enduring domestic peace. Just as the rise of the nation-state centralized political power, the evolution of capitalism served to socially disperse power. The rising wealth of the bourgeoisie prompted this class to demand a share of political power. At times this demand expressed itself violently, as in the English Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution. But more frequently, political rights were acquired slowly, bit by bit. With the rise of industrialization and extensive urbanization, the working class also began to demand not only better wages and living conditions, but also political rights and a share of power. Although their struggles were often violently crushed by states representing the interests of capital, for the most part workers gained rights slowly, progressively. Considerably later, women and minorities would also petition for their share of political power. The upshot has been that over the history of capitalism, power has come to be evermore widely shared. As a result differences have come to be resolved more frequently within a peaceable political arena as opposed to through civil strife or civil war.

Is War Natural? Is warlike behavior part of the very nature of human evolution? Evolutionary, anthropological, archeological,

and historical evidence suggests that war and warlike behavior have been an ever-present part of the human experience. As social animals, it would appear that humans have always divided themselves into groups with radically different attitudes toward members versus nonmembers. Violence against members has been discouraged, often by violent punishment. Violence against nonmembers, by contrast, has often not only been tolerated, but encouraged and rewarded as well. War as Economic Behavior As we saw earlier, in a world of scarcity social groups struggle against each other, perhaps war with each other, for control or possession of limited resources such as, first, women and hunting and gathering territories, and later, cultivable land and slaves. War, then, can be a form of competition for command over scarce resources. Anthropological studies have found that in general, the scarcer resources are, the greater the likelihood of war. But where resources have been abundant and widely distributed, competition has been rarer. Much has been made of a number of societies, such as the Bushmen of Africa’s Kalahari Desert, or the Eskimos, that have been relatively peaceable. Clearly resources were not abundant for such peoples. But what explains their peacefulness is that they were uniquely situated in territories where competition through war for scarce resources could not have paid off. Because global human population has been rising ever more rapidly since the beginning of the adoption of agriculture, all societies would ultimately face others in competition for scarce resources. The central problem of the science of economics, the problem of scarcity, has meant that human groups were bound to war against each other whenever the payoff was adequately attractive. War as Evolutionary Strategy War would also seem natural from an evolutionary perspective. Groups that were most successful in increasing their command over scarce resources would have a survival advantage that would permit them to increase their populations, and thereby pass on their genes or culture to more progeny. Evolutionary biologist David Barash addresses the naturalness of war by noting the fitness argument: ‘‘The fitness of individuals within a group suffers most when that group is forced to share resources with individuals of another group. The personal fitness of these individuals could therefore actually be increased by warfare, provided that the cost of waging war is less than the benefits received.’’ Thus from both economic and biological vantage points, it would appear that at least in the early history of humanity, war was not the consequence of some selfdestructive passion run amok. Instead, it would appear to

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have been critical to the very process of human social and cultural evolution. Indeed, Darwin and others since have suggested that the evolution of human intelligence is linked to the pervasiveness of warfare in the human experience. Barash suggests that ‘‘Our most dangerous predator may well have been ourselves, and selection would have favored those individuals whose brains were large enough to permit them to enter into workable alliances and to coordinate defense – and aggression – against other groups.’’

What Economists Have Had to Say about War and Peace Although war made sense from an economic perspective until fairly modern times, economists have had relatively little to say about it. Indeed, until fairly recently, most economists who expressed an interest in the economic aspects of war and peace were outside the mainstream of the profession. War and peace have simply not been given enough attention within the profession for a general consensus to evolve as to their causes. In this section, the major contributions will be briefly surveyed. Heterodox Economic Thinking on the Causes of War and Peace Early modern economic thinkers, Adam Smith and the classical school, generally believed that commerce, and this evolving system that was to be called capitalism, would engender greater peace among nations. They did not greatly expound on the topic. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, however, were of a different mind. They saw war as part of the process of what they called primitive accumulation in the early evolution of capitalism, whereby violence was used by the capitalist-controlled state to expand profitable opportunities. At the turn of the nineteenth century, theoreticians of imperialism – some Marxist, others not, believed that imperialism in search of resources and markets was necessary to avoid economic stagnation. State capitalist rivalry for imperial domains would likely lead to war. Two non-Marxist heterodox economists who discussed war were Thorstein Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter. Both essentially viewed participation in war by capitalist societies as irrational: Veblen saw such participation in war as a cultural perversion, stemming from an earlier predatory stage from which humanity might never escape. Much of his biting pessimism was grounded in the proclivity of humans to ‘‘sink their force in the broad sands of Patriotism.’’ Schumpeter also saw war as atavistic behavior, and optimistically as something that capitalistic rationality – which he saw much in the manner of Max Weber’s spirit of capitalism – would move us beyond.

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More recently, a group of neo-Marxists, often referred to as the monopoly capital school, adopted a Keynesian inadequate-aggregate-demand framework. Keynes had argued that government spending is necessary to maintain adequate aggregate demand to prevent an economy from falling into recession or depression. The monopoly capital school argued that the capitalist-controlled state could only spend on those activities that might enhance capitalist profits, and the spending which was most easily justifiable to the greater public was on war. Consequently, they argued that capitalist states were destined to maintain warlike postures towards other states in order to maintain profits and avoid economic crises. Since the early 1960s, attention has also been focused on what outgoing President Eisenhower termed the ‘‘military–industrial complex.’’ The general idea has been that the military and industries that benefit from military spending work together to generate public anxiety concerning external threats to the nation and its interests. This view often shared much with monopoly capital theory, as well as the long-standing charge that, because war frequently is good for the armaments industry, and profits generally, capitalism as a system is prone to war or warlike behavior. Most economic research in this area has been descriptive and not highly theoretical. It has also been performed by mainstream as well as heterodox economists. Mainstream Economic Theories of War and Peace When mainstream economists have taken up the topic of war, it has usually been in terms of viewing state actors in the same manner that individual behavior is viewed. That is, they have extended the neoclassical economic model to an analysis of the behavior of rivals in war. Central to this model is the assumption that actors are rational, self-interested maximizers, and that decisions are made at the margin. War and warlike behavior are depicted as rational for one or more parties. By rational it is meant that war follows some sort of at least rough and ready calculation of the estimated costs and benefits of varying degrees of warlike behavior. These calculations include assessing the rationality of bluffing, or mere warlike behavior that can not only be rational, but even superior to actually going to war. For instance, a weaker power, knowing it would lose a war, might nonetheless pretend that it would fight if provoked. Only by threatening the stronger power with losses might the weaker discourage the stronger from actually attacking. Mainstream economists have also taken note of the parallels between the strategies employed by a small number of firms within an industry (e.g., duopolies and oligopolies) and the behavior of states in potential

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military competition (incidentally, the famous early nineteenth-century German military theoretician, Carl von Clausewitz, had also compared war to business competition). The models of game theory especially have been used in trying to better grasp the options available to military rivals. Within such models, war is viewed as a negative-sum game. That is, whereas war might be rational for one or more parties, it is irrational for all participants taken together. It might be tempting to think of it as a zero-sum game, whereby whatever one participant wins, the other loses. But war is in fact a negative-sum game because the gains of the winners will be less than the losses of the loser. War costs resources, and thus if war could be avoided, these resources could in principle be allocated to meet other needs. The particular strength of this sort of modeling is that it makes clear how we would expect rival parties to behave in their strategies toward one another on the field or at the bargaining table. In fact, this basic framework of analysis has been widely used by noneconomist students of international relations and politics such as Robert Gilpin and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. Although this model possesses considerable explanatory power, its limitation is that it focuses on individual decision makers as rational, self-interested maximizers. It ignores and thus sheds no light on how individuals are socialized, on how their preference functions are formed. It does not tell us how or what individuals come to understand as their self-interest. Moreover, although the model of rational maximizing behavior may characterize the strategies rivals adopt toward one another, it appears limited in two interrelated senses. First, it presumes that the self-interest of political leaders and their constituents are essentially the same. Second, when it comes to actual conflict, the model of rational maximizing behavior does not seem to fit the varied accounts we have of how individual participants behave in battle. More to the point, it would appear that when members of one side behave as purely self-interested actors, they decrease their side’s chances of success. The reason, of course, is what economists call the free-rider problem. If individuals self-interestedly shirk their fair share of the battle effort, a breakdown in cohesion threatens. Success in battle, and especially extraordinary upsets where a physically weaker side trounces a stronger opponent, typically is found to involve a certain esprit de corps – an especially strong commitment on the part of individuals to the group – precisely what the mainstream model has difficulty explaining. This suggests, then, that whereas war may be rational for a group, it requires nonrational motivation on the part of individual actors, especially those who do the fighting. But if this is the case, how might it have come about in terms of human evolution?

The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peoples at War and Peace As noted above, war and warlike behavior are understandable from both evolutionary and economic perspectives. Through evolution, war and warlike behavior appear to have been selected. Some evolutionary biologists and ethnologists argue that this selection was genetic. Others, perhaps wishing to hold out for greater optimism, suggest that it was not genetic, but instead that such behavior has been culturally selected. But the dominant view among evolutionary biologists and ethnologists today is what they term ‘gene-culture co-evolution’, by which they mean that there are, as Charles Lumsden and Edward Wilson have put it, ‘‘reciprocal effects of genetic and cultural change within the human species.’’ Cultural change prompts genetic change and vice versa.

Group Commitment Just as warlike behavior appears to have been selected, so, too, it would appear, have two correlative social tendencies: The first is the extraordinary commitment of members to the group during war or its threat. This is hardly surprising, since a group for which such commitment was weak would be at a severe disadvantage in a struggle for resources, and therefore would be at a disadvantage in terms of survival, in terms of passing its members’ genes or culture on to progeny. It is even plausible that our very sociability, at least to some extent, was selected for as a result of the benefits of social cohesion during threats from external aggressors. Evidence of this group commitment under threat is everywhere in our cultural history: War occasions the most splendid acts of heroism. It is during war that individuals most readily sacrifice their lives for others. Nietzsche and many others since have noted that men are more tightly bonded together in combat than at any other time. This bonding appears to be pleasurable. Indeed, there appears to be an exhilaration in identifying with a group in conflict with others. We also see this proclivity for group commitment in sports. For instance, rarely is anything really to be gained by spectators if their team wins, yet at times there is actual carnage among spectators not content with the outcome of the game. Clearly something other than rational self-interest is at play here. Indeed, evolution may have selected a tendency always to locate an external foe. Societies rarely seem to be without one. Thus, for instance, is it more than mere coincidence that in the US the two great political purges of the twentieth century came in the wake of each of the two World Wars, when new serious external threats had yet to be clearly identified? If such a tendency always to locate an external foe had been selected in evolution, the

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payoff would be the social cohesion that would better enable society to minimize the free-rider problem. Loyalty to Leaders The second corollary of warlike behavior that appears to have been selected has to do with the degree of loyalty given to leaders when the group is threatened. Such loyalty would enable a more coordinated, quicker response to an enemy attack or change in strategy. In fact, it seems that leaders rarely achieve as high a degree of loyalty from their followers during peace as during war. As biologist John Alcock has put it, ‘‘paradoxically, war depends on the cooperative, group-bonding, authority-accepting aspect of human behavior.’’ Because leaders more readily receive stronger loyalty and respect from followers when external aggression threatens, they face an all-but-irresistible temptation: They can benefit if they can convincingly keep alive a perception of an external threat. They might even be expected to craft measures against other powers that will provoke a limited amount of real threat. Hegel made note of this phenomenon when he wrote that ‘‘peoples involved in civil strife . . . acquire peace at home through making war abroad.’’ Loyalty to Leaders in Modern Times As to the social functioning of loyalty to leaders, an important difference exists between early human society and quite recent history. Most of our human past occurred prior to the adoption of agriculture. Presumably, during this long period of human evolution, a tendency for group commitment and loyalty to leaders in times of danger was being selected for. Note that during war leaders were the most vulnerable to injury or death. They were literally leading the band into battle. Hence, any temptation to reap loyalty and respect by showing courage before the enemy had to be tempered by the risk of serious injury or death. Since the adoption of agriculture, however, human society has become progressively more complex: differentiated in terms of economic function through the division of labor; and stratified with respect to wealth, status, and power. There are two consequences of this that are of interest for grasping the nature of modern war. First, what is rational for certain segments of society is no longer necessarily rational for all. Some may disproportionately reap whatever benefits there might be from war, whereas others, especially those who go to the front lines, may disproportionately bear the costs. The second consequence of this explosion in social complexity is that there has been a decreasing cost to leaders of yielding to the temptation to seek the loyalty and respect of followers by keeping alive the perception of a threat of external aggression. As societies have become

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increasingly complex, their leaders have progressively retreated from the front, such that failure in war has generally become personally less costly to them. This does not, of course, imply that leaders could with impunity maintain loyalty by generating external hostilities. If they pushed too hard, a catastrophic war might result, robbing them of power and even life. On the other hand, if members of the group view the alleged threat as either not real, or as not sufficient to merit the cost, then the leader loses credibility and possibly also power. In the US during the Vietnam War of the late 1960s, this appeared to have been the fate of President Lyndon Johnson, and the Iraq war appears currently to pose the same threat to President George W. Bush. It may be the case that leaders do not always consciously and in a calculatingly rational manner weigh the political benefits against the costs of warlike behavior. Such behavior might come forth spontaneously, in a manner akin to group commitment or the followers’ allegiance to the leader. Ideology also comes into play. Since the evolution of complex language, ideology is likely to have been important in maintaining group cohesion and effectiveness in warlike behavior. But in the earliest eras of human history, a threat was generally visible for all to see. In more modern times, by contrast, a threat may be protracted or not always clearly in evidence. Here ideology becomes more critical for maintaining loyalty both to the group and to the leader. Indeed, ideology production becomes an industry, keeping alive depictions of enemies as not actually or fully human; or as godless; or as advocates of barbarian social institutions; or as people of an Evil Empire or members of an Axis of Evil or as terrorists. Alternatively, a society’s ideology may vest its distant leader with supranatural powers such as quasi-godhood, divine status, or divine rights. In modern times there is reason to believe that it has been during periods of economic instability that leaders have been most tempted to use the external threat strategy to achieve support. During economic crises, leaders would be most tempted to craft limited measures against another power in order to provoke a manageable amount of real threat. The reason is that beyond providing for defense and domestic law and order, the most important criterion for judging leadership today is its ability to maintain material or economic prosperity. A number of events in recent times lend support to this hypothesis. World War II grew out of the worst economic depression in the history of capitalism. By contrast, a widespread peace movement and detente came forth during the extraordinary worldwide economic progress of the 1960s. When economic dynamism began to falter in the 1970s, detente began to be drowned out by rattling sabers. Note also that during the 1960s there was widespread confidence in governments’ ability to use Keynesian

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tools to insure macroeconomic stability, whereas during the late 1970s and early 1980s laissez faire doctrine resurfaced, arguing that governments are essentially powerless to stabilize economies. There are many examples of how the threat of foreign aggression has served to legitimate political power. For instance, the rise of the first socialist country following upon the Bolshevik Revolution provided the capitalist power elites in Western countries with a powerful ideological tool for delegitimating the progressive aspirations of the working class. The foreign threat was far more than just an enemy country, it was an insidious ideology – communism. Communism was likened to a metastasizing foreign cancer that was ever-threatening to enter all parts of the social body with disastrous consequences. It was godless, soulless, and if not successfully fought, it would make slaves of everyone. Progressive ideas were readily depicted as communistinspired and those who advocated them as secretly working for the worldwide communist conspiracy. The Bolshevik Revolution granted capitalist interests an ideal foreign enemy. This foreign threat was continually used to legitimate intervention in the internal affairs of Third World countries. Communism had to be stopped from expanding into other parts of the world, even if it meant overthrowing democratically elected governments, propping up dictators, or backing death squads. A second successful, long-lasting modern example of how the threat of foreign aggression served to legitimate political power was the Soviet Union. From 1917 until its fall, it was relatively easy for the Soviet power elite to maintain the credibility of a constant external threat. No sooner had the Bolsheviks taken power than England, France, and the US set out to undermine the socialist experiment, especially by arming and financing the White Russians. Throughout the 1920s there was a perceived threat that the socialist experiment would be undone by hostile capitalist countries. So strongly did Stalin feel this that in 1931 he announced: ‘‘We must make good this distance (to become a first-rate economic and political power) in ten years. Either we do so, or we shall go under.’’ His words were to be prophetic – the Germans crossed Soviet borders 10 years later. And then, at the end of World War II, the US dropped atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan, suggesting to the Soviet peoples how ruthlessly inhumane the capitalist US might be in the pursuit of its interests. In good part due to geography, few peoples have suffered the ravages of war as much as the Soviets – 20–30 million perished during World War II. Consequently, in a sense, the Soviet political elites had it made. They could justify the lack of democracy or civil rights, and the sorry state of their economy, as necessary for defense in an aggressively hostile capitalist world bent on their destruction. The same dynamic may well explain Fidel Castro’s prolonged dictatorial control of Cuba. Since his revolutionary assumption of power, the US has maintained a

highly visible hostile stance towards his rule, supporting an invasion by counterrevolutionaries, maintaining economic sanctions, and, it has been rumored, planned or supported assassination attempts. A more contemporary example is what occurred in the wake of 9/11. George W. Bush assumed the US presidency in early 2001 with what many judged as inadequate electoral legitimacy. And the economic conditions during his first years in office were disappointing. Most visible was the sharp collapse of stock market prices: During Bush’s first 2 years in office, the S&P 500 declined by 33%; $4.9 trillion in equity assets evaporated. Unemployment during this period increased by 40%, from 4.2% to 6%. Between January 2002 and January 2003, the dollar declined by 20% against the Euro. Such conditions would usually result in low popularity ratings. And President Bush’s ratings were quite low until the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. In the ensuing 2 weeks, as Americans joined in solidarity, his popularity rating soared. Within the US he came to be widely seen as a great leader. And thereafter, the threat of terrorism was used to legitimate considerable restrictions on civil liberties.

The Socioeconomic Dynamics of Peace Creation As noted earlier, the evolution of capitalism made economic production more profitable than war. Indeed, as it made war ever more destructive, it eventually made it economically unprofitable even for the winner. Capitalism generated and fed upon evermore sophisticated technology and evermore sophisticated social coordination. The two world wars of the last century – separated by a mere quarter century – made strikingly clear capitalism’s destructive potential. Approximately 8 million died in World War I, approximately 50 million in World War II. And then the cost of a major war between the US and the USSR became potentially infinite. The threat of species extinction as a consequence of a US–Soviet war meant that leaders were once again on the front lines. They would also perish in a full war. Their ability to play the external threat card to rally support was constrained. And in spite of slogans such as ‘better dead than red’, popular support for a major war was unlikely to materialize. Quite convincingly, sophisticated atomic weapons and the means of delivering them over great distances are widely credited with effectively ending major wars. When viewed in the full sweep of human existence, there is an interesting sense in which humanity has come full circle. In its earliest history as hunters and gatherers, war did not have a very high economic payoff. There were simply too few material benefits to win from military

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victory. Warlike behavior in the form of bluff might pay off, but actual combat with the threat of serious injury or death was not generally a good risk from an economic point of view, although as noted earlier, there may have been attractive sexual payoffs for warring individuals that augmented their potential for passing their genes into future generations. Today major war has again become a poor economic risk. Destruction might be total. But even if more limited, it is likely that no power would win economically. It would appear that there is no remaining economic rationale for war. However, it is not just the threat of species suicide or the lack of an economic payoff that is turning peoples in the advanced wealthy nations against war. Capitalism has set in motion a number of dynamics that serve to increase the probability of peace. Capitalism took war to its necessary conclusion. It produced the wherewithal that enabled total war and ultimately total destruction. But capitalism has done more than this to give peace a chance. It has changed how people think about the world and themselves. It has made them evermore critically minded. The most frequently noted consequence of capitalism is that it has brought forth a level of affluence that even the most starry-eyed of past visionaries could hardly imagine. Less noted is that as people become materially wealthier, they come to value their lives more. Note for instance that with ever-greater wealth, people generally become more cautious. They eat more healthily, they smoke less, drink less, wear seat belts, and in general place a higher value on personal safety. This latter point is strikingly obvious to anyone from a rich nation who has the opportunity to drive on the roads of a relatively poor country. With so much more to lose, increasingly wealthy populations might be expected to show less willingness to engage in war. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued that under the regime of capitalism, ‘‘all that’s solid melts into air.’’ Economist Joseph Schumpeter referred to this dynamic character of capitalism as ‘‘creative destruction.’’ What these social thinkers were alluding to is the tendency of capitalism to destroy all traditional social institutions, beliefs, and attitudes. Believing that the ‘dead weight of the past’ fettered human progress, they by and large thought this was a good thing. However, not all social thinkers have been so sanguine. Capitalism has acted as a ‘corrosive acid’ upon the extended family, traditional communities, rigid class distinctions, and the authority of traditional religions. In doing so, it has thrust humans into social worlds where they sense themselves as increasingly alone. Capitalism means that individuals relate to each other not as traditional norms dictate, but as markets dictate. And in markets, individuals are encouraged to be rational and calculatingly selfinterested. The increasing intensity of competition has

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meant that those who are most successful in pursuing their own self-interest become wealthy, the least successful, poor. Traditional values such as honor, glory, courage, patriotism, and sacrifice for the greater good of the whole have suffered as people become evermore calculating of their own narrow self-interest. The downside of all this is all too obvious and is widely lamented. A clear upside, however, is that individuals are less willing to sacrifice themselves or their economic well-being in war. In pre-capitalist societies, a religious framework served as the central referent of all behavior and understanding. The evolution of capitalism slowly eroded religion’s dominance, and with it the promise of an afterlife. This loss in belief in an afterlife increases the value of this worldly life. Loss of one’s life in war means loss of one’s total personal existence. Finally, for reasons discussed earlier, capitalism has tended to decentralize political power. It has, especially in its advanced form, provided a fertile ground for democracy. Yet ironically, democracy increases the ease with which a leader might lose power, and thus might enhance the temptation to rattle sabers. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 seems to confirm this point as well as cast a shadow on optimism as to the end of wars. However, because a democratic society is, by definition, a more open society, claims about threats can be more openly challenged. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, empirical studies have found no significant differences in the involvement of democratic versus nondemocratic states in war. Yet democratic states have not warred against each other. During the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union propped up totalitarian regimes around the globe in a quest to hold them in their respective spheres of influence. Since the end of the Cold War, both capitalism, and to a lesser extent democracy have been rapidly spreading around the globe. But the record so far has been mixed. Authoritarian regimes repressed the violent expression of ethnic differences, and their sudden demise in some areas of the world has created a sesame in which ethnic violence has exploded. The lesson appears to be that democracy is far more complex than political freedom and the vote, and that consequently its peace-bearing benefits flow more readily from a slow relaxation of authoritarianism that provides adequate time for complex democratic institutions to evolve. However, although it may be the case that in the long-run capitalism and democracy evolve together within a nation, it is not so clear that they do so in the international sphere. Globalization has increased the gap between the rich and poor nations, leaving the latter, some contend, in yet more hopeless straits. To many, the failure of the Doha trade talks reveals advocacy for freer trade to be little more than a ruse of the wealthy nations for capturing yet greater shares of the world’s wealth and income for themselves. The go-it-alone

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political and military actions of the only remaining superpower have left serious doubts as to whether the world can generate sufficiently sophisticated international cooperation to effectively address severe environmental threats or the spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Ideologically, capitalism appears to be the only remaining viable economic system. However, at present, it does not appear to promise the democracy of nations that the promise of world peace requires. See also: Economic Costs and Consequences of War; Economics of War and Peace, Overview

Further Reading Alcock, J. (1978). Evolution and human violence. In Farrar, L. L., Jr. (ed.) War: A historical, political and social study, pp. 21–27. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Press. Barash, D. (1979). The whisperings within. New York: Harper & Row. Barash, D. P. (1994). Beloved enemies: Our need for opponents. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Barash, D. P. (ed.) (2000). Approaches to peace: A reader in peace studies. New York: Oxford University Press.

Crumm, E. M. (1995). The value of economic incentives in international politics. Journal of Peace Research 32(2), 113–130. de Mesquita, B. B. (1981). The war trap. New Haven: Yale University Press. Gellner, E. (1992). An anthropological view of war and violence. In Hinde, R. A. (ed.) The institution of war, pp. 62–72. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Gelven, M. (1994). War and existence. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Gilpin, R. (2001). Understanding the international economic order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Keeley, L. H. (1996). War before civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levy, J. S. (1989). Domestic politics and war. In Rotberg, R. I. and Rabb, T. K. (eds.) The origin and prevention of major war, pp. 79–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mueller, J. (1989). Retreat from doomsday the obsolescence of major war. New York: Basic Books. Neild, R. (1995). Economics and conflict. In Hinde, R. A. and Watson, H. E. (eds.) War: A cruel necessity? The bases of institutional violence, pp. 126–207. London: Tauris Academia Studies. North, D. (1981). Structure and change in economic history. New York: Norton. Shaffer, E. H. (1996). Peace, war and the market. Canadian Journal of Economics 29(2), 639–643. Stone, G. R. (2004). Perilous times: Free speech in wartime. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Tullock, G. (1974). The social dilemma: The economics of war and revolution. Blackberg: University Publications.

Civil Wars Errol A Henderson, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Definition of Civil War Types of Civil War Correlates of Civil War Expansion of Civil Wars

Glossary Civil War A major, sustained, violent conflict between the military forces of a state and insurgent forces comprised mainly of residents of the state. Insurgency An armed conflict, wherein opponents of the government (insurgents) from within the state use organized violence against government forces to achieve their political aims.

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 279–288, ã [1999], Elsevier [Inc], with revisions made by the Editor.

Resolution of Civil Wars Conclusion Further Reading

Internationalized Civil War A civil war in which a third party intervenes on the behalf of the government forces or those of the insurgents. Rebellion An armed uprising, or insurrection, of citizens against their government. Revolution A violent attempt to overthrow both the political leadership of a state and the political system, itself. Secession Separation from a political union usually with the intent of establishing an independent state.

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Definition of Civil War A civil war is a sustained, violent conflict between the military forces of a state and insurgent forces comprised mainly of residents of the state. Civil war is not synonymous with internal or intrastate war. The latter also includes conflict between groups in the state that does not involve the armed forces of the state, such as recent conflicts between warlords in Somalia, which are internal wars but not civil wars. In addition, civil war is characterized by a much higher scale of violence than riots or civil disturbances, which are more often sporadic and relatively disorganized forms of civil violence that are often of short duration. Therefore, the urban riots that spread throughout the United States in 1992 and the mass civil disturbances in France in the 1960s fall well short of the level of sustained violence present in civil wars. Also, civil disturbances are often directed at groups and institutions in the society other than the central government, which is the main protagonist in civil wars. Violence directed specifically at the regime in power, such as coups d’etat also often fail to attain the threshold of civil wars. While such conflicts often involve the armed forces of the society, coups d ’etat are more explicitly extralegal executive transfers aimed at overthrowing the sitting regime’s leaders. Coups are rarely accompanied by the sustained violence that occasions civil wars; however, coups can often spawn civil wars as in the case of the 1966 coup in Nigeria that gave rise to the Biafran Civil War the following year. It is widely agreed that civil wars have three clear attributes: (1) they are primarily internal conflicts as opposed to conflicts between states; (2) the participants include the central government’s forces pitted against an insurgency as opposed to violence between groups in the society that does not include government forces (e.g., communal conflict); and (3) the insurgents must be capable of effective resistance, which is absent in cases of massacres and genocides that are prosecuted by states but often do not involve nonstate groups capable of effective resistance. Civil wars may also become internationalized, involving the intervention of third-party states on behalf of either the government or insurgents. Examples abound during the Cold War era, including civil wars that escalated into major interstate wars such as the internationalized civil war in Vietnam. It has been observed that civil wars have become increasingly destructive in the post-World War II era. For example, the Chinese Revolution from 1946 through 1950 resulted in approximately 1 000 000 battle deaths in this conflict between Chiang Kai-shek’s government forces and those of Mao Zedong’s communist insurgents. Yet it is not simply the greater availability of more destructive weapons of war in the modern era that has given rise to the prevalence of civil war. For example, the civil war in Rwanda in 1994 witnessed the massacre of

more than 500 000 persons carried out largely with machetes and small arms. The vast increase in the number of states in the global system since the end of World War II may be partly to blame for the greater frequency of civil war during the postwar era; however, even controlling for the increased number of states in the world, the incidence of civil war during the postwar period has been greater than during the period from the end of the Congress of Vienna to the onset of World War II. Not only have they been more frequent, but many civil wars in the postWorld War II era have been quite long. In fact, of the 15 longest civil wars in the period from 1815 until 1980, more than half occurred in the postwar era. All told, it is probably a combination of the severity of these wars, their greater frequency, and their protracted nature that has contributed to the perception of their increasing importance. From the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War in 1989, most civil wars occurred in the recently decolonized, or postcolonial, regions of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and to a lesser extent in the Caribbean and in Central and South America. Civil wars during this period were virtually absent from North America and Europe, which experienced, at most, only two (the Greek Civil War and that in Cyprus). Only with the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union did the regimes in Eastern Europe experience the paroxysms of civil violence similar to those which have continued to ravage the postcolonial states. During the Cold War era, the poverty and minimal institutional development of postcolonial states reduced their ability to provide effective governance for their countries and often left them illequipped to deter the insurgency of their disaffected citizenry (especially their armed forces). Many of these states became highly militarized and their citizens suffered under authoritarian generals who often used their troops as agents of internal repression. Meanwhile, modernization also induced social change in these states as they attempted to industrialize. The record of successful industrialization among postcolonial states was mixed (though largely poor) and development was strained by bloated militaries, burgeoning bureaucracies, and rapidly expanding populations. Political elites in postcolonial states faced increased demands from both their military counter-elites and their increasingly urbanized citizenry who were both potential sources of insurgency. In addition, fissures in the culturally diverse and often rapidly urbanizing newly independent states often increased their susceptibility to institutional breakdown. Cultural diversity within the postcolonial states often provided a basis for ethnic, linguistic, or religious mobilization by political elites who appealed to ethnic nationalism, or religious fundamentalism – often euphemisms for chauvinism and demagoguery – to mobilize their followers for political protest and insurgency. Further,

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the mixture of ethnocentrism, nationalism, and the arbitrariness of colonial boundaries appeared to foment civil war, especially secession, throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The weak regimes in the former colonized states often lacked legitimacy, thereby reducing their ability to mediate intercultural conflicts borne of rising expectations among the diverse groups in their states. As it were, most state elites catered to their preferred ethnolinguistic audience(s) whom they relied upon for support. Abrogating their role as impartial arbiter, they often evinced a penchant for repression rather than representation. In addition, Cold War intrigue and exigency contributed to the escalation of conflicts in the postcolonial world. Since the United States and the Soviet Union were effectively deterred from engaging each other directly, the Third World became the battlefield upon which they prosecuted wars in attempts to solidify and expand their respective spheres of influence. Whether their policies were driven by fears of falling dominoes or imperialist expansion, the destructiveness of superpower intervention in the domestic politics of postcolonial states gave truth to the African saying that ‘‘when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.’’ Nevertheless, there is an emerging consensus that civil wars in the postcolonial world, even those during the height of the Cold War, resulted largely from internal factors. Fundamentally, postcolonial states were faced with the simultaneous challenges of state and nationbuilding. State-building involves the creation of effective institutions of government and the development of societal infrastructure to provide, at minimum, coordination for the executive, legislative, judicial, and military functions of the state as well as the establishment of institutional channels for political and social mobilization. In addition, it requires the development of the physical infrastructure of the society to include transportation networks, hospitals, schools, housing, sanitation facilities, and other public welfare assets that are necessary for the functioning of the society. State-building involves both coordinated planning and sacrifice; most importantly, it assumes a degree of social cohesion that generates among citizens a sense of identification with the state and a willingness to commit to the process of state-building and the sacrifice of parochial interests to more collective ones. Nation-building involves the creation of a national identity that supersedes local identities and loyalties that might compete with and preclude broader identification with the state. The objective in nation-building is to make the nation the primary political unit to which citizens swear fealty. Postcolonial states, especially, were almost always forced to build functional state institutions at the same time that they were attempting to galvanize a national consciousness and identity among the often diverse amalgamations of peoples in their territories. Where Western states were able to take each of these challenges

(state- and nation-building, respectively) in turn, often over several centuries, postcolonial states were forced to accomplish both simultaneously. Without the glue of a common sense of national identification, there was little motivation for individuals to sacrifice their local institutions in order to contribute to the establishment of the often competing institutions of the state. Rival elites fed this recalcitrance since they often viewed state institutions as competitors to their traditional positions of leadership. The result was fissures within postcolonial states across cultural, class, and regional lines. In addition, postcolonial states were obliged to forge their national identities and promote state institutions during the Cold War era and in an international political economy that often put draconian limits on their autonomous development. While the incidence of civil war has become more pronounced in the postwar era, especially among the former colonies, one should not assume that civil wars that occurred prior to World War II had only a negligible impact on world history. For example, the US Civil War (1861–65) is often considered as the first modern war where the full weight of industrialization in the form of machine-made arms and the use of railroads to move troops and supplies was applied to warfare. Not only that, this war of attrition that basically turned on the North’s success in disrupting the transportation and administrative systems on which the Confederacy relied for support of its troops in the field, actually presaged developments in World War I. Contemporaneous with the US Civil War, the Manchu government in China fought the forces of Hung Hsiu-ch’uan in the most destructive civil war in the last two centuries, the Taiping Rebellion, which ravaged China and led to the deaths of millions. In this century, the Spanish Civil War began as a revolt of elements in the army led by Franco and conservative Catholics against the Republican government of Spain. While the Western democracies, especially France and Britain, demurred from aiding their democratic brethren, the fascist governments of Italy and Germany assisted Franco’s forces. Ironically, much of the support for the Republicans came from the USSR. Only after Germany entered into a shortlived rapprochement with the Soviet Union through the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 did Soviet aid to the Republicans end and Franco’s forces triumph. This internationalized civil war presaged the most destructive war in the history of humankind – World War II.

Types of Civil War There are generally three types of civil war as defined by the objective(s) of the insurgents: rebellion, revolution, and secession. Rebellion, or insurrection, refers to an armed uprising of citizens against their government, and it usually involves attempts to redress grievances with

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respect to a state’s policies. For example, the recent rebellion in the Chiapas region of Mexico was initiated by Zapatista rebels seeking a greater degree of autonomy and better representation of their predominantly indigenous populations, but it did not seek to overthrow or to separate from the Mexican state. During the civil war in Lebanon in 1958, Sunni Muslims mobilized for a more equitable distribution of government resources, but not to overthrow the political system or to erect different political structures. Where rebellion seeks the reform of the political system or a redress of grievances, revolution has as its objective the overthrow of both the political leadership of the state and the political system, itself. For example, the French, American, and Russian revolutions had as their objective the overthrow of the monarchical system, British colonial government, and Tsarism, respectively. The Cuban revolution had as its objective not only the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship but also the incipient capitalist system on the Caribbean island. Revolutions are often intended to overthrow colonial domination in pursuit of national selfdetermination for the colonized people(s). However, all of these cases of anticolonial conflict, or independence conflicts are not clearly civil wars. As a case in point, the independence struggle in Gandhi’s India pursued a relatively nonviolent strategy (although the British were quite violent) in their attempt to overthrow British colonial domination in a conflict that would not be categorized as a ‘civil war’. On the other hand, revolutionaries in Algeria, Angola, and Kenya utilized less nonviolent measures in their pursuit of selfdetermination and fought what were more clearly civil wars (technically, anticolonial civil wars) to extirpate themselves from French, Portuguese, and British colonial domination, respectively. Unlike rebellion and revolution, secession has as its objective the separation of a political entity from a larger political unit, usually with the intent of establishing an independent state. The US Civil War of 1861–65 was a prototypal secessionist civil war. Because of the centrality of territory and population to a state’s power calculus, secession is often the most severe form of civil war because states rarely accede to the loss of their territory without resort to arms. For example, in 1971 the eastern region of Pakistan was wrested free from the state of Pakistan, becoming the independent state of Bangladesh, in a bloody civil war that turned on the intervention of Indian troops in support of the insurgency. Secession wars are often of long duration such as the attempt by Eritreans to secede from Ethiopia, which precipitated a civil war that lasted more than 30 years. Often secession struggles involve a strong cultural component where culturally dissimilar groups attempt to separate from culturally heterogeneous societies, such as in the case of the Kurds, who have for decades fought civil wars in their attempt to secede from Iraq, Iran, and Turkey in order to form an independent Kurdistan.

Correlates of Civil War One can distinguish between human agency and contextual factors that increase the likelihood of civil war. The former relate to the individual and collective dispositions to insurgency that are the more immediate causes of civil war: these may derive from relative deprivation or rational actor motivations for collective action. The latter refers to the characteristics of the state, region, and global system that may be more remote, or permissive, factors associated with civil war. There is an absence of theoretical consensus on the role of human agency factors in civil war and this largely reflects the ongoing tension between relative deprivation and rational actor explanations of civil violence. Research findings on the role of contextual factors in civil war are less disputed but they are not conclusive. For example, it appears that states with higher levels of economic development are less prone to civil war than poorer states. In addition, more mature states are less likely to experience civil wars than younger states. States that are more militarized and those that have a history of past civil wars are more vulnerable to insurgency. Moreover, while there does not appear to be a direct relationship between the cultural diversity of a state and its likelihood of experiencing civil war, states in which ethnic, religious, linguistic, or racial groups are culturally polarized seem to be at greater risk for civil war. An interesting relationship emerges with respect to the association between a state’s level of democracy and its likelihood of civil war. Recent studies suggest an ‘inverted U’ relationship between a state’s level of democracy and its likelihood of experiencing civil war. The assumption is that states with higher levels of democracy are unlikely to experience civil war because of the availability of alternate channels for protest within the political system. States that are more autocratic, also, are less likely to experience civil wars because governments in those states are more likely to effectively repress dissent and stifle protest. However, states with intermediate levels of democracy, ‘semi-democracies’, such as those undergoing democratization – the transformation of a regime to a more democratic form of government – have the highest probability of experiencing civil war. These relationships are evident, for example, in India where the spread of democracy has increased access to education, technology, and political power for previously disenfranchised groups such as Muslims and ‘untouchables’ while also generating a backlash from segments of the Hindu community. This relationship is even more apparent in Africa, where autocratic regimes appear to enjoy greater stability than more democratic regimes that often fall prey to insurgency. For example, Uganda’s nascent democracy was terminated by the civil war in the summer of 1966, Nigeria’s Third Republic was overturned by the civil violence of 1984,

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and more recently, the civil war in Congo–Brazzaville began shortly after the country’s first democratically elected president took office. While African autocracies have endured for decades and the continent’s more mature democracies such as Botswana and Mauritius, have not experienced civil wars, Africa’s ‘semi-democracies’ are often victims of insurgency. It is important to remember that these state level factors do not operate in a vacuum. To be sure, both regional and systemic level factors also play important roles in dampening or exacerbating civil conflict. In particular, the intervention of a major (or regional) power in civil disputes may reduce the levels of civil conflict in a state. For example, the intervention of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces and the implementation of the Dayton Accords helped to reduce the level of conflict in the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Similarly, the intervention of Vietnam in the civil war in Cambodia (Kampuchea) brought an end to the vicious regime of Pol Pot and the slaughter of millions of Cambodians in that country’s ‘killing fields’. What is no less likely is that the intervention of third parties may intensify ongoing civil wars as in the case of the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka’s civil war, US intervention in Vietnam’s civil war, the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan’s civil war, and South Africa’s intervention in Angola’s civil war. While maybe less straightforward, systemic level factors are no less important in understanding the onset and spread of civil wars. The most important of these systemic factors is the distribution of power in the global system, for example, whether there is a bipolar distribution of power such as during the Cold War standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States, or a multipolar distribution of power as was evident in the interwar period where power was clustered about several states including the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and eventually the Soviet Union and Germany. The most significant impact of system level variables on civil wars relates to their influence on the spread of civil violence beyond the initial participants to include the major powers. In bipolar systems, there appears to be a decreased likelihood that the major powers will be dragged into civil conflicts that expand to full-scale major power war (e.g., the United Stales and the Soviet Union never fought each other during the bipolar Cold War era). In addition, in bipolar systems, the two major powers may dominate their respective spheres to such an extent that they can stifle potential insurgency in the states within their blocs. This conflict dampening impact of systemic factors appears less obvious in multipolar systems. In multipolar systems, the likelihood of interstate war resulting from major power intervention in civil war is increased because the greater number of major powers in the system increase the probability of the intervention of at least one of them and the

subsequent intervention of others. The multipolar scenario is consistent with explanations of the onset of World War I insofar as the civil violence resulting from South Slav nationalism in Bosnia compelled AustriaHungary to attack Serbia, which was viewed as the nucleus of South Slav nationalism, following the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary was supported by Germany and later Turkey and Bulgaria, while Russia, allied with the Serbs, came to their support and through its alliance ties brought in the major powers of France, Great Britain, Japan, and ultimately the United States and Italy to offset the Central Powers. In this way, one can appreciate the impact of a systemic level factor such as multipolarity contributing to the escalation and diffusion of the civil conflict in Bosnia into the most destructive war in the history of the world up to that time. In sum, the major impact of regional and systemic factors is their contribution to the expansion of civil wars. It is these matters that we turn to in the next section.

Expansion of Civil Wars Civil wars expand, or escalate, as a function of several factors that can be conceptualized in terms of vertical and horizontal escalation by both insurgents as well as governments. In vertical escalation, there is an intensification of the civil war usually resulting from changes in the political goals and opportunities of either the government forces, insurgents, or both. For example, civil wars can expand vertically when insurgents, encouraged by early victory, abandon more reformist objectives and strategies of rebellion and attempt full-scale revolution instead. In one case, the Hukbulahup (Huk) rebellion in the Philippines emerged from an anti-Japanese guerrilla movement in central Luzon that pushed for inclusion in the postwar Philippines government. The movement only turned to armed struggle when their reformist goals failed to materialize; however, the combination of land reform by the Magsaysay government, US assistance to the regime, a governmental policy of land reform, and the failure of the insurgency to expand beyond its original constituency served to undermine the rebellion. The popular insurrection against the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua gained in strength and eventually resulted in Somoza fleeing the country; however, an element of the insurgents, the Sandinistas, transformed the larger reformist objectives of the insurgency and pursued a Marxist style revolution of the Nicaraguan political system. For the government, expansion may involve a change of policy from accommodation or mediation of rebel demands to repression of dissent and destruction of the insurgency. For example, the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by the Hutu-dominated Presidential Guard in Rwanda in 1994

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was preceded less than a year before by the settlement of that country’s civil war and an agreement on a powersharing arrangement between the parties. In Bangladesh, Yahya Khan’s attempt to deny Bengalis in East Pakistan an electoral victory and their quest for a degree of autonomy within the Pakistani state quickly became a policy of brutal repression of the Bengalis including the torture, rape, murder, and imprisonment of resistance members and sympathizers and ultimately a full-scale civil war. The more conflict-intensifying form of expansion, horizontal escalation, results from the intervention of third-party states (through the introduction of military forces or weapons transfers) on the side of the government or insurgent forces. What results is an internationalized civil war such as the ones that occurred in the following cases from the turn of the century to shortly after the end of the Cold War: Morocco (1907, 1911), Iran (1909), the USSR (1918), China (1927), Spain (1936), Greece (1944), Vietnam (1961), Zaire (1960), Yemen (1962), Laos (1964), the Dominican Republic (1965), Lebanon (1958, 1975), Angola (1975), Cambodia (1979), Mozambique (1979), Chad (1980), Sri Lanka (1983, 1987), Iraq (1985), Liberia (1989, 1992), Russia (1991), and Bosnia (1992). Civil wars expand as a function of several factors, and the most important appear to be (1) the spread of refugees into bordering states; (2) the presence of ethnic, linguistic, or religious confreres in neighboring states; and/or (3) shared ideology or alliances between the participants and potential patrons (or a combination of several or all of these). First, civil wars are more likely to spread in cases where they create refugees who flee across international borders to safer havens in adjacent states as in the case of Rwandan Tutsis who, in 1994, fled the genocide in their homeland into neighboring Uganda, which then provided support for the Tutsi-led forces who subsequently wrested control of the Rwandan state from the perpetrators of the genocide. In 1971, India’s Indira Gandhi was spurred to intervene in the conflict in East Pakistan as much by geopolitical reasons as her concern that more than ten million Bengalis had fled into northeast India to escape the brutal repression of Yahya Khan’s forces in the civil war in eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Civil war may also spread into adjacent states as part of the purposive policy of one of the belligerents. For example, after West African states had established a regional multinational force, Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), to help quell the devastating civil war in Liberia, Charles Taylor’s faction formed a spinoff group composed of mainly dissidents in neighboring Sierra Leone who spread the war to that country in an effort to pressure that state into withdrawing its military support for ECOMOG. Conflict between these forces and Sierra Leonean troops ultimately led to the overthrow of Sierra Leone’s president. South Africa’s apartheid regime followed a clear

policy of destabilizing the Frontline States (Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe) not only to support their clients in the civil wars raging in several of them, but also to prevent aid from those states from reaching insurgent forces in South Africa. Second, the presence of ethnic or religious confreres in a warring state may compel leaders to intervene on behalf of their cultural cousins. For example, the Russian Federation has intervened in the civil conflict in Moldova on behalf of ethnic Slavs who organized a secession struggle to establish the Dniester Republic. Muslim-dominated Pakistan continues to support Muslim rebels in the Indian province of Kashmir. Similarly, predominantly Hindu India has intervened on behalf of predominantly Hindu Tamils in Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka. Third, shared ideology as well is often a pretext for intervention as in the case of Soviet and Western intervention in many of the civil wars during the Cold War era epitomized in the cases of Vietnam and Afghanistan. But minor powers may also intervene in civil wars in order to support their ideological fellow travelers. For example, Nasser’s intervention in the Yemeni Civil War was largely spawned by his antimonarchical stance and his vision of pan-Arabism. South Africa’s policy of white supremacy allowed it to find common cause with Rhodesia’s pariah regime and to support it in its civil war against the indigenous African-led insurgency in Zimbabwe. What is often more common is the support of international diasporas to their cultural kin abroad. For example, Chinese American, Greek Americans, Jewish Americans, African Americans, Polish Americans, and Irish Americans have provided material support for parties in civil conflicts in their cultural homelands. Similarly, various global diasporas including ethnic Chinese in Malaysia, ethnic Indians in Africa, Jews in South Africa and Europe, Arabs outside the Middle East, and Africans in the West are among the important sources of aid to parties of conflicts throughout the world’s regions. Importantly, just as civil wars expand they can also contract. This contraction involves the limiting of the goals or objectives of the parties of the dispute, for example, from secession to rebellion for the insurgents, as in the case of the Sudanese Civil War, or from repression to accommodation for the government, as in the case of the Russian response to the civil war in Chechnya. Contraction may result from several factors including a change in leadership toward one that seeks to resolve the conflict, the termination of military assistance to the belligerents, war weariness on the part of the belligerents, the successful intervention of third-party mediators, or the military defeat of one of the parties. If there is a successful contraction of the civil war then the opportunity for resolving the conflict is increased. In the next section titled ‘Resolution of civil wars’, we discuss some of the factors associated with the resolution of civil wars.

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Resolution of Civil Wars The resolution of civil wars can take the obvious form of the cessation of hostilities due to the military defeat of either party; nonetheless, even in the case of a clear military outcome, the manner by which the civil war ends might encourage dissatisfied factions to splinter off and generate further insurgency in pursuit of objectives denied by the outcome. This may occur even in the case of an actual settlement between the disputants. For example, dissatisfaction with the political settlement that allowed for the partition of Ireland following the armed conflict between Irish nationalists and British occupation forces in the 1920s split the insurgent forces between supporters of Michael Collins who (albeit reluctantly) accepted partition and those of Eamon de Valera who opposed it. This dissension within the insurgency following a settlement of the major conflict precipitated further civil war on the island, which continues in various forms up to the present. In another example (as noted earlier), while the civil war in Rwanda appeared to be settled, extremist Hutu elements who were dissatisfied with alleged government overtures to Tutsis assassinated the Hutu president and then set upon a coordinated plan to massacre hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Often, splinter groups may continue the civil wars years after the initial conflict has ended, as in the New People’s Army rebellion in the Philippines in 1972, which emerged from many of the unresolved issues related to the earlier Huk rebellion. In fact, the leader of the military arm of the insurgency, Commander Dante, was a former Huk guerrilla leader who had seceded from the Huk army. The clearest resolution of civil wars arises from the establishment of a clear preponderance of military power on the part of the government forces or the insurgents. For the government, this is usually a matter of reestablishing its authority and military preeminence within its territory such as was the case with the Union forces over those of the Confederacy in the US Civil War. Alternatively, the Russian Civil War is an example of insurgents overcoming the forces of the government – and as is often the case in these instances – with a sizable number of government forces switching sides in favor of the insurgents. In the nuclear era, where there was a real fear that civil wars would draw in the superpowers, there was an increased impetus for third-party resolution of civil wars whether through the good offices of outside parties, the mediation efforts of intergovernmental or nongovernmental organizations, or through the intervention of international peacekeeping forces. In one case, Zaire’s dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, was an unlikely – and unsuccessful – mediator of the Angolan Civil War, which was exacerbated by, among other things, superpower support for the opposing sides. More successful third-party conflict resolution was practiced by

Costa Rica’s head of state, Oscar Arias, who formulated the peace plan that bears his name and provided the blueprint for the resolution of the civil wars in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. To be sure, conflict resolution does not have to be generated by the actions of third parties; for example, in Colombia’s protracted civil war known as La Violencia, the rival political parties themselves adopted a consociational arrangement in which it was agreed that each would rotate in power from 1958 to 1974. The implementation of this agreement in 1958 did not end the conflict, although it helped to moderate the country’s protracted civil war. Negotiated settlements, however, may fall apart as a result of changing power relations among the factions involved. For example, the Lebanese Civil War of 1975–76 emerged, in part, from changing demographics among the primary communal groups within the state. These changes undermined the legitimacy of the powersharing arrangement, the National Pact of 1943, which relied on a census from the 1930s to determine the dispensation of important political offices in the state. The agreement determined that Christians comprised half of the population of the country and that Maronite Christians, in particular, were the preponderant communal group and therefore they were allowed to dominate the presidency. Seats in parliament were allocated in favor of Christians, with Sunni Muslims accorded a smaller role in the legislature. Shia Muslims were marginalized in this arrangement; however, by 1975, the Shias were the largest of all the communal groups and the Muslims, altogether, comprised a greater share of the total population than Lebanese Christians. What is more, the socioeconomic marginalization of the burgeoning Shia community in the context of these changed demographics was an important factor precipitating the civil war in Lebanon in 1975. What is required for the successful resolution of civil conflicts, according to Zartman, is the presence of a mutually hurting stalemate, which is a condition wherein the parties are deadlocked and neither can gain effective advantage through further fighting. At this point, it is argued, both begin to search for alternatives and it is here that third-party intervention may contribute to the separation of the disputants, the effective deployment of peacekeeping forces, the mediation of the dispute, and the resolution of the conflict. For example, the South African government’s military forces were not militarily exhausted nor were they defeated in their civil war with African insurgents but they came to realize that the costs of maintaining the apartheid state was much too great to sustain. Similarly, the insurgents led by the forces of the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress realized that they did not have the military capability to defeat the government’s military forces even while they realized that the government could not destroy their movement.

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From this stalemate, a mediated settlement was forged that dramatically transformed the country, although economic and military power still remains primarily in the hands of white South Africans – those who profited most from apartheid – and that does not bode well for the peace process in that country. In a similar situation, the Sandinista regime was not militarily defeated although it was compelled to accede to popular demands for free elections during the US-supported insurgency in Nicaragua. Therefore, it is clear that civil wars can be resolved even where the parties have not won a clear military victory or suffered a clear military defeat. In recent years, the United Nations (UN) has intervened in several civil wars as peacekeepers and they have contributed (if in some cases only moderately) to the dampening of the conflicts in El Salvador, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Haiti, Namibia, South Africa, Cambodia, Tajikistan, and Western Sahara. The UN has been more successful in preventing civil wars from developing into superpower confrontations as in the civil wars in Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Yemen; however, it has been less successful at preventing hostilities from reemerging later, as each of these cases demonstrates. In addition, there have also been some glaring UN failures, as in the civil wars in Burundi, Liberia, and Rwanda. UN peacekeeping initiatives have played more of a conflict-constraining role than a conflict-resolution role. Moreover, it appears that when the interests of the five permanent members of the Security Council (P-5) are not at stake, there is relative inaction on the part of the UN as in the recent civil wars in the interlacustrine region of Africa. When the interests of P-5 members (or their allies) are at stake – as in the case of the conflict in Cyprus or the former Yugoslavia – UN intervention is more likely. All told, the resolution of civil wars requires a nuanced strategy of multinational peacemaking and peacekeeping including the separation of the combatants, establishment of cease-fires, the promotion of confidence-building measures, reductions in arms sales to the belligerents, and mediation. However, the cessation of hostilities does not necessarily portend the actual termination of the conflict unless the underlying factors that gave rise to the conflict are adequately addressed. These issues might be quite extensive and complex, therefore, the best strategy for decreasing the probability of the recurrence of civil wars is to provide an environment for the peaceful resolution of civil disputes in the first place. This entails, inter alia, the development of democratic political systems, open and productive economic systems, civic – as opposed to racial, ethnic, or religious – requirements for citizenship, the professionalization of the armed forces, the teaching of a nonchauvinist curriculum in schools, the development of responsive institutions to redress citizen grievances, and the demilitarization of society.

In addition, the occurrence of civil wars often suggests that the process of state or nation-building in the affected country is far from complete. This was as much the case in the US Civil War in the nineteenth century as in the Biafran Civil War of the twentieth century. In some cases, it suggests that independent state-building has not been successful and that secession may be necessary, as in the case of Eritrea or the Czech Republic. Although it is not always clear whether the nature of a civil war suggests the need for integration or secession, the interests of the international community should be geared to what is in the best interests of the parties to these conflicts instead of what is the preferred strategy of the superpowers who, in the past, often seemed more interested in recruiting new states to their respective blocs and destabilizing states in the rival camp. What is important to remember is that civil wars often result from the internal demands on societies; nonetheless, an international environment that is conducive to the nonviolent resolution of such conflicts remains an indispensable element in promoting peace and preventing civil war.

Conclusion Civil wars have become increasingly prevalent in their incidence and increasingly deadly in their result. For the most part, factors that give rise to civil wars seem to be related to the problems associated with state- and nationbuilding in many of the world’s younger states. As noted earlier, postcolonial states, especially, are often forced to simultaneously attend to state- and nation-building and the problems related to both. Civil wars in the post-Cold War era emerge from a variety of factors and even the process of democratization – that is often viewed as a panacea for civil conflict – is implicated in some degree in the incidence of civil war. While mature democracies seem to be less prone to experience civil wars (as do mature autocracies), ‘semi-democracies’, or states with only moderate levels of democracy, evince an increased likelihood of experiencing civil war. Nonetheless, the development of democratic political systems is an important ingredient in the building of viable and less warprone states; however, we are cautioned that violence often accompanies this process. Our challenge is to attempt to find more nonviolent avenues for political and economic development. The international community has an important role to play in support of these objectives; nonetheless, the states themselves – their policies, practices, and programs – will ultimately determine their prospects for development and their likelihood of experiencing, or avoiding, civil war. See also: Warfare, Trends in

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Further Reading Brown, M. (ed.) (1996). The international dimensions of internal conflict. Cambridge: MIT Press. Byman, D. (2007). Things fall apart: Containing the spillover from an Iraqi civil war. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Collier, P. (2007). Ethnic civil wars: Securing the post-conflict peace. Harvard International Review 28(4), 56–60. Crocker, C. A., Hampson, F. O., and Aall, P. (eds.) (2007). Leasing the dogs of war: Conflict management in a divided world. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. DeRouen, K. (2007). Civil wars of the world: Major conflicts since World War II (electronic resource). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Doyle, M. W. and Sambanis, N. (2000). International peacebuilding: A theoretical and quantitative analysis. American Political Science Review 94(4), 779–801. Fearon, J. D. (2004). Why do some civil wars last so much longer than others? Journal of Peace Research 41(3), 275–301. Gleditsch, K. S. (2007). Transnational dimensions of civil war. Journal of Peace Research 44(3), 293–309. Hartzell, C. A. (2007). Crafting peace: Power-sharing institutions and the negotiated settlement of civil wars. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Hegre, H. and Sambanis, N. (2006). Sensitivity analysis of empirical results on civil war onset. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50(4), 508–535.

Hegre, H., Ellingsen, T., Gates, S., and Gleditsch, N. P. (2001). Toward a democratic civil peace? Democracy, political change, and civil war, 1816–1992. American Political Science Review 95(1), 33–48. Henderson, E. A. and Singer, J. D. (2000). Civil war in the postcolonial world, 1946–92. Journal of Peace Research 37(3), 275–299. Kastfelt, N. (ed.) (2005). Religion and African civil wars. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Laband, J. (ed.) (2007). Daily lives of civilians in wartime Africa: From slavery days to Rwandan genocide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Lichbach, M. (1995). The rebel’s dilemma. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Licklider, R. (ed.) (1993). Stopping the killing: How civil wars end. New York: New York University Press. Mack, A. (2002). Civil war: Academic research and the policy community. Journal of Peace Research 39(5), 515–525. Midlarsky, M. (ed.) (1992). The internationalization of communal strife. New York: Routledge. Reynal-Querol, M. (2002). Ethnicity, political systems, and civil wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 46(1), 29–54. Small, D. and Singer, J. D. (1996). International and civil wars. Correlates of war project data. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan. Small, M. and Singer, J. D. (1982). Resort to arms: International and civil wars, 1816–1980. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Zartman, I. W. (1995). Elusive peace: Negotiating an end to civil wars. Washington, DC: Brookings.

World War I Daniel Marc Segesser, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

World War I in World History Protagonists Features of World War I

Glossary Central Powers Alliance between Imperial Germany, Austria–Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. Dominions Self-governing entities of the British Empire (i.e., in 1914): Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. Entente Alliance between France, Russia, and the United Kingdom named after the Entente Cordiale of 1904 between France and the United Kingdom. Franc-Tireurs (free-shooters) Term used for the first time during the Franco–Prussian War for volunteer detachments that harassed the German armies after the defeat of the Imperial French Army at Sedan. Civilian irregular soldiers or guerrillas were also called franc-tireurs by the German army, who had unsuccessfully tried to ban any civilian armed resistance at the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907.

Course of Events Peace Settlement and War Guilt Debate Further Reading

Great War Term by which World War I was known between 1918 and 1945. It was used to denote the new scale that warfare had reached in this conflict and the social, cultural, and demographical impact it had had. July Crisis Term used to denote the critical phase, in July 1914, between the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia. It was marked by diplomatic activity to avoid a war and at the same time keep the alliances intact between France and Russia on the one hand and Austria–Hungary and Germany on the other. League of Nations International organization for the maintenance of peace created after World War I according to the ideas of American President Woodrow Wilson and South African Defence Minister Jan Smuts. Militarism Principle of maintaining a large military establishment; tendency to regard military efficiency as

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the supreme ideal of the state and to subordinate all other interests to those of the military, and the process of the reshaping of society according to military principles and values. Mobile Warfare Method of fighting which characterized most of the fighting on the eastern front and in the Middle East. Its main characteristics were the high mobility of its operations and a tendency to try to outflank the enemy. On the western front, there were only two phases of mobile warfare – in 1914 up to the Battle of the Marne and in 1918 after the black day of the German army. Navalism Principle, prevailing in the United Kingdom, of maintaining a large naval force with a tendency to regard naval superiority as most important to the survival of the country. Schlieffen-Plan Operational plan originally conceived by field marshal Alfred Count von Schlieffen, Chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1905. It made provision for a two-front war by stipulating that the mass of the German army should move through Belgium to defeat the French army in the west first, while only small defensive forces should remain on the eastern front. Once the war had been won in the west – which was supposed to happen soon – the majority of the German forces should be committed against the Russians. Total War There is no final definition as to what constitutes a total war. Certain elements have, however,

been agreed upon. They are: total mobilization (material and personal), total war aims, and total conduct of war, centrally managed and conducted by a professional political and military leadership with the help of a huge bureaucratic apparatus. Trench Warfare Prevailing method of fighting on the western front in World War I. Once the front line stabilized at the end of 1914, the fighting parties dug trenches from where they continued to fight each other by artillery, machine gun, mortar and/or rifle fire. A whole system of frontline and support trenches was built. Attacks were, most of the time, only conducted after a long preparation by artillery fire and were extremely costly. War Crime Term for the first time used in German by Johann Caspar Bluntschli in 1872 and in English by Lassa Oppenheim in 1906 to emphasize the criminal character of violations of the laws of war. During World War I, British jurist Hugh H. Bellot used the term for the first time consistently. Nevertheless, the term was not used in the Peace Treaties and became common only during the interwar period. World War There is no final definition of what constitutes a world war, but it can best be understood as a phenomenon that connects regional wars in different continents into the framework of a great conflict which includes European powers as well as Europeanized and indigenous populations of non-European countries to a significant extent.

Although recent research has assigned the term ‘world war’ also to earlier wars like the French wars of 1792–1815, it is used here to denote the World War I of the twentieth century, which took place between 1914 and 1918 and was also called The Great War by contemporaries.

sure that the Great War, as it was called at the time, would be the last war in the history of mankind. The military analysis was quite different from the popular perception. Officers either tried to prove how effective their measures had been or criticized the ways in which the war had been conducted and offered alternatives for future war. A world without war was not a real possibility for them and they watched the League of Nations with deep mistrust. Many people in the Central Powers never accepted the verdict of the Peace Settlement and welcomed nationalist revisionism. After World War II, it seemed that the Holocaust, Hiroshima, and the consequences of that war had made World War I and its outcome less relevant for the modern world, even though there had been an enormous number of casualties. It was only in the 1960s that Fritz Fischer and Arthur Marwick rediscovered World War I as a relevant topic for historical analysis. While Fischer concentrated on the war-guilt debate, Marwick analyzed the destructionist dimension of World War I and its impact on society. Recent research on World War I has focused on many different fields. Among them were questions as to whether

World War I in World History For British prime minister David Lloyd George, the bell of Big Ben echoed ‘‘Doom! Doom! Doom!’’ in his ears like the hammer of destiny and his colleague, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, saw the lamps going out all over Europe when World War I began. The two British statesmen did not stand alone in their analysis of the consequences of the war. Many observers agreed with them and after the war there was a growing desire in all countries and sections of society that war, with its enormous causalities, might become a thing of the past. A League of Nations was created to attempt to help resolve conflicts between nations by arbitration, so as to make

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World War I had really been a world war from the beginning, whether it had been a total war as many writers so far had assumed, to what extent women and children were included in the war effort, what the importance of medicine and medical development was on the war, or what impact religion had on the war or vice versa – the impact war had on religion. One of the problems in this context has been that the different fields of research began to drift apart in recent years. As the different methods of research can yield beneficial results only if the communication between them remains intact, it is important that the national and cultural barriers between researchers from different countries be overcome. What the research on World War I has shown is that this war was not just a predecessor of World War II, but can well and truly still be understood as the Great War it was to those at the time.

Protagonists The major powers involved in World War I were Austria–Hungary, also known as the Habsburg Monarchy or the Dual Monarchy; Imperial Germany; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with its worldwide empire; the French Republic; and Czarist Russia. The US, another major power, entered the war only in 1917. Minor powers involved included Belgium, Serbia, Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Japan. Austria–Hungary The Habsburg Monarchy had been divided into two roughly equal halves, Austria, or Cisleithania, as it was called, and the Kingdom of Hungary, in 1867. Both had separate governments sharing only three ministries, the Foreign Ministry, the War Ministry, and the Finance Ministry. Recruiting and the organization of national militias did not, however, fall into the domain of the central war ministry, but was the responsibility of the respective governments of Austria and Hungary. This meant that, in reality, there was no united central government agency able to coordinate the policy of the whole monarchy except for external affairs. The separate economic arrangements hindered war mobilization considerably, much more than the nationalist movements of the large ethnic minorities in both parts of the monarchy. The army was recruited in both halves of the monarchy on the basis of conscription. About a quarter of its rank-and-file came from the German, the Hungarian, and the southern Slav part of the monarchy each, the rest coming from the Czech, the Rumanian, and the Italian part. The officers were predominantly German (76.1% of the regular officers and 56.8% of the reserve officers) and German was also the official language in the high command of the army. Although the Austro–Hungarian

army was plagued by many internal organizational problems, this did not stop the officers of its high command from calling for war again and again and making military plans that saw no possibility for their country other than war. Imperial Germany The unification of Imperial Germany in 1871 had been the fulfillment of nationalist aspirations in Germany. Under the leadership of the Prussian king – who was at the same time the Emperor of Germany – and his ministers, the country became a major player, politically as well as economically, in Europe and throughout the world. Although its first chancellor (Reichskanzler), Otto von Bismarck, had been opposed to acquiring colonies, Imperial Germany became a colonial power by the end of the nineteenth century. Internally, Germany was dominated by a ruling elite, mainly aristocrats and bureaucrats, who were dependent on the confidence of the Emperor and, to a more restricted extent, on parliament (the Reichstag). The military had an extraconstitutional status in the German political system and they saw themselves – and were seen by many – as the founders of the empire and the guarantor of its stability. The rise of new classes, as a consequence of the industrial development of their country, threatened their social privileges. Only a war, they believed, would give them the possibility to keep their position in German society. At the height of the July Crisis they, therefore, demanded a military solution to the conflict even though they knew that the war would not be quickly won. The German army was recruited by universal conscription with a duration of service of 3 years. Conscription was, however, not vigorously enforced for fear of giving military training to potentially politically unreliable persons. During the war, the military were able to secure control not only over military affairs, but also over much of the interior organization of the country – including the economy – mainly because the civilian administration was weak and the politicians unable to come to an agreement. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, the United Kingdom had been the undisputed world power, controlling large parts of the world without having to do so directly. In the second half of the nineteenth century, this position was challenged by the newly federated Imperial Germany and the growing United States. Overtaken economically by both these powers in 1900, the United Kingdom retained its predominant position mainly through its dominance in world finance and the control that its navy exerted, at least potentially, in the whole world. The governments of the United Kingdom tried to meet the military and naval challenges with a series of agreements with Japan in 1902

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and its main imperialist competitors, France and Russia, in 1904 and 1907, respectively. Domestically, the liberal government that came to power in 1905 tried to overcome the growing political and social tension with a series of social reforms and a form of local autonomy for Ireland. The latter, however, proved very difficult because of the strong opposition to it in the northern part and the island was on the brink of civil war in 1914. The small army – divided into the regular, the Indian, and the Territorial Army – as well as the Royal Navy were recruited by voluntary enlistment. The Dominions raised their own land and naval forces according to their own laws. The Imperial General Staff and the Admiralty guaranteed coordination, respectively. The war not only put an end to strife in Ireland, but also halted all further projects for social reform, although the government of liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith tried to pursue a policy of ‘business as usual’. Soon it became clear that it would be impossible to continue fighting the war on this footing, but Asquith and his cabinet refused major changes. In 1916, a coalition government headed by David Lloyd George, which tried to adapt the governmental structures to the war, replaced them. French Republic After losing the war of 1870–71, France had become a republic again, one of only three in Europe by 1914. Regaining the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine was one of the aims common to all of the many French governments, throughout the period from 1871 to 1914. Although France had a very high fluctuation rate in governments, many ministers and all the permanent heads of departments kept their offices for long periods and, thereby, provided the country with the necessary political stability. The parliamentary system in France continued to work throughout the war with the exception of two periods – one just after the outbreak of the war and another after the accession to government of Georges Clemenceau, when the French parliament voted extraordinary powers for the government. The governments continued to change rapidly in France, a fact that helped the military keep the great freedom from civilian control they had gained just after the outbreak of the war. In terms of global production, France ranked fourth before 1914. Its centers of industrial production were concentrated in the north and east of the country, close to the border of Imperial Germany and Belgium, which meant that they were, more or less, heavily affected by the conduct of operations in 1914 or even lost to the enemy for a longer or shorter period of time. Conscription was applied vigorously, in France, in order to keep pace with Germany in terms of wartime strength of the army. In 1913, the duration of compulsory military service was raised to 3 years. The French high command, which lost a lot of its power only after the accession of Clemenceau to government,

was committed to the offensive because it believed that France and Britain together would enjoy a decisive numerical superiority, permitting them to carry the war into enemy territory. Czarist Russia Russia was the fastest growing economy in the period between 1890 and 1914. Rapidly, it was modernized from a completely agrarian society and economy into a country with a substantial industrial production and a much more urbanized society. Large parts of the country, however, remained underdeveloped and agrarian. These formed the economic base of the ruling elite, which lived in the Czarist capital of St. Petersburg and rarely traveled to their large properties in the country. Czar Alexander II had tried to pursue a policy of limited social reform, but it had remained incomplete and his successors did not continue it, not least because radical anarchists had assassinated Alexander in 1881. The rapid modernization of the Russian economy and the wanting social and political reforms led to a growing uneasiness among the country’s small intelligentsia and working class. This could be seen more clearly after the Russian defeat in the Russo–Japanese War of 1904–05, when thousands of people took to the streets and Czar Nikolaj II was forced to accept some form of representation of the people. The newly formed parliament, the Duma, however, had only restricted powers and, apart from a plan for agrarian reform, it was not able to achieve much before the beginning of World War I. The Russian army was recruited by conscription, the soldiers serving between 3 and 4 years. As the Russo–Japanese War had shown, its training, leadership, and equipment were deficient, but no measures to remedy these problems were undertaken before 1914. Still, the Russian armed forces were taken as a serious threat to national security by the German and Austrian general staffs and as a potentially great aid by the French, mainly because of its enormous manpower resources. United States The United States entered World War I with an army that was neither equipped nor trained to fight a modern war and had to rely on the support of the military establishments of the allies, especially of France. Economically, the United States, first in terms of world production before the beginning of the war, had been involved in the delivery of arms and especially the procurement of capital, mainly for the Entente, since 1914. Still, most American politicians considered the war to be a European affair that the United States should keep out of. President Wilson therefore ran his campaign for reelection in 1916 under the motto ‘He kept us out of the war’. His aim was to establish the United States as a mediator in order to

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achieve ‘‘a peace without victory.’’ Wilson’s attempts, however, did not succeed and finally he saw no other way to end the war than to enter it as an associated power on the side of Entente. The American society, multiethnic in its composition and with a large group of recent immigrants, was split between people who wanted to fight on the side of the democracies in danger and others who wanted the country to be kept out of the war because they believed it to be the consequence of German militarism and British navalism.

Features of World War I Trench Warfare Trench warfare was the main characteristic of the war on the western front. The trench was in no way a new means of warfare – the Duke of Marlborough had used it at Malplaquet, Wellington at Torres Vedras, and so did both parties in the American Civil War. Before 1914, however, only the German army – to be able to withstand a Russian attack in the east and a French attack on some parts of the western front – had made any preparations for this contingency by stockpiling entrenching tools, various types of timber, hand and rifle grenades, searchlights, flares, periscopes, and trench mortars. By the end of September 1914 both sides had dug themselves in as a consequence of the stabilization of the frontline, building the trenches in a zigzag to avoid enfilade fire and to limit the effects of shell bursts. Protective aprons of barbedwire entanglements were used to check attempts to rush them and well-placed machine guns massacred attackers caught in the wire. Heavy artillery seemed the only way to make a successful attack on the enemy, but the everincreasing complexity of the trench system made even this a gamble that was always paid for in heavy losses for the attacker. New weapons like flame-throwers or torpedoes to blow gaps in enemy wire were brought to the battlefield, but none of them were able to break the deadlock in the trenches. The reasons for the end of trench warfare, in 1918, are a matter of debate among historians and military analysts. While some claim that it was only brute force that was responsible, others think that the use of new tactics – infiltration tactics – combined with the use of new weapons like tanks and airplanes were responsible for the return to mobile warfare. In the east, the German breakthrough at Gorlice–Tarnow ended the stabilization of the frontline by 1915 and even though there were attempts to return to a form a stabilized warfare, there was no return to trench warfare on this front. Use of New Weapons and Technologies New weapons such as gas, the tank, and the airplane were welcomed by all military high commands, as they seemed

to offer a way out from trench warfare that for many high military officers was not a ‘real war’. Gas was not an entirely new weapon in warfare, but World War I saw the first use of this weapon on a large scale. The debate concerning who started gas warfare already began during the war, with both parties accusing the other of having been the culprit. Today it seems fairly clear that both parties had not only made preparations for the use of gas, but were also prepared to make use of it. Neither of them, however, was sure of the effects that the use of gas would have at the operational level. On 22 April 1915, the Germans launched the first massive gas attack, with the release of 150 tons of chlorine from cylinders near Ypres. According to the most recent research a maximum of 800 to 1200 allied soldiers – the number is still a matter of debate – were killed. Many, however, simply fled their trenches in order to escape that fate. The German high command had, however, no reserves ready in the area to exploit the breakthrough they were able to achieve. So far, no satisfactory answer has been given as to why not. Gas was subsequently used by both parties on the western as well as the eastern front, but with no decisive success. The tank made its reputation in the Blitzkrieg operations of the German generals in World War II and many who had been involved in its development during World War I later claimed that they had always aspired to such a strategic use of the new weapon. These stories have since been proved wrong. The tank was, in reality, developed as a trench-warfare weapon, intended to break through the machine gun/barbed wire combination, which had led to the stabilization of the frontline by the end of 1914. It was first used by the British during the battle of the Somme in 1916, but with little success, mainly due to the little numbers, technical difficulties, and the fact that the troops did not know how to use them on the tactical level. Both the British and the French subsequently used tanks in several operations and achieved some success in breaking into enemy positions. They were, however, not able to break fully through enemy lines. Tank development on the side of the Central Powers was not substantial. Of all new weapons of World War I, it was undoubtedly the airplane that established itself most brilliantly. Tens of thousands of army and navy officers and noncommissioned officers were trained as aircrew and a substantial portion of ground artillery was adapted for antiaircraft defense. Air warfare not only brought a new dimension into the war, but also was for many the last refuge for honor and glory, as air fighting provided liberation from the horror of the trenches. A German pilot claimed that he was still fighting the honorable combat of man against man, which stood out like a thing of another age amid the din and shock of mass warfare. Air warfare was, however, much more than the fighting of two or more men in the skies, as planes and airships began to be used to drop bombs not only on the frontline, but also on civilian

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centers like London, Paris, Du¨sseldorf, Freiburg, or Cologne. Not only industrial areas, but also civilian marketplaces, were targeted by the air forces of both sides. Overall, however, the war in the air had little impact on the outcome of the war, whether they were used over the battlefield or to bomb civilian and industrial areas. Trench warfare also led to an enormous use of weapons and ammunition that had to be replaced at a pace never imagined before the war. Although the railway systems were expanded to a great extent, it was not possible to transport goods and troops by rail transport alone. Already, in the first months of the war, the military leaders had made use of improvised means of road transport by requisitioning private motorcars, taxis, and buses. The British army alone increased its number of motor vehicles from 1485 in 1914 to 121 720 at the time of the armistice in 1918. At the peak of fighting in Verdun in 1916, 12 000 vehicles used a makeshift road to supply the French defenders and an entire division was permanently employed to maintain the vehicles. Home Front Experiences After the opening months of the war, the development of military techniques and strategies brought about similar crises concerning munitions supplies for all warring parties. Comparable efforts were made to augment and rationalize production, and similar measures were instituted to resolve the conflict between industry and the military in their competition for manpower. There were, of course, differences between the different belligerents and democratic countries, like France or the United Kingdom, took somewhat longer to adapt to the changing conditions the war brought about, but war collectivism was a feature in all countries involved in the war. Its elements were the collaboration between organized capital and the state, the accommodation of the patriotic labor movement, and the exclusion and prosecution of all groups that could not be integrated into the war effort. Economic mobilization for war placed enormous pressures on civilian society, including population movements to industrial centers; price and wage inflation; shortfalls of labor and industrial skills; shortages of accommodations, food, and fuel; labor militancy; and profiteering, with its accompanying popular discontent. Everyday life, with its rhythms, social patterns, and customary social sanctions, was profoundly disturbed in every country involved in the war, even if the frontline was several thousand kilometers away, such as in the case of the Dominions of the British Empire. Worldwide Warfare World War I did not remain limited to the fighting in Europe, even though the major battles took place on this continent and the use of new weapons such as tanks and

gas was limited to this part of the world. The first shot of British troops in the war was, for example, not fired in Europe, but at Port Philip Heads near Melbourne to stop a German ship from leaving the harbor on the morning of 5 August 1914. The Dominions did not, however, restrict their war efforts to guarding their harbors and protecting their coasts from an enemy attack, but raised large forces to contribute to the allied war effort. Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, moreover, raised separate forces to occupy the German colonies in their neighborhood and even as far away as German East Africa, where the war only ended with the armistice in November 1918. Their governments also refused to acquiesce to British leadership during the war, sending their prime ministers or Ministers of Defence to London to confer with British authorities about the conduct of the war and asserting their right to representation at the Versailles Peace Conference and to separate membership in the League of Nations. They were also involved in the naval war effort and were responsible for the defense of their coastal shipping and the protection of adjacent waters. The ships of the Royal Australian Navy, especially, played an important role in driving the German East Asiatic Squadron from the Pacific. The United States only entered the war, militarily, in April 1917, but they had made a substantial contribution to the allied war effort before. Private firms had supported the allied governments in raising funds for their war effort and American productive capacities were used widely to increase allied war-related production. Even though the government officially pursued a policy of neutrality and even forced the British government to accept a loosening of its naval blockade of the Central Powers, it tolerated the open support to the allied war effort by private American enterprise. The sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania in 1915 led to the first wave of indignation against the Central Powers, but President Wilson remained firmly committed to a policy of neutrality and arbitration. Only after the renewed declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare did Wilson decide to break diplomatic relations with the Central Powers and to send American troops to Europe. He did this, however, not as an ally but as an associated power, thereby, signaling that he was not prepared to fight for the war aims of the allied countries. The arrival of American troops in Europe did have a significant psychological impact, but, although not negligible, the use of American troops did not prove to be decisive, militarily. The reasons were that they were not adapted to the new way of warfare and remained heavily dependant on the French for military equipment and modern weapons. Two major Asian countries also played an important role, namely Japan and India. Whereas Japan entered the war on its own, India was involved in the war as a part of the British Empire. The Indian war effort was, however,

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far larger than the Japanese one. Japan restricted itself mainly to the support of the Royal Navy in the Pacific and later in the Indian Ocean and in the Mediterranean as well as the occupation of the German colonies in China and in the Pacific north of the equator. India contributed a significant number of native troops not only to the campaign in Mesopotamia, but also in the Middle East and Europe. Large numbers of Indian troops were retained in India itself for fear of an Islamic uprising, which the Ottoman Sultan had called for as an Islamic leader. The Indian troops were not the only non-European soldiers on the western front. Moroccan and other indigenous units from the French–African colonies also fought on the western front. Atrocities and War Crimes When the German army invaded Belgium in August 1914, neither its high command nor its soldiers expected fierce resistance from that country’s armed forces. Faced with such resistance only a few miles inside Belgium in the region of Lie`ge, the German high command and its soldiers were sure that this was only due to the fact that treacherous civilians had taken up arms and ambushed German troops from behind. The memory of the franctireurs during the Franco–Prussian War and the fact that the governments of Belgium and other small states had opposed the inclusion into the Hague Rules of Land Warfare of a paragraph forbidding all armed civilian resistance, under all circumstances, strengthened the belief of the German High Command and later the German press that their troops were faced with an all-out popular rising. In fact this had never happened as John Horne and Alan Kramer have recently proved. As a consequence German commanders ordered harsh measures such as the bombarding or burning of cities (e.g., in Louvain, Aerschot, Andenne, Dinant or Tamines), the taking and/or shooting of hostages (e.g., in Aerschot, Lie`ge, Namur, Tamines, Lune´ville or St. Die´), and the imposition of collective fines. On the allied side the German measures were considered to be atrocities, violations of the laws of war or even ‘war crimes’, a term thrown into the debate by British lawyer Hugh H. Bellot. Soon, Allied propaganda published books, leaflets, and posters portraying the Germans as an atrocious species that had to be fought, at all costs, to the very end. Many jurists, on both sides, soon joined the discussion on whether at all crimes were committed and on how to deal with those responsible for such crimes. Although the focus was on Belgium for a long time, other violations of the laws of war in other places were also discussed. Among them were the illegal requisitioning of private property and the ill-treatment of civilians, especially Jews, during the Russian occupation of parts of the Bukowina, Gallicia, or Eastern Prussia or the killing of civilians and the destruction of private property by German and Austro–Hungarian troops in Poland or

Serbia. A lively debate ensued. In Germany a group of 93 German academics signed a manifesto (Appeal to the Kulturwelt) against the accusations that were at the time directed against their country and their military high command. On the allied side, most jurists replied by supporting the claims made against the German troops and by demanding that those responsible for these crimes be brought to court. Further incidents such as the sinking of the Lusitania, the shooting of nurse Edith Cavell and Captain James Fryatt kept the discussion on the possibility of the punishment of atrocities or war crimes alive. Nevertheless, except for some low-level military trials in France in 1915 and the short-lived imprisonment of German U-boat crews in Britain, no measures were taken by any of the governments for the punishment of atrocities or war crimes. Some crimes, such as those committed on the Eastern Front or in the Balkans were almost not discussed and the atrocities against the Armenians that have since become known as the Armenian genocide were only taken up by a few academics such as James Bryce, Arnold Joseph Toynbee, or Andrei Nikolayevich Mandelstam. It was only in the last year of the war that the British and the French governments became interested in postwar trials against the perpetrators of atrocities and war crimes. British prime minister David Lloyd George and his French counterpart Georges Clemenceau finally succeeded in introducing a couple of paragraphs into the Peace Treaties, which would have forced the Central Powers to hand over all relevant documents and to extradite alleged war criminals, including the former German Emperor William II, for trials in allied courts. For political reasons, these trials never materialized and only some low-level perpetrators were convicted in trials that were held in Germany and Turkey between 1918 and 1921.

Course of Events World War I began on 28 July 1914 with the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia as a consequence of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist. Although the murder was the immediate cause of the declaration of war, the structural causes of the war lay much deeper. Among them were the development of national states and the rise of nationalism throughout the nineteenth century, the globalization of the world economy, the spreading of liberal and socialist ideas throughout the world, the imperialist expansion of all major European powers except Austria–Hungary, the complex structure of alliances that emerged around the turn of the century, and, as a consequence of the last two processes, the growing armaments race between the leading European powers. The German General Staff followed the adapted Schlieffen-plan and invaded Belgium and France

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on 3 August 1914 while leaving one-sixth of its forces in the east to resist a Russian attack on East Prussia. Although the German advance did not completely go according to plan – a fact that lead to many atrocities in parts of Belgium and northern France – it was finally only stopped at the Marne in early September 1914. There French commander-inchief Joseph Joffre succeeded in counterattacking the spread-out German forces and driving them back about 50 kilometers. French and Russian offensive plans failed – the latter at the battle of Tannenberg at the end of August 1914. A last attempt by the German high command to outflank the allied troops in western Belgium failed in October 1914. Thereafter, the frontline stabilized and the period of trench warfare began on the western front. On the eastern front the same happened in December 1914 and, in the south, Serbia had been able to withstand the Austrian offensive. Military operations were now characterized by massive firepower and the use of new weapons, but none of the warring parties were able to obtain any strategic success on the western front. Major allied offensives at the Somme, in 1916 (60 000 casualties on the first day only), and at the Chemin des Dames and Ypres, in 1917, were unsuccessful, as were German attempts to break the stalemate at Verdun in 1916 (about 695 000 casualties for the whole campaign). In the east, however, in 1915, the Central Powers were able to break up the deadlock and to force Russia to abandon Galicia, Poland, and Kurland. In the south, they were able to overrun Serbia. An attempt by Britain and France to come to its aid by landing troops in neutral Greece failed, as well as an attempt to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war by attacking the Dardanelles. In 1916, Russia tried to regain the initiative with the so-called Brusilov offensive, but had to withdraw after some initial success. This failure contributed largely to the demoralization of the Russian army and to the beginning of the Russian Revolution, which finally, in March 1918, forced the country out of the war. In 1915, Italy decided to join the Entente, but even though its activities bound up large amounts of Austrian troops in the border region, no decision was reached in this new theater either. In March 1918, the new German high command (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL) tried to gain the upper hand by concentrating superior forces in the west before American troops would be able to join the allied war effort and thereby, they feared, tip the balance. Even though successful in the beginning, the German offensive failed mainly for logistical reasons, but also because of the enormous amount of material that the allied armies were able to mass against the German attack. In July 1918, the allied forces counterattacked and succeeded in breaking the German front. The last months of the war saw a return to mobile warfare, which finally led to the demand of an armistice by the German government in November 1918. The front in the Balkans broke in September 1918 and Bulgaria and Austria–Hungary sought an armistice at the end of the month and in October, respectively. The Italian front was not pierced before the armistice.

The war was, however, not only fought in Europe, but also in the colonies and at sea. Most of the German colonies in Africa had been occupied by 1915 by French, British, Belgian, or Dominion troops. Only General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa resisted until after the armistice and conducted a guerrilla war against British and South African troops. Although operations outside Europe remained sideshows of a war that was fought mainly by European powers for European objectives, the impact of the war outside Europe was at least as great as that in Europe itself. Few non-European families were unaffected by the war and, at the end, the transfer of territory that had begun four centuries earlier was completed with a number of casualties that was much higher than it had been in the pre-1914 colonial wars. At sea, the war was characterized by a similar stalemate as the land war. The British and German fleets only seldom came out from the safety of their bases and the only major sea-battle, the battle of Jutland, ended in a draw, which in effect meant a strategic success for the Royal Navy, as the German high-seas fleet remained locked up in the North Sea. The Germans tried to break the impasse by attacking British and other commerce shipping with submarines, but after some initial success they finally failed to hit British food supplies and war production in any significant manner. Commerce raiding was another way of attacking the resources of the allied nations, but most ships that had been transformed for that purpose were either destroyed by allied warships or interned in neutral countries. Rumors of new ships and the success of the few commerce raiders that were able to break the British naval blockade, however, kept naval authorities in Japan and the British dominions and colonies busy throughout the war (Table 1).

Peace Settlement and War Guilt Debate The war in military terms was over on 11 November 1918, but the decision as to what peace would look like still hung in the balance. The allied and associated powers decided to meet in Paris in January 1919. The United States president Woodrow Wilson had made clear in a statement in January 1918 that his aim in fighting was to construct a new world order. He would not agree to help the Entente to reach their war aims, which had become more and more extreme the longer the war had lasted and had been set in secret negotiations throughout the war, as did those of the Central Powers. In his famous Fourteen Points Wilson had set out to end the period of secret diplomacy; to restore the sovereignty of Belgium, Serbia, and Rumania, as well as to achieve the restitution of the occupied parts of Russia and France, including Alsace–Lorraine; to win the right of self-determination for the nationalities in Austria–Hungary and the Ottoman Empire; to create a League of Nations; and generally, to make the world safe

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July– September 1914

October– December 1914

Western front

Eastern front

Italy and Balkans

8/3: G Attack on B&F

8/26–8/30: Battle of Tannenberg

7/29: A-H attack on S

8/25–8/28: Sacking and burning of Louvain 9/6–9/9: Battle of the Marne 10/20–11/10: Battle of Ypres

January– March 1915

April–June 1915

War at sea

Home front

8/23: JP declaration of war on G

8/5: Beginning of the UK Blockade of G waters

8/30–9/17: Aus and NZ forces occupy G Samoa and New Guinea

9/22: G submarine sinks three UK armored cruisers

Solemn declarations of national unity in all countries 7/31: Assassination of F socialist leader Jean Jaure`s

9/9: First USA mediation attempt 12/6: G occupation of Lodz

12/2: A-H occupation of Belgrade

10/3–10/21: JP occupation of G Micronesia

12/5: S reoccupation of Belgrade

10/13: Boer Rebellion in SA

2/7–21: Battle of Masuren: 100 000 Ru soldiers taken prisoners

4/22: Second Battle of Ypres; first use of gas

War outside Europe

5/1–5/3: Breakthrough of CP troops at GorliceTarnow

5/23: I declaration of war on A-H 6/23–7/7: First Battle at the Isonzo

10/27: Occupation of G Togo by UK forces 11/2–11/5: Entente declarations of war on OE 11/7: Occupation of G Tsingtao by JP forces 11/14: OE sultan Mehmed V Reshad calls for holy war (Jihad) against the Entente in Muslim parts of the world 2/3: OE attack on the Suez Canal

4/25: Landing of allied forces at Gallipoli

11/1: UK squadron defeated by G Pacific squadron at Coronel (Chile) 12/8: Defeat of G Pacific squadron at the Falkland Islands

10/4: Appeal to the Kulturwelt by 93 leading G academics

1/24: Battle at the Doggerbank

1/19: First G air raid on London by zeppelin

2/4: Beginning of the first phase of submarine warfare 5/7: Sinking of the Lusitania by G submarine

3/20: First opposition against war credits in G

5/13: Partial G suspension of submarine warfare

5/26: Coalition government in the UK: Asquith remains Prime Minister

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Table 1 Course of eventsa

July– September 1915

9/22–11/11: F offensive in the Champagne

October– December 1915

12/4: Execution of nurse Edith Cavell

January– March 1916

2/21: Beginning of the Battle of Verdun

8/5: Occupation of Warsaw by CP

7/18–8/10: Second Battle at the Isonzo

7/9: Occupation of G Southwest Africa by SA forces

9/18: G stops submarine warfare against all neutral ships and passenger ships of all nations

8/19: War Aims Speech by G Reichskanzler Bethmann– Hollweg

10/5: Landing of allied forces in Salonika 10/14: Bu declaration of war on S 10/18–11/5: Third Battle at the Isonzo 11/10–12/11: Fourth Battle at the Isonzo 11/24: Occupation of S by CP

12/19–12/20: Allied withdrawal from Gallipoli

2/18: Occupation of G Cameroon by allied forces

2/29–5/4: Intensification of G submarine warfare

1/6: Introduction of conscription in the UK (exceptions for Ireland and married men)

4/29: British capitulation at Kut-el-Amara 5/16: Sykes–Picot Agreement

5/31–6/1: Battle of Jutland

3/1–3/15: Fifth Battle at the Isonzo April–June 1916

July– September 1916

6/4: Beginning of the first Ru Brussilov Offensive

8/4–8/16: Sixth Battle at the Isonzo 8/27: Ro declaration of war on A-H

1/29: Zeppelin raid on Paris 4/24: Easter rising in Dublin 4/24–4/30: Kiental conference of antiwar European left

Continued

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7/1: Beginning of the battle of the Somme 7/27: Execution of Captain James Fryatt 9/15: First use of tanks

9/5–9/8: Zimmerwald conference of the antiwar European left

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Table 1

Continued

Western front

Eastern front

October– December 1916

Italy and Balkans

War outside Europe

War at sea

12/6: Occupation of Bucarest by CP

11/7: Reelection of Woodrow Wilson as USA President 11/21: Death of A-H emperor Franz-Joseph 12/6: Asquith Government replaced by war cabinet under the leadership of Lloyd George

11/3: UK occupation of Bagdad

January– March 1917 April–June 1917

July– September 1917 October– December 1917

3/14: G withdrawal to the Siegfried line 4/16: F offensive at the Chemindes-Dames 5/20: Mutinies in the F army 6/26: Arrival of the first USA division in Europe 7/31: Beginning of the third Battle of Ypres 11/20: First massive use of tanks at Cambrai

2/10–2/15: February Revolution in Russia

2/3: Breaking of diplomatic relations between the USA and G

6/30–7/11: Second Brussilov Offensive

4/6: USA declaration of war on G

9/3: Occupation of Riga by CP 10/25: October Revolution in Ru

2/1: G declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare

11/2: Balfour declaration in favor of a national home for Jews in Palestine 12/9: UK troops capture Jerusalem Dec.: UK Occupation of G Southeast Africa

3/15: Abdication of Ru czar Nikolaj II 4/7: G emperor announces an electoral reform for Prussia after the war 4/16: Return of Lenin to Ru

8/1–8/2: Mutinies in the G high seas fleet 10/24: I defeat at Caporetto

Home front

7/7: G Air Raid on London: 54 dead & 190 wounded

January– March 1918

April–June 1918 July– September 1918 October– December 1918

3/21: Beginning of G spring offensive

3/1: Occupation of Kiev by CP

8/8: Allied counteroffensive; black day of the G army

8/3: Landing of UK troops at Wladiwostok; beginning of allied intervention in Ru 10/28: Czech declaration of independence

11/11: Armistice with G

1/8: Fourteen Points announced by USA President Wilson

1/8: War Aims Speech by Lloyd January: Strike by A-H munitions workers

9/15: Allied breakthrough in Macedonia

9/22: Collapse of G-OE front line in northern Palestine

9/29: G High Command demands immediate ceasefire and democratization of G

11/3: Armistice with A-H

10/30: Armistice with OE

3/3: Peace Treaty of Brest-Litowsk between Ru & CP

11/14: Capitulation of G forces in east Africa

10/20: Formal end of submarine warfare 10/28: Mutinies in the G high seas fleet

10/28: Constitutional changes transform G into a constitutional monarchy 11/3: Seamen revolt in Kiel; beginning of revolutionary unrest in G 11/9: Abdication of German emperor Wilhelm II 11/11: Abdication of A-H emperor Charles I

a Abbreviations: A-H ¼ Austria–Hungary; Aus ¼ Australia; B ¼ Belgium; Bu ¼ Bulgaria; CP ¼ Central Powers; F ¼ France; G ¼ Germany; I ¼ Italy; JP ¼ Japan; NZ ¼ New Zealand; OE ¼ Ottoman Empire; Ro ¼ Rumania; Ru ¼ Russia; S ¼ Serbia; SA ¼ South Africa; UK ¼ United Kingdom; USA ¼ United States of America.

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for democracy. The main European powers, however, did not share Wilson’s enthusiasm for a new world order and were rather oriented toward securing the best terms possible for their respective countries. Especially the French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, who at home was known as ‘‘the tiger,’’ opposed Wilson at the peace conference, claiming that his country, as the main victim of the war, had a right to security and territorial integrity. It was only by threatening to leave the peace conference and with the diplomatic support of South African Defence Minister and member of the British War Cabinet Jan Smuts that Wilson finally succeeded in overcoming the French opposition to the League of Nations proposals. The French, however, insisted on strict military terms in the peace treaty so as to make future aggression by Germany impossible. They were supported at first by the British and Belgian delegations. The British prime minister Lloyd George, however, returned to the traditional British policy of the balance-of-power as the conference progressed. In the final peace treaty, Germany was declared solely responsible for the war, forced to agree to the extradition of its former Kaiser and of any other war criminals, to be tried in allied courts as well as to abandon most of its fleet, forbidden to have an air force and tanks, and its armed forces were limited to a 100 000-man professional army serving long-term only. Moreover, it had to pay 269 billion Gold mark in reparations for the damages caused during the war, lost all its colonies, which were given to different allied countries as mandates by the League of Nations, and had to agree to the occupation of the Rhineland (the western border area, including a large part of the country’s economic capacities) for 15 years. The peace treaties also defined the new national borders of Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, the main profiteers being the newly founded states of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia as well as Rumania. The delegations of the Central Powers were given no hearing at the conference and had either to accept or refuse the treaties, the latter signifying the resumption of military operations. All countries, except the United States and Soviet Russia, accepted the treaties, the former making a separate peace treaty with Germany in 1921, which excluded the paragraphs concerning the League of Nations and War Guilt from the original Versailles Peace Treaty (Table 2). Article 231 of the Versailles Peace Treaty stipulated that Imperial Germany had been the only power responsible for the outbreak of the war in 1914. Many in Germany viewed this as a humiliation of their nation and demanded a revision of the peace treaties. Nationalist parties took up their claim and brought it into the political arena, thereby weakening the traditional parties who were trying to bring stability to the newly democratic German nation. Hitler finally made a revision of the Versailles Peace Settlement one of his chief political aims. Allied politicians like Lloyd George agreed with those in Germany outraged by the accusation of war guilt. They were, however, not able to

Table 2 Peace treaties 28 June 1919 10 September 1919 27 November 1919 4 June 1920 10 August 1920

In Versailles with Germany In St. Germain-en-Laye with Austria In Neuilly with Bulgaria In Trianon with Hungary In Se´vres with Turkey

make the French government change its position, as France was very much afraid that a revision of the peace treaty would only be the first step toward renewed German aggression. After 1945, the Germans accepted the fact that they had been responsible for the outbreak, or, better, the unfettering of World War II very early on; they refused, however, to say the same about 1914. In 1961, Fritz Fischer was the first to challenge this position, claiming that France and Russia had only been passive in the July Crisis and that Germany had wanted the war. His book Germany’s Aims in the First World War caused a general uproar in Germany and many other historians tried to prove that Fischer had been wrong. They claimed that the influence of the army had been strong in all countries and Imperial Germany had acted out of a strategic necessity and that, generally, the war had been unavoidable. But now, not many historians believe it to be worthwhile to have a large-scale debate on Fischer’s theses, especially after Stig Fo¨rster proved, in 1995, that the German general staff had acted in exact knowledge of the fact that the coming war was not going to be a short and limited war. Even though they did not expect to win it, they demanded that their government give the order for the troops to march. Fischer’s theses, however, inspired the research community to dig deeper and, in this, caused a large variety of studies in many different fields. See also: World War II

Further Reading Burk, K. (1985). Britain, America and the sinews of war 1914–1918. Boston: George Allen & Unwin. Chickering, R. and Fo¨rster, S. (eds.) (2000). Great War – Total war: Combat and mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ferro, M. (1990). La Grande Guerre 1914–1918. Paris: Gallimard. Fischer, F. (1967). Germany’s aims in the First World War. London: Chatto & Windus. Gilbert, M. (1994). The First World War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Halpern, P. G. (1994). A naval history of World War I. London: UCL Press. Herwig, H. (1997). The First World War: Germany and Austria–Hungary 1914–1918. London: Arnold. Hiery, H. (1995). The neglected war: The German South Pacific and the influence of World War I. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Hirschfeld, G., Krumeich, G., and Renz, I. (2003). Enzyklopa¨die Erster Weltkrieg. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Scho¨ningh. Horne, J. and Kramer, A. (2001). German atrocities, 1914: A history of denial. London: Yale University Press. Kronenbitter, G. (2003). ‘Krieg im Frieden’: Die Fu¨hrung der k.u.k. Armee und die Grossmachtpolitik O¨sterreich–Ungarns 1906–1914. Mu¨nchen: Oldenbourg.

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Lepick, O. (1998). La grande guerre chimique, 1914–1918. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Marwick, A. (1991). British society and the First World War, 2nd edn. Basingstroke, UK: Macmillan. Segesser, D. M. (2002). Empire und Totaler Krieg: Australien 1905–1918. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Scho¨ningh. Segesser, D. M. (2006). The international debate on the punishment of war crimes during the Balkan Wars and the First World War. Peace & Change 31, 533–554.

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Strachan, H. (2001). The First World War, vol. 1: To arms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strachan, H. (2004). The First World War in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Terraine, J. (1992). White heat: The new warfare 1914–1918, 2nd edn. London: Leo Cooper. Trask, D. F. (1993). The AEF and coalition warmaking, 1917–1918. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

World War II Charles S Thomas, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Origins of World War II The Expansion of the Axis (1939–42) The Turning of the Tide (1942–43) Nations at War

Glossary Blitzkrieg Literally, German for ‘lightning war’. Term coined by Western journalists to describe the potent combination of armored and air power that Germany employed in the opening phases of World War II. German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact Agreement signed on 23 August 1939, wherein Germany and the Soviet Union publicly promised not to aid each other’s enemies in the event of war and privately drew up the plans for the partition of Poland. Kamikaze Literally, ‘divine wind’. Japanese term for the suicide pilots who crashed their aircraft into Allied ships in 1944–45. Lebensraum Literally, ‘living space’. German term referring to territorial acquisitions necessary for providing mineral and especially, agricultural resources to sustain a world power in its competition with other world powers.

World War II was the largest conflict in human history and devastated Europe, Asia, North Africa, and large portions of the Pacific. It began as two separate wars: one involving Japan against China in the 1930s; the other involving Germany against Poland, France, and Great Britain in 1939. With the entry of the United States into both wars in December 1941, the two conflicts merged into a single global struggle during which a coalition of Allied powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, Free France, and a host of smaller nations) defeated a coalition of Axis states (Germany,

The Defeat of the Axis (1943–45) Aftermath Further Reading

Manchukuo Japanese name for the puppet state created by Japan in Manchuria in 1932. Panzer Literally, ‘armored’. German term for the armored divisions that formed the major ground component of the Blitzkrieg. Peace of Paris Collective term for the five peace treaties that ended World War I between 1919 and 1920. The treaties were signed between the victorious Entente powers and individual members of the Central Powers: Germany, Treaty of Versailles; Austria, Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye; Bulgaria, Treaty of Neuilly; Hungary, Treaty of Trianon; and Turkey, Treaty of Se`vres. Tripartite Pact Pact signed between Germany, Japan, and Italy on 27 September 1940, promising mutual aid in the event that one of them was attacked by a power not currently involved in either the European or Asian wars. The pact sought to deter the United States from entering the war.

Italy, Japan, and smaller satellites). This article uses a largely narrative approach, interspersed with a separate section on economic, psychological, and demographic aspects of the conflict, to describe the origins, course, and consequences of the war.

The Origins of World War II The Peace of Paris (1919–20) left an assortment of states dissatisfied with the outcome of World War I. All of the

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vanquished Central Powers (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey) endured territorial losses, reparations, and quantitative or qualitative limitations on their armed forces. Although not a signatory of the Peace, the newly founded Soviet Union, likewise, lost territory to a tier of successor states, in Eastern Europe (Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, and Romania), that were either reestablished as states or enlarged following the collapse of Tsarist Russia. Even minor members of the victorious Entente complained that their wartime sacrifices far outweighed their gains and that the interests of the major victors – France, Great Britain, and the United States – had taken precedence over theirs. Italian patriots, for example, decried the ‘mutilated’ peace that failed to bring Italy all of the territorial acquisitions promised by Entente statesmen in 1915. Similarly, although Japan fell heir to Germany’s forfeited island holdings north of the equator in the Pacific, Japanese expansionists lamented their country’s failure to gain additional territory on the Asian mainland at the expense of China. Dissatisfaction over newly redrawn frontiers sparked a host of smaller conflicts in the immediate aftermath of the Great War. Between 1919 and 1921, Poland engaged in border struggles with Germany over Silesia, with Lithuania over the city of Vilna, and with Czechoslovakia over the region surrounding Teschen. Similarly, disputes over Poland’s eastern border with the Ukraine (briefly independent after 1918) and the Soviet Union led to prolonged struggle, culminating in a full-scale Polish–Soviet war that only ended with the Treaty of Riga in 1921. Elsewhere, Italian irregulars skirmished with Yugoslav partisans over the city of Trieste in 1919, and in 1923 the new Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, sent forces to bombard and briefly occupy the Greek island of Corfu, following a boundary dispute between Greece and Italy’s client state, Albania. Greek forces also waged a bitter war with Turkey between 1920 and 1922 that produced approximately 1 400 000 Greek and 400 000 Turkish refugees. Elsewhere in Eastern and Central Europe, the presence of significant unassimilated national minorities continued to complicate international relations. Nevertheless, by 1924, with the peaceful resolution of the Franco–Belgian dispute with Germany over war reparations and the Ruhr, it appeared that a tenuous peace had at last returned to Europe. Developments in the mid- to late 1920s reinforced the appearance of normality. At the Locarno Conference of 1925, Germany voluntarily recognized its western frontiers with France and Belgium, and the following year, Germany entered the League of Nations. Although the absence of the United States and the Soviet Union from membership in the League weakened the effectiveness of that organization, both countries became signatories (along with Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, and 52 other states) of the Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928, renouncing offensive war as an instrument of national policy.

The coming of the Great Depression in 1929–30 altered this picture of international harmony. Most industrialized countries reacted to the Depression by adopting protectionist policies and emphasizing national solutions to the world economic crisis; gone was the spirit of international cooperation that had characterized the mid1920s. The effects of the Depression also undercut both the military capability and the resolve of the major status quo powers, Great Britain and France, to uphold the Peace of Paris. The greatest impact of the Depression, however, was in those countries that would challenge the international status quo in 1930s. In Germany, economic catastrophe dramatically eroded public support for the Weimar Republic and immeasurably aided in the assumption of power by Adolf Hitler’s aggressive and expansionist National Socialist (Nazi) Party. In Japan, the reduction in international trade occasioned by the Depression highlighted the Japanese home islands’ paucity of natural resources and reawakened interest in expansion on the Asian mainland as a means of achieving autarky and reestablishing economic prosperity. The first evidence of the changed international circumstances occurred in the Far East, where ultranationalist Japanese army officers initiated the conquest of Manchuria from China following a staged incident at Mukden in September 1931. Chinese military resistance was ineffective, and League of Nations condemnation of Japanese action merely resulted in Japan’s withdrawal from the League in 1933. That same year a truce left the Japanese in de facto control of ‘Manchukuo’, as they now termed Manchuria. The year 1933 brought changes in Europe as well, where, on 30 January, Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Hitler immediately began laying the foundations for a program of aggressive continental expansion, which he had outlined in his autobiography, Mein Kampf (1925/27). On 3 February, he met with leading generals and admirals to accelerate the small and secret rearmament program that the Weimar Republic had undertaken in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, that portion of the Peace of Paris pertaining to Germany. At the same meeting, he revealed the underlying purpose of rearmament – the seizure of living space (Lebensraum) in the east and its ‘‘ruthless Germanization.’’ In October 1933, Germany withdrew from both the world disarmament conference and the League of Nations. In March 1935, with rearmament already under way, Hitler announced the resumption of conscription and the reestablishment of an air force (Luftwaffe), both violations of the Treaty of Versailles. For a time, it appeared that Hitler’s measures would meet with a firm international response. In April 1935, at a meeting in Stresa, Italy, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy formally expressed their misgivings over Germany’s action of reestablishing conscription. They also reaffirmed the independence of the most likely target of German

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aggression, Austria, which was a fellow German-speaking nation and the land of Hitler’s birth. Two months later, however, on 18 June, Britain concluded a separate agreement approving the expansion of Germany’s navy, the one branch of the Reich’s armed forces that still labored under restrictions imposed by Versailles. All remnants of the so-called Stresa Front disappeared the following October, when Britain and France condemned Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. The resulting rift between the two Western democracies and Italy resulted in Italy’s withdrawal from the League of Nations. It also distracted international attention from the continuing process of German rearmament, including Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in March 1936, and helped to pave the way for an ItaloGerman rapprochement that same year. The Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936, had much the same effect. While France, and a decidedly more reluctant Britain, provided marginal support for the established Spanish republic, Germany and Italy furnished substantial economic and military aid for Francisco Franco’s insurgents, who would ultimately secure power after a 3-year struggle. Mussolini’s pronouncement of a Rome–Berlin ‘‘Axis’’ on 1 November 1936 provided further evidence of closer Italo-German relations. That same month, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, pledging mutual cooperation against the machinations of the Communist International, a Soviet-sponsored organization that had loudly championed world revolution since its foundation in 1919. Not to be left behind, Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact in January 1937. Although neither the Rome–Berlin Axis nor the AntiComintern Pact represented formal military alliances, the increasing community of interest between Germany, Italy, and Japan was evident. In July 1937, renewed fighting broke out between Japan and China. During the ensuing struggle, which lasted until the end of World War II 8 years later, the nominal leader of China, Chiang Kai-shek, was unable or unwilling to forge an effective united front against the Japanese invaders. Instead, Chiang’s Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party, Mao Tse-tung’s Chinese Communist Party, and a host of independent warlords pursued largely distinct policies that were aimed as much at each other as they were at the Japanese. Coupled with China’s notorious backwardness, these internal divisions facilitated Japanese efforts to occupy vast areas of China, including most of its major industrial centers and ports. Another feature of the war was its exceptional brutality. Both sides routinely slaughtered each other’s wounded and prisoners, and Japan’s greater arsenal of aircraft enabled it to launch terror raids on those cities that remained beyond Japanese control. Perhaps the most horrible atrocity of the Sino-Japanese War, however, was the so-called Rape of Nanking in December 1937, during which Japanese soldiers ran amuck in the former Nationalist capital and murdered between 200 000 and

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300 000 Chinese civilians. Perhaps because of this event, and others like it, public and official opinion in Britain and the United States gradually tilted in favor of Chiang, whose government relocated from Nanking to Chungking, in the interior of China. Most support from the Western democracies was initially moral rather than material. Eventually though, small amounts of military and economic aid would begin trickling into China via French Indochina or, after March 1939, the famous Burma Road. While Japanese troops engaged in bloody fighting in China, Hitler’s Germany enjoyed a series of bloodless triumphs in Central Europe. In March 1938, German troops occupied Austria without opposition. Many, within both countries, saw this as the logical reunion of kindred people who had been wrongly separated by Otto von Bismarck’s exclusion of Austria from German affairs in 1866. Despite some reservations, the governments of Britain and France found it difficult to deny the logic of this argument, and Mussolini, who had earlier opposed union (Anschluss) between Germany and Austria, now gave his blessings to Hitler’s action. The German dictator wasted little time in moving toward his next objective. Throughout the summer of 1938, Hitler encouraged the largely German-speaking populace of the Sudetenland, the frontier region of Czechoslovakia, to demand union with Germany. Czechoslovakia’s international standing was outwardly more secure than Austria’s had been; it was allied with France and had recently negotiated a defensive pact with the Soviet Union that was conditional upon activation of the French alliance. Unfortunately for Czechoslovakia, French action was unlikely without British support. In September 1938, at meetings at Berchtesgaden and Bad Godesberg with Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, Hitler delineated the stark choice between international acquiescence to German demands on Czechoslovakia, or war. On 29 and 30 September, at a four-power conference at Munich, which included Germany, Italy, Britain, and France and which excluded both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, Britain and France approved of German acquisition of the Sudetenland in exchange for Hitler’s guarantee of the integrity of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Abandoned by the Western democracies, Czechoslovakia reluctantly implemented the provisions of the Munich Pact in October. Munich represented the high point of the Western democracies’ strategy of ‘appeasement’ – that is, the attempt to maintain peace by making concessions to aggrieved states such as Germany. Hitler kept the promises he made there for less than 6 months, for on 15 March 1939, German forces occupied Bohemia and Moravia, the Czech-speaking portions of Czechoslovakia. The following day, Hitler announced their conversion into a German ‘Protectorate’. Although Slovakia remained nominally independent, its status as a German puppet-state was

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equally evident. On 23 March, Germany re-annexed Memel from Lithuania, which had occupied it in 1923. Any thoughts that Hitler’s appetite for territory was sated now disappeared, and on 31 March, Britain and France guaranteed the independence of Poland, a state which German diplomats had been seeking to cajole into concessions and which, like the recently dismembered Czechoslovakia, contained a large German minority. Hitler’s demands on Poland concerned two vital issues: reacquisition of the Free City of Danzig, a largely German port city on the Baltic that had been separated from Germany and placed under League of Nations supervision in 1919, and Polish cession of extraterritorial transit rights across the Polish Corridor separating Germancontrolled East Prussia from the rest of the Reich. Polish leaders, including Foreign Minister Josef Beck, feared that any alteration of the status of the Corridor or Danzig would be the first step in transforming Poland into a Nazi satellite. Consequently, during the winter, spring, and summer of 1939, Poland politely but firmly rejected German approaches. Hitler responded by accusing the Poles of atrocities against the German minority in Poland and by solidifying his own alliances. On 22 May, Hitler and Mussolini concluded the Pact of Steel, an offensive alliance that outwardly cemented the Rome–Berlin Axis. Far more surprising, however, was the signing of a German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact on 23 August, wherein the two countries publicly pledged not to aid each other’s enemies in the event of war. A secret annex to the agreement stipulated the partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union in the event of German–Polish hostilities. Hitler clearly intended that the public rapprochement between the Soviet Union and Germany – bitter ideological enemies since 1933 – would discourage British and French intervention on Poland’s behalf. On 25 August, however, Britain and Poland concluded a formal treaty of alliance, thus complementing the preexisting Franco–Polish alliance; that same day Hitler’s own ally, Mussolini, privately informed him that Italy was not yet prepared for war. These latest developments notwithstanding, Hitler initiated the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. In contrast to the experiences in Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939, the Poles resisted, and on 3 September, Britain and France declared war upon Germany.

The Expansion of the Axis (1939–42) The German invasion of Poland revealed many of the features that were to become hallmarks of the war. Although only 16 of 55 German combat divisions employed in Poland were heavily mechanized (6 Panzer and 10 motorized infantry), their level of training and ability to coordinate closely with units of the Luftwaffe

gave the German army huge advantages over the Polish army, which relied primarily on traditional infantry and cavalry formations. Exploiting a potent combination of firepower and mobility that Western journalists subsequently styled Blitzkrieg (‘lightning war’), German forces reached Warsaw on 15 September. The indiscriminate aerial bombing of the Polish capital during the ensuing siege foreshadowed the fate of many cities, great and small, European and Asian, during the war. Likewise, isolated acts of violence against civilians, including the murder of Jews at places such as Lukow and Czestochowa, anticipated Hitler’s more radical measures in 1941–42. The war’s tendency to make strange partners became evident on 17 September, when, in accordance with the secret provisions of the German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact, Soviet forces swept over the lightly defended, eastern border of Poland and began the occupation of the eastern half of that unfortunate country. On 27 September, Warsaw surrendered to German forces, and, by 6 October, all organized resistance within Poland had ceased, leaving the Germans and the Soviets in de facto control of the country. A Polish government in exile ultimately settled in London, the first of many refugee governments that would locate there during the war. While German and Soviet forces completed the conquest of Poland, Britain and France sought to mobilize for a longer and more deliberate struggle. Although Hitler pressed for an immediate offensive against France, the onset of winter forced the postponement of major action in the west until the following spring. In Scandinavia, however, conflict broke out in two separate arenas. In November 1939, the Soviet Union initiated a brief but costly war with Finland in order to secure a more defensible frontier in the northeast. The Soviet Union’s aggression resulted in its expulsion from the League of Nations, a unique event in the history of that organization, but, on 12 March, the Finns signed the Treaty of Moscow, thereby relinquishing more than a tenth of their territory to the Soviets. Then, on 9 April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway in order to protect German access to Swedish iron ore and to gain bases for expanded naval operations against the British. Danish forces capitulated within a day, after which the Danish government continued to hold office under a German Reich Plenipotentiary. Abetted by Allied expeditionary forces, formal Norwegian resistance continued until the country was overwhelmed in June 1940, after which a Norwegian government in exile formed around King Haakon VII in Britain. Allied failure in Norway prompted the fall of the Chamberlain Cabinet in Britain and its replacement by one headed by Winston Churchill, on May 10. That same day Hitler began his long-awaited offensive in the west. German troops rapidly overran Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. On 20 May, German tanks

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reached the English Channel, thereby cutting off the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and much of the French army, which failed to use its own substantial armored force effectively. In the air, the Luftwaffe provided effective close support for ground troops and, on 14 May, leveled the center of the undefended city of Rotterdam. By 26 May, the Allied position in the Low Countries was hopeless, prompting the British to evacuate approximately 340 000 Allied troops, roughly two-thirds of whom were British, from the port of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo). Although the BEF would live to fight another day, virtually all of its heavy equipment had to be abandoned on the continent. Buoyed by its recent successes, the German army then turned on France, whose forces had already suffered severely during the campaign through the Low Countries. French attempts to restore the situation by replacing Maurice Gamelin with Maxime Weygand as supreme military commander proved unavailing. The French debacle prompted Mussolini’s Italy to declare war on Britain and France, on 10 June, in a belated effort to share some of the spoils of the anticipated Allied collapse. Italy’s underequipped and poorly led ground forces made no significant difference to the campaign. Nevertheless, the Wehrmacht’s continued successes in the north resulted in the occupation of Paris on 14 June, and Premier Paul Reynaud’s resignation and his replacement by the aged World War I marshal, Philippe Pe´tain, 2 days later. Pe´tain sought and received an armistice, which was signed on 22 June and which went into effect on 25 June. By its terms, German forces occupied three-fifths of metropolitan France, including Paris, the Channel coast, and the Bay of Biscay coast. The remaining two-fifths of France remained under the control of the Pe´tain government, which relocated to Vichy. From that small spa, the Pe´tain regime retained control over a small army, a substantial fleet, and the greater part of France’s overseas empire, whose garrisons, generally, chose to follow the lead of Vichy rather than the small Free French movement that was forming under Charles de Gaulle. Germany’s stunning victory had taken scarcely 6 weeks. Many observers, including Pe´tain, now anticipated British entreaties for a negotiated settlement with the Axis powers, and on 28 June, Pope Pius XII made offers to Britain, Germany, and Italy to mediate between the warring parties. The Churchill government, however, proceeded with its own plans for continuing the war. On the same day as the Pope’s mediation effort, Britain officially recognized de Gaulle as the leader of Free France, and on 3 July, the Royal Navy launched a destructive attack on Vichy French naval forces at the port of Mers-el-Ke´bir in North Africa to preclude their use by the Axis. Despite Britain’s show of resolution, Hitler evidently still anticipated peace overtures. Thus, although he approved limited air raids on British ports and convoys in July and issued a directive, on 16 July, for the armed forces to

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prepare for the eventual invasion of Britain (Operation Sealion), in a speech on 19 July, he also hinted at a compromise peace that would allow Britain to retain its empire in return for recognition of Germany’s gains on the continent. When the British government rebuffed this overture on 22 July, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to accelerate its campaign to achieve air supremacy preparatory to a cross-Channel invasion of Britain in the early fall. The resulting air campaign, known as the Battle of Britain, proved noteworthy for a number of reasons. In the first place, the Royal Air Force (RAF) was able to deny the Luftwaffe air supremacy, ultimately prompting Hitler to postpone Sealion indefinitely, on 17 September. The cost in men and material in this first major German setback was significant for both sides; between 10 July and 31 October, the Luftwaffe lost over 1300 aircraft, while the RAF sustained almost 800 aircraft destroyed and over 500 aircrew killed. Losses to aviators, however, paled in comparison to civilian losses, for after an initial period in which each side avoided densely populated targets, the Luftwaffe and RAF Bomber Command engaged in bombing strategies that knew fewer and fewer restraints. The two national capitals figured prominently in the mutual escalation of terror. Accidental German bombing of London on 24 August, for example, prompted a British retaliatory strike on Berlin on the night of 25 August. Hitler responded with a series of attacks on London, initially by day, and later, as Luftwaffe losses mounted, by night. Between 7 September and 12 November, the Luftwaffe undertook 58 major raids on London. The Luftwaffe also attacked Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Clydebank, Plymouth, Coventry, and a host of other industrial centers and ports, killing approximately 42 000 British civilians and seriously wounding another 50 000, in the process. Most German cities were initially spared major British raids, partly because the RAF was busy trying to disrupt preparations for Sealion by bombing invasion craft in the Channel ports in France and the Low Countries, and partly because of the RAF’s initial difficulties in finding even city-sized targets at night. The ordeal of the German cities would come later. In the meantime, the other powers of the world sought to adjust to the changed circumstances occasioned by France’s fall. In spite of the German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact, the ease with which the Wehrmacht had crushed the French army caused deep concern for the Soviet Union. Although Josef Stalin continued to seek good relations with Germany, during the summer of 1940, Soviet forces annexed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina from Romania and formally integrated Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which had been occupied the year before, into the Soviet Union. Coupled with the earlier seizure of eastern Poland, it was hoped that these annexations would form an advanced bastion against a potential German invasion.

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The United States also took precautions. In July, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Two-Ocean Navy Expansion Act, which, when completed, would give the United States a navy that would dwarf any potential competitor. In August, the United States began transferring 50 overage destroyers to the British in exchange for longterm leases on bases in the western hemisphere. Nor were American preparations confined to naval matters, for on 16 September 1940, the United States Congress enacted limited conscription. Clearly, the German conquest of Western Europe had sent alarming signals across the Atlantic. If Germany’s success threatened the United States and the Soviet Union, it seemed to offer opportunity to Japan, which, by 1940, was mired in a seemingly endless war with China. The German conquest of the Netherlands and France meant that those countries could deploy only weak forces to defend their holdings in the Far East – the Netherlands’ East Indies and France’s Indochina. Britain’s navy, long a bulwark of Western influence in the Far East, was likewise stretched to the limit by the fall of France and the addition of a significant Italian fleet as an adversary in the Mediterranean. Particularly within the Imperial Japanese Navy, expansionists hoped that the conquest of Southeast Asia and Indonesia would, simultaneously, give Japan the resources necessary to finish the war in China and allow it to withstand any pressure by Britain and the United States to relinquish its gains. In September 1940, Japanese forces occupied northern Indochina as a first step in the acquisition of the so-called Southern Resources Area. On 27 September, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, wherein each party pledged to come to the aid of the other should one of them be attacked by a power not currently engaged in either the Sino-Japanese War or the war in Europe. Since a special clause of the agreement excluded the Soviet Union as a possible adversary, the Tripartite Pact was an obvious warning to the United States to stay out of the conflicts in Asia and Europe. For a time, in the fall of 1940, German leaders contemplated luring the Soviet Union into the Tripartite Pact as well. In November 1940, the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, sought to persuade his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, to join an anti-British bloc consisting of Germany, Japan, Italy, and the Soviet Union. Hitler’s and Stalin’s suspicions over each other’s designs in Eastern Europe as well as continued signs of British resilience precluded such an arrangement. By early winter, Hitler had returned to earlier plans to attack the Soviet Union. Conquest of the Soviet Union, he reasoned, would destroy British hope of a continental ally (thereby encouraging a victorious peace with Britain), gain the Lebensraum that National Socialist ideology claimed was indispensable for Germany’s survival as a great power, and, by removing the Soviet threat to Japan

in the Far East, free Japan to menace the United States. On 18 December 1940, Hitler ordered completion of preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union, code named Operation Barbarossa, by the following May. By spring 1941, however, the strategic situation was changing rapidly. During the winter, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had tilted toward the Axis by signing the Tripartite Pact. On the other hand, Italian offensives from Libya into Egypt (September 1940) and from Albania into Greece (October 1940) had been turned back by British and Greek counteroffensives during the winter. In March 1941, Yugoslavian army officers balked at their country’s adherence to the Tripartite Pact, and, after a coup d’etat on 27 March, Yugoslavia signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union the following month. Although the vast seas of mud resulting from the spring thaw would probably have delayed the start of Barbarossa in any case, the deteriorating Axis position in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean necessitated German action to shore up the southern flank before the invasion of the Soviet Union. In February 1941, Hitler dispatched General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps to bolster Italian forces in North Africa. In April and May, German forces overran first Yugoslavia and then Greece. The monarchs of both nations joined a lengthening list of refugees in London; meanwhile, their two countries became the scene of some of the most ferocious guerrilla activity of the war. All previous campaigns of the war, however, were dwarfed in size and ferocity by the implementation of Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941. On that day, over 3 000 000 German soldiers and 500 000 soldiers (from an array of allies that would ultimately include Finland, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Italy plus a volunteer division from Franco’s Spain) began the largest offensive thus far seen in European history. Aided by the element of surprise and the employment of huge armored encirclement battles, Axis forces inflicted massive losses on the Red Army. By mid-September, German forces had taken Kiev in the Ukraine and were besieging Leningrad in the north; by 5 December, amid rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, the German army had driven to within 19 miles of Moscow. That same day, however, the Red Army began a series of counterattacks which, over the next 2 months, would drive the German army back from the gates of Moscow and ensure that the Soviet Union would remain in the war, at least for another year. The campaign on the eastern front reached levels of savagery that, with isolated exceptions, had not been seen elsewhere in the European war. Excluding the sick, casualties in the German army during the first year of war with the Soviet Union totaled almost 1 300 000; Soviet losses were vastly larger. In addition, both sides used the age-old policy of ‘scorched earth’ to deny resources and shelter to the enemy. The impact of modern ideological training was also more evident on the eastern front than it

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had been in the western campaigns. In 1941, the German army encouraged its soldiers to make free and easy use of a series of Commissar Orders to execute Red Army political leaders on the spot. Depending on the circumstances and the proximity of SS Einsatzgruppen (Action Squads), other categories of Soviet citizens – members of the Communist party, intellectuals, common soldiers, civilians, and especially Jews – risked falling victim to a similar fate. Maltreatment, starvation, and overwork awaited even those ‘lucky’ soldiers of the Red Army who managed to attain the status of ‘normal’ prisoners of war; of approximately 5 700 000 Soviet soldiers captured during the war, 3 300 000 died in captivity. In 1941, the advancing German army lost far fewer prisoners to the Red Army. Nevertheless, the initiation of partisan warfare behind German lines guaranteed an endless cycle of atrocities by both sides. In December 1941, the war took another major turn with the entry of the United States into both the war in Europe and the war in the Far East. Since the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, the relations of the United States with the Axis powers had deteriorated markedly. In March 1941, the Roosevelt administration had shepherded through a Lend-Lease bill, a formal extension of military and economic aid to Britain and China. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the United States had included the Soviets in Lend-Lease as well. In the fall of 1941, as United States naval forces began assisting in convoying war material to Great Britain, an undeclared war had broken out at sea between the United States and Germany. It was Japan, however, that initiated formal hostilities with the United States. This decision came after the United States had frozen Japanese assets and imposed an oil embargo following Japanese occupation of southern Indochina in July 1941, a measure that American diplomats correctly saw as a preparatory step toward further Japanese expansion into Southeast Asia. After successive Japanese and American negotiations revealed the fundamental incompatibility of the two countries’ aims, Japan’s government decided on war rather than retreat. Although Japanese planners intended for the declaration of war to be delivered minutes before the scheduled carrier air strikes on Pearl Harbor, delays in decrypting the wording of the announcement at the Japanese embassy in Washington meant that formal notification of war occurred after the devastating attack on United States forces in Hawaii. That same day, Japan also declared war on Great Britain. In view of the brazen nature of the Japanese attack, the other signatories of the Tripartite Pact were not technically bound to come to Japan’s aid; nevertheless, on 11 December, both Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, thus transforming what had been two parallel regional wars into a true world war.

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The next 6 months brought a string of Japanese successes. Between December 1941 and May 1942, Japanese army and naval forces conquered Guam, Hong Kong, Wake Island, Malaya, the Netherlands’ East Indies, most of Burma, the Philippines, and a host of smaller islands in the Pacific. In the process, the Japanese army inflicted a stunning defeat on the British army at Singapore, taking over 100 000 British and Commonwealth prisoners. The Japanese also captured large numbers of American prisoners at Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines. Allied prisoners would suffer terrible privations over the next 3 years, in forced marches to prisoner of war (POW) camps (such as the Bataan Death March), in forced labor, or simply in the camps themselves. Japan’s remarkable successes in the Pacific and Southeast Asia coincided with the renewal of offensive action by Axis forces in North Africa and Russia. In June 1942, German and Italian forces recaptured the Libyan fortress of Tobruk from the British. Rommel’s subsequent advance into Egypt was halted, later that summer, at El Alamein by logistical difficulties and determined British resistance. In Russia, German forces sought to capture the Caucasus, at that time the main oil producing region of the Soviet Union, and the city of Stalingrad, a major industrial and transportation center on the Volga. Although the Red Army resisted doggedly, by November 1942 much of the Caucasus and approximately 90% of Stalingrad were in German hands. Anticipating the fall of the city, Hitler assured the German public that Stalingrad was his.

The Turning of the Tide (1942–43) In fact, Axis claims to final victory were premature. The first faint signs of this became evident in the Pacific where, at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, an American carrier task force, forewarned by decrypted enemy radio transmissions, compelled a Japanese invasion fleet to turn back from its intended target, Port Moresby, New Guinea. Although tactically a draw, the battle represented the first significant strategic setback for the Japanese in the Pacific war; it was also noteworthy as the first fleet engagement on the high seas in which all offensive action was undertaken by carrier-based or land-based air units rather than surface vessels. In June 1942, American carrier forces again exploited Allied code-breaking abilities and inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Japanese at the battle of Midway in the central Pacific, sinking four irreplaceable Japanese fleet carriers at the cost of one of their own. In August, United States marines began the invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, initiating a bitter 6-month campaign of attrition that imposed further losses on the Imperial Navy and culminated in American conquest of the island in February 1943. By the end of 1942,

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the United States had clearly wrested the initiative from the Japanese, in the Pacific. The Axis also sustained setbacks in North Africa. On 23 October, General (later Field Marshal) Bernard Montgomery’s British 8th Army began an offensive to drive Rommel’s German and Italian forces from their positions at El Alamein. When Axis troops finally began to retreat on 4 November, Montgomery pursued cautiously but relentlessly, bringing his army to the gates of Tripoli by the end of the year. Moreover, Allied exploitation of the success of Operation Torch, the Anglo–American invasion of the Vichy French colonies of Morocco and Algeria on 8 November 1942, would confine Axis forces in North Africa to a narrow bridgehead in Tunisia by the following spring. In the Mediterranean as in the Pacific, the initiative now rested with the Allies. The winter of 1942–43 brought a devastating blow to the Axis in Russia. On 19 November 1942, Sovietmechanized forces undertook a massive pincer movement (Operation Uranus) against the German forces besieging Stalingrad. When Soviet formations linked up with one another 4 days later, they isolated over 200 000 German soldiers in the Stalingrad pocket. Partly because of the symbolic value he attached to a city bearing the name of Stalin, Hitler refused to approve a German withdrawal. Bolstered by Luftwaffe assurances that the pocket could be resupplied by air, he ordered the German commander at Stalingrad, Friedrich Paulus, to maintain his position at all costs. By late January 1943, the situation was clearly hopeless. On January 30, Paulus received notification of his promotion to the rank of field marshal, along with Hitler’s pointed reminder that no one holding such an exalted rank in the Prusso-German pantheon had ever been captured. The following day, Paulus surrendered those portions of the Stalingrad force that were still under his effective command, and by 2 February all resistance at Stalingrad had ceased. In the course of the battle, over 100 000 German soldiers had fallen prisoner to the Red Army; the overwhelming majority of these would never see Germany again, succumbing instead to exposure, a devastating typhus epidemic in the summer of 1943, or persistent overwork in Soviet prison camps. Stalingrad was perhaps the most dramatic and highly publicized turning point of World War II. It was, however, a different victory – the defeat of the German submarine threat after a much less visible but even more prolonged campaign – that marked the final step in the annus mirabilis of the war. In late 1940, and again from 1942 until early 1943, Allied merchant ship losses to German submarines severely threatened Great Britain’s economic survival. Yet even as the Battle of the Atlantic reached its climax in the spring of 1943, developments were underway that would doom Axis efforts. Buoyed by a tenfold increase in cargo ship construction in the United States and Canada, available Allied shipping capacity had begun to outpace

continued heavy losses to German wolfpacks in the winter of 1942–43. In the spring of 1943, moreover, Allied countermeasures, including the use of escort carriers, long-range patrol aircraft, airborne radar, and improved search-and-destroy techniques by surface escorts, began to inflict heavy damage on Germany’s submarines. In May 1943, Germany lost 47 U-boats while Allied shipping losses dropped dramatically. Confronted with such losses, the head of the German navy, Grand Admiral Karl Do¨nitz, reluctantly withdrew his submarines from the vital north Atlantic convoy routes to safer but less crucial areas. Thenceforth, the sustenance of Britain and the transatlantic mobilization of men and material for the liberation of Western Europe could proceed without major impediment.

Nations at War Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic was partly the result of the vast disparity between the economic power of the Atlantic Allies – the United States, Britain, and Canada – and that of Germany. This disparity was evident in the land and air campaigns in Europe and in the Allied war against Japan as well. Indeed, it was in the economic sector of warfare that the shortcomings of the Axis vis-a`-vis the Allies were most glaringly evident. A comparison of national consumption of modern energy sources – coal, petroleum, natural gas, and hydroelectricity – offers a rough indication of the disparity in the opposing coalitions’ potential for waging an industrialized war. Expressed in equivalents of million metric tons of coal, approximate energy consumption, in 1938, for the three major partners of the Axis was: Germany (228), Japan (96.5), and Italy (27.8), a coalition total of 352.3 million metric tons. Equivalent figures for the future Allied coalition were: the Soviet Union (177), Great Britain (196), and the United States (697), a coalition total of 1070 million metric tons of coal equivalent. These figures, however, tell only part of the story. Because of the lingering effects of the Great Depression, much of the United States’ industrial work force and infrastructure was underutilized in 1938. Nevertheless, in that same year, with two-thirds of its steel mills idle, the United States produced almost as much steel (26.4 million tons) as Germany and Japan combined (26.7 million tons) and with German and Japanese mills working near their full capacity. Once war production began, the United States could exploit its reserve capacity to achieve far greater levels of production. German conquest of France and the Low Countries in 1940 and of the western part of the Soviet Union in 1941 should have partially offset this imbalance by bringing new resources to the Axis in Europe, but Axis gains in the Soviet Union were partially offset by a number of factors. By utilizing draconian evacuation measures, the Soviets were able to relocate many skilled workers and

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large amounts of industrial equipment farther to the east, beyond the reach of German forces. Moreover, ‘scorched earth’ policies and partisan activities severely hampered industrial production in German-occupied territories. A final factor, however, was the nature of German rule in Russia, for wasteful looting of resources, mass deportations, and maltreatment of the remaining workforce also took their toll. As a result, in 1943, the German-occupied portions of the Soviet Union produced only one-tenth of their prewar industrial yield. Decisions as to what to produce and when to produce it also dramatically affected the war-making capabilities of the two coalitions. Early in the war, Hitler’s conviction that the collapse of the home front had caused German defeat in World War I prompted him to allow considerable consumer spending in Germany. Similarly, his confidence that the war would be short resulted in cutbacks or timeconsuming shifts in armaments production in 1940, after the fall of France, and again in the fall of 1941, when the success of Operation Barbarossa seemed certain. It was only in January 1942, after his failure to take Moscow, that Hitler yielded to the prodding of Fritz Todt, his Minister of Armaments and Production, and ordered massive increases in war production. Thereafter, by shifting production priorities, eliminating overlapping agencies, and transferring millions of German and foreign workers into key industries, Todt’s successor, Albert Speer, achieved noticeable armaments increases, even as the Allied strategic bombing campaign reached its crescendo. Taking the combined production of tanks, assault guns, and self-propelled guns as a measure, Germany’s total rose from 5200 in 1941 to 19 800 in 1943 and peaked at 27 300 in 1944. Britain’s war mobilization offers an interesting contrast with the German experience. Fully a year and a half before his initial setbacks in Russia drove home the same lesson to Hitler, the fall of France, in 1940, shattered the illusion that the Allies could win the war without undue disruption of civilian life. In the wake of Dunkirk, British men and women were subjected to more stringent rationing, greater taxation, and more extreme demands on their labor than their German counterparts endured. As a result, British war production compared favorably with that of Germany, despite Britain’s smaller population and its aging industrial plant. British vulnerability to air attack had prompted crash programs in fighter production even before the outbreak of war, and by the time of the Battle of Britain in 1940, Britain’s annual production of aircraft already outstripped that of Germany (15 049 to 10 826). Britain’s ascendancy in this sector continued until 1944, when Speer’s belated efforts resulted in 39 275 German aircraft (mostly less expensive single-engine interceptors) to balance Britain’s annual production of 26 461, including many four-engine bombers. By that time, large numbers of Soviet and American aircraft were deployed in Europe to keep the balance firmly tilted in favor of the Allies.

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Soviet war production suffered severely from the German conquest of heavily industrialized regions in western Russia and the Ukraine. Nevertheless, the relocation of capital goods and workers beyond the reach of the Germans and the prewar industrial development of areas east of the Urals meant that Soviet production of basic armaments remained formidable. Soviet tank production exceeded that of Germany in every year of the war, as did Soviet aircraft production in all years, except 1940. Perhaps, more threatening to Soviet survival was the loss of fertile agricultural land and farm workers to German control. In 1942–43, Soviet agricultural production fell to less than 40% of the level in 1940. In view of this, it was in the delivery of foodstuffs as well as over 400 000 trucks and jeeps that United States Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union proved most vital. That the United States could provide enormous amounts of military and economic aid to its allies while equipping its own forces was testimony to American economic muscle. Nevertheless, although early British and French purchases, prewar naval expansion, and Lend-Lease all helped to ‘jump start’ American mobilization, it was not until mid-1943 that United States production began to reach peak efficiency. Once underway, however, the flood of American war material was spectacular. One measure of this may be seen in the wartime production of aircraft carriers, the key to the gigantic naval engagements between the United States and Japan in the Pacific. Between 1941 and 1945, the United States built 18 fleet carriers and 116 light carriers compared to 6 fleet carriers and 14 light carriers for Japan. Such an overwhelming disparity radically narrowed Japanese options. Indeed, to many Japanese, by late 1944–45, the only viable alternatives open to their country appeared to be surrender or the suicide tactics of the Kamikaze pilots. The Kamikaze represented an extreme and, to Western observers, unfathomable example of the attempt to redress material weakness with psychological or spiritual strength. Yet, what the Kamikaze pilots attempted at the individual level was paralleled throughout the war, in a much more general way, by the propaganda efforts of all belligerents. Indeed, despite the negative connotation now associated with propaganda, Allied and Axis leaders recognized that winning the war meant exploiting the psychological resources of their nation and targeting those of their enemies. Propaganda efforts, naturally, differed according to available resources, sophistication of the media, national traditions, and how the war was going at the time in question. Although it is difficult to generalize, the propaganda campaigns of Germany and Britain offer instructive examples of both the possibilities and limits of propaganda. Germany’s initial propaganda efforts benefited both from its Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels’, long experience in the field and from Germany’s early military successes. Goebbels’ exaggerated ‘Blitzpropaganda’ brought

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domestic support for the National Socialist regime to an all-time high following the conquest of France, while the carefully cultivated image of an invincible Wehrmacht was a powerful deterrent to neutrals who were contemplating joining the Allies. After the tide of war turned against Germany, Goebbels’ manipulation of popular fear of Bolshevism and of the unforeseeable consequences of the Allied demand for Germany’s unconditional surrender meant that the National Socialist regime retained an astonishing amount of domestic support until the closing days of the war. On the other hand, premature assertions of final German victory and implausible claims of success in the face of obvious failure meant that German propaganda ultimately lost most of its effectiveness among Allied and neutral citizens. Given the early failures of British arms, Britain’s propaganda effort faced initially greater challenges than Germany’s did. Britain’s domestic propaganda, however, benefited from Churchill’s inspiring rhetoric and his projection of bulldog tenacity. Moreover, by insisting that British pronouncements adhere as closely to the truth as was possible in wartime, the director of the British Political Warfare Executive, R. H. Bruce Lockhart, ensured that BBC broadcasts, generally, retained a greater degree of credibility among listeners in neutral and Axis-occupied countries than Axis broadcasts did. Whether this British advantage also held true for many Axis citizens and whether concrete advantages accrued from it is debatable. One feature common to both sides’ propaganda efforts was the tendency to dehumanize the enemy. Although the consequences of this were felt on all fighting fronts, they were most evident in the German–Soviet and Japanese– Allied conflicts, where both sides presented their enemies in racist or demonic terms and adopted combat measures to suit their rhetoric. Perhaps because of this, the Pacific war and the eastern front also witnessed the disturbing spectacle of mass deportations of suspect civilians. In the United States and Canada, fear of Japanese military successes in the Pacific and prewar resentment against Japanese immigration led to forcible deportation of over 100 000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians from the west coast to relocation camps in the interior, in 1942. Although the circumstances of Japanese deportation were reasonably humane, they were nevertheless accompanied by considerable losses of property and needless assaults on human dignity. Paradoxically, perhaps because they were indispensable to that territory’s economy, only about 1% of the 150 000 Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii were deported. Soviet authorities also undertook mass deportations of suspect populations, beginning with the forcible resettlement of Poles during the period of German–Soviet cooperation between 1939 and 1941. Later, suspected or actual collaboration with the Axis led to the removal of dozens of groups of ethnic minorities, including Kalmyks, Chechens,

and Crimean Tatars, from vulnerable areas to regions further east in 1943–44. Supervised by the Soviet secret police, these migrations were usually chaotic and accompanied by substantial loss of life due to overexertion, maltreatment, and exposure. All deportation measures paled in comparison, however, with the actions that the German government undertook against the Jews of Europe. Initial German wartime measures ran the gamut between policies designed to expel the Jews from Europe (to Madagascar, according to one unlikely scheme), forcible resettlement in ghettoes such as Warsaw and Lo´dz, and sporadic killings by Einsatzgruppen in Poland in 1939. Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941, brought a marked increase in the mass murder of Jews; at Babi Yar in September 1941, for example, approximately 33 000 people of all ages were shot with machine guns. Einsatzgruppen figured prominently in most atrocities, but were sometimes aided by other Germans, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Romanians. By the end of 1941, roughly one million Jews had been killed in the German-occupied portions of the Soviet Union. During the winter of 1941–42, German authorities began implementing a more systematic extermination policy via the Final Solution. At a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942, Reich officials adopted a series of measures aimed at relocating all European Jews, including those residing in neutral countries and in the as-yet unconquered British Isles, to death camps in Poland. By the time of the Wannsee conference, one such camp at Chelmno was already in operation, and within months, additional ones went into operation at Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka, Maidanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Between 1942 and 1944, the systematic killings of most of the Jews of occupied Europe took place, either in gas chambers at the camps, in mobile gas vans, or through chronic overwork. Some governments were able to protect their Jewish citizens, either in full (Bulgaria, Finland, and, to a large degree, Denmark) or in part (Italy). Elsewhere, in Croatia, Slovakia, and Vichy France, collaborationist governments cooperated willingly in delivering Jews to their murderers. In 1944, the Soviet liberation of Poland prompted German authorities to begin shunting surviving Jewish captives to older concentration camps in Germany. Even then the killing continued as emaciated prisoners succumbed to forced marches, abuse, and disease. By war’s end, approximately 6 million Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis; only the complete collapse of the Third Reich had prevented the total destruction of European Jewry.

The Defeat of the Axis (1943–45) Hitler’s defeat – and that of his coalition partners – was due primarily to the combined efforts of the three main

World War II

powers of the Grand Alliance (Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States). Between 1943 and 1945, the Soviet Union continued to bear the lion’s share of the land war against Germany. At Kursk in July 1943, in the largest tank battle of the war, the Red Army thwarted a German attempt to regain the initiative on the eastern front, and in the fall of 1943 the Soviets began the reconquest of the Ukraine. In June 1944, Soviet troops began the destruction of German Army Group Center (Operation Bagration), while supplementary offensives drove Romania and Finland out of the war in August and September, respectively. In January 1945, Russian and Polish forces finally liberated Warsaw, which had been devastated by German suppression of uprisings by Jews in the Ghetto, in 1943, and by the Polish Home Army, in 1944. By March 1945, Russian troops under Marshals Georgi Zhukov and Ivan Konev were poised on the Oder River for the final assault on Berlin. Until June 1944, American and British land operations against the Axis in Europe remained confined to the Mediterranean. In May 1943, Allied troops drove the Axis out of their North African bridgehead in Tunisia. That summer, the Allied invasion of Sicily prompted the fall of Mussolini’s government and its replacement by one headed by Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Although Italy surrendered to the Allies in September, German forces successfully disarmed most of the Italian army, occupied much of the mainland, and reestablished Mussolini as a puppet in northern Italy. Allied landings in southern Italy, in September 1943, and at Anzio, in January 1944, eventually led to American entry into Rome on 4 June, but German resistance in Italy continued unabated. Meanwhile, Allied solidarity threatened to founder on Soviet impatience over Britain’s and the United States’ delay in opening a more effective Second Front in Western Europe. One response to Soviet complaints was the Western Allies’ combined bomber offensive. Initiated by Churchill and Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the campaign combined nighttime ‘area’ attacks on German cities by RAF Bomber Command with supposedly more precise daylight attacks on industrial sites by American bombers. For a time, in late 1943 and early 1944, heavy Allied aircraft losses and the apparent resilience of German morale and German industry called into question the efficacy of Allied bombing strategies. By spring 1944, however, newly introduced long-range fighters such as the P-51 Mustang were beginning to destroy the Luftwaffe in the skies over Germany and compel its withdrawal from tactical missions in Russia, Italy, and Western Europe. The United States’ and Britain’s hard won air superiority paid huge dividends during Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy. There, on 6 June 1944, 12 000 Allied aircraft and 6000 Allied merchant and naval vessels overwhelmed German coastal defenses, and by day’s end over 150 000 British, Canadian, and American

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combat soldiers had established the long-awaited Second Front in France. Tenacious German resistance initially limited expansion of the beachhead to a narrow front. In late July, however, Allied troops began to break out from Normandy. During the late summer and early fall, Allied troops liberated Paris (25 August), linked up with Free French and United States forces that had launched a supplementary invasion of southern France (Operation Anvil/Dragoon), and pushed to the German and Dutch frontiers. There in mid-September, stiffening German resistance thwarted Operation Market Garden, a daring Allied attempt to end the war by a narrow thrust into Germany’s industrial heartland in the Ruhr. The last winter of the war in Europe brought continued fierce struggle. On 16 December 1944, Hitler attempted to divide Allied forces in Western Europe via a desperate armored thrust through the Ardennes. The resulting Battle of the Bulge ended with the bloody repulse of German forces and the exhaustion of most of Germany’s mobile reserves. In March 1945, Allied forces breached the Rhine River barrier in a number of places. While British, Canadian, and Free Polish forces fanned out onto the north German plain, United States troops encircled the Ruhr and invaded Bavaria. On 25 April, American troops met up with Soviet forces at Torgau on the Elbe, thus severing the Reich in two. Hitler committed suicide in Berlin, 5 days later, as Red Army soldiers battled their way into the capital. With German resistance crumbling, Hitler’s successor, Grand Admiral Do¨nitz, accepted Allied demands for unconditional surrender, and at ceremonies at Rheims (7 May) and Berlin (8 May) the war in Europe came to an end. By spring 1945, Japan was also in desperate straits. Japanese troops continued to occupy substantial parts of China, but many had been reduced to conducting ‘rice offensives’ in order to sustain their presence there. Elsewhere, in Southeast Asia, a Japanese thrust into India, in 1944, had been repulsed with heavy losses, and in 1944–45, General William Slim’s British 14th Army had reconquered much of Burma. During the same period, American submarines and aircraft had virtually destroyed the Japanese merchant marine. These difficulties, however, paled in comparison with the threat posed by two American offensives across the Pacific. In the southwest Pacific by the end of 1944, General Douglas MacArthur’s United States and Australian forces had recaptured New Guinea and begun the liberation of the Philippines, thus threatening Japan’s already tenuous connection with the Southern Resources Area. In the central Pacific, Admiral Chester Nimitz’s forces had advanced across the Gilbert, Marshall, and Mariana island chains. During the two-pronged offensive, the American navy had virtually destroyed the Japanese navy at battles in the Philippine Sea (June 1944) and Leyte Gulf (October 1944).

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Nimitz’s conquest of Saipan and Tinian in the Marianas brought the Japanese home islands within effective range of American aircraft, which began using incendiary bombs to systematically destroy Japanese cities, in March 1945. Nevertheless, desperate Japanese resistance in fighting on outlying islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa as well as suicide missions by Kamikaze pilots testified to the Japanese military’s willingness to continue the war and to the losses the Allies could expect in an invasion of the home islands. The United States’ use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August), coupled with the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan (8 August), at last brought home the futility of further struggle. Prompted by the intervention of Emperor Hirohito, Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945, bringing World War II to a close.

Aftermath It is difficult to exaggerate the impact of World War II on the modern world. First and foremost an exercise in human misery, the war claimed approximately 55 million dead and left approximately 35 million wounded. Passions and political changes stirred by the war resulted in a further 20 to 30 million postwar refugees and deportees, as states in Europe and Asia sought to make nationality lines conform with international boundaries; the westward movement of the Soviet Union’s border, for example, displaced over 4 million Poles, while as many as 12 million ethnic Germans were driven from Eastern Europe and the Balkans into a divided and geographically reduced Germany. The economic costs of wartime destruction, taxes, debts, lost opportunities, and postwar resettlement are incalculable. It is easier to assess the political impact of the conflict. The war left the Axis powers defeated, physically devastated, and psychologically traumatized. In addition, Italy and Japan were shorn of their colonial holdings in Libya, east Africa, east Asia, and the Pacific. Although nominally a victor, China had likewise suffered immense destruction and was ripe for the renewal of a civil war that culminated in the triumph of Mao Tse-tung’s Communist Party, 4 years later. The war also severely strained the economies, societies, and political systems of France and Great Britain. One manifestation of this was both countries’ retreat from empire in the postwar era. Decolonization came in various ways, with a measure of good grace, as in India in 1947, or after a bitter war, as in Vietnam in 1954 and Algeria in 1962; whatever the case, the British and French examples were followed by the Dutch, the Belgians, and, belatedly, the Spanish and Portuguese. The war affected international and intranational relations in other ways as well. The explosion of European anti-Semitism in the form of the Holocaust convinced

many Jews that a Jewish national state was the only alternative to extinction, and Jewish suffering during the war played an immense role in rallying international support for Israel’s establishment in 1948. Bitter Arab resentment against Israel would help to fuel a succession of wars in the latter half of the twentieth century. The Allies’ wartime crusade against Nazi racism also revealed profound contradictions in American society, as the United States’ military had campaigned against the supposed Nazi ‘master race’ with racially segregated units and racially segregated blood supplies of its own. It was no accident that many of the local leaders of the postwar civil rights movement in the United States were returning African-American servicemen whose awareness of their second-class status had been sharpened by their experiences abroad. Changes in the United States were not, however, confined to domestic matters. One of only two of the world’s powers to emerge from the war with its strength enhanced, the United States benefited from its gigantic and intact economy, its enormous military strength, and its leadership in science (enhanced by the infusion of European and Asian refugees) to become a superpower. Half a world away, despite catastrophic human and economic losses, the Soviet Union also emerged as a global power. For the next two generations, the relative decline of its neighbors, its retention of powerful military forces, its occupation and exploitation of a tier of states extending from Poland to the Black Sea, and the legitimizing effect that victory over Nazi Germany conveyed upon communist ideology, both domestically and abroad, would sustain Soviet power. Given the bipolar configuration of the postwar world, the profound ideological differences between communism and capitalism, and both countries’ access to nuclear weapons after the Soviet Union acquired nuclear capability in 1949, the emergence of a ‘‘Cold War’’ between the Soviet Union and the United States was, if not inevitable, at least not surprising. That both states would seek allies, even among former enemies, and that Europe would soon be divided by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, 1949) and the Warsaw Pact (1955) was equally unsurprising. Yet curiously, the memory of World War II may have also helped to play a major role in defusing the Soviet–American confrontation that it had helped to create. Unwilling to repeat the sacrifices of the world wars, statesmen from both superpowers sought alternatives to war when confronting one another directly. Universal revulsion over the immense human and economic cost of the wars formed the bedrock for the United Nations and for regional associations that sought to achieve peace through mutual consultation or economic interdependence. Perhaps the most successful of the latter was the experiment in European economic and political integration which stemmed from its founders’ conviction that Europe

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could not sustain another fratricidal war and which culminated in the formation of the European Community between 1957 and 1992. In time, the spectacle of reconciliation and shared prosperity between former members of the Allies and the Axis in Western and Central Europe, most notably France, Great Britain, and West Germany, would be a major factor in the voluntary retreat of the Soviet Union from Eastern Europe and in the peaceful dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

Further Reading Bartov, O. (1992). Hitler’s army: Soldiers, Nazis, and war in the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press. Bell, P. M. H. (1986). The origins of the Second World War in Europe. New York: Longman. Dear, I. C. B. (1995). The Oxford companion to World War II. New York: Oxford University Press. Dower, J. W. (1986). War without mercy: Race and power in the Pacific war. New York: Pantheon. Dreyer, E. L. (1995). China at war, 1901–1949. New York: Longman.

Ellis, J. (1990). Brute force: Allied strategy and tactics in the Second World War. London: Andre Deutsch. Ellis, J. (1993). World War II: A statistical survey. New York: Facts on File. Higonnet, M. R., Jenson, J., Michel, S., and Weitz, M. C. (1987). Behind the lines. Gender and the two world wars. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kennedy, P. (1987). The rise and fall of the great powers: Economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House. Messenger, C. (1989). The chronological atlas of World War II. New York: Macmillan. Noakes, J. (ed.) (1992). The civilian in war: The home front in Europe, Japan, and the USA in World War II. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press. Overy, R. (1998). Russia’s war: A history of the Soviet effort, 1941–1945. New York: Penguin. Parker, R. A. C. (1989). Struggle for survival: The history of the Second World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parshall, J. and Tully, A. (2005). Shattered sword: The untold story of the battle of Midway. Washington, DC: Potomac Books. Spector, R. (1985). Eagle against the sun: The American war against Japan. New York: The Free Press. Weinberg, G. (1994). A world at arms: A global history of World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wright, G. (1968). The ordeal of total war, 1939–1945. New York: Harper & Row. Wynn, N. (1976). The Afro-American and the Second World War. New York: Holmes & Meier.

Genocide and Democide Allen D Grimshaw, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Some Complexities of Definition(s) A Goal-Oriented Typology of Democide A Sampling of Cases

Some Patterns in Democide, in Genocide, and in Other, Large-Scale Killing Intended Mass Extinctions of Human Beings at the Millennial Turn Further Reading

There is probably no area of contemporary scholarly research in the social historical disciplines and the social sciences that generates more bitter contention over facts, such emotional turmoil over theorizing on causes, motives, and intentions, or such barrages of conflicting ideological claims as the area addressing matters of state-sponsored or -condoned large-scale killing of groups or categories of domestic or foreign civilian populations. Different constituencies have stakes in inflating or minimizing estimates of numbers killed in historical instances of such killing; there have been denials that the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide ever actually occurred. There are students of the Holocaust who insist that that terrible event was unique; other scholars disagree. Experts who read various drafts of the following article have taken sharp issue with this version of reported facts and with sources selected in this article. They have

disagreed no less sharply with each other. Readers should keep in mind that the topic is profoundly controversial. The author simply hopes that they will be sufficiently stimulated/distressed by what is reported here and that they will look closely at more comprehensive and betterdocumented sources.

Introduction Rummel devoted three decades to compiling documentation of the numbers of victims of internal and international war and government killing in domestic and international democide (in their several manifestations) and to analyzing the causes of these behaviors and their differential distribution across nation states. After tracking down estimates for these behaviors from the beginnings of record-keeping,

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Table 1 Democidal and war deaths, Pre-twentieth century and twentieth century Period

Deaths by democidea (thousands)

War deaths (thousands)

Total killing by government (thousands)

Pre-twentieth century Twentieth century Total recorded historyb

133 147 169 198 302 345

40 457 34 021 74 478

173 604 203 219 376 823

Subsumes genocide and politicide, domestic and foreign. Extrapolated from 1900–87 figures. Source: Adapted from Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by government. New Brunswick: Transaction and Rummel, R. J. (1997). Power hills: Democracy as a method of nonviolence. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel’s estimates are largely low to mid-range across multiple sources.

a

b

Rummel concluded that in every period, governments have killed more of their own subjects than they have foreign enemies by substantial margins (Table 1). Even low-end estimates suggest close to 400 million victims of large-scale killings by governments, and some estimates are considerably higher. Roughly four times as many people have been killed by their own governments (or in killing sponsored by their governments) as have died in war. The number of magnitudes of difference between democidal deaths and those in war has increased over time (three times as many in the earlier period and five times as many in the current century). At the same time, both have decreased with the increase in democratic governments; democidal killings in twentieth-century democracies are massively lower than those in totalitarian states of any period (Kressel). While there are no worldwide or over-time data on homicide, the numbers killed by governments must be massively greater than those murdered by individuals. The proportionate risks of dying by homicide or as a casualty of war, or as a victim of slaughter by the government to which one is subject, are not reflected in public attention to different ways of dying. Perhaps in part because of the mind-boggling enormity of the facts of genocide and other democide, there has been much less research on them than on other varieties of violence that have taken fewer lives. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 180 inches to war, 80 to murder (plus another 10 to homicide), and two and a half to genocide and genocidal (the terms democide and politicide have yet to make their way into standard references). Author’s local research library subject index lists fewer than 844 items under genocide, 3589 on murder, and 84 977 on war. Similar patterns exist in papers presented at professional meetings. In the following the author: (1) discusses some problematic dimensions of labels and definitions for largescale government killing and identify criteria that should be considered in such discussion; (2) provides a synthesis of some goal-oriented typologies and a sample of exemplars from different historical periods and geographic areas; (3) focuses on select patterns in genocide and other state-sponsored large-scale killings; (4) directs attention to popular and scholarly interpretations of and

explanations for genocidal and other democidal behavior, and to official reports about specific instances; (5) considers issues of forecasting and controlling democidal behaviors; and (6) comments very briefly on issues of morality and inevitability.

Some Complexities of Definition(s) Social violence is violence directed against individuals or their property solely or primarily because of their membership in a social category, whether that category be age, cohort, socioeconomic class, dependency status, educational attainment, ethnicity, nationality, native language, occupation, political affiliation, religion, veteran status, or a fan, or not, of a particular sports team. Fatal social violence sponsored or condoned by states is the topic of this article. For an initial working definition we can say that all murder of members of social categories by governments constitutes what Rudolph Rummel has called ‘democide’. Rummel includes in democide (1) mass murders and massacres such as reprisal, murder by quota, and the sack and rape of captured cities and (2) state terror such as death squads, purges, and ‘disappearances’. Democide where the group or category assaulted is ethnic, national, or religious (or possibly linguistic) constitutes a special subcategory called ‘genocide’. Politicide (Harff and Gurr) is government murder of people because of their politics or class status or for political purposes, and is manifested in assassinations as well as mass murder. (A government may be under attack, and both sides can be responsible for democide in civil wars, revolutions, uprisings, and so on.) It will be evident that conceptual boundaries are permeable. While it seems likely that there has been large-scale killing of subject populations by governments as long as there have been governments, terms for identifying different varieties of such slaughter are fairly recent (at least in English). The term genocide was coined by Lemkin, who, writing for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, observed:

Genocide and Democide 283 New conceptions require new terms. By ‘‘genocide’’ we mean the destruction of a nation or ethnic group . . . . Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when it is accomplished by mass killing of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves . . . . Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against the individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group. (Lemkin 1944)

Lemkin was writing about events in Europe during World War II; his term gained widespread currency during the post-World War II war criminal trials and in 1948 was incorporated into international law in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the United Nations (UNGC). Article II of the Convention reads: . . . genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Cf. Levy, two of whose four conditions which will terminate the existence of a society are (1) the biological extinction or dispersion of the members and (2) the absorption of the society into another society.)

The initial draft of the Convention contained language that would have extended protection to political groups and would have criminalized ‘cultural genocide’ via destruction of languages, religions, or cultures. These protections were never enacted because of resistance from countries of varying political structure and cultural diversity, who all likely believed they would not themselves practice genocide, but that other countries might try to infringe on their sovereign rights to restructure their political life or favor one or another language or religion (Reisman). A number of problems have contributed to dissatisfaction with the terminology of the UNGC (and therefore to the appearance of supplementary nomenclature) and disappointment with the UN’s inability to do anything about genocide (or other varieties of democide). Many observers were unhappy with (1) gaps in coverage and (2) the ambiguity of the notion of destroying a group ‘as such’. This vagueness along with a general unawareness of the pervasiveness of democidal phenomena historically and comparatively has contributed to both (1) the development of

new terminology and typologies and (2) a contentious and continuing dispute over whether the Holocaust was a manifestation of a widespread phenomenon of the human species or whether, rather, the Nazi killings of the mid-twentieth century were somehow unique. This same vagueness, along with the specification that only states can invoke the Convention and the inability to provide means of enforcement, has meant that attempts to curb genocide and other democide in the 50 years since passage of the UNGC have been largely unsuccessful. Acceptance by the UN itself of the Genocide Convention did not come easily. Power reports that Lemkin, carrying a bulging briefcase filled with new proposals and answers to complaints about earlier versions, was a familiar figure, frequently avoided by delegates as he grew old in service of his dream. In the years immediately following UN passage of the Convention it was ratified by a substantial majority of member states, not including the United States of America. Ratification of the Convention by the Senate was pursued by Senator William Proxmire, who vowed to give a speech in favor of ratification everyday the Senate met until the Convention was ratified and fulfilled the vow, by an increasing number of senators of widely varying political persuasions, ultimately by a President Reagan somewhat chastened by widespread negative reaction to his visit to Bitburg, and, finally, by increasingly strong support from citizens and citizen organizations of a general liberal bent, and by opinion-influencing print and electronic media. There was strong resistance from The Liberty Lobby, the John Birch Society, and other archconservative organizations, from a small but implacable rear-guard of Senators with coherent ideological positions opposed to ratification, and their media allies. Those opposed argued that US sovereignty would be lost, US citizens would be subjected to UN rule, and the US could be accused of genocide for its treatment of current and past domestic and foreign minorities. When the Senate finally ratified the Convention it did so with a: stringent Senate ‘‘sovereignty package that included RUDs,’’ or reservations, understandings and declarations. These interpretations of and disclaimers about the genocide convention had the effect of immunizing the United States from being charged with genocide but in so doing they also rendered the US ratification symbolic. (Power, 2002)

The net effect of the RUDs in the three decades since ratification has been to completely hamstring any efforts by ‘any’ US administration to act effectively against ongoing genocides anywhere in the world. What Genocide Is Not The term genocide is often used for behaviors and events that meet neither the formal definition of the UNGC nor

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the more global characterization that this article is intended to convey. Three usages are particularly problematic because they apply the term to behaviors or events that, however unsavory, cannot be accurately characterized as, ‘‘committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such.’’ First, pogroms and punitive raids are not genocide, even though there may be large numbers of fatalities; their aim is not to destroy a group but rather to intimidate members or perhaps even to have some fun bullying the weak (Brass). (Such events may be democidal.) Selfdestruction by cult members may be intended to destroy a ‘religious group’; it is not state sponsored and thus does not meet the UNGC definition. Horowitz also argues for a different status for ethnic riots, semispontaneous attacks by civilian members of one group on civilian members of another. Nor do government shootings of political protesters meet the genocide standard; the victims are not members of the kinds of groups listed. Second, while many millions died in the African slave trade (in Africa itself, in the Middle Passage, and in an often brutal socialization into slavery), they were not victims of genocide. The intent of those who enslaved them was not to ‘‘destroy any national, ethnical, racial or religious group’’ or any social or political category. The motivation of participants in the slave trade was profit – slaves themselves were viewed as a (too slowly) renewable resource. Slavers were not indifferent to the health of their human cargo; illness on board threatened slave and slaver alike. Slave owners in the new world were generally similarly motivated to keep their property healthy and productive. Third, teaching immigrant or minority children in a majority language with the end of enhancing their success in the majority-dominated society is not genocide. Nor is provision of birth control education and devices to poor women who are members of minorities. Nor is criminal law (e.g., on drugs), which disproportionately imprisons members of a minority population. Nor is revocation of affirmative action. While such actions may make life more difficult for subordinated populations, their intent is at least putatively benign. Uses of the term genocide for nongenocidal events allows publics to disattend reports of actual genocide/ democide on grounds that many behaviors so characterized are aberrations, not very significant, or even benignly intended. In the remainder of this section on definition, this article comments briefly on (1) active and passive methods of democide, and (2) variations in killing by scope, a sort of scalar approach. Active and Passive Democide The most visible and obvious killing by governments is active killing (sometimes after assembling large numbers

of victims) of known or identifiable members of target social categories. Killing is done by asphyxiation, beating, bombing, burning, burying alive, crucifixion, decapitation, defenestration, and other pushing or throwing from high places (including aircraft), disembowelment, dismemberment, drowning, electrocution, explosion, exposure, gassing, hanging, impalement, lapidation (stoning or burying under stones), mines (land and other antipersonnel mines as well as marine mines), poisoning, ‘putting to the sword’, shooting, strangling, torture, and various combinations of ‘punishments’ from this unfortunately incomplete listing. Readers may think some of these methods are archaic; there is documentation that all are currently in use. Other methods, such as the large-scale use of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, including biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, are in only limited use at this writing, but they are ready for use at any time. Some scholars include the sterilization or other prevention of births to members of social categories, or rape of women members with intention of denying the group new members. Some of these methods, such as the large-scale gassing associated with Nazi ‘death camps’, require a substantial infrastructure; large numbers of people can be forced to cooperate in their own slaughter by having them dig their own mass graves with little more equipment than shovels and firearms (or even axes and swords). Or, victims may simply be marched to the banks of swiftly flowing streams, murdered, and dumped in. The choice of methods of killing reflects the size of the job to be done – a few hundred indigenes ordinarily constitute a lesser logistical challenge than millions of members of racial, ethnic, or religious categories. All of these methods have been used for both genocide and politicide. Those responsible for killing may be more willing to acknowledge using more ‘respectable’ methods, such as hanging or firing squads, but all are used. Large numbers have been killed without the benefits of modern technologies. The active killing just described is clearly intentional. The intended effects of other actions by governments (including inaction) are often unclear. Still, they result in deaths of millions of their own subjects and those of other countries; these are example of passive democide. Widespread death from starvation results from wartime blockades (Biafra, Bosnia, Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, and some of the post-Soviet states are late twentieth-century examples), from ‘scorched earth’ tactics of armies that are retreating in transit, from government seizure of harvests, levies of agricultural supplies, and collectivization or other reorganization of agriculture. Tens of millions died in the one-time Soviet Union and in the People’s Republic of China as a consequence of governmental policies reorganizing agriculture; smaller numbers have died elsewhere. Millions have also died from famines in which governments have failed to move available food to where it was needed and the effects of famine and

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epidemic have been exacerbated by ‘withholding’ of food, shelter, medical assistance, clothing, and so on. Millions of people have died ‘incidentally’ as a result of forced labor (often with minimal sustenance) ranging from galley slavery to heavy toil in miasmic plantation swamps or always dark and noisome mines or dangerous factories. ‘Incidental’, too, were at least some of the millions of deaths that resulted from fatigue and exposure of populations, particularly the very young or old and weak and disabled, and so on, on marches (or trips on densely crowded trains) of expulsion and forced relocation to Indian reservations in the United States or across Russia to Siberia or to defeated Germany (after World War II). Countless additional millions have died as the result of usually unintended introduction of disease – or failure to control known causes of disease. Epidemics often followed initial contact with Europeans, particularly in the Americas and the Pacific. Governments have often spent immense sums on arms instead of the provision of pure water, thereby ensuring continuing endemic status of cholera and other water-related diseases (Sivard). The United States is a major exporter of tobacco products in spite of known linkages to mortality. The extent to which these various causes of large-scale death can or should be considered as democide seems ultimately to come down to questions of intent. Four government perspectives can be identified: (1) the view that as many should die as needed to break a population’s spirit and will to resist (blockades, sieges, embargoes, etc.); (2) a position parallel to depraved indifference or disregard for life or criminal negligence in criminal law (some forced labor, some relocation, some collectivization); (3) the orientation that costs are inevitable, some will die but ‘‘you can’t make omelets without breaking eggs’’ (some collectivization, some relocation); and (4) a sort of fatalistic acceptance of impotence to prevent deaths (famine, environmental toxins, etc.). Individuals, bureaucracies, and entire governments may delude themselves; instances where massive killings are accompanied by the first two perspectives are candidates for characterization as (passive) democide. Some count as genocide attempts to insulate children from their native culture through quarantine away from home, often in boarding schools where they are forbidden to speak their native languages or engage in native cultural practices. Indeed, such action may constitute genocidal practice under the UNGC definition. Similarly, some members of minorities consider cross-racial adoption as genocidal. The practices may result in ‘culturecide’; they do not involve killing. How Many at a Time, How Many Altogether There have been times and places where a glimpse of a lone member of some category, or a small party, would set a hunt in motion. We associate such ‘hunts’ (sometimes

seen as ‘sport’) with settlers hunting and killing indigenes in the Americas, in Australia, and in South Africa. Many American ‘Westerns’ portrayed Indians as equally likely to track down and kill small parties or individual Whites. In more modern times sighting of members of minorities or stigmata associated with education or class (e.g., glasses or soft hands) have set off similar chases and precipitated similar deadly outcomes. Individuals have also been selected and slain (periodically) as religious sacrifices or to assure the health and vigor of tyrants or in reprisal or simply to intimidate subject populations. Many but not all ‘individuals’ killed are nonanonymous and perhaps even known to their killers. (Goldhagen writes of men, women, and children and their German executioners marching two by two, side by side, into the woods where killing was to be done.) Anonymity is more likely when governments (or their agents or allies) kill people in ‘batches’ in mass executions by gassing (as in Nazi Germany) or by firearms or sharp-edge weapons or in siege warfare and subsequent sacking and slaughter of inhabitants. Even more ‘distancing’ is involved when large numbers of anonymous people are killed by so-called strategic bombing, ship sinkings, or the use of ‘weapons of mass destruction’. While it may seem that these last kinds of slaughter are behaviors associated only with war between foreign powers, it has been alleged that Iraq has used both bombs and chemical weapons against minority Kurds (attempted genocide?) and both sides used bombs in the Spanish and other civil wars. There are, finally, killings on a grander scale. Throughout history, some regimes have stated (and published) goals to exterminate peoples and social categories. The Nazis wanted to destroy Jews (and possibly Gypsies), and long-term accommodation of the handicapped and of homosexuals was not in the future of the Reich. The Soviet Communists wanted to exterminate old-style kulaks (a category for which they developed an extremely elastic definition) and other ‘enemies of the state’; Cossacks and other ethnic and nationality groups became defined as such enemies. The Romans hunted down Christians. Some United States Army officers would have liked to slaughter not only all adult Indians but children and infants as well. Most Americans of European origin in both hemispheres grew up hearing some version of the ‘‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian’’ mantra attributed to General Philip Sheridan. The difference among these last cases is that the Soviet and Nazi democides were explicit government policy, while the government of the United States, however much its officials may have condoned genocidal actions against Native Americans, did not enunciate any such policy. What does ‘how many’ mean? More than 60 million people were killed in the Soviet Union in the 70 years after 1917, about 55 million by various regimes in China in the 70 years after 1923, and more than 21 million by Nazi Germany in the shorter period of 12 years ending in

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1945. Only two million were killed in Cambodia in the 4-year Khmer regime (1975–79). Still, the Cambodian politicide was much greater proportionally; while more than 8% of the entire Cambodian population was killed annually during this period, the ‘rate’ of death in the USSR was less than one half of 1% during the various communist regimes between 1917 and 1987. In the USSR one person in 200 was being killed, in Cambodia one in about 11. The totals are staggering, but the distinction between absolute and relative numbers should be kept in mind. The percent of Jews who became victims varied across countries under Nazi influence or domain, and urban and rural Khmer had different likelihoods of victimization in Cambodia.

A Goal-Oriented Typology of Democide In a later section, this article reviews a number of behavioral science perspectives that seek to explain social violence, whether manifested in atrocity, massacre, rioting, varieties of democide, or war. Most students of genocide have limited their explanatory efforts to eclectic invocation of elements of various general theories to account for specific genocidal events, or have developed classification schemes that try to make sense of these behaviors in terms of apparent goals of perpetrators. In the following prototaxonomy, the author draws on typologies developed by a number of scholars of genocide. The terms they use overlap, are sometimes contradictory, and vary, as does what gets included in a specific type. Economic There are at least three varieties of economically based democide. ‘Predatory’ democide occurs when a victim population is in possession of valuable commodities (precious minerals of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca) or land (North American natives), or are themselves potentially valuable as slaves. ‘Developmental’ democide occurs when conquerors convert land use or otherwise alienate resources necessary for indigenous ways of life. This has occurred everywhere colonial powers have initiated latifundiary economies. Related to this is ‘structural’ democide, where similar disruptions occur to already established societies, as by the introduction of cotton culture and the subsequent desiccation of the Aral Sea or damage to Native American and Black populations in the United States through the presence of reservations and ghettoes. Retributive A first variety of retributive genocide occurs when a group which believes (frequently correctly) that it was victimized in the past, or is currently being victimized, gains

power and takes revenge, or simply rebels against those who have power and control. Historical instances of such ‘subaltern’ genocide in the eighteenth century include the Haitian revolution led by Touissant L’Ouvreture and Dessalines, the Sepoy Mutiny in colonial British India, and a number of Native American insurgencies in the Americas (Robins). A second variety occurs when a dominant group visits massively disproportionate reprisals on minorities for delicts such as stock stealing or justified homicide by individual members of the group. Norton reports that during White settlement in Northern California in the 1850s entire bands of Native Americans were killed by Whites as punishment for what amounted to attempts by Native Americans to protect themselves. In the latter part of the twentieth century retribution has been visited by Serbs on Croats and Muslims, by Hutu on Tutu and the reverse, by Hindus and Muslims on each other in the Indian subcontinent, and by Tamils on Sinhalese and Sinhalese on Tamils. Memories are long; Serbs punished Croats for events during World War II, and Muslims for events that putatively occurred four centuries ago. While many events in the second half of the twentieth century have involved ethnic and national groups, retributive politicide has also occurred, as when the Chinese Communists successfully ousted the Nationalists (Kuomintang), or peasants rebelled against their masters. In at least some of these instances violence was certainly not official state policy and quite possibly not state-condoned. Despotic/Hegemonic/Repressive Subjects of despotic rulers are subject to abduction, enslavement, torture, and death at the whim of the tyrant. Members of elites and of police and the military are no more insulated from risk than are slaves, peasants, merchants, or the intelligentsia. Villages or neighborhoods can be destroyed because of inconvenience suffered in passage through them, or extended families wiped out because of imagined plots, or individuals regularly forced to kill one another in fights to the death, and so on (Hinton). Killing goes on not because of any specific concern to instill terror but because, as Acton says, ‘‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’’ Ancient African and Asian empires and the USSR under Stalin and Hitler’s Third Reich are classic examples of such regimes; Amin’s Uganda and Haiti under Duvalier are among better-known examples in the second half of the twentieth century. Strategic-Tactical: Dominance Maintaining/ Intimidating/Threat Controlling Other despotic and totalitarian regimes are reputed to employ terror more deliberately. Reports on the Mongol hordes frequently express the belief that Ghengis Khan slaughtered all the inhabitants of cities which dared resist

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to intimidate rulers and residents of cities yet to be attacked, so that the latter would surrender easily in hopes of being spared. Nazi forces in conquered areas of Europe and the Japanese in Asia slaughtered hostages and potential leaders to reduce resistance and facilitate control. This sort of pragmatic democide also differs from the despotic variety in that it is likely to be foreign rather than domestic. Ideological The potency of ideological belief in motivating behavior is well established; three varieties of ideology closely associated with democide can be identified. ‘Political’ ideologies often combine elements of idealism and selfinterest as when it is anticipated that a new order will make everybody’s life better, including one’s own, or where protecting one’s position of privilege is equivalent to defending natural or god-ordained order. ‘Manifest destiny’, the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, ‘death to the American imperialist infidels’, and the ‘thousand year Reich’ have all resonated, and have all been associated with democide. ‘Religious’ ideologies have been major factors in genocide from the first emergence of coherent religions. Pagan Romans killed Christians and Christians killed pagans and animists the world over for centuries. Major democide occurred between Christians and Muslims, particularly during the Crusades. Shortly afterwards, Protestant and Catholic Christians began killing each other. Hindus and Muslims engaged in mutual slaughter from the first appearance of Islam on the Indian subcontinent. Din (religion in danger) and jihad (holy war) have been rallying calls for Islam for more than a millennium (there have also been long periods of both local and national amity). Similar slogans reflect other religious ideologies and have been similarly invoked in large-scale killing. Racial ideologies about the superiority of one or another group and the inferiority of others seem always to accompany contact between groups. In some cases, as in antiSemitism, characterization of Jews as inferior has been comfortably accommodated with portrayals of them as successful schemers and exploiters. Slogans here include ‘final solution’ and ‘only good Indians’ and lead to colonialist open seasons on wogs and kaffirs, eliminationism in Nazi Germany, and the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Yugoslavia as it dissolved in the 1990s. Habitual/Inertial/Institutionalized/Traditional There are many societies that have populations of minorities which constitute recognizable and more or less permanent underclasses. Blacks, Mexicans, and Native Americans constitute such categories in the late

twentieth-century United States, as do Native Americans in some central and south American countries; even Western-educated Indians constituted such an underclass in British India along with Africans in British colonies in Africa and Filipinos in the American-controlled Philippines. In such circumstances members of the underclass are subject to social, economic, and political discrimination and are more likely to be subject to police brutality, execution, and killings classified as ‘justifiable police homicide’. While the killings are not large scale in the short term, they are in the aggregate. While racial ideologies are likely to be invoked in explanation for democide of this variety, but it is also likely to be explained as just ‘what happens’, in much the same sense that people have fights when they drink lots of alcohol and kill one another when weapons are part of the scene.

Genocidal and Other Democidal Massacres Massacres minimally require that armed military or paramilitary units of some sort be co-present with members of a target population, and legitimated by governmental or subgovernmental authority. Sometimes massacres are the direct result of orders from higher authorities. In other instances the likelihood of massacre increases with fear among military (or quasi-military) units that they may themselves be attacked by the target population. The combination of arms, fear (and sometimes fatigue), and vulnerable populations can be a lethal one; whether killing actually occurs depends in part on actual policies and intentions of governments and military superiors and, particularly, on field commanders’ perception of policies and wishes. Massacres occur in the course of war. Toward the end of World War II in Europe SS troops slaughtered unarmed prisoners at Malmedy, and during the war in Vietnam US troops killed nearly all the Vietnamese of every age and gender in My Lai. While the Germans were engaged in the ‘Final Solution’, there is no evidence that either the military or civil authorities intended the elimination of American captives. Nor, however some senior officers in Vietnam may have encouraged high ‘body counts’, was there any American ‘policy’ of genocide. The shooting of hundreds of unarmed Indians at Jallianwala Bagh by General Dyer’s troops, which was a major impetus for the independence movement in India, did not reflect government policy, nor, again, did the shooting of Native American women and children at Wounded Knee reflect that of the US government. It has sometimes been the case that governments or government officials have acquiesced in or even encouraged vigilante killings, and there are instances where officials have joined mobs. In short, genocidal massacres can occur that are not expressions of government policies intended to encourage democide.

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A Sampling of Cases Table 2 lists some of the major democides (including genocide but excluding war casualties) of the twentieth century. Rummel, from whom the table is adapted, has detailed lists and tables of democides of varying size both for this century and for the previous three millennia or so of recorded history. It will be seen from discussion elsewhere in this article that with the exception of efficiencies introduced by the availability of explosives and biological and chemical weapons, democide has not changed much over recorded history. Justification for killings is much the same, as are effects on victims, socialization of perpetrators, variations of in responses from bystanders, and so on. It cannot be argued, even ironically, that civilization has humanized democidal practice. There are, nonetheless, differences across cases of genocide, massacre, and other democide. Ten of the books included in the bibliography (Andreopoulos; Chalk and Jonassohn; Charny; Jongman; Markusen and Kopf; Rummel; Rummel; Staub; Totten, Parsons and Charny; and Uekert) each contain modest to quite detailed descriptions of four or more instances of democide; several also

contain extensive bibliographies. Several of the books contain detailed personal and eyewitness accounts (as do others, e.g., Goldhagen). Stiglmayer focuses primarily on mass rape in a single location, Bosnia-Herzegovina; there is more than enough detail in the book to provide a sense of the phenomenon and its many dimensions of pain. It is not possible to convey the full diversity of democide over the millennia, by world regions or by characteristics of victims or offenders. This article only illustrates the diversity of democidal events (excluding war) by offering a sample varying on several dimensions and with features that make the chosen instances notable in some way. Examples from each of three bounded time periods are listed. Documentation of particulars and even of general magnitudes for each event is variably persuasive; that they occurred is undeniable. Pre-Twentieth Century Documentation for the last four of five centuries is substantial. Surprisingly, a combination of archaeological records, contemporary inscriptions by rulers, complementary accounts by contemporaries with quite different

Table 2 Twentieth-century Democide (thousands)a Regimes

Years

Total

Domestic

Genocide

Megamurderers (10 000 000 and more) USSR China (PRC) Germany China (KMT) Lesser megamurderers (under 10 000 000) Japan China (Mao soviets) b Cambodia Turkey Vietnam Poland Pakistan Yugoslavia (Tito) Suspected megamurderers North Korea Mexico Russia Lesser murderers (100 000 to 999 999) Top five lesser murderers (China [warlords], Turkey [Ataturk], United Kingdom, Portugal [dictatorship], Indonesia) Lesser murderers (under 100 000) World total

1900–87 1900–87 1917–87 1949–87 1933–45 1928–49 1900–87

151 491 128 168 61 991 35 236 20 946 10 075 19 178

116 380 100 842 54 769 35 236 762 10 075 12 237

33 476 26 690 10 000 375 16 315 nil 6184

1936–45 1923–49 1975–79 1909–18 1945–87 1945–48 1958–87 1944–87 1900–87 1948–87 1900–20 1900–17 1900–87

5964 3466 2035 1883 1678 1585 1503 1072 4145 1663 1417 1066 14 918

nil 3466 2000 1752 944 1585 1503 987 3301 1293 1417 591 10 812

nil nil 541 1883 nil 1585 1500 675 602 Nil 100 502 4071

1900–87

4074

2192

1078

1900–87

2792

2335

1019

1900–87

169 202

129 547

38 556

Includes genocide, politicide, and mass murder; excludes war dead. These are most probably mid-estimates in low to high ranges. Figures may not sum due to rounding. b Guerrilla period. Source: Adapted from Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by government. New Brunswick: Transaction. a

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stakes in event outcomes, and religious or mythological renderings where a deity is credited with democidal destruction has allowed historians to write with cautious confidence about a number of these earlier events. In the earliest records, democide is known primarily from the boasts of rulers who claim to have killed many people and to have terrorized many more. Ancient middle east

According to self-reports ancient rulers, particularly the Assyrians, slaughtered foreign civilians during times of war, tortured and mutilated military and civilian captives, raped, pillaged, destroyed. Quotas for slaughter were set, with sliced off ears and noses as documentation. Captured nobles were thrown from towers, flayed alive, slow roasted. Populations were smaller, so killing was sometimes near total (some observers note that only elites may have been eliminated with serfs simply continuing to labor for new masters). Total destruction of cities and all within them was not limited to the Middle East. Schoolchildren learn about the destruction and leveling of Carthage and the slaughter of all survivors of its siege by the Romans. Indeed, similar events accompanied the Crusades, particularly those directed against heretics in Europe itself (Christian Crusaders also kept count with cutoff bits and pieces) and continued in European wars well into the late Middle Ages and occasionally later. Melos

The Athenians led the Greeks in their successful wars against the Persians. They demanded not only credit for that success but tribute and allegiance as well. Late in the fifth century BC the Athenians demanded assistance from the Melians (descended from Spartan colonists) in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. They warned the Melians they would be annihilated if they did not cooperate. After debate between the parties the Melians declined the Athenian demand. The Athenians laid siege to Melos and after victory executed all the men on the island and enslaved the surviving women and children. Mongol Hordes, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

While schoolchildren know little about democide, many remember tales about mounds of human heads/skulls outside of destroyed cities. Successive invasions of Mongol ‘hordes’ brought terror to those in their paths; they are memorable both for their magnitude and their alleged cruelty. Saunders (quoted in 1994 by Rummel) reported that every resident of an ancient Persian capital was murdered, ‘‘and even cats and dogs were killed in the streets.’’ Here and elsewhere, the few who escaped were tracked down and killed. Rummel estimates 30 million killed in successive sweeps across Asia, mostly killed one at a time with hand weapons.

Native American empires

Just a short time after the Mongols and just years before Europeans began the large-scale slaughter of Native Americans throughout the hemisphere, the Aztec and Maya empires were engaged in democide, principally through widespread human sacrifice (Davies, Hassig). Similar practices were common throughout the world. The Aztec sacrifices were notable both because of their numbers (claims were made that thousands would be sacrificed for a single ceremonial) and their method (hearts cut out and offered to the gods while still beating). The purpose of Aztec warfare was putatively to take prisoners for sacrifice; it has been asserted that it was because of this that a small number of Spanish soldiers with better weapons and with no interest in taking prisoners was able to defeat them. (One commentator disputes the religious explanation and asserts that the Aztec intensification of sacrifice was merely part of a strategy of rule by intimidation.) The Spaniards, at the time in the midst of the horrors of the Inquisition, justified their slaughter of the Aztecs on grounds of the necessity of stopping the un-Christian practice of human sacrifice. ‘American Holocaust’ (Churchill, Rummel, Stannard, Thornton)

There is no consensus on how many native Americans died from direct violence, disease, or despair after the arrival of Europeans. Stannard cites sources that depict precontact population of the Americas as greater than those of Europe and Africa. He reports that 8 million Native Americans died within 21 years of Colombus’ landing, and estimates that the numbers at the end of the fifteenth century declined from more than 100 million inhabitants to about 5 million a few hundred years later. Thornton reports that late twentieth century estimates for the earlier period ranged from 15 to 112 million; his own estimate is around 79 million, compared to a world total population of about 500 million. Churchill uniformly accepts higher estimates for this hemisphere. Rummel more cautiously estimates is a bit below 14 million deaths during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The small numbers of Europeans, at least initially, means that a substantial proportion of the millions of deaths were caused not by direct violence but by disease (and as Stannard says, by despair). There is no consensus on numbers. Almost certainly more deaths resulted from disease than from democide. Killing on a massive scale ‘did’ occur, and Europeans (and their descendants) in many venues in the hemisphere have continued to engage in mass killing, mutilation, torture, and rape into the current century. Twentieth Century through 1945 Rummel estimates four democides in which more than 10 million were killed in the millennia of recorded history

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before the twentieth century. According to his calculations 34 million were killed in China between 221 BC and the end of the nineteenth century AD, 34 million were killed by the Mongols during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 17 million died as a result of African enslavement (as noted above, democide but ‘not’ genocide), and 14 million died in the Western Hemisphere between the arrival of Europeans and the end of the nineteenth century. These four democides alone account for close to 100 million deaths. Between the end of World War I and the end of the twentieth century, four democides began in which more than 128 million people have already perished (two, those of Nazi Germany and of Kuomintang China, are over) (Table 2). Of all the democides between 1900 and the end of World War II, those of Turkey (Armenia) and Nazi Germany are probably best known; reports in recent years have informed people about the democides of Soviet and Chinese Communism and Japanese atrocities in Asia from 1936 onwards. Democide by the Nationalist Chinese (Kuomintang), by their antagonists (the Chinese Soviets), in Tsarist Russia, and in Mexico are largely unknown except for people whose lives were affected by them. For brief description here two lesser known instances, one small and one massive, have been chosen. They are: (1) the revolt of the Hereros (Bridgman) and (2) the multiple democides in China by warlords, the Nationalists, the Communists, and by the Japanese in the 1930s. The Hereros of German southwest Africa (contemporary Namibia)

In 1903 there were 80 000 Herero (a Bantu tribe) and something under 5000 German settlers in the German colony. Two years later there were somewhere between 15 and 20 thousand surviving Herero and a growing colonial population. The scenario was a familiar one: increasing encroachment by Whites, unheeded indigene complaints, discriminatory treatment, individual homicide, and rape. The Herero were promised that if they surrendered their weapons they would be protected from further abuses. They turned in their weapons, but abuses continued. In early 1904 they rose up and attacked Germans, primarily farmers and settlers distant from German population centers and German troops. They specifically told nonGermans that they intended them no harm. By late spring German troops were arriving in great numbers: in October the German commander published a ban of all Herero from the country on pain of being shot on sight. In a separate order he advised that German soldiers should not shoot at women and children – but only over their heads ‘to force them to run faster’. However, when Herero fleeing the country were caught they were shot and bayoneted with no recorded concern about age or gender. The German official historians remarked that ‘‘The Hereros ceased to exist as a tribe.’’

The Herero case is interesting primarily because the slaughter was neither ordered nor endorsed by the military high command in Berlin but was in large part the initiative of local commanders. Many Germans were temporarily embarrassed by the episode but no punitive action against the German military is recorded, and once over the episode was quickly forgotten. The combination of predatory and retributive democide was overshadowed by other events in Europe. 1930s China

While more than 60 million were killed in the USSR between 1917 and 1987 and while the absolute toll of Native Americans killed throughout the hemisphere may have been as large, the highest closely documented cumulative figure for democide in a single country is clearly that for China. Including pre-twentieth century deaths along with those killed in the twentieth century by warlords, the Nationalists, Mao (during the guerrilla period), the Communist regime, and the Japanese during their invasion, Rummel estimates somewhat more than 85 million killed, exclusive of combatants. During one span of two decades (1928–49) 35 million died (this figure does include war dead), very roughly 40% of all the Chinese democides. Rummel succinctly summarizes what happened to these millions: They have been slaughtered because they happened to live where nationalists, warlords, communists, or foreign troops fought each other. They have been executed because they had the wrong beliefs or attitudes in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have been shot because they criticized or opposed their rulers. They have been butchered because they resisted rape, were raped, or tried to prevent rape. They have been wiped out because they had food or wealth that soldiers or officials wanted. They have been assassinated because they were leaders, a threat, or potential antagonists. They have been blotted out in the process of building a new society. And they have died simply because they were in the way. These poor souls have experienced every manner of death for every conceivable reason: genocide, politicide, mass murder, massacre, and individually directed assassination; burning alive, burying alive, starvation, drowning, infecting with germs, shooting, stabbing. This for personal power, out of feelings of superiority, because of lust or greed, to terrorize others into surrendering, to keep subjects in line, out of nationalist ideals, or to achieve utopia. (Rummel, 1991)

Twentieth Century after 1945 The USSR and the People’s Republic of China, the two largest and most populous Communist dictatorships, continued to be major contributors to democide after

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1945. (Rates were declining in the USSR before the regime collapse and dissolution of the Union.) On a smaller scale, some states in the Americas continue to discriminate against, kill, rape, and torture Native American populations; in some places Native Americans have been victimizers as well as victims. The highest rate of democide (primarily politicide but including some genocide) ever calculated, over 8% annually of the population, occurred in this period in Cambodia, also a Communist state. While inaccessibility has made democide (largely politicide) in North Korea (a fourth totalitarian Communist state) difficult to document, reports characterize the state as being high both in absolute numbers of dead and in annual rate. For brief description here, two post-1945 democidal episodes – one in Poland and other areas of Eastern Europe occupied by the Germany during World War II, and the other in Pakistan, because they are little known and somewhat surprising – have been selected. Previously Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe

This section draws heavily on de Zayas and Wiskemann for historical reviews and on Rummel 1994 and 1997 and his multiple sources for numerical estimates. There were two waves of democidal actions in Eastern Europe at the end of World War II and immediately afterwards. First, as the Red army and its Polish allies drove toward Berlin they raped, tortured, mutilated, murdered, and pillaged Germans living in Nazi-occupied areas in the USSR, Poland, and other countries in Eastern Europe, both prewar residents and participants in the Nazi occupations. De Zayas estimates that 4–5 million Germans fled or were forced by the Nazis to evacuate and that as many as a million may have died. Some news of this filtered into the West, but awareness was low. After Germany fell many of those displaced earlier tried to return to their homes in the East. After the Potsdam agreement (July 1945) that Germans would be repatriated (humanely) they, along with millions who had not fled earlier, were subjected to evictions and confiscation of property along with murder, rape, and beatings throughout the region. Germans were forced to wear identifying armbands, just as Jews had been earlier, and they were subjected to much of the same treatment that had been meted out by the Nazis. Former forced laborers, national and local committees, militias, remnants of national armies that had been fighting alongside the Soviets, partisans and partisan armies, local gangs, and sometimes groups of neighbors joined in assaults on and eviction of Germans (and others as well, including occasionally Jews and other recently released concentration camp inmates). Expellees were marched to existing or hastily constructed concentration camps and packed into railway cars and taken long distances without food, water, or heat. Columns of old men and boys, women, and disabled German soldiers were driven on long marches from the Baltic

States, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia, sometimes through frozen mountain passes. Adolescent boys and men were rounded up, held under life-threatening health conditions, and shot without justification. Rummel estimates roughly 15 million expelled in the second wave by postwar governments (or with tacit government assent) and somewhat less than 2 million killed; he notes that estimates for this genocide/democide vary even more than most in an area of scholarship fraught with controversy. Some of this could be labeled ‘retributive’ genocide. Some in the new regimes tried to protect the victims, or at least provide due process. As elsewhere, there were rescues by neighbors and protection accorded by individual officers and soldiers. Senior officials in the Allied military and diplomatic establishment were aware of these activities and there were protests, intervention, and rescue, but there were limits to what they could (or would) do. Publics in the victorious countries were aghast at unfolding awareness of the Holocaust, concerned about their own recovery (and in western Europe, with pursuit and punishment of collaborators) and, in the United States, with the final agonies of the war with Japan. The reaction of distant observers if and when told about these events may well have been that imputed to American soldiers in Vietnam when told about My Lai, ‘‘it never happened and besides they deserved it.’’ East Pakistan/East Bengal/Bangladesh

The Indian subcontinent has witnessed substantial democidal violence during the latter part of the twentieth century. At the time of Independence and Partition in 1947, there were massive movements of population as Hindus sought safety in India, Muslims in the new state of Pakistan, and Sikhs with concentrations of their coreligionists. More than 15 million people became refugees and as many as a million may have been killed in communal violence in a short span, notwithstanding efforts by the new Indian government to control the violence. Violence continued on a smaller scale in the 1990s. The government of India was embroiled in attempts to pacify tribal peoples in Assam. Violence in Sri Lanka increased between the Hindu Tamil minority and the Buddhist Sinhalese majority, Bihari-Pathan violence was endemic in Pakistan; beatings, bombings, and riots were commonplace in the subcontinent (Tambiah). The greatest sustained violence, and that of the greatest magnitude, however, was that of the government of West Pakistan and its army against the population of its so-called Eastern Wing, now the country of Bangladesh (this account draws heavily on Payne (see also Chalk, Jonassohn, and Totten et al.)). During the two decades after Independence the Bengalis of East Pakistan became increasingly unhappy, and vocal, about their underrepresentation in government and the civil service and military, about denial of national status to the Bengali

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language, and about what they considered to be unfair shares of national development funds. Even their piety as Muslims was questioned. When in 1970 East Bengal was struck by a major cyclone (and associated floods) in which as many as half a million may have died, help from West Pakistan was slow and modest in extent. Outrage grew, ignited political mobilization and electoral action in which the Awami League of the dissident Easterners gained an absolute majority in the Pakistan National Assembly. The government postponed the Assembly, and Bengalis went on what amounted to a general strike. In 1971 West Pakistan moved to subdue the rebellious province. Initial targets were police (and the East Pakistan units of the military) and intellectuals, including college teachers and students, writers, newspaper journalists and editors, cultural leaders, the entire political establishment of East Bengal, and in many instances the families of these leaders. Students at the University of Dacca who survived point-blank shelling by American-built tanks were forced to dig mass graves and were then themselves shot. A slum area in Dacca, occupied mostly by Hindus, was set on fire and thousands of its inhabitants were shot. The industrial base was destroyed in order to assure the dependent status of the province. Rape, murder, beatings, mutilation, and torture spread from Dacca to outlying rural districts. There were death camps. Thousands of Bengalis were marched into a river, shot, and pushed into the current. By the time the blood bath was ended with the defeat of Pakistani forces by an intervening Indian army, about a million and a half were dead and 10 million Hindus had fled into India. A successful war of independence soon followed, and victorious Bengalis killed about 150 000 Bihari residents and about 5000 suspected collaborators in retributive genocide. Summary Democide and genocide have occurred on every inhabited continent and during every historical epoch into the present. Victims have included entire populations or categories within populations. Numbers of victims have ranged from a few thousands to tens of millions.

Some Patterns in Democide, in Genocide, and in Other, Large-Scale Killing With more than 300 million people killed, it should not be surprising that there are differences in occurrences of genocide and other democide. There are also patterns, both in democide itself and in differences from other varieties of social violence ranging from riot to war. This section identifies some patterns in democide, looking particularly at aspects of large-scale killing not discussed in other sections. Patterns in events leading up to democide will be discussed in the last section of this article.

Ecological Patterns There are no particular venues in which democide is uniquely concentrated; there are few inhabited places where it has not occurred. It is neither an urban nor a rural phenomenon, for example, although some ‘types’ of genocide, such as that of indigenous populations, most often occurs in areas far away from metropolitan centers. Jews were herded into urban ghettoes during the Nazi Holocaust, and Einsatzkommandos went to towns and hamlets to kill Jews there. Indeed, one ecological pattern of democide has been the transport of victims to places where they are killed, often with stops at concentration camps or other collection centers, and of executioners to places where victims are located. Victims are also driven on deadly forced marches to new locations. Unknown numbers have died in transport (Elkins calculated that only 5 of 15 million captured Africans survived the trip to slavery; see also Conquest on the USSR). Efforts may be made to collect victims at less visible times and places (e.g., in the early morning hours and at unfrequented railway sidings); the principal consideration most often is to cope with logistical problems. Temporal Patterns Riots usually occur during daytime hours and in good weather. Political disappearances usually occur at night. Genocide, in contrast, occurs continuously once begun, postponed only because of shortages of killing space or personnel or because of weather severe enough to disrupt transport. Killing is ordinarily limited only by technological and logistical constraints. Lifton found stages in the Nazi genocide, during which the variety and number of victims increased; there is too much diversity in instances of genocide and democide to say with what frequency such temporal stages occur. Participants A very considerable amount is known about victims, perpetrators, and bystanders (Hilberg) and, somewhat more recently, rescuers (Fogelman) and refusers (Goldhagen). There are available detailed studies of killing professionals and of professional executioners (Goldhagen), of rape victims (Stiglmayer), and of survivors. (With the exception of Stiglmayer these books focus on the Holocaust; there have not been specialized monographs on participants in other democides.) The numbing statistics of millions of casualties from contemporary democide (including genocide) are depressing; the eyewitness accounts and recountings of personal experiences (and occasional photographs) are truly unremittingly distressing. (Lifton writes with clarity, honesty, and remembered pain about the personal costs of research at the individual level.)

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Victims

When mass killing outside of military combat occurs, no category is spared by reason of weakness or age or handicap. (This is equally true, of course, of bombing in the course of so-called total war.) Distinctions are made, however, as when healthy and strong individuals or those with needed technical skills or perhaps physical attractiveness are temporarily spared. Additional distinctions are neither cheering nor comforting. Are individuals or families or extended families or communities killed or transported? Are there warnings, or do prospective victims wait in terror for knocks on their doors or lists of names? Are the criteria of selection predictable or not? Are all victims treated the same or can the rich, skilled, beautiful, sophisticated, or the simply determined buy time or even escape? What is the nature of assault? Immediate and efficient death? Arson with death coming as victims run from their burning homes? Incarceration in ‘camps’ or churches or public schools with minimal or no food or water punctuated (or not) by beating, torture, and rape? Primarily physical restriction of movement and starvation, or assault or execution? Primarily physical harm, or physical harm along with symbolic and psychological injury such as rape, forcing families to watch mothers and daughters and sisters raped, forcing males to rape or castrate one another, forcing parents to watch their children sexually assaulted and then killed, cutting fetuses from their mothers’ wombs and then slitting their throats? Stripping victims of all their possessions including, just before death, the clothing they wear? Cutting off their hair (or in the case of adult Jewish males, their beards)? Forced motherhood or forced prostitution and pornography followed by execution? All of these things and others have happened in the second half of the twentieth century and many continue today. An obvious question is, why don’t victims more often resist their attackers or at the very least attempt escape? There are variations here. Critical considerations include the disbursement of victimized groups, distance to possible safe havens, past traditions of resistance in the attacked community, prospects for assistance from within the perpetrating or bystander communities and, importantly, psychological denial of the possibility of what is happening. Many have feelings of powerlessness very similar to those experienced by civilians after massive (or nuclear) bombing or destruction of their homes and communities, by survivors of large-scale natural disasters, and by the bereaved. In some cases victims go beyond compliance and even cooperate or collaborate. In the case of ghetto Jews, particularly outside of Germany, community elders often discouraged resistance or escape on grounds that punishment would be visited on the rest of the community. Others are simply immobilized by the enormity of ongoing events or are unwilling to abandon their families. Motivations are obviously complex. Attempted and successful escapees and

resisters, there are always some, are overwhelmingly young, healthy, and without dependents; some older resisters engage in sabotage in camps and in factories where they are forced to work. Fein reviews studies of victims’ attempts to cope and concludes that those able to recreate social bonds were most successful. Perpetrators

Perpetrators are generally young postadolescent males. During full mobilization older males are recruited, some women become enthusiastic participants, and even children sometimes participate. Smith discusses women’s active participation in genocides. There are numerous reports of training youth to engage in torture and mass killing and of gradual socialization from being punished, to watching torture, to participating in torture and execution. Perpetrators ordinarily are members of the dominant group engaged in democide; when the killing is international, volunteers are frequently found. In the case of the Holocaust, volunteers and their effectiveness varied sharply from one Nazi-occupied country to another. Participants in Nazi genocide have been most studied. Hilberg distinguishes among reluctants (who approached their work with reservations and misgivings), evaders, volunteers (who sought participation in democide for personal advantage (sometimes because of hopes to punish particular Jews and/or acquire their property) because of hatred for victim categories, perhaps even because the ‘action’ seemed exciting), vulgarians (nonideological bullies and sadists), perfectionists (who set standards for others to follow), and zealots (who embraced both the ideology and its implied responsibilities). There are careerists and draftees. Responses to orders to kill included dutiful obedience, withdrawal and avoidance (sometimes permitted by superiors), enthusiasm, and frenzied over-achievement. There are few studies of the psychology or sociology of participation of perpetrators. Lifton studied the recruitment, socialization, and accommodation of physicians who participated in the Nazi genocide, and Goldhagen studied executioners of various sorts. It appears that the defense ‘following orders’ was not even germane in some cases; there is documentation that some perpetrators declined opportunities to avoid participation. The reasons for this are complex and apparently include a feeling of obligation to peers, fear of later reprisals, and a certain amount of opportunism. There are also reports, from both victims and perpetrators, of occasional kindnesses. Grossman studies the psychological aftermath of participation on perpetrators. Both Lifton and Goldhagen, studying quite different populations, reported that many years after their participation, many of their interviewees did not deny participation but justified it on ideological (anti-Semitic) grounds. Similarly, ideology was invoked in characterization of ‘kulaks’ in the USSR and the middle-class and intellectuals as enemies of revolutions (Melson). In the German and Turkish/Armenian

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cases, there have been manifestations of denial, of guilt, and of adherence to ideological justification. Corporate bodies, such as manufacturers who employ slave labor or judicial bodies that confiscate the possessions of victims or hospitals that sterilize or ‘euthanize’, are also perpetrators. So are legislative bodies that pass enabling laws. Bystanders

Only individual homicide is likely to ever be completely anonymous and unwitnessed. Countries are bystanders to war and democide, and majority populations are bystanders to domestic democide. Domestic educational, health-providing, financial, information, and other institutions also witness governmental actions. The governments, institutions, and people of other countries are, to varying degrees, witnesses and bystanders. Domestic and international bystanders at all levels play various roles. Some, discussed briefly below, become helpers or rescuers or even defenders. Some act opportunistically to obtain gain from the vulnerability and weakness of the victims. Just as some neighbors and pastors have sought to protect victims, some neighbors have blackmailed victims and stolen their possessions, and some ministers have closed their eyes. At the most, very few large-scale twentiethcentury democides have been secret from the world. The United States refused entrance to Jews, Swiss banks accepted Nazi deposits of Jewish gold and financial instruments, art stolen from Jews is in museums the world around, and the UN and major world powers looked on as Nigeria starved secessionist Biafra into submission (Jacobs). And, there are local onlookers, bystanders much like the ‘sidewalk superintendents’ who stop to watch buildings going up or passersby who stop to watch children’s ball games. The variety of responses reflects diversity in democidal events, patterns of prejudice and racism in bystander societies, cultural traditions of helping and privacy, socioeconomic characteristics of observers, perceptions of own danger and of potential economic advantage or disadvantage. The individual level responses to reports of democide include: approval (‘‘It’s about time’’), cupidity, cynicism, denial, ennui, horror, hyperidentification, immobilization, impotence, inability to act because of legal constraints, and indifference. Institutional, national, and international (e.g., the UN and the International Red Cross) reactions parallel a number of the individual responses, particularly those claiming inability to act. Helpers and rescuers

Some people give water to victims awaiting execution or transport, some give fleeing victims directions, some snatch children from the arms of dead family members and take them home to raise, some smuggle food to those being starved, some take strangers into their homes and hide them, some provide false papers, some smuggle those

about to be arrested to safety abroad. Some help but are unable to save a single life, others save hundreds. Some help is transitory, surreptitious, and risk free. Some is perduring and riskier. Some is particularistic (only for known others), some is universal. Some help is given only when requested and then perhaps reluctantly, while some is volunteered and even insistently so. Some is done by individuals, some is collective effort. Some helpers and rescuers are caught and become victims. Deniers

People in any of the categories just listed may deny that democide is going to happen, is happening, or has happened. Members of victimized groups often claim that reports are not true, or that law will prevail, or that they are not really members of the group being attacked. As the situation worsened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, some Jewish intellectuals, including government civil servants, clung to the belief that Jews could not become a target victim population because ‘‘Germany is a society ruled by law.’’ Some of these people had to be almost kidnapped by less optimistic family members. Similar denial has been reported for most cases of democide for which there is more than the most superficial record. When democide is actually going on, it seems likely that fewer and fewer victims can cling to the belief that they are experiencing an aberration, a bad dream from which they will wake up. When, as in Germany, the actual killing is physically remote, transportation of victims is minimally public, and other preoccupations draw attention (such as combat deaths of family members, bombings of homes, and dire food shortages and illnesses), it is possible that some proportion of citizens either did not know or knew very little about ongoing democide. Similar claims of justifiable preoccupation are less persuasive in societies like Rwanda or Bosnia, where killing was local and visible. There are governments whose representatives deny that large-scale killing is occurring. There are perpetrators and government spokesmen who acknowledge that killing is being done, but characterize the democide as a social good for which enquirers should be grateful rather than critical. There are bystanders, individuals, and countries, that prefer to accept perpetrator denials than the evidence of their own eyes and ears. There are governments that acknowledge that terrible things are happening, but judiciously find that formal criteria for democide/genocide are not present. The latter has been the case with many of the governmentally condoned large-scale killing which have occurred and are occurring at the beginning of the new millennium. Causes of Genocide, Politicide, and Other Forms of Democide While there are exponentially larger literatures on war, riots, lynching, and murder, there is no dearth of

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explanations for the social violence manifest in the variety of behaviors labeled democide. There is more literature on the Holocaust of World War II than on other genocide and probably more on genocide than on politicide. (There is a substantial literature on class violence in both capitalist and communist or socialist states (historical and contemporary).) The amount of attention given to various democidal events in the second half of the twentieth century has varied with their visibility to North American and European audiences; that visibility has been determined in part by actual physical remoteness and by perceived significance in terms of ‘national security’ of far-off events. That perceived significance is substantially influenced by media coverage and policymaker’s perceptions of interests and electorates. There are popular interpretations of democide, explanations by behavioral scientists, and findings of investigative bodies of various sorts. While there are some common threads, these have often given quite different conclusions and recommendations for solutions. Popular explanations

Popular explanations come from (1) individuals engaged in everyday interaction; (2) formal organizations of various sorts, including not-for-profit relief organizations, some professional associations, and human rights and related activist groups that attempt to prevent or stop large-scale killing in governments, increase political awareness, or lobby governmental and nongovernmental organizations; (3) apologists of the political right and left; (4) emergent spokespersons or experts who have opinions, share them freely, and come to be asked as social violence continues; (5) representatives of affected corporations, governments, or populations, and other lobbyists; and (6) the print and electronic media. Immediately or potentially affected governments provide interpretations supportive of victims or perpetrators. As democide has become both more commonplace and more widely reported toward the end of the twentieth century, popular explanations have increasingly incorporated elements of behavioral science theories and the conclusions of various investigative bodies (and, to some extent, claims and interpretations of groups with interests in forming public opinion). Folk explanations are variously favorable and/or sympathetic to victims or perpetrators. Perspectives appear to reflect social identities and location in the social structure, and to some degree the extent to which individuals and groups themselves feel threatened (‘‘It could [never] happen here’’); sympathies for victims in the abstract obviously affect some interpretations. Space constraints allow me to do no more here than list some popular explanations and interpretations for largescale killings by governments in the twentieth century: (1) human nature; (2) victims deserved it or ‘brought it on themselves’; (3) denial (it never happened); (4) it never

happened and besides they deserved it; (5) such events are the work of criminal groups, criminal states, and so on; (6) such behaviors are the result of prejudice and hate; (7) it’s all economic; (8) progress has costs (‘‘You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs’’ – a French proverb sometimes attributed to Lenin); (9) ‘‘what can you expect from such people?’’; (10) God demands the destruction of the wicked, of dissenters, of unbelievers, and so on. Some find an explanation in (11) the wickedness of individuals of great power (i.e., remarkable individuals) such as Genghis Khan, Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin. The kinds of ‘theories’ noted have appeared and reappeared over time; they have been applied in various forms to the whole range of violent behaviors, and they have been invoked (or rejected) with widely varying sophistication by the full range of those involved in democide and at all levels of society. Biological and behavioral science perspectives

My coverage of biological perspectives will be perfunctory. Given space limitations it is suggested that there are two major behavioral science perspectives on democide and its component behaviors: (1) those focusing on the individual, associated primarily with psychology and related disciplines, and (2) those focusing on groups and the social structure. Economic perspectives, including Marxist structuralism, are treated separately. Two excellent volumes, The Myth of the Madding Crowd (1991) and Theories of Civil Violence (1988), contain comprehensive discussions which together cover most of the theoretical perspectives mentioned below. Fein, Gamson, Kuper, du Preez, Rummel, Stannard (see, especially, appendix II), and Staub, among others, (1) review explanations more specifically focused on large-scale killing, (2) address questions of whether specific instances they discuss constitute genocide (or politicide or democide, etc.), and occasionally (3) suggest their own explanatory frameworks. Biological and sociobiological interpretations

Most scientists today deny that humans have an instinct for war, that humans are genetically programmed for war, or that human evolution has selected for aggressiveness. Some scientists find Wilson’s more sophisticated version of sociobiology with its emphasis on adaptive behavior whereby aggressiveness might be optimal in the short term (e.g., in driving other, genetically unrelated, humans from scarce land, or killing them and taking the land) more persuasive. Others question that war and democide can ever be adaptive for the species. None of this denies that there are humans who might not start wars or democide but who seem to enjoy destructiveness and slaughter once they get started, nor that we can be socialized into aggressive behavior and our inhibitions against killing dampened. The ultimate argument against human nature explanations of war and democide, including genocide, is

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that even ‘warlike’ societies have long periods of peace and some societies do not participate in wars at all. Economic explanations

There are essentially two economic interpretations of genocide and other large-scale killings. The first is that of pragmatism or what has been called ‘rational choice’ theory, an interpretation which says that people (and groups) engage in behaviors perceived as optimal paths to preferred worlds, for example, worlds without a disvalued minority, or where land or other resources previously possessed by a collectivity becomes available, or where the previously downtrodden become masters (Kaufman). Homer-Dixon’s perspective on environmental scarcity and violent conflict with its (unexplicated) implications for democide is congenial with such an interpretation. The second view consists of a collection of sometimes disparate Marxist and neoMarxist interpretations. A Marxist perspective suggests that large-scale killing associated with colonial expansion or assaults on domestic minorities results from the greed of capitalists, and that killings of internal ethnic minorities (e.g., Cossacks or Ukrainians, or Jews in the erstwhile Soviet Union) or of class or occupational groups (nobility, kulaks, intelligentsia, and so on) are necessary for completion of the struggle of the proletariat against feudalism or capitalism. One Marxist scholar (Cox) enriched his interpretation of large-scale killings (and individual discrimination or lynching) by incorporating a notion of race as caste into his identification of capitalism as culprit. Individually oriented perspectives

These perspectives generally look for explanations of violence in the personality characteristics or past experiences of violent individuals or some dynamic combination of the two. A view that human nature is at least predispositionally aggressive has been discussed earlier in this article. The psychoanalyst looks for violence proneness, rooted perhaps in early traumatic experiences but clearly the consequences of uniquely personal experiences in molding an individual psyche. Freud believed that all of us have aggressiveness in our makeups as well as a predisposition to ‘narcissistic rage’ and that whether or not we act aggressively depends on differential success in socialization for repression or control. Storr locates the propensity for mass outbreaks of cruelty in the imagination – as shaped by aggressive personality disorders, sadomasochism, and paranoid delusion. Lifton offers an explanation for individual participation in genocide as facilitated by ‘doubling’ – a process through which individuals develop a second self capable of demoniacal behaviors while retaining an earlier, more humane self. Proponents of the notion of ‘authoritarian personality’ assert that childhood socialization experiences transform relatively undifferentiated initial personalities so that some people become tolerant and others authoritarian and prejudiced. Authoritarian personalities are more likely to agree to and participate in democide. Other psychologists

simply postulate prejudiced personalities and then look at differences in their behaviors from the nonprejudiced. Fromm developed a theory according to which exposure to functionally debilitating social conditions generated ‘individual’ alienation and disconnectedness leading in turn to ‘malignant aggression’, including, presumably, enhanced likelihood of participation in genocide and other largescale killing. Clinical psychologists focus less on the individual personality than on the dynamics of the individual’s interaction with his/her environment. The frustration–aggression hypothesis has been attractive to both psychological psychologists and psychological political scientists, particularly quantitative scholars. Social psychologists have looked for explanations of violence in constellations of individual attitudes and have attended particularly to structural features of society fostering one or another attitude. ‘Relative deprivation’ or a ‘search for identity’ become independent variables related to specific attitudes, for example, isolation, powerlessness, and anomie, which in turn are linked to participation in group violence. Other social psychologists and anthropologists have drawn attention to the differences in societal socialization for aggression that result in ‘societies’ that are more or less prone to war and in which individuals are more or less prone to aggressive behavior. Some investigators, predicating a link between ideologies and behavior, note that we tend to share the ideologies of those around us and that some ideologies are more favorable to chauvinism or to democide of various sorts. Lifton discovers in the TurkishArmenian and Nazi genocides national ideological narratives of diseased societies cured by purification (destruction of the disease source) and regeneration. Hayden argues that exclusionary ideological justifications for ‘ethnic cleansing’ were written into the constitutions of the postdissolution republics of former Yugoslavia. Du Preez argues for an interaction between social events (wars, famines, and so on) and individual events (fear, insecurity, and so on), which serially and in parallel culminate in individual and collective readiness for social violence. Melson hypothesizes that democidal killing is often a consequence of successful labeling of victim groups as enemies of ideological revolutions. Staub has argued an incremental acceptance of evil, specifically including genocide. Part of such incremental acceptance results from processes of dehumanization, distancing, bureaucratization, and so on, persuasively described by Sanford and Comstock and their colleagues, and from ‘psychic numbing’. Related too, are notions of ‘spirals of aggression’ parallel to arms races. Some studies of war have observed that participation is massively satisfying for some. Men may feel that in fighting for a just cause they are doing something truly worthwhile; they may be exhilarated by actual fighting, or feel their masculinity enhanced by control over powerful weapons or the lives of others. Numerous investigators

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have documented the gratifications that result from bonding experiences in combat and wartime experiences more generally. The obvious question is, are such positively valued outcomes likely from participation in genocide, politicide, and democide? Do mass murderers bond? Frenzied participation in slaughter of noncombatant men, women, and children in colonial assaults on natives, in Mongol devastation of medieval Asian cities, and the Japanese rape of Nanking (Chang) suggest that the answer must minimally be ‘at least to some degree’. Importantly, while early studies were primarily focused on describing attitudinal structures of individuals, more recent studies have looked at sets of attitudes associated with membership in social categories. Interpretations that focus on prejudice alone or that invoke concepts such as de-individuation or emotional contagion have waned; they have not sustained empirical test. Structural and processual perspectives

In recent years research on social conflict has become increasingly interdisciplinary as behavioral scientists in anthropology, cultural and social geography, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology, along with historians and philosophers, have very frequently borrowed from one another in their attempts to make sense out of social conflict and social violence. The resulting literature is too rich to even outline/summarize, let alone discuss, in a short encyclopedia piece. These wide-ranging interpretive theories generally come in about a dozen (the number is essentially an arbitrary artifact of how notions are divided up) varieties, most of which were developed in studies of other manifestations of social violence: (1) theories of the middle range or empirical generalizations based on empirical studies (e.g., that social conflict and violence increase in intensity to the degree that societal cleavages are superimposed (Coleman on community conflict, Lambert on communalism in India, Williams, et al., on race relations)); (2) theories that emphasize the explanatory utility of different versions of ‘culture’, ranging from anthropological notions of class or regional ‘cultures of violence’ to the Marxian use of the term as synonymous with ideology; (3) theories that find the roots of collective violence in the structural arrangements of hierarchy and social differentiation in societies (e.g., Marx on exploiting and exploited classes, the Tillies on structures of urbanization, industrialization, and state authority, Gamson on the criterial structural relation between authorities and potential partisans, or Grimshaw on ‘accommodative’ structures); (4) theories that focus on social processes/forms of interaction and/or social acts/behaviors (e.g., Coser, Dahrendorf, and Simmel on conflict as a social form or process or Tilly on repertoires of collective action or of collective behavior) or on social control as a societal structure and process (e.g., Janowitz); (5) perspectives that give special attention to

social violence (usually rioting in incidents used as documentation) as rational (in the means-end sense of that term – or even in the special ‘rational choice’ sense) and intentional behavior and as a successful agent for social change; (6) what Rule has labeled ‘value integration theory’, the quintessential exemplary of which is Smelser’s ‘valueadded’ theory with its five stages of: (i) structural conduciveness; (ii) structural strain; (iii) growth and spread of a generalized belief; (iv) precipitating factors; and (v) mobilization of participants; (7) theories that focus on the nature of the state, for example, Andrzejewski on military organization and society or Rummel on state power as a criterial variable in probabilities of participation in war or democide (cf. however, Krain’s argument that opportunity better predicts genocide and politicide than level of power concentration), and Freeman on bureaucracy, modernization, and genocide; (8) Actonian theories on the availability of power and its corrosive effects; (9) theories that weapons for largescale murder, just as those for individual homicide, will be used if available; (10) collective behavior theories such as Turner and Killian’s conceptualization of ‘structurally emergent collective definitions’; (11) McPhail’s integration of Mead on purposive problem-solving with Powers’ feedback perspective in which rational, autonomous, problemsolving individuals in difficult situations cooperate and coordinate their behaviors in attempts to achieve shared goals. Riots, or war, or lynchings, or democide, could all result from such a process. (12) Donald Black is developing an ambitious theory that may have important explanatory implications for large-scale killing by governments. Black’s premises for his ‘paradigm of pure sociology’ for the field of conflict often differ sharply from those reviewed in the paragraphs above, including the principles that: (i) conflict is not a clash of interests but of right and wrong and a matter of morality and justice; (ii) understanding individuals qua individuals, or personalities, will not provide understanding of social conflict and violence; (iii) conflict relations are determined by relations of spatial, social, and cultural distance; and (iv) conflict relations can be propositionally specified and are susceptible to quantification. Campbell applies these idea to genocide specifically. All of these theoretical perspectives seem reasonable on first reading and all have been shown to be compatible with some facts of some events. Sorting out which theories are truly falsifiable and which are most powerful will require considerable comparative research. The unfortunate likelihood is that there will continue to be opportunities for such research. Judicial and Other Archives, Investigations, and Reports There have probably been written reports on social violence, including large-scale killing, for as long as there have been written narrative reports of any sort. Large-scale

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killing in the name of maintaining the public order, or in retribution, or to put down revolt, has been employed by civil authority from its first establishment. Local officials and resident military commanders will have been asked to keep their superiors in metropolitan centers informed of local disruptions, particularly those that might be seen as harbingers of threats to the regime; it is reasonable to believe that private intelligence on democide of all sorts has an equivalently respectable antiquity. Accounts of pretwentieth century democide are based on government reports (often undistinguishable from myths and religious writing in earliest documents), biblical stories, despots’ boasts inscribed on desert cliffs, and, in the last half millennium, increasingly on accounts of contemporaries and the scholarship of historians. During the modern period official reports on wars and rebellions have become more or less routinized; in the second half of the twentieth century the same has become true of democidal events. At the international level the League of Nations and UN agencies have produced reports, as have organizations of victorious allies. Accused and accusing nations have also generated reports: Turkey defended its actions with its Armenian minority, the Vietnamese have reported on American atrocities. Neutral governments appoint bodies such as the British and Finnish Enquiry Commissions on Kampuchea. Organizations such as the International Red Cross report on their activities or, in some instances, defend themselves against accusations of neglect or timorousness (e.g., against charges that they had abandoned the people of Biafra during the Nigerian civil war). Countless ad hoc and self-designated international commissions exist, such as the East Timor Defense Committee or the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Cultural Survival, and Human Rights Watch (initially Americas Watch Committee) publish regular and special reports on variously labeled manifestations of democide. Research institutes such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research have counterparts in many other countries, as do university-based research centers. In the United States there have been Senate, House, State and Defense Department, Agency, and military commissions, boards, and reviews, at least part of whose findings are made public. These bodies, which sit from periods of weeks to periods of years or in some cases continuously, receive from no funding at all to millions of dollars. They are variously charged with finding facts of events (sometimes particular versions of facts), causal explanations, solutions, modes of prevention, and with assessing responsibility. Factual details, interpretations, and recommendations in reports of these various bodies reflect (1) the factual and interpretive biases and the social and political agendas of appointing and sponsoring entities; (2) the political

climate when investigating bodies are appointed; (3) the composition of the commissions (or other investigative bodies) and their staff; (4) the extent to which investigators are able to gain access to relevant documents, evidence, and witnesses; (5) the support, both moral and financial, provided; (6) the time allowed for the body’s investigation and report writing; (7) whether or not there were open hearings, particularly hearings in which public participation was invited; and (8) what sort of dissemination of findings was projected. Curiously, contemporaneous reporting practices may inflate the extent of democide ‘documented’ in later investigations, as when military officers or bureaucrats inflate the number of enemy casualties or those of ‘enemies of the people’ (e.g., ‘body counts’ in Vietnam and ‘quotas’ during democide in Stalin’s USSR). More accurate accountings can be equally damning, of course, as in Nazi records of their large-scale killings of civilians. Also curious, perhaps, is the fact that later governments of countries that have practiced democide have in some instances documented and apologized for the slaughter. At least tens of thousands of pages have been published (and perhaps millions written – see, for example, Goldhagen on his sources) about the extent, causes, and prevention of democide. Commissions, nongovernmental investigative bodies, and activist organizations have made basically two varieties of recommendations for prevention of genocide. The first set of recommendations aims at reducing what are seen as root causes of democidal phenomena by eradicating poverty and injustice and reducing prejudice. The second emphasizes social control through successful application of law, or increasing the control capabilities of international social control agencies such as UN peace-keeping units and changing sovereignty law so that peacekeepers can intervene in domestic democide. Additional suggestions are sometimes made, such as bans on certain kind of weapons or the invention of governmental structures which will allow at least partial autonomy for minorities, none of which have made much headway.

Intended Mass Extinctions of Human Beings at the Millennial Turn Whatever hopes there may have been that the end of Nazi Germany would also mean the end of what had come to be labeled as genocide were dashed by events that occurred as a new millennium approached and arrived. In the years immediately preceding and following the millennial year there were large-scale democidal events in Bosnia, Chad, Cambodia, Eastern Timor, Croatia, Gujarat, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, the Sudan [Darfur], Rwanda, and many more government approved or condoned mass killings in African, Asian, and other venues. It will not be possible to provide details on any of these killings – in the small space

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remaining this article briefly identifies and discusses some recent developments, namely, (1) the appearance, identification, and labeling of ‘ethnic cleansing’; (2) occurrence of government or quasigovernmental policies approving and (reportedly encouraging) policies of wholesale rape as an instrument in ‘ethnic cleansing’, (3) increasing public awareness of genocidal events (not necessarily accompanied by effective public demands for governmental action at any level); (4) broadening efforts to forecast/predict and (perhaps) prevent genocidal events; (5) attention to how democides are ‘remembered’. Ethnic Cleansing The Bassiouni Report to the United Nations observed: The expression ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ is relatively new. Considered in the context of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ means rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area. Ethnic cleansing is contrary to international law.

‘Ethnic cleansing’ itself is not a recent phenomenon. Consider three documented instances from twentiethcentury United States, that is, segregation of Native Americans in ‘reservations’, quotas for Jews in both undergraduate and graduate programs at elite American universities (and quite likely others as well (though Gentile summer resorts in the Catskills did not use quotas, they practiced total exclusion)), and the incarceration of United States citizens of Japanese origin in concentration camps during World War II – along with confiscation of their property. Many white Americans enthusiastically supported Marcus Garvey’s back to Africa movement; today many Americans of widely varying ethnicity support attempts of municipalities to purge themselves of Spanish-speaking ‘illegals’ (an emergent pattern pioneered in Pennsylvania). In Germany accelerating exclusion from prestigious and well-paying professions antedated transport to the death camps by several years. Rape ‘Recreational’ rape of women of all ages, particularly women deemed attractive or perhaps insufficiently cowed, has been an accompaniment of all democides about which detailed information is available; intimidation and/or ‘breeding’ of subject populations may be supplementary motives. Rape of target populations in transit (Armenians) and of conquered populations (Koreans forced to become ‘comfort women’ by the Japanese) has occurred, and concentration camp inmates were forced to become mistresses of camp personnel. However. governmental policies condoning, encouraging, or ordering rape appear to be recent developments in ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Allen’s first words on rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina are apposite here; these are quoted here at length: Genocidal rape: a military policy of rape for the purpose of genocide currently practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia by members of the Yugoslav Army, the Bosnian Serb forces, Serb militias in Croatia and BosniaHerzegovina, the irregular forces known as Chetniks, and Serb civilians. Three main forms exist: (1) Chetniks or other Serb forces enter Serb, Bosnian Serb, and Croatian Serb Bosnian-Herzegovinian or Croatian villages, take several women of various ages from their homes, rape them in public view, and depart. The news of this atrocious event spreads rapidly throughout the village. Several days later, regular Bosnian Serb soldiers or Serb soldiers from the Yugoslav Army arrive and offer the now-terrified residents safe passage away from the village on the condition they never return. Most accept, leaving the village abandoned to the Serbs and thus furthering the genocidal plan of ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’; (2) Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Croatian women being held in Serb concentration camps are chosen at random to be raped, often as part of torture preceeding death; (3) Serb, Bosnian Serb, and Croatian Serb soldiers, Bosnian Serb militias and Chetniks arrest Bosnian Herzegovinian and Croatian women, imprison them in a rape/death camp, and rape them systematically for extended periods of time. Such rapes are either part of torture preceding death or part of torture leading to forced pregnancy. Pregnant victims are raped consistently until such time as their pregnancies have progressed beyond the possibility of a safe abortion and are then released. In the first case, the death of the victim contributes to the genocidal goal; in the second, the birth of a child does, for the perpetrator – or the policy according to which he is acting – considers this child to be only Serb and to have none of the identity of the mother. ... Rape/death camps: buildings or other enclosures where Bosnia-Herzegovinian and Croatian girls and women are kept and systematically raped for weeks or months at a time. These are restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, factories, peacetime brothels, or other buildings; they are also animal stalls in barns, fenced-in pens, and arenas. Testimony indicates that more than thirty such rape/death camps are currently in use. (Allen, 1996, vii–viii)

According to the 1948 UN convention, all of these constitute the crime of genocide. Public Awareness of Democide As the democides in Nazi Germany intensified in the 1930s, little was known about them outside of Germany

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and not much more inside; when foreign ministries and intelligence agencies of other countries learned of the increasing and increasingly systematic killing, the news seldom made its way to other governmental agencies, nor to media and publics at large. The situation was sharply different as the twentieth century moved toward its close. Democidal behaviors in Rwanda, in Bosnia, Croatia, in Kosovo, and most recently in Darfur have all been widely reported in the media and have been the topical focus of fiction and nonfiction books, films, and television documentaries. Presidents and Secretaries of State, freed from the constraints of actually having to do anything about democide/genocide other than decrying it, now use the ‘G word’ almost promiscuously. As the catastrophe in Darfur dragged on in the first decade of the twenty-first century, multicolor advertisements which would ordinarily have cost millions of dollars appeared in national media such as Time and The New Yorker. The advertisements were sponsored by the Save Darfur Coalition, an umbrella organization constituted by possibly hundreds of ameliorative and activist groups. The coalition has not publicly reported how much money it has raised or the expenditure of those funds. At the time of this writing, efforts by individual governments, by most philanthropic organizations, by the African Union, and by the United Nations have had some modest successes in delivering relief to some victims – but have not been able to reduce the rape, torture, and slaughter of targeted populations (Reeves). In 2006 even the conservative mass-circulation magazine National Geographic published an article on the Rwandan genocide and the mass murders perpetrated by the Iraqi Hussein regime, and about problems with findings and assessing evidence for such crimes. Forecasting, Predicting, Preventing, Ameliorating Democide Fear and loathing of members of a despised group (or category of people) in a shared space does not fully explain democidal social violence against them. In 1998, in response to President Clinton’s policy initiative on genocide early warning and prevention, Barbara Harff was asked to undertake research to establish an empirically grounded data-based system for risk assessment and early warning of genocidal violence. Harff lists six factors that jointly differentiate with 76% accuracy the 36 serious civil conflicts that led to episodes of genocidal violence in 1955–2004, and 93 other cases of serious civil conflict since 1955 that did not eventuate in democidal episodes. The six factors are as follows: . prior genocides and politicides since 1945; . political upheaval: the magnitude of political upheaval (ethnic and revolutionary wars plus regime crises during the previous 15 years, excluding the magnitude of prior genocides);

. ethnic character of the ruling elite (is elite a minority communal group?); . ideological character of the ruling elite: a belief system that identifies some overriding purpose or principle that justifies efforts to restrict, persecute or eliminate certain categories of people; . regime type: autocratic regimes are more likely to engage in severe repression of oppositional groups; and . trade openness (export þ imports as % of GDP): openness to trade indicates state and elite willingness to maintain the rule of law and fair practices in the economic sphere. Harff scrutinized the apparently deviant cases and concluded that accuracy increased to nearly 90% when temporal and other inconsistencies in the data were taken into account. Harff ’s study locates her firmly within the quantitative social science tradition. Stanton, in contrast, appears to have generated his ‘‘8 Stages of Genocide’’ from close readings of a wide variety of sources, including print and television journalism (both local and international), UN and other commission reports, personal documents and documentaries (see Table 3). Forecasting democidal events has vastly increased in accuracy in the past several decades. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear that preventive actions, such as those suggested by Stanton, could prevent genocide. These include steps such as prohibiting and punishing hate symbols and speech; outlawing membership in relevant militias and embargoing governments; isolating perpetrators by banning travel and freezing finances; supporting moderates and human rights groups; providing humanitarian and military support to victims groups; establishing safe areas and escape corridors for refugees; and, finally, conducting international trials. Others run campaigns to pressure investors to divest from companies involved in genocide. In addition, governments are often reluctant to take these steps. Casual Remembrances, Unforgettable Memories, Vague Recollections We are all aware that what we remember of an event (or a thing or person) is influenced profoundly by more variables than can be easily identified or labeled – one party’s genocide may be another’s ‘necessary social control’, one party’s terrorism another’s ‘liberation struggle’. Levy and Sznaider, using contemporary political events and memories of the Holocaust in Germany, the United States, and Israel, raise critical issues about how historical and contemporary contexts influence perceptions and judgments of genocidal events and of how politicians and social movements use such events to advance their own agendas. Explicit comparisons are made of memories of the Holocaust in the three countries from immediately after World War II to contemporary times. They attend to the changing role and influence of various media, which have

Genocide and Democide 301 Table 3 The eight stages of genocide Stage

Description

1. Classification 2. Symbolization 3. Dehuminization 4. Organization 5. Polarization 6. Preparation 7. Extermination 8. Denial

Categorization into ‘‘us and them.’’ Symbols are associated with specific groups. Members of one group are equated with animals, diseases, etc. Training and drafting of plans: may be state-led, directly or through militias, informal, or decentralized. Extremists use hate groups and laws to drive groups apart with propaganda and segregating policies. Victims are identified and isolated, death lists are made. Killing of one group; reciprocal/revenge killing may develop. Evidence concealed, witnesses blamed, investigations blocked.

Source: Adapted from Stanton, G. H. (1998). The 8 Stages of Genocide. Yale Genocide Studies Paper GS-01, http://www. genocidewatch.org/18 stages1996.htm (accessed on Nov 2007).

expanded in range and at the same time have been affected by both global trends toward homogenization and local anti-entropic and differentiating forces. Older readers will recall the quite different memories of the American Civil War among mid-twentieth century residents of former Confederate states and residents of other states. Still older readers will recall how warmth for Finland survived even after that country had become an ally of the Third Reich. Denial will continue to thrive; there will be new events to deny.

Further Reading Allen, B. (1996). Rape warfare the hidden genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Andreopoulos, G. (ed.) (1994). Genocide: The conceptual and historical dimensions. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Andrzejewski, S. (1954). Military organization and society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Barash, D. P. (1991). Introduction to peace studies. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Black, D. (1989). The social structure of right and wrong. New York: Academic Press. Brass, P. R. (1996). Introduction. In Brass, P. R. (ed.) Riots and pogroms, pp. 1–55. New York: New York University Press. Bridgman, J. (1981). The revolt of the Hereros. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Campbell, B. (2005). Genocide as social control. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Charlotte, NC. Chalk, F. and Kurt, J. (1990). The history and sociology of genocide: Analyses and case studies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chang, I. (1997). The rape of Nanking: The forgotten holocaust of World War II. New York: Basic Books. Charny, I. W. (ed.) (1988). Genocide: A critical bibliographic review. New York: Facts On File Publications. Charny, I. W. (ed.) (1991). Genocide: A critical bibliographic review, vol. 2. New York: Facts on File Publications. Churchhill, W. (1997). A little matter of genocide. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Conquest, R. (1986). The harvest of sorrow: Soviet collectivization and the terror famine. New York: Oxford University Press. Coser, L. A. (1998). The functions of social conflict. London: Routledge & K. Paul. Cox, O. C. (1948). Caste, class, and race: A study in social dynamics. New York: Doubleday. Dahrendorf, R. (1959). Class and class conflict in industrial society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Damrosch, L. F. (ed.) (1993). Enforcing restraint: Collective intervention in internal conflicts. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press.

Davies, N. (1981). Human sacrifice in history and today. New York: William Morrow. De Zayas, A. M. (1994). A terrible revenge: The ethnic cleansing of the east European Germans, 1944–1950. New York: St. Martin’s Press. (trans. Koehler, J. A.,1993, The German expellees: Victims in war and peace). du Preez, P. (1994). Genocide: The psychology of mass murder. London: Boyars/Bowerdean. Elkins, S. (1959). Slavery: A problem in American institutional and intellectual life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Fein, H. (1979). Accounting forgenocide: National responses and Jewish victimization during the Holocaust. New York: Free Press. Fein, H. (ed.) (1992). Genocide watch. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fein, H. (1993). Genocide: A sociological perspective. London: Sage. Fogelman, E. (1994). Conscience and courage: Rescuers of Jews during the holocaust. New York: Anchor. Freeman, M. (1995). Genocide, civilization and modernity. British Journal of Sociology 46, 207–225. Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Rinehart. Gamson, W. A. (1995). Hiroshima, the holocaust, and the politics of exclusion. American Sociological Review 60, 1–20. Goldhagen, D. J. (1996). Hitler’s willing executioners: Ordinary Germans and the holocaust. New York: Knopf. Gottlieb, G. (1993). Nation against state: A new approach to ethnic conflicts and the decline of sovereignty. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Grossman, D. A. (1995). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Hale, C. R. (1997). Consciousness, violence, and the politics of memory in Guatemala. With commentary by Arturo Arias, Ricardo Falla, Jorge Ramon Gonzalez Ponciano, David McCreer and David Stoll. Current Anthropology 38, 817–838. Harff, B. and Gurr, T. R. (1989). Victims of the state: Genocide, politicides, and group repression since 1945. International Review of Victimology 1, 23–41. Hassig, R. (1988). Aztec warfare: Imperial expansion and political control. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Hayden, R. M. (1996). Imagined communities and real victims: Self-determination and ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia. American Ethnologist 23, 783–801. Hilberg, R. (1992). Perpetrators, victims, bystanders: The Jewish catastrophe 1933–1945. New York: Harper-Collins. Hinton, A. L. (1996). Agents of death: Explaining the Cambodian genocide in terms of psychosocial dissonance. American Anthropologist 98, 818–831. Homer-Dixon, T. (1994). Environmental scarcities and violent conflict: Evidence from cases. International Security 19, 5–40. Homer-Dixon, T. F. (1991). On the threshold: Environmental changes as causes of acute conflict. International Security 16, 76–116. Horowitz, D. L. (2001). The deadly ethnic riot. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Jacobs, D. (1988). The brutality of nations. New York: Paragon House. Janowitz, M. (1996). On social organization and social control. In Burk, J. (ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Jongman, A. (ed.) (1996). Contemporary genocides: Causes, cases, consequences. Leiden: Interdisciplinary Research Program on Root Causes of Human Rights Violations. Kaufman, S. J. (1996). Spiraling to ethnic war: Elites, masses, and Moscow in Moldova’s civil war. International Security 21, 108–138. Kaufman, S. J. (2006). Symbolic politics or rational choice? Testing theories of extreme ethnic violence. International Security 30(4), 45–86. Krain, M. (1993). State-sponsored mass murder: The onset and severity of genocides and politicides. Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, 331–360. Kressel, N. J. (1996). Mass hate: The global rise of genocide and terror. New York: Plenum Press. Kuper, L. (1985). The prevention of genocide. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lemkin, R. (1944). Axis rule in occupied Europe. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Levy, M. J. (1952). The structure of society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Levy, D. and Sznaider, N. (2005). The holocaust and memory in the global age (trans. Oksiloff, A.). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Lifton, R. J. (1982/1967). Death in life: Survivors of Hiroshima. New York: Random House. Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi doctors: Medical killing and the psychology of genocide. New York: Basic Books. Markusen, E. and Kopf, D. (1995). The holocaust and strategic bombing: Genocide and total war in the 20th century. Boulder, CO: Westview. Mazian, F. (1990). Why genocide? The Armenian and Jewish experiences in perspective. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. McPhail, C. (1991). The myth of the madding crowd. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Melson, R. (1992). Revolution and genocide: On the origins of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Norton, J. (1979). When our worlds cried: Genocide in Northwestern California. San Francisco, CA: The Indian Historian Press. Payne, R. (1973). Massacre. New York: Macmillan. Power, S. (2002). A problem from hell: America and the age of genocide. New York: Basic Books. Reeves, E. (2006). Watching genocide, doing nothing: The final betrayal of Darfur, Dissent, Fall: 5–9. Reisman, W. M. and Antoniou, C. T. (eds.) (1994). The laws of war: A comprehensive collection of primary documents of international law covering armed conflict. New York: Vintage. Robins, N. A. (2005). Native insurgencies and the genocidal impulse in the Americas. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Rule, J. B. (1988). Theories of civil violence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Rummel, R. J. (1990). Lethal politics: Soviet genocide and mass murder since 1917. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1991). China’s bloody century: Genocide and mass murder since 1900. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1994). Death by government. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1997). Power hills: Democracy as a method of nonviolence. New Brunswick: Transaction. Rummel, R. J. (1997). Statistics of democide: Genocide and mass murder since 1900. Charlottesville, VA: Center for National Security Law, University of Virginia. Sanford, N. and Comstock, C. (eds.) (1971). Sanctions for evil. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Schwartz, B. and Zerubavel, Y. (1986). The recovery of Masada: A study in collective memory. The Sociological Quarterly 27(2), 147–164. Simmel, G. (1908). Conflict. (trans. Wolff, K. H., 1955). Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Sivard, R. L. (1991). World military and social expenditures 1991. Washington, DC: World Priorities. Smith, R. W. (1994). Women and genocide: Notes on an unwritten history. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 8, 315–334. Stannard, D. E. (1992). American holocaust: Columbus and the conquest of the new world. New York: Oxford University Press. Stanton, G. H. (1998). The 8 Stages of Genocide. Yale Genocide Studies Paper GS-01, http://www.genocidewatch.org/ 8stages1996.htm (accessed on Nov 2007). Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stiglmayer, A. (ed.) (1994). Mass rape: The war against women in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Storr, A. (1991). Human destructiveness. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. Tambiah, S. J. (1996). Leveling crowds: Ethnonationalist conflicts and collective violence in south Asia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Tilly, C. (2006). Regimes and repertoires. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Thornton, R. (1942). American Indian holocaust and survival: A population history since 1492. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Totten, S. E., Parsons, W. S., and Charny, I. W. (1997). Century of genocide: Eyewitness accounts and critical views. New York: Garland Publishing. Uekert, B. K. (1995). Rivers of blood. Westport, CT: Praeger. Wiskemann, E. M. (1956). Germany’s eastern neighbours: Problems relating to the Oder-Neisse Line and the Czech frontier regions. London: Oxford University.

Chemical Warfare J Berberich, Agentase, Pittsburgh, PA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Use of Chemical Weapons Classification of Chemical Weapons Vesicants

Glossary Acetylcholinesterase An enzyme found in the blood and at nerve endings that catalyzes the hydrolysis of acetylcholine.

Nerve Agents Miscellaneous Lesser Chemical Warfare Agents Further Reading

Blister Agent A chemical compound that burns the eyes, lungs, and skin and typically forms blisters on the skin.

Chemical Warfare

Blood Agent A chemical, typically containing a cyanide group, that prevents the normal utilization of oxygen by tissue. Chemical Warfare Intentional use of chemicals, typically poisons, contaminants, or irritants, in order to kill, injure, or incapacitate. Choking Agent A chemical agent that prevents normal breathing and causes a victim to suffocate. Lachrymation Excessive secretion of tears. Miosis Contraction of the pupil of the eye in response to increased light or to certain chemicals or pathological conditions.

Use of Chemical Weapons World War I was the beginning of large-scale chemical warfare. The Germans first used chlorine and phosgene gas released from gas cylinders and artillery shells; 85% of all deaths resulting from exposure to chemical warfare agents during World War I were caused by phosgene. The first use of sulfur mustard was also by the Germans during World War I. Sulfur mustard was such an effective chemical warfare agent that it became known as the king of the battle gases. The Germans began designing a second generation of chemical weapons, the nerve agents, before World War II. Although they were never used, the Germans maintained large stockpiles of the nerve agents tabun and sarin. After World War II, the British synthesized the very potent nerve agent VX. Even after World War II, chemical warfare agents were still in use. During the 1960s, mustard agents, riot control agents, and perhaps nerve agents were used by Egypt during the Yemen War. Iraq used sulfur mustard, tabun, and soman during the war with Iran, and it is believed that they may have used cyanide against the Kurds. There is some speculation that Iraq used chemical weapons during the first Persian Gulf War (this being the cause of Gulf War Syndrome). Many veterans of this war complain of a number of symptoms, including recurrent headaches, joint stiffness, nausea, anxiety, and depression. No conclusion has been drawn on the cause of Gulf War Syndrome, but many conclude that multiple chemical exposure, contact with pesticides, negative reactions to vaccines or side effects of chemicals given to protect against nerve agent exposure may have caused some symptoms. Terrorist groups are now the biggest threat for using chemical weapons. Sarin was used by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan in the mid-1990s. It was first used in Matsumoto in 1994 and killed seven and injured over 600. The second occurrence was in the Tokyo subway in 1995, which killed 12 people and injured more than 5000. This cult had also used VX for the assassination of important political leaders.

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Nerve Agent A chemical agent that inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase and prevents the transmission of nerve impulses. Toxic Industrial Chemical Chemicals from industrial processes that may be hazardous to individuals. Vesicant A chemical compound that burns the eyes, lungs, and skin and typically forms blisters on the skin.

Chemical warfare presents a number of unique physical and psychological stresses to an individual. Military personnel not only risk the physical stress and damage caused by contact with chemical warfare agents, but also cope with the severe psychological stress that comes with the fear of risk of exposure. Wartime already presents significant fear and confusion for a soldier, and the threat of chemical warfare exacerbates this. The first responders who must respond to chemical warfare incidences also experience significant stress caused by the need to wear cumbersome protective gear, the potential accidental exposure to the chemical warfare agent, and the obligation to help the injured, dying, or dead. For those living with the dread of war or terrorism, the stress, fear and worries can lead to severe anxiety and have a serious impact on normal life. People’s mood, cognition, and behavior may be disrupted as a result of the fear, uncertainty, and panic that may accompany a chemical warfare incident, a training drill, or a hoax. In fact, the psychological stress itself may mimic many of the physiological effects caused by exposure to chemical weapons.

Classification of Chemical Weapons A variety of chemicals exist that may be used as chemical warfare agents. Those considered to be the biggest threat for the modern soldier are the nerve gases and mustard gases. These agents are actually liquids at ambient temperatures and are generally aerosolized in order to be efficiently dispersed. The low volatility of these agents allows them to persist in the environment for a long period of time. It is the persistence of these agents that poses a great risk for first responders and health-care workers. Other toxic chemicals such as cyanide, chlorine, and phosgene are true gases at ambient conditions and rapidly dissipate from the environment, making them less of a long-term hazard. However, some of these gases are

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heavier than air and may remain in low-lying areas for extended periods. Chemical warfare agents may also include riot control agents, such as tear gas and pepper sprays, and even herbicides. Agent Orange was a herbicide used during the Vietnam War to remove foliage and expose hidden enemy soldiers. With the growing fears of terrorism, two of the largest classes of chemicals of concern are the toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) and toxic industrial materials (TIMs). If a terrorist organization were to release any of these chemicals into the environment, the impact would be devastating.

Vesicants The vesicants are a broad class of chemical agents that produce vesicles or blisters on the skin and the mucous membranes. These chemicals include sulfur mustard, the nitrogen mustards, Lewisite, and phosgene oxime. Sulfur mustard was developed by Germany before World War I and was noted to smell like mustard and taste like garlic. Pure sulfur mustard is known as HD; it is a strong alkylating agent, known for its ability to react with a number of biomolecules, including proteins, DNA, and RNA. The organs most commonly affected by mustards are the skin, eyes, and those in the respiratory system. Sulfur mustard does not have an effect at first contact, and a dose-dependent latent period exists before effects begin to occur. Nausea and burning of the eyes are often the first symptoms of mustard exposure. Blistering and itching of the skin, chest pains, coughing, lesions, or blindness may begin to occur within a few hours or days after exposure. There is a poor understanding of exactly how mustard produces blisters. Most symptoms begin to heal within few weeks of exposure; however, neurosis, depression, and continuous eye problems have been noted as long-term effects. Of the soldiers exposed to mustard gas during World War I, only 3–4% died of its direct effects. Death typically occurs due to secondary infections, shock, or respiratory insufficiency. There also exists some data that suggest that chronic exposure to mustard may increase the likelihood of developing cancer of the mouth, throat, and respiratory tract. The nitrogen mustards, referred to as HN1, HN2, and HN3, are also potent vesicants. Although the nitrogen mustards are structurally similar to the sulfur mustards and have common chemical reactions, they have never found use as weapons. They produce damage to the eyes, respiratory tract, and skin similar to sulfur mustard; however, onset may take place more rapidly. Nitrogen mustard (HN2) was manufactured and used for a number of years in chemotherapy. Lewisite was developed during World War I to be less persistent than mustard since waging an attack on

mustard-containing areas was difficult. Lewisite was never used in war. The toxic effects of Lewisite are similar to those of sulfur mustard; however, the onset of effects occurs within seconds of exposure. Like other vesicants, Lewisite is a potent inhibitor of enzymes, inhibiting via the interaction of the Lewisite arsenic group with enzyme cysteine residues. Like sulfur mustard, the exact mechanism of toxicity is poorly understood.

Nerve Agents The nerve agents are a class of organophosphorous esters, similar to pesticides, that are rapidly lethal via any route of exposure. There are two major classes of nerve agents: Vand G. The G series agents include tabun (GA), sarin (GB), soman (GD), and GF. The V series agents include VX and Russian VX. The relative toxicity of the nerve agents is VX > GD  GF > GB > GA. The nerve agents are about 1000 times more potent than the most potent commercially available pesticides. VX is especially potent since it has a low volatility, making it a serious contact threat, and it is stable in the environment. The G series agents are more volatile and do not pose as much of a contact hazard. The nerve agents act by irreversibly binding to esterase enzymes, especially acetylcholine esterase, which is present in the blood and at the neuromuscular junctions in the peripheral and central nervous systems. The binding of nerve agents to acetylcholine esterase causes inhibition of the enzyme and leads to an accumulation of acetylcholine. The clinical effects of nerve agents are due to the build-up of acetylcholine within the nervous system, which, depending on dose and route of exposure, may lead to a variety of symptoms, including miosis, nausea, tightness in the chest, vomiting, increased sweating and salivation, lachrymation, headaches, weakness, twitching, muscular and abdominal cramps, diarrhea, blurring of vision, anxiety, and tremors. Death can occur through respiratory arrest or cardiac arrhythmia. Severe poisoning by nerve agents may cause long-term physiological, psychological, and neurological effects such as cerebral impairment and cardiac malfunctioning as well as posttraumatic stress disorder and differences in intellectual and motor skills. Exposure to small concentrations of nerve agents may cause depression, forgetfulness, inability to concentrate, bad dreams, insomnia, and irritability.

Miscellaneous Lesser Chemical Warfare Agents The cyanides, often referred to as blood agents, were used as chemical weapons during World War I by the French and Austrians. Cyanides have also reportedly been used during the Iran-Iraq War. The cyanide gases are difficult

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to deliver since they rapidly disperse into the environment due to their high volatility. There are three main types of cyanide: hydrogen cyanide (AC), cyanogen chloride (CK), and cyanogen bromide. The cyanogen halides (cyanogen bromide and cyanogen chloride) react in the body to produce hydrogen cyanide and hence have a very similar toxic effect. The target of cyanide toxicity is cellular respiration in the mitochondria. The cyanide ion reversibly inhibits cytochrome oxidase, which is the terminal oxidase in the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Inhibition leads to tissue asphyxia, resulting in central respiratory arrest and death. In addition, cyanogen chloride and cyanogen bromide act as irritants and may cause ocular and respiratory tract irritation. Recovery from cyanide poisoning, if it is not fatal, is typically rapid. Phosgene and chlorine comprise a class of chemical gases called pulmonary agents (also referred to as choking agents) since they cause severe lung irritation that leads to fluid accumulation in the lungs (pulmonary edema), which can choke the victim. Phosgene injury is caused by hydrochloric acid that is formed in the lungs and by diamide formation that cross-links cellular components. Chlorine (often referred to as CL) and phosgene (designated CG) were used during World War I. Phosgene accounted for 85% of all World War I deaths caused by chemical weapons. The risk of use of chlorine and phosgene remains high since they are used extensively in industry, making them readily available for use by terrorist groups. Riot control agents, most commonly referred to as tear gases, are nonlethal compounds used to temporarily disable individuals by irritating exposed mucous membranes and skin. Most tear gases are effective within seconds to minutes, but their duration of effect is brief once an individual has been removed from exposure. Common riot control agents include chloroacetophenone (CN), the active ingredient in Chemical Mace, and o-chlorobenzilidene malonitrile (CS). These chemicals are ideal for use as riot control agents since the dose required to be effective is significantly lower than the lethal dose. These agents are typically aerosolized or released as smoke, and they cause burning irritation in the eyes, lachrymation (tear production), chest tightness, cough, sneezing, and a burning sensation of the skin. Oleoresin capsicum (OC), commonly referred to as pepper spray, is also considered a riot control agent. Incapacitating agents are anticholinergic compounds that affect the central nervous system. These include the compound 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) and also lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Those exposed to incapacitating agents suffer from drowsiness, poor coordination, slowed thought processes, and delirium. Hallucination may also be experienced. These effects can last from a few hours to a number of days. The Bosnian Serbs were alleged to have used BZ against civilians. Biological toxins are sometimes referred to as chemical weapons since they are not living organisms. Many

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biological toxins mimic a number of chemical weapons. For example, the effects of capsaicin (from the oil of hot peppers) mimic those of artificially manufactured lachrymators. Other toxins include botulinum toxin, ricin, and mycotoxins. Botulinum toxin may cause paralysis and death and is about 15 000 times more potent than VX. Ricin is a plant toxin that is easily produced from castor beans and inhibits protein synthesis in the ribosome. Botulinum toxin and ricin have been used to perform assassinations. Tricothecene mycotoxins are produced by molds. Exposure to mycotoxins resembles exposure to vesicants. Soviet-supported forces have been alleged to use tricothecene mycotoxins in aerosolized droplets against Afghanistan, Laos, and Kampuchea. They may have also been used during the Iran-Iraq war. Although not commonly referred to as a chemical warfare agent (since it was not specifically used to cause direct harm to individuals), the herbicide Agent Orange was used extensively in Vietnam to remove foliage and expose enemy soldiers. Agent Orange is a mixture containing the phenoxyacetates 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T; some preparations contained tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD). TCDD is a dioxin that may be a carcinogen and a teratogen. Following the Vietnam War, veterans began to report a number of health problems, including skin rashes, cancer, psychological symptoms, birth defects, and handicaps in their children. Agent Orange may affect the nervous system causing psychiatric illnesses and problems with the nerves responsible for movement and sensation. Finally, there is a growing fear that terrorist organizations will move away from the more traditional chemical warfare agents and begin using so-called agents of opportunity. These include a number of common and not-so-common industrial chemicals, TICs and TIMs. Examples include chlorine, ammonia, formaldehyde, fluorine, and sulfur dioxide. These are chemicals that are commonly used in industrial processes, relatively available, easy to disperse, and significantly toxic. Release from a chemical plant could produce a large plume, threatening nearby communities. Also, a truck carrying these chemicals could easily be hijacked and its contents released in a highly populated area. It is this ease of availability that potentially makes TICs and TIMs more ideal than traditional chemical warfare agents for use as a terrorist’s weapon. See also: Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors; Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of; Terrorism

Further Reading Brown, M. A. and Brix, K. A. (1998). Review of health consequences from high-, intermediate- and low-level exposure to organophosphorous nerve agents. Journal of Applied Toxicology 18, 393–408.

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Gunderson, C. H., Lehmann, C. R., Sidell, F. R., and Jabbari, B. (1992). Nerve agents: a review. Neurology 42, 946–950. Marrs, T. C. (1996). Chemical warfare agents: toxicology and treatment. Wiley: Chichester. Maynard, R. L. (1999). Toxicology of chemical warfare agents. In Ballantyne, B., Marrs, T. C., and Syversen, T. (eds.) General and applied toxicology, 2nd edn., pp. 2079–2109. London: MacMillan. National Research Council (1999). Chemical and biological terrorism: research and development to improve civilian medical response. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.

Reutter, S. (1999). Hazards of chemical weapons release during war: new perspectives. Environmental Health Perspectives 107, 985–990. Suchard, J. R. (2002). Chemical and biological weapons. In Goldfrank, L. R., Flomenbaum, N. E., Lewin, N. A., Howland, M. A., Hoffman, R. S., and Nelson, L. S. (eds.) Goldfrank’s toxicologic emergencies, 7th edn., pp. 1527–1551. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Chemical and Biological Warfare Howard S Levie, Saint Louis University Law School, St. Louis, MO, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Chemical Weapons Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons

Glossary Bacteriology The science that deals with bacteria, the microscopic organisms whose influence in the biosphere is incalculable but some of which cause disease. Biological Warfare Warfare that makes use of bacteria, viruses, toxins, and so on, to disable or destroy man, animals, and food crops. Anthrax and nerve gases are examples of these weapons. Biology The science of life or living matter in all its forms and phenomena.

Chemical and biological warfare generally refers to the use of chemical and biological agents as weapons of war. Chemical weaponry in the form of poison gas (e.g., chlorine) was a significant feature of World War I, and though gas warfare was generally condemned afterward, it has been noted, or at least alleged, in various subsequent conflicts. In the current era, the term ‘chemical warfare’ has been extended to apply to, among other actions, the use of herbicides to destroy foliage on a large-scale basis. Biological warfare refers to the use of harmful organisms, chiefly pathogenic bacteria or viruses (e.g., the anthrax

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 213–222, ã [1999], Elsevier [Inc], with revisions made by the Editor.

Conclusion Further Reading

Chemical Warfare Warfare that makes use of disabling and deadly chemicals that disable or kill members of the enemy community, military and civilian, and that contaminate territory. Phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas are examples of these weapons. Precursor Any chemical reactant that takes part at any stage of the production (by whatever method) of a toxic chemical. Toxins Any of a group of poisonous, usually unstable, compounds generated by microorganisms or plants or of animal origin, the causative agents of a number of diseases, including tetanus, diphtheria, and so on.

bacillus). At the present time, the intentional deployment of toxic microorganisms as weapons of war remains a potential threat rather than an actual strategy. Nevertheless, the devastating effect of disease on wartime populations, as in the flu epidemic of 1918, is well documented, and the world community has taken steps to outlaw biological warfare.

Introduction The first specific reference to either chemical or bacteriological (biological) weapons contained in the conventional international law of war appeared in Declaration IV of the 1899 International Peace Conference, which

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met in The Hague from May to July of that year on the initiative of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. That Declaration stated: The Contracting Powers agree to abstain from the use of projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases. (Declaration IV, 1899)

France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy all ratified that Declaration. The United States neither signed nor ratified it. (Article 70 of the 1863 Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field (the so-called ‘Lieber Code’) had prohibited the use of poison in any manner. However, this applied only to the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–65) and had no international status although the Code itself served as a source for subsequent international conventions on the law of war.)

Chemical Weapons World War I Despite its adherence to Declaration IV of the 1899 International Peace Conference, the German Army used gas shells in Poland on 31 January 1915. However, because of the frigidity of the atmosphere the gas projectiles proved ineffective. The Germans next used chlorine gas against the French at Ypres on 22 April 1915. This time its effect went far beyond any expectations, with the result that the Germans were unable to capitalize on their success. (It is sometimes alleged that the German action at Ypres was not a violation of the Declaration because the gas was released from barrels, not projectiles, and was carried over the French lines by the wind.) During the remainder of World War I both sides used various types of gas (chlorine, phosgene, mustard, etc.) and there were more than 1 000 000 gas casualties, more than were caused by any other form of warfare. (Despite this, there are those who claim that it is the most humane method of warfare!) The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, contained a provision forbidding Germany all such weapons. The 1922 Treaty of Washington, while basically a treaty dealing with submarine warfare, contained a provision prohibiting the use of ‘‘asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and all analogous liquids, materials or devices.’’ As France failed to ratify this treaty, it never became effective. World War II In 1925 an international arms control conference meeting in The Hague drafted a Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. Its operative provisions stated:

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Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world; Declare: That the High Contracting Parties, so far as they are not already Parties to Treaties prohibiting such use, accept this prohibition, agree to extend the prohibition to the use of bacteriological methods of warfare and agree to be bound as between themselves according to the terms of this declaration. (The Hague Protocol, 1925)

A number of the more than 100 nations that ratified this Protocol did so with a reservation that it was only binding as regards to other parties to the Protocol and with the so-called ‘first-use’ reservation pursuant to which a party was released from its obligations under the Protocol in the event that its enemy failed to respect its obligations thereunder. Italy admittedly used poison gas against Ethiopia in the 1935–36 war between those two nations, justifying it as a reprisal against violations of the law of war by Ethiopia. Despite the provision of the Treaty of Versailles mentioned earlier, Nazi Germany had chemical weapons in its arsenal during World War II. However, on the advice of his military leaders, Hitler wisely refrained from using them because of the knowledge that the Allies also possessed large supplies of chemical weapons and could devastate Germany with them should they find it necessary to retaliate. As a result, gas was not used during World War II. While the United States signed this Protocol at the time of its drafting in 1925, it did not ratify it until almost 50 years later in April 1975. Its ratification included the ‘first-use’ reservation. However, contrary to the position taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross that herbicides and riot control weapons are both chemical weapons and that fire weapons such as napalm burn oxygen and are, therefore, ‘asphyxiating’, an executive order issued by the President prior to the effective date of the 1975 ratification, contains the following provisions: The United States renounces, as a matter of national policy, first use of herbicides in war, except under regulations applicable to their domestic use, for control of vegetation within U.S. bases and installations or around their immediate defensive perimeters, and first use of riot control agents in war except in defensive military modes to save lives such as: (a) Use of riot control agents in riot control situations in areas under direct and distinct U.S. military control, to include rioting prisoners of war. (b) Use of riot control agents in situations in which civilians are used to mask or screen attacks and civilian casualties can be reduced or avoided.

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(c) Use of riot control agents in rescue missions in remotely isolated areas, of downed air crews and passengers, and escaping prisoners. (d) Use of riot control agents in rear echelon areas outside the zone of immediate combat to protect convoys from civil disturbances, terrorists and paramilitary organizations.

because of their direct toxic effects on man, animals or plants; (b) Any biological agents of warfare—living organisms, whatever their nature, or infective material derived from them— which are intended to cause disease or death in man, animals or plants, and which depend for their effects on their ability to multiply in the person, animal or plant attacked.

The reasons for these reservations are obvious. Herbicides had been widely used in Vietnam, not as an antipersonnel weapon, but to clear away foliage around US military installations so as to prevent sneak attacks (their usage is claimed to have adversely affected the growth of millions of tons of rice). Riot control agents (basically, gas grenades) had been used to overcome rioting prisoners of war in Korea and clear openings for helicopters to rescue downed airmen in Vietnam. They consist of a temporary disabling tear gas that causes no permanent harm, only temporary disability, and are used by police all over the world. No specific mention of napalm, a chemical fire weapon, was made at the time, and the United States continues to consider it a legal weapon. While Protocol III to the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions and Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects does not specifically mention napalm, it does place restrictions on the use of incendiary weapons. The United States has not ratified this Protocol.

(Resolution 2603A (XXIV), 1969) (This Resolution was adopted by a vote of 80 to 3, with 36 abstentions. The United States cast one of the 3 negative votes. Most of its allies abstained.)

Post-World War II While, as noted earlier, gas was not used in World War II, it was used by belligerents on several occasions thereafter. For example, Egypt has been charged with using gas against Yemen; the Soviet Union is alleged to have used gas in Southeast Asia; Iraq is reputed to have used gas against the Kurds; and so on. It was well known that a number of countries had been experimenting with nerve gases, gases that are far more deadly than any previously known gas. The international community continued its efforts to effectively outlaw the use of all chemical weapons. As early as 16 December 1969 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 2603A (XXIV) in which it Declares as contrary to the generally recognized rules of international law, as embodied in the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925, the use in international armed conflicts of: (a) Any chemical agents of warfare—chemical substances, whether gaseous, liquid or solid— which might be employed

As we shall see, in 1972 a convention with respect to bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons was drafted and widely accepted by States. Article IX of that Convention provided: Each State Party to this Convention affirms the recognized objective of effective prohibition of chemical weapons and, to this end, undertakes to continue negotiations in good faith with a view to reaching early agreement on effective measures for the prohibition of their development, production and stockpiling and for their destruction, and on appropriate measures concerning equipment and means of delivery specifically designed for the production or use of chemical agents for weapons purposes. (Article IX, 1972)

It required 21 years for this undertaking to reach fruition! In January 1989 a Conference of States Parties to the 1925 Geneva Protocol and Other Interested States on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons adopted a Declaration that stated in part: The participating States are determined to promote international peace and security throughout the world in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and to pursue effective disarmament measures. In this context, they are determined to prevent any recourse to chemical weapons by completely eliminating them. They solemnly affirm their commitments not to use chemical weapons and condemn such use. They recall their serious concern at recent violations as established and condemned by the competent organs of the United Nations. They support the humanitarian assistance given to the victims affected by chemical weapons. (Declaration, 1989)

Finally, the international efforts with respect to outlawing chemical weapons culminated in the drafting and adoption on 13 January 1993 of a Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction. It is a very lengthy Convention (24 articles covering 36 pages and Annexes that exceed 100 pages). A few of the most relevant provisions follow:

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Article I: General obligations

1. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never under any circumstances: (a) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone; (b) To use chemical weapons; (c) To engage in any military preparations to use chemical weapons; (d) To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention. 2. Each State Party undertakes to destroy chemical weapons it owns or possesses, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control, in accordance with the provisions of this Convention. 3. Each State Party undertakes to destroy all chemical weapons it abandoned on the territory of another State Party, in accordance with the provisions of this Convention. 4. Each State Party undertakes to destroy any chemical weapons production facilities it owns or possesses, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control, in accordance with the provisions of this Convention. 5. Each State Party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare. Article III: Declarations

1. Each State Party shall submit to the Organization, not later than 30 days after the Convention enters into force for it, the following declarations, in which it shall: (a) With respect to chemical weapons: (i) Declare whether it owns or possesses any chemical weapons, or whether there are any chemical weapons located in any place under its jurisdiction or control; (v) Provide its general plan for destruction of any chemical weapons production facility it owns or possesses, or that is located in any place under its jurisdiction or control, in accordance with Part V, paragraph 6, of the Verification Annex; (e) With respect to riot control agents: Specify the chemical name, structural formula and Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) registry number, if assigned, of each chemical it holds for riot control purposes. This declaration shall be updated not later than 30 days after any change becomes effective. Article IV: Chemical weapons

1. The provisions of this Article and the detailed procedures for its implementation shall apply to all chemical

2.

3.

4.

5.

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weapons owned or possessed by a State Party, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control, except old chemical weapons and abandoned chemical weapons to which Part IV (B) of the Verification Annex applies. All locations at which chemical weapons specified in paragraph 1 are stored or destroyed shall be subject to systematic verification through on-site inspection and monitoring with on-site instruments, in accordance with Part IV (A) of the Verification Annex. Each State Party shall, immediately after the declaration under Article III, paragraph l (a), has been submitted, provide access to chemical weapons specified in paragraph 1 for the purpose of systematic verification of the declaration through on-site inspection. Thereafter, each State Party shall not remove any of these chemical weapons, except to a chemical weapons destruction facility. It shall provide access to such chemical weapons, for the purpose of systematic onsite verification. Each State Party shall provide access to any chemical weapons destruction facilities and their storage areas that it owns or possesses, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control, for the purpose of systematic verification through on-site inspection and monitoring with on-site instruments. Each State Party shall destroy all chemical weapons specified in paragraph 1 pursuant to the Verification Annex and in accordance with the agreed rate and sequence of destruction (herein- after referred to as ‘order of destruction’). Such destruction shall begin not later than two years after this Convention enters into force for it and shall finish not later than 10 years after entry into force of this Convention. A State Party is not precluded from destroying such chemical weapons at a faster rate.

Article VI: Activities not prohibited under this convention

1. Each State Party has the right, subject to the provisions of this Convention, to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, retain, transfer and use toxic chemicals for purposes not prohibited under this Convention. 2. Each State Party shall adopt the necessary measures to ensure that toxic chemicals and their precursors are only developed, produced, otherwise acquired, retained, transferred, or used within its territory or any other place under its jurisdiction or control for purposes not prohibited under this Convention. 11. The provisions of this Article shall be implemented in a manner which avoids hampering the economic or technological development of States Parties, and international cooperation in the field of chemical

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activities for purposes not prohibited under this Convention including the international exchange of scientific and technical information and chemicals and equipment for the production, processing or use of chemicals for purposes not prohibited under this Convention.

Article IX: Consultations, cooperation, and fact-finding Procedure for challenge inspections

8. Each State Party has the right to request an on-site challenge inspection of any facility or location in the territory or in any other place under the jurisdiction or control of any other State Party for the sole purpose of clarifying and resolving any question concerning possible non-compliance with the provisions of this Convention, and to have this inspection conducted anywhere without delay by an inspection team designated by the Director-General and in accordance with the Verification Annex. 10. For the purpose of verifying compliance with the provisions of this Convention, each State Party shall permit the Technical Secretariat to conduct the onsite challenge inspection pursuant to paragraph 8.

Article XII: Measures to redress a situation and to ensure compliance, including sanctions

1. The Conference shall take the necessary measures, as set forth in paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 to ensure compliance with this Convention and to redress and remedy any situation which contravenes the provisions of this Convention. In considering action pursuant to this paragraph, the Conference shall take into account all information and recommendations on the issues submitted by the Executive Council. 2. In cases where a State Party has been requested by the Executive Council to take measures to redress a situation raising problems with regard to its compliance, and where the State Party fails to fulfil the request within the specified time, the Conference may, inter alia, upon the recommendation of the Executive Council, restrict or suspend the State Party’s rights and privileges under this Convention until it undertakes the necessary action to conform with its obligations under this Convention. 3. In cases where serious damage to the object and purpose of this Convention may result from activities prohibited under this Convention, in particular by Article I, the Conference may recommend collective measures to States Parties in conformity with international law.

4. The Conference shall, in cases of particular gravity, bring the issue, including relevant information and conclusions, to the attention of the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council. The Annexes include one on chemicals, one on verification, and one on confidentiality. When President Clinton of the United States and President Yeltsin of Russia met in Helsinki in March 1997, before either country had ratified the Chemical Convention, they issued a joint statement that included the following commitment: The Presidents reaffirmed their intention to take the steps necessary to expedite ratification in each of the two countries. President Clinton expressed his determination that the United States be a party when the Convention enters into force in April of this year, and is strongly urging prompt Senate action. President Yeltsin noted that the Convention had been submitted to the Duma with his strong recommendation for prompt ratification. (Joint Statement, 1997)

By December 1997, 106 nations, including the People’s Republic of China, India, Iran, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, the Russian Federation, and Vietnam, had ratified the 1993 Convention. Notable for their absence from the list of signers and/or ratifiers were Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria. Although the United States did not wait 50 years before ratifying the 1993 Convention, as it had done in the case of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, in finally giving its advice and consent to the ratification of the Convention by the president in April 1997, the Senate attached 28 ‘Conditions’, conditions that in some instances largely rewrite the Convention. (It should be pointed out that, contrary to most newspaper and other reports, the Senate does not ratify treaties. The Executive Branch drafts a treaty with other nations, either bilateral or multilateral, and the president then submits it to the Senate for the latter’s advice and consent, by a two-thirds vote of those present and voting, to ratification by the president, an authority that he may decide not to exercise, but that he, of course, usually does, barring some major development in the intervening period. This is mentioned in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States.) Originally, there were 33 Conditions contained in the Senate’s advice and consent to ratification, the last five being so-called ‘killer conditions’ as they would have made it impossible for the United States to become a party to the Convention. Many of the remaining 28 Conditions are completely internal, concerned as they are with the constitutional relationship between the President and the Congress. (See S. RES. 75, 105th Cong., 1st Sess., 24 April 1997.) On 25 April 1997 the President certified to the Congress his compliance with the Conditions and

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immediately submitted the ratification of the United States to the depositary, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, before the 29 April 1997 date of the entry into force of the Convention, thus making the United States eligible to participate as a voting member in the Conference of States Parties to the Convention which met in The Hague on 6 May 1997. (The Russian Federation did not ratify the Convention until October 1997 when the Duma approved it unanimously.) The nature of a few of the more controversial Conditions adopted by the United States Senate were as follows: Condition 1: The Senate reserved its Constitutional right to include reservations in its advice and consent to ratification, despite the fact that Article XXII specifically prohibited reservations to the Convention. (This right was also to apply to amendments to the Convention.) (Convention, 1997)

What the Senate is saying here is that it has a Constitutional right to take an action forbidden by an international agreement to which the United States desires to become a party. (Although Article 1(5) of the Convention prohibits the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare, Condition 26 requires the president to certify to the Senate that the Convention does not prohibit the United States from using riot control agents in a number of specified circumstances. This is, in effect, a reservation. However, Article III (l) e), mentioned earlier, appears to indicate that despite the provision banning riot control weapons, it is contemplated that states parties will continue to possess them. In his letter to the Congress, dated 25 April 1997, prior to the filing of the ratification, the president stated that all states parties to the Convention had been advised of the retention by the United States of a right to make reservations, notwithstanding the provisions of Article XXII of the Convention. Condition 2: The Executive Branch is prohibited from making any payment to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) without the authorization and specific appropriation by Congress.

Here the Senate is, in effect, admonishing the Executive Branch that all expenditures must be authorized by the Congress, a matter that obviously is an internal constitutional matter and not one with which the state’s parties to the Convention can be concerned. The president did not even deign to refer to this Condition in his letter to the Congress! Condition 9: The President is required to certify before ratification and annually thereafter that the ‘‘legitimate commercial activities’’ of the affected industries in the United States are not being ‘‘significantly

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harmed’’ by the limitations contained in the Convention. (Convention, 1997)

The president so certified in his letter to the Congress. This is undoubtedly the intent of Article VI, quoted earlier. Condition 15: The President is required to certify to the Congress that the United States will not contribute to a fund, nor provide assistance, for States Parties which are ineligible for United States assistance under certain laws of the United States. (Convention, 1997)

The president certified in his letter to the Congress that no assistance, other than medical antidotes and treatment, would be provided for state’s parties that are ineligible for assistance under certain specified laws of the United States. Condition 26: Requires the President to certify to the Congress that the United States is not restricted in the use of riot control agents for specifically mentioned purposes. (Convention, 1997)

The president so certified in his letter to the Congress. This Condition is, of course, directly contrary to Article I, paragraph 5, of the Convention, supra, which flatly prohibits the use of riot control weapons as a method of warfare. This Condition actually amounts to a reservation as it enables the United States to do something that the Convention appears specifically to prohibit. Nevertheless, the president certified compliance with this Condition in his letter to the Congress inasmuch as the Condition relates only to instances where the United States is not a party to the conflict, but is acting in a peacekeeping capacity. Condition 28: Requires the President to certify that an appropriate search warrant will be obtained before any search of any facility in the United States unless the owner or operator consents. (Convention, 1997)

In his letter to the Congress delivered before the filing of the ratification, the president certified that appropriate search warrants would be required. As of 29 April 1997, when the Convention became effective, 165 States had signed it and 87 of those States had ratified it. It is interesting to note that Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, and Syria had neither signed nor ratified this Convention. (This was the basis for one of the so-called ‘killer’ conditions.) Iran, Russia, and Yemen had signed it but had not as yet ratified it. (Russia has since done so.) While North Korea is not a member of the United Nations and is not recognized by most other nations, this would not prevent it from becoming a party to the Convention, as has the Republic of Korea. However, it has not done so.

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Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons

Article I

Historical

Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain:

While the 1925 Geneva Protocol included a ban on bacteriological weapons, it was generally regarded as solely a limitation on the use of gas in warfare and the fact that it likewise contained a ban on bacteriological weapons is rarely mentioned. Similarly, this is true of many of the other actions taken with regard to gas warfare, which contained references to bacteriological weapons as well. This was probably because little experimentation had been made in the bacteriological field and no national army actually had usable bacteriological weapons at its disposal. World War II During World War II both sides experimented with bacteriological (biological) weapons, but fortunately these were never used in the European war. The Japanese Army had two units in China that conducted experiments with bacteriological weapons, allegedly using Chinese prisoners of war as guinea pigs, and in 1949 the Soviet Union conducted a war crimes trial in Khabarovsk of 12 Japanese, all of whom confessed and were found guilty of preparing bacteriological weapons (germs of plague, cholera, gas gangrene, anthrax, typhoid, paratyphoid, and other diseases) for use by the Japanese Army in China. In 1982 the Japanese government officially acknowledged that during the war a detachment of the Japanese Army in China had engaged in experiments with bacteriological weapons. It did not admit that prisoners of war had been used in the experiments. Post-World War II After the war a number of nations were known to be experimenting with bacteriological weapons, particularly anthrax. There was apparently less reluctance on the part of nations to ban bacteriological weapons than there was to ban chemical weapons, perhaps because far fewer nations had conducted experimentation in this field and far fewer were technically competent to do so. Accordingly, with considerably less controversy than in the case of gas warfare, on 10 April 1972 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution recommending that states ratify a convention drafted by the Committee on Disarmament titled Convention on the Prohibition of Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. The most important provisions of this Convention state:

1. Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes. 2. Weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict. Article II

Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to destroy, or to divert to peaceful purposes, as soon as possible but not later than nine months after the entry into force of the Convention, all agents, toxins, weapons, equipment and means of delivery. Article IV

Each State Party to this Convention shall, in accordance with its constitutional processes, take any necessary measures to prohibit and prevent the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or retention of the agents, toxins, weapons, equipment and means of delivery specified in Article I of the Convention, within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction or under its control anywhere. Article VI

1. Any State Party to this Convention which finds that any other State Party is acting in breach of obligations deriving from the provisions of the Convention may lodge a complaint with the Security Council of the United Nations. Such a complaint should include all possible evidence confirming its validity, as well as a request for its consideration by the Security Council. 2. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to cooperate in carrying out any investigation which the Security Council may initiate, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, on the basis of the complaint received by the Council. The Security Council shall inform the States Parties to the Convention of the results of the investigation. Article VII

Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to provide or support assistance, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, to any Party to the Convention which so requests, if the Security Council decides that such Party has been exposed to danger as a result of violation of the Convention.

Chemical and Biological Warfare

Article X

1. The States Parties to this Convention undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the use of bacteriological (biological) agents and toxins for peaceful purposes. Parties to the Convention in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing individually or together with other States or international organizations to the further development and application of scientific discoveries in the field of bacteriology (biology) for the prevention of disease, or for other peaceful purposes. 2. This Convention shall be implemented in a manner designed to avoid hampering the economic or technological development of States Parties to the Convention or international cooperation in the field of peaceful bacteriological (biological) activities, including the international exchange of bacteriological (biological) agents and toxins and equipment for the processing, use or production of bacteriological (biological) agents and toxins for peaceful purposes in accordance with the provisions of the Convention. As of October 1997, 142 states parties had ratified this Convention and 16 had signed but had not yet not ratified it. Among the ratifiers are the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, the Russian Federation, and Vietnam. Strange to relate, but also among the ratifiers are Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Several of the other nations that are not considered completely trustworthy have signed the Convention but have not as yet ratified it. The cease-fire that ended the Gulf War authorized representatives of the United Nations to make inspections in Iraq to ensure that it had no bacteriological (biological) weapons or means to produce them. Iraq has used every available subterfuge to circumvent these inspections, which would appear to indicate an intention to disregard the obligations specified in the Convention and that is likely to result in military action to enforce the relevant provisions of the cease-fire agreement.

Conclusion From the preceding facts, it is clear that the world community as a whole desires to eliminate from the use in war of

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chemical, bacteriological (biological), and toxin weapons and has taken action to accomplish this purpose. It remains to be seen whether, in the event that some outlaw nation, counting on the inability of its enemy to retaliate in kind, makes no commitment or violates its commitment with respect to these weapons, the other parties to the Conventions will unite in taking action against the renegade nation. See also: Weaponry, Evolution of

Further Reading Aronowitz, D. S. (1965). Legal aspects of arms control verification in the United States. New York: Oceana. Fitch, J. P., Raber, E., and Imbro, D. R. (2003). Technology challenges in responding to biological or chemical attacks in the civilian sector. Science 302(5649), 1350–1354. Fricker, R. (2002). Measuring and evaluating local preparedness for a chemical or biological terrorist attack. Santa Monica, CA: Rand. Fyodorov, Y. (1987). The silent death. New Delhi: Progress Publishers. Greenfield, R. A., Brown, B. R., Hutchins, J. B., et al. (2002). Microbiological, biological, and chemical weapons of warfare and terrorism. American Journal of the Medical Sciences 323(6), 326–340. Harbour, F. V. (ed.) (1990). Chemical arms control. New York: Carnegie Council on Ethics. Kelsall, H., Macdonell, R., Sim, M., et al. (2005). Neurological status of Australian veterans of the 1991 Gulf War and the effect of medical and chemical exposures. International Journal of Epidemiology 34(4), 810–819. Levie, H. S. (1991). Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In Robertson, H. B. (ed.) International law studies, Vol. 64: The law of naval operations, p. 331. Newport: US. Naval War College (1975). Weapons of warfare. In Trooboff, P. D. (ed.) Law and responsibility in warfare, p. 153. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Mauroni, A. (2003). Chemical and biological warfare: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Noah, D. L., Huebner, K. D., Darling, R. G., and Waeckerle, J. F. (2002). The history and threat of biological warfare and terrorism. Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America 20(2), 255–271. Ritchie, E. C., Friedman, M., Watson, P., et al. (2004). Mass violence and early mental health intervention: A proposed application of best practice guidelines to chemical, biological, and radiological attacks. Military Medicine 169(8), 575–579. Roberts, B. (ed.) (1992). The chemical weapons convention: Implementation issues. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies. Robinson, J. P. (2004). Public health response to biological and chemical weapons: WHO guidance, 2nd edn. Geneva: World Health Organization. United Nations (1969). Report of the Secretary General. Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Warfare and the Effect of Their Possible Use. (A/7575/Rev. 1, 1969).

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Nuclear Warfare Dean A Wilkening, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

What Are Nuclear Weapons? How Have Nuclear Weapons Affected Military Strategy? The Two US Strategic Problems of the Cold War

Glossary Central Deterrence The strategy wherein a nuclear-armed state dissuades an opponent from attacking its homeland by threatening nuclear retaliation. Chain Reaction A process wherein the neutrons released from a single fission reaction cause fission in several nearby nuclei, the neutrons from which subsequently cause fission in other nearby nuclei and so on. Counterforce An attack aimed at destroying an opponent’s nuclear forces in a pre-emptive attack. Countervalue An attack aimed at destroying that which an opponent values most, usually thought to be the opponent’s cities. Deterrence A strategy aimed at dissuading another party from taking some proscribed action by threatening to inflict consequences that outweigh the gains expected by taking the action, relative to maintaining the status quo.

Technology has always had a profound influence on the character of war. In the past century alone the industrial revolution, culminating in the development of modern aircraft, tanks, artillery, and naval vessels increased the lethality of war manifold. However, the advent of nuclear weapons in 1945 represented a quantum jump in the lethality of war. Looking ahead, one wonders how emerging information technologies and biotechnologies might revolutionize warfare in the future. The history of the Cold War reflects the confluence of two factors: the development of nuclear weapons and the rise of the former Soviet Union and the United States as the two dominant military powers after World War II. It may seem paradoxical that the development of the most destructive form of warfare, nuclear warfare, led to a period of relative peace, the Cold War. In fact, nuclear weapons have been used only twice in war – the US bombings of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. This is not to say that wars on the

The Role of Arms Control Where Are We Today? Further Reading

Extended Deterrence The strategy wherein a nuclear-armed state dissuades an opponent from attacking its allies by threatening nuclear retaliation. Fission A nuclear reaction in which the nucleus splits apart after absorbing a neutron, releasing substantial amounts of energy and several additional neutrons in the process. Fusion A nuclear reaction in which two light nuclei stick together to form a heavier nucleus, thereby releasing substantial amounts of energy and an extra neutron. Secure Second Strike The ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons after absorbing a counterforce first strike, which requires that nuclear command and control systems survive to direct the retaliation, and that sufficient nuclear forces survive the attack and penetrate the opponent’s defenses to inflict unacceptable damage on the state that initiated the attack.

periphery of US and Soviet interests did not occur, but simply that war between the major powers was absent. This article discusses the development of nuclear weapons, their effects, and the impact they have had on the character of war and military strategy. The ascendance of deterrence as the central strategic concept for nuclear warfare helps explain the apparent paradox mentioned.

What Are Nuclear Weapons? Fission Bombs The 1930s witnessed rapid developments in our understanding of the atomic nucleus – the small positively charged core that contains most of the mass of all atoms and around which a cloud of electrons swirl. The nuclear force, which holds the nucleus together, is approximately one million times stronger than the electromagnetic force that binds the electrons to the nucleus. For our story, one

Nuclear Warfare

discovery was particularly important. In 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, two Germans, discovered that the uranium nucleus splits apart, that is, undergoes fission when bombarded with neutrons, liberating considerable amounts of energy. Within a year, several research teams discovered that extra neutrons were also emitted, a fact of considerable significance, as Leo Szilard recognized years before, because it meant that large amounts of energy could be released by a chain reaction. The reaction that Hahn and Strassman discovered is n þ U235 ! fission fragments þ 2  3n þ energy

where n represents a neutron, the fission fragments are nuclei (usually highly radioactive) with a mass roughly half that of U235 and the energy is released as kinetic energy of the fission fragments and neutrons. However, this reaction occurs only with one isotope of uranium, U235, at least for relatively low-energy bombarding neutrons. Natural uranium consists of 99.3% U238 and only 0.7% U235. Somewhat later a similar reaction was discovered in an isotope of plutonium, Pu239. Several isotopes of other nuclei also undergo fission but, for technical reasons, none are as well-suited for making nuclear weapons as these isotopes of uranium and plutonium. The key to extracting large amounts of energy from a macroscopic amount of fissile material, for example, in nuclear bombs or nuclear power reactors, is to create a chain reaction, as depicted in Figure 1. In a chain reaction the neutrons released from an initial fission reaction are absorbed by neighboring U235 nuclei, which subsequently undergo fission. This process keeps multiplying until nearly all the U235 (or Pu239) is consumed. Of course, some neutrons will escape without hitting other U235 nuclei. If too many neutrons escape, the chain reaction will not proceed very far. Therefore the shape and amount of U235 present influences the amount of energy released. The amount of material needed for a self-sustaining chain reaction is called the critical mass, which is the approximate amount required for a simple fission bomb.

n n

U235

n

U235

n

U235 n n

n n n

U235 n

n

U235

U235 n

n n

U235 n

Figure 1 Fission chain reaction.

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The critical mass for U235 is approximately 30 lbs. and for Pu239 is approximately 10 lbs. The acquisition of fissile material (i.e., U235 or Pu239) is the principal technical challenge in developing nuclear fission bombs. Since U235 is only 0.7% of natural uranium, it must be separated from the more common isotope, U238. This is challenging because these isotopes have nearly identical chemical properties. Gaseous diffusion (originally used by the United States in the Manhattan Project), gaseous centrifuge techniques (the most common current method for producing highly-enriched uranium), electromagnetic separation (the method used by Iraq in the late 1980s), and laser isotope separation are among the techniques used. For efficient bomb designs, highly-enriched uranium, that is, uranium enriched to approximately 90% U235 or more, is required, although one can fashion a crude fission bomb with uranium enriched to only 20% U235. Plutonium does not exist in the earth’s crust because all of its isotopes decay in a relatively short period of time (Pu239 has a half-life of approximately 20 000 years). However, Pu239 can be manufactured in a nuclear power reactor by bombarding U238 with neutrons and then chemically separating the Pu239 from the radioactive waste in a reprocessing facility. The crux of the nuclear proliferation problem, as with all proliferation problems involving dual-use technologies (i.e., ones with civilian and military applications), is to devise arms control regimes that allow states to develop nuclear power while at the same time restrict the development of nuclear weapons. This is the central challenge of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Nuclear Suppliers Group that coordinates export controls on sensitive nuclear materials and facilities, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Once sufficient fissile material is obtained, two designs can be used to make a bomb. The first is the ‘gun-type’ design where a subcritical mass of U235 is shot into another subcritical mass, thereby creating a supercritical mass for a brief time. A neutron source injects a few neutrons to start the chain reaction at the proper moment. For technical reasons, this relatively simple assembly technique works only with U235. A bomb of this design was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, exploding with a force of approximately 12 500 tons (12.5 kilotons (kT)) of TNT, killing approximately 70 000 people and wounding another 80 000. Because of its simplicity, this bomb design was not tested before it was used, which makes it of interest to states that wish to develop fission bombs covertly because nuclear tests are not essential. South Africa took this approach to build an arsenal of six gun-type U235 bombs in the 1980s. The second fission bomb design creates a critical mass by crushing a sphere of fissile material, thereby creating very high densities. This implosion design is more

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Nuclear Warfare

challenging technically, but is more efficient with respect to the use of fissile material. Moreover, it works with both U235 and Pu239. A bomb of this design was tested at Alamogordo, NM on 16 July 1945 and a second bomb of this design was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 which exploded with a force of nearly 20 kT of TNT. It missed the center of the city and killed approximately 40 000 people and wounded another 20 000. The major technical hurdle to developing implosion bombs, besides acquiring the fissile material, is to perfect the implosion mechanism, that is, to develop explosive lenses that can crush a sphere of fissile material in a perfectly symmetric manner to create a supercritical mass. Small deviations from spherical symmetry cause the bomb to fail. Hence, implosion designs are usually tested. The former Soviet Union was the second country to test an implosion device in August 1949. Great Britain followed suit in 1952, France in 1960, and China in 1964. India tested a ‘peaceful nuclear device’ probably of this design, in 1974, and again in May 1998. Pakistan followed suit later that same month, although it is not clear whether their tests involved implosion or gun-type uranium devices. Israel is also thought to have developed implosion bombs; however, the evidence for an Israeli test is equivocal. On 9 October 2006, North Korea became the latest country to test a nuclear weapon based on a plutonium design, although the test was a partial failure because the yield was less than 1 kT. In general, first-generation fission bombs of the sort described above weigh between 1000 lbs. and 10 000 lbs., and detonate with an explosive force between 5 kT and 20 kT, unless the device fizzles. Fusion Bombs Nuclear energy also can be released when two light nuclei fuse together. Nuclear fusion describes the process by which two light nuclei, usually isotopes of hydrogen, fuse together to produce heavier elements. The standard reaction is, D þ T ! He4 þ n þ energy

where D stands for deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen with one proton and one neutron in the nucleus), T stands for tritium (an isotope of hydrogen with one proton and two neutrons in the nucleus), He stands for a nucleus of helium, and n is a neutron. More energy is released in this reaction than in a fission reaction. In fact, fusion reactions are the source of energy within stars. The critical challenge with fusion weapon designs is heating the deuterium and tritium to temperatures high enough so the kinetic energy overcomes the electrostatic repulsion between these two positively charged nuclei. This is done by detonating a fission bomb next to the fusion fuel (usually Li6D, which creates D and T when bombarded with neutrons). Acquiring Li6D is

less difficult than U235 or Pu239. Fusion bombs usually require testing because of the difficulty coupling the energy from the fission trigger to heat the fusion fuel sufficiently before the bombs blow apart. Finally, the neutron emitted from the fusion reaction is of sufficient energy to fission U238. Therefore, if the fusion bomb is surrounded by a U238 jacket (or tamper), a fission–fusion–fission reaction occurs. Although a relatively small fraction of a fusion bomb’s yield comes from the fission trigger (e.g., several kTs), fission within the U238 tamper can contribute a significant amount to the total weapon yield (e.g., several hundred kTs for a megaton-size fusion bomb). Very large fusion bombs (also called hydrogen bombs or thermonuclear bombs) can be made by increasing the amount of fusion fuel. Typically, fusion bombs are 100 to 1000 times more powerful than fission bombs. The first US fusion bomb test occurred in November 1952. The Soviet Union was quick to follow in August 1953. The largest fusion bomb ever tested was one of Soviet design which detonated with an explosive force equivalent to 60 megatons (MT) of TNT, or 3000 times the yield of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Most nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the five declared nuclear powers (i.e., the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain, and China) are fusion bombs with yields ranging between a few kTs to 1000 kT or more. The smaller yields are usually associated with tactical nuclear weapons – intended for threatening an opponent’s military forces on the battlefield – and the larger yields are associated with strategic nuclear weapons – intended for threats against an opponent’s homeland using long-range delivery vehicles. Modern nuclear weapon designs are much smaller and lighter than the original US and Soviet fission bombs, ranging in size from that of a suitcase to a refrigerator and in weight from around 100 to 2000 lbs. The fact that they are small and light imply that they can be delivered in a variety of ways (e.g., ballistic missiles, aircraft, cruise missiles, artillery shells, torpedoes, etc.). Finally, nuclear weapons are relatively cheap. The initial investment cost to produce fission weapons is around $2 to $10 billion for indigenous programs; however, the marginal cost thereafter can be as low as $1–2 million per nuclear bomb for large programs of the sort that existed in the United States and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons Despite the fact that several nuclear weapon designs exist, the effects of nuclear explosions are essentially the same for all types. In particular, the intensity of nuclear weapon effects depends almost entirely on the bomb’s yield. However, the effects vary depending on the environment in which the explosion occurs (outer space, the atmosphere, underwater, or underground). Most discussions of nuclear

Nuclear Warfare

weapon effects refer to weapons that detonate within the atmosphere because, if nuclear war ever did occur, this would be the most common type of explosion. When a nuclear weapon explodes, the kinetic energy from the fission fragments, neutrons, and helium (for fusion reactions) heat the weapon debris to approximately 20 million degrees centigrade (the temperature of the sun) within a few microseconds. This hot core radiates energy like the coals in one’s fireplace. However, because the temperature is so high the radiation is in the x-ray band of the electromagnetic spectrum. As the hot core expands, it begins to cool. The result is a huge sphere of very hot air or fireball (approximately 1 mile in diameter for a 1-MT explosion) that begins to rise, eventually creating the mushroom cloud so often associated with nuclear explosions. Ultimately, the energy from a nuclear explosion appears as five weapon effects: blast, thermal radiation, prompt nuclear radiation, fallout, and an electromagnetic pulse. There are two aspects to blast – the shock wave and winds. The shock wave (so-called peak overpressure) is a wall of compressed air traveling outward from the explosion at speeds above the speed of sound, dissipating as it goes. It crushes objects in its path. The wind (so-called dynamic overpressure) follows behind the shock wave, blowing over objects in its path. Houses can withstand peak overpressures of approximately 5 pounds per square inch (psi) whereas hardened military structures can withstand peak overpressures above 1000 psi. Blast waves are lethal to humans primarily because the wind picks up objects that become lethal projectiles. The lethal range for winds against humans is roughly equivalent to the range of the 5 psi shock wave. Table 1 shows the distance out to which various blast effects extend for 20-kT and 1-MT explosions. For atmospheric bursts, blast carries away approximately 50% of the energy of a nuclear explosion. Moreover, blast is the principal cause of damage, accounting for between 55% and 75% of the casualties at Hiroshima. As the fireball cools, the radiated energy shifts in wavelength until most of it occurs in the visible and

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infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. This heat flash occurs within a fraction of a second after the explosion and, depending on its intensity, can melt objects, start fires, burn flesh, or cause blindness. The intensity of this radiation drops off faster than the square of the distance from the explosion and is affected by the weather and the presence of clouds, smoke, or haze. Thermal radiation comprises about 35% of the energy released in an atmospheric nuclear explosion. Approximately 20–30% of the casualties at Hiroshima have been attributed to thermal radiation. Firestorms are a related effect. They occur when several fires coalesce in an urban area, regardless of whether the fires start from the thermal pulse or the blast (e.g., causing electrical fires). Winds up to 100 mph rushing inward are created as the hot air at the center of the firestorm rises above the city. Firestorms tend to destroy everything within their periphery. However, they also tend to be self-limiting because the in-rushing winds limit their outward expansion. Moreover, firestorms are not unique to nuclear explosions. During World War II, firestorms from incendiary bombs occurred in Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo. A firestorm was produced by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, but not on Nagasaki. Prompt nuclear radiation is the third nuclear weapon effect. It consists of an intense burst of gamma rays and neutrons coming from the nuclear explosion. This effect is unique to nuclear weapons. If sufficiently intense, prompt nuclear radiation can kill or incapacitate humans or other living organisms, and destroy or upset electronic circuitry. The lethal dose for humans is approximately 500 rads. Prompt nuclear radiation accounts for about 5% of the energy released in a nuclear explosion and its intensity falls off quickly with distance. Hence, it is not a principal cause of damage, especially for high-yield nuclear weapons (>20 kT) although it can be significant for lower-yield weapons (<20 kT). The ‘neutron bomb’ is a low-yield weapon with enhanced neutron output, thereby making prompt nuclear radiation the principal

Table 1 Approximate magnitude of prompt nuclear weapon effects

Distance (mi) 1/4 1

Peak overpressure (psi)

Dynamic overpressure (mph)

Thermal radiation

20 kT

20 kT

20 kT

50 5

1 MT

1 MT

1500 50

900 160

>2000 900

4

0.9

5

50

160

8

0.5

2

30

70

Melts metal Ignites wood, 3rd degree burns 1st–2nd degree blindness

Prompt nuclear (rads) 1 MT

20 kT 5

Melts metal Ignites wood, 3rd degree burns 1st–2nd degree blindness

1 MT

>10 350

>106 34 000

<1

<1

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lethal effect against humans while reducing the blast and thermal effects. They originally were developed by the United States as tactical nuclear weapons for deployment to Europe, but they were never deployed. Fallout is radioactive material, mostly fission fragments, that attaches to small pieces of dust or dirt entrained in the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. Approximately 10% of the energy from a nuclear explosion is contained in these fission fragments. Fallout is a serious problem only when the explosion occurs so close to the ground that the fireball touches the surface of the earth and, hence, entrains a large amount of material in the mushroom cloud. The radioactive dust then settles back to earth over a period of hours to months depending on the particle size. The lethal effects are the same as for prompt nuclear radiation although they can occur much further from the site of the explosion (e.g., tens to hundreds of miles) depending on the wind speed and weather. Fission fragments have relatively short radioactive half-lives so the radiation intensity from fallout decays rapidly with time. For example, after 2 weeks the radiation intensity is 1 onethousandth that which occurs 1 hour after the explosion. The fifth nuclear weapon effect is the electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The EMP is a strong electromagnetic wave generated by intense electric currents that can be created by a nuclear explosion. It is analogous to the much less intense electromagnetic wave caused by lightning that most people have experienced interfering with AM radio reception. The EMP is most intense for nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere (around 50 km in altitude). Although only a minute fraction of the energy from an explosion ends up in the EMP, it can wreak havoc with electronic equipment, causing electric power grids to fail, and disrupting or destroying civilian and military communications equipment, radars, computers, etc. The EMP is of concern largely because of the need to communicate with military forces during a nuclear conflict. The description of nuclear weapon effects given in the preceding paragraphs is for a single nuclear explosion. However, nuclear Armageddon results not from a single explosion, devastating as that might be, but from the effects of hundreds or thousands of explosions. A single nuclear bomb can certainly destroy a large military facility or a small city; however, it can take tens of nuclear bombs to destroy a large city, around 500 300-KT nuclear weapons to promptly kill half the US urban population, and more to destroy the military facilities within a large country like the United States or Russia. Other effects must be considered if a large number of explosions occur. Global fallout and ‘nuclear winter’ – the hypothesis that dust carried aloft by hundreds or thousands of mushroom clouds would cause global freezing temperatures, which upon re-analysis appears to be more like ‘nuclear fall’ with temperatures dropping by 5–15 C over large portions of the northern hemisphere

for several months or more – are probably not more serious than the direct effects of a large number of nuclear explosions. However, widespread social and economic collapse may cause severe problems. Medical support, food, and energy supplies may disappear because the transportation infrastructure could be severely disrupted and political and financial institutions may collapse. This could lead to widespread starvation, epidemics, and political instability or civil war. Obviously, the magnitude of such effects is difficult to determine and will depend on the size and scope of a large-scale nuclear war.

How Have Nuclear Weapons Affected Military Strategy? Nuclear Weapons and the Character of War Nuclear weapons have done more than simply raise the level of violence possible in war. They also give an unprecedented advantage to the offense over the defense and have increased the emphasis on inflicting pain in war as opposed to defeating the opponent’s military forces. In short, they have increased the salience of deterrence in military strategy. Throughout the history of warfare, offensive and defensive weapons have vied for dominance on the battlefield (e.g., crossbows gave an edge to the offense over body armor, while machine guns benefit the defense by making attacks against fortified positions very costly). Nuclear weapons tend to favor the offense for three fundamental reasons: (1) nuclear weapons are very destructive, (2) they are relatively inexpensive, and (3) they are light in weight. The fact that nuclear weapons are very destructive and inexpensive implies that defenses must be very good to have much effect because large numbers of nuclear weapons can be built, as occurred during the Cold War. For example, if 1000 nuclear weapons are launched at a defense that can shoot down 90% of the attacking warheads, 100 nuclear weapons would leak through the defense – enough to cause immense damage to cities. Moreover, by historical standards a 90% effective defense is unprecedented. For example, the monthly average attrition rate inflicted by German air defenses during World War II varied between 2% and 9% against US bombers, although the attrition rate for some individual raids was as high as 26%. In short, when dealing with large numbers of nuclear weapons, defenses must be near-perfect to protect the defender’s cities. Less perfect defenses could complicate offensive planning and, hence, have some value, but they cannot significantly limit the damage from a large-scale nuclear attack. The problem with near-perfect defenses is that they are technically very difficult to build. Moreover, defenses cost more than the cost to the offense to overcome them, implying that an offense–defense arms race financially would be a losing proposition for the defense.

Nuclear Warfare

The fact that nuclear weapons are small and light suggests that they can be delivered in multiple ways, thereby complicating efforts to defend against them. For example, ballistic missiles can deliver nuclear warheads over intercontinental ranges at very high speeds, giving rise to our image of nuclear war as one large spasm of war that could be over in a matter of hours. Bombers and cruise missiles take longer but can incorporate stealth design or fly at low altitudes, making detection difficult. Covert delivery by boat or truck involves entirely different defenses, in particular, ones that require effective intelligence to intercept the covert operation before it succeeds. To emphasize the importance that two seemly mundane attributes of nuclear weapons, their low cost and weight, have had on warfare, imagine that nuclear weapons remain as destructive as they actually are, but that they are so large and heavy that the only practical means of delivery is by cargo ship and that they cost a sizable fraction of a country’s GDP to build. If so, the history of the nuclear age would be entirely different – in particular, only coastal areas would be vulnerable, nuclear Armageddon would not be possible because too few weapons would exist, and defense against nuclear attack would be relatively easy. But nuclear weapons are neither large nor expensive and this has made all the difference. The second major change brought about by nuclear weapons has been the relative emphasis on threatening to inflict pain in war as opposed to defeating the opponent’s military forces. Conventional war mostly involves defeating opposing military forces. Inflicting pain has always been a part of conventional war, for example, the conventional bombing of German and Japanese cities in World War II, but has received less attention in military strategy because it is uglier and less heroic. The fact that nuclear weapons favor the offense implies that a state can inflict tremendous pain on an adversary by attacking its homeland well before defeating its military forces. The power to hurt gives a nuclear-armed state bargaining power or, as Thomas Schelling put it, nuclear weapons give rise to the diplomacy of violence. Among the coercive threats made possible by nuclear weapons, threatening to retaliate if an opponent attacks a state’s vital interests (i.e., deterrence) is the most common. The Ascendance of Deterrence At the dawn of the nuclear age Bernard Brodie stated that the sole purpose of military establishments had become to avert wars, not to win them. The recognition that the offense was dominant and that the power to inflict pain was one of the principal attributes of the nuclear age suggests that the most sensible role for nuclear weapons was to threaten their use to deter attacks on a state’s vital interests. Alfred Nobel – after whom the Nobel Prize is named – would have appreciated this point because he

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invented TNT in an attempt to find a weapon so horrible that it would make war unthinkable. Nuclear weapons are Nobel’s dream come true. Deterrence came to dominate US nuclear strategy as well as that of the other nuclear powers. As Winston Churchill put it, peace in the nuclear age had become the sturdy twin of terror. Of course, wars still occurred below the nuclear threshold, for example, conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and Kuwait that involved the United States, and conflicts in Africa and Afghanistan that involved the former Soviet Union. However, states took great pains to make sure these regional conflicts remained limited and did not escalate to nuclear war. Deterrence can be defined as an attempt to dissuade a state (or individual) from taking some action by threatening to impose some cost or sanction that outweighs the benefits of acting. As such, it is part of the larger class of strategic choice that involves inducements (i.e., carrots) and sanctions (i.e., sticks) as instruments to influence the decisions of another party. At its core, deterrence theory relies on a rational model of state behavior. That is, states (or their leaders) are supposed to accurately assess the expected outcomes (i.e., the likelihood times the consequences) associated with different actions and to act so as to maximize the value associated with these outcomes. The assumptions underlying deterrence theory have been the subject of much debate. For example, decisions are often made by leadership groups, not individuals, and it can be shown that a group’s decisions may not be rational (e.g., the group’s preferences may not be transitive) even if the individual members of the group act rationally. Cognitive limitations and cognitive biases also give rise to misperceptions and misunderstandings that often distort a decision maker’s perception of costs, benefits, and their likelihood. ‘Bounded’ rationality is probably a better way to describe the behavior of states and their leaders. Despite these critiques, deterrence theory still provides a useful framework for thinking about nuclear strategy. After all, how rational does one have to be to understand the costs associated with nuclear war? The Strategy of Deterrence The conceptual underpinnings of deterrence theory are not the main source of concern to policymakers but rather attempts to put deterrence into practice, that is, the strategy of deterrence. To put deterrence into practice one must understand the opponent’s preferences so one knows what to threaten. What does the opposing leadership value such that the threat to destroy this will dissuade them from acting – the economy, the leadership’s lives, their military forces? To what extent does a state’s history, culture, or the personality of the leadership make a difference, and if it does, can one discern the important elements sufficiently to tailor deterrent threats? For example, threatening a dictator’s population may not

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have as much deterrent value as threatening his instruments of political control (e.g., the secret police, special military units designed to maintain internal order, etc.). Would the same threats deter an American President that deter Kim Jong Il (the current leader of North Korea), or would different threats be required? Once one determines what to threaten, there is the question of how much to threaten to deter specific actions (one city, half the population, two-thirds of the economic potential of a state, half of their conventional military forces, etc.). In other words, what is the criterion for sufficiency? This depends on the opponent’s risk-taking propensity which, among other things, depends on whether the leadership is acting for gain or trying to avert some impending loss in status or power (in which case leaders will likely take greater risks). For example, would deterring the United States during prosperous times be easier than deterring North Korea on the brink of political and economic collapse? Suffice it to say that no unambiguous criterion exists for determining how many nuclear weapons are enough because deterrence exists in the mind of the beholder. This creates endless opportunities to debate the appropriate size of a state’s nuclear force. The second important aspect of deterrence strategy is making threats credible. If the opponent does not believe the threat, then it has little deterrent value. There are two aspects to credibility. The first is the opponent’s perception of the deterrer’s resolve. Will the deterrer carry out the threats made? Resolve, in turn, is determined by the interests at stake, the deterrer’s reputation, the perceived legitimacy of the threat, and the potential costs inflicted upon the deterrer for carrying out the retaliation. The magnitude of the threat may also affect its credibility because, if the threat is too large, the deterrer may not have the resolve to carry it out because it will be perceived as disproportionate to the act being deterred. Obviously, nuclear threats are not credible for resolving trade disputes. However, nuclear threats maybe credible for deterring large attacks against one’s homeland. The second aspect of credibility is capability; that is, does the deterrer have the capability to carry out the threats made, where capability is measured relative to the sufficiency criterion noted above? If the opponent’s perception of either the deterrer’s resolve or capabilities is wanting, the threat may not appear credible. Communicating the threat is also an important element of deterrence. If the opponent never receives the message, or does not understand the threat, then deterrence is apt to fail. Similarly, if the proscribed action is not made sufficiently clear, deterrence may fail because the opponent does not understand what action will provoke a response. When Iraq attacked Kuwait in August 1989, did Saddam Hussein understand that this action would precipitate a US response or was Ambassador Gillespie’s statement that the United States would not get involved

in inter-Arab disputes ambiguous, despite her comment that the United States opposed the use of military force by Arab states to resolve such disputes? Note that, despite the need for clear communication, leaders often prefer some ambiguity with respect to which actions will trigger a response because, presumably, this deters a wider range of behavior. Ambiguity with respect to the exact type of response helps avoid commitments leaders may wish to avoid. For example, when asked about whether the United States would use nuclear weapons to deter the use of chemical or biological weapons by Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, President George H W Bush said he would use whatever means necessary, without specifying the exact nature of the response. However, failure to act after a clear ‘red line’ has been drawn quickly erodes a state’s reputation for action and, hence, the credibility of future deterrent threats. Finally, tacit understandings that develop between states through repeated interactions regarding the issues and ‘red lines’ that each holds to be important are part of effective deterrence. For example, the opportunities for miscommunication and misperception diminished as the United States and the former Soviet Union developed such understandings during the Cold War. The same cannot be said for new nuclear states such as India and Pakistan. This increases the chance of inadvertent nuclear war due to misunderstandings between new nuclear rivals. In summary, the efficacy of deterrence as an instrument of policy depends on numerous factors. The burden is on the deterrer to understand how much of what to threaten to deter specific acts within a specific political or military context. If the threat is too little, deterrence may fail because the costs do not outweigh the benefits of acting. On the other hand, if the threat is too large, it may not be credible. It is difficult to determine a priori the effectiveness of specific deterrent threats. Moreover, this abstract description of deterrence glosses over other factors that can have an impact on the effectiveness of deterrence, for example, the existence of alliances, the historical and perhaps cultural context of the conflict, leadership personalities, etc. Ultimately deterrence relies on the rationality of one’s adversary. For core security interests like the survival of the nation, it is uncomfortable to have one’s fate depend on the rationality of another. Nevertheless, it is precisely because defenses against large nuclear attacks are so difficult to build that US and Soviet survival rested on deterrence throughout the Cold War. There was no real alternative, regardless of what one thinks about deterrence theory or the efficacy of the strategy of deterrence. Nuclear Targeting The question of what one should target to deter an adversary has been at the center of deterrence debates

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from the beginning. By specifying not only what should be targeted but how many targets of each type should be destroyed, nuclear targeting addresses the question of ‘‘How much is enough?’’ Two general schools of thought have emerged on nuclear targeting, ‘countervalue’ and ‘countermilitary’ targeting. These schools are discussed here as ideal types. Actual targeting strategies are a mix of both. The countervalue school maintains that nuclear weapons should be used to threaten the opponent’s civil society, under the assumption that this is what leaders value most. Typical targets are the opponent’s urban population, industrial facilities, and perhaps the political leadership. In general, countervalue targeting doctrines require smaller nuclear arsenals because the targets are fewer in number and quite vulnerable to nuclear weapon effects. The classic formulation of countervalue deterrence was former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s ‘‘assured destruction’’ criterion which specified that US nuclear forces should be able to destroy approximately one-third of the Soviet urban population and one-half to two-thirds of the Soviet industrial base – although it is not clear whether McNamara intended this criterion as an instrument for budget battles within the Pentagon or as a guide to US nuclear targeting policy. Meeting this criterion required a nuclear arsenal containing approximately 1000 survivable and deliverable 50-kT weapons. ‘Limited’ deterrence and ‘minimal’ deterrence also describe countervalue targeting strategies, the idea being that the forces required to support this targeting doctrine are relatively limited or minimal compared to those required for a countermilitary doctrine. The countermilitary school focuses on threats against the opponent’s military forces. According to this school nuclear weapons should be targeted against the opponent’s conventional forces, nuclear forces, the logistics infrastructure, command and control elements, and the opponent’s war supporting industry. Targeting an opponent’s nuclear forces, in particular, may help limit damage in the event that deterrence fails. Because threatening the opponent’s nuclear forces occupies such an important role in nuclear strategy, it is referred to as counterforce targeting. One could argue that the countermilitary school focuses on threats to the opponent’s military forces because this is what leaders value most. This formulation has merit; however, it blurs the distinction between countervalue targeting which emphasizes threats to inflict pain by targeting that which the opponent values most, and countermilitary targeting which emphasizes threats to deny the opponent’s war aims by destroying its military forces. In general, countermilitary targeting requires larger nuclear arsenals because of the substantial military infrastructures within large states and because many military targets are hardened against nuclear weapon effects.

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US and Soviet nuclear targeting doctrines have been a mix of these two approaches throughout the Cold War, with different emphases at different times. In general, countermilitary targeting received greater emphasis in both countries. This is reflected in the large strategic nuclear arsenals each side deployed during the Cold War, numbers far in excess of the requirements for a pure countervalue strategy. Moreover, the existence of tens of thousands of tactical nuclear weapons, whose only purpose was to threaten the opponent’s military forces on the battlefield, suggests that countermilitary targeting dominated US and Soviet strategy. For example, the US doctrine of Massive Retaliation announced by John Foster Dulles during the Eisenhower Administration was thought by many to embody a countervalue targeting doctrine when, in fact, it had more of a countermilitary flavor. The McNamara ‘‘assured destruction’’ criterion mentioned earlier also suggests a countervalue targeting doctrine, although actual US war plans during this period emphasized countermilitary targeting. Finally, the ‘countervailing’ strategy announced by the Carter Administration, which essentially remains in effect today, largely embodies countermilitary targeting. Future US and Russian targeting doctrines are less clear. Under the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT or the ‘Moscow Treaty’ as it is often called), which entered into force on 7 June 2003, US and Russian operationallydeployed strategic nuclear arsenals will be capped at 1700–2200 nuclear weapons. At such levels, both sides can still maintain countermilitary targeting doctrines. However, if in the future, strategic force levels go below 1000 nuclear weapons and similar constraints are placed on tactical nuclear weapons, then US and Russian targeting will be driven toward countervalue doctrines. The nuclear targeting doctrines of France, Great Britain, and China appear to be countervalue in nature. During the Cold War, France and Great Britain explicitly sized their forces to threaten major urban areas within the former Soviet Union. China continues to adhere to a policy of limited deterrence, although recent Chinese writings suggest an interest in limited countermilitary threats. Countervalue targeting is also consistent with the size of these states’ strategic nuclear arsenals, which contain approximately 200–400 weapons. Each of these states has deployed some tactical or ‘pre-strategic’ nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield. However, their purpose appears to be less to defeat opposing conventional forces and more to signal a final warning before escalation to the strategic (i.e., countervalue) level of warfare. Finally, new nuclear entrants such as India and Pakistan have espoused countervalue targeting doctrines, although the circumstances and targets that might draw a nuclear attack remains unclear, perhaps even in the minds of their leaders.

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The Two US Strategic Problems of the Cold War The two main problems facing US strategists during the Cold War were how to deter a nuclear attack on the homeland (central deterrence) and how to deter a conventional or nuclear attack on US allies (extended deterrence). Extended deterrence is extended in two senses, extended to less vital US interests (i.e., protecting allies) and extended to cover non-nuclear attacks against these interests (i.e., conventional, chemical, or biological attack). Developing plausible strategies for each type of deterrence and resolving tensions between the requirements for each preoccupied American strategic thinkers throughout the Cold War. Central Deterrence Central deterrence arose as a serious concern after the Soviet Union detonated its first fission bomb in 1949. Referring to the elements of deterrence strategy discussed above, US retaliatory threats for central deterrence were clearly communicated in its declaratory policy (i.e., attacks upon the United States would be met with swift retaliation), US threats were credible because the United States certainly had the resolve to defend its most vital interest – protecting the US homeland – and the United States had the capability to make good on its threat because in the 1950s, nuclear-capable bombers and short-range ballistic missiles were deployed around the Soviet periphery. As for what to threaten and by how much, the requirements for central deterrence were always thought to be less demanding than for extended deterrence. Specifically, countervalue threats alone were thought to be sufficient for central deterrence because the resolve to carry out such retaliation is very high if the United States is attacked with nuclear weapons first. The main problem with central deterrence arises because nuclear weapons have the ability to destroy the opponent’s nuclear forces, depending on how they are deployed. Counterforce attacks, if effective, are one of the few rational reasons for initiating nuclear war because if one side can destroy the bulk of the opponent’s nuclear forces by striking first, that side significantly improves its chance for survival in the ensuing conflict. Moreover, if counterforce first strikes can be successful, then, by definition, the opponent will have difficulty deterring such attacks. If both sides have effective counterforce capabilities, the situation becomes quite unstable because whoever attacks preemptively ‘wins’ the war, leaving the other side largely disarmed and vulnerable to further coercion. Since surprise attack is common in conventional war (for similar reasons), early nuclear strategists wrestled with the problem that preemptive counterforce attacks posed for central deterrence. The mutual fear of surprise attack, or ‘crisis instability’ as it is often called, was

a central concern in the US–Soviet nuclear standoff and preoccupies nuclear debates to the present day. For example, the rationale for banning intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with multiple independently-targeted reentry vehicles in the START II Treaty derives from this concern. The solution to this instability, according to the early theorists, was to provide a ‘‘secure second-strike,’’ that is, to ensure the ability to retaliate after absorbing a massive counterforce attack. To accomplish this, nuclear forces must survive counterforce attacks in sufficient number so they can inflict unacceptable damage on the nation that attacked first, even in the presence of defenses. In other words, the size of one’s secure second-strike capability, not the size of one’s nuclear arsenal in peacetime, is what deters. Although it seems commonplace today, in the 1950s it took effort to convince political leaders that the mere existence of a state’s nuclear arsenal did not, in and of itself, equate to stable deterrence. One wonders whether emerging nuclear powers fully understand this point. By the 1960s, the concept of a secure second strike had become a central tenet in US thinking regarding stable central deterrence. However, arguments persisted about the character of Soviet strategy. Soviet interest in air and civil defenses, as well as preemptive counterforce doctrines, suggested to some that Soviet leaders paid less attention to the concept of crisis stability, although one should note that US nuclear doctrine also incorporated counterforce targeting. The requirements for a secure second strike led the United States and the Soviet Union to deploy ICBMs in underground concrete silos that could withstand peak overpressures greater than 1000 psi, mobile ICBMs that were difficult to locate, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that could hide beneath the ocean’s surface (submarines are difficult to locate once submerged), and bombers on high states of alert so they could escape from air bases upon warning of an incoming attack. For reasons of strategic culture and bureaucratic politics, the United States emphasized SLBMs and bombers, while the Soviet Union emphasized silo-based and mobile ICBMs. In fact, ensuring the survival of strategic nuclear forces against a preemptive counterforce attack has been one of the principal rationales for US and Soviet strategic nuclear force modernization throughout the Cold War. An effective secure second strike also requires survivable nuclear command and control systems so that, in the event of an attack, the order to retaliate can be properly communicated to forces that may be dispersed worldwide. Ensuring the survival of the national command authority (the top leaders charged with responsibility for authorizing a nuclear retaliatory strike) and the communication links to the nuclear forces was one of the more challenging problems of the Cold War. Using redundant command and control nodes, mobile command posts, and facilities located deep underground, the United States and the

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Soviet Union were probably able to ensure survivable command and control over their strategic nuclear forces, although this was hotly debated several times during the Cold War. Finally, a secure second strike requires that surviving forces penetrate any defenses that might stand in their way in sufficient numbers to inflict unacceptable damage. That is, arriving warheads as opposed to surviving warheads deter. Since the offense has the advantage in the nuclear age, this usually is not too difficult. Nevertheless, one of the most intense arms competitions during the Cold War was the competition between Soviet strategic air defenses and the penetration capability of the US strategic bomber force. On the US side, this competition spurred the development of low-altitude bomber penetration tactics in the late 1950s, defense suppression attacks in the 1960s to destroy selected Soviet air defense facilities before the bombers arrive, strategic cruise missiles in the early 1970s to saturate surviving Soviet air defenses, electronic countermeasures to foil Soviet radars, and finally stealth aircraft in the 1980s and 1990s (i.e., the B2 bomber). During the late 1960s, and again in the 1980s, there was an intense debate within the United States regarding the feasibility and wisdom of deploying ballistic missile defense, a debate that has resurfaced today. Aside from the question of whether such defenses are technically feasible, concerns arose that such defenses would provoke an offense–defense arms race of the sort described earlier between the US strategic bomber force and Soviet air defense. For this reason, during the Cold War, ballistic missile defenses were severely constrained by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), signed and ratified in 1972. A secure second-strike capability also requires that the arriving weapons inflict unacceptable damage even in the presence of civil defenses. Debates regarding civil defense were relatively minor during the Cold War. However, there were concerns that the large Soviet civil defense program undermined the US secure second-strike capability, particularly for countervalue threats against the Soviet political leadership because of evidence they would be protected in deeply buried bunkers in the event of war, bunkers that presumably were very hard to destroy with nuclear weapons. Though the United States had a civil defense program in the early 1960s, it atrophied by the late 1960s due to the belief that it would be ineffective and because of the logic that societal vulnerability was important for stable central deterrence. There is nothing illogical about attempts to acquire a secure second-strike capability while denying it to one’s adversary. However, it was argued that states should avoid damage-limiting capabilities, for example, counterforce capabilities, attacks to destroy the opponent’s strategic command and control network, and strategic defenses (i.e., air, ballistic missile, and civil defenses) because they are destabilizing in that opponents often interpret them as

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signs of hostile intent, they stimulate arms competitions as the other side attempts to reestablish the effectiveness of its deterrent, and, if modest counterforce capabilities are achieved, may create crisis instability. Although the requirements for a secure second strike seem reasonable, they are quite paradoxical when viewed from the point of view of conventional military strategy. First, the threat to inflict tremendous damage to the opponent’s civil society, at least for the countervalue school of deterrence, is quite inimical to traditional military thinking and the ethical tradition of just wars. Militaries plan and train to defeat opposing military forces, not the civilian population. Noncombatant immunity is central to most ethical theories of just war, yet the countervalue school explicitly threatens noncombatants. The countermilitary school also encounters ethical problems because, even though the intent is not to kill civilians, the collateral damage to civilian populations would be enormous in any countermilitary nuclear attack. Second, it seems odd not to threaten those weapons that pose the greatest danger to one’s survival – the opponent’s nuclear weapons. Counterforce attacks are a staple of conventional military strategy, yet they are anathema to stable central deterrence. Moreover, in conventional war one attempts to maximize surprise, not minimize it. Perhaps more bizarre is the notion that one should leave one’s country vulnerable to nuclear attack by one’s mortal enemy. Yet this mutual hostage situation is required for stable central deterrence. To the extent stable central deterrence calls for defenses, it is to protect the survival of one’s retaliatory forces, not one’s society. It is not surprising that the acronym that came to describe this situation was MAD, for ‘mutual assured destruction’, although this acronym is more a description of the condition of mutual vulnerability in the nuclear age as opposed to a preferred strategy. One does not leave one’s society vulnerable as a favor to the adversary, but rather out of recognition that attempts to reduce the level of damage one might suffer to acceptable levels will likely prove futile because the opponent will counter whatever damage-limiting capability is developed. In this sense, these aspects of central deterrence appear paradoxical only if one commits the ‘fallacy of the last move’, that is, assumes that the deployment of damage-limiting capabilities would be the final move in the game. If one understands deterrence as a strategic interaction involving a reactive opponent, then effective damage limitation may not be achievable and eschewing such capabilities no longer seems as paradoxical. There is also a tension within central deterrence regarding what one should do to maximize deterrence versus what one should do in the event deterrence fails. Would it actually be wise to carry out the threats one makes in the name of deterrence if it failed? If one answers this question

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in the negative then, obviously, one must keep this secret from one’s adversary, otherwise the deterrent value of these threats is undermined. The Catholic bishops, in a famous 1983 letter, gave conditional moral approval to nuclear threats for the purpose of deterrence (i.e., avoiding war), but were quite clear that carrying out such threats would be immoral if deterrence ever failed. When one begins to think about the unthinkable and contemplates the failure of deterrence, one naturally gravitates toward damagelimiting options. Thus, a policy that makes sense for stable central deterrence makes less sense if deterrence fails. On the other hand, if one places too much emphasis on damage-limiting options, one may precipitate the failure of deterrence. About all one can say is that stable deterrence should take higher priority because limiting damage only becomes important if it fails. Pursuing damage-limiting options to such an extent that deterrence becomes more fragile puts the cart before the horse. Extended Deterrence Extended deterrence refers to the threat of nuclear retaliation to deter attacks on one’s allies, both conventional and nuclear. This strategic problem arose after World War II because the United States demobilized its military forces rapidly, whereas the Soviet Union maintained sizable conventional military forces in Eastern Europe. The asymmetry in the conventional military balance in Europe was not redressed until possibly the 1980s because the United States and her West European allies did not want to pay the price (political and financial) for large standing armies in Europe. Nuclear weapons were viewed as defense on the cheap, or ‘‘more bang for the buck’’ as the Eisenhower Administration put it. Consequently, the United States relied on the threat to use nuclear weapons first if its allies were ever attacked with superior conventional forces. In addition, US-extended deterrence alleviated the need for other European states, notably Germany, to develop nuclear weapons on their own because their security was ‘‘guaranteed’’ by the US ‘nuclear umbrella’, although France and Great Britain did develop independent nuclear arsenals. The main challenge with extended deterrence is to make retaliatory threats credible against a nucleararmed opponent. During the Cold War many people questioned US resolve to defend its allies after the Soviet Union acquired intercontinental-range nuclear weapons because US nuclear first-use could precipitate a nuclear attack on the US homeland. Defending US allies at the risk of nuclear attacks on US soil appeared to many to be irrational. Or, as President Charles de Gaulle put it, would the United States risk New York to save Paris? As a result, frequent attempts were made to communicate US commitment to the defense of Europe and Japan. Most importantly, US troops were stationed on European,

Japanese, and South Korean soil so the United States would immediately become involved in any conflict. US declaratory policy was also tailored to communicate resolve, starting with John Foster Dulles’ announcement of the doctrine of ‘‘massive retaliation’’ whereby the United States would respond to Soviet aggression ‘‘instantly, by means and at places of our choosing’’ and leading up to present-day NATO doctrine, which still reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first, although they now are considered to be ‘‘weapons of last resort.’’ Similar thinking applies to the US–Japanese security alliance, which faces challenges today from a nuclear-armed North Korea. If Japanese leaders begin to doubt US resolve to defend Japan, calls for an independent Japanese nuclear option will begin to grow. The US strategy for extended deterrence during the Cold War was called ‘flexible response’. Flexible response posited that conventional attacks against US allies would be met first with conventional forces. If conventional defenses failed to hold, then the United States was willing to escalate to the first use of nuclear weapons, starting most likely with battlefield use. If tactical nuclear weapons were unsuccessful at halting the attack, the United States would consider escalating to higher rungs of the ‘escalation ladder’. This was supposed to involve attacks using US nuclear forces deployed in Europe or Asia against a broad array of military targets within the theater and, at higher rungs of the ladder, attacks using strategic nuclear forces based in the US homeland against military targets in theater as well as military targets in the former Soviet Union. Initial attacks against the Soviet homeland could have been limited in size to control escalation, although they could also involve massive strikes against a broad array of Soviet civilian and military targets. Obviously, flexible response was largely a countermilitary doctrine, with countervalue options only at the highest rungs of the escalation ladder. The rationale for this escalation ladder was to tailor the response so it was proportional to the threat and to exercise restraint so that attacks against the US homeland might be avoided, thereby increasing the credibility of US first-use threats. In fact, an explicit ‘no cities’ doctrine was espoused in the early 1960s, only to be abandoned later. Escalating directly to attacks against the adversary’s homeland, especially against cities, was thought to be incredible for extended deterrence because, in a world of mutual assured destruction, the United States would not attack Soviet cities to defend Europe, only to have its own cities destroyed in return. Limited attacks against military targets were more credible. Early in the Cold War, the United States believed it had ‘escalation dominance’ whereby it could escalate to a level of nuclear war that the Soviet Union could not match. Not surprisingly, the Soviet Union always took steps to match US escalation options, making escalation

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dominance a chimera. After the United States lost the ability to dominate the escalation process, flexible response came to be understood as a threat the Soviet Union could not dismiss, namely, that the United States might cross the nuclear threshold first in the event of a large conventional war, even if this wasn’t entirely rational. Once this occurred, further escalation to massive attacks against the US and Soviet homelands could not be ruled out. The important question for flexible response was whether escalation could be controlled. Some thought it might be while others believed it could not. By the end of the Cold War, flexible response was viewed as a ‘‘threat that left something to chance.’’ While not entirely satisfactory, the uncertainty surrounding nuclear escalation in the event of a major conventional war made both superpowers chary to embark upon a course of action that might lead to horrific, albeit irrational, outcomes. Flexible response rejected all-out countervalue targeting as being incredible except at the highest rung of the escalation ladder. Instead the emphasis was placed on countermilitary targeting, both with tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. Consequently, thousands of tactical nuclear weapons were deployed to provide the initial and intermediate escalation options against military targets. US strategic nuclear forces were also sized for comprehensive countermilitary strikes against targets in former Soviet and allied territory, thereby providing the capability for escalation options at the high end of the escalation ladder. Extended deterrence also encourages strategies that limit damage to the United States (e.g., counterforce targeting and defenses) because if the United States is relatively invulnerable to attacks against its homeland at the high end of the escalation ladder, it will be more likely to escalate at the low end of the ladder. While this makes sense for extended deterrence, it is in direct conflict with the requirements for stable central deterrence. Herein lies one of the main tensions in US nuclear strategy throughout the Cold War – a tension that fueled many nuclear debates since the middle of the twentieth century. Western Europe was of two minds about flexible response. They welcomed US nuclear guarantees for extended deterrence but were fearful that nuclear escalation would leave their homelands a smoking irradiated ruin, while the United States and the Soviet Union stopped short of attacks against each other’s homelands. To address this fear Western Europeans argued in favor of deploying US Pershing II intermediate-range ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe in the late 1970s. These intermediate-range nuclear forces had the capability to strike the Soviet homeland from European soil. If the Soviet homeland was attacked by US intermediaterange forces stationed in Europe, the Soviet Union would retaliate against the US homeland, or so the argument went. These forces ‘coupled’ the vulnerability of Europe to the vulnerability of the superpower homelands, thereby

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ensuring that nuclear war would not be confined to Europe. By deploying intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe, US policy tried to strike a balance between deterrence and reassurance. By the end of the Cold War, the tension within central deterrence and between central and extended deterrence had not been resolved. Counterforce targeting was pursued, but without the conviction that it could lead to meaningful damage limitation. As for defenses, arguments were made that they were either good or bad for deterrence, with little recognition that two different types of deterrence, central and extended, were being discussed and that the impact of defenses was different for each. With respect to flexible response, no conclusion was ever reached about whether escalation could be controlled.

The Role of Arms Control The goals of arms control changed during the Cold War. Early attempts aimed at the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons (e.g., the Baruch Plan in 1946). By the late 1950s most arms control efforts were directed at managing the US–Soviet nuclear relationship at the margins (e.g., the limited Test Ban Treaty; treaties banning the deployment of nuclear weapons in outer space, on the seabed, and in the Antarctic; and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). During this period, arms control had three main objectives: to reduce the likelihood of war, to reduce the consequences of war if it occurred, and to reduce the costs associated with maintaining one’s security. Obviously a fundamental tension exists between reducing the likelihood and consequences of war because nuclear deterrence relies on the prospect of unacceptable damage. Arguing that defenses upset stable central deterrence, and recognizing the technical and economic difficulties in building an effective defense, the United States and the former Soviet Union agreed to ban the deployment of effective national ballistic missile defenses in the 1972 ABM Treaty – one of the most prominent arms control treaties of the Cold War – although the Soviet Union may have signed the ABM Treaty less out of a concern for stability and more to halt what they perceived to be an American lead in ballistic missile defense technology at that time. Attempts to limit US and Soviet offensive nuclear forces were slow to start. For example, the SALT I Treaty, ratified in 1972, essentially froze on the number of nuclear-capable launchers then in existence or under construction. The SALT II Treaty, signed in 1979 but never ratified, placed a limit of 2400 on the allowed number of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles and banned certain force modernization options, but did little to restrict the number of nuclear weapons each side could deploy. As a result, the US and Soviet strategic nuclear arsenals grew to more than 10 000 strategic nuclear weapons in the

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1980s, in addition to approximately 10 000 tactical nuclear weapons deployed by each side. The end of the Cold War created the possibility for much more radical steps in arms control. The INF Treaty, signed in 1987 and ratified in 1988, banned all intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles (i.e., missiles with a range between 500 and 5500 kilometers); the START I Treaty, signed in 1991 and ratified in 1993, limited the number of accountable strategic nuclear weapons to 6000 (approximately 6500–8500 actual weapons); the START II Treaty, signed in 1993 and which entered into force in 2000, limited the actual number of strategic nuclear weapons to 3500 – a 70% reduction from the Cold War peak; and the SORT Agreement ratified in 2003 will reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to between 1700 and 2200 by 2012, without capping the number of nuclear weapons that can be maintained in reserve inventories. None of these treaties place limits on the number of French, British, or Chinese nuclear weapons. Finally, the end of the Cold War also made the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty possible, which bans all nuclear tests by any party to the treaty; however, it has yet to enter into force, in part, because of opposition by the United States, although the United States continues to adhere to a nuclear test moratorium that has been in place since 1992.

Where Are We Today? The United States emerged from the Cold War as the world’s dominant military power. With the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the likelihood of premeditated nuclear attack diminished greatly (although it is remarkable, and extremely fortunate, that nuclear war did not occur during this collapse). The primary nuclear concerns today involve the possibility of unintentional nuclear attack, that is, an accidental or unauthorized Russian ballistic missile launch due to the deteriorating state of their ballistic missile early warning and nuclear command and control systems; the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states like Iran and North Korea; and the possibility that nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons material might fall into the hands of terrorists. Little has changed with respect to the fundamentals of deterrence. Nuclear deterrence has receded in importance but remains an element in the security strategies of the five major nuclear powers, if only as a hedge against resurgent great power conflict. More frequently, deterrence is discussed with respect to ‘rogue’ nuclear states like North Korea, especially the credibility of USextended deterrence to regional allies such as South Korea and Japan. One of the most challenging problems in the future will be to manage nuclear brinksmanship with states like North Korea, whose leaders may be

willing to take greater risks and, hence, will be more difficult to deter. Deterring nuclear terrorism is also thought to be very difficult because it is difficult to convince terrorists that the costs of acting outweigh the benefits and because terrorist groups have little in the way of infrastructure against which to retaliate. As a consequence, current US national security strategy places less faith in deterrence and more emphasis on damage limitation, specifically pre-emption and defense against threats from ‘rogue’ nuclear states and terrorists. The new US ‘strategic triad’ consists of nuclear and conventional long-range strike capabilities, defenses, and a responsive defense infrastructure to provide new capabilities on a timely basis against emerging threats. This is very different from the Cold War strategic triad of nuclear-capable ICBMs, SLBMs, and long-range bombers. The emphasis on damage limitation explains the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in December 2001. Pre-emption, as articulated by the George W Bush administration, refers to either conventional or nuclear attacks to destroy enemy nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons before they can be used against the United States, its forces overseas, or US allies. The emphasis on damage limitation is a reflection of the Bush administration’s belief that deterrence is more likely to fail against ‘rogue’ states or terrorist groups. Moreover, pre-emption and defense against small states or terrorist groups is more feasible than against the large nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union. Still, one should not exaggerate the ease with which one can limit damage from small, perhaps covert, nuclear or biological attacks and one should remain cognizant of the instabilities that can arise with damage-limiting strategies against ‘rogue’ states, not to mention the impact this strategy can have on Russia and China as they witness the United States acquiring capabilities that, in sufficient quantity, could pose a threat to their deterrent forces. Preventive war – attacks against states that appear to pose a growing threat well before they pose an imminent danger – has also become a salient aspect of US policy in the Bush administration, although they confound preventive war with pre-emption – attacks against an enemy who is preparing to attack. The former is illegal under the UN Charter unless sanctioned by the UN Security Council, while the latter has been a time-honored aspect of war. Preventive war was considered at several points during the Cold War, for example, against Russia in the 1950s before they acquired a large nuclear arsenal, but each time it was rejected as sound policy. The 2003 US war against Iraq can be viewed as an example of preventive war. Whether this was sound policy will be determined in the years to come when the full consequences of this war, and the way it was managed, become clear. In any case, preventive war needs to be justified more clearly, and the political and military constraints acknowledged more

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honestly, if it is to remain a salient element of US national security strategy in the future. The Bush administration has also added the notion of ‘dissuasion’ to US national security strategy, by which they mean acquiring such overwhelming superiority in conventional and nuclear armaments that adversaries are discouraged from competing against the United States in military capabilities. This is one of the more dubious developments in US nuclear strategy. Historically, hegemonic states have always wished to maintain their preeminent position in the international order. The problem is that other states often view the hegemon’s intentions less charitably, and frequently form coalitions to balance the power of the hegemon or seek ‘asymmetric’ capabilities to neutralize the hegemon’s military power. Counterinsurgency operations in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq are one example of an asymmetric strategy to negate superior US conventional forces. Another frequently cited example is the acquisition of nuclear or biological weapons to counterbalance US conventional military might. In this sense, US conventional military superiority stimulates nuclear and biological weapons proliferation. True, emerging nuclear powers do not have the ability to match the United States in nuclear fire power, but they don’t have to. Having a small nuclear arsenal, so long as it provides a secure second strike, can induce caution in US behavior. The North Korean nuclear program, for example, has been rationalized in these terms. Thus, the concept of dissuasion in current US national security policy has more to do with wishful thinking than matching means to ends to prevent future threats from emerging. US nuclear debates today, to the extent they exist, are about the extent and speed of further nuclear force reductions, including the possibility of nuclear abolition (although one might wonder whether zero is a desirable endpoint given that breakout concerns will arise because the knowledge and materials for reconstituting nuclear arsenals will still exist); whether and how tactical nuclear weapons should be included in arms control agreements; whether warheads as well as fissile materials can be included in future treaties; and when the arsenals of France, Great Britain, and China, not to mention the arsenals of the Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea should be included in the arms control process. In addition, there are debates about how best to maintain the viability of the remaining US nuclear arsenal, for example, debates about refurbishing the US nuclear weapons production infrastructure, whether the United States needs to continue testing nuclear weapons to ensure their safety and reliability or whether continued adherence to the test moratorium and, possibly, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would be a better way to ensure US security, and whether the United States should invest in the reliable replacement warhead program – a

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program designed to replace existing US nuclear weapon designs with more reliable and safer designs that are less costly to maintain over the long run without nuclear testing. Debates also exist about the wisdom of building new nuclear weapons, such as the robust nuclear earth penetrator to destroy hardened deeply-buried targets – a program advanced by the Bush Administration but effectively canceled by the US Congress in 2005 – and the role of nuclear weapons in deterring biological and chemical attacks. Notwithstanding these debates, it is perhaps surprising that the public today does not seem much interested in nuclear weapons, the circumstances under which they might be used, or the arcane subject of nuclear arms control. While moving nuclear matters into the background of relations between the major powers is quite appropriate today, containing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism will require new approaches if the world is to avoid nuclear catastrophe in the decades ahead. Fortunately, nuclear Armageddon, for the time being, seems to be a concern of the past. See also: Chemical and Biological Warfare

Further Reading Ball, D. and Richelson, J. (eds.) (1986). Strategic nuclear targeting. New York: Cornell University Press. Blair, B. (1985). Strategic command and control: Redefining the nuclear threat. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Bobbin, P., Freedman, L., and Treverton, G. (eds.) (1989). US nuclear strategy: A reader. New York: New York University Press. Brodie, B. (1959). Strategy in the missile age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bunn, G. and Chyba, C. F. (eds.) (2006). US Nuclear weapons policy: Confronting today’s threats. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Carter, A., Steinbruner, J., and Zraket, C. (eds.) (1987). Managing nuclear operations. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Freedman, L. (1989). The evolution of nuclear strategy, 2nd edn. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Friedberg, A. (1980). A history of the US strategic doctrine, 1945–1980. Journal of Strategic Studies 3(3), 37–71. George, A. and Smoke, R. (1974). Deterrence in American foreign policy: Theory and practice. New York: Columbia University Press. Glasstone, S. and Dolan, P. (1977). The effects of nuclear weapons, 3rd edn. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Holloway, D. (1994). Stalin and the bomb. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hopkins, J. and Hu, W. (1995). Strategic views from the second tier. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Jervis, R. (1989). The meaning of the nuclear revolution. New York: Cornell University Press. Kahn, H. (1978). On thermonuclear war, 2nd edn. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Kaplan, F. (1983). Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon and Schuster. McDonough, D. S. (2006). Nuclear superiority: The ‘new triad’ and the evolution of nuclear strategy, Adelphi paper 383. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies. National Academy of Sciences (1997). The future of US nuclear weapons policy. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

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Office of Technology Assessment (1979). The effects of nuclear war. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Rhodes, R. (1986). The making of the atomic bomb. New York: Touchstone Books. Schelling, T. (1966). Arms and influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Schelling, T. (1980). The strategy of conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schelling, T. and Halperin, M. (1985). Strategy and arms control. New York: Pergamon-Brassey. Snyder, G. (1961). Deterrence and defense. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Stern, P., Axelrod, R., Jervis, R., and Radner, R. (eds.) (1989). Perspectives on deterrence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wholstetter, A. (1959). The delicate balance of terror. Foreign Affairs 37(2), 211–234.

Relevant Websites http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/index.html. http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/index.html.

Hiroshima Bombing, Stress Effects of R J Lifton, Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge MA, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

I was recently told that a prominent Zen Buddhist leader in this country has made a vow to himself that, in any conversation he enters into, he must bring up the subject of nuclear threat. That includes – so the story goes – the most casual social conversations, talks with taxi drivers, brief exchanges with strangers, whatever. The vow did not sound strange to me. Without being quite aware of it, I had, in effect, made a similar, if much more modest, vow to myself: that in any public statement I make on nuclear threat, I will bring up the subject of Hiroshima. My strong impulse is to convey to everyone Hiroshima’s indelible impact upon me. And I also have come to sense, as both psychiatrist and antinuclear activist, the special power of specific Hiroshima or Nagasaki images for those able to receive them. Images that extreme are best described in relatively quiet, understated tones that encourage reflection on our contemporary situation. The themes put forward in this article (originally from a chapter of mine in a book co-authored with Richard Falk, Indefensible Weapons) are meant to portray Hiroshima not as an event of the past, but as a source of necessary knowledge for the present and the future. Those Hiroshima images continue their insistent claim on me: the searing details of survivors’ experiences; the moving scenes, collective pain, and ultimate inadequacy of the 6 August day of commemoration; our own bittersweet family celebration, with a few Hiroshima friends, of our son’s first birthday. Put most simply, the 6 months spent in Hiroshima in 1962 have formed in me a special constellation of truth that, when I am wise enough to draw upon it, informs everything I have to say about nuclear threat and much else.

I arrived in Hiroshima in the early spring of 1962. I intended no more than a brief visit. But very quickly I made a discovery that I found almost incomprehensible. It had been 17 years since the dropping of the first atomic weapon on an inhabited city – surely one of the tragic turning points in human history – and no one had studied the impact of that event. There had of course been research on the physical aftereffects of the bomb, and there had been brief commentaries here and there on the behavior of some of the survivors at the time of the bomb and afterward. But there had been no systematic examination of what had taken place in people’s lives, of the psychological and social consequences of the bomb. I came to a terrible, but I believe essentially accurate, rule of thumb: the more significant an event, the less likely it is to be studied. Again, there are reasons. One reason, certainly relevant to Hiroshima, has to do with the fear and pain the event arouses – the unacceptable images to which one must, as an investigator, expose oneself. To this anxiety and pain I can certainly attest. But another source of avoidance is the threat posed to our traditional assumptions and conventional ways of going about our studies. We would rather avoid looking at events that, by their very nature, must change us and our relation to the world. We prefer to hold on to our presuppositions and habits of personal and professional function. And we may well sense that seriously studying such an event means being haunted by it from then on, taking on a lifelong burden of responsibility to it. I was able to stay in Hiroshima and conduct interview research with people there over a 6-month period. The best way I know to describe a few of my findings that might be of

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use to us now is to look at the Hiroshima experience as taking place in four stages. The first stage was the immersion in the sea of dead and near-dead at the time the bomb fell. This was the beginning of what I have called a permanent encounter with death. But it was not just death: it was grotesque and absurd death, which had no relationship to the life cycle as such. There was a sudden and absolute shift from normal existence to this overwhelming immersion in death. Survivors recalled not only feeling that they themselves would soon die but experiencing the sense that the whole world was dying. For instance, a science professor who had been covered by falling debris and temporarily blinded remembered: ‘‘My body seemed all black. Everything seemed dark, dark all over. Then I thought, ‘The world is ending.’ ’’ And a Protestant minister, responding to scenes of mutilation and destruction he saw everywhere, told me: ‘‘The feeling I had was that everyone was dead. The whole city was destroyed. . . . I thought all of my family must be dead. It doesn’t matter if I die. . . . I thought this was the end of Hiroshima, of Japan, of humankind.’’ And a writer later recorded her impressions: I just could not understand why our surroundings changed so greatly in one instant. . . . I thought it must have been something which had nothing to do with the war, the collapse of the earth, which was said to take place at the end of the world, which I had read about as a child. . . . There was a fearful silence, which made me feel that all people . . . were dead. (Lifton, 1982 [1967] pp. 22–23.)

As psychiatrists, we are accustomed to look upon imagery of the end of the world as a symptom of mental illness, usually paranoid psychosis. But here it may be said that this imagery is a more or less appropriate response to an extraordinary external event. In referring to themselves and others at the time, survivors described themselves as ‘‘walking ghosts’’, or, as one man said of himself: ‘‘I was not really alive.’’ People were literally uncertain about whether they were dead or alive, which was why I came to call my study of the event Death in Life (1968). Indicative of the nature of the event is the extraordinary disparity in estimates of the number of people killed by the bomb. These vary from less than 70, 000 to more than 250, 000, with the City of Hiroshima estimating 200, 000. These estimates depend on whom one counts and how one goes about counting, and can be subject at either end to various ideological and emotional influences. But the simple truth is that nobody really knows how many people have been killed by the Hiroshima bomb, and such was the confusion at the time that nobody will ever know. The second stage was associated with what I call ‘‘invisible contamination’’. Within hours or days or weeks after the bomb fell, people – even some who had

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appeared to be untouched by the bomb – began to experience grotesque symptoms: severe diarrhea and weakness, ulceration of the mouth and gums with bleeding, bleeding from all of the body orifices and into the skin, high fever; extremely low white blood cell counts when these could be taken; and later, loss of scalp and body hair – the condition often following a progressive course until death. These were symptoms of acute radiation effects. People did not know that at the time, of course; and even surviving doctors thought it was some kind of strange epidemic. Ordinary people spoke of a mysterious ‘‘poison.’’ But the kind of terror experienced by survivors can be understood from the rumors that quickly spread among them. One rumor simply held that everyone in Hiroshima would be dead within a few months or a few years. The symbolic message here was: none can escape the poison; the epidemic is total – all shall die. But there was a second rumor, reported to me even more frequently and with greater emotion: the belief that trees, grass, and flowers would never again grow in Hiroshima; that from that day on, the city would be unable to sustain vegetation of any kind. The meaning here was that nature was drying up altogether. Life was being extinguished at its source – an ultimate form of desolation that not only encompassed human death but went beyond it. These early symptoms were the first large-scale manifestation of the invisible contamination stemming from the atomic particles. The symptoms also gave rise to a special image in the minds of the people of Hiroshima – an image of a force that not only kills and destroys on a colossal scale but also leaves behind in the bodies of those exposed to it deadly influences that may emerge at any time and strike down their victims. That image has also made its way to the rest of us, however we have resisted it. The third stage of Hiroshima survivors’ encounter with death occurred not weeks or months but years after the bomb fell, with the discovery (beginning in 1948 and 1949) that various forms of leukemia were increasing in incidence among survivors sufficiently exposed to irradiation. That fatal malignancy of the blood-forming organs became the model for the relatively loose but highly significant term ‘‘A-bomb disease.’’ Then, over decades, there have been increases in various forms of cancer – first thyroid cancer, and then cancer of the breast, lung, stomach, bone marrow, and other areas. Since the latent period for radiation-induced cancer can be quite long, and since for many forms it is still not known, the results are by no means in. Researchers are still learning about increases in different cancers, and the truth is that the incidence of virtually any form of cancer can be increased by exposure to radiation. An additional array of harmful bodily influences have been either demonstrated, or are suspected, to be caused by radiation exposure – including impaired growth and

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development, premature aging, various blood diseases, endocrine and skin disorders, damage to the central nervous system, and a vague but persistently reported borderline condition of general weakness and debilitation. Again, the returns are not in. But on a chronic level of bodily concern, survivors have the feeling that the bomb can do anything, and that anything it does is likely to be fatal. Moreover, there are endless situations in which neither survivors themselves nor the most astute physicians can say with any certainty where physical radiation effects end and psychological manifestations begin. There is always a ‘‘nagging doubt’’. For instance, I retain a vivid memory of a talk I had in Hiroshima with a distinguished physician who, despite injuries and radiation effects of his own, had at the time of the bomb courageously attempted to care for patients around him. He spoke in philosophical terms of the problem of radiation effects as one that ‘‘man cannot solve’’; but when I asked him about general anxieties he smiled uneasily and spoke in a way that gave me the strong sense that a raw nerve had been exposed: Yes, of course, people are anxious. Take my own case. If I am shaving in the morning and I should happen to cut myself very slightly, I dab the blood with a piece of paper – and then, when I notice that it has stopped flowing, I think to myself, ‘Well, I guess I am all right.’ (Lifton, 1982[1967] p. 54).

Nor does the matter end with one’s own body or life. There is the fear that this invisible contamination will manifest itself in the next generation, because it is scientifically known that such abnormalities can be caused by radiation. There is medical controversy here about whether genetic abnormalities have occurred: they have not been convincingly demonstrated in studies on comparative populations, but abnormalities in the chromosomes of exposed survivors have been demonstrated. People, of course, retain profound anxiety about the possibility of transmitting this deadly taint to subsequent generations. For instance, when I revisited Hiroshima in 1980, people said to me: ‘‘Well, maybe the next generation is okay after all, but what about the third generation?’’ The fact is that, scientifically speaking, no one can assure them with certainty that subsequent generations will not be affected. Again, nobody knows. So there is no end point for possible damage, or for anxiety. No wonder, then, that a number of survivors told me that they considered the dropping of the bomb to be a ‘‘big experiment’’ by the United States. It was a new weapon; its effects were unknown; American authorities wanted to see what those effects would be. Unfortunately, there is more than a kernel of truth in that claim, at least in its suggestion of one among several motivations. More important

for us now is the idea that any use of nuclear warheads would still be, in a related sense, ‘‘experimental.’’ The fourth stage of the Hiroshima experience is its culmination in a lifelong identification with the dead – so extreme in many cases as to cause survivors to feel ‘‘as if dead’’ and to take on what I spoke of as an ‘‘identity of the dead.’’ Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors became, in their own eyes as well as in those of others, a tainted group, one whose collective identity was formed around precisely the continuous death immersion and the invisible contamination I have been discussing. The identity can include what we may think of as paradoxical guilt – the tendency of survivors to berate themselves inwardly for having remained alive while others died, and for not having been able to do more to save others or to combat the general evil at the time of the bomb. In connection with the latter, the sense of ‘‘failed enactment’’ (Lifton, 1983 [1979] p. 174) can have little to do with what was possible at the time or with what one actually did or did not do. More than that, survivors underwent what can be called a second victimization in the form of significant discrimination in two fundamental areas of life: marriage and work. The ‘‘logic’’ of the discrimination was the awareness of potential marriage partners (or families and go-betweens involved in making marriage arrangements) and prospective employers that survivors are susceptible to aftereffects of the bomb, making them poor bets for marriage (and healthy children) and employment. But the deeper, often unconscious feeling about atomic bomb survivors was that they were death-tainted, that they were reminders of a fearful event people did not want to be reminded of, that they were ‘‘carriers,’’ so to speak, of the dreaded ‘‘A-bomb disease.’’ At the end of my study of these events, I spoke of Hiroshima, together with Nagasaki, as a last chance, a nuclear catastrophe from which one could still learn. The bombs had been dropped, there was an ‘‘end of the world’’ in ways I have described, yet the world still exists. And precisely in this end-of-the-world quality of Hiroshima lie both its threat and its potential wisdom. Is Hiroshima, then, our text? Certainly as our only text, it would be quite inadequate. We know well that what happened there could not really represent what would happen to people if our contemporary nuclear warheads were used. When the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped, they were the only two functional atomic bombs in the world. Now there are approximately 50, 000 nuclear warheads, most of them having many times – some a 100 or a 1000 or more times – the destructive and contaminating (through radiation) power of those first ‘‘tiny’’ bombs. While those early bombs initiated a revolution in killing power, we may speak of another subsequent technological revolution of even greater

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dimensions in its magnification of that killing power. The scale of Hiroshima was difficult enough to grasp; now the scale is again so radically altered that holding literally to Hiroshima images misleads us in the direction of extreme understatement. Yet despite all that, Hiroshima and Nagasaki hold out important nuclear-age truths for us. The first of these is the totality of destruction. It has been pointed out that Tokyo and Dresden were decimated no less than was Hiroshima. But in Hiroshima it was one plane, one bomb, one city destroyed. And the result of that single bomb was incalculable death and suffering. A second Hiroshima truth for us is that of the weapon’s unending lethal influence. Radiation effects were (and are) such that the experience has had no cutoff point. Survivors have the possibility of experiencing delayed but deadly radiation effects for the rest of their lives. That possibility extends to their children, to their children’s children, indefinitely into the future – over how many generations no one knows. And we have seen how the physical and psychological blend in relation to these continuing effects. A third truth, really derived from the other two, has to do with Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors’ identification of themselves as victims of an ultimate weapon – of a force that threatens to exterminate the species. This sense had considerable impact on Hiroshima survivors, sometimes creating in them an expectation of future nuclear destruction of all of humankind and most of the earth. And there is still something more to be said about Hiroshima and Nagasaki regarding our perceptions of nuclear danger. The two cities convey to us a sense of nuclear actuality. The bombs were really used there. We can read, view, and, if we will allow ourselves, feel what happened to people in them. In the process we experience emotions such as awe, dread, and wonder (at the extent and nature of killing, maiming, and destruction) – emotions surely appropriate to our current nuclear threat. Such emotions can transform our intellectual and moral efforts against nuclear killing into a personal mission – one with profound ethical, spiritual, and sometimes religious overtones. Hiroshima, then, is indeed our text, even if in miniature. The argument is sometimes extended to the point of claiming that this sense of nuclear actuality has prevented full-scale nuclear war; that, in the absence of the restraining influence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States and the Soviet Union would have by now embarked upon nuclear annihilation. The claim is difficult to evaluate; and while I feel some of its persuasiveness, I do not quite accept it. In any case, one must raise a countervailing argument having to do with another dimension of

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s nuclear actuality: namely, the legitimation of a nation’s using atomic bombs on human populations under certain conditions (in this case, wartime). Once a thing has been done, it is psychologically and in a sense morally easier for it to be done again. That legitimation can then combine with an argument minimizing the effects of the Hiroshima bomb: the claim that one has unfortunately heard more than once from American leaders that Hiroshima’s having been rebuilt as a city is evidence that one can fight and recover from a limited nuclear war. Here I may say that part of Hiroshima’s value as a text is in its contrasts with our current situation. One crucial contrast has to do with the existence of an outside world to help. Hiroshima could slowly recover from the bomb because there were intact people who came in from the outside and brought healing energies to the city. Help was erratic and slow in arriving, but it did become available: from nearby areas (including a few medical teams); from Japanese returning from former overseas possessions; and, to some extent, from the American Occupation. The groups converging on Hiroshima in many cases contributed more to the recovery of the city as such than to that of individual survivors (physically, mentally, or economically). But they made possible the city’s revitalization and repopulation. In Hiroshima there was a total breakdown of the social and communal structure – of the web of institutions and arrangements necessary to the function of any human group. But because of the existence and intervention of an intact outside world, that social breakdown could be temporary. Given the number and power of our current nuclear warheads, can one reasonably assume that there will be an intact outside world to help? I do not think so. Like any powerful text, Hiroshima must be read, absorbed, and recreated by each generation searching for its own truths.

Further Reading Lifton, R. J. (1982 [1967]). Death in life: the survivors of Hiroshima. New York: Basic Books. Lifton, R. J. and Mitchell, G. (1995). Hiroshima in America: fifty years of denial. New York: Grosset/Putnam Books. Lifton R. J. and Falk, R. (1982). Indefensible weapons: the political and psychological case against nuclearism. New York: Basic Books. Lifton, R. J. (1987). The future of immortality and other essays for a nuclear age. New York: Basic Books. Lifton, R. J. (1983 [1979]). The broken connection: on death and the continuity of life. New York: Basic Books. Lindqvist, S. (2001). A history of bombing. New York: The New Press.

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Nuclear Warfare, Threat of J Thompson, University College London, London, UK ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Threat of Nuclear Warfare Evaluating the Threat Questionnaires: The Chief Method of Studying Nuclear Anxiety

Glossary Anxiety The fearful anticipation of potential harm. Denial A concept of psychoanalytic origin implying an unwillingness to face unpleasant facts. Questionnaire A French word, meaning a list of questions, usually on a particular subject of

Threat of Nuclear Warfare One thing can be said for certain about nuclear anxiety – it is not an innate fear. On the contrary, no other anxiety depends so much on an appreciation of a wide range of political, cultural, and military threats. Anxiety about the threat of nuclear warfare is caused by the belief that a nuclear war may happen and that it will bring widespread destruction to civilization. This anxiety is linked to powerful images of the explosive power of nuclear weapons and to the dreadful consequences for individuals, society, and the environment if they should come to be used. If all anxiety is based on an assessment of threat, even though the assessment may be faulty, then anxiety about nuclear war is threat assessment at its most difficult.

Evaluating the Threat A balanced, rational assessment of the threat of nuclear war includes assessing the following issues: the destructive power of the weapons, the reliability of the weaponsdelivery systems, the protection afforded by buildings and shelters, the viability of countermeasures, the extent of the damage caused by the weapons to national infrastructure, the effects of radiation, the effects of major fires on the climate, the possibilities of reconstruction, the nature of enemies, the international political scene, the personalities of the nuclear weapons operators and political leaders, the mood of people in countries that have This article is a revision of the previous edition article by J Thompson, volume 3, pp 66–70, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Individual Studies Summary Further Reading

psychological interest, with a common restricted format for answers. If properly standardised and validated on relevant populations they can be useful in estimating psychological characteristics and states of mind.

nuclear weapons, the reliability of warning systems, the possibilities of false alarms, the likelihood of terrorist actions, and the spread of nuclear weapons capability to other nations and to armed groups. By the very nature of the threat, such a list can never be exhaustive. To complicate matters, nuclear weapons are now often categorized as weapons of mass destruction, so the risks are conflated with chemical and biological warfare risks. A less rational assessment of the likelihood of nuclear war is subject to the distorting effects of personal depression, selective monitoring of news, paranoid ideas about other nations, and generalized sociopolitical anxiety. As a consequence, any proper evaluation of the topic must contrast the objective threat with the perceived threat and then explain any identified differences. In fact, it has been extremely hard for the average citizen to evaluate this threat, which has been with us in various forms for over 50 years. Much of this uncertainty relates to the secrecy that has surrounded nuclear warfare and to the difficulty of determining the intentions of opposed nations. One approach to getting a more objective assessment is to look at the Doomsday Clock, which was established by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947 as a way of showing the consensus view of scientists of the likelihood of nuclear war. Assuming for the moment that these scientists know more about the risks than the average person, the highest danger point, at 2 min to midnight, came in 1953 with the hydrogen bomb tests. The next closest, at 3 min to midnight, came in 1949 when the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb and in 1984 when the arms race accelerated. By 1991 the clock had achieved a safety high point, with a leisurely 17 min to midnight, as arms reductions took place and the Soviet

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Union contracted. It currently stands at 7 min to midnight, unchanged since February 2002 as a consequence of political extremism and the proliferation of weapons. There is little doubt that the destructive power of nuclear weapons is very great and has increased greatly over successive decades. However, many citizens find it difficult to comprehend the destructive power of these weapons, which is so far outside normal human experience, and at the same time may incorrectly believe that everything will be destroyed during a nuclear war. Although it is very hard to be sure about the consequences, there are a range of possibilities. A full-scale nuclear war might destroy some nations immediately by so damaging their cities and infrastructures that is renders them incapable of providing basic services to their citizens, in the same way that conventional wars have damaged many parts of the world and left the local population destitute, without shelter and food, and dependent on outside help for survival. Such a general world war with nuclear weapons could well leave the survivors incapable of maintaining themselves at their former level of living, in the way that the Black Death disrupted the medieval world. Strategists argue as to whether it would be possible to have a limited nuclear war, many feeling that a nuclear war would quickly spread out of control. However, from the perspective of the beginning of a new century, the threat of the immediate destruction of civilization may seem remote. The end of the cold war has brought about a change of mood as well as a change in the real level of threat of war between superpowers. Nuclear weapons have come to be seen as an ancient terror, last year’s music. Yet the number of nuclear nations has grown, and the threat of regional nuclear conflicts has increased. It would indeed be a cruel fate for our global society to perish from an unfashionable cause.

Questionnaires: The Chief Method of Studying Nuclear Anxiety Where would the study of anxiety be without the questionnaire? No other method in the social sciences has borne so heavy a load and has been pressed into service in so many campaigns and in so many different theatres of research. The procedure is as follows. The authors make a list of questions to which they would like answers, sometimes drawn from their own interests and imaginations, sometimes drawn from matters of public debate, and even sometimes drawn from opposed points of view. The answers given by willing subjects are often reported in raw form by giving the percentages of respondents who agree with a particular proposition. Sometimes the question list is subjected to item analysis to detect faulty questions and to factor analysis in order to search for an underlying structure to the answers. This generally

leads to revisions of the question list and the methods for scoring the answers to produce subscores with greater explanatory power. The questionnaire is now judged fit for wider use, and comparative studies follow with different populations. Done well, this can be a considerable help in understanding the answers to the questions and can produce interesting comparisons between different groups. Done badly, it can produce many ineffective lists of questions leading to a confusing mass of contradictory findings. A more profound problem with questionnaires is trying to understand what questionnaire responses really mean. Do they tap real opinions that may lead to real actions, or are they little more than party chatter, the surface moods and immediate responses of the disengaged? In plain terms, is a person who says he or she is anxious about nuclear war really anxious about nuclear war, and what does the person’s anxiety amount to? Does it restrict the person in the way that a phobia might? Does the person experience the agony of someone who fears flying but must travel by air for some urgent reason? To answer those questions, the questionnaire approach must be supplemented with appropriate observations and suitable cross-checks. So, if someone is anxious that there will be a nuclear war, how will he or she behave? If the person believes that war is imminent, some of his or her behaviors ought to be obvious, but if the person cannot be sure how soon the war will start, then it is harder to make predictions. We might surmise that the person would be less likely to make long-term investments and preparations, that he or she would have some sort of emergency nuclear war plan, and that he or she would frequently refer to possible nuclear wars when contemplating all other plans. Such behavioral indicators of nuclear anxiety have been studied infrequently. The typical subjects of questionnaire studies are captive student populations, although occasionally a proper epidemiological sample is obtained. The ages of the subjects are generally 11 and above, and usually the subjects are tested on one occasion, without much reference to other measures such as intelligence, personality, medical history, school records, spare-time activities, and other interests. Although some questionnaires are used in comparative studies, question lists tend to proliferate and to tap different domains, and often they advertise their purpose in a way that may influence the answers that respondents give. For example, people may be moderately optimistic until faced with a list of dangers and then they become more fearful as they contemplate all the threats that face them. The demand characteristics of the questionnaire may lead to self-serving distortions.

Individual Studies Nuclear Warfare Anxiety The category of nuclear warfare anxiety may contain a number of related fears. These include fears about death,

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from whatever cause; worries about the dangers of technology and the pace of change in industrial societies; despair at not being able to bring about political change on the nuclear weapons issue; and a general sense of foreboding about the future. Nonetheless, when questionnaires are appropriately refined, nuclear weapons can be shown to be a cause of anxiety in their own right.

the arms race increases as parents’ worry about nuclear war increases. Girls express more worry than boys. Interestingly, children with a high degree of general anxiety do not indicate a high degree of nuclear fears. However, parents are often poor at predicting nuclear anxiety in their children and are more likely to deny their own anxiety than are their children.

How Common Is Nuclear Anxiety?

How Do People Cope with Nuclear Anxiety?

In the 1980s and early 1990s, nuclear anxiety was common. It was generally cited as being in the top three worries of most young people, although the rate declined as the cold war diminished. The death of parents, doing very badly at school, getting cancer, and being unemployed were the other most common worries. The mid-1980s seem to have been the peak, with as high as 54% of U.S. and 93% of USSR adolescents responding that they were worried about nuclear war. A few years later, the rates had diminished by approximately 10%. Large-scale epidemiological studies show big variations in the rates, with as high as 80% of Finnish adolescents and as (relatively) low as 30% of English and Austrian adolescents reporting such fears. Interestingly, most of the literature on this subject dates from before 1993; after that year, there are far fewer published findings.

One coping mechanism is to downplay a real anxiety. Keilin sought to go beyond questionnaire studies by subjecting those who reported themselves to be high or low on nuclear anxiety to a laboratory investigation of their emotional responses to nuclear images. People with low nuclear anxiety, although reporting lower levels of emotionality, were more emotional when shown nuclear war stimuli, as reflected by several physiological and behavioral measures. People with high nuclear anxiety were also anxious about relevant social issues, but did not have a greater disposition to be anxious. Keilin interpreted these findings as supporting the existence of nuclear war-related denial processes on the part of the low-anxiety-reported group but only when faced with highly salient and dramatic nuclear stimuli. So, some people repress their nuclear anxieties and others sensitize themselves to the emotional threat, and questionnaires may pick up their preferred coping styles rather than their real emotions. Another approach is to become an activist. Peace activists sometimes find that their initial anxiety about nuclear war subsides after they have been active for a period of time. They see activism as intrinsically valuable, something they turned to at periods of flux in their lives, believing that they should act to prevent current problems caused by the arms race and not just the anticipated damage from a nuclear war.

Who Is Affected by Nuclear Anxiety? Most people are affected by nuclear anxiety to some extent. Despite some early anxieties about biased questionnaire samples, nuclear anxiety is not restricted to wealthy, politicized families but is found in all social strata, including profoundly disadvantaged teenagers living in violent inner-city neighborhoods (who might be thought to be too much at present risk to worry about future dangers). In this last group, despite not having activist parents and despite personally despairing about being able to do anything about the nuclear threat, teenagers ranked nuclear war (in 1991) as their second worry – after fear of being murdered – and this fear was higher in those who had actually experienced violence. Those with nuclear anxiety tend to be more aware of global issues; have good self-esteem; believe that they, and not outside forces, are responsible for their success in life; be not unusually anxious in general; be not religious; have a healthy optimism about the future; and have a tendency toward political activism. Women generally are more likely than men to experience nuclear anxiety. Does Nuclear Anxiety Run in Families? The few studies that matched children with their parents found an understandable similarity of attitudes. Nuclear concern is higher in higher-income families; scholastically able children are more knowledgeable and more fearful about nuclear war; and children’s hopelessness about

How Do the Nuclear Anxious Differ from Others? Anti-nuclear activists tend to be cooperation-oriented individuals who express spontaneous nuclear concern, have high nuclear anxiety, and also have feelings of empowerment on personal and nuclear issues. They possess feminine traits and are generally tolerant of ambiguity, are open-minded, and have low manipulative tendencies in interpersonal relationships. They are likely to believe that chance does not determine nuclear outcomes and that nuclear war cannot be survived. The most common contrasting group has been those who are prodefense, that is to say, those who believe that the best protection against nuclear war is to hold nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Pro-defense activists tend to be strengthoriented individuals who express low nuclear anxiety and tend to be masculine, dogmatic, persuasive, and intolerant of ambiguity. They are likely to believe that nuclear issues are controlled by powerful others and chance. This is a

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very clear differentiation between attitudes and suggests a profoundly different worldview, leading to widely differing rates of nuclear anxiety. Does Nuclear Anxiety Cause Psychological Disorders? Specific anxiety about nuclear war does not appear to lead to psychological disorders, although despair about the future (which may show up as nuclear anxiety on general questionnaires) may be linked with adolescent depression. Those with nuclear anxiety followed up 8 years later were very slightly more likely to have psychosomatic health complaints and emotional distress but not drug, relationship, or work problems.

Summary Nuclear anxiety appears to be somewhat different from more trait-based stress conditions in that it is a reaction to real-world events and it seems to have subsided with

the passing of the cold war. In terms of the usual imperfect measures, it appears that children survived their upbringing in the nuclear age. Although it is hard to prove identifiable major effects of nuclear anxiety, it would be surprising if so widespread a perceived danger had no effect at all. Perhaps the main effect has been to frighten many, to reduce their confidence in the future, and to goad some into activism, leading to considerable relief for all when the arms race ended in a truce. See also: Hiroshima Bombing, Stress Effects of

Further Reading Keilin, W. J. (1987). Reactions to the threat of nuclear war: An investigation of emotional and defensive processes. PhD thesis, Colorado State University. National Academy of Sciences (1986). The medical implications of nuclear war. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine. Schatz, R. and Fiske, S. T. (1992). International reactions to the threat of nuclear war: the rise and fall of concern in the eighties. Political Psychology 13, 1–30.

Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of S M Southwick, D Vojvoda, C A Morgan III, and D Lipschitz, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Health Risks of the Gulf War Mental Health Predictors of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Physical Symptoms in Gulf War Veterans

Glossary Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) This disorder results from situations in which an individual believes that he or she or someone else is in danger of being seriously injured or killed. Symptoms of PTSD include repetitive re-experiencing of the trauma in the form of

Health Risks of the Gulf War In 1990 the United States and allied countries responded to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait by deploying a large number of This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 3, pp 142–148, ã 2000 Elsevier Inc.

Relationship between Physical and Psychological Complaints Summary Further Reading

intrusive memories, nightmares, and flashbacks; persistent avoidance of stimuli reminiscent of the trauma; a general numbing of emotions; and increased arousal as expressed by hypervigilance, exaggerated startle, irritability, and insomnia.

soldiers to the Persian Gulf. Operation Desert Storm began in 1991 when Allied forces launched a 5-week intensive air attack on Iraq. This was followed by a 4-day ground war. The number of deaths to American and Allied forces during the Gulf war was limited compared to World War I and II, the Korean war, and the Vietnam war. Nevertheless, since the end of the Gulf war, a substantial

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number of Desert Storm veterans have experienced a host of physical and psychological symptoms that, in some cases, have had a pronounced impact on psychosocial functioning. Military personnel stationed in the Gulf were exposed to a wide variety of potential health risks. These included a hostile environment (e.g., extreme temperatures, humidity and rainfall, blowing sand, crowded living conditions), infectious agents (e.g., leichmaniasis, sandfly fever), medical prophylaxis (e.g., pyridostigmine bromide, anthrax, and botulinum toxin vaccines), occupational exposures (e.g., chemical exposures associated with routine maintenance and repair of equipment, fuels), environmental hazards (e.g., pesticides, smoke from oil well fires), depleted uranium (used in some artillery shells), the possibility of chemical and biological warfare agents (e.g., organophosphate nerve agents, sulfur mustard, anthrax, botulinus toxin), and repetitive physiological and psychological stress. Soldiers serving in the Persian Gulf were exposed to numerous potential psychosocial stressors. Stressors associated with deployment included uncertainty about parameters of deployment (e.g., the period of waiting for deployment, unknown length of tour and return date), overestimation of Iraqi military forces, media anticipation of high casualty rates, and separation from home and family. As in all wars, soldiers described the anticipation of combat as being highly stressful. In a study of 1524 deployed military personnel, 80% of subjects reported feeling stressed by the persistent threat of SCUD missile attacks, terrorist attacks, and biological and chemical warfare. Many experienced strong emotional responses to repeated missile warnings and the rapid donning of protective gear that they did not fully trust would be effective against all possible toxic agents. Reports of directly experienced traumatic events vary depending on the units studied. A series of scientific investigations commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense found that 40% of soldiers in the units studied experienced incoming indirect fire, between 40 and 70% reported exposure to mines and booby traps, 40% in two units recalled firing rounds at the enemy, and 80% in one unit and 60% in another claimed to see enemy killed or wounded in action. In two units more than 20% of soldiers believed they were in imminent danger of being killed at some point during their tour in the Persian Gulf. Reports of seeing an American wounded by friendly fire had great emotional impact, as did work in grave registration units. Sadly, some traumas experienced in the Gulf, such as sexual harassment and assault, were inflicted by Americans on their own fellow soldiers. Other frequently cited Gulf war stressors include austere physical environment and severe climatic conditions, heavy workload, sleep deprivation, inadequate supplies and equipment, lack of information, poor leadership and unit morale, and unsatisfactory living conditions.

Mental Health The psychological consequences of war have been described for centuries and have been referred to by a variety of different terms, including shell shock, irritable heart of soldiers, physioneurosis, and, most recently, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD results from situations in which the individual believes that he or she or someone else is in danger of being seriously injured or killed. Symptoms of PTSD include repetitive re-experiencing of the trauma in the form of intrusive memories, nightmares, and flashbacks; persistent avoidance of stimuli reminiscent of the trauma; a general numbing of emotions; and increased arousal as expressed by hypervigilance, exaggerated startle, irritability, and insomnia. Depression, anxiety, substance use, and changes in personality traits are other frequently cited consequences of trauma. Psychological Symptoms in Persian Gulf Veterans Prior to the ground war it was estimated that acute psychiatric casualties might reach as high as 50 000. This estimate was based on experience from previous wars. However, during the Gulf war there appeared to be very few psychiatric casualties. Between August 1990 and August 1991, 476 soldiers were evacuated from southwest Asia for psychiatric reasons. This number constituted only 6.5% of all medical evacuations from the Persian Gulf. Similarly, only 158 soldiers from the U.S. Army 7th Corps received mental health treatment while stationed in the Gulf, and 99% were returned to duty after brief treatment. These low rates led to the belief that psychiatric problems in Gulf veterans would be lower than expected. Explanations for low rates included the brief nature and success of the war, limited exposure to traditional combat stressors, and high levels of perceived social support. Since the end of the Gulf war, however, a number of different research groups have reported rates of psychiatric symptoms and disorders in Persian Gulf veterans that are high in light of the earlier evacuation figures. The Fort Devons Operation Desert Storm Reunion Survey was conducted within 5 days of return to the United States before soldiers rejoined their families. The most commonly endorsed war zone stressors were formal alert for chemical or biological attack (approximately 75%), receiving incoming fire from large arms (approximately 73%), and witnessing death or disfigurement of enemy troops (approximately 48%). Four percent of 2136 men and 9% of 208 females met a presumptive diagnosis of PTSD. Symptoms of hyperarousal and exaggerated startle were the most commonly endorsed PTSD symptoms. Twenty-eight to 31% had general severity index (GSI) scores on the brief symptom inventory (BSI), which reflects general psychological stress, in the clinically significant range.

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Approximately 6 months after Operation Desert Storm, Labatte and Snow administered a self-report questionnaire to 57 soldiers stationed in Germany who were members of a single mechanized infantry unit that suffered four casualties during the brief ground war. Fourteen soldiers (25%) reported traumatic nightmares within 2 months of the war. Nightmares began 2 to 6 months after the war for an additional nine soldiers (16%). Two other studies assessed PTSD symptoms and general psychopathology in a large number of reservists within the first year of their return from the Persian Gulf. In a study of 591 Army, Navy, and Marine reservists, Perconte and co-workers found that those who had been deployed to the Gulf war combat zone had significantly higher Mississippi PTSD scores, higher Beck depression scores, and higher levels of global distress as measured by the symptom check list-90 (SCL-90) than reservists who had been activated but not deployed to combat zones. Over 15% of deployed reservists met Mississippi cutoff scores for PTSD compared to less than 4% of nondeployed reservists. Sutker and colleagues reported low levels of psychological distress in their overall group of 775 combat-deployed Reserve and National Guard troops. However, 12.5% of the sample were diagnosed with PTSD. Approximately 1 year after the war, Holmes and colleagues evaluated 179 members of an Air National Guard unit who were never deployed to the Persian Gulf and compared them to 296 members of the same unit who were deployed. Most members of the deployed group did not experience any traditional combat stressors, although they were exposed to nontraditional combat stressors such as anticipation of missile attacks and biological warfare. Compared to the nondeployed, the deployed group had statistically higher mean scores on the Mississippi PTSD scale and on the GSI as well as on the obsessive-compulsive, depression, hostility, phobic anxiety, and paranoia subscales of the BSI; 6.8% of deployed and 1.7% of nondeployed were identified as having increased risk for PTSD. The findings of this study suggest that multiple noncombat stressors were distressing enough to cause both PTSD and nonPTSD psychological symptoms in some deployed veterans. In a follow-up study of the Fort Devons sample 18–24 months after the war, nearly half of the sample reported no physical or psychological symptoms. Twenty-seven percent believed that their psychological health had deteriorated since the war. PTSD symptomatology was significantly associated with high health symptom endorsement. Twenty-two percent of soldiers with high combat exposure met a presumptive diagnosis of PTSD compared to 8.1% with low combat exposure. Data were consistent with a number of recent studies suggesting that an apparent association between combat exposure and health is significantly mediated by a diagnosis of PTSD. In a survey administered approximately 2 years after the war to 1524 deployed and 2727 nondeployed military

personnel from Hawaii and Pennsylvania, Stretch and coworkers reported possible PTSD in 8.0% of active duty veterans and in 9.35% of reserve veterans who had been deployed to the Persian Gulf. By comparison, 1.3% of active duty nondeployed and 2.1% of reservist nondeployed met possible criteria for PTSD. The sample was also compared to a large group of deployed active duty Army veterans from the XVIIIth and VIIth Corps. The possible risk for PTSD in these groups was 15.2 and 12.9%, respectively. The authors speculate that these units had higher rates of possible PTSD because their duty was more dangerous and because they were evaluated 1 year earlier. Deployed personnel also scored significantly higher on the somatization, obsessive-compulsive, and hostility subscales of the BSI and the GSI. As part of a follow along study of Gulf veterans from two National Guard units, Southwick and colleagues reported a rate of presumptive PTSD in 8.3% of 84 subjects 6 months after the war and in 10% of 64 subjects 2 years after the war. The greatest increase in overall PTSD symptoms occurred between 1 month and 6 months after the war, and symptoms of hyperarousal were elevated above re-experiencing and avoidance symptoms at 1-month, 6-month, and 2-year evaluations. Morgan and colleagues found evidence for anniversary reactions in this same group of veterans. Approximately 5 years after the war, the Iowa Persian Gulf study group conducted telephone interviews with 1896 Gulf war veterans and 1799 personnel who served in the military during the war but who were not stationed in the Persian Gulf. Persian Gulf war personnel reported higher rates of PTSD (1.9% vs. 0.8%), depression (17.0% vs. 10.9%), cognitive dysfunction (18.7% vs. 7.6%), asthma (7.2% vs. 4.1%), fibromyalgia (19.2% vs. 9.6%), alcohol abuse (17.4% vs. 12.6%), chronic fatigue (1.3% vs. 0.3%), and sexual dysfunction compared to non-Persian Gulf war military personnel. Symptom levels were generally higher in Persian Gulf war National Guard reserve personnel than in Persian Gulf war regular military personnel. Finally, in a report of 18 495 Gulf war veterans who presented for evaluation to the Department of Defense Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program, 36% met ICD-9-CM diagnoses for psychological conditions. In most cases, symptoms did not develop until after the war. There was no apparent association between individual physical or psychological symptoms and specific exposures. Compared with a referent group of patients having no symptoms, an excess prevalence of disorders was highest for psychological conditions compared to a variety of physical conditions such as digestive and skin conditions. Psychological Symptoms in Civilians Affected by the Persian Gulf War Clearly the Gulf war had profound stress-related effects on Iraqi military personnel and civilians living in Iraq and

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surrounding Middle Eastern countries. In general, the rates of death, physical injury, and psychological injury have not been reported accurately in the scientific literature. However, there have been a number of publications related to the effects of the Gulf war on American and Israeli civilians as well as Vietnam veterans and Holocaust survivors. In American civilians, it has been reported that the Gulf war was associated with mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety and depression, particularly in those who had a relationship with a deployed soldier. In children of deployed American soldiers, a major predictor of psychological symptoms was level of symptoms in other household members. Although deployment rarely provoked pathological levels of symptoms in healthy children, it was associated with increases in symptoms of depression, especially among younger children. In a study of Israeli civilians that was conducted during the war, Solomon and co-workers found that 80% of individuals whose homes had been destroyed by Iraqi missiles described symptoms consistent with DSM-III-R criteria for PTSD. Similarly, Laor and colleagues reported elevated levels of Gulf war stress-related symptoms in children and mothers who were displaced from their homes due to damage from SCUD missiles and in young children living in families characterized by inadequate cohesion. In Vietnam veterans, no consistent response to the Gulf war has been described. Reported responses have included support for the war, anger at the U.S. government for starting another war, irritability, intrusive thoughts, and increased depression and suicidality. In a study of 76 female Vietnam veterans with PTSD, Wolfe and colleagues reported some exacerbation of symptoms in most subjects, with the greatest increases in those who had high levels of preexisting PTSD symptoms. In a study of Holocaust survivors living in Israel during the Gulf war, Robinson and colleagues reported that many were still vulnerable 50 years after WWII and reported a revival of feelings and memories associated with the Holocaust.

The most commonly cited risk factor for the development of PTSD is the nature and severity of the trauma itself. Many war-related investigations, including a number of Desert Storm studies, have demonstrated a clear dose– response relationship between the severity of psychological trauma and subsequent psychopathology (i.e., the more severe the trauma, the greater the likelihood of developing PTSD and/or other mental disorders). When traumatic exposure involves actual physical injury, the risk for subsequent psychopathology is even greater. In a hospital chart review study of medical and surgical patients who were evacuated from the Gulf to the Walter Reed Hospital, Brandt and co-workers reported a significantly higher rate of axis I disorders (and psychiatric symptoms of concern) in the hospital records of soldiers with traumatic injuries (e.g., shrapnel, gunshot wounds, motor vehicle accidents, SCUD missile attack) compared to soldiers without traumatic injuries (e.g., gastrointestinal bleeding, chest pain, malignancies). Other trauma-related risk factors identified in Gulf war veterans include exposure to dead or dying bodies, having a buddy wounded or killed in action, exposure to American soldiers killed or wounded by friendly fire, being in the reserve (e.g., lack of psychological preparation for deployment), and handling of human remains. Personal variables that have been studied in Gulf war veterans include gender, race, intelligence, personality, hardiness, coping style, and perceived social and family support. In a study of 653 Persian Gulf war zone-exposed veterans, Sutker and co-workers reported significantly greater psychological distress and PTSD symptoms in minority men compared to white men but no differences between war zone males and females. In a separate report, Sutker and colleagues found more avoidance, wishful thinking, and self-blame coping strategies; fewer problemoriented coping strategies; lower scores on hardiness dimensions of commitment, control, and challenge; and less perceived social and family support among Gulf war veterans with PTSD (n ¼ 97) compared to those without psychopathology (n ¼ 484). No differences in intellectual sophistication as measured by the Shipley Institute of Living Scale were found between the two groups.

Predictors of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Physical Symptoms in Gulf War Veterans Numerous investigations of WWII, Korean, and Vietnam veterans have shown that not all individuals develop PTSD and/or other psychological disorders after life-threatening traumas. Given an equal degree of traumatic exposure, some individuals are more likely than others to develop subsequent trauma-related psychopathology. In order to explain such individual differences in veterans of the Gulf war, researchers have studied a number of potential risk factors or predictors for the development of PTSD. These have included characteristics of the traumatic event, as well as available personal and environmental resources.

Since the end of the Gulf war, a large number of veterans have reported an array of troubling physical symptoms, including fatigue, joint pain, gastrointestinal problems, skin rash, headache, memory loss, insomnia, and shortness of breath. In a relatively small percentage of veterans, specific etiologies for physical complaints have been linked directly to military service in the Gulf (e.g., leishmaniasis, malaria, and embedded fragments of uranium). However, for the majority of veterans with physical complaints, a specific relationship between physical symptoms

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and biological, chemical, or other environmental exposures has not been reported in the literature. Further, no specific medical diagnoses appear to explain most of the complaints. As a result, some have postulated a Gulf war syndrome to account for these unexplained physical symptoms. While some studies clearly report a greater number of physical complaints among military personnel who served in the Gulf compared to those who did not serve in the Gulf, most have not found high rates of any one medical disorder or conclusive evidence for a new syndrome. To date, a number of expert panels (Defense Science Board Task Force, National Institutes of Health Technology, Institute of Medicine, Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veteran’s Illnesses) have failed to identify a new Gulf war syndrome. For example, in 1996 the Institute of Medicine reported that ‘‘the committee has not identified scientific evidence to date demonstrating adverse health consequences linked with PGW service other than the documented incidents of leishmaniasis, combat-related or injury-related mortality or morbidity, and increased risk of psychiatric sequelae of deployment.’’ Similarly, in 1996 Gray and associates reported no increased risk of prewar or postwar hospitalization for any cause among 547 076 Persian Gulf war veterans compared to 618 335 nondeployed. Persian Gulf war veterans did have higher rates of psychiatric hospitalization that appeared to be related to the use of drugs and alcohol. Two large-scale mortality studies have reported no increased mortality as a result of medical diseases in Persian Gulf war veterans. However, an excess number of deaths due to accidents and unintentional injury have been reported.

Relationship between Physical and Psychological Complaints In a comprehensive literature review on the relationship among psychological trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and physical health in diverse trauma populations, Friedman and Schnurr reported that exposure to catastrophic events (independent of actual physical injury) was frequently associated with adverse health reports and increased medical utilization, morbidity, and mortality. Based on work by Wolfe and others, Friedman and Schnurr’s review suggested that PTSD – the reaction to a trauma – may serve as an important mediator in the association between traumatic exposure and perceived physical health. Baker and co-workers found support for this hypothesis in a sample of 188 Desert Storm veterans where fatigue, nausea, muscle aches, dizziness, back pain, stomach ache, and numbness were much more likely to be reported by Persian Gulf war veterans with PTSD compared to those without PTSD. Similarly, Stretch and

colleagues reported a probable link between Gulf war syndrome and PTSD, even though they found the relationship between stress and physical health to be relatively weak in a large group of Desert Storm veterans. Approximately 30% of veterans with Gulf war syndrome also met criteria for PTSD. In a study of female veterans conducted within 1 year of their return from the Gulf, Wolfe and colleagues found anxiety and PTSD, but not combat exposure, to be significant predictors of health symptoms. Neurobiological, psychological, and behavioral hypotheses have been offered to explain the relationship between PTSD and physical health. As noted by Friedman and Schnurr, medical problems in trauma survivors may result from neurobiological alterations characteristic of PTSD, such as exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity, adrenergic dysregulation, disturbed sleep physiology, altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, and enhanced thyroid function. It is also possible that these neurobiological alterations increase susceptibility to immunologic disorders and infections. Psychological and behavioral factors that may contribute to health problems and that are commonly seen in survivors with PTSD include hostility, depression, alcohol and drug use, smoking, poor social support, and avoidant and emotionfocused coping.

Summary Soldiers serving in the Gulf war were exposed to a wide variety of potential health risks, including traumatic stress. Across multiple studies it appears that between 6 and 10% of Gulf war veterans developed PTSD as a result of their service in the Middle East. A host of other psychological and physical symptoms have been reported, and some researchers have proposed a Gulf war syndrome. In Gulf war veterans the precise relationship among stress, the neurobiological alterations that accompany stress, and toxic or infectious exposure currently is poorly understood and the subject of intense scientific investigation.

Acknowledgments This work was partially supported by grant number DAMD17-96-1-6125, U.S. Army, and by the National Center for PTSD, West Haven, CT. See also: Combat Stress Reaction; Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors; Korean Conflict, Stress Effects of; Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes; War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

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Further Reading Baker, D. G., Mendenhall, C. L., Simbartl, M. S., Magan, L. K., and Steinberg, J. L. (1997). Relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder and self-reported physical symptoms in Persian Gulf War veterans. Archives of Internal Medicine 157, 2076–2078. Brandt, G. T., Norwood, A. E., Ursano, R. J., et al. (1997). Psychiatric morbidity in medical and surgical patients evacuated from the Persian Gulf war. Psychiatric Services 48, 102–104. Friedman, M. J. and Schnurr, P. P. (1995). The relationship between trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder and physical health. In Friedman, M. J., Charney, D. S., and Deutch, A. (eds.) Neurobiological and clinical consequences of stress: from normal adaptation to PTSD. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott-Raven. Gray, G. C., Coate, B. D., Anderson, C. M., et al. (1996). The postwar hospitalization experience of U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War. New England Journal of Medicine 335, 1505–1513. Holmes, D. T., Tariot, P. N., and Cox, C. (1998). Preliminary evidence of psychological distress among reservists in the Persian Gulf war. Journal of Nervous Mental Disorders 186, 166–173. Institute of Medicine (1995). Health consequences of service during the Persian Gulf War: initial findings and recommendations for immediate action. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Iowa Persian Gulf Study Group. (1997). Self-reported illness and health status among Gulf war veterans. Journal of the American Medical Association 277, 238–245. Kroenke, K., Koslowe, P., and Roy, M. (1998). Symptoms in 18 495 Persian Gulf war veterans: Latency of onset and lack of association with self-reported exposures. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 40, 520–528. Labatte, L. A. and Snow, M. P. (1992). Posttraumatic stress symptoms among soldiers exposed to combat in the Persian Gulf. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 43, 831–833. Landrigan, P. (1997). Illness in Gulf war veterans: causes and consequences. Journal of the American Medical Association 277, 259–261.

Laor, N., Wolmer, L., Mayes, L. C., et al. (1996). Israel preschoolers under SCUD missile attacks. Archives of General Psychiatry 53, 416–423. Morgan, C. A., III, Hill, S., Fox, P., Isingham, P., and Southwick, S. M. (1999). Anniversary reactions in Gulf war veterans: A follow-up inquiry 6 years after the war. American Journal of Psychiatry 156, 1075–1077. Perconte, S. T., Wilson, A. T., Pontius, E., Dietrick, A. L., and Spiro, K. J. (1993). Psychological and war stress symptoms among deployed and non-deployed reservists following the Gulf war. Military Medicine 158, 516–521. Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veteran’s Illnesses (1996). Final report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Robinson, S., Hemmendinger, J., Netanel, M., et al. (1994). Retraumatization of holocaust survivors during the Gulf War and SCUD missile attacks on Israel. British Journal of Medical Psychology 67, 352–362. Solomon, Z., Laor, N., Weiler, D., et al. (1993). The psychological impact of the Gulf war: a study of acute stress in Israel evacuees. Archives of General Psychiatry 50, 320–321. Southwick, S. M., Morgan, A., Nagy, L. M., et al. (1993). Trauma-related symptoms in veterans of Operation Desert Storm: a preliminary report. American Journal of Psychiatry 150, 1524–1528. Stretch, R. H., Marlowe, D. H., Wright, K. M., et al. (1996). Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms among Gulf war veterans. Military Medicine 161, 407–410. Sutker, P. B., Uddo, M., Davis, M. J., and Ditta, S. R. (1995). War zone stress, personal resources, and PTSD in Persian Gulf war returnees. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 104, 444–452. Wolfe, J., Brown, P. J., and Kelley, J. M. (1993). Reassessing war stress: exposure and the Persian Gulf war. Journal of Social Issues 49, 15–31. Wolfe, J., Proctor, S. P., Davis, J. D., Borgos, M. S., and Friedman, M. J. (1998). Health symptoms reported by Persian Gulf war veterans 2 years after return. American Journal of Industrial Medicine 33, 104–113.

Korean Conflict, Stress Effects of C A Goguen, National Center for PTSD, USA M J Friedman, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Critical Issues in Korean Conflict Trauma Research Combat Exposure Lasting Effects of Combat Exposure

Summary Further Reading

Prior to the Korean conflict (1950–1953), combat-related posttraumatic stress reactions, variously termed battle fatigue, war neurosis, and combat exhaustion, were considered a temporary condition best treated close to the combat zone. Influential theoretical perspectives included Freudian concepts of defense mechanisms as adaptations

to stress-induced intrapsychic conflicts and, later, Selye’s general adaptation syndrome, stress reactions viewed as a three-stage physiological response. Psychiatry during World War II and the Korean conflict viewed traumatic war neurosis as a complex phenomenon resulting from ‘‘multiple physical and psychic forces struggling for emotional control . . . the stimuli of battle itself evoked a defensive process that sustained men in combat . . . the lonely, fearful battle environment forces individuals to join together for protection and emotional support’’

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 2, pp 595–598, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

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(Glass, 1954: 728). The military unit was seen as a key source of support and motivation for soldiers to return to active combat. Therefore, all but the most severe cases of psychiatric casualties were treated at the front lines. Further reinforcing the belief that combat-related posttraumatic stress reactions were short-lived, the publication of the first edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I) in 1952 established responses to either combat or civilian catastrophe invoking overwhelming fear, ‘‘gross stress reaction,’’ as a temporary condition. Any protracted course of symptoms was attributed to an unrelated neurosis. Subsequently, the 1968 edition, DSM-II, dropped ‘‘gross stress reaction,’’ relegating combat-related posttraumatic stress reactions to an adult adjustment problem.

Critical Issues in Korean Conflict Trauma Research Nevertheless, the most prevalent service-connected disability in a sample of former Korean prisoners of war (POWs) was anxiety neurosis (19.2%). Few researchers at the time examined the psychological impact of combatrelated traumatic stress on Korean veterans. In fact, most clinical and empirical research on the possible long-term psychological sequelae of the Korean conflict did not begin in earnest until the 1980s, three decades later, and only after a substantial amount of research had been conducted on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Vietnam veterans. These retrospective studies all suffer from sampling problems that make it difficult to generalize from their findings to all Korean conflict veterans. Some studies did not differentiate Korean veterans from World War II veterans, whereas all the remaining studies focused exclusively on treatment-seeking veterans or POWs, each a highly select group.

Combat Exposure Despite limited data, certain trends can be seen. It is clear that some Korean combat veterans were exposed to high levels of war-zone stress. Indeed, Blake and colleagues found no significant differences for combat exposure or posttraumatic stress symptomatology between Korean combat veterans and either World War II or Vietnam combat veterans. In an early study, Korean veterans reported that their combat-related posttraumatic stress symptoms not only persisted but actually worsened over time. One of the best-studied groups of Korean combat veterans are former POWs. Like non-POW Korean combat veterans, Korean POWs reported that they had continued to experience posttraumatic stress symptoms years, even decades,

after the trauma. Consistent with studies demonstrating a dose–response relationship between traumatic exposure and posttraumatic stress symptoms, Korean POWs reported higher levels of posttraumatic symptoms than nonPOW Korean combat veterans. Whereas Korean POWs experienced less combat exposure than non-POW Korean veterans, the combat they had experienced before their capture was fierce with heavy casualties. After capture, they were sent on death marches and were subjected to brainwashing techniques and long periods of physical deprivation, interrogation, and solitary confinement. Thirty-eight percent of Korean POWs died during captivity.

Lasting Effects of Combat Exposure Despite the circumscribed number of empirical investigations, the existing database suggests that, in addition to PTSD, Korean POWs and combat veterans have experienced long-term consequences of traumatic exposure, including alcohol abuse, depression, and general psychiatric distress. Further, higher mortality rates, especially due to accidents, appear to occur among Korean POWs than are expected for U.S. males. With respect to their World War II counterparts, Korean veterans had a higher lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts, more frequent occurrences of drug abuse-related hospitalizations and outpatient treatment, and greater use of mental health outpatient treatment. However, fewer Korean veterans met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Nevertheless, Korean POWs reported higher rates of posttraumatic stress symptomatology and depression than World War II POWs. Compared to Vietnam counterparts, Korean veterans reported lower levels of alcohol or drug abuse and fewer occurrences of drug abuse-related hospitalizations and outpatient treatment. Korean veterans were more likely than Vietnam veterans to recognize, early in their disorder, the link between their symptoms and their combat exposure. However, less use of PTSD treatment programs was found among Korean veterans.

Summary Relative to Vietnam and World War II veterans, few researchers have included Korean veterans in their studies. A caveat should be exercised when drawing conclusions from studies of highly selective samples of war-era groups that differ in important areas such as age, premilitary socioeconomic status, time since combat exposure, POW status, repatriation, and social attitudes. Nevertheless, it seems apparent that traumatized Korean veterans suffer chronic debilitating posttraumatic psychological consequences of their war-zone experiences.

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See also: Combat Stress Reaction; Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of; Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes; War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (1952). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. American Psychiatric Association (1968). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 2nd edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Archibald, H. C. and Tuddenham, R. D. (1965). Persistent stress reaction after combat. Archives of General Psychiatry 12, 475–481. Beebe, G. W. (1975). Follow-up studies of World War II and Korean conflict prisoners. II: Morbidity, disability, and maladjustments. American Journal of Epidemiology 101, 400–422. Blake, D. D., Keane, T. M., Wine, P. R., et al. (1990). Prevalence of PTSD symptoms in combat veterans seeking medical treatment. Journal of Traumatic Stress 3, 15–27. Druley, K. A. and Pashko, S. (1988). Posttraumatic stress disorder in World War II and Korean combat veterans with alcohol dependence. Recent Developments in Alcoholism 6, 89–101. Engdahl, B. E., Harkness, A. R., Eberly, R. E., et al. (1993). Structural models of captivity trauma, resilience, and trauma response among former prisoners of war 20 to 40 years after release. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 28, 109–115. Foy, D. W., Sipprelle, R. C., Rueger, D. B., et al. (1984). Etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans: analysis of premilitary, military, and combat exposure influences. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 52, 79–87.

Glass, A. J. (1954). Psychotherapy in the combat zone. American Journal of Psychiatry 110, 725–731. Goodwin, J. (1987). The etiology of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorders. In Williams, T. (ed.) Post-traumatic stress disorders: a handbook for clinicians, pp. 1–18. Cincinnati, OH: Cincinnati Disabled American Veterans. Keehn, R. J. (1980). Follow-up studies of World War II and Korean conflict prisoners. III: Mortality to January 1, 1976. American Journal of Epidemiology 111, 194–211. Lee, K. A., Vaillant, G. E., Torrey, W. C., et al. (1995). A 50-year prospective study of the psychological sequelae of World War II combat. American Journal of Psychiatry 152, 516–522. Mellman, T. A., Randolph, C. A., Brawman-Mintzer, O., et al. (1992). Phenomenology and course of psychiatric disorders associated with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 149, 1568–1574. Page, W. F., Engdahl, B. E., and Eberly, R. E. (1991). Prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms among former prisoners of war. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 179, 670–677. Rosenheck, R. and Fontana, A. (1994). Long-term sequelae of combat in World War II, Korea and Vietnam: a comparative study. In Ursano, R. J., McCaughey, B. G., and Fullerton, C. S. (eds.) Individual and community responses to trauma and disaster, pp. 359. New York: Cambridge University Press. Selye, H. (1950). The physiology and pathology of exposure to stress. Montreal, Canada: Acta. Sutker, P. B. and Allain, A. N. (1996). Assessment of PTSD and other mental disorders in World War II and Korean conflict POW survivors and combat veterans. Psychological Assessment 8, 18–25. Sutker, P. G., Winstead, D. K., Galina, Z. H., et al. (1991). Cognitive deficits and psychopathology among former prisoners of war and combat veterans of the Korean conflict. American Journal of Psychiatry 148, 67–72. U.S. Veterans Administration/Office of Planning and Program Evaluation (1980). POW: study of former prisoners of war. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Northern Ireland, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in P Bell, South and East Belfast Health and Social Services Trust, Belfast, UK ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Early Survey of Survivors of Violence The Enniskillen Bombing The Kegworth Air Disaster

Glossary Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A psychological injury after violence,

Psychiatrists in Northern Ireland had been treating the survivors of violence for more than 10 years, since PTSD

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P Bell, volume 3, pp 62–65, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Theoretical Model Used in Debriefing Further Reading

characterized by reexperiencing trauma, hyperarousal, and withdrawal.

was defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III; 3rd edn.). In general psychiatry, most of the patients encountered are suffering from a psychiatric illness. This results when an individual who is vulnerable is subjected to a stressor. In the 1970s, the concept of psychological injury was not well developed,

Northern Ireland, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 343

and so people who suffered from psychological problems after exposure to violence were viewed according to the psychiatric illness model. Either these patients were assumed to have some constitutional vulnerability to anxiety or depression and that a neurotic illness had been precipitated by an adverse life event or else the psychological injuries were dismissed as a normal reaction. Previous attempts to define psychological injuries, such as shell shock and combat neurosis, had been discredited because these diagnoses carried with them some secondary gain. In the early 1980s, a group of psychiatrists based at the Mater Hospital decided to examine the diagnosis of PTSD in order to see whether it applied to the victims of violence in Northern Ireland. The diagnosis had considerable appeal because of the clear operational definition involving a pattern of symptoms. However, local psychiatrists were skeptical about the diagnosis for three main reasons. First, community surveys in Northern Ireland had indicated that the number of cases of psychiatric morbidity in the province was no higher than in England or Scotland. Second, experience with survivors of violence indicated that they were a very different population from the archetypal Vietnam veteran. In particular, there seemed little evidence of impulsive violence or substance abuse. And the final reason for skepticism about the diagnosis of PTSD was the fact that this diagnosis had already begun to fall into disrepute in the United States, where veterans of the Vietnam War were able to obtain a higher pension if they were given this diagnosis.

Early Survey of Survivors of Violence This first study conducted in Northern Ireland had a simple methodology. The case notes of almost 700 patients were examined retrospectively, and for each case a total of 80 items of information were recorded. These 80 items of information included the symptoms of PTSD, social and environmental factors, and a number of other items that might be expected to predispose to psychological problems. The results of the survey were valuable because of the large number of patients involved and because the retrospective nature of this study (normally a disadvantage) meant that both the patients and interviewers were naı¨ve to the diagnosis of PTSD and, thus, that the symptoms could not have been feigned. Eighty items of information were analyzed by the computer department of Queen’s University, Belfast, where a mainframe computer applied the diagnostic criteria defined in DSM-III to the symptom checklists. The research team was surprised by the results. Despite the skepticism of psychiatrists, when the diagnosis of PTSD was applied to this group of patients, 23% fulfilled the diagnostic criteria. This percentage is very

high, especially considering that the symptoms of PTSD were not specifically being looked for at the time when the patients were interviewed. A number of factors were found to be significantly associated with the diagnosis. These findings were very much in keeping with literature on PTSD from other parts of the world, in that female, elderly, and unmarried individuals were more likely to develop PTSD. However, the negative findings were perhaps more striking than the positive findings. Despite the large numbers involved, there was no significant association of PTSD with a past history of psychiatric illness, family history of psychiatric illness, or any of the other putative vulnerability factors that were examined in this study. It was also striking that 75% of the population had recovered from the psychological difficulties within 18 months. This indicated that most people had recovered before litigation issues had been settled. At that time, the conventional wisdom was the view of Millar, that psychological injuries do not resolve until compensation issues have been resolved. The results of this study forced psychiatrists in Northern Ireland to reappraise their views on the psychological effects of violence. For the first time, PTSD began to be seen as a true psychological injury. Until then, it was not uncommon for victims of violence to be told by their doctors, ‘‘Of course, you’re upset. It is normal to be upset when you have been involved in an explosion.’’ Psychiatrists began to realize that saying this to patients was rather like saying to the victim of a road-traffic accident, ‘‘Of course, you’ve got a broken leg. It is normal to have a broken leg when you have been run down by a bus.’’ It was becoming clear that PTSD is an injury analogous to a grief reaction, in that it is a psychological reaction that happens to normal people when placed under extreme stress, and that there is a natural course of healing after such an injury which takes about 1.5 years. The analogy with grief reaction goes further in that certain circumstances at the time of the trauma might produce a delayed injury and that, if the natural course of the healing process is disrupted, a chronic injury may result. People in Northern Ireland were well aware that a grief reaction is normal and that allowances have to be made for normal people who suffer psychological problems for a year or so after a bereavement. Through a process of education, the public has become aware that psychological injuries after trauma do not imply any psychological weakness and that people with these injuries usually recover with the passage of time. This study contained a large number of individuals with a wide spectrum of traumatic experiences, ranging from being a casual witness to a bombing to surviving a specific assassination attempt (e.g., one individual had survived an attempted sectarian murder; a gun was put to his head but jammed when the trigger was pulled).

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In addition, there were a number of individuals who experienced traumatic events unrelated to the Troubles, including common assault and sexual assault. When these different types of traumatic experience were grouped together, the researchers were surprised to find that there was no significant difference in the rate of PTSD among these different groups. It seemed that the seriousness of the traumatic event and the objective level of danger were less important in producing PTSD than the individual’s subjective experience of the event. The study raised a number of questions, which were addressed in a later study. A number of speculative suggestions have been put forward to explain the paradox that individuals affected by violence are psychologically ill and yet no increase in morbidity is seen in the community as a whole. The nature of violence in Northern Ireland changed during the 1970s from widespread civil unrest to attacks on specific targets. A much smaller number of individuals were involved in these violent incidents, and so community surveys might not be sensitive enough to pick up the small numbers involved. Anecdotally, psychiatrists noticed that the level of functioning of certain marginal individuals improved in an atmosphere of violence. It was believed that this might be because sectarian polarization had produced tightly knit ghettos with increased community spirit and support. Durkheim pointed out the importance of these social factors in determining the mental health of a community, and it might be that the detrimental psychological effects of violence for the individuals directly involved might be partly compensated for by the increased community spirit in tightly knit sectarian ghettos. The hypothesis was proposed that a blitz spirit in these communities might be masking the psychological ill effects on those directly effected by violence. If this is the case, it was proposed that, if the Troubles were to end and Northern Ireland returned to more normal social functioning, we might see an upsurge in psychological morbidity. During the 1980s, a number of scientific papers were published describing survivors of various civilian disasters from all parts of the world. These papers emphasized the validity of the concept of PTSD. It was striking that the psychological sequelae seen after trauma were remarkably similar in different cultures and with different types of trauma. It became clear from the growing literature and from clinical experience that there is a core group of symptoms, involving hyperarousal, emotional constriction, and reliving the event, that are experienced after all types of trauma and that, in addition, to these symptoms there are a variety of other symptoms that depend on the type of trauma experienced. For example, passive victims of violence in Northern Ireland had low rates of substance abuse, survivor guilt, and acting as if the incident were reoccurring compared to active participants in violence such as Vietnam veterans. The survivors of hostage

situations seemed to develop symptoms of learned helplessness in addition to the core syndrome of PTSD, and victims of sexual violence often suffered the additional symptoms of post-rape syndrome, including obsessional cleanliness, mistrust of members of the opposite sex, and an aversion to sexual stimuli. The definition of PTSD became more focused in subsequent revisions of DSM-III, and the difference between the symptoms experienced by adults and children were more clearly delineated.

The Enniskillen Bombing A terrorist bomb exploded in the town square at Enniskillen on Remembrance Sunday 1987 as the town gathered to remember the dead in two world wars. A group of survivors were followed up at 6 months and 12 months in order to determine the relationship between their physical and psychological injuries. Millar had said that there is an inverse relationship between physical injuries and psychological injuries after a traumatic event. This was found to be true when the survivors were followed up at 6 months, but at 12 months it seemed that those individuals who suffered more severe physical injuries tended to develop delayed PTSD after 6 months. This group of survivors were particularly unfortunate because their psychological injuries were only beginning to emerge at a time when other victims of the trauma were beginning to put the incident behind them. In working with survivors of the Enniskillen bombing, researchers emphasized the importance of local supports, debriefing, and education. Many survivors and their families were relieved to be told that the psychological reactions that they were seeing were, in fact, normal under the circumstances and were likely to improve within 18 months or so. Families were also relieved to hear that the withdrawal and irritability, which they were finding so hard to live with, were in fact predictable parts of a recognized psychological injury that tended to improve with time. In this way, education was able to prevent one of the main complications of PTSD, namely marital disharmony.

The Kegworth Air Disaster A passenger jet carrying over 90 people traveling between London and Belfast in 1989 crashed on to a stretch of motorway as it was diverted to East Midlands Airport. Research teams followed up the survivors on both sides of the Irish Sea. The relationship between physical and psychological injuries was once more explored in some detail. One of the most striking findings from this piece of research, which was not reported in the original paper, was that individuals from England and Scotland (68%) were significantly more likely to develop PTSD than

Northern Ireland, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 345 Table 1 Rates of PTSD according to home address (%)a

No PTSD PTSD a

England/Scotland

Northern Ireland

7 15

24 19

PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder.

residents of Northern Ireland (43%) (Table 1). A number of possible reasons have been put forward to explain this result. It may be that even when applying the research criteria psychiatrists in Northern Ireland tend to be more reluctant to make the diagnosis of PTSD, perhaps applying the research criteria more strictly than our colleagues in mainland United Kingdom. Another possible reason is that individuals living in Northern Ireland have been in some way inured to violence and were, therefore, less traumatized than individuals from mainland United Kingdom, who had less direct experience of traumatic situations. Anecdotal experience indicates that individuals may suffer a series of traumatic events without any psychological ill effects, only to break down very severely after a relatively minor trauma. This suggests that repeated exposure to trauma can strengthen defense mechanisms up to a certain point, but once these defense mechanisms have been overwhelmed the psychological injury seems more severe than otherwise would be the case.

Theoretical Model Used in Debriefing Successful debriefing seems to depend on making PTSD understandable to the individual involved. Models that are too technical or difficult to believe are of little value. The following model has been developed from various sources, as well as from direct experience of PTSD in Northern Ireland. Three groups of symptoms are involved in PTSD: hyperarousal, reliving the incident, and emotional constriction. The hyperarousal is best explained as part of the fight-or-flight response to stress. This is one of the survival mechanisms by which nature has equipped us to deal with dangerous or threatening situations. Symptoms such as increased aggression, increased startle reaction, sleep disturbance, and hypervigilance are seen. These symptoms may improve an individual’s chances of survival in a dangerous situation and arguably improve the functioning of a combat soldier. The symptoms of reexperiencing the incident in the form of flashbacks and nightmares is best understood according to Janet’s model of traumatic memory. Under normal circumstances, long-term memories are laid down in a process of digesting experience. Long-term memory is not a factual record of events but a story that we tell

ourselves to explain the past. It seems that traumatic memories are portions of experience so threatening to the individual that they cannot be digested by this process. In this way, the traumatic event remains recorded as a factual record, almost like a videotape. Individuals can remember what they had for breakfast on the day of a traumatic event 15 years after the incident. Perhaps this is why listening to the accounts of survivors is so distressing – the events are recorded so literally and usually accurately. These traumatic memories are so distressing that they are phobically avoided. They are suppressed, and the conscious mind attempts to keep them in the subconscious. However, they reemerge when the individual is off-guard (e.g., when asleep). It may be that it is this phobic element that is improved when individuals undergo eye movement desensitization. Emotional constriction and estrangement from others can be viewed as a loss of innocence. This assumes a state of normal denial, in which most people believe that the world is a safe place and that death and mutilation are things that happen to other people. However, traumatic events force us to confront our own mortality and destroy this normal denial. Thus, people with PTSD are living in a different – more dangerous – world than those individuals around them, who continue to convince themselves that the world is a safe place. In order to be normal again, individuals with PTSD must convince themselves once more that the world is a safe place, and they attempt to do this by suppressing the memory, thus leading to the development of traumatic memories that reemerge in the form of nightmares and flashbacks. This model has been found to be very useful in talking to survivors of violence. People with PTSD often think of themselves as members of an elite club who are able to see the truth when those around them remain naı¨ve. It is perhaps for this reason that group therapy can be successful in PTSD, although there is a strong danger of scapegoating in groups because of the high levels of free-floating anger that survivors suffer as part of PTSD. The Clinical Resource and Efficacy Support Team for Northern Ireland reviewed the Northern Ireland literature and produced guidelines for management of PTSD in June 2003. This found strong evidence that a single-session individual debriefing was not helpful and may well be harmful. The team also found evidence that brief programs of cognitive-behavior therapy were effective, as well as pharmacological treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), and tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs). Eye movement desensitization and supportive group therapy were also found to be effective, and there was evidence that nonprofessional and practical assistance reduced the frequency of avoidance and intrusion symptoms.

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Because individuals with PTSD are normal, they often do not respond well to mental health professionals. Normal supports are more useful in supporting these individuals (e.g., family, friends, employment, and church), but debriefing and education are useful in reducing the suffering for survivors and their families. Symptomatic relief can be offered, but, if PTSD persists beyond 1.5 years, the prognosis becomes less positive and the response to treatment is usually incomplete, leaving lasting emotional scars.

Further Reading Bell, P., Kee, M., Loughrey, G. L., et al. (1988). Post traumatic stress disorder in N. Ireland. Acta Psychiatricia Scandinavian 77, 166–170. Cairns, E. and Wilson, R. (1985). Psychiatric aspects of stress in N. Ireland. Stress Medicine 1, 193–196. Loughrey, G. L., Curran, P. S., and Bell, P. (1993). Post traumatic stress disorder and civil violence in N. Ireland. In Wilson, J. P. and Raphael, B. (eds.) The international handbook of traumatic stress syndromes, pp. 377–380. New York: Plenum. Lyons, H. A. (1979). Civil violence – the psychological aspects. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 23, 373–376.

Guerrilla Warfare Anthony James Joes, Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How Guerrillas Fight Defeating Guerrillas

Glossary Guerrilla A term of Spanish origin; literally, ‘little war’. First used in English to describe the local Spanish forces opposing Napoleon’s efforts to rule Spain, in the Peninsular War of 1808–14. Now generally applied to any irregular military force carrying on a protracted conflict at the local level against a ruling or occupying government and its superior conventional military forces. Infrastructure Civilians who provide active support to guerrilla organizations.

Guerrilla warfare is a form of struggle carried on by those who seek to wage a protracted conflict against greatly superior forces. This article examines the general principles of guerrilla warfare as well as methods employed to defeat it, and then presents case studies illustrating those principles and methods.

How Guerrillas Fight In the decades following World War II, the term ‘guerrilla’ became widely associated with communism. Certainly, some of the most notable guerrilla movements, as those in China, Greece, and Vietnam, were communist-directed. But in Eritrea, Ukraine, Tibet, and most spectacularly Afghanistan, guerrillas fought ‘against’ communist regimes.

Some Major Guerrilla Conflicts Further Reading

Policy of Attraction A method for undermining a guerrilla movement’s appeal to the population by ameliorating negative social conditions that create support for the guerrilla cause in the first place. Pyrrhic Victory A victory achieved at great cost to the victor; a triumph that is a virtual defeat. (From Pyrrhus, an ancient Greek king who is said to have remarked after inflicting a costly defeat on the Romans, ‘‘Another such victory and I am ruined.’’ Sanctuary A safe haven across an international border used by guerrillas as a refuge or base of operations.

In those countries, as in the Vendean resistance to the French Revolution and the Spanish insurgency against Napoleon, guerrilla war was the instrument of popular movements of nationalist, religious, and/or conservative orientation. By definition, guerrillas are the weaker party in a struggle. They lack the numbers, training, and equipment of a conventional army. That is precisely why they fight as guerrillas. Their first duty therefore is self-preservation; it is no disgrace for guerrillas to retreat in the face of superior force, indeed it is mandatory. Guerrillas must seek to protract the conflict: if it is quickly over, it will be because the guerrillas have been destroyed. A protracted conflict means that government forces cannot eliminate or disperse the guerrillas; this will weaken the morale of the government troops. It also

Guerrilla Warfare

provides time: for the guerrillas to train and test leaders, for foreign help to arrive, to prove the superiority of their will, most of all for the guerrillas to develop themselves into conventional forces, which is their true objective. Well-led guerrillas are always on the tactical offensive, searching out opportunities for action: attacking small outposts, convoys, and patrols, or damaging bridges, railways, and roads. They will never attack except when certain to win. This requires that they greatly outnumber the enemy at the point of contact. And that in turn requires the ability to assemble, strike, withdraw, and disperse with great speed. Speed, in attack and in withdrawal, is the essence of guerrilla combat. Here the guerrillas’ lightness of armament is an advantage (the Roman word for the equipment of a regular army was impedimenta). That is why the great philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz advised guerrillas to operate in rough country. Thus, guerrillas are combatants who seek to wage a protracted conflict against superior forces by emphasizing speed and deception, whereby they win small victories through their numerical superiority at particular points. To survive, guerrillas need high morale, accurate intelligence, and if possible, a secure base. Guerrilla life involves much physical hardship, and the taking of life and destruction of property. Hence maintaining good morale becomes essential. Morale can be kept high by recruiting only volunteers and by constantly winning small victories; but most of all, good morale requires a good cause. Sometimes the good cause is obvious, as in Afghan resistance to Soviet invasion; sometimes the cause needs to be explained through political indoctrination. Intelligence – knowledge of the location, numbers, equipment, and morale of the enemy – is equally vital. Such intelligence can derive from penetration of the enemy police and armed forces. It can also come from sympathetic civilians (hence, it is a good idea for guerrilla bands always to include at least some natives of the area in which they are operating). Besides high-quality intelligence, guerrillas need food, medicine, and recruits. These come from their organized civilian supporters, called the ‘infrastructure’. Guerrillas operate outside settled life, the civilian infrastructure operates inside. A secure base means an area where the guerrillas can store supplies, train members, nurse their wounded, and rest in safety. Normally that place will be in a remote or inaccessible part of the country, as was the case in Mao’s China. Today, perhaps few if any areas are really inaccessible to a government equipped with helicopters and specialized aircraft. In substitution for, or in addition to, a secure base, guerrillas may possess a ‘sanctuary’, that is, a refuge across an international frontier, as the Viet Cong possessed in Laos and Cambodia. The main problem with a sanctuary is that the host country may withdraw its use, which happened to the Greek Communist guerrillas of the late 1940s.

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Well-led guerrillas can survive on human and material resources from inside the country of their operations. To win, however, they need foreign assistance, because usually guerrillas cannot accumulate the kind of armament necessary for them to field conventional units if they lack outside aid. Experience strongly suggests that it is very difficult to defeat guerrillas who have an attractive cause and outside help. On the other hand, even if the guerrillas enjoy both foreign aid and a sanctuary, it will do them little good in the end if they pursue a bad strategy, as in the case of the Greek insurgents (see below). Finally, operating in tandem with allied conventional forces is immensely helpful to guerrillas, for this makes it dangerous for the enemy to maintain strongpoints and/or to send out small units to hunt guerrillas.

Defeating Guerrillas An analysis of guerrilla conflicts both ancient and contemporary produces a set of principles by which a government can hope to defeat guerrillas. First and foremost, the government must control the conduct of its troops toward civilians. Brutality or looting in the villages legitimizes the guerrillas, makes recruits for them, and interferes with the government’s gathering of intelligence. Even the most resource-poor government can make sure that the arrival of its troops in a village does not resemble the descent of a plague of locusts (or worse). Rectitude on the part of the authorities is worth many battalions. Confirming this principle in a negative sense are the experiences of the Japanese in China, the Germans in Yugoslavia, and the Soviets in Afghanistan, and in a positive sense the British in Malaya, the Americans against Aguinaldo, and Magsaysay against the Huks (see below). Two additional and quite effective means by which a government can undercut the appeal of guerrillas are (1) addressing some major popular grievance(s), and (2) offering a peaceful road to change, in the form of honest elections or some sort of traditional assembly. It is often observed that the ballot box is the coffin of insurgencies. (For both of these approaches, see section ‘The Huks’ below.) Other inexpensive tactics for the government to pursue include: encouraging defection by the offer of amnesty and resettlement (surrendered or even captured guerrillas often provide valuable intelligence); buying up guns from civilians in or near guerrilla areas, no questions asked; offering large rewards for the apprehension of specific guerrilla leaders accused of specific criminal acts; and sending small, well-trained hunter groups into guerrilla territory on long-term patrols. If the guerrillas have a sanctuary, great effort should be made to shut it down, through either diplomatic or military means. In the Algerian struggle, the French quite effectively closed off the Tunisian frontier, while during

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the Afghanistan war the Soviets utterly failed to control the Pakistan border. If, however, the guerrillas are clearly losing, the sanctuary problem will probably solve itself. In the last analysis, victory over guerrillas consists not in killing them (usually a difficult thing to do) but in separating them from civilians from whom they derive sustenance. Resolving some popular grievance(s) is one effective way to accomplish this, because almost invariably civilians, especially rural folk, who support guerrilla movements do so for concrete and finite reasons, as contrasted to the often ideological and open-ended goals of the insurgent leadership. Another method is to gather scattered or nomadic populations into easily-guarded settlements. This procedure requires a good deal of planning and money if it is not to thoroughly alienate the regrouped civilians; resettlement was successful in Malaya, but in general it is inadvisable. Better than removing the civilians is removing the guerrillas. This can be done through ‘clearing and holding’: government forces inundate a given area, driving the guerrillas out and identifying and detaining their sympathizers (clearing); a local militia is trained and armed to prevent the return of the guerrillas (holding). Then a neighboring area is cleared, and so on until the guerrillas are pushed into remote and poorly-inhabited areas. This is definitely a low-casualty strategy, but it requires time, patience, coordination, and well-disciplined troops. One cannot wage successful counterinsurgency on the cheap. The country undertaking to defeat a serious guerrilla movement must be prepared to make a substantial commitment of troops, or else find some other way to deal (or not to deal) with the insurgency. Many authors have maintained that for a government to defeat guerrillas, the ratio of its forces to the guerrillas needs to be 10:1. In Malaya, the ratio of soldiers and paramilitary to guerrillas reached 29:1; in French Algeria, 18:1. In contrast, the ratio of French forces to the Viet Minh was 1.7:1; and for the Americans and South Vietnamese against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army, 1.6:1. Yet wars are not won by favorable ratios alone: shortly before Fidel Castro’s triumphant march into Havana, the regime’s army overmatched the Fidelistas 15:1. The role of geography in guerrilla warfare is complex. The British waged a successful counterinsurgency in far-off Malaya, as did the Americans in the far-off Philippines, while the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan and the Napoleonic disaster in Spain both took place just across the border. But geography is primary and decisive for the all-important question of foreign assistance to guerrillas.

George Cornwallis at Yorktown. But why was Cornwallis there? The army available to the British Crown during the Revolution was small; hence the notorious ‘Hessian mercenaries’. This army enjoyed no great technological advantages over the troops of the Continental Congress. Much of its food and munitions had to come from Britain by sailing ship across the treacherous North Atlantic, with crossings taking up to 2 months. The Royal Navy had deteriorated since its victory in the Seven Years War, and the watchful French were ready to cause whatever mischief they could for their British rivals. In October 1777, the battle of Saratoga (in New York) convinced the French to help the Americans. It also turned British strategy toward the southern colonies, supposedly rich in food and full of loyalists. Their plan was to conquer South Carolina and then proceed methodically northward. A large British force captured Charleston in May 1780 and then destroyed the last regular American army in the southern colonies. The British and their vengeful loyalist allies began burning private homes and Presbyterian churches, and the whole of Georgetown, South Carolina. These acts provoked the predictable response: guerrilla leaders like the Swamp Fox (Francis Marion) and the Gamecock (Thomas Sumter) kept the torch of resistance burning. Their well-mounted bands pushed small British outposts back to Charleston, harried communications between Charleston and Camden, and attacked British detachments trying to gather food. The Swamp Fox led bands varying in size between 50 and 250 men; the born guerrilla chieftain, ‘‘fertile in stratagems, he struck unperceived.’’ Deciding that the true source of the South Carolina guerrilla war lay in North Carolina, in October 1780 Cornwallis led an army there. He soon fell victim to guerrillas operating symbiotically with the small, newlyarrived American army of Nathanael Greene. If Cornwallis were to subdivide his army into numerous, fast-moving groups to hunt the guerrillas, they would be in danger from Greene’s forces; but by concentrating on the pursuit of Greene, the British fell victim to harassment day and night by the guerrillas. Cornwallis’s victory over Greene at Guilford Court House (March 1781) was Pyrrhic: of his force of 1900 he lost 500, which he could not replace. Meanwhile, guerrillas wore out his remaining troops with alarms and chases and sudden small encounters. Simply getting enough food became a major problem. In tacit admission that the Carolina enterprise had been a mistake from the beginning, Cornwallis crossed the line into Virginia, to keep his rendezvous with destiny at Yorktown.

Some Major Guerrilla Conflicts

The Vendee

The American Revolution Every American schoolchild once knew that the climax of the American Revolution was the surrender of General

In 1793 the French Revolution was entering its most radical phase. It would take the lives of the King and Queen and thousands of ordinary Frenchmen, assault

Guerrilla Warfare

the Church, and plunge France into war against all Europe. These policies evoked profound and widespread domestic opposition: revolt swept Brittany, Lyons, and the southern provinces. But the most famous of the uprisings against the radical regime in Paris took place in the Vendee, an Atlantic province the size of Connecticut, with a pre-revolutionary population of 800 000. Persecution of religion and the imposition of the draft upon the peasantry (from which town officials exempted themselves) were the principal grievances of the Vendeans. Over 120 000 of them, including women and youths, joined the insurgent forces. They captured several sizeable towns, notably Saumur. From there they might have marched to Paris, but did not, owing to their narrow regional perspective and the absence of both professional military leadership and strict discipline. But most of all they lacked good arms, because England, though nearby, declined to help. The Paris regime employed the most extreme methods to crush the Vendean peasantry, including mass executions preceded by mass rape, the deliberate killing of children, the drowning of prisoners, the burning of villages, the poisoning of wells, even experiments with poison gas. It was ‘the first ideological genocide’ in human history. The distinction between combatant and noncombatant disappeared; supporters of the regime were slaughtered along with its opponents. The regime overwhelmed the Vendee with 130 000 troops, compared to 180 000 fighting all of France’s enemies on the northern and eastern frontiers. The war was brought to an end, for a while, by the young General Louis-Lazare Hoche. He isolated the Vendee by gridding its eastern section with little forts, moving slowly westward so that the insurgents would have no place to go. Civilian hostages were taken until weapons were handed over. But Hoche also strove to re-establish discipline among the government troops who had hitherto raped and burned at will; he also restored a measure of religious freedom. These latter policies went far to calm the desperate peasantry. To suppress the guerrilla risings in the Vendee and neighboring Brittany cost 150 000 French lives, more than the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. The once prosperous Vendee had been reduced to ruin. But the Vendeans had their revenge: in May 1815, at the return of Napoleon from Elba, they rose again in hostility to the heir of the Revolution. The 30 000 soldiers Napoleon sent to the Vendee would have made all the difference to him at Waterloo. Spain In 1808, Emperor Napoleon invaded Spain. It was this act, not the invasion of Russia a few years later, that was the real undoing of his precarious empire. The fundament of this Spanish disaster was the national uprising of the Spanish people, from which our word ‘guerrilla’ derives. The invasion of their country, followed by French

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outrages – systematic rape, routine sacrilege, the looting of cathedrals and the burning of churches – aroused the fury of the Spanish people. Economically underdeveloped, crossed by several mountain chains, Spain provided an ideal setting for guerrillas. With widespread popular support, the insurgents always enjoyed timely and abundant intelligence. Their rapidity of movement baffled, exhausted, and finally overwhelmed the French. The French regime in Madrid often found itself isolated from France and even from the rest of Spain. Shipments of food and mail required large and expensive convoys, often as many as 2000 soldiers, as protection against guerrillas. French cavalry horses, overworked and underfed, died in droves. French generals behaved like independent powers, indifferent or hostile to the claims of neighboring commanders. British sea power brought guns and supplies to the insurgents. At the same time, Wellington’s small Anglo–Portuguese army both supported and was supported by the insurgents, a symbiotic relationship between regular troops and guerrilla bands like the one in Revolutionary Carolina. And throughout the war the port of Cadiz remained in the hands of a regular Spanish army. French numbers in Spain proved inadequate to the multidimensional struggle, even though by the time of the Russian campaign they reached 230 000, including Polish and Italian allied units. They regrouped into large, immobile city garrisons, abandoning the countryside to guerrillas. By the summer of 1813, Napoleonic Spain had ceased to exist. Their lost struggle in Spain cost French and Imperial forces between 200 000 and 300 000 casualties, of whom perhaps 180 000 died. By destroying the myth of French invincibility, the Spanish insurgency encouraged renewed European resistance to the French imperium. But even if the French had achieved victory in Spain it would have represented little more than a strategically irrelevant diversion of valuable forces from more important fronts. Napoleon himself grasped this strategic truth, saying ‘‘I am the heir of Charlemagne, not of Louis XIV,’’ meaning that France’s destiny lay across the Rhine, not the Pyrenees. But he ignored his own words, and in the end, the Spanish adventure must rank as Napoleon’s greatest mistake. The American Civil War Confederate guerrillas played a prominent role in the American Civil War, notably in Missouri and Virginia. Even after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, 100 000 Confederates remained under arms. Upon the defeat of their regular armies, the American colonials, the Spanish, and the Boers had all resorted to guerrilla resistance. But a similar eruption in the defeated Confederacy, so feared by Lincoln and Grant, did not occur. The reasons for this nonoccurrence provide many insights into what guerrilla war requires.

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Many southerners had had deep misgivings about secession. Then, the war turned out to be much longer and much harder than predicted. The Confederate conscription law aroused widespread bitterness. Furious quarrels between President and Congress and between the Richmond government and the States wracked the Confederacy. Nor was there any stirring ideology to sustain the rebellion: at bottom, secession had been about holding millions of human beings in slavery, an institution condemned in most of the civilized world. The moral problem of slavery weighed heavily on the consciences of many Confederates, and besides, 90% of white southerners owned no slave. And in the war’s last hour, the Confederate Congress had authorized the enrolling of 300 000 slave soldiers, promising them freedom at war’s end. In any event, by early 1865 all could see that the Confederates had been thoroughly and irredeemably beaten. If Confederates turned to guerrilla war, what were the prospects for success? They could not realistically hope for outside aid: no foreign state had openly helped the Confederacy in its flower, and none was likely to do so after its defeat. And what, indeed, would the fearsome destructiveness of guerrilla struggle be for? Slavery was finished. The leaders and soldiers of the Union were not foreigners committing systematic sacrileges (as the Spanish guerrillas faced). They indulged in no mass rapes and mass murders (as occurred in the Vendee). Confederates faced no prospect of concentration camps, firing squads, mass expulsions; on the contrary, with malice toward none, Lincoln and Grant were offering an easy peace. The embodiment of the southern cause, Robert E. Lee himself, advised his people to take the path of reconciliation. Thus, after Appomattox, guerrilla conflagration did not consume the prostrate south. The Boers The Boer Republics of southern Africa were about the size of Kansas and Nebraska combined. Their inhabitants, today called Afrikaners, were the descendants of religious refugees from seventeenth-century Europe. Fulfillment of the British grand design for an African empire stretching from the Cape to Cairo required the subjugation of the Boer Republics. Between October 1899 and June 1900, British forces easily defeated the regular Boer armies. But the Boers (literally ‘farmers’) fought on as mounted guerrillas. In a pre-aircraft age, the vast spaces of southern Africa offered them shelter and scope. Civilian leaders emerged displaying real talent for guerrilla war. But the contest grew ugly, as prisoner-killing and farm-burning became common on both sides. To subdue these farmers-turned-guerrillas, the British sent an army of 450 000 men, the biggest British force in history to that time, far larger than anything they had fielded against Napoleon. Their commander, General

Horatio Kitchener, deprived the Boers of their sheltering space: he chopped up the Veldt with 8000 blockhouses connected by barbed wire, close enough to each other for mutual protection with searchlights and rifle fire. Beyond these blockhouse lines Kitchener flushed out guerrillas with huge drives, consisting of mounted soldiers, one every 10 yards, sometimes for 50 miles across. To isolate the guerrillas, he concentrated much of the scattered civilian population into huge camps. By the beginning of 1902, although 20 000 Boer guerrillas were still in the field, it was clear that they had suffered irredeemable strategic defeat. They were hopelessly outnumbered, and foreign help (mainly from Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany) had evaporated. Under such conditions, and with the British offering amnesty, self-government, and compensation for damaged property, most of the Boer leaders signed peace accords in May 1902. Imperial losses, from battle and disease, totaled 22 000; 7000 Boers died in battle, and several thousand civilians perished from unsanitary conditions in the camps. The Philippines: Aguinaldo The Philippine Archipelago consists of 7000 islands, over 160 000 square miles, about the size of Arizona. Philippine guerrillas had been active against their Spanish rulers for 2 years before the Spanish–American War broke out. After Commodore Dewey smashed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay (1 May 1898), United States forces entered that city. Believing that the islands could not govern themselves and would soon fall prey to either German or Japanese imperialism, the McKinley Administration decided to retain possession of the archipelago for the time being. But meanwhile Emilio Aguinaldo, a leader of the antiSpanish insurgents, had proclaimed himself provisional president of the Republic of the Philippines. Armed clashes between Aguinaldo’s followers and American troops began in February 1899. With his forces soon dispersed, Aguinaldo reluctantly decided to carry on the struggle through guerrilla war. His men dug pits with sharpened stakes and arranged booby traps with poisoned arrows. Avoiding combat except when they had overwhelming superiority, at other times they assumed the guise of peaceable civilians. They also killed local officials who cooperated with the Americans, and set the torch to entire villages that were unenthusiastic for the insurgent cause. American forces in the islands suffered from a variety of tropical diseases, which diminished their already inadequate numbers, only 20 000 in early 1899, 70 000 by early 1901. Nevertheless, the Americans embarked on a systematic program of social improvement in the backward islands. The US Army built and staffed free schools, cleaned up the most unsanitary aspects of city life, reformed the benighted penal system, fought malaria,

Guerrilla Warfare

and provided free inoculation against smallpox. No Filipino could deny that American rule was incomparably better than that of the Spanish. This preemptive ‘policy of attraction’ profoundly undermined the already limited appeal of Aguinaldo’s movement. At the same time, the Americans reduced guerrilla contact with the civilian population by gathering small settlements into large protected areas. They aggravated the weapons shortage among the insurgents by offering either cash or release of a prisoner of war to anyone who would turn in a gun, no questions asked. Although they enjoyed much sympathy in Japanese naval circles, Aguinaldo’s guerrillas had no real prospects of foreign assistance, thanks to the newly-victorious US Navy. Nor could they effectively raise the banner of nationalism: Philippine society encompassed many religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups, often living in mutual hostility, but most of the insurgent leaders were Tagalog. The Americans were able to take advantage of these internecine conflicts by recruiting among the minority peoples of Luzon; over 5000 of these served as scouts or police, and eventually a 3000-man mounted Philippine constabulary was operating under American officers. Aguinaldo’s only real card to play was that of independence. Fewer and fewer Filipinos, however, were willing to risk death for that cause because the United States government had promised repeatedly and in writing that it too intended that the Philippines should one day be independent. And then in March 1901 American soldiers captured Aguinaldo himself. During March and April 1901 nearly 13 000 guerrillas surrendered. On 4 July 1902, the Americans proclaimed an amnesty for all remaining guerrillas except a few accused of specific felonies. The suppression of Aguinaldo’s insurgency cost 4200 Americans lives, more than in the Spanish–American War itself. The Americans were limited in numbers and culturally alien: very few could speak any Philippine language. They had neither aircraft nor tanks. But by combining effective small-unit tactics with astute political measures, they not only won the war but did it in a way that allowed all sides to live afterwards with each other and with themselves. Years later, Aguinaldo himself wrote that the American triumph had been to the advantage of the Philippine people. Greece The Communist insurgency in Greece was the first armed confrontation between the newly-formed Communist bloc and the emerging Western alliance. It called forth the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine, and hence set out the basis of Containment that would guide US foreign policy for the next three decades. German forces invaded Greece in April 1941. Eventually several guerrilla resistance groups formed,

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the largest being the Communist-dominated ELAS, which appeared in December 1942. The Germans did not engage in a vigorous repression of guerrillas, and ELAS wished to save its strength for the inevitable postwar struggle for power. With Soviet armies entering the Balkans, the Germans evacuated Greece in the latter half of 1944. While war raged across Europe, ELAS attempted an armed seizure of Athens in December 1944. British forces defeated this effort in heavy fighting. National elections took place in March 1946, which the Communists boycotted. Shortly thereafter they launched a guerrilla war, under the name of the Democratic Army. The Communist insurgency enjoyed many advantages. Covered with mountains and crossed by few roads, Greece was ideal territory for guerrillas. The German occupation had left the country in a desperate economic condition. The Greek Royal Army was completely demoralized. The Communists were linked to the prestige of the victorious, close, and powerful USSR. Most importantly, the Communist governments of Greece’s northern neighbors – Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia – were ready and willing to furnish supplies and sanctuary to the guerrillas. And amidst these perils the parliamentarians in Athens devoted their time to political machinations and mutual hostilities. In the spring of 1947 the British cabinet informed Washington that it could no longer afford to sustain the Greek government. Accordingly, in a memorable address to Congress, President Truman declared that the United States would henceforth assist Greece, and other countries threatened with Communist subversion. The United States gave substantial financial help to the Greeks, which enabled them to enlarge their armed forces without unduly upsetting their economic recovery. And the Greek Royal Army received American military advisers, but no US ground combat troops, due mainly to the opposition of the US Chiefs of Staff. In late 1948 the Democratic Army (the Communists) abandoned guerrilla tactics for conventional warfare, a conversion which it was not strong enough to sustain. It had also thoroughly alienated much of the peasantry, reflecting the predominantly urban petit bourgeois and non-Greek composition of the guerrilla movement. By 1949 the Greek government was deploying 150 000 regular troops and 75 000 paramilitary personnel. The guerrillas numbered about 25 000, an increasing proportion of whom consisted of Macedonian separatists and kidnapped civilians forced to fight under duress. In July 1949, Marshal Tito closed the Yugoslav border, the coup de grace for the all-but-finished insurgents. The defeat of the Greek guerrillas had several causes, but came because above all they had violated the two most important principles of guerrilla war: do not engage in combat unless certain to win, and do not antagonize the surrounding population.

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China The Chinese revolutions of this century, Nationalist and Communist, have been attempts to bring China into the modern world, so that it could resist Western, Russian, and Japanese intrusion and aggression. Mao Tse-tung’s rise to power was a symbol and consequence of these attempts. During the 1920s, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime ruled China under Chiang Kai-shek, heir to Sun Yat-sen’s republican revolution. In the eyes of contemporary observers, the KMT was making real progress in modernizing the country. In contrast, the Chinese Communist Party was in serious trouble. In 1934, after years of continuous and damaging attacks by the KMT, the Communists had fled into the remote interior of the country in the disastrous Long March. The KMT was planning the final destruction of the Communists when Japanese aggressions culminated in open war in 1937. The war brought domestic reform within KMT territory to a halt as attention shifted towards resisting the Japanese. It also gave new life to the Chinese Communist Party and its efforts at armed revolution. Having in the mid-1930s solidified his control over the Communist Party, Mao Tse-tung set forth the thesis that for a revolution to succeed in a peasant country like China, it must have peasant support; power would come as the result of protracted rural conflict, not a Petrograd-style coup. Now the Japanese would provide Mao the peasant support he needed. Japanese forces in China had two key characteristics. First, they possessed neither the training, the discipline, the equipment, nor the numbers to bring the war to a successful conclusion or even to maintain order in occupied areas (the number of troops Japan committed to China were equivalent to President Lincoln trying to subdue the Confederacy with an army of 19 000). Second, their behavior toward the Chinese was absolutely appalling; as a consequence, normally peaceful peasants were driven into the arms of Maoist guerrilla bands. Mao placed great stress on the following points: maintaining guerrilla morale through ceaseless political indoctrination; building good relations with the peasantry (in marked contrast to every other army in China), because ‘‘the guerrilla moves among the people as fish move in the water;’’ treating prisoners well and then releasing them, to dissuade the enemy from resisting to the end; engaging in combat only when victory was assured by overwhelming numbers; achieving surprise through mobility; establishing secure bases, not difficult in a big country like China, rich in mountains and poor in communications. After the surrender of Japan, the war between Chiang and the Communists became predominantly a conventional one. Of the many errors made by the KMT, perhaps the most significant was holding on to all the major cities of China, thus allowing the Communists to defeat their

forces piecemeal. Preoccupied with the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the crisis in Greece, the United States government regretted the slow defeat of Chiang but did not act to prevent it. In considering Mao’s rise to power the following points are very important. First, the Japanese severely mauled the armies and the prestige of Chiang Kai-shek to the supreme benefit of the Communists. Second, it was the Americans who defeated Japan, not the Chinese. Third, Mao beat the KMT by deploying large conventional armies, not guerrilla bands. Thus the popular paradigm of Maoist ‘‘people’s war’’ – hardy peasant guerrillas defeating first the Japanese and then the KMT – is quite misleading. That is mainly why almost all subsequent attempts to imitate it met disaster. The Philippines: The Huks During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1942–45) several guerrilla groups appeared, some organized by the Americans and some by the Philippine Communist Party. The latter came to be known as the Huks (from the acronym Hukbalahap, People’s Army Against Japan). By 1945 the Huks were well-armed with weapons taken from the Japanese or shipped in from the United States. In late 1946 open fighting flared between the Huks and the newly independent Philippine Republic. The Huk stronghold was on Luzon, the size of Kentucky, among the long-exploited sugar workers. The Philippine constabulary was poorly armed and poorly trained; abuse of civilians was common. The elections of 1949, which produced the re-election of President Quirino and the Liberal Party, were corrupt even by Philippine standards of the day, lending credibility to Huk claims that violent revolution offered the only path to change. By the time the Korean war broke out (June 1950), the Huks numbered 25 000 fighters, and were engaging in spectacular raids in the very outskirts of Manila. Nevertheless, the tide was about to turn. The Communist-dominated Huks failed to reach out to other alienated groups and form a broad front. The numerous common criminals among their ranks frightened the peasantry, and they suffered a public relations disaster from the murder of the daughter of former President Quezon. But the most important event of the conflict was the appointment, in September 1950, of Ramon Magsaysay, member of Congress and former guerrilla, as Secretary of Defense. Magsaysay greatly improved the armed forces’ treatment of civilians, flying around rural areas in a little plane to see that his orders were carried out. He sent the constabulary into Huk food-growing areas, forcing the guerrillas back into the swamps and cutting them off from the civil population. He sowed distrust among the

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Huks by offering fabulous rewards for the capture of specific Huk leaders accused of criminal acts. He began a program of resettlement for guerrillas who accepted amnesty. And he used troops to ensure the honesty of the 1951 congressional elections, reopening a peaceful road to reform. The government forces waged a low-tech campaign that minimized civilian casualties. Meanwhile, the Huks obtained no help from abroad. And the return of honest elections undermined the appeal of violence. Nor could the Huks invoke nationalist sentiments: the Philippine Republic was already independent, and the United States, although emotionally involved with the Philippines, was preoccupied with events in Greece, Korea, and French Indochina. Besides, both the State Department and the Pentagon believed the fundamental problems in the Philippines were political, not military. Hence the Americans sent financial assistance to Manila, and a military advisory mission of 58 personnel, but no combat troops. In May 1954 the military leader of the Huks, Luis Taruc, surrendered; for practical purposes the insurgency was over. From 1946 to 1954, 10 000 Huks had been killed, 4000 captured, and 16 000 surrendered. Malaya In Malaya, predominantly foreign forces waged a successful and inexpensive counterinsurgency against Communist guerrillas. In 1948, Malaya’s area was 51 000 square miles, the size of Alabama, and contained 2.7 million Malayan Muslims, 2 million Chinese, and 700 000 Indians; the three communities lived in isolation from one another. The Japanese occupation which began in 1942 provided an opening for the small Communist Party to organize guerrilla bands. The Japanese troops in Malaya were not first quality, and the jungle was ideal terrain for the insurgents. Nevertheless, Japanese soldiers killed by Communist guerrillas between 1942 and 1945 amounted to less than 2 per day; the guerrillas in fact killed more anticommunist Chinese. By December 1945, the guerrillas, calling themselves the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army, counted 10 000 members, with good weapons, many of which had been given to them by the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army. For obscure reasons the Communists did not try to seize power in August 1945, their best opportunity. But by June 1948, in the face of growing terrorist attacks on civilians, the British administration proclaimed an Emergency. In homage to the Maoists, the insurgents changed their name to the Malayan Races Liberation Army. They attacked small police posts, ambushed civilian vehicles, damaged bridges, slashed rubber trees, and

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burned the huts of rubber workers. They also killed their prisoners, especially if Chinese. The few half-hearted efforts by the almost exclusively Chinese leadership of the guerrillas to reach out to the Malays were not successful. In summer 1950, General Sir Harold Briggs inaugurated closer coordination of the army and the police, and began methodically clearing the country province by province from South to North. But the centerpiece of the Briggs Plan was the resettlement of landless Chinese squatters: by 1954, 570 000 lived in new villages and received title to land. The British were draining the water in which the fish had to swim. All this formed part of a general food denial program: rice convoys were heavily guarded, canned goods were carefully controlled, and guerrilla food-growing areas were searched out and destroyed. In February 1952 Sir Gerald Templer took overall command. He emphasized good intelligence, for which he offered impressive monetary rewards. Surrendered or captured guerrillas were excellent intelligence sources, often turning in their comrades for cash. The British used few aircraft, and rarely employed artillery; instead small, well-trained jungle-fighting units harried the guerrillas ceaselessly. In retrospect it is hard to see how the guerrillas could have won. The Malay half of the population was against them from the start; instead of the Chinese guerrillas reaching out to them, on the contrary the British successfully trained and armed a Chinese militia; and independence was clearly approaching. Militarily, the insurgent position was hopeless. They received no outside help: Malaya’s only land border is with Thailand, whose government was hostile to the guerrillas. And the British assembled overwhelming force: by 1954 they had 40 000 regular troops (British, Gurkha, Commonwealth, and Malayan), plus 24 000 Federation police, 37 000 Special constables, and 250 000 Home Guards (militia). From 1946 to 1958, the guerrillas killed 512 government soldiers and 3000 civilians. Over 6700 guerrillas were killed, 1300 were captured, and 2700 surrendered. Cuba, Castro, and Guevara Some have described Fidel Castro’s coming to power as the first Communist revolution in the Western Hemisphere. This is erroneous: Castro did not come to power as a Communist, nor had he led a revolution. Cuba was a peculiar, invertebrate country. Those pillars of Latin American society – the Church, the army, and the landowning aristocracy – were either absent from Cuba, or present in a distorted form. The Batista regime that ruled Cuba in the 1950s was a mafia in khaki, antagonizing all segments of Cuban society.

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On 2 December 1956, Fidel Castro, a law school graduate and landowner’s son, came ashore in Cuba with 80 armed followers. Most were apprehended, but a few escaped with Castro into the Sierra Maestra. Batista’s army of 15 000 should have been more than adequate to deal with this challenge. Its officers, however, owed their positions to favoritism and graft. The army had little counterguerrilla training and less desire to fight: during its 2-year conflict with Castro it suffered fewer than 3 casualties per week, and when Batista fled, most units had not fired a shot. The army used to take out its frustration on helpless peasants, under the eyes of the US media. With Castro promising free elections, President Eisenhower imposed an arms embargo in May 1958, a fatal blow to Batista’s prestige. In December the State Department withdrew recognition from his government. On New Year’s Eve, Batista left the country. When the Fidelistas entered Havana, they numbered less than a thousand. The isolated and reviled Batista regime had not been overthrown, it had collapsed. Thus the Castro ‘revolution’ was a fatally misleading paradigm for other Latin American countries, and efforts to export it failed resoundingly. In the Sierra Maestra, Castro had presented himself as a democrat, but his latter-day imitators declared themselves Leninists or Maoists, alerting their intended victims and also the United States. The spectacle of hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing to Florida, and Castro’s execution of many former Cuban officers, made a profound impression all over Latin America. And no other Latin American country had an army as grotesquely inadequate as Batista’s. Thus Castro’s regime, the first Communist dictatorship in the New World, became one of the last anywhere at all. The most famous would-be imitator of Castro was Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, an Argentine physician. Determined to ignite ‘another Vietnam’ in Bolivia, Guevara and a select group of Cubans and Argentines entered that country in November 1966, via the La Paz airport, without even having informed the Bolivian Communist Party of their arrival. Everything went wrong. The country had already had a popular revolution. The Bolivian Army consisted of peasant conscripts drawn from the very villages Guevara was trying to arouse. President Rene Barrientos was a popular leader of Indian heritage, who had come to power in national elections; Guevara was thus violating his own well-known dictum that revolution cannot be made against a democratic or quasi-democratic state. None of Guevara’s band could speak Guarani, the language of the region. The Bolivian highlands were too rough for Guevara’s urban compatriots, and he himself was an asthmatic. The wouldbe guerrillas did not know the terrain, became separated from one another, wandering lost for weeks, with little food and no medical supplies, under the disapproving

eyes of the local Indians. A US Special Forces team trained some Bolivian units, which in October 1967 killed Guevara and put his corpse on public display. French Indochina Before World War II the French had maintained their control of Vietnam with only 11 000 troops; after the War, 30 times that number would prove insufficient. In 1941, Vietnam had a population of around 25 million. Eighty percent of that number were illiterate. Nevertheless, the French had built up an educated elite, whose members often found their aspirations for suitable positions in the government or the economy frustrated by French control of the good jobs. The prestige of the French was shattered by their inability to prevent the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. The Communist party formed a front organization called the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh for short). Their leader, Ho Chi Minh (one of several aliases), born in 1890, had graduated from a good secondary school but had failed to obtain a position with the colonial government. He left Vietnam, went around the world, including to the United States, and returned as the Moscow-anointed leader of Indochinese Communism. The Viet Minh military director was a Hanoi University law graduate, Vo Nguyen Giap. The Viet Minh seized the leadership of the nationalist movement in Vietnam by downplaying their Leninist program, calling for a united patriotic struggle of all classes, and assassinating promising leaders of rival nationalist groups. The Japanese occupation was concerned with stopping supplies from reaching China and with sending foodstuffs to Japan, not chasing the Viet Minh. Hence the Communists had time to build up their forces. When Japan unexpectedly surrendered to the United States, Ho and Giap’s little army marched unopposed into Hanoi and proclaimed independence, the socalled August Revolution. When the French returned to Vietnam they recognized Ho’s government as autonomous, with its own army and finances. This did not satisfy the Viet Minh; relations deteriorated, and sustained fighting broke out in December 1946. Unable to resist the French in Hanoi, the Viet Minh retreated to the bush and to guerrilla war. By 1949 the conflict had reached a clear stalemate: the Viet Minh could not challenge French control of the cities, but the French, even with tens of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers, lacked the numbers and training to clear the countryside. This was mainly because Parliament in Paris forbade the use of French conscripts in Vietnam (and during the 8 years of the war the Paris politicians set up and pulled down no less than 16 different cabinets). But late in 1949 Communist Chinese forces reached the Vietnam border, providing the Viet Minh

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with sanctuary, supplies, and instructors. Giap began to wage both guerrilla and conventional warfare, while the French were losing officers at an unsustainable rate. The French strategy of trying to hold on everywhere, through a system of outposts and convoys, was ill-advised, especially in view of the totally inadequate air power available to them. That is why the French decided to entice Giap to give battle at the isolated fortress of Dien Bien Phu. There, 13 000 French and Vietnamese were besieged by 100 000 Viet Minh and their Chinese advisers. The fall of the fortress was only a tactical defeat for the French, but it broke the will of the French government to continue the war. Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel, into a Communist North and a noncommunist South. French losses included 22 000 killed from metropolitan France (100 of them women), 22 000 Foreign Legion and Colonial troops, plus 80 000 Vietnamese soldiers. Viet Minh losses are usually estimated at around 400 000. The victory of the Viet Minh would be hard to imagine without both the Japanese occupation of Vietnam and the arrival of Mao’s forces on the border. After the surrender of Japan, the French neither sent sufficient troops from France, nor built a good, well-trained Vietnamese army, nor attacked the enemy politically by addressing peasant grievances, nor pursued a strategy of concentrating their forces around Saigon and the populous Mekong Delta where the Viet Minh was relatively weak, nor closed the Chinese border through diplomatic or military means. And so they lost the war. The Americans and Vietnam In 1954, the newly-installed Communist regime in Hanoi expected that terrorism in the countryside against village officials and schoolteachers carried out by the southern wing of the Party, the Viet Cong, would soon cause the fall of South Vietnam (SVN). But by 1960, with SVN proving unexpectedly sturdy, under Hanoi’s leadership the Viet Cong launched guerrilla war, assisted by units of the regular North Vietnamese Army entering SVN through Laos. In 1965, with SVN on the verge of collapse, President Johnson began a massive infusion of US ground forces, to number almost 600 000 by early 1968. By 1967, Communist forces had suffered enormous casualties. Hanoi decided to launch the Tet Offensive of 1968 to break the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) and provoke massive uprisings in the cities. This was an acknowledgement that guerrilla war had failed. The Tet Offensive was a tremendous shock, but ARVN held up well, the urban population did not rise, and the Viet Cong took a mortal mauling. Communist executions of civilians, especially in Hue, alarmed many South Vietnamese. The following year, with numerous Americans turning loudly against the war, President Nixon inaugurated ‘Vietnamization’, which meant providing ARVN with

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good equipment and withdrawing US forces. After Tet the war became mostly conventional, with regular North Vietnamese troops taking over from badly-depleted Viet Cong units. The next great offensive after Tet was the Easter Offensive of 1972, involving a multi-front invasion of SVN by the entire North Vietnamese regular army; it failed against an ARVN supported by US air power. By the fall of 1972, the last few US ground combat troops remaining in SVN were withdrawn. ARVN soldiers, drafted for the duration, were stationed far from home and were granted little leave; hence desertion rates were high (as they were in the Viet Cong). During the long conflict ARVN suffered 200 000 killed, proportionally the equivalent of 2.5 million American deaths. Casualties in the SVN militia (the Regional Forces and Popular Forces) were much higher, but desertion was notably lower. Despite their many shortcomings, the SVN armed forces had withstood the best efforts of the Viet Cong (Tet 1968) and the North Vietnamese Army (Easter 1972). Great strata of the Southern population – Army officers and their families, Catholics, northern refugees, the powerful indigenous southern religious sects, the urban middle class, ethnic minorities – were determined to resist a Northern conquest. The Paris peace accords of January 1973 provided for the removal of the few remaining US military personnel from SVN and cessation of US bombing of the North, but tacitly permitted Hanoi to keep a third of a million troops inside SVN. The US Congress, where opinion had been turning against the South since the Tet Offensive, now began slashing aid to SVN; by spring 1975 ARVN soldiers were being issued 84 bullets per man per month. Deprived of American help, while Soviet and Chinese supplies poured into the North, SVN’s President Thieu decided to pull ARVN out of the northern and central provinces and retrench in the heavily populated areas of Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Retrenchment in itself was an excellent idea, but it was attempted with little planning and less warning to ARVN units. Roads became clogged with civilians fleeing southwards. Many soldiers left their units to search for their families. In these circumstances the North Vietnamese Army launched a massive offensive operation. Within weeks much of ARVN disintegrated. Nevertheless, Saigon and the Delta remained quiet and in ARVN hands. On 30 April 1975, however, the new president declared the surrender of SVN. Neither a peninsula like Malaya or South Korea nor an archipelago like the Philippines, SVN fell victim above all to its geography. From the beginnings to the end of the conflict, the Hanoi regime used the Ho Chi Minh Trail, eventually a multi-lane all-weather road through allegedly neutral Laos, to thrust troops and supplies into SVN. If all the troops and supplies that came down the Trail over a 15-year period had entered SVN on the same day, it would have looked bigger than the North Korean

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invasion of June 1950. Several proposals for closing the Trail by holding a line from Vietnam to Thailand (about the distance from Washington, DC to Philadelphia) were rejected by the Johnson Administration; the American bombing of North Vietnam and the so-called attrition strategy (trying to kill more North Vietnamese soldiers than Hanoi could replace) were some of the consequences of leaving the Trail open. After the fall of Saigon, many in Hanoi identified the Trail as their most valuable weapon. But perhaps the most important lesson of the entire conflict was that Maoist guerrilla war had failed: the conquest of SVN had required the largest conventional invasion Asia had seen since World War II, by one of the best conventional armies on the continent. Algeria Algeria provides a textbook case study on military victory turning into political defeat. Larger in area than all of Western Europe, in the mid1950s Algeria had a population of 9 million Arabs and Berbers, and 1 million Europeans, called colons. Fighting broke out in October 1954 when the Muslim National Liberation Front (FLN) attacked 50 military posts and police stations throughout Algeria. This insurgency closely followed the end of the fighting in Indochina, where the French Army believed it had been betrayed by the politicians. The soldiers in Algeria were determined that this time, there would be no defeat, and no betrayal. The French Army evolved three primary weapons against the insurgents. First, unlike in Vietnam, they deployed large numbers; by 1956, 450 000 French troops were in Algeria, enough both to hold all the cities and large towns and to field mobile strike forces. Second, they closed off FLN sanctuaries in Tunisia and Morocco by building barrier lines hundreds of miles long. The most spectacular of these was the Morice Line along the Tunisian border, with electrified wire fences, watchtowers, and minefields on both sides; artillery and aircraft would immediately respond to any break in the fence line. The French had 80 000 troops along this Morice Line. Third, the army regrouped 2 million Muslim peasants into new settlements. By the end of 1957, only 15 000 guerrillas remained inside Algeria. But rumors of torture of captured terrorists, the unpopularity of the draft, the agitation of the stilllarge French Communist Party, the unattractive attitudes of the colons, and the spread of Muslim-on-Muslim terrorism to Paris itself, all undermined French willingness to pursue the struggle. In the spring of 1958 the Paris politicians were ready to negotiate with the FLN. Fearing another Vietnam-style betrayal, the French Army in Algeria threatened to invade France. The terrified politicians summoned General De Gaulle to office, and the

army backed down. But De Gaulle soon disappointed the army as well as the colons. Believing that France’s future lay across the Rhine, not across the Mediterranean, he moved toward negotiations with the FLN. Elements of the army attempted another revolt in April 1961, but this much smaller affair was faced down by De Gaulle. Thus, 4 July 1962 became the Algerian Independence Day. French forces, including Harkis (Muslim troops in French uniform) suffered 18 000 deaths. European civilian casualties of various degrees numbered 10 000. Among Muslim civilians, 16 000 had been killed and 50 000 were missing. Of the insurgents, 141 000 had been killed by the French and another 12 000 in internecine fighting. After the war the government of independent Algeria began killing Harkis; estimates of their deaths run from 30 000 to 150 000. Afghanistan Located at the intersection of the Middle East and East Asia, Afghanistan is the size of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin combined. Covered by forbidding mountains, it has very few all-weather roads, and no railways. A traditional buffer state between the Tsarist and British empires, it is a patchwork of numerous linguistic, ethnic, and religious minorities. After a confused and bloody coup d’etat in April 1978, the tiny local communist party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), emerged in nominal control of the country. In a short time the new regime executed thousands of political prisoners, attacked Islam (religion of the overwhelming majority) and outlawed age-old peasant family customs. On the eve of the Soviet invasion, 23 of Afghanistan’s 28 provinces were under rebel control. Seeking to prevent the embarrassing collapse of a proMoscow regime, the Soviets invaded on 24 December 1979. Against what was believed to be the mightiest land power in history, the Afghan resistance possessed few modern weapons. What they did have, however, was a land suited to guerrilla war, a priceless sanctuary in Pakistan and, above all, excellent morale: fighting for the holiest of causes, these mujahideen (‘warriors of God’) were convinced of their inevitable victory. By 1985 the guerrillas numbered between 80 000 and 150 000. Against them were the 30 000 troops of the PDPA regime, 50 000 local militia more or less purchased, and 115 000 Soviet troops (the standard 10:1 ratio would have required from 720 000 to 1.2 million Soviet troops). The insurgents ambushed convoys and mined roads; they isolated major cities so effectively that the Soviets had to supply them by aircraft. Government officials and collaborators were assassinated in the very streets of the capital. The guerrillas had clearly stalemated the war. The PDPA army proved unreliable: desertion, defection, mass surrenders and handing over of weapons to

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insurgents were common. Rival PDPA factions engaged in murderous infighting. Thus the Soviets had to shoulder almost the entire burden of the unexpectedly long and bitter war. Lacking not only numbers but also experience of fighting guerrillas, the Soviets embarked on the systematic destruction of the countryside: crops, orchards, animals, homes. They sought especially to empty the provinces bordering the Soviet Union and Pakistan, a program labeled ‘migratory genocide’. Eventually there were 4 million refugees and 1.3 million civilian dead, equivalent to the deaths of 20 million Americans. Airpower was the Soviets’ most effective weapon, but in 1983 the insurgents began receiving surface-to-air missiles; by 1986 the United States was sending in via Pakistan the very useful Stinger missile, which neutralized Soviet air power. Help was coming in also from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, and Iran; meanwhile the military inadequacies of the once-vaunted Soviet Army became ever more apparent. Deciding to cut his losses, Soviet leader Gorbachev in April 1988 forced the PDPA to reach an accord with Pakistan. A month later the Soviets begin their UN-monitored withdrawal. Afghanistan was not ‘Russia’s Vietnam’: Afghanistan was right over the Soviet border, while Washington was closer to the South Pole than to Saigon; there were no intrusive media, no public congressional investigations into the Soviet war; the Soviet force commitment never approached that of the US in Vietnam; and the Afghan guerrillas, however brave, were simply not comparable to the North Vietnamese Army. Nevertheless, the incredible suffering and successful resistance of the Afghan people contributed mightily to the forces of disintegration gathering within the Soviet empire. One day the cries of battle in the Afghan mountains would be echoed in the shouts of freedom at the Berlin Wall. Chechnya In 1994, only 6 years after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russians became involved in another struggle against a mountain-dwelling Islamic people, the Chechens, descendants of those who had survived Stalinist genocide after World War II. Although Chechnya was but one-fortieth the size of Afghanistan, with a population only half that of Northern Ireland, Russian armed forces there would suffer one of the worst experiences in their history. Most of the large-scale fighting centered on the Chechen capital of Grozny (‘menacing’ in Russian). Against this city, smaller in population that Edinburgh or Sacramento, the Russians mounted one of the largest urban operations since World War II. But the Russian army was not trained for urban combat, and the 50 000 Russian troops sent to Grozny inexplicably failed to

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surround and cut off the city from outside help. Russian logistics were so miserable that Russian soldiers in Grozny were soon reduced to drinking water from street puddles and eating city dogs and cats. On the Chechen side, a number of their commanders had previously held high rank in the Soviet army or air force, and were thus well acquainted with Russian military methods. They also spoke Russian, while hardly any Russians spoke or understood Chechen. The Chechens in Grozny possessed tanks and artillery, although for the most part they employed guerrilla tactics. They were able to neutralize Russian air superiority by using subterranean communication networks, ‘hugging’ Russian positions, and sniping from rooftops, a tactic particularly effective against helicopters. Russian tank columns entering Grozny via parallel avenues became virtually helpless when Chechen guerrillas immobilized the front and rear tank. Indeed the Russians lost more tanks, proportionately, in Grozny in 1994 than they had in Berlin in 1945. Most of the fatal hits on Russian tanks came from above street level, strongly suggesting that armor should not operate in cities without substantial dismounted infantry support. In spite of all this, Russian forces eventually subdued Grozny, after inflicting a huge number of civilian casualties (mostly local Russian retirees), but in 1996 they had to withdraw after bitter fighting. The 1994–96 conflict with Chechen guerrillas constituted the greatest Russian military disaster since 1941, worse even than the Russo–Finish War. And the Future Guerrilla warfare has a very long history; one finds instances of it recorded in the Bible. And even during the height of the Cold War, at least one major guerrilla struggle (in Algeria) raged totally outside the schemata of that global ideological contest. It should therefore be no surprise that the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of guerrilla conflicts. On the contrary, many factors make guerrilla warfare more rather than less likely in the twenty-first century. The very breakup of the Soviet Empire, for one example, has permitted long-suppressed ethnic and religious tensions to surface in its former satrapies; an unusually large percentage of the population of the Third World is young and poor; certain Islamic groups have completely and angrily rejected the contemporary world; in many societies no peaceful road to change exists; and high-quality weapons are easily obtainable. An additional – and ominous – element in the guerrilla picture is the international drug trade. Peru’s Sendero Luminoso guerrillas supported themselves for years by drug trafficking, and the FARC in Colombia does so today. Drug lords are using their vast funds to support

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guerrilla movements, and may actually purchase or launch their own. Weak or disintegrating states provide openings for criminal associations seeking to take possession of a vulnerable country to advance their financial ends, while disguising their intentions under a veil of ethnic or religious populism. Perhaps most significantly, during the last quarter of the twentieth century, vast numbers of persons all across the Third World moved from rural to urban areas, so that today the majority of Latin Americans, for example, live in cities and towns. This unprecedented level of urbanization, along with the increasing ungovernability of many sprawling agglomerations, has led some analysts to predict that in the twenty-first century the locus of guerrilla war will be the city. This may well turn out to be the case. Nevertheless, for more than six decades the record of urban guerrilla warfare has been one of complete defeat. From Warsaw (1944), Budapest (1956), and Algiers (1957) to Montevideo and Sao Paulo (1960s), Saigon (1968), Grozny (1994), Northern Ireland (1970–96), and Fallujah (2004), even the most heroic and popular urban guerrilla campaigns have failed (though some of them inflicted severe costs on the counterinsurgent forces, and the one in Northern Ireland was unusually protracted). The key to this litany of failures is that urban battles violate the most elementary rule of guerrilla warfare: the necessity to operate over an extensive area of rough terrain. In fatal contrast, the constricted extent of even the largest city makes it possible for energetic counterinsurgents to surround and isolate, and then defeat, urban guerrillas.

In any event, it seems clear that for many of the oppressed, the marginalized, the frustrated, the ambitious, the vengeful, the hate-filled, and the greedy, the age-old techniques of guerrilla warfare will continue to be available and attractive options. See also: Civil Wars; Terrorism

Further Reading Beckett, I. (2001). Modern insurgencies and counterinsurgencies: Guerrillas and their opponents since 1750. New York: Routledge. Beckett, I. and Pimlott, J. (eds.) (1985). Armed forces and modern counterinsurgency. New York: St. Martin’s. Callwell, C. (1976). Small wars. Wakefield: EP Publishing. Haycock, R. (ed.) (1979). Regular armies and insurgency. London: Croom, Helm. Joes, A. (1996). Guerrilla insurgency before the Cold War. Westport, CT: Praeger. Joes, A. (1996). Guerrilla warfare: A historical, biographical and bibliographical sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Joes, A. (2000). America and guerrilla warfare. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Joes, A. (2004). Resisting rebellion: The history and politics of counterinsurgency. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Joes, A. (2007). Urban guerrilla warfare. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. Laqueur, W. (1979). Guerrilla: A historical and critical study. Boston: Little, Brown. Manwaring, M. (1991). Uncomfortable wars: Toward a new paradigm of low- intensity conflict. Boulder, CO: Westview. Mao, Tse-tung. (1963). Selected military writings of Mao Tse-tung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. Mao, Tse-tung. (1966). Basic tactics. New York: Praeger. Mockaitis, T. (1990). British counterinsurgency, 1919–1960. New York: St. Martin’s.

Women and War Annick T R Wibben and Jennifer Turpin, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction The Impact of War on Women Women’s Responses to War Contemporary Debates

Glossary Essentialism The assumption that women and men have an underlying essence – a unique female and male nature – that is more fundamental than any variations that may exist among them. This essence is generally characterized as biological in origin and universal.

Research questions Gendered Social Relations as a Cause of War Further Reading

Gender The social construction of a female/male distinction that establishes patterns of expectation according to anatomical and physiological differences. These ascribed traits and roles are mediated by cultural categories and meanings, and play a powerful role in defining and shaping a person’s life.

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Genocide The systematic killing of, or a program of action intended to destroy, an entire national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Militarism The belief system that upholds the legitimacy of military values as a way to order and secure society. Militarism is reflected both structurally and culturally in the allocation of human, economic, scientific, and ecological resources to military preparation, as well as in the popular culture of the society. Structural Violence The violence experienced by people, not as a consequence of direct violence inflicted by other individuals, but because of the inequality or structural conditions embedded in the society.

Introduction Conventional views of the relationship between gender and war often suggest that men make war while women make peace. Men, representing their state or social group, combat men of another group, while women remain outside the fighting, protected by ‘their’ men. Women remain invisible in military policymaking, reflecting takenfor-granted international assumptions about the maleness of war. In recent decades, feminist scholarship and empirical reality have challenged prevailing assumptions about war’s relationship to men and women. We have learned that war has profound and unique effects on women and that war-making relies on women’s participation and support. We have also learned that for many women, the differences between peacetime and wartime are minimal. This article examines the distinct impact that war has on women because of their gender, the various ways that women respond to war and the roles they play, the major debates within this field of study, as well as gender inequality as a cause of violence in peace and wartime.

The Impact of War on Women Women suffer from war in many ways, including dying, experiencing sexual abuse and torture, and losing loved ones, homes, and communities. Many people assume that women are unlikely to die in wars, since few women serve in the regular armed forces worldwide. Yet, women and other civilians are often killed in wars because they do not have the means to defend themselves and are adversely affected by the structural aftereffects of war.

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The violence may be a consequence, for example, of government policies eliminating healthcare or denying people access to safe water and food. Total War The war-fighting strategy that targets the enemy’s homeland, as well as the enemy’s army, and has resulted in the widespread killing of civilians in wartime. Developed in the early twentieth century, it effectively eliminates the distinction between civilians and soldiers, and aims at demoralizing the enemy by destroying their homes, families, communities, and entire social fabric. This strategy relies heavily on air warfare, exemplified in the ‘shock and awe’ tactics popularized in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and also on terror tactics such as rape, torture, and disappearances.

Women as Direct Casualties War’s impact on women has changed with the development of increasingly efficient war-making technologies that make war and militarism increasingly deadly. Ingomar Hauchler and Paul Kennedy have documented the trends in war. The twentieth century has witnessed the killing of about 104 million people in wars – more than three-quarters of all war dead recorded since the year 1500. The advent of highaltitude bombing, more powerful bombs, and a strategy of ‘total war’ has blurred the distinction between combatants and civilians as targets of war. Data collected by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program suggest that between 30–60% of fatalities in 2002 were civilians. While feminists have long claimed that women and their children constitute the majority of these civilian casualties, the evidence cannot sustain this assertion. Instead, civilian men of fighting age are most likely to be targeted as possible combatants whether in Srebrenica or the US-led War on Terror, leading to higher male casualty figures overall. Notwithstanding, women make up a significant number of war casualties, increasingly also on the battlefield. During the first 3 years of the War on Terror, women constituted approximately 10% of the US military and accounted for approximately 2% of its casualties. These deaths are not randomly distributed throughout the world – most of the wars since the 1960s have taken place in less-developed countries. While the 1960s and 1970s saw most battle-death in East, Southeast Asia and Oceania, for example, a shift occurred in the 1980s to the Middle East, and North Africa, Central and South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. At the beginning of the twentyfirst century, sub-Saharan Africa had more battle-death than all other regions combined. Military intervention, on the other hand, is perpetrated primarily by the former colonial powers, mostly by the United States, followed by Britain, the Soviet Union/Russia, and Belgium.

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In addition to their direct interventions, the former Soviet Union and the United States have also exported the most arms to the developing world, mainly to Asia. In 2003, they together accounted for 61% of the world’s arms transfers. Besides analyzing war through the lens of gender, we must also analyze the global intersections between gender and class, race, nation, and ethnicity. Women may be more or less vulnerable to the effects of war and militarization depending on their home society, their economic status, and their racial or ethnic identity. Women in poor countries are most likely to experience war and most likely to be driven from their homelands. Women Displaced by War As many as four-fifths of populations displaced by war are women and children, but this figure fails to convey the complex consequences of leaving homes, community, and support systems behind. In addition to food scarcity and disease, women and girls tend to experience additional and often sexualized violence during their flight. While refugee boys, like boy-child soldiers, receive a great deal of attention and assistance, girls often go unnoticed as they end up in foster homes or with extended family where their welfare is impossible to track. As the number of refugees worldwide reached a 26-year low in 2005, dropping to 8.4 million, the number of those displaced within their own countries grew to an estimated 20–25 million. Internally displaced persons are not covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention and are thus less likely to receive international protection and adequate humanitarian assistance. Women are more highly represented here (especially in the older age categories); they do not have the means to travel long distances and they often flee their homes along with their children or during pregnancy. According to the limited information available to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the agency estimates that women make up roughly 50% of those affected in mass refugee situations, but that their percentage among asylum seekers is lower. This is not surprising given that the types of persecution listed in the Refugee Convention exclude gender-based persecution. Regional differences also play a role: 64% of the world’s refugees have been granted their status on prima facie basis as they fled in groups, mainly in Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Asia and Pacific. Roughly a quarter have received refugee status on the basis of individual determination, mainly in Europe and the Americas. The vast majority of displaced people remain in developing nations with Palestinians (4.3 million), Afghans (2.9 million), Colombians (2.5 million), Iraqis (1.8 million), Sudanese (1.6 million), and Somalis (839 000) accounting for more than half of all displaced populations at the end of 2005.

Refugee women often serve as their children’s sole caretakers since many of them are widows or separated from their spouses and other extended family. They must seek food and safety not only for themselves, but also for their children who need healthcare, housing, and an education. Even if men have fled with their families, they are often targeted as possible combatants, which leads women to risk their own lives and safety, for example, to collect firewood. Camps rarely address women’s needs and concerns in their physical layout and procedures. They might hand out ID cards or food allocations only to men while care packages lack simple amenities, like feminine hygiene products. Failure to account for women’s needs can make camps dangerous and even deadly when girls and women are used sexually because they do not know their rights as refugees, have no means to sustain themselves financially, and receive little education about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Women and girls who have been abducted by enemy soldiers, or have been sexually violated during their journey, face particular difficulties in repatriation efforts and internationally sponsored programs often fail to take their special needs into account. Repatriation is further complicated by the presence of antipersonnel mines in their home communities, which affects women disproportionally in their role as caregivers and sustenance providers. Displaced women are playing a central economic role, often sustaining an extended family network. In the process of rebuilding communities, they develop survival strategies and techniques that should be harnessed for peace-building efforts. Chineze J. Onyejekwe describes how women in Albania played a crucial role in mobilizing communities to collect small arms in return for support of local development activities and how women in Sierra Leone are supporting reintegration and long-term rehabilitation efforts. Despite increasing evidence that women’s participation is crucial to conflict resolution, women are still lacking decisionmaking power in their societies and the international community. Wartime Sexual Violence against Women The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees cites sexual attacks on women and girls by camp guards as a major problem. In recent years, peacekeepers and aid workers have been implicated in the setting up of prostitution networks, the trafficking of women, and in the production of pornography, as in the case of an Irish peacekeeper in Eritrea. Even those women and girls stationed in refugee settlements, as well as in new societies of residence, frequently suffer sexual abuse, abduction, and forced prostitution. History has demonstrated the links

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between war and control of women’s sexuality and reproduction through rape, sexual harassment, and militarized prostitution. Rape

Contrary to popular belief, being young and pretty has little to do with being subjected to wartime rape. There are numerous accounts of very old women being brutally raped and murdered. These women, who often have limited mobility and live alone, are especially vulnerable to attack by soldiers. Carolyn Nordstrom calls rape ‘‘one of the most common human rights abuses in the world, and one of the most pervasive features of structural and cultural violence.’’ Her studies have also led her to conclude that rape in war cannot be viewed as a random and purely individual act isolated from the politics of power. Instead, it is an entrenched and legitimized terror tactic of militaries around the globe that destroys the person’s sense of safety and self-worth in the most profound manner. As Lois Ann Lorentzen demonstrates, this terror tactic is also used in the torture of political prisoners. Women imprisoned for their political activities are commonly raped repeatedly by different men. In the former Yugoslavia, thousands of Bosnian women have been forced into camps and raped by Serbian soldiers, and Croat as well as some Bosnian soldiers have also committed rapes. Rape has been used as a weapon in genocide where attacks on women are used to humiliate, and also as an attempt to exterminate another ethnic group. The idea that genocide could be accomplished through the mass rape of ‘enemy’ women derives from a patriarchal definition of ethnicity. This implies that a child is thought to inherit the ethnicity of her or his father, meaning, for example, that if a Serb raped a Bosnian woman and she became pregnant, her child would be a Serb. As Nira Yuval-Davis explains, when women are viewed as symbols of the family and the family as the basis of society or the nation, the humiliation of giving birth to the enemy’s children symbolizes the destruction of the community. She goes further to note that it is the control of women, and their sexuality, that is often at the base of social order, hinting at yet another reason why rape is common as a tactic of total war. Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic has interviewed many refugee women from different ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia. Those women who became pregnant because of wartime rape expressed anguish over carrying a child who is both their own and the enemy’s child. This form of psychological torture is incomparable to other forms of wartime torture. In addition, raped women are often stigmatized. Women may be shunned by their own families and communities, viewed as tainted, worthless ‘property’. The horrifying reports of mass, ethnically defined rape have attracted widespread public attention, and led to

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the recognition of rape as a war crime worthy of prosecution – a crime that is not unique to the war in former Yugoslavia. Soviet soldiers reportedly raped approximately 2 million women in eastern Germany in 1945. In 1971, Pakistani soldiers raped more than 200 000 Bengali women in the Bangladesh war of independence. The link between rape and war has been ignored by many policymakers and scholars, but feminists have identified wartime rape as symptomatic of war’s gendered nature. Even the United Nations (UN) peacekeepers – the multilateral forces sent to protect civilian human rights in war-torn areas – have committed rape and sexual abuse against women and young girls. Such cases have been documented in Mozambique, Somalia, Cambodia, and other regions. Some feminists, like Sandra Whitowrth, have thus suggested that those trained to fight wars might not be best suited to protect the human rights of women and children, and that sexual violence is endemic to military culture. With increasing numbers of women entering the military, female soldiers are added to the list of victims with 2100 sexual assaults being reported in the US military between 2002 and 2004. When asked about sexual assaults reported under his command in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez replied to Col. Janis Karpinski that the women who asked to be there needed to take what came with the territory. Research has demonstrated repeatedly that attitudes of military personnel often support the sexual abuse of women and girls. Carolyn Nordstrom states that when the head of the UN mission in Cambodia was questioned about the sexual abuse of women and girls by UN troops, he responded that he was ‘‘not a puritan: 18-year-old, hotblooded soldiers had a right to drink a few beers and chase after young beautiful things of the opposite sex.’’ In 1995, when three US Marines were charged with assaulting and raping a 12-year-old girl on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the commander of the US Pacific Command told reporters: ‘‘I think it was absolutely stupid, as I’ve said several times. For the price they paid to rent the car, they could have had a girl.’’ These statements rely on the widespread assumption that rape actually satisfies sexual desires whereas feminist research supports the thesis, first popularized by Susan Brownmiller, that rape is about power. This is evidenced also in the fact that while women are affected at much higher rates, men are also raped. Indeed, boys may be almost as likely as girls to suffer sexual assaults, suggesting that hierarchical relations of power need to be taken seriously to understand this phenomenon and to address it adequately. Prostitution

Wartime prostitution may be either physically forced or economically coerced. During World War II the Japanese military set up brothels in East and Southern Asia, forcing between 100 000 and 200 000 women into prostitution.

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Cynthia Enloe has pointed out that prostitution relies not only on the ‘sex worker’ and the ‘client’, but rather involves a whole host of characters, mainly men, who contribute to the creation and maintenance of prostitution as an institution around any military base in the world. It includes husbands and lovers; bar and brothel owners; local public health officials; local police and mayors; national and foreign finance ministry and defense officials; male soldiers in the national, local, and foreign forces; and local civilian male prostitution customers. Militaries may manage and control the lives of women working as prostitutes by implementing curfews, demanding regular checkups for sexually transmitted diseases, and even regulating which customers they have sex with. During World War II, brothels linked to US military bases generally had two separate entrances: one for men of color and another for whites. As Katherine Moon has demonstrated in the case of Korea, because militaries may provide huge infusions of capital into the societies where they establish bases, the local government has an incentive to cooperate with demands for women to have sex with the soldiers, and poor women may have little other choice in order to support themselves and their families. These prostitutes are often young girls endeavoring to support their families or women who need to support their children. Girls who are orphaned by war may be sold into domestic and sexual slavery. In societies where women are valued for their virginity, these girls may be permanent outcasts, trapped in a life of prostitution, and, if they live to old age, poverty. Wartime Domestic Violence While the battery of women is common in most societies in peacetime, recent research indicates that domestic violence increases in wartime. This suggests a link between gendered violence at the micro- and macrolevels, and calls for an inquiry into the gendered dynamics of power from the household to the international arena. Among the findings of research conducted through a Belgrade agency for domestic violence are an increase in the number of sons who commit violence against their mothers in wartime; an increase in the number of assaults involving weapons, including pistols, grenades, and other weapons from the war; an increase in violence in marriages where the husband and wife’s ethnicity differ; an increase in alcohol consumption among men returning from combat; and a link between economic decline, especially refugee status, and wife battering and rape. What wartime conditions would lead to an increase in woman battering and rape within the household? Several factors have been postulated. First, in wartime, there is an influx of weapons into the societies, and those weapons are often not controlled or limited to battlefield use. Research from both criminology and security studies

demonstrates that the presence of weapons increases both the likelihood and lethality of violence. Second, former soldiers or soldiers who have contact with their families have been affected by their experiences in combat. They may be frustrated, nervous, intolerant, and aggressive. State-produced media propaganda that endorses violence as an acceptable means of conflict resolution, combined with hate propaganda against members of other ethnic groups, may also be related to the escalation of domestic violence in wartime. Zorica Mrsevic writes about this post-TV-news syndrome (violent behavior following the broadcast of inflammatory war propaganda) observed by Belgrade feminists during the 1990s. She suggests that researchers take a closer look not just at the above-mentioned factors that increase the likelihood of domestic violence during war, but also ask whether domestic violence might have contributed to the outbreak of war. The most likely answer is that patriarchal structures in society, that is, a cultural acceptance of violence against women also in peacetime, put women at greater risk anytime and contribute to the ease with which men, and boys, become brutal perpetrators of violent acts. Loss of Family Loss of family members inflicts suffering on women and men alike, but women are affected in particular ways because of their family roles. Women may lose husbands and sons on the battlefield or other forms of violence, and they may lose their daughters and young children as civilian casualties or witness their suffering as victims of assault and rape. As the primary caregivers to children in most societies, women arguably suffer the loss of their children in gender-specific ways. Although the relationship of motherhood to women’s stance toward war is debated, women in many different historical and cultural contexts have argued that a mother’s suffering is unique. Nationalist propaganda often calls on women to give up their sons at wartime and to take pride in a son’s military service. Clearly, many women do respond to this call, and not every mother responds to the loss in the same way. As Nancy Scheper-Hughes points out, women living in conditions of scarcity and violence may more readily surrender their sons and husbands to potential death. Losing husbands and sons may, for many women, mean not only emotional loss but also lost economic support and social legitimacy. Women’s lack of economic power and opportunity may force them to rely on their male family members for economic survival. These women may become poor and homeless when they lose their husbands and sons. In some societies, women with no male family members lose all rights to protection, employment, benefits, or guarantees to security. The devastation that can result has been brought to the attention of the world

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community most recently in the case of Afghanistan, where women and children continue to suffer the effects of fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, which require women to stay home unless accompanied by a male relative. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, in 2005 one in six Afghani women faced maternal death, one in seven children died before their first year, and one in five did not celebrate their fifth birthday. Loss of Work, Community, and Social Structure Those women who are able to work outside the home may lose their jobs when war destroys the economic infrastructure. Indeed, with total war as the strategy of contemporary militaries, factories, hospitals, office buildings, agricultural fields, and civilian communities all become targets. Destruction of the economy, whether it be industrially or agriculturally based, affects women in unique ways because of their caretaking roles in the family and community. In conditions of food scarcity, women are more likely than men to give up their food so that children can eat. Women’s caretaking roles become increasingly burdensome as they struggle to feed their children in adverse conditions created by war and to nurse wounded survivors when hospitals, medicine, and clean water are scarce. What is more, unlike men who can travel to work in faraway places, women’s social mobility is limited because they are more likely to be tied to local communities. These forms of structural violence continue as the war ends and are often exacerbated when men returning from war are preferred for the few existing jobs. Environmental Destruction in War In addition to destroying the social and economic infrastructure, war destroys the natural environment. This has devastating consequences for women, again due to their roles as food providers and as caretakers. The Food and Agriculture Organization postulates that women produce 60–80% of the food in most developing countries and are responsible for half of the world’s food production, yet their key role as food producers and providers and their critical contribution to household food security is only now becoming recognized. Women also gather most of the fuel and water and prepare the meals. When war destroys the vegetation, these tasks become difficult, if not impossible. For example, Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin have observed that in El Salvador, which has been devastated by war, 80% of the natural vegetation has been eliminated and 77% of the soil has eroded or lost its fertility. The militaries employed ‘scorched earth’ tactics similar to those used by the US in Vietnam, destroying huge tracts of land and forest. Peasant women there find it harder and harder to gather firewood and grow food.

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Water pollution becomes a major problem for women, as they need it not only for themselves and their families to drink, but also to clean wounds. Every year, 1.6 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrhoeal diseases linked to poor water and sanitation in the world’s poorest countries, according to the World Health Organization. Women, who often walk for hours to find potable water, must walk farther and farther in their search. In the 1991 Gulf War, both the Iraqis and the Allies (primarily the US) deliberately destroyed the natural environment of the region as a part of their war strategy. Iraq pumped oil into the sea, causing an oil slick about 80 miles long and 10 miles wide. About 600 oil wells were set afire in Kuwait. The US deliberately bombed chemical and nuclear facilities, causing black rain to fall throughout the region. Hospitals and clinics were destroyed, and the water supply became contaminated. Basic health and sanitation levels dropped in the region, and the impact on the local economy made food prices soar. Women suffered in gender-specific ways as they struggled to provide for their children. Military Spending In spite of war’s increasing destructiveness, huge amounts of resources continue to be spent on arms while displacing social spending. In 2005, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates, world military expenditure reached $1001 billion, which represents 2.5% of world GDP or $173 per capita. Accounting for almost half of the world’s military expenditures, the US spent $478.2 billion on its military, outspending the next 15 countries combined by over $100 billion. The $61 billion allocated to education in the US that same year pale by comparison, as do the $0.087 billion it would have taken to fulfill the US’ commitment to provide 7% of its GDP to developing countries. Meanwhile, more than 1 billion people, about a sixth of the world’s population, live on less than $1 a day while half of the world’s population live on less than $2 a day. A redistribution of funds spent on the military worldwide each year would mean that each one of them would be able to have an additional 50 cents per day, constituting a 25–50% increase in their available income. While governments are constantly decrying their lack of available funds to meet social needs, there seems to be an unending supply of capital for military spending, and many have observed a direct trade-off between the two (see Table 1). Jeanne Vickers has shown that in the 1990s governments were spending 30 times the amount of money allocated to each child in school on each member of the armed forces. V. Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runyan have shown that the huge military expenditures of the past few decades have produced social service cuts, where women

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Table 1 The economy of deatha Amount

Paid for

Could have paid for

$20 million $65 million $350 million $12.3 billion

20 Patriot missiles 1 E-2C Hawkeye aircraft 2 days of air combat Noncombat costs, January to March 1 day of air and ground 1 CH-47D army transport helicopter 1 Stinger missile

Vaccines to protect all the women in Africa from tetanus The estimated total amount of external funds spent on AIDS in Africa in 1990 UNICEF’s 1990–91 budgeted expenditures (plus $48 million) The total current annual amount of investment in water supply in the developing world

$500 million $6.9 million $20 000

Oxfam’s operating combat budget – 46 times over – for 1989–90 All of Save the Children’s refugee programs in Indonesia and Thailand, 1989–90 (providing services for 25 000 people) Basic medical equipment and building materials for a maternity center in Mali

If you were to spend $1.2 million a day for 10 years you would spend $44 billion, the estimated amount spent on the Gulf War alone (not including long-term costs of operating a base in Saudi Arabia or reconstructing Kuwait). Source: Ms. Magazine ã 1991.

a

worldwide are most likely to be employed. Although military spending does provide jobs for some women, they tend to be low-paying, assembly-line positions in defense factories. Women provide cheap labor for defense contractors, who, in the US, rely primarily on the labor of Asian, Black, and Latina women.

Women’s Responses to War Joining Although women are stereotyped as pacifists or war resisters, they have fought in wars for centuries and now often seek equal status in the militaries of many countries. Other women support the war effort through their work in munitions factories or defense firms. Yet others play more traditional support roles as mothers or wives. What they have in common is that their work is undervalued in all possible aspects: women tend to occupy the lowest ranks in militaries, factories, and families, to perform ‘women’s roles’ within those settings, and to have little upward mobility or decision-making power. Yet, women are challenging these roles on a daily basis and changes are under way. Soldiers

Although women have fought in wars throughout history, they have routinely been relegated to second-class status in the military. Public resistance to women as warriors is rooted in traditional ideas about femininity and masculinity. These ideas become more flexible in certain political contexts. Women have been known to fight in wars of liberation and civil wars, including among the Chinese communists in the 1930s and 1940s, the African National Congress in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and in El Salvador in the 1980s. Women have been voluntary and eager participants in conflicts of the 1990s such as the Gulf War, genocide in Rwanda, and the war in Chechnya, disproving the notion of

women as essentially peaceful and nonviolent, as Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry document. In recent decades we have witnessed a shift toward increasing, although not equal, numbers of women in the military along with expanded roles for women. Yet, while some restrictions on women in combat have been removed, women are still excluded from ground combat by the US military, as well as from ground, naval, and air combat by most other militaries. Janet Beilstein demonstrates in her 1995 report that almost no women have served in the UN military peacekeeping operations. Only 20 of the roughly 20 000 troops who served in military peacekeeping missions between 1957 and 1989 were women, equaling a meager 0.1%. Most of these women served in traditional roles as nurses in medical units. In 2005 the number of women serving in UN peacekeeping missions has risen to 1% of military personnel and 4% serving in police functions. One likely reason for these low numbers is that a large part of the troop contributions for UN peacekeeping come from countries that do not have significant, nor welltrained, numbers of women in their militaries: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, India, and Ghana provided 43% of all peacekeepers in 2003. The trend to relegate women soldiers to traditionally feminine roles as secretaries, nurses, and technicians is evident in national militaries as well: only a small percentage of women hold high-ranking positions. Militaries often emphasize differences between men and women rather than their equal abilities. These military roles are not only gendered; they are also race- and class-based, as poor and working-class women from minority groups are disproportionately recruited. Some feminists have argued for women’s greater access to military jobs and benefits. This argument is based on the notion that citizenship derives in part from one’s capacity to fight for one’s country. Equal-rights feminists have argued that political power has been elusive for women because, in many countries, military service is a prerequisite for high political office. Western feminists

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such as Judith Hicks Stiehm have argued that increased military participation can emancipate women from their status as the weak and defended – women can instead be the defenders. Critics of this approach charge that the military is not good for women or that women should reject the military because of its sexism. They point out that military indoctrination for men generally includes the systematic denigration of all that is ‘feminine’. Male recruits are often called ‘girls’ as a form of humiliation, and they often chant sexist lyrics as part of training. A 1995 Pentagon survey found that nearly one in ten US Army women reported being sexually assaulted and six in ten had experienced some form of sexual harassment by their fellow soldiers. Despite these drawbacks, joining the military for some women becomes the steppingstone to a better life when it provides them with regular meals, companionship, and even education. This is the case especially in irregular armies, where the majority of women soldiers are found. According to Dyan Mazurana, girls have fought in over 50 conflicts in the past decade, most of them in the developing world. Failure to recognize the contributions of female soldiers means they are also not addressed adequately in anti- and postwar initiatives. Military production workers

Another way women can support militarization is to work in the defense industry. During both world wars, there was a huge influx of women into munitions factories. Recruitment propaganda called on women to do munitions work previously done by men. A British recruitment poster proclaimed, for example, that ‘‘These Women are Doing Their Part: Learn to Make Munitions.’’ According to Angela Woollacott, about a million British women worked in munitions factories during World War I, making guns, shells, explosives, and aircraft. Women munitions makers in both world wars achieved more economic independence than before, and many expressed pride in contributing to the war effort. Today’s women defense workers are some of the worstpaid women in the labor force. As noted earlier, most women working in the defense industry occupy low-paying jobs as assembly workers, with few if any benefits. While some women have achieved higher positions in defense industries and have organized themselves, it is not clear that they feel linked to success in any particular war. Sending, supporting, and reproducing men

Militaries have not only conducted campaigns to bring women into munitions work; they have generated propaganda that links motherhood, nationalism, and militarism. Women and girls have also been called upon to urge their husbands and boyfriends to war. A British leaflet issued to ‘‘the young women of England’’ in 1917 asked:

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Is your ‘‘best boy’’ wearing khaki? If not, don’t you think he should be? If he does not think that you and your country are worth fighting for, do you think he is worthy of you? If your young man neglects his duty to his king and country, the time will come when he will neglect YOU. Think it over—then ask him to JOIN THE ARMY.

Women and girls were told to ‘‘show a white feather,’’ used as a symbol of cowardice, to any man they saw whom they suspected of having failed to enlist. Lorraine Bayard de Volo has studied how governments in the US and Nicaragua attempted to educate women as to what constitutes a ‘good mother’ during wartime. She found the propaganda strategies to be remarkably similar, drawing on representations of the good (patriotic) mother as one who is willing to sacrifice her sons to war. During the American Civil War, as well as during both world wars, the US government established organizations whose aims were to stimulate feelings of motherly patriotism among women. Similar organizations, such as the Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs, were developed in Nicaragua during the war against the Contras. State propaganda has also been directed at mothers in Israel to prevent dissent against their sons’ involvement in the Israeli Defense Forces. Women who protest the war are portrayed as disloyal to their children. Women are even called upon by many states to produce more sons for the military, and some states, such as Croatia in the former Yugoslavia, have outlawed abortion in wartime. Despite governments’ efforts to the contrary, many women do protest their sons’ being called to war and publicly mourn their deaths in ways that defy the state. Mourning While some wives, lovers, sisters, and mothers mourn the war-dead in private, others mourn publicly as a form of resistance. Some women’s groups, such as Women in Black, rather than mourning the loss of particular family members, symbolically mourn the continuing deaths caused by the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Sara Ruddick writes that the figure of the mater dolorosa – the suffering mother – is the predominant image of women in war. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina are well known for their weekly demonstrations on behalf of their missing and killed loved ones. They draw on the image of the mater dolorosa, fulfilling their ascribed role in a patriarchal society, yet also protesting the violation of the mother’s caretaking role through the state’s violent intervention in their children’s lives. Their embrace of the traditional female roles is subversive since it also protects them from retaliation by the regime that cannot afford to be seen as attacking the sanctity of the family and motherhood. Especially in revolutionary struggles against interventionist powers, mothers’ groups may also organize to glorify

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their lost sons, as in the case of the Mothers of the Heroes and Martyrs in Nicaragua, who not only honored their dead sons but also called for the Contras to stop their war. Resisting Some women’s groups actively resisting war have also drawn on gender roles and employed stereotypic symbols in their activism. For example, at the Greenham Common women’s peace camp in England, women hung diapers on the wire fence around the nuclear installation and wore pictures of their children around their necks. The members of Women Strike for Peace in the US declared a ‘strike’ on their domestic work, refusing to perform household work as a form of protest against nuclear war preparations. When they appeared in public spaces such as courthouses and parliaments, these women dressed up in traditionally feminine clothing to unsettle the men and appeal to them as might their sisters, wives, and mothers. The Materinskoe Serdise, Soviet mothers who drew attention to their killed sons in Afghanistan, organized demonstrations and hunger strikes and broke into official meetings. The women of Another Mother for Peace in the US sent a Mother’s Day card to members of the US Congress during the Vietnam War. It said: For my Mothers’ Day gift this year I don’t want candy or flowers. I want an end to killing. We who have given life Must be dedicated to preserving it. Please, talk peace!

This group created a creed of Pax Materna, or mother’s peace, and a logo that was translated into 20 languages and distributed worldwide. These groups demonstrated that feminine symbols often associated with passivity can be transformed into effective forms of political protest. Women’s association with peace is an ancient historical theme. A well-known treatment is Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, in which the women of Athens and other Greek states seize the Acropolis and agree to refuse all sexual favors whatsoever to their warring men, until they have agreed on peace. In modern times, women have developed national organizations, as well as transnational groups such as Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom or the International Feminist Network. Women’s involvement in the peace movement worldwide suggests that, although we may reject arguments that women are inherently peaceful, we must also ask why so many women are drawn to peace work. Surviving and Rebuilding Many times women have little choice but to focus on their survival only. Women develop unique strategies to survive

in wartime, during prolonged displacement, and in the aftermath of war. In addition, survivors have taken creative approaches to rebuilding communal support systems in the absence of peace, of traditional community leaders, and of international humanitarian assistance. Interestingly, all the drawbacks of the camp situation notwithstanding, feminist researchers propose that refugee camps give women an opportunity to work together and learn leadership skills, building collective strength that gets lost when women are repatriated or otherwise dispersed. Rwanda, where women have taken on a decisive role in the aftermath of genocide, is a case in point. Women in Rwanda make up the majority of the productive population since men, targeted at higher rates during the genocide, are sometimes still in exile for fear of prosecution, or are in jail awaiting trial for crimes committed during the genocide. Women’s central role in economic development and reconstruction is augmented by their key role in agricultural production: according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, women produce up to 70% of the country’s total agricultural output, in a country that is 95% rural. As Rwandan women are taking on new roles as heads of households, agents of reconstruction, and public representatives, the international community is starting to pay more attention to the potential of women as peacemakers. Women, experience shows, are better than men at forgiving, reconciling, and building peace also because they are less likely to be directly involved in violence as Cynthia Cockburn has documented in her work. Moreover, women are called upon to fulfill these duties because these tasks align more closely with perceived ‘women’s roles’. However, to be successful at producing change, Cockburn and others argue that women need to be incorporated fully into the political processes after war, as they have been in Rwanda where women now hold nearly 49% of seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower parliamentary house, and 34% of seats in the Senate. According to 2006 data by the Inter-Parliamentary Union this means that Rwanda has now replaced long-time champion Sweden in terms of gender parity.

Contemporary Debates Scholarship on women and war has generated a wealth of knowledge and challenged traditional approaches to studying war that typically ignore the role of gender and the impact of war on women. Within the subfield of women and war, a number of debates are underway some of which will be introduced in the next few paragraphs. Essentialism versus Difference The debate over whether women have a feminine nature that is distinct from men’s has raged both within conservative political circles and among feminists. Are women

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and men fundamentally different because of biology? When conservatives have answered ‘‘yes,’’ their answer has often led to the policy conclusion that men should fight wars and women should support them in distinctly feminine, maternal ways. Some feminists, including both cultural feminists in the West and radical non-Western feminists, have also answered ‘‘yes,’’ but conclude that women, as natural peacemakers, should resist wars and that women should be accorded more power over world affairs so as to make the world less violent. This first debate has become more nuanced and complicated over time. Cross-cultural analyses have yielded evidence that neither men nor women have an ‘essential’ nature: rather, gender is a fluid social category that people express differently in different cultural contexts and through diverse roles. What is more, the intersections of gender with other markers such as race, class, and ethnicity produce specific forms of oppression that need to be addressed in conjunction, as Patricia Hill Collins argues. Neither men nor women have proven to be inherently violent or peaceful; instead, humans have the capacity to be both. The fact that states produce so much propaganda to instruct men and women how to properly behave suggests that masculinity and femininity are learned rather than inherent traits. A group of internationally renowned scientists concluded in the Seville Statement on Violence that humans are not inherently violent and therefore that social and political factors more likely contribute to war and its gendered nature. The specific relationship between masculinity and violence is receiving more attention in this context and authors like R. W. Connell argue that attention to social masculinities is crucial to understand the linkages between cultures of masculinity and violence. The Politics of Motherhood A second debate within the field concerns the relationship between motherhood and war. As discussed earlier, mothers can respond in quite different ways to war depending on the social and political context. Yet patterns emerge over time, with significant numbers of mothers’ groups organizing to protest wars in different parts of the world. At the same time, many mothers support decisions to go to war and willingly send their sons, and increasingly their daughters, to fight. Nancy Scheper-Hughes proposes that the same kind of maternal thinking that Sara Ruddick claims predisposes women to be more peaceful, can also help generate a notion of acceptable or necessary death and with it resignation and acceptance. Conversely, mothers have fought fiercely in the name of protecting their children, their family, or their traditions. Scholars continue to debate whether there is something universal about motherhood that predisposes women to one response over another.

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Women in the Military A third major debate, especially among feminists, centers on women’s participation in the military. Should women join the military? While some argue that women should be free to join whatever organizations they choose, others protest that the military is the most fundamentally sexist social institution and women should not participate in it. Some argue that women in greater numbers will change the military for the better, especially as peacekeeping ranks higher on the agenda, while others claim that it is more likely that the military will change women. Feminists have long worried about the effects of militarism on society, and on women in particular, arguing also that only those women that adapt to masculine standards will be able to advance in male-dominated, militarized structures. Should women serve in combat roles? Equal-rights/ liberal feminists argue for women’s access to the same military jobs as men, claiming that women will also gain greater political power as a consequence. Conservatives and cultural feminists reject the notion of women in combat. People on both sides of the debate now have to contend with the reality that women, and girls, are increasingly in the line of fire. As Melissa Herbert has shown, it takes adaptive skills to survive as a woman in a decidedly masculine organization. Thus, an important emerging area of research is the study of women (and girls) participation in irregular and regular armies, as well as their experiences of demobilization. Women and Collective Organizing A final debate that has emerged from women’s multiple responses to war concerns whether women constitute a group for organizing in any unified fashion around issues of war and peace. Do women across cultures and social groups share the same concerns? Do women have a collective identity that can be mobilized? If it is not essential, what might it be based on? Elise Boulding points out that women have over time organized transnationally to oppose war, sexism, and inequality. She believes that women’s collective sensibility stems not from some biological commonality, but rather from women’s distinct social roles and knowledge. Women, she argues, can make a distinct contribution to peacemaking. Others have argued that women are peaceful because they are not in a postion to be anything but. When they do acquire power, they can be more hawkish then their male counterparts, as in the case of the iron ladies Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher. Chandra Talpade Mohanty suggests that instead of relying on identity politics, assuming a shared essential womanhood or at least a common experience thereof, women should build coalitions around issues that matter to them, ‘‘for it is not the experience of being, but the meanings attached to gender, race, class and age at various historical moments that is of strategic significance.’’

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Research questions Some of the most fruitful areas for research draw on the previous debates. Among those areas are the following: Factors That Determine Women’s Responses to War Scholarship that examines women’s responses to war in different historical, cultural, and geopolitical contexts will help us to understand why and under what conditions women support war or peace; why some women respond to war by becoming prostitutes, while others are munitions workers, soldiers, or protesters. As a part of this analysis, we need to better understand the ways in which women’s class status, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality affect their experiences. A fruitful avenue in this context has been the work on intersectionality by Collins and others which is beginning to filter into analyses of women and war as well. Continuities in Peace- and Wartime Much of the research on women and war suggests that war magnifies already-existing gender inequality and women’s subordination. Sexual violence against women, for example, is routine in most contemporary societies and yet is magnified in wartime. An interesting case is domestic violence in the US military, which is estimated to occur at a rate 5 times higher than in the civilian population. We need to understand how women’s lives are militarized in times of ‘peace’ in order to understand how their lives are transformed by war, as Enloe or Catherine Lutz do in their work. We need more research that examines the ways that violence against women and women’s lower social status in peacetime is connected to that in wartime. Promising research in this area has begun to look at violence as a continuum, where the form and intensity change as peace becomes war and vice versa, but where the structures that enable and condone violence, not just against women, remain unchanged. This avenue has been explored in particular with regards to the wars of dissolution in the former Yugoslavia in the work of Cockburn or Mrsevic. The State’s Role in Mobilizing Women Further research should examine the different strategies that states utilize to mobilize women to support war. Which states, for example, attempt to recruit women into military service and which attempt to mobilize mothers to support war? How do cross-cultural differences, historical circumstances, and dynamics of the war in question shape states’ behavior? Which strategies are most effective for mobilizing which women? What resources do states invest in these efforts, and who

makes decisions about mobilization campaigns? How do women’s reactions figure into declarations of war and defense department press releases? Women in the Aftermath of War A research question that has received greater attention in the past decade concerns women’s contributions to managing survival and aiding in reconstruction, as well as in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration efforts. Rita Marchanda describes how war opens up intended and unintended spaces for empowering women, affecting social transformation and creating social, economic, and political realities that affect gender, and in the case of South Asia, caste hierarchies. In the absence of men, who might be in prison, exile, or otherwise absent, women often take on work traditionally reserved for males in the community. This can be both a burden and an avenue for empowerment as women, sometimes for the first time, begin to handle the affairs of their families and communities. However, women’s activism is often devalued as accidental and marginalized as politics become more structured and hierarchical upon return to peace – invariably conceptualized as a return to the gender status quo irrespective of the roles women assumed during wartime and in its immediate aftermath. A challenge therefore is to incorporate these activities by women into formal peace-building activities and to recognize their importance for the long-term development of the community. Among the questions that need further attention in this context are: What are the myriad activities that women engage in during and after war? What can be done to sustain women’s activism in the aftermath of war and to harness its transformational potential? What specifically are the kinds of activities that sustain reconstruction, reintegration, and reconciliation? Policymakers and researchers should pay more attention to women working at the grassroots level, recognizing their vital contributions to longterm stability in war-torn communities and regions. Women Making Policy A final question that merits further research elaborates on the debate concerning women’s and men’s standpoints toward war, whether they be based in essential nature or acquired attitudes. Would women, if represented in greater numbers in policymaking positions, change security policy? Some maintain that if women were in key political and military positions, states would be less likely to go to war or would at least exercise greater attempts at diplomacy and conflict resolution. However, we have numerous examples of women political leaders who have pursued militaristic policies and led their nations to war. Another argument suggests that simply having a woman in a key position is not the issue; rather a ‘critical mass’ of women would make a

Women and War

difference in decision making. Since so few women make security policy around the world, this question remains unanswered. However, a key achievement has been the work of women in the UN framework and the passing of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in 2000. This resolution called on the UN and member states to integrate women’s concerns into all peacekeeping and peace-building activities by increasing women’s participation at all decision-making levels, as well as integrating a gender perspective throughout. While the impact of the resolution has yet to be thoroughly investigated, an initial success has been the appointment of gender advisors for 10 out of 17 current peacekeeping missions in November 2004. Whether their presence translates into a difference on the ground is one of the many questions that need to be addressed as women’s impact in policymaking is being assessed.

Gendered Social Relations as a Cause of War Perhaps the most significant issue raised by the scholarship on women and war and by the women who have experienced war concerns the link between militarism and patriarchy. This relationship is dialectical: militarism relies on patriarchal patterns and patriarchy relies on militarization. First let us consider how militarism relies on patriarchy. Militaries rely on male privilege and female subordination in order to function. That privilege takes both structural and cultural forms. Structurally, because women have less political, social, and economic power in society, they also have less power to make security decisions and very little power in military institutions. Poor women are compelled by their economic need to occupy low-ranking positions in the defense industry or the military. Other poor women are coerced into serving as prostitutes near military bases. Enloe has shown that these structural conditions are complemented by cultural ones: militaries need men and women to behave in gender-stereotypic ways. Women should behave in maternal fashion, they should need men to protect them, and their wartime experience should be sexualized. Men should feel that in order to prove their masculinity, they should fight and generally support their nation going to war. Men should take on exceptionally masculine behaviors and attitudes through their military training (and in broader cultures of masculinity as Connell points out). The complementary argument suggests that in order for societies to be patriarchal or male dominated, military values must predominate – masculine values must be privileged over feminine values, and masculine values must become equated with military ones. Those values

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become evident in various cultural forms, including gendered, militarized rhetoric in popular culture and in religious symbols. Gendered social relations encourage militarism, and militarism in turn relies on gendered social relations. As Betty Reardon has argued, without sexism, the ‘war system’ cannot function, and sexism is based on militarized notions of masculinity. For persons concerned about war and about sexism, this suggests that these interlocking problems must be addressed simultaneously. See also: Gender Studies; Guerrilla Warfare; Long-Term Effects of War on Children; Military Culture; Peacekeeping; Structural Violence; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Adams, D., Carter, B. F., and Rodriguez, J. M. (1992). The Seville statement on violence. Peace Review 4(3), 20–22. Bayard de Volo, L. (2001). Mothers of heroes and martyrs: Gender identity politics in Nicaragua, 1979–1999. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Beilstein, J. (1995). The role of women in United Nations peacekeeping. Women 2000, 1, 1–10. New York: United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women. Boulding, E. (1995). Feminist inventions in the art of peacemaking: A century overview. Peace and Change 20(4), 408–439. Cockburn, C. (1998). The space between us: Negotiating gender and national identities in conflict. London: Zed Books. Cockburn, C. (2007). From where we stand: War, women’s activism and feminist analysis. London: Zed Books. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Connell, R. W. (2000). The men and the boys. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Elshtain, J. B. (1987). Women and war. New York: Basic Books. Enloe, C. (1993). The morning after: Sexual politics at the end of the cold war. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Goldstein, J. S. (2001). War and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hauchler, I. and Kennedy, P. M. (1994). Global trends. New York: Continuum. Herbert, M. S. (2000). Camouflage isn’t only for combat: Gender, sexuality, and women in the military. New York: New York University Press. Holm, J. (1992). Women in the military: An unfinished revolution. Novato, CA: Presidio. Jacobs, S., Jacobsen, R., and Marchbank, J. (eds.) (2000). States of conflict: Gender, violence and resistance. London: Zed Books. Lorentzen, L. A. and Turpin, J. (eds.) (1998). The women and war reader. New York: New York University Press. Lutz, C. A. (2002). Homefront: A military city and the American twentieth century. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Manchanda, R. (2002). Ambivalent gains in South Asian conflicts. In Meintjes, S., Pillay, A., and Turshen, M. (eds.) The aftermath: Women in post-conflict transformation, pp. 103–106. London: Zed Books. Meintjes, S., Pillay, A., and Turshen, M. (eds.) (2002). The aftermath: Women in post-conflict transformation. London: Zed Books. Mohanty, C. T. (1992). Feminist encounters: Locating the politics of experience. In Barrett, M. and Phillips, A. (eds.) Destabilizing theory: Contemporary feminist debates, pp. 74–92. Cambridge: Polity Press. Moon, K. H. S. (1997). Sex among allies: Military prostitution in US–Korea relations. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Moser, C. O. N. and Clark, F. C. (eds.) (2001). Victims, perpetrators or actors? Gender, armed conflict and political violence. London: Zed Books. Mrsevic, Z. (2001). The opposite of war is not peace – It’s creativity. In Waller, M. R. and Rycenga, J. (eds.) Frontline feminisms: Women, war, and resistance, pp. 41–55. New York: Routledge. Nikolic-Ristanovic, V. (1996). War and violence against women. In Turpin, J. and Lorentzen, L. A. (eds.) The gendered new world order: Militarism, development, and the environment, pp. 195–210. New York: Routledge. Nordstom, C. (1996). Girls behind the (front) lines. Peace Review 8(3), 403–410. Nordstom, C. (1996). Rape: Politics and theory in war and peace. Australian Feminist Studies 11(23), 147–162. Onyejekwe, C. J. (2005). Women, war, peacebuilding and reconstruction. International Social Science Journal 57(2), 277–283. Peace Pledge Union (1997). Women and peace resource guide. London: Peace Pledge Union. Peterson, V. S. and Runyan, A. S. (1999). Global gender issues, 2nd edn. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Reardon, B. (1993). Women and peace. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Rehn, E. and Johnson-Sirleaf, E. (2002). Women, war and peace: The independent experts’ assessment on the impact of armed conflict on women and women’s role in peace-building. New York: UNIFEM. Ruddick, S. (1990). Maternal thinking: Towards a politics of peace. London: Women’s Press. Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992). Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Sjoberg, L. and Gentry, C. (2007). Mothers, monsters, whores: Women’s violence in global politics. London: Zed Books. Stiehm, J. H. (1989). Arms and the enlisted woman. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Turpin, J. and Lorentzen, L. A. (eds.) (1996). The gendered new world order: Militarism, development, and the environment. New York: Routledge. Turshen, M. and Twagiramariya, C. (eds.) (1998). What women do in wartime: Gender and conflict in Africa. London: Zed Books. Vickers, J. (1993). Women and war. London: Zed Books. Whitworth, S. (2004). Men, militarism, and UN peacekeeping: A gendered analysis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Woollacott, A. (1994). On her their lives depend: Munitions workers in the Great War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender and nation. London: Sage.

Relevant Websites http://www.minervacenter.com – The Minerva Center for the Study of Women in War. http://www.womenwarpeace.org – The UNIFEM Portal on Women, Peace and Security. http://www.womeninblack.org – Women in Black. http://www.peacewomen.org – Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

VI.

TERRORISM

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Terrorism P Bell, South and East Belfast Health and Social Services Trust, Belfast, UK ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Effects of Terrorism on the Terrorist Effects of Terrorism on Victims

Glossary Anomie The sense of isolation that comes from lack of social integration and cohesion. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A psychological injury characterized by reexperiencing trauma, hyperarousal, and withdrawal.

Introduction The Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism as the use of violence and intimidation for political ends. This definition could apply to any kind of warfare. However, the term terrorism usually refers to unconventional tactics of warfare used by a less powerful group against a more powerful adversary. In this way, the Roman legions encountered terrorism in the woods of Germany. As a tactic, it has become more successful with the development of technology, so that a small number of terrorists with modern weapons can do a great deal more damage than many men wielding swords and halberds. The extent to which a small number of highly motivated men can inflict catastrophic pain on a mighty enemy was demonstrated by the events of September 11. Terrorism as a tactic is increasingly attractive to groups who lack political or military power. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and terms such as commando, guerrilla, partisan, and paramilitary help to confuse the picture further. At the same time, many former terrorists have been accepted into the political mainstream, and the progression from terrorist leader to statesman seems to be the rule rather than the exception (e.g., Nelson Mandela). Other terrorist organizations become increasingly involved in organized crime, and the pattern of terrorism is moving away from organized political groups to small, very extreme groups and even to individuals (e.g., the Uni bomber and the cell structure of the IRA and various Islamic fundamentalist groups). The field of terrorism, then, is a This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P Bell, volume 3, pp 577–580, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

The Effect of Terrorism on Society Further Reading

The Troubles A term used to describe the 30 years of civil unrest and paramilitary campaigns, bordering on civil war, in Ireland.

complex one, with the spectrum including a wide variety of separate phenomena.

Effects of Terrorism on the Terrorist There has been little research from Northern Ireland examining the psychological profiles of active members of terrorist organizations. During the Provisional Irish Republican Army hunger strikes, hunger strikers were assessed and found not to be suffering from any psychiatric illness. Their self-harm was deemed to be a political act. Anecdotal information from professionals working in the prisons in Northern Ireland, suggests that various terrorist organizations are associated with different types of motivation and, hence, with different psychological profiles. For example, the members of some terrorist organizations are reputed to be very calm, calculating, politically motivated individuals, with very few of the traits that would normally be described as personality disorder. In contrast, the members of other organizations (particularly those organizations with an interest in organized crime) tend to have psychological profiles more typical of violent criminal offenders. There is no evidence from Northern Ireland suggesting that those who engage in terrorist violence are more likely to be psychiatrically ill than members of the general population. Indeed, it seems that those who perpetrate terrorist violence, as a rule, tend to escape psychologically unscathed. Some individuals are troubled by their conscience, and the general public would like to believe that those who commit particularly horrific crimes will be troubled by these crimes for the rest of their lives. In general, however, it seems that 10 years after a horrific

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violent crime it is the victims and the bereaved who will wake up screaming in the night, whereas the perpetrator sleeps soundly. There are positive psychological aspects that help to motivate terrorists. The terrorist act can act as a form of catharsis, relieving feelings of anger and frustration that have often built up over many years. At the same time, terrorists usually see themselves as martyrs. This is a constant theme, from the blood sacrifice of Patrick Pearse in 1916, to the ideas of martyrdom among Islamic suicide bombers today. These positive aspects are, for the terrorist, balanced by the threat that he or she poses to family and friends, the fear of living in secret, and the ultimate fear of losing his or her life. Thus, a young man who is considering becoming a terrorist is contemplating a tactic that is both highly effective and highly costly.

Effects of Terrorism on Victims The effects of terrorist violence on victims has been described in detail (see Northern Ireland, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in). Research performed with survivors of violence in Northern Ireland indicates that normal individuals subjected to extreme terrorist violence are likely to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and that normal individuals who are bereaved by terrorism are likely to develop a grief reaction. We use arbitrarily defined time points to describe the syndromes of delayed and chronic PTSD and to define delayed and chronic grief reactions. However, all of these psychological injuries, which happen to normal people put under intolerable strain, fall within a continuous spectrum, ranging from a psychological upset lasting a few days to symptoms that can be lifelong. Vulnerable individuals may also be the victims of terrorist violence. Under these circumstances, the violence can act as a nonspecific stressor or life event precipitating an episode of psychiatric illness. For example, individuals prone to depression or anxiety may develop an anxiety neurosis or depressive neurosis if exposed to violence. Clearly terrorist violence has a devastating effect on the lives of those exposed to it, whether they are psychologically vulnerable or not, resulting in incapacitating physical and psychological injuries, as described by the work of Curran and colleagues, among others, working in Northern Ireland. A high percentage of individuals who experience serious violence develop PTSD. Studies across the world, looking at different types of traumatic incidents, indicate that between one-quarter and one-half of individuals who experience serious trauma develop PTSD. It seems that the key factor in developing this condition is the fact of being made aware of one’s own mortality at a very deep

level. For this reason, it seems that it is the individual’s perception of the event that causes the psychological injury, and because of this, different individuals can respond differently to the same type of trauma. For example, if two friends are caught up in a terrorist bomb blast, one might develop PTSD and the other might escape relatively unscathed. For the same reason, similar traumatic events may affect the same individual differently at different times. For example, a bus driver may be hijacked at gunpoint on four occasions without developing any psychological problems, only to develop severe PTSD when hi-jacked for a fifth time under virtually identical circumstances. Anyone who has been exposed to serious violence may develop the core symptoms of PTSD, namely reliving the incident, hyperarousal, and emotional constriction. These core symptoms are seen after a wide variety of traumatic situations in different parts of the world. In addition to the core symptoms, an individual may develop a number of additional symptoms under specific circumstances. In situations of terrorist violence, hostage taking and torture are unfortunately frequent occurrences. This type of prolonged trauma tends to result not only in PTSD but can also in a syndrome similar to learned helplessness. Individuals recovering from traumatic events of this kind often experience profound symptoms of depression. Survivors of hostage taking often have these symptoms mixed with feelings of relief to be alive and a paradoxical gratitude to their captors for allowing them to live. One common form of terrorist violence in Northern Ireland has been assassination attacks on the security forces launched from private houses. In these attacks, families are often held at gunpoint overnight while an ambush is set up. Families who experience these attacks often develop symptoms of PTSD associated with symptoms of depression and learned helplessness. The situation is complicated further by a group of symptoms that are often seen after burglaries. These symptoms include obsessional cleanliness and a feeling that the home has been violated, making it difficult to relax in the house where these events occurred. Free-floating anger and irritability are core symptoms of PTSD. After natural disasters or tragedies for which no one is to blame, this free-floating anger often takes the form of irritability, and the survivors of natural disasters often direct their anger and hostility toward those closest to them. In the case of terrorist violence, there is a natural focus for this free-floating anger and victims understandably direct their anger toward the terrorist organization. In some circumstances, this can be helpful because there is less tendency for anger to be directed inward or toward other family members. Individuals who have suffered terrorist violence in their own homes find it very difficult to recover from their psychological injuries while they continue to live

Terrorism

in the environment where the trauma occurred. Every time they walk into a certain room they are reminded of the violence that occurred there. At the same time, survivors of this type of violence often feel so much anger toward the perpetrators of the violence that they are determined not to be forced out of their homes. They refuse to run away. This appears to be a decision of principle, but it can tend to delay the natural healing process. Security lights and alarms are a nightly reminder of the violence that took place in the home. Those individuals who swallow their pride and move to a new environment often recover more quickly from their psychological injuries. Even after the paramilitary ceasefires in Northern Ireland, there have been a number of terrorist incidents, most notably a bombing outrage in the town of Omagh in which large numbers of civilians were killed. This incident, in particular, generated a number of research studies on PTSD and specifically on the treatment of PTSD. As a result, the Department of Health in Northern Ireland produced the CREST Guidelines for the Management of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Adults in June 2003. This advice highlights the importance of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitization, along with symptomatic treatment with antidepressants.

The Effect of Terrorism on Society The effects of terrorist violence on a society are rather more difficult to define. As mentioned earlier, terrorism can take many forms, from the organization of mass protests and violence to individual attacks on selected targets. Curran and colleagues have pointed out that the form of civil violence over the years in Northern Ireland changed from mass disturbances, affecting large numbers of people, to more surgical attacks on selected targets, affecting only a very small number of victims. Community studies, examining indicators of mental health, have failed to demonstrate a greater psychiatric morbidity among the population of Northern Ireland. This has been explored in some detail by Cairns and Wilson, who examined various indicators of psychiatric morbidity, including psychiatric admission and referral rates, suicide and attempted suicide, substance abuse, clinical studies, and community studies. The overall impression is that during The Troubles it was remarkably difficult to demonstrate a higher level of psychiatric morbidity among the general population of Northern Ireland. Loughrey and coworkers postulated that this may have been because of the changing nature of violence in Northern Ireland to more selective targeting. The victims of violence, although affected severely, were perhaps too small in number to be detected by community surveys. In the early years of The Troubles, Lyons described a year by year decrease in the suicide rate in Northern Ireland with the outbreak of civil violence. He believed

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that this might be explained by Durkheim’s theory of anomie. In the late 1800s, Durkheim predicted that, during periods of war, suicide rates would decrease because the aggression of the population was being externalized toward a common enemy. This prevented aggression from being directed inward in the form of self-harm. Lyons’s original results seemed to support this. However, when the suicide rates in Northern Ireland were examined over a more extended period of time by Curran and colleagues, it was found that the increase in the suicide rate at the start of The Troubles, observed by Lyons, may have simply been part of a wide year-to-year random variation. Durkheim’s theories pertaining to social cohesion may still be relevant, however. Curran and coworkers postulated that the detrimental effect on the mental health of a small number of victims directly affected by terrorist violence might be balanced by a beneficial effect of polarizing sectarian community spirit on a larger number of marginalized individuals within society at large. In other words, although the direct victims of violence suffer greatly, they are small in number in most urban terrorist campaigns. At the same time, polarized sectarian communities, such as those in Northern Ireland, though deplorable in many ways, may paradoxically offer increased social support to marginalized individuals from within their own community. It is difficult to test this hypothesis, but most psychiatrists in Northern Ireland will be aware of some patients whose level of psychological functioning seems to be improved because of the increased social cohesion of the frontline communities in which they live. Presumably the function of terrorism is to evoke terror. Initially, terrorists in Northern Ireland seemed to have been singularly unsuccessful in this regard. The terrorist campaign went on so long that the population of Northern Ireland viewed the risk of terrorist violence as just another of the statistical risks that face us when we get out of bed each morning. It almost seems that there is a homeostatic mechanism in the human psyche with regard to risk, such that exposure to risk develops tolerance. This seems to apply to risk of all sorts. The population of the Western world has become surprisingly blase´ about the risks associated with motor vehicles, despite the huge carnage produced by these machines on our roads. Similarly, most individuals within society accept the risk of violent crime when they leave their homes. These mechanisms for living with risks appear to be largely based on denial and associated with thoughts such as ‘‘it will never happen to me.’’ Some groups within Northern Ireland, such as members of the security forces who are particularly at risk of terrorist violence, develop a gung-ho culture, where risk is denied completely. This is often associated with substance abuse in order to maintain the high levels of denial. There is a saying in Northern Ireland: ‘‘You can get used to anything.’’ In the same way that money does not make you happy, it seems that terror does not necessarily make you afraid.

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A number of studies within Northern Ireland have demonstrated a rebound of psychiatric morbidity after the declaration of the various terrorist ceasefires. However, this increase in psychiatric morbidity appears to be relatively short-lived. It may be that the atmosphere of peace allows people to come forward and seek help for psychological problems that they had chosen to ignore while the violence was continuing. The reaction of the community to terrorist violence can be seen as mirroring an individual’s reaction to trauma. In traumatic circumstances, many individuals continue to function in a calm, detached manner while the violence is occurring, only to find themselves breaking down some hours later after they have had time to think about the dangers of the situation. This seems to be a natural adaptive mechanism. When survival is the first priority, individuals get on with what needs to be done at the time. They postpone thinking about the horror of the situation until it is safe to do so. It seems that societies function in a similar way, using denial mechanisms in order to continue functioning. However, the reality of the situation comes flooding in when peace is restored, resulting in the rebound of psychiatric morbidity. Terrorism is here to stay. Just as individuals become inured to violence and tend to return to the state of normal denial, so societies learn to live with the chronic risk of terrorist violence and it becomes just one of the many risks in a modern world. When this happens, terrorism no longer succeeds in evoking terror. It becomes a less powerful tactic, and it becomes less likely that young men

and women will be prepared to pay the terrible price of becoming terrorists. In summary, the effects of terrorist violence are not as we would imagine them to be in a fair world. Most active participants in violence are psychologically unscathed. The lives of victims are often devastated, whereas the level of psychological morbidity in a community exposed to terrorism is lower than might be expected. In the end, the damage done by terrorism to a community appears to be spiritual rather than psychological. See also: Northern Ireland, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in; War, Suicide and Sacrifice

Further Reading Bell, P., Kee, M., Loughrey, G. L., et al. (1988). Post traumatic stress disorder in Northern Ireland. Acta Pyschiatrica Scandinavia 77, 166–170. Cairns, E. and Wilson, R. (1984). The impact of political violence on mild psychiatric morbidity in Northern Ireland. British Journal of Psychiatry 145, 631–635. Clinical Research Efficiency Support Team (2003). CREST guidelines on the management of post traumatic stress disorder in adults. Belfast, UK: Department of Health and Social Services. Curran, P. S., Finlay, R. J., and McGarry, P. J. (1988). Trends in suicide in Northern Ireland 1960–86. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine 5, 98–102. Loughrey, G. L., Curran, P. S., and Bell, P. (1993). Post traumatic stress disorder and civil violence in Northern Ireland. In Wilson, J. P. and Raphael, B. (eds.) The international handbook of traumatic stress syndrome, pp. 377–380. New York: Plenum. Lyons, H. A. (1972). Depressive illness and aggression in Belfast. British Medical Journal 1, 342–344.

Suicide Terrorism, Genesis of A Speckhard, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The History of Suicide Bombing The Success of Suicide Terrorism The Lethal Cocktail of Suicide Terrorism Sponsoring-Groups Motivations Ideologies of Suicide Terrorism – Religion and Cosmic Warfare

Glossary Dissociation According to the American Psychiatric Association, the essential feature of a dissociative disorder is ‘‘a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity or perception of the environment’’ – American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, D.C. In the case

Individual Motivations Adopting a Terrorist Ideology as Psychological First Aid Societal Support for Suicide Terrorism Further Reading

of suicide terrorism, this means an emotional barrier is unconsciously erected walling off the negative emotions generated by choosing to die in this manner and may even include compartmentalizing the event from one’s ambitions and daily life. One bomber for example, when planning his attack, suggested that he could not carry a bomb until after his university exams – suggesting that while on the one hand he acknowledged

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that he was going to his death he was able separate this reality so completely from his mind that he still felt the need to complete his exams prior to going to explode himself. Jihad Is an Islamic word and makes reference to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed as they are recorded in the Koran and Sunnah, in which believers are taught to struggle on two levels: the first and most important being referred to as the greater jihad in which an individual strives inwardly in an effort to resist evil and live a pure life according to the tenets of Islam. The lesser jihad involves a political or military struggle to further and/or defend Islam and Islamic lands and people. In the current global context certain ideologies promoting terrorism are referred to by some as promoting militant jihad. For example the US Department of Justice has referred to jihad as the use of violence, including paramilitary action against persons and governments deemed to be enemies of a fundamentalist version of Islam. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Is a person’s individualistic response to a traumatic event (see psychological trauma below) in which the following responses occur: an inability to integrate and respond well to a traumatic event on a cognitive, emotional and/ or on a sensory level resulting in 1) reexperiencing behaviors including flashbacks, nightmares and unbidden and upsetting thoughts of the event; 2) avoidance of reminders of the event including feelings of social alienation; 3) bodily arousal in response to reminders of the event including shakiness, sweaty palms, loss of concentration, irritability, trouble falling and/or staying asleep; 4) loss of function in life domains including work, intimate and family relationships etc. and 5) all of these symptoms lasting for more than thirty days following the event. Shorter, (less than thirty days following the trauma) but equally disabling and intense, dissociative responses to psychological traumas which at times might transition into PTSD, are labeled as acute stress disorders. Psychological Trauma Involves an experience in which an individual experiences a serious threat (real or perceived) to his own life or bodily integrity or witnesses death or threat of life or dismemberment in another and responds with overwhelming feelings of fear, horror and helplessness. In this experience the person is typically psychologically overwhelmed and unable to integrate

his emotional, cognitive and sensory experiences in a normal manner and a peritraumatic dissociation may result immediately or in some time following the event. Acute or posttraumatic stress disorder may result. Suicide or Human Bomber A suicide bomber as anyone who goes so far as to strap on a bomb, drive a vehicle filled with explosives to a target, or who otherwise attempts to detonate an explosive device on an airplane, in a subway, train, car, or elsewhere with the aim of dying to kill – irrespective of whether or not the bomber actually died in the attack or was successful in detonating – as that is often not within the bomber’s control. We take the fact of being to the point of willingly strapping on a bomb or other type of improvised explosive device or driving a vehicle loaded with explosives to a target as sufficient evidence of seriousness of the intent to suicide and see the end result, which is often out of the hands of the bomber as less meaningful than the intent implied by these actions. An actor who arrives at a scene with a weapon, most often a gun, in order to shoot as many victims as possible prior to being killed himself may also be seen as a suicide terrorist, but is obviously not a human bomber. Psychologically the preparation and action of going on such a killing spree in which one’s death is nearly guaranteed is very similar to that of a human bomber. Terrorism Has many definitions but is generally viewed as political violence carried out by politically organized non-state actors/groups with the intent to destroy property, injure, take hostage and/or kill civilians and thereby intimidate and influence a wider witnessing audience and to effect political, religious or ideological change in both the targeted population and its government’s responses; as well as to drum up support among the group’s own sympathesizers. Terrorism relies heavily upon the mass media to amplify the psychological effect of attacks made on relatively small numbers of victims by relaying horrifying images to a much larger witnessing audience. There is considerable controversy over who is defined as terrorists, particularly in situations where non-state actors (i.e. freedom fighters, rebels or guerilla fighters) could be also seen as leading legitimate rebellions in occupied territories but who nevertheless use similar tactics as terrorists such as using civilians as shields and indiscriminately targeting civilian as well as military targets.

Suicide terrorism is fast becoming one of the most pestilent global afflictions of the twenty-first century. As a terror tactic, it is one of the most lethal. Strategically it functions as a relatively cheap and effective means of

upsetting the political, economic, and military situation of a region and has become one of the major threats to peacekeeping and peace-making efforts. Yet, as prevalence rates and death tolls from suicidal attacks increase,

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policy makers are still working in the dark trying to find the most effective policy responses to the emergence of this new and poorly understood security threat. Currently there is an extremely small empirical research database on which policy makers may base their understanding of the genesis of suicidal terrorism in order to work toward its prevention and eradication. Comprehending this growing threat and learning to combat it effectively on both the local and international levels is extremely relevant to current public policies aimed at promoting peace and stability. This article briefly discusses the background of modern-day suicide terrorism, its migration around the world, and the tendency of modern-day terror groups to embrace it as a tactic. Drawing from field research in four distinct world regions, I give an in-depth analysis of the social and psychological factors in the genesis of human bombing. Focusing on social and psychological factors within the sponsoring groups, the individual bombers, and the societies in which they exist, I have identified two main differing motivational sets on the level of the individual actors for the genesis of suicide terrorism. The first of these is trauma-based, occurs within zones of active conflict, and is often nationalistic, is viewed in terms of self and community defense, is expressive regarding attempts to mete out justice to the perceived enemy occupier, and includes acts of revenge by actors who are often so traumatized that they have become deeply dissociative and even refer to themselves as ‘‘already dead.’’ The second motivational set applies to actors outside the active zones of conflict, who are nevertheless influenced by them (through the Internet, video footage, pictures, and propaganda) and who frequently develop a deep sense of secondary traumatization. The actors in the second motivational set are generally vulnerable to terrorist ideologies due to a sense of alienation, marginalization, lack of life meaning, and lack of positive identity and are usually recruited

1

I am indebted to Mia Bloom for coining this phrase, which she also uses as the title for her book Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (Columbia University Press, 2005). Suicide bombing as a strategic tactic is not a new phenomenon. In recent history, it appeared in the 1950s in Vietnam in the form of bicycle bombers who exploded themselves in cafes, killing the enemy occupiers who frequented them (Francois Gere, French counterterrorism expert, personal communication 2005). Looking back into the ancient past, many cite the scriptural account of Sampson as one of the first suicide terrorists; when blinded and chained to pillars, he decided to use his great strength to pull the columns down, collapsing the building on himself and those surrounding him. Similarly, some experts recall the Muslim Assassins and Jewish Sicari as the first suicide terrorists; both groups carried out assassination missions that were nearly always suicidal for the person carrying it out. Also Pakistani warriors in ancient times were known to run underneath the elephants carrying advancing troops to slit the bellies of the warring beast, bringing them down on themselves and killing both their enemy and themselves in the process.

through exposure via the Internet or via close-knit family and friendship networks. In both motivational sets, it is important to recognize that individuals are generally not motivated to take part in suicide terrorism without a guiding ideology and that they are also generally in need of an organization to equip and guide them to carry out their acts (although a rare few have acted on their own; Argo, 2004; Speckhard, April 2005). They generally are more willing to take part in suicide terrorism when there is broad-based support for suicide terrorism in the sector of the community in which they find their sense of belonging.

The History of Suicide Bombing Dying to kill is not new.1 What is new is that, in modern times since the mid 1980s, the tactic of suicide terrorism has been repackaged and reborn. It has suddenly taken off like a wildfire spreading from Lebanon to Palestine, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Morocco, Indonesia, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq (where there is, on average, one suicide bomber per day); and now, sadly, it has spread even to those originating in Europe (i.e., the infamous shoe bomber, Richard Reid; the Mike’s Place bombers in Israel; and Europeans going as bombers to Iraq and Afghanistan) and European-bred bombers now even targeting Europe itself. What combination of factors and conditions have made this tactic suddenly so popular that citizens of countries that have no history of suicide terrorism are suddenly willing to recruit themselves as human bombs, making this a main tactic of choice for many terror groups worldwide?

The Success of Suicide Terrorism Looking back in recent history, we see that the current spate of modern-day suicide terrorism began in Lebanon in the 1980s when terrorists used suicide truck bombs to attack first the U.S. Embassy and later the barracks of the U.S. Marines and French troops, actions that led to the troops deciding to remove themselves from Beirut and position themselves offshore – this was viewed as a huge strategic victory by the terrorists. Indeed the current epidemic of suicide terrorism is directly tied to this perception of its success by terrorsponsoring groups. As its use migrated around the world even many counterterrorism experts have credited suicide terrorism with derailing the Oslo peace accords, disrupting the peacekeeping and rebuilding efforts in

2

Some argue that the Madrid bombings did not involve suicide terrorists because the attackers left their bombs and detonated them from afar; yet threatened with imminent arrest, the bombers did explode themselves.

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Afghanistan and Iraq, impacting the election results in Madrid,2 and drawing world attention and concern to political issues that may otherwise have been overlooked. Whether it is effective in achieving any real political gains outside the community in which it originates, that is, whether it creates any real power base for those who employ suicide terrorism, is still, however, debatable. Terrorist organizations thrive because of failed political solutions between conflicting parties, and their continued existence relies on their ability to change perceptions and impact the political process in favor of their constituent groups. When a much weaker group is pitted against a larger, more powerful, better financed and militarily equipped group, suicide terrorism becomes the tactic of choice because it is seen by the weaker group as strategically both efficient and more likely to lead to desired results than any other method of violence. Suicide terrorism is a tactic that is: . Inexpensive. It requires relatively simple, noncostly, and easily accessible equipment. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Towers and Pentagon cost approximately $400 000, the Bali bombings approximately $20 000 (NATO Defence College, 2004). . Highly effective. The human bomber is essentially a smart bomb, going directly to his or her target and able to make adjustments even up to the last moments before detonation to avoid detection and to maximize the amount of damage done in the attack. . Highly lethal. Suicide terrorism operations are the most lethal of nearly all currently used terror operations, and although they make up only a small fraction of the total of terrorist operations, they kill and wound the greatest number of victims. . Extremely horrifying. The carnage caused by human bombers almost always makes the news; hence, by targeting only a small group of civilians the terror-sponsoring group can count on the media to amplify its effects, causing horror and dread to spread throughout a much wider witnessing audience. . Nearly impossible to prevent. Once a bomber is equipped and on the way to the target, he or she is virtually impossible to stop (unless he or she can be talked out of the mission, which is rare) because he or she can always explode him- or herself on detection (Ganor 2005). . Difficult to trace. The bomber, if successful, is killed in the attack and, unlike in other terror acts, needs no resources or risk dedicated to an escape plan; and once killed he or she cannot be caught and interrogated later, revealing who sent him or her. . In endless supply, if the terror group’s constituent population supports the use of this tactic. The main cost of suicide terrorism is the human beings who agree to sacrifice themselves on behalf of the terrorist cause. If

this pool of individuals is large, the terror organization has a virtually endless supply of weaponry and can carry on a very strong war of attrition with a much more powerful enemy who may eventually make concessions to the terror-sponsoring group simply to end the campaign of bombings.

The Lethal Cocktail of Suicide Terrorism Suicide terrorism originates from the confluence of four main aspects of suicide terrorism: the sponsoring group’s motivations, the ideology that supports it, the individual motivations for enacting it, and the societal support for suicide terrorism. Without this confluence of factors, suicide terrorism ceases to exist (Argo, 2003; Hafez, 2004; Merari, 2003; Moghadam, 2003; Speckhard, 2005b; Speckhard and Ahkmedova, 2005). When all these factors are present, suicide terrorism becomes a tactic that can travel the world as a spark igniting and reigniting a massive fire that we can only hope to be able to extinguish before it consumes us in its flames.

Sponsoring-Groups Motivations Organizations provide the means, methods, and group dynamic underlying suicide terrorism operations and often the ideology as well. However, terrorist ideologies should not be thought of as simple constructs of terrorsponsoring groups. They arise, in fact, from a complex mix of social and political circumstances, psychological and religious context, and interplay among the actions, sentiments, and rhetoric of terror groups, their constituency, and the perceived oppressor-enemy. When looking at the motivations on the organizational level, we must acknowledge that terror-sponsoring organizations are largely political in their motivations and resort to terrorism when other political solutions have failed and resort to suicide terrorism when a specific set of circumstances exist. Researchers of suicide terrorism know that it is nearly always used strategically by organizations and generally resorted to only when the enemy is much stronger and better equipped militarily. Likewise, it is often used in later stages of the conflict (Bloom, 2005); sometimes reflects an outbidding process for power among competing groups (Bloom, 2005); and finds a receptive base of support in areas where occupation occurs, particularly if the foreign occupier is of another religion than those occupied and is perceived as oppressive and unjust (Pape, 2005; Speckhard, 2005b; Speckhard and Ahkmedova, 2005; Speckhard and Akhmedova, 2006b). When these circumstances exist, suicide terrorism may be deemed an effective choice by terror-sponsoring organizations for forcing

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concessions from its stronger enemy and thereby achieving its political goals.

Ideologies of Suicide Terrorism – Religion and Cosmic Warfare Currently the strongest ideology supporting suicide terrorism makes use of distorted versions of Islam. As anyone who has studied the history of warfare knows, religion is often invoked to send warriors out to battle because believing that one is dying for a higher cause is highly motivating. Nearly all major faiths have in the past been used in this way and still are. Just as nearly all nations going to war today still make use of religious rhetoric when looking for popular support and to motivate their warriors, so too do many of today’s terrorsponsoring groups (consider the rhetoric of the Crusades and the just war debates carried on in the West prior to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq). Although the loosely affiliated Al Qaeda/global Salafi terrorist groups do not represent legitimate nation-states, they claim that they are acting in behalf of a group of beleaguered people and that they are in a war, and their ideology is aimed to motivate warriors for the battle. The difference is not so much in the use of religion to garner popular support for acts of war and to motivate warriors but in the distortions of mainline religion to justify the tactic these warriors are motivated to adopt and the targeting of innocent civilians that their ideology justifies. We see in these current jihadist ideologies promulgated over the Internet and through underground networks the promotion of suicide terrorism – claiming it as the most effective way for these groups to triumph – the manipulation and misuse of treasured religious principles valuing martyrdom on behalf of Islam to motivate foot soldiers to self-recruit themselves for suicide missions against innocent civilian targets. The suicide terror groups’ uses of religion to motivate individuals to sign up to die makes strategic sense. Any believer of any faith who is persuaded of the following will act in extraordinary ways: . He or she is in a cosmic battle (Juergensmeyer, 2000) involving apocalyptic forces. . That will eradicate either his side or the other, hence necessitating a war of defense. . He or she should dehumanize and even demonize his or her enemies by seeing them as the enemies of God. . In joining the group and taking on its values and teachings, he or she has learned the mind of God and is authorized to act in the battle by the will of God. . The battle in which he or she is fighting is for sacred values (Atran, 2003).

. He or she may go to extraordinary means to eradicate and blot out those he or she sees as evildoers – even innocent civilians – who he or she believes are standing in the way of and offending God’s will. It is important to state however that, even though groups that make use of distorted versions of Islam are currently highly effective in promoting this cosmic warfare ideology to endorse the tactic of suicide terrorism, this does not mean that Islam itself is the problem. If it were, we would not have seen the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which are mainly composed of Marxist atheists, making use of this same tactic. In those cases, they made no reference to Islam, or to religion at all, but relied on charismatic leadership, deepseated anger over nationalistic concerns and injustices, and the hope of becoming heroes for their cause to motivate human-bombing recruits. Likewise, many cults have made similar use of non-Islamic religions to induce an apocalyptic vision of the world in their believers, who then become willing to endorse violence and even kill and die in order to bring it about; these include the Aum Shinryko, the Japanese Hindu-related cult responsible for the sarin-gas poisonings in the Tokyo metro; the People’s Temple cult that followed Jim Jones, whose members made a suicide pact and killed themselves and their families, resulting in over 900 deaths; and the Army of God, the Christian-based abortion clinic bombers. So, although Islam is currently being misused to promote suicide terrorism, it is not in itself the problem. The problem is the powerful links that terrorists groups are able to make among individual motivations to self-sacrifice, societal circumstances leading to despair and defiance, and a hijacked version of Islam that, playing on sacred scriptures, promotes human sacrifice on behalf of the group. Any mainline religion can be distorted and used to motivate for suicide terrorism by framing it as an ideology in support of self sacrifice in a cosmic war of defense for the true faith. Currently, the main ideology in use among the most active suicide terrorist groups (i.e., the loosely affiliated Al Qaeda/global Salafi and other nationalistic militant jihadist-linked groups) is a hijacked version of Islam that calls for would-be martyrs from around the world to sacrifice themselves on behalf of a worldwide or nationalist jihad.

Individual Motivations But why would anyone answer the call? Why do most of the main terror groups in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and elsewhere state that they have an endless supply of recruits – such as the Chechen

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female bomber who spoke on a prepared video broadcast during the Dubrovka/Nord Ost theater takeover in Moscow, where 800 hostages were held for 3 days, stating, ‘‘Even if we are killed, thousands of our brothers and sisters will come after us ready to sacrifice themselves’’ (Jazeera, 2002). Certainly there must be something much more powerful behind this than simply an ideology to make an individual cross the line from normal daily life to strapping on a bomb or getting into an airplane, car, or truck intent on exploding him- or herself in the middle of a crowd of civilians. What are the factors that cause these changes to occur within a human soul? Although the answer is multifaceted and impossible to answer in this short article, our research speaking to bombers, would-be bombers, senders, the family members and close acquaintances of bombers, and their hostages points to two main motivational sets (Speckhard, 2004, 2005b, 2005c, April 2005; Speckhard & Ahkmedova, 2005, 2006; Speckhard & Akhmedova, 2004, 2006a, 2006b; Speckhard, Tarabrina, Krasnov, & Akhmedova, 2004; Speckhard, Tarabrina, Krasnov, & Mufel, 2005a, 2005b): trauma-based motivations and alienation-based motivations. Trauma-Based Motivations The first motivational set is a trauma-based and occurs within zones of active conflict. It is often nationalistic, viewed in terms of self and community defense, and expressive regarding meting out justice to the perceived enemy-occupier, and it often includes acts of revenge. The individuals motivated within this set have witnessed firsthand and over the television their neighbors, family members, and loved ones being killed by what they view as an occupying force. Many have grown up witnessing countless acts of violence and, as a result, have not developed normally and often suffer from posttraumatic stress and dissociative disorders. Many have lost jobs, educational opportunities, been humiliated, and often struggle for basic daily needs and security. Although the majority of traumatized individuals in conflict zones will not become suicide bombers even if invited to do so, an extremely small group will become vulnerable to terrorist ideologies that promote this tactic. Feeling constantly agitated by traumatic flashbacks; unable to avoid daily reminders of their traumatic losses; and feeling in constant danger, bereaved, angry, and impotent, these individuals ultimately become so dissociative (i.e., separated from normal thoughts, perceptions, and emotions) and emotionally numb that they often refer to themselves as ‘‘already dead.’’ Actually, for them dying is no longer a feared outcome; they have already psychologically and emotionally numbed themselves to human suffering, yet it keeps mercilessly and painfully intruding into their thoughts, so death may seem as a

welcome release. Embracing it and exerting some control over when and how it occurs is sadly welcomed by these traumatized individuals. In response to threat, a normal person reacts in a fightor-flight response and will only move into dissocative defenses (i.e., shutting down the normal features of consciousness such as emotions, logic, and memory and sometimes physically freezing as well) when the threat becomes overwhelmingly horrific, terrifying, and life-threatening. When this distinction was explained to him, Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade sender of suicide bombers Zecharia Zubeidi explained, the individuals he equips to become human bombs are, according to his observations, caught inflexibly over long periods of time in a dissociative mode. He stated that, whereas combatants are flexible in their responses to violent conflict, these victims of the conflict are not. ‘‘They are completely different than us [fighters]. They have only one decision. We have many options. The thought of running away is always available. We can go and shoot.’’ In contrast, he described the martyrs as locked into an inflexible dissociative mode caused by traumatic stress and the one decision that comes from it. He stated, ‘‘They get flashbacks all the time and for them death is a mercy. . . . For the martyr all the cells in his mind are dead except for one.’’ According to Zubeidi, suicide bombers are in too much psychic pain to find another way to cope and become totally fixated on carrying out what they view as acts of community defense, expressions of pain, and enacting justice in response to ‘‘all that they have seen.’’ Explaining their psychological inflexibility in reference to his own dissociative states, which occur from time to time (also in response to traumatic experience), he stated, ‘‘When I feel this way I stay there one or two hours, but that one [a bomber], after all that he has observed there is only that one thing [i.e., to end his life on behalf of the community].’’ Suicide bombers are often as well or better educated and less poor than their peers (Atran, 2004; Merari, 2003), and in other circumstances they might have been leaders in their communities. They are acutely sensitive to their own suffering and that of those around them and wish to make a difference, but, similar to normally depressed and suicidal people, they see only very limited avenues of action. They want to escape their psychic pain but to do so honorably and to use their lives – even if it means dying – to help their communities. They are uniquely vulnerable to an ideology that promises that they will be heroes for the cause and that they can make a difference in the sociopolitical situation faced by their communities. They believe that their deaths are only a doorway to a better place and that by dying in self-sacrifice they can change things both now and in the afterlife, reuniting with those who have gone before and later bringing with them relatives who they left behind. Vulnerable and in pain, they succumb to an ideology that seduces them into

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sacrificing themselves for what they believe is a greater cause. Just like us, they hope for a more just world in which human dignity and rights will be upheld; however, unlike us, they have been deluded into believing that their acts of killing innocent civilians might bring this into being and for this they sacrifice themselves. Alienation, Marginalization, Loss of Identity, Secondary Traumatization, and Desire for Life Meaningfulness, Belonging, and Heroism The second motivational set involves actors not living in conflict zones and is more complex. Whereas we might understand an individual who has seen his or her family member killed in front of his or her eyes and feels his or her country has been occupied seeking revenge, we must question what can possibly motivate Europeans, Turks, Moroccans, Uzbeks, and others join such groups ultimately agreeing to die in order to kill others? In their cases, the main motivational set appears to involve vulnerable actors who are exposed through kin and friendship groups (Sageman, 2004) or through the Internet and informal recruiting to other individuals within a terror network.3 In their cases, these individuals are often marginalized, frustrated, and without hope in their societies. In Europe, they are often first-, second-, or third-generation immigrants or converts to Islam who feel deep sympathy and even kinship (i.e., as Muslim brothers) for those in conflict zones. Within the migrant community, there is often a deep sense of alienation and no secure sense of identity and belonging in either their country of origin and, more importantly, their host culture. Facing discrimination, often well educated but facing poor job prospects, lacking positive identity and a sense of life’s meaning, and having little else to make of themselves, once they are exposed to terrorist ideologies they are attracted to the appeal to become heroes for a cause. In these cases, the sponsoring organization nearly always makes use of five powerful motivators. The first two are the ideas of belonging and identity – belonging to an important cause and group – and of taking on a heroic identity. The third is the use of pictures and graphic video footage of conflict zones that are shown to the potential recruit and interpreted as atrocities against innocent victims – mainly featuring Chechen and Palestinian suffering, but now also featuring footage and references to the US coalition’s ‘‘War on Terrorism’’ in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as relief organizations in our societies often uses pictures and video footage of human suffering to motivate us to give to worthy causes, these organizations do the same, playing on the 3

In Brussels, we have found that there are Internet cafes where, if one logs on for a half hour or so, pop up ads appear inviting one to join the worldwide jihad.

emotional reactions of their audiences to find the individuals vulnerable enough to respond to their calls to action. In the European case, where distorted Islamic ideologies are being used, often those individuals who become terrorist recruits are sensitive and care about the conflicts they learn about but are not able to read in Arabic and fall prey to teachers who tell them that they know and can interpret the Koran for them and teach them the proper Islamic response to address such suffering. This is not to say they are simple minded; quite the contrary, often it is the welleducated and sensitive individuals who read the news and care about the world and who would have been leaders if they felt they had a way of participating in their society and its political discourse. Frustrated by their lack of opportunities to help others in need and needing a meaningful role and identity, they find answers in terrorist groups. Fourth and fifth powerful motivators are the ideas often taken from religion that one ought to sacrifice in behalf of the brotherhood of the believers. In this manner the ideas of fictive kin (Atran, 2003) and martyrdom are instilled. The individuals who respond to such calls to action are called on to depart from the frustrations of this life, reject the society that has marginalized or frustrated them, and join a group following a path that promises eternal rewards. Suddenly the individual who was previously frustrated, feeling worthless, and had little hope feels a sense of belonging, a firm identity and purpose in what will soon turn out to be a foreshortened life. The words of a disillusioned radical (Speckhard, 2005d) living in Brussels, Belgium, explain how he was radicalized and then found his way out of it. This young man (age 24) was adopted from Rwanda by white Belgium parents. Growing up as the only black in his community, he was alienated and confused about his identity. In search for his African roots, he found Islam, converted at age 15, and started attending a radical mosque, where he fell under the influence of extremist militant wahhabist teachers. ‘‘If you say to yourself this thing is God’s will, you have to do it. It’s simple, if you can’t read in Arabic and people tell you that you cannot understand and you have to do it. I tried very sincerely to do so. I followed everything, the prayer schedule, eating and way of drinking all in the Sunnah. But there are also ideas about jihad. At age nineteen I was ready to go to Lebanon and fight for my brother Palestinian. I didn’t know politics but I had an idea we had some Muslim community, our brothers that we must defend.’’ Speaking about how he became ready to become a martyr, he explained, When I went to Morocco with my wife to her mother’s house I saw Al Manar – Lebanon TV. They have a way to mix religion and politics. I can understand it because there is a true crisis in Palestine. . . . What I saw on the television was two Israeli soldiers taking big stones and breaking the bones of a Palestinian man, breaking his arm

Suicide Terrorism, Genesis of 383 bones, his shoulders, all the bones in his hands, all the bones in his feet, his ribs, smashing them with a big rock. I’m sure they killed him or left him to die. I couldn’t understand all of the Arabic (he was beginning to learn Arabic at this time) but I didn’t need language to understand – it was all there in the pictures. Imagine people see that in the morning, get breakfast and see that on their television. When you see that you feel there is a unity of Muslim people. I decided to go there. I was completely crazy. I had a wife and baby but I thought I would go anyway.

Thankfully, this young man found his way out of the radical groups by studying Arabic and religion intensively until he found his own answers, independent of the militant teachers he had fallen under. Looking back at how close he came to going to be a martyr, he explained, ‘‘At that time I was a believing radical. For a radical you can die and kill for God no problem. I can die or be killed at anytime. I knew people who went to Afghanistan as bombers, the people who killed Mousad. To get the connections to go, here in Brussels, is no problem.’’ Reflecting on how he got out, he explained, ‘‘The problem is you see all the people, politics, everything – you see through the Koran and it’s your perspective.’’ Similarly, he recalled that at that time ‘‘I was completely lost’’ and reflected that it was difficult to question what was being taught if you did not learn Arabic. ‘‘The difference between me [having left the radical groups] and the others is my studies.’’

Adopting a Terrorist Ideology as Psychological First Aid In both motivational sets, the ideology of the terrorsponsoring group is acting as psychological first aid for the victim of other grievances. This psychological first aid is, of course, short-lived – as is its victim. Yet we see a powerful transformation take place in the human bomber who, seeing no way to change his or her circumstances, moves from a stance of a powerless victim of societal forces to becoming an actor in a worldwide or nationalistic drama that he or she has been persuaded might bring about a more just and dignified existence for those left behind. In this way, a marriage occurs between the terrorpromoting ideology and the individual’s psychosocial vulnerabilities emanating from traumatic and bereavement experiences in conflict zones and from marginalizing and frustrating circumstances in nonconflict zones. When this marriage occurs, all that is left is for the individual to believe that there is some significant portion of society that supports his or her stepping out onto this path (it may be the group that recruits him), which enables him to take the final steps to martyrdom. This is when societal support for suicide terrorism plays an

important role in putting a martyr on the path to becoming a human bomb.

Societal Support for Suicide Terrorism When a society deplores violence as an answer to violence and terrorism as an answer to social problems, it is unlikely that ideologies supporting suicide terrorism will resonate strongly within more than extremely limited groups of vulnerable individuals. However, when a society or significant elements of it begins to embrace an ideology in support of suicide terrorism, then these groups of potential recruits will expand exponentially. We witnessed this when a cult of martyrdom sprang up among Palestinians during the second Intifada and made their pool of potential recruits seemingly endless. How does this occur? Again, it is a confluence of factors. When a society is so offended and even traumatized by daily living circumstances as a result of war, conflict, human rights violations, marginalization, frustrations, and daily humiliations and many individuals feel powerless to change these assaults to human dignity, the society can begin to support terrorist ideologies, especially those that espouse familiar and valued religious ideals, believing that terror acts may bring about change. In this case, the society begins to indoctrinate its children in support of suicide terror. Posters, songs, and videos may become prevalent throughout the society in support of martyrdom (i.e., suicide terrorism), and the society as a whole may begin to resonate with the aims and ideology of the terror-sponsoring group. It is most important that we avoid this when considering the fight against suicide terrorism. There will likely always be fringe groups that promote dying to kill; there will also always be individuals who are vulnerable to recruitment by these groups. However, we unwittingly create the circumstances in which the pool of recruits expands exponentially when we fail to address the societal factors leading to individual vulnerability and the societal support that make these groups impossible to extinguish and allows them to self-replenish faster than we can stop them. In these cases, their pool of recruits becomes so large that the terror groups can go on forever. Likewise, we must begin to address and take apart the rhetoric of terror-sponsoring organizations – addressing their ideologies by engaging with them in a discourse that can perhaps lead to more, instead of fewer, people believing that political solutions do exist and terror acts are neither necessary nor useful in bringing about a just, moral, and dignified existence. As for the use of a hijacked version of Islam in the majority of the most current cases of suicide bombing, we must acknowledge two things. First, Islam is a religion that has always valued the struggle for three fundamental

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values: justice, morality, and human dignity. It is only natural that, when a terror group is hoping to motivate recruits, it appeals through Islamic traditions for recruits to take action on behalf of these fundamental values (especially if it can argue that recruits are acting in defense of self and community). Indeed, this idea of defense of self and community has been the basis of nearly all fatwas in support of martyrdom (i.e., suicide missions). Second, a majority of the world’s Islamic populations live under corrupt and autocratic regimes and face numerous human rights violations, territorial occupations, and discrimination; hence, there are many political reasons that Islamic people might gravitate to a terrorist ideology that shares with them the political goals of fighting for freedom and human dignity. Religion is simply the vehicle for uniting them and giving them the courage to fight (in whatever mistaken or brutal ways they chose) for the political goals they share. When we mistakenly believe that Islam itself is the problem and begin to assault deeply valued religious traditions and beliefs, we only fuel the fires of the terrorism ideologies currently in vogue. There is also a contagion effect that we must consider, which occurs even with normal suicide – those who are in the family and friendship network of a suicide bomber are often so deeply affected by the act that they too begin to consider acting similarly. We found countless examples of radicalization proceeding through close friendship and relatives networks, as have other authors (Sageman, 2004). Thus, radicalization can increase geometrically once it gets going. Suicide terrorism is a complex psychosocial and political issue and demands thoughtful, just, and carefully carried out responses to bring an end to its continued and increasing use to influence worldwide politics.

Acknowledgments In recent years, I have had the opportunity with my colleagues to interview incarcerated suicide terrorists; potential recruits for human bombers; senders of suicide terrorists; members of terrorists groups; and, perhaps most important, family members, hostages, and close associates of accomplished bombers to ask about the bombers, the events, and the influences that motivated these individuals to choose to die in this way and thereby to construct a psychological autopsy of them. These interviews concerned Chechen, Palestinian, Lebanese, Uzbeki, and Moroccan suicide terrorism and radicalization of groups in Europe and took place in Chechnya, North Ossetia, Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Israel, the Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, and Belgium. I especially thank Khapta Akhmedova, Mokhtar Benabdallaoui, Valery Krasnov, Natalia Mufel, Yoram Schweitzer, and Nadejda Tarabrina for helping me in conducting the

interviews and my students Ken Reidy and Valentijn Vanrompay, who accompanied me on trips to the Palestinian territories. I am also indebted to Scott Atran, Nichole Argo, Mia Bloom, John Esposito, Rohan Gunaratna, Bruce Hoffman, Mark Juergensmeyer, Assaf Moghadam, Cerwyn Moore, Jerrold Post, Marc Sageman, Jessica Stern, Andrew Silke, Michael Taarnby, Reuven Paz, John Horgan, and many others who have contributed to this field of research and helped me refine my technique and theory and have added to my understanding of this complex phenomena through conversations, critiques of my work, and correspondence. See also: Disasters and Mass Violence, Public, Effects of; Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors; Nuclear Warfare, Threat of; Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of; War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading Argo, N. (2003). The banality of evil: Understanding and defusing today’s human bombs. Unpublished research proposal. Argo, N. (2004a). Culture, society and martyrdom. Unpublished manuscript. Argo, N. (2004b). Personal communication. Atran, S. (2003). Genesis of suicide terrorism. Science 299. Atran, S. (2004). Mishandling suicide terrorism. The Washington Quarterly 27(3), 67–90. Bloom, M. (2005). Dying to kill: The allure of suicide terror. Columbia University Press. Ganor, B. (2005). The counter-terrorism puzzle: A guide for decision makers. London: Transaction Publishers. Hafez, M. (2004). Manufacturing human bombs: Strategy, culture and conflict in the making of Palestinian suicide bombers. Hafez, M. (2006). Manufacturing human bombs: The making of Palestinian suicide bombers. United States Institute of Peace Press Books. Jazeera, A. (Oct. 24, 2002, October). Chechens threaten to kill hostages. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http:// www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/25/world/main526899. shtml Juergensmeyer, M. (2000). Terror in the mind of God: The global rise of religion violence. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Merari, A. (2003). Suicide terrorism. Unpublished manuscript. Moghadam, A. (2003). Palestinian suicide terrorism in the second intifada: Motivations and organizational aspects. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 26(2), 65–92. NATO Defence College. Financial and economic aspects of the fight against terrorism, immediate report. Pape, R. (2005). Dying to win: The strategic logic of suicide terrorism. New York: Random House. Sageman, M. (2004). Understanding terror networks. University of Pennsylvannia Press. Speckhard, A. (2004). Soldiers for god: A study of the suicide terrorists in the moscow hostage-taking siege. In McTernan, O. (ed.) The roots of terrorism: Contemporary trends and traditional analysis. Brussels: NATO Science Series. Speckhard, A. (2005a). Understanding suicide terrorism: Countering human bombs and their senders. In Purcell, J. S. and Weintraub, J. D. (eds.) Topics in terrorism: Toward a transatlantic consensus on the nature of the threat. Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council.

Lockerbie Air Crash, Stress Effects of 385 Speckhard, A. (2005b). Unpublished Beslan interviews. Speckhard, A. (2005c). Unpublished research interviews with Belgian radicals. Speckhard, A. (April 2005). Unpublished Palestinian militant interviews. Speckhard, A. and Ahkmedova, K. (2005). Talking to terrorists. Journal of Psychohistory, Fall 33(2). Speckhard, A. and Ahkmedova, K. (2006). The making of a martyr: Chechen suicide terrorism. Journal of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29(5). Speckhard, A. and Akhmedova, K. (2004). Mechanisms of generating suicide terrorism: Trauma and bereavement as psychological vulnerabilities in human security – the Chechen case. In Donnelly, J. (ed.). Brussels: NATO Science Series. Speckhard, A. and Akhmedova, K. (2006a). Black widows: The Chechen female suicide terrorist. In Schweitzer, Y. (ed.) Female suicide terrorists. Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center Publication.

Speckhard, A. and Akhmedova, K. (2006b). The new Chechen jihad: Militant wahhabism as a radical movement and a source of suicide terrorism in post-war Chechen society. Democracy and Security 2(1), 103–155. Speckhard, A., Tarabrina, N., Krasnov, V., and Akhmedova, K. (2004). Research note: Observations of suicidal terrorists in action. Terrorism and Political Violence 16(2), 305–327. Speckhard, A., Tarabrina, N., Krasnov, V., and Mufel, N. (2005a). Posttraumatic and acute stress responses in hostages held by suicidal terrorists in the takeover of a Moscow theater. Traumatology 11(1). Speckhard, A., Tarabrina, N., Krasnov, V., and Mufel, N. (2005b). Stockholm effects and psychological responses to captivity in hostages held by suicidal terrorists. In Wessely, S. and Krasnov, V. (eds.) Psychological Responses to the New Terrorism: A NATO-Russia Dialogue. IOS Press.

Lockerbie Air Crash, Stress Effects of H Livingston, Dykebar Hospital, Paisley, UK M Livingston, Southern General Hospital, Glasgow, UK ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Researching the Impact of Disasters on Elderly People – Some Methodological Issues What Happened to the Elderly at Lockerbie

Glossary Depression A disorder of lowered mood typically associated with the loss of some or all of the following: interest, energy, pleasure, appetite, weight, concentration, and self-esteem. Disturbance of sleep, feelings of guilt, and wishing for death are also typical of depression.

Researching the Impact of Disasters on Elderly People – Some Methodological Issues Pan-Am flight 103 exploded in mid-air on December 21, 1988, over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. This disaster continues to provoke media interest, not least because of the controversy over who were the perpetrators. The fireball of burning aviation fuel not only caused the death of all on board the aircraft but also death and injury to the inhabitants of the town. Survivors often had This article is a revision of the previous edition article by H Livingston and M Livingston, volume 2, pp 629–633, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

What Do We Know about the Response of Elderly People to Experiencing Disasters? Future Research Further Reading

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) An anxiety disorder triggered by a traumatic and threatening event or events. Symptoms of PTSD are characteristically related to reexperiencing the event, the avoidance of triggers associated with the event, and increased arousal.

the harrowing experience of witnessing the mutilated bodies of the victims scattered over a wide area of the locality. The town hall was turned into a temporary mortuary as an army of police, firefighters, and other rescue services descended on Lockerbie. Disasters such as Lockerbie, the Hillsborough football stadium tragedy in England, and Piper Alpha, in which an oil rig in the North Sea caught fire, provide unique opportunities to research mental disorder. The main factor in the etiology of the subsequent psychiatric problems – the traumatic stressor – is known in a disaster. This is an unusual occurrence, not only in mental health research but also in psychiatric clinical practice. However, there are a number of special methodological problems in postdisaster research. Obviously disaster

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research must be retrospective, an assessment of an event that has occurred generally as a random act of nature or as the result of unforeseen human error. The presence of a large number of health-care professionals and other services brought to the site of the disaster may affect the research outcome in several ways. (In the case of Lockerbie the town’s population increased from 3500 to 10,000 virtually overnight.) The health-care and support services may be effective and succeed in reducing the level of distress experienced by the disaster victims, for example through the effects of early psychological intervention programs, although these remain controversial. In addition, the psychological impact of the disaster on the rescue and recovery workers themselves is often considerable, contributes to the overall rate and level of psychological distress and psychopathology that results, and is often little acknowledged by the workers themselves until they become dysfunctional at work. This is often because of a culture in the rescue services such as the police and the armed forces that encourages a macho image and in which the acknowledgment of emotional problems is perceived by staff workers to have an adverse effect on careers. Many of the staff workers in these services are young and ill-prepared for tasks such as collecting and identifying human remains, having never previously witnessed death and dying. They are required to work at a disaster site that may be some distance from their own homes and usual family and friend support networks. The consequent media attention and the possibility of compensation for psychological damage as well as physical injury and material loss are additional factors that have to be considered in a disaster research design. The method of assessment is important also in postdisaster studies. A desire for compensation may (in theory at least) lead to a desire on the part of respondents to fake bad, or generate higher than warranted scores of distress. This is a phenomenon that is of even greater concern in the Internet era because of the ready access to questionnaires listing, for example, the phenomena of PTSD. In our view, therefore, such research should include not only self-report rating-scale measures but also some more objective evaluations such as clinical diagnostic assessments. PTSD may persist for many years. A large study of Vietnam veterans found that the prevalence of PTSD was 15% after 19 years. It seems reasonable to expect that a significant number of disaster victims will continue to experience the psychiatric consequences of trauma into old age. This was certainly our impression when we were invited to examine survivors of the so-called Clydebank Blitz, the heavy German bombing of a small Scottish industrial town, important for the manufacture of ships and armaments, in March 1941 during World War II. The survivors of this event were recently encouraged to appeal to the benefits authorities in the United Kingdom

for a war pension to compensate for the psychiatric consequences of exposure to two nights of intensive bombing that flattened large areas of the town and led to many casualties. Although not a systematic research study, our clinical impression was that many of these elderly people continued to experience psychiatric symptoms associated with an experience of traumatically induced stress more than 50 years prior to the clinical assessment, including full-blown PTSD. A review has also examined the differing impact of a range of traumatic occurrences, such as the Holocaust, World War II, and the Vietnam and Korean wars. Curiously, elderly survivors of the Holocaust appeared to function well in life, unlike the combat veterans. In both groups, vivid imagery of what took place persisted, as well as disruption of sleep and a lack of trust in relationships. Furthermore avoidance of potential stressors that carried actual or symbolic relevance to the original traumatizing experience took place because these were likely to provoke a relapse or exacerbation of symptoms. When the Lockerbie disaster occurred in 1988, there were no published studies on how traumatic stress impacted on elderly people at the time of the stress or soon after. It is possible to speculate that older people, faced with more loss-making events in a longer life, would either be better able to cope as a result or less so because of being sensitized by prior trauma. Solicitors acting for those involved in the Lockerbie explosion sought psychiatric input to assist the insurers in handling claims arising from the psychiatric damage sustained by the victims of the events of December 1988. We decided therefore to study the clinical impact of traumatic stress on elderly people in the context of this Scottish disaster.

What Happened to the Elderly at Lockerbie The initial assessment took place approximately 1 year after the incident, but avoided the anniversary of that event; the review took place 2 years later. Subjects were selected from a larger sample of survivors who had claimed that they had been traumatized by the explosion on the basis of a General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) score above the case cut-off level. The 31 elderly people in this category were seen, and their assessments were compared with 24 GHQ-case-designated younger survivors. Nineteen (61%) of the elderly were available for review, 2 had died, 1 was in the hospital for unrelated health problems, 1 had moved, 3 refused to participate, and 5 did not reply. Diagnosis was assigned using the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd edn. rev.; DSM-III-R). This classification system has since been revised, and DSM-IV is now in use. The psychological impact was measured by the Leeds scales, which assess

Lockerbie Air Crash, Stress Effects of 387

anxiety and depression; the GHQ28, a measure of global psychological functioning; and the Revised Impact of Events scale (RIE), which quantifies posttraumatic symptoms. The older survivors did not differ significantly from the younger in GHQ , Leeds, and RIE responses. Average GHQ28 scores were well above case level (score 4/5) 1 year after the disaster in both groups (younger 9.83 [SD, 8.20]; older 11.76 [SD 8.74]; not significant). Anxiety rather than depression tended to predominate on the GHQ and the Leeds scales. The younger and older survivors recorded high scores on the RIE intrusion (younger 15.09 [SD 9.44]; older 18.71 [SD 12.84]; not significant) and avoidance (younger 15.08 [SD 9.99]; older 17.71 [SD 11.76]; not significant) subscales. Clinically, all but five elderly survivors fulfilled DSM-III criteria for PTSD, as did all the younger subjects (Fisher test, not significant). At the follow-up 2 years later, the proportion of GHQ cases among the elderly survivors had declined from 71 to 47%, but this was not statistically significant. The mean Leeds depression (initially 7.40 [SD 4.40]; at follow-up 3.76 [SD 2.59]; p < 0.004) and anxiety (initially 15.47 [SD 10.60]; at follow-up 4.87 [SD 4.87]; p < 0.001) ratings had declined significantly (see Figure 1). Both avoidance behavior and the level of intrusive thoughts (RIE) had also declined significantly (paired t ¼ 2.05, p ¼ 0.07; paired t ¼ 3.69, p ¼ 0.003, respectively) (see Figure 2). The proportion of PTSD cases had declined significantly from 14/19 (74%) to 3/19 (16%) (w2 10.64, df ¼ 1; not significant). Significantly, no new cases of PTSD had developed during the follow-up period. Persistent PTSD was associated with high Leeds anxiety and GHQ anxiety scores (anxiety and insomnia subscale and social dysfunction subscale). Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between persistent PTSD and a diagnosis of depression on DSM-III criteria, although none between a PTSD diagnosis and individual RIE items.

Figure 1 Emotional distress in elderly Lockerbie survivors, Leeds scales and General Health Questionnaire.

What Do We Know about the Response of Elderly People to Experiencing Disasters? At the time we undertook our studies of elderly survivors following the Lockerbie disaster we were unaware of any other work on elderly people in such situations apart from occasional single case studies. Subsequently, reports on elderly victims of two other disasters appeared: the 1988 earthquake in Armenia and the 1995 HanshinAwaji earthquake in Japan. The Armenian earthquake study was undertaken approximately 18 months after that event and involved the assessment of a total of 179 elderly and younger subjects. In young and old, as might be expected, the most traumatized were those who were closest to the earthquake epicenter. Age did not affect the level of distress suffered, regardless of

Figure 2 Impact of the disaster on elderly survivors, Revised Impact of Events scale.

the location of the victim relative to the epicenter, but elderly people tended to experience more symptoms indicative of emotional hyperarousal than did the young and to have less evidence of intrusive symptoms. Following the Japanese Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, a study of the early psychological impact of the disaster on its victims was carried out that divided the subjects into

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two groups using an age cut-off of 60 years. Sixty-seven younger subjects and 75 older subjects were seen 3 weeks after the disaster. Fifty younger subjects and 73 older subjects were subsequently reviewed at 8 weeks after the disaster. The older people showed a significant decrease in symptoms in contrast with those under 60. The authors attribute this to the presence of more extensive social networks and some previous disaster experience among the older group of subjects, although it could also be argued on strong clinical grounds that previous experience of severe stress sensitizes rather than protects the sufferer from future stress related reactions. A subsequent review looked at the effects of PTSD in groups of elderly people who were World War II veterans, were Holocaust survivors, and had experienced a natural disaster in later life. This review suggested that PTSD symptoms in the elderly can be persistent or intermittent. The severity of the trauma and premorbid psychiatric illness predisposed this group to the development of PTSD, and good psychosocial support seemed to protect against it. Older adults did not seem any more predisposed to developing PTSD than younger adults, and the symptoms appeared to be similar across the age groups. Sadly, several other large-scale natural disasters have occurred recently – in 2004–2005 alone, the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the South Asian earthquake. To date, no studies of the responses of elderly people to these events have been published. Obviously, the nature of disasters is such that they do not permit prospective study. Our sample of elderly victims was small, but remains the only long-term prospective follow-up of elderly people after a natural disaster. The multiple standardized assessment techniques used, including the application of diagnostic criteria in all cases, showed a remarkable degree of internal consistency. The major methodological flaw is that all our subjects were engaged in the process of claiming compensation from the airline on whose aircraft the explosion took place. We found that the elderly subjects had an initial emotional response to the disaster that was similar to the younger subjects, meeting the psychological case criteria in high numbers and recording high levels of anxiety and diagnosed PTSD. The level of distress diminished significantly over the 3-year time period of the studies, although one in six of the elderly subjects still had PTSD at follow-up, comparable to the findings in a study of the survivors (of all ages) of an Australian brush fire. No links between a PTSD diagnosis and specific aspects of the disaster were found at Lockerbie, although the disaster had a number of unique aspects, including a delay in recognizing that it was a terrorist act and in bringing the suspects to justice, which might be expected to adversely impact survivors’ coming to terms with the event (analogous to mourning).

Future Research Future work should attempt to assess a complete population of elderly survivors following a disaster early on and to review them over the long-term to obtain a clear idea of how traumatic stress in such situations affects older people. This work, just like the disaster-recovery effort, may require international organization, involving the creation of a disaster assessment team that can be mobilized at short notice. Such a team would be preequipped with a research design and appropriate measures. To maintain objectivity, the team needs to avoid being part of the therapeutic input or, indeed, the assessment process if a medical-legal issue is involved, such as a compensation claim. At the same time, the researchers have to strive to avoid artificially creating more stress by prolonging unnecessarily the process of assessment for an already bewildered and traumatized group of people. See also: Disasters and Mass Violence, Public, Effects of; Earthquakes, Stress Effects of

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd edn.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Goenjian, A. K., Najarian, L. M., Pynoos, R. S., et al. (1994). Posttraumatic stress disorder in elderly and younger adults after the 1988 earthquake in Armenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 151(6), 895–901. Goldberg, D. (1978). The manual of the General Health Questionnaire. Windsor, UK: National Foundation for Educational Research. Hilton, C. (1997). Media triggers of post-traumatic stress disorder after the second world war. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 12(8), 862–867. Horowitz, M., Wilner, N., and Alvarez, W. (1979). Impact of events scale: a measure of subjective stress. Psychosomatic Medicine 41, 209–218. Kato, H., Asukai, N., Miyake, Y., et al. (1996). Post-traumatic symptoms among younger and elderly evacuees in the early stages following the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Japan. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 93(6), 477–481. Kulka, R. A., Sclenger, W. E., and Fairbank, J. A. (1990). Trauma and the Vietnam War generation. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Livingston, H. M., Livingston, M. G., Brooks, D. N., et al. (1992). Elderly survivors of the Lockerbie air disaster. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 7, 725–729. Livingston, H. M., Livingston, M. G., and Fell, S. (1994). The Lockerbie disaster: a 3 year follow-up of elderly victims. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 9, 989–994. McFarlane, A. C. (1989). The aetiology of post traumatic morbidity, predisposing, precipitating and perpetuating factors. British Journal of Psychiatry 154, 221–228. Sadavoy, J. (1997). Survivors: a review of the late-life effects of prior psychological trauma. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 5(4), 287–301. Snaith, R. P., Bridge, G. W. K., and Hamilton, M. (1976). The Leeds scales for the self assessment of anxiety and depression. British Journal of Psychiatry 128, 156–165. Weintraub, D. and Ruskin, P. E. (1999). Posttraumatic stress disorder in the elderly: a review. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 17(3), 144–152.

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Oklahoma City Bombing, Stress Effects of C Piotrowski and SJ Vodanovich, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Site of the Bombing Effects on Survivors Impact on Children

Glossary Access Victims Individuals who offered support and human assistance to survivors and families of victims, such as mental health professionals, nurses, and clergy. Direct-Contact Victims Emergency and rescue workers who searched the rubble for survivors and dead bodies, in addition to morgue personnel. Direct-Impact Victims Survivors who witnessed the bombing, death, and maiming of immediate victims firsthand. Disaster Mental Health A competency-based intervention model, based on disaster-related psychopathology, that addresses a community’s mental health needs.

Site of the Bombing The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995, remains the most devastating domestic terrorist act on U.S. soil. This tragic event impacted a close-knit community in America’s heartland and tore at the fabric of our national sense of security. The bomb blast had a devastating impact; 168 lives were lost and nearly 1000 people were injured. Sadly, 19 children were killed and 57 were injured, some quite seriously. A majority (60%) of the fatalities were government employees. Because the event occurred in the morning, thousands of commuters were in the downtown area, in close proximity of the blast, heard the shattering explosion, and witnessed the calamity unfold. The rescue response was immediate, with hundreds of emergency workers, medical personnel, and law enforcement officials attending to the scene. During the first 48 h, the city’s hospitals were overwhelmed with the critically wounded and exasperated family members while the bombing scene was amass with rescue teams in

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by C Piotrowski, volume 3, pp 83–85, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Emergency Personnel and Disaster Mental Health Further Reading

Intraself Risk Factors A victim’s idiosyncratic perception of the meaning and appraisal of a catastrophe and any premorbid factors that impact postdisaster reactions. Mass-Casualty Event The multidimensional stressors that may result in differential patterns of posttraumatic reactions, both short-term and long-term. Self-Efficacy Adaptational Coping Survivors’ struggles to maintain psychosomatic and social equilibrium. Socioenvironmental Risk Factors The degree of ecological and interpersonal destruction and intensity of exposure to morbidity.

search of the survivors and victims. In a matter of minutes, Oklahoma City experienced a calamity of monumental proportions. Although the Oklahoma City bombing has many features in common with most disasters, the fact that the perpetrators were U.S. citizens added an additional stress factor to the readjustment of victims and the recovering community. The resolution of intense emotional concerns has had a central role in the healing process of not only the residents of Oklahoma City but also the nation as a whole. Perhaps this national consciousness is most evident in the poignant annual commemoration for all the victims of this tragedy.

Effects on Survivors Disasters are usually classified as natural (e.g., hurricanes) or human-made (Three-Mile Island), but with the bombing in Oklahoma City, the American psyche was introduced to the ominous reality of disaster by intentional human strategy. In 1995, Parson coined the term Oklahoma City Bombing Stress Response (OKC-BSR), defined as (1) traumatic stress responses and (2) traumatically shattered meaning elements. In understanding victims’ collective psychological responses and adaptation, Parson argued that ORC-BSR

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involves psychophysiological reactions to dissociation, anxiety symptoms, and acute stress disorder with a concomitant need to find meaning from a terrorist act. To address the overwhelming need for mental health services in the Oklahoma City area, a special program for individuals reporting psychological distress from the bombing (entitled Project Heartland) was established. Some 9000 residents received services such as crisis intervention and support groups. This program offered a model for investigating risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among the survivors of the trauma-related community stress. Research studies on mental health symptomology and stress syndromes following the Oklahoma City bombing have been widespread in recent years. A study by Sprang, based on the premise that postdisaster reaction is a function of degree of exposure, found Oklahoma City residents reported high levels of PTSD and victimization symptomatology. Tucker and colleagues reported on 86 adults who sought assistance for stress related to the bombing 6 months after the tragedy. Reactions of nervousness to how others reacted at the time of the bombing accounted for approximately one-third of the variance in posttraumatic stress scores. These findings suggest that people who experience high anxiety during a traumatic event are subject to prolonged stress reactions over time. Pfefferbaum and colleagues reported in a series of studies on the long-term psychopathology and PTSD symptoms evident in both the survivors and the local population after the bombing. Survivors (n ¼ 37) in the direct path of the explosion were assessed 17 months postdisaster. The results showed that 31% of the sample was designated as chronic PTSD. In another survivor sample (n ¼ 182), 45% was diagnosed with postdisaster psychiatric disorders and 45% exhibited PTSD symptoms, particularly intrusive memories and hyperarousal, 6 months after the bombing. Furthermore, Pfefferbaum and colleagues, in a group of 84 individuals from the Oklahoma City community seeking support and mental health services, found a strong association between PTSD and substance use behaviors such as smoking and alcohol intake. Such coping mechanisms have been found to exacerbate functional impairment in trauma/disaster victims. These studies on the long-term effects of the bombing confirm not only the immediacy of PTSD onset but also lingering stress response syndromes in populations with proximity to the disaster impact area. This calls for early intervention with long-term treatment options. Because victims of a disaster may have had previous trauma, PTSD, or premorbid psychiatric conditions, they may be vulnerable to reacting pathologically to subsequent stressful events. In this regard, Moyers reported on the exacerbation of PTSD symptoms following the Oklahoma City bombing in veterans who were attending support groups.

Impact on Children In recent years, the effects of major disasters on the mental health and emotional functioning of children has become a specialized area of research endeavor. Children are a particularly vulnerable group with the added stress of adapting to developmental milestones and dealing with emotional turmoil. In a sample of over 3000 middle school and high school students in the Oklahoma City school system, researchers found that children who knew someone who was killed by the blast (vicarious exposure) reported higher PTSD severity than did children who were not highly exposed to the traumatic event. Bereaved youths were more likely than nonbereaved peers to experience symptoms of anxiety and fear, changes in both school and home environments, and PTSD-type symptoms. Interestingly, girls reported significantly higher PTSD severity scores than boys. In addition, students who viewed extensive television coverage of the bombing were most negatively affected. These findings support prior research on the functional role that the defense mechanism of denial plays in the adaptation of children to the onerous impact of psychic trauma and disasters.

Emergency Personnel and Disaster Mental Health A review of the literature on trauma provides conflicting evidence on the prevalence of stress reactions in emergency services personnel and rescue workers in the aftermath of disasters. Studies of firefighters and rescue personnel who responded to the bombing reported an unexpectedly low incidence rate (13%) for PTSD, even 3 years postdisaster. Body handlers were found to have negligible symptoms of depression or PTSD, and their overall mental health status improved over time. The resilience factors that aided in adaptation for these emergency personnel were identified as professional hardiness, job experience, and postdisaster debriefing. Conversely, mental health workers in Oklahoma City reported chronic stress due to the increased workload for an extensive time period after the bombing. In fact, disaster mental health personnel were most prone to compassion fatigue and burnout. These findings illustrate the critical importance of professional education and psychosocial support initiatives. The implications for occupational stress, mental health, and organizational efficacy for emergency service workers cannot be ignored. Future research must focus on competency in conducting both disaster planning and postdisaster intervention. See also: Disaster Syndrome; Disasters and Mass Violence, Public, Effects of; Terrorism; Hurricane Katrina Disaster, Stress Effects of

9/11, Religion and Stress

Further Reading Allen, S. F., Dlugokinski, E. L., Cohen, L. A., et al. (1999). Assessing the impact of a traumatic community event on children and assisting with their healing. Psychiatric Annals 29(2), 93–98. Figley, C. R. (ed.) (2002). Treating compassion fatigue. New York: Brunner/Routledge. Gordon, N. S., Farberow, N. L., and Maida, C. A. (1999). Children and disasters. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel. Moyers, F. (1996). Oklahoma City bombing: exacerbation of symptoms in veterans with PTSD. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing 10, 55–59. North, C. S., Nixon, S. J., Shariat, S., et al. (1999). Psychiatric disorders among survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing. Journal of the American Medical Association 282, 755–762. North, C. S., Pfefferbaum, B., Tivis, L., et al. (2004). The course of posttraumatic stress disorder in a follow-up study of survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing. Annals of Clinical Psychiatry 16, 209–215. North, C. S., Tivis, L., McMillen, J. C., et al. (2002). Psychiatric disorders in rescue workers after the Oklahoma City bombing. American Journal of Psychiatry 159, 857–859. Parson, E. R. (1995). Mass traumatic terror in Oklahoma City and phases of adaptational coping. Part I: Possible effects on intentional

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injury/harm on victims’ post-traumatic responses. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 25, 155–184. Pfefferbaum, B. (2001). The impact of the Oklahoma City bombing on children in the community. Military Medicine 166 (supplement 2), 49–50. Pfefferbaum, B. and Doughty, D. E. (2001). Increased alcohol use in a treatment sample of Oklahoma City bombing victims. Psychiatry 64, 296–303. Piotrowski, C., Armstrong, T., and Stopp, H. (1997). Stress factors in the aftermath of Hurricanes Erin and Opal: data from small business owners. Psychological Reports 80, 1387–1391. Piotrowski, C. and Dunham, F. (1983). Locus of control orientation and perception of ‘‘Hurricane’’ in fifth graders. Journal of General Psychology 109, 119–127. Reyes, G. and Elhai, J. D. (2004). Psychosocial interventions in the early phases of disasters. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 41, 399–411. Sprang, G. (1999). Post-disaster stress following the Oklahoma City bombing – an examination of three community groups. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 14, 169–183. Tucker, P., Dickson, W., Pfefferbaum, R., et al. (1997). Traumatic reactions as predictors of posttraumatic stress six months after the Oklahoma City bombing. Psychiatric Services 48, 1191–1194.

9/11, Religion and Stress S Packer, New School for Social Research, New York, NY USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of 9/11 Paradoxes about Post-9/11 Stress, Suicide, and Religion Muslims and Mental Health after 9/11

Jewish Issues Associated with 9/11 Stress Concerns of Christians and Others after 9/11 Further Reading

9/11 September 11, 2001, the day that the World Trade Center was destroyed and the Pentagon was attacked by organized conspirators led in absentia by Osama Bin Laden. Islam A prophetic religion that is based on the teachings of the prophet Mohammad, as recorded in the Koran. (Also called Mohammadanism.) Followers of Islam are known as Muslims and may be of any race or ethnicity and may live on any continent. Many, but not all, Muslims are also Arabs. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A constellation of symptoms that occur after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening episode. People with PTSD

reexperience the original trauma through nightmares or flashbacks and feel detached or numb in daily life. World Trade Center (WTC) A complex of office buildings (also known as the Twin Towers after the two tallest buildings) located in lower Manhattan, New York City, that housed 40,000–60,000 workers. It was destroyed on September 11, 2001 (9/11), and the site where the WTC previously stood came to be known as Ground Zero. Zionism A religious and political belief that the political state of Israel is the Jewish homeland. Most (but not all) religious Jews are Zionists. Some secular Jews are Zionists, and many secular Jews are not Zionists. There are many different degrees of Zionism.

An association between stress and religion has always existed, long before September 11, 2001, came to be known as 9/11 and long before the WTC was destroyed. Before 9/11, religion was most often seen as a cure for stress, but it could also be conceived of as a cause of stress and was

certainly recognized as a correlate of stress. But on 9/11, the relative importance of those associations shifted. For most people in the United States, and especially for people who lived and worked in and near New York, religion suddenly shifted to being a serious source of stress. In fact, some very

Glossary

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preliminary studies showed that people who were most religious were more likely to experience more stress after 9/11, although the reverse is usually true. In general, religious belief and affiliation offer protection against stress, but the reasons why religion failed to protect against 9/11related stress will become obvious during our discussion.

The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of 9/11 What was 9/11, and what made that day so significant to Americans in general and to New Yorkers in particular? On that day, the WTC was destroyed by young Islamic suicide bombers who flew two hijacked airplanes into each of the Twin Towers. At nearly the same time, another hijacked plane hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A fourth passenger plane, bound for San Francisco, was also hijacked, but was commandeered by passengers and diverted from its target destination. That plane crashed outside Pittsburgh and claimed far fewer lives than it was intended to. Each of these events was part of a wellorchestrated and partly successful conspiracy to fell the United States because these Muslim extremists led by Osama bin Laden viewed the United States as an aider and abettor of Zionists who controlled the state of Israel. It should be noted, however, that this Tuesday morning attack on the WTC was not the first. Several years earlier, a van containing a bomb exploded in the WTC parking lot, killing six people and causing commercial chaos in subway-level shops; this culminated in the conviction of a blind sheikh who led this militant Islamic sect. Some 2000 lives were lost during the second WTC attack on 9/11. Several hundred others died in the Washington area. None of the passengers aboard the hijacked planes survived. Although citizens of many cities, indeed, many countries, were affected by the tragic events of that day, 9/11 was most closely associated with New York City after the silhouettes of the WTC’s Twin Towers vanished from the city skyline. Situated in downtown Manhattan, near New York City’s financial district and the world-famous Wall Street, the WTC also impacted ordinary New Yorkers who lived nearby. Those people were not necessarily involved in the financial or insurance or communications businesses that were centered in the WTC. Some New Jersey bedroom communities, short commutes from the WTC, were also impacted after dozens of their residents who worked in the Towers died that day. The WTC was close to the bustling streets of Chinatown, a mecca for tourists and the culturally curious and home to long-time residents, recent arrivals, and legal and illegal immigrants from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Buddhists, Christians, Catholics, Confucians, Taoists, and Chinese ancestor

worshipers coexist on the streets of Chinatown and often intermingle within a single family unit united by its shared Chinese ancestry but not split by religious affiliation, as Western families often are. The once-lively Little Italy was also within walking distance of the WTC, as was the historically Jewish Lower East Side. In Little Italy, festivals named for regional Roman Catholic saints (such as San Gennarro) rose beyond their religious origins and attracted carnival-loving crowds of all faiths. It was to the Lower East Side, nostalgically known as Delancey Street, that povertystricken Jews fled the pograms at the turn of the twentieth century. They turned their pushcarts into a sprawling Sunday shopping district that gradually gave way to trendy clubs with outrageous names like Lansky Lounge. The once-grand synagogues built by struggling immigrants were often in need of restoration because younger generations abandoned their grandparents’ turn-of-the-century terrain and fled to suburbia. The Yiddish theaters that once lined Second Avenue below Fourteenth Street were now reduced to engraved copper stepping-stones that were embedded in sidewalks, engraved with names of yesteryears’ Yiddish-speaking stars. The largely Hispanic neighborhood of Loisada, or Alphabet City, was also a healthy walk from WTC, even if it was not near enough for lunch. Dotted with small Catholic churches, Pentecostal centers, espirismo storefronts, and even some santeria supply shops, this section was more religiously diverse than might be expected. The few blocks that were left of what were once, respectively, Little Poland and Little Ukraine lay slightly to the west of Loisada and due north of the Twin Towers, and were home to ornate Orthodox churches and even some shops catering to neo-pagan practitioners. Little India, which should rightfully have been called Little Bangladesh because its restauranteurs actually came from Muslim country of Bangladesh, was caddy-corner from Little Ukraine. And so on and so forth. South Street Seaport, an old-time fish market that had been transformed into a mall-like tourist attraction, was an after-work refuge, replete with busy bars, shops, and eateries. Tribeca was a newly minted, mostly loft-living community on the lower west side of Manhattan; pricey, arty Soho lay a little to the east of Tribeca and the Towers. Battery Park City, with its combination of luxury condos and subsidized housing, was also a stone’s throw away and was populated by young families in need of affordable housing and by financial firms that needed crash apartments for out-of-town deal makers and overnighters. The West Village was not too far away either, with its authors, artists, and actors and its ever-active gay presence, which survived and thrived in spite of the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. The East Village, which was not quite as close to the WTC as the West Village, was home to students, musicians, aspirants of all sorts, and also addicts, to judge by the reports of drug-related arrests. Several

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colleges and universities dotted the lower Manhattan landscape as well, including New York University.

Paradoxes about Post-9/11 Stress, Suicide, and Religion There was a reason why we have delved into the details of these different downtown neighborhoods and business districts. We need to understand who lived downtown, why they were affected by 9/11, and why religion impacted some more than others. Studies have shown that the closer a person lived to Ground Zero, where the WTC once stood, the greater his or her chance of developing PTSD. That finding is not so surprising, considering how devastated the landscape was and how disturbing it was to view the carnage on a day-to-day basis and to smell smoldering flesh for weeks or maybe months later. What was surprising was that some studies showed that people with strong religious beliefs were more likely, not less likely, to experience stress post-9/11, even though religion ordinarily provides protection against stress. There were reasons why religion produced stress in this situation. Other surprises awaited researchers after 9/11. Significantly, it turned out that people who received emergency debriefing were more likely, not less likely, to suffer long-lasting psychological symptoms of PTSD. It is now believed that rehearsing the traumatic event consolidated bad memories and made them more permanent than they might have been had the memories simply been allowed to fade away over time. An even bigger surprise concerned the prevalence of PTSD overall; post-9/11 PTSD was not nearly as widespread as first predicted. Perhaps the biggest surprise overall concerned the role that religion played as a promoter of, rather than a protector against, suicide. Muslims, who ordinarily oppose suicide, might have even more reason for such surprise. Before we examine any specific associations between religion and suicide, let us look at some general associations between stress and religion. Religion is often sought out in times of stress. It typically acts as a psychological salve. Repeatedly, religion has been shown to diminish the chances of completed suicide, which is the ultimate measurement of stress’s effects. New religions are also known to thrive during times of social stress; recruitment to cults is especially successful during times of rapid social change. Moreover, religious participation generally decreases both criminal activity and criminal recidivism (although high-profile exceptions to this trend have admittedly come to light). Yet the events during and after 9/11 contradicted some of these basic assumptions (and I deliberately used the word assumptions because some of these givens about religion are not necessarily historically factual). For one thing, the mere fact that the suicide bombers committed

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both suicide – and homicide! – in the name of religion seems to stand established wisdom on its head. After all, study after study shows that religious faith and affiliation protect people from suicide and help people through severe depression, financial devastation, even grave and disabling illness. Religion as a generic concept is supposed to instill a reverence for life, not a disregard for life (although some Eastern religions devalue daily life to the point that they dismiss everyday existence as maya, or illusion, and some fundamentalist religious sects place more value on the heavenly afterlife rather than on the earthly this-life). Yet here was a situation in which the strong religious beliefs of the suicide bombers not only did not protect them from suicide but actually pushed them to suicide. Moreover, their religious belief promoted not only suicide but also homicide – and promoted not just homicide but mass homicide. On the surface, the bombers’ behavior appears paradoxical. No wonder some studies showed that people with strong religious beliefs felt more stressed after 9/11 than those with lesser religious commitment. Their confidence in the protective effect of religion was challenged. Any preexisting assumptions about the automatic ability of religion to counteract impulses to hurt oneself or others could no longer be accepted as absolute fact. If we hypothesize that at least some of the people with strong religious adherence had gravitated to religion because they needed an extra buffer against stress in the first place, then it becomes even easier to appreciate why many felt more stressed after the 9/11 suicide attacks. If their psychological foundations were already shaky, but were buttressed by religious belief that now wobbled, then they would feel shakier still. They might need to distance themselves from the perpetrator religion (Islam), to prove that their own religion still provided them protection. It would be to their psychological advantage to deride Islam at face value, to draw a distinction between their own religion and Islam, and even to wage war against Muslims in order to protect their own psychological turf and to fortify their own mental foundation. To understand the motives of these Muslim suicide bombers, we must realize that they acted on the earnest belief that they would earn themselves and their families eternal paradise for their valiant acts of self-sacrifice. That reward system stands in direct contradiction to the hellfire and brimstone that presumably awaits devout Christians who choose suicide. The social prestige provided by those Islamic suicides is also the polar opposite of the social ostracism faced by Jewish families whose relatives elect to suicide. Because Jews who commit suicide cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery, their survivors are deprived of the comfort of a collective mourning ritual, and the individual is deprived of an identity and a commemoration after death.

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However, it should be said that 9/11 was by no means the first time that suicide was committed in the name of religion. Nor was Islam the first religion to encourage suicide in the name of faith. Christ’s willing self-sacrifice on the cross could arguably be said to be a sort of selfaccepted suicide. It is less controversial to claim that the desert saints who starved to death in the third and fourth centuries were also committing suiciding in the name of faith. Many Christian martyrs have been beatified because of their willingness to endure torture unto death in the name of religion. The Hindu sati, a cultural cum religious rite that requires the widow to climb on to the funeral pyre of her deceased husband and to join him in cremation and reincarnation, was a once-respected (but now suspect) religious rite of self-sacrifice. Jews who chose suicide over surrender at mountaintop fortress of Masada or who refused to convert to Christianity when the Spaniards offered them a choice between the cross or the Inquisition could be said to have chosen suicide, albeit under coercion. This was quite different from the Muslim suicide volunteers who went to their deaths willingly and equally willingly agreed to take the lives of many others. Suicide through self-starvation is an acceptable, even respectable, end for some ascetic sects of Jains in India. In the Middle Ages, the Cathars practiced self-starvation as a religious rite. And let us not forget the soldiers who volunteered to serve in wars based on religion knowing that they might not survive the battle but believing in the utility of their self-sacrifice. 9/11 challenged the standard associations between stress and religion in other important ways as well. As previously mentioned, recruitment to new religions or cults typically peaks at times of social stress, as does religious involvement in general. But there is no evidence that such a trend took place in the wake of 9/11 because of very specific interventions. If anything, recruitment to psychiatric treatment peaked instead, as prevention efforts to avert the predicted outbreak of PTSD diverted interest away from religion and into more mainstream therapeutic approaches. Public health and social service organizations made massive outreach efforts in the downtown area. Emergency debriefing stations were set up in lobbies in lower Manhattan, where residents were informed about both public and private psychiatric services. The Red Cross subsidized psychiatric treatment, even for those who could otherwise afford it. Posters recommending mental health care appeared in subway cars and at bus stops and reminded commuters that mental health care was not only easily available but was also readily affordable. As it turned out, these seat-of-the-pants psychiatric treatments did not accomplish what they purported and now seem to have increased the stress symptoms and PTSD. But they may have prevented religious-cult recruitment in an otherwise susceptible population. For anyone who came of age at a time when public service announcements reminded Americans that the

‘‘family that prays together stays together’’ and when religion was the first referral made to someone suffering from stress or distress, seeing these subway posters was startling. These posters signaled a significant shift in social values as well as in clinical care. We might say that making a first-line recommendation for psychiatric care, rather than for religious rituals, was a sure sign that psychiatric treatment had finally come of age and was destigmatized enough to appear in public places outside of student counseling services. Another explanation for the strong emphasis on mental health and PTSD in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 may have reflected the professional make-up of New York City. New York City is home to an unusually high number of mental health and social service professionals whose services are available at a moment’s notice. Plus, psychotropic medications had become increasingly available and acceptable during the decade that preceded 9/11. The public had heard about the benefits of Prozac, and about its hazards as well, and had voted for the former. Unfortunately, it took approximately 2 years for researchers to realize that the mental health-mediated debriefings meant to prevent PTSD had actually increased its occurrence. In contrast, those who were treated with medications that decreased physiological reactions fared better. We might hypothesize that astute politicians and public health officials had an even greater goal when they choose to promote mental health treatment rather than religion to assuage stress. City bureaucrats, who are acutely aware of the intense role that religion plays in politics at any given time, may have realized that an excessive emphasis on religion could polarize people even more at this crucial time. Such polarization could create serious social unrest, catalyze riots, trigger interreligious rifts, and provoke other unpredictable reactions. Perhaps someone realized that it was socially safer, if not clinically wiser, to shift the focus to universal psychiatric approaches and to deflect attention from particularistic religious relief. Even though religion was not recommended as a firstline antidote for post-9/11 stress, we would be hardpressed to deny the daunting impact of religion-related stress. Admittedly, we would be equally hard-pressed to find complete and accurate date on this topic at this early date, and so we must make do with speculation and hypotheses, seeded by anecdotal reports from the New York Times and garnered from personal clinical experiences.

Muslims and Mental Health after 9/11 Most obviously, we expect that Muslims would be affected most dramatically by the events of 9/11, not just because 9/11 was perpetrated by Muslims who acted against other Americans in the name of their faith but also because of the

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repercussions against Muslims (and against those who were mistaken for Muslims). At this point, it is important to point out that many different people from many different countries and from many different ethnic groups embrace Islam around the world and that the choices made by the suicide bombers were the choices made by but a few members of a multimillion-member religion. Yet all American-based Muslims were forced to face scrutiny by the American public. Many were subjected to police searches, involuntary incarceration, or automatic deportations, all of which caused stress. Once the United States declared war on Iraq, American Muslims faced further stress, regardless of their personal political persuasions or religion affiliations. There were some similarities to the indignities endured by Japanese Americans during World War II, when their allegiance to the United States was suspect after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, to the point that even U.S. citizens were moved out of their homes and resettled in closely guarded camps. Because Muslim Americans are sometimes (but certainly not always) identifiable through physical appearance or religious garb or Mideastern surnames, almost any Muslim can become an easy target of suspicion, discrimination, or outright abuse. Guilt through association can cause an assumption of guilt. People who are in the United States on a student visa or a J-1 visa (as many physicians in training are) also carry legal documents that identify their country of origin. It would not be surprising if stress-related disorders increased among Muslims after 9/11, but it is not known with certainty if this actually occurred. The U.S. medical literature is strikingly devoid of studies on this subject at the time of this writing. In fact, it is doubtful that the full extent of the medical or mental health effects on Muslims will ever be known with certainty. It is likely that many Muslims, especially those who are working or studying in the United States on revokable visas, will avoid treatment altogether for fear of calling attention to themselves and risking being reported to the authorities or of appearing to be less qualified to compete in the work or educational arenas that influence their visas. It is probable that Muslims whose immigration papers are not complete or perfect will follow the paths taken by other illegal immigrants in the United States and will also be left uncounted and untreated by the official U.S. health-care system. Furthermore, it is not clear whether psychiatric symptoms alone, such as stress, anxiety, or insomnia, could accurately measure the distress experienced by this very diverse religious group, whose members come from a wide variety of cultures, educational backgrounds, and countries of origin, and who speak many different languages. Some cultural groups do not express distress in psychological terms but prefer physical descriptions instead, sometimes complaining of dizziness, sleep problems, or vague aches and pains. Even people who are aware of psychiatric symptoms per se are still not immune

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to medical illnesses that increase in the presence of psychological or social stress. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events are notorious for their responsiveness to stress, as are some gastrointestinal diseases, autoimmune disorders, and even neurological symptoms. In many instances, increases in drug and alcohol use are more accurate and immediate indicators of stress than are purely psychological symptoms and must be studied with as much diligence as medical or psychiatric symptoms. Alcohol consumption in New York City skyrocketed after 9/11, especially among women, as both medical statistics and bar revenues attested. But it is important to be aware of the baseline alcohol and drug consumption of any particular culture before determining if there has been a significant increase in use. For instance, Islam (apart from renegade Sufi mystics) generally prohibits alcohol. Therefore, even a modest increase in alcohol consumption in Muslims after 9/11 carries very serious clinical implications and cannot be meaningfully compared to increases that occurred in religious or ethnic groups that do not outlaw alcohol. On the other hand, some Islamic cultures permit public marihuana use or even the social consumption of opium-based tea, although these activities are outlawed in the United States. Although I cannot make claims to any populationbased data on the use of psychiatric services by Muslims at this time, I can comment on recent trends in my own private practice in downtown Manhattan. Two distinctive gender-based trends emerged among Muslims. First, there was a sudden surge in foreign-born Muslim males living in the United States on student visas who requested outpatient treatment for anxiety, insomnia, concentration problems, and vague perceptions of persecution by peers and co-workers. In some instances, patients needed an official return-to-work clearance, which they thought could be completed in a single visit. At other times, people who had long-standing behavior issues that could easily have been identified by college advisors much earlier were suddenly sent for psychiatric evaluations. In each instance, these men were asked specifically if they thought that their new onset of psychiatric problems resulted from religious or cultural issues. If relevant, each was asked if he felt that the school or employer’s request for psychiatric clearance was prompted by increased security concerns that were specific to Muslims. In each instance, the prospective patient denied any such association, but, in one case, the patient refused to fill out a form that inquired about native language, religion, and culture and made a point of stating that he did not consider religion to be relevant. When told that many patients, particularly college students, do not complete that section, he continued to insist that doctors do not need to know his religion. Denial is not unusual in psychiatric practice, and a patient’s repeated denial of the importance of an otherwise important issue can lead to a fertile investigation of

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psychological conflicts. Such denial usually takes place within the psychiatric interview itself and is addressed, often quite productively, during the therapy session. What was unusual in this situation was the prospective patient’s repeated refusal to fill out standard medical history forms prior to the appointment. Occasionally, the private outpatient psychiatrist encounters a paranoid patient who refuses to complete paperwork at the time of the first interview, but, more commonly, someone who is that paranoid avoids an appointment altogether and is brought to an institutional setting involuntarily. Moreover, pure paranoid patients typically show other observable signs of paranoia; their eyes scan the room and they sit near the door, if they sit down at all. They may refuse to enter enclosed spaces in the first place (which comes as welcome relief to the psychiatrist, who is equally ill-at-ease in being with a potentially volatile paranoid person). Yet, in the situations described here, the Muslim men did not exhibit other observable signs of paranoia. Their previous social functioning prior to the onset of their psychiatric symptoms was definitely not suggestive of serious preexisting psychiatric illness. In each instance, these men were well-educated and performed well in the past, making it unlikely that their circumscribed suspicions about filling out forms was part and parcel of more global paranoia and appeared to be based on legitimate fears about incarceration or deportation or the loss of his job or student status or visas required for school or work, even though each denied this possibility. This para-paranoid behavior can be compared to the guardedness and evasiveness seen in some African American men who have had unpleasant experiences with legal authorities in the past. Second, I noted an even greater increase in the number of Muslim American women seeking psychiatric treatment, albeit for very different reasons. These women typically sought treatment because of stress brought on by family conflicts that arose as a result of their defiance of the gender-role restrictions traditional in Muslim families. In some cases, romantic involvements with nonMuslim men had already caused serious family rifts and threatened the patient with the loss of both family and financial support. It is difficult, and also probably inaccurate, to attribute these situations solely to the aftershocks of 9/11. It is much more likely that Americanization in general was responsible for rattling the religious traditions of these new immigrants, just as Americanization and the increased social choices afforded by U.S. society have shaken the foundations of nearly every ethnic group that arrived on U.S. shores. Still, I wonder if the Muslimmediated suicide bombings of 9/11 shook the faith of at least some Muslim women and gave them tacit permission to question the overall correctness of preexisting, previously unquestionable cultural and religious traditions. Alternatively, perhaps the widespread publicity about

psychiatric treatment that came in the wake of 9/11 also made these women aware of the availability of secular psychiatric treatment for personal stress.

Jewish Issues Associated with 9/11 Stress Last but not least, let me turn to specific stresses experienced by some Jews after 9/11. Although there are no studies to date that show that New York City Jews were at increased risk for post-9/11 PTSD, there are reasons why Jews might experience different stresses than other religious groups. For one thing, some Muslim extremists said that they had bombed the United States specifically because of its support for Zionists in Israel. Moreover, some semiofficial spokespeople stated that they had targeted New York City in particular not just because of its centrality to the financial and communications industries but because of its disproportionately high Jewish population. Such extremists link all Jews to extremist Zionists, regardless of their personal political persuasions. Jews might feel themselves targeted by the Muslim extremists, but they might also have residual PTSD because of personal or cultural connections to the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis. Those who smelled the burning bodies in the WTC – as did anyone who lived downtown, often for months afterward – typically compared the scene to the crematoria where Jewish bodies were burned en mass after being gassed in places such as Auschwitz. Such scents were described in detail in accounts by Holocaust survivors. Ironically, 2000 people perished in a single day at WTC on 9/11. That very same number – 2000 – was gassed every single day at Auschwitz when the ovens were at their peak performance. This strange synchronicity did not go unnoticed by those who knew the details of the Holocaust, and it served only to highlight the horrors of the Holocaust and to reopen old wounds that refused to heal. Some Jews were pretraumatized because friends or relatives had been hurt or killed during recurrent terrorist attacks in Israel. Many felt personally threatened when they saw that the same terror could take place on supposedly safe U.S. soil. Among Jews who were familiar with Jewish history, 9/11 was compared to Kristallnacht, the day that marked the beginning of the Holocaust, when Jewish shops were shattered by Nazi storm troopers in a foreshadowing of the horror that was to come a few years later. The fact that this was the second, not the first, attack on the WTC was used to fortify the comparisons with Kristallnacht. It is curious that a disproportionate number of Jews lived in the expansive Grand Street Co-ops in lower Manhattan. It is also curious that New York University,

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a university often identified as having a high proportion of Jewish students, dots downtown Manhattan. With its sprawling campuses and dormitories, New York University spans the area from the Seaport to Fifteenth Street, with some dorm rooms overlooking Ground Zero. It is possible that the presence of these ethnic and religious populations skewed statistics and influenced the high rate of PTSD among those who lived near Ground Zero. A more detailed demographic study of post-9/11 stress syndromes could clarify these possibilities.

Concerns of Christians and Others after 9/11 Is worth noting that members of some religions and ethnic groups became Muslims by proxy and were subjected to tauntings and even beatings because they were mistaken for Muslims. Turban-wearing Sikhs and Jains from the Indian subcontinent were targeted by aggressive youths in the days after the bombings and some were seriously injured. It is conceivable that people who practice many other religions but who appear to be of Mideastern or Muslim origin realized that they were at risk and so have suffered increased stress since 9/11. It is likely that even all-American Christians also suffered from religion-related stress after 9/11, simply because most Americans like to think of themselves as religiously tolerant and become uneasy when religious prejudices are provoked, as they were by the events of 9/11. Let us not forget that the United States was founded for the expressed purpose of freedom of religion. When religion-inspired acts such as the terrorist bombings and hijackings of 9/11 threaten to make folly of this basic American freedom, everyone, regardless of his or her religion, feels stress.

In summary, Although there is much that remains uncertain about the overall impact of 9/11, both with respect to religion and stress, and to its many other ramifications, some things are certain. For one thing, 9/11 brought renewed attention to religion and its role in both promoting and protecting against stress. Unlike the Oklahoma bombing, which was strictly secular, this mass murder was intimately linked to religion and always will be, regardless of what is revealed about the individual bombers’ personal psychologies in the future. This sad event serves as a reminder that the age-old association between stress and religion cannot be put on the shelf and relegated to the past; it is very much a part of the present. The subject of stress and religion is as relevant to the twenty-first century as it was to the first century CE.

Further Reading Dervic, K., Oquendo, M. A., and Grunebaum, M. F. (2004). Religious affiliation and suicide attempt. American Journal of Psychiatry 161, 2303–2308. Durkheim, E (1951). Suicide. Spaulding, J. A. and Simpson, G. (trans.). New York: Free Press. Falsetti, S. A., Resnick, P. A., and Davis, J. L (2003). Changes in religious belief following trauma. Journal of Trauma and Stress 16, 391–398. Galea, S., Vlahov, D., and Resnick, H. (2003). Trends of probably posttraumatic stress disorder in New York City after the September 11 terrorist attacks. American Journal of Epidemiology 158, 514–524. Koenig, H. G, McCullough, M. E., and Larson, D. B. (2001). Handbook of religion and health. New York: Oxford University Press. Schuster, M. A., Stein, B. D., and Jaycox, L. (2001). A national survey of stress reactions after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. New England Journal of Medicine 345, 1507–1512. Shalev, A. Y. (2004). Further lessons from 9/11: does stress equal trauma? Psychiatry 67, 174–177. Wolinsky, F. D., Wyrich, K. W., and Kroenke, K. (2003). 9–11, personal stress, mental health, and sense of control among older adults. Journal of Gerontology, Psychology, and Social Sciences 58, S146–150.

Religious Traditions, Violence and Nonviolence Michael J McClymond, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA David N Freedman, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Definition and Overview of Religious Violence Varieties of and Sanctions for Violence

Glossary Ahimsa From Sanskrit, ‘nonharm’. A religious prohibition against killing animals or humans as found in differing degrees in the religions originating in India (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism).

Varieties of and Sanctions for Nonviolence Further Reading

Eschatology From Greek, ‘study of the last things’. Religious teachings about the end of the world and the dawn of eternity, including such matters as the second coming of Jesus, a millennial age of peace and prosperity on earth, heaven, purgatory, hell, and so on.

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Inquisition(s) Special tribunals created in medieval and early modern Europe to combat the spread of heresies. While the Roman Inquisition was under the direction of the Papacy, some tribunals (e.g., the Spanish Inquisition) were led by specific nations or rulers. Jihad From Arabic, meaning ‘exertion’, also djihad. An Islamic term often translated as ‘holy war’, but also having a broader meaning that includes all exertions made by Muslims on behalf of the true faith. Certain writers, especially Shi’ite Muslims, distinguish between a ‘lesser jihad’, involving physical conflict, and a ‘greater jihad’ that is purely spiritual in nature and consists in a battle to attain moral and religious perfection.

Just War In the Christian (and especially Roman Catholic) tradition, a war that is morally justified because it meets a number of specific criteria, for instance, it is defensive and not imperialistic, does not involve undue use of force, does not injure noncombatants, and so on. Martyr From Greek, meaning ‘witness’. A religious person who has died for the faith, bearing witness to the truth of his or her beliefs. Pacifism A moral or religious viewpoint of total opposition to violence in any and all circumstances, thus connected with a refusal to fight, bear arms, or assist in armed conflicts. Shalom A Hebrew term meaning ‘to have or be at peace’, with further connotations of completeness, wholeness, security, and prosperity.

If one defines ‘religion’ as the human preoccupation with God, transcendent reality, or the sacred, and ‘violence’ as the use of physical force to inflict injury on human beings, then the question arises as to whether and how religion provides justification for violence or for nonviolence. Here we can provide only a general outline of some major trends in the varied relationships among religion, violence, and nonviolence.

are likely to see so-called religious violence as merely one instance of generalized class conflict. Social strife for Marx was rooted in economics, not beliefs about God. Those who, like Mircea Eliade, see religion as an element of human existence that cannot be reduced to any other denominator – political, economic, sexual, and so on – will probably interpret some acts of violence (or repudiations of violence) as arising from specifically religious motives. For the purposes of this article it is not necessary to debate on the question as to whether religion is essentially a product of nonreligious cultural factors or whether nonreligious cultural factors are themselves often the products of religious motives and impulses. The working definition of ‘religious violence’ here is violence that is somehow directly sanctioned by religious authorities – leaders or councils, rituals, myths, symbols, or sacred texts.

Definition and Overview of Religious Violence Definition of Religious Violence The topics of religion, violence, and nonviolence are complex and many-sided, in part because religion never exists as an autonomous entity apart from politics, economics, sexuality, and the other fundamental springs of human action. Violence is easy enough to recognize when and where it occurs, and yet the same is not always true of religion. For this reason, informed observers may disagree on the appropriate application of the phrase ‘religious violence’. An act of interpretation is involved: how is one to determine which acts of violence are ‘religious’ and which are not? If a political leader such as Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot invokes the name of God as a sanction for killing, then does this imply that the violence in question is religious in character? What if the violence is supported by religious leaders as well as political leaders? What if it is opposed by religious leaders and/or laypersons? What if there is disagreement on violence between different religious groups in a given society? The subtlety of the notion of ‘religious violence’ becomes readily apparent. Those who, like Karl Marx, see religion as largely subservient to the interests of rulers and ruling classes

Historical Examples As this article should make clear, the major world religions vary in their approaches and attitudes toward violence. A widespread perception exists that the monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are more warlike than the religions of South and East Asia. Islam is typically thought to be the most militant and militaristic contemporary faith. Buddhism, conversely, is often viewed as the most peaceable of the major religions. Along these lines Schwartz has argued that biblical monotheism has brought a ‘‘violent legacy’’ to Western societies, and has encouraged a tendency for social groups to define themselves in oppositional fashion, for example, Israelites versus Canaanites. Certainly, the notion of holy war seems to be stronger in the monotheistic religions than in Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese, or indigenous religions. On the other hand, the recent studies of Hindu–Buddhist and Hindu–Muslim conflicts by Tambiah and Kakar demonstrate that a simple dichotomy between

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Western violence and non-Western nonviolence is too simplistic. Mohandas Gandhi was killed by a militant Hindu in 1948, and the prime minister of Sri Lanka was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959. It is best therefore to begin from the assumption that virtually all religious traditions are capable of promoting violence in certain instances, but that the conditions, nature, and extent of the violence differ greatly from tradition to tradition and from case to case. Many historical instances of religious violence can be cited. Archaic societies in various parts of the globe, and some modern groups, have regularly practiced human sacrifice. The voluntary or coercive burning of Hindu widows in India, known as sati, is one instance of human sacrifice in recent times. The conquest and displacement of the Canaanites of Palestine by the Israelites is described in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament as specifically commanded by God. Another example of religious violence from ancient times is the persecution and execution of Jews who refused to eat pork or otherwise renounce their Judaic practices under the Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV, during the decade of the 160s BCE. The enormous geographical expansion of Islam in the seventh century CE was linked to wars of conquest stretching from Spain to Central Asia. In eleventh-century Persia, a secret society of the Isma’ili Muslims, known as the ‘assassins’, tried to exert social control through murdering their adversaries. Pope Urban II in 1095 declared a crusade to regain control of the Holy Land. ‘‘God wills it [Deus vult]!’’ became the rallying cry of soldiers who sought to win back control of Jerusalem and other holy sites from the Muslims. Subsequently, the popes extended the war on infidels and heretics with an expanding network of special courts, known as the Inquisition, which possessed extraordinary powers (not allowed in most later judicial systems) to compel witnesses, secure confessions, and inflict penalties. Following the Protestant Reformation of the early sixteenth century, there was a century of bloodshed (c. 1550–1650) between Protestant and Catholic rulers while a small minority of Anabaptists and others adopted a pacifist stance and unconditionally refused to participate in the warfare. All through the modern period, and especially in the present century, violent communal conflicts have erupted in South Asia between Hindus and Muslims (in North India and Pakistan) and between Hindus and Buddhists (in Sri Lanka). Another communal conflict at the present time, with strong religious undertones, is that between Jews and Arabs in Israel–Palestine. Also worthy of mention is the often unreported persecution of Christian leaders and laypersons in contemporary communist and Islamic countries such as China, Iran, Egypt, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Moreover, the Baha’is, who live in Iran, have suffered persecution since the very beginnings of their movement under Bab-ud-Din and Baha’u’llah in the 1850s. Perhaps the most infamous instances of religious violence in recent times are acts of terrorist groups that abuse

or kill innocent persons in order to destabilize governments or to dramatize a kind of cosmic battle between good and evil. The attack at the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 was the best-known, and perhaps the most destructive, terrorist act in history, and yet it was not without precedent. According to a recent study, none of the terrorist groups operating in the world in 1968 could have been classified as ‘religious’, whereas in 1995 half of all known terrorist groups held a religion-based ideology. In the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini declared that ‘‘America is the Great Satan,’’ he gave voice to a notion of religious combat that has served as justification for acts of violence. Sometimes terrorists act according to a grim logic of retaliation, nurturing the memory of injustices and atrocities suffered by the communities to which they belong. Religious ritual and symbolism can become a means for keeping alive the memory of past sufferings and an inducement to aggression and retaliation. In other instances terrorists act in response to a perceived threat of annihilation by enemy forces. The extreme circumstances are thought to demand extreme measures. Once again, religious language and symbolism can serve to demonize the adversaries, polarize the rival groups, and conceal their common humanity. Paul Mojzes and Michael Sells have described an ‘‘ethnoreligiosity’’ that fueled the bloodshed of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. Violence in Religious Symbolism The major religions are connected with violence not only in their histories but also in their central symbols. One could begin with the images and narratives of the gods and goddesses themselves. Both the monotheistic faiths and the religions of Asia present violent as well as peaceful images of the divine. ‘‘The Lord is a warrior,’’ declares Exodus 15:3. The scriptural texts of Hinduism and Buddhism are rife with descriptions of war between humans and among the gods themselves. Like almost all ancient texts, these writings extol the military virtues of courage before adversaries and fierceness in battle. The best-loved and best-known Sanskrit text of all, The Bhagavad Gita takes the form of a conversation that occurs while two opposing armies are frozen in their battle lines, on the verge of charging against each other. When the conversation ends, the warfare begins. The most familiar emblems of Islam and Sikhism are swords, and the central symbol of Christianity is an execution device, namely, the cross. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the bleeding and dying Savior is often portrayed in graphic detail. Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ in 2004, stirred controversy even among Christian believers because of its agonizing, blood-drenched portrayal of Jesus’ final hours. In Protestant Christianity, the violence is conveyed in words rather than through physical images, as

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worshipers sing familiar hymns regarding ‘‘the old rugged cross’’ and ‘‘the blood of Jesus.’’ The hymns of the German pietist Nicholas Zinzendorf (1700–60) are especially noted for their constant references to Jesus’ blood. One of the two central rituals of Christianity is the eucharist (or Lord’s Supper, or communion, or Mass) that symbolically represents the broken body of Jesus on the cross (the divided bread) and the shed blood (the outpoured wine) followed by the consumption of these elements by the worshippers. In Roman Catholicism, the doctrine of transsubstantiation stipulates that the consecrated bread and wine are transformed in their very substance into the body and blood of Christ while still retaining the outward appearance of bread and wine. Likewise, the Catholic doctrine of the ‘sacrifice of the Mass’ has often been taken to mean Jesus is sacrificed afresh on each occasion that the eucharist is celebrated. Shi’ite Muslims commemorate the brutal killings of Husain and his son, regarded as the legitimate spiritual leaders following Muhammed and his cousin and son-in-law Ali. Their deaths are the subject of an annual festival during the month of Muharram, often with a passion play (ta’ziya) that reenacts this tragedy. As in the Christian preoccupation with Jesus’ death, so in Shi’ite Islam an unjust death becomes a focus of veneration and an example to be emulated by later martyrs of the faith.

Varieties of and Sanctions for Violence Varieties of Violence Violence in world religions falls into multiple categories, including the following: sacrifice, persecution, martyrdom, inquisition, witch-hunt, and holy war (or jihad in Arabic). All the above words have links with both violence and religion. Other terms suggest violent activities that may in certain instances derive from religious motives: revolution, riot, assault, and terrorism. One of the most important categories of religious violence is sacrifice, which is among the most ubiquitous of religious activities and the most mysterious. The word ‘sacrifice’ derives from a Latin verb ‘to make sacred’ and may be defined as a ritual offering in the form of a presentation to (or exchange with) divine beings, sacred powers, or ancestors. Sacrifice involves the voluntary giving or giving up of a valued substance or object, usually requiring the destruction of the life or essence of the offering. The intention is to establish communication with the Gods, an orderly relationship in the cosmos, and/or certain tangible benefits on behalf of an individual or community. Even those religious traditions that affirm the importance of protecting and preserving life have often mandated the intentional killing of animals and/or humans in sacrifice. Theories of sacrifice have tried to explain this seeming paradox in a variety of ways. EB Tylor held that sacrifice among primitive peoples is simply a way of bribing the Gods, according to the Latin maxim: Do ut

des (‘‘I give (to you), that you may give (to me)’’). Then, as religion evolved, sacrifice became internalized in the form of self-renunciation. W Robertson Smith, in his study of the ancient Semites, concluded that sacrifice is primarily significant as a covenantal meal in which the participants join themselves to one another and to spiritual powers through consuming the body of the victim. Sigmund Freud, in his evocative and controversial book Totem and Taboo, developed a theory of sacrifice based on the Oedipal myth of the son who sexually desires the mother and hence must eliminate the father. Freud postulates a primordial killing of the father by a horde of sons who subsequently seize the father’s power and the women previously under his control. In the wake of Freud, a controversial question arises whether sacrificial violence is simply an expression of violent impulses endemic to human nature or rather is a means of shielding society from violence by focalizing it in a ritual context. Rene´ Girard provides an interesting variant on Freud’s hypothesis when he suggests that rituals of violence evoke and thus release the hostilities among the members of a given society toward one another. The death of a scapegoat individual becomes the necessary price to be paid for harmony among the others. The religious persecutions of world history and the sufferings of the martyrs are vivid illustrations of a widespread belief that God, true religion, or salvation are worth dying for and, sometimes, worth killing for. Beginning with the Maccabean revolt of the second century BCE, the Jewish tradition had its martyrs, perhaps the first documented instance in world history of persons killed solely because of their religious beliefs and practices. By the time of the apocryphal book of Fourth Maccabees (first century CE), the blood of the martyrs was thought to have the power to expiate sin, overcome tyranny, and renew the observance of the Jewish law (1:11, 6:28–29, 17:21, 18:4). This set of ideas is analogous to the New Testament doctrine that Jesus’ death is an atonement that brings sinners back into a right relationship with God (Mark 10:45). Later, when Roman authorities persecuted the early church, the Christian tradition underwent a development not unlike that reflected in Fourth Maccabees: the dying martyrs were thought to have special power or merit, and their words of absolution could remove the stain of sin from those upon whom they pronounced them. This belief in the merit of the martyrs laid the foundation for the later cult of the saints in medieval and modern Christianity. During the late medieval and early modern period in the West, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the witchhunts were all related in complex ways. The Crusade represented a form of religious violence that was directed against perceived external enemies, in this case the ‘infidel’ Muslims who controlled the holy sites connected with Jesus and other biblical characters. The Inquisition and the witch-hunts, in contrast, were directed against perceived internal enemies, the heretics and diabolical agents who threatened to subvert Christian society from the

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inside. The practice of holy war in Christianity and Islam and the general circumstances and conduct of the inquisition of the Middle Ages are discussed ahead. Sanctions for Violence Sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer has researched and written extensively on the subject of violence and nonviolence in world religions and much of what follows is a summary of his conclusions. In the Vedic period (1500–500 BCE), the warriors of ancient India called upon the Gods to participate in their struggles. As in the Greek Iliad and Odyssey, the realms of the human and the divine were unified, and earthly battle was part of a larger conflict between divine and/or cosmic powers. Reflecting the later development of Hinduism, The Bhagavad Gita provides arguments for the legitimacy of killing, including the teaching that the soul in its essential nature is deathless and immortal: ‘‘He who thinks this self a killer and he who thinks it is killed, both fail to understand; it does not kill, nor is it killed’’ (2.19). Moreover, killing is a duty (dharma) for Arjuna, the protagonist of the Gita, since he belongs to the warrior caste of the kshatriya: ‘‘If you fail to wage this war of sacred duty, you will abandon your own duty and fame only to gain evil’’ (2.33). Here we encounter a set of ideas common to many traditional cultures: society is composed of interdependent parts, and while some must hunt or farm, others must pray or meditate, and still others must fight on behalf of all. The ancient Hindu warrior, like the medieval Christian knight, was the divinely appointed protector of the social order. The modern Indian leader Mohandas K Gandhi (1869–1948), who promoted a nonviolent approach to social conflict, interpreted the warfare of The Bhagavad Gita as allegorical. Yet even he allowed an exception to the general rule in the special case where a small, strategic act of violence could obviate a much greater danger. Other modern Hindus, especially those devoted to the dark goddess Kali, were more militant and felt a moral obligation to use force for the cause of Mother India. Guru Nanak (1469–1538), the founder of the Sikh religion in northern India, was known as a gentle soul, and yet the religious movement soon came under the leadership of a militant tribal group, the Jats. Throughout history the Sikhs have periodically clashed with the Moghuls, the British, and the other rulers of India. During the 1980s, a movement for Sikh autonomy gained momentum through the fiery preachings of J S Bhindranwale, who died in 1984 along with some 2000 others in the fighting that occurred when the Indian government sent troops into the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the holiest site of the Sikh religion. The core of the Sikh community is known as ‘the army of the faithful’ (dal khalsa), and their symbol is the double-edged sword. Violence is justified by the Sikh doctrine of miripiri – the idea that religion is to be victorious in both the spiritual and the worldly realms.

In the case of Buddhism, it is difficult to find specific sanctions for violence, and hence the topic of violence is better treated as an exception to the general rule of nonviolence (see section ‘Sanctions for nonviolence’). On the other hand, some modern Buddhists in South and East Asia have joined together religion and political militancy in ways that seem to overturn the religion’s well-known injunctions of nonviolence. In Southeast Asia, insurgent Buddhist groups have sometimes invoked Maitreya, a futuristic Buddha whose coming signifies the overthrow of evil forces and the beginning of a golden age. Eschatological ideas, or religious teachings regarding the end of the world and the dawning of eternity, have often motivated religious activism and sometimes even religious revolution. More often the appeal to eschatology has occurred in the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but sometimes in Buddhist contexts as well. Despite the influence of Buddhism in East Asia, other religious teachings in this region have justified violence for the sake of maintaining social order or for expanding the empire. Starting in the eleventh century CE, the Japanese samurai tradition merged Confucian ideals of restraint and self-discipline with a militaristic ethic to produce bushido, a chivalrous code of conduct that placed honor above life itself. The ultimate sacrifice was an act of ritual suicide (seppuku) in which the samurai disemboweled himself with a sword and then was decapitated by an assistant. This selfsacrifice was done for reasons of shame, as an atonement for an error, or to protest an act of injustice. In Jewish as well as in Hindu tradition, some of the earliest layers of the tradition are also the most violent. The Hebrew Bible describes scenes of desolation caused by God’s acts of judgment against the unrighteous – fire and brimstone rained from heaven upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19); a deadly plague upon the firstborn of the Egyptians (Exodus 12); and many other episodes of plague, famine, drought, and other natural calamities. When the Israelites are commanded to enter and conquer the land of Canaan, their adversaries are depicted as God’s own enemies. The author of Deuteronomy declares that ‘‘we captured all his towns, and in each town we utterly destroyed men, women, and children. We left not a single survivor’’ (Deuteronomy 2:34). In this divinely mandated war of annihilation, only the plunder of the Canaanite cities – livestock and movable goods – were to be preserved intact by the conquering armies. Throughout Western history, the biblical texts regarding holy war have been invoked repeatedly and often with chilling results – by Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages, European colonialists conquering indigenous peoples around the globe, and today’s religious radicals seeking justification for acts of violence. Despite the armed conflicts between the Jews and their Gentile rulers in the Maccabean Revolt (166–4 BCE), the Jewish War against the Romans (CE 66–73), and the

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Bar-Kochba Revolt (CE 132–5), the normative Jewish tradition as reflected in the rabbinical writings is basically nonviolent. The rabbis drew a contrast between religious war and war for political expediency. Only the former was strictly obligatory as a means of protecting the faith or defeating the enemies of the Lord. The latter was always optional and a matter of statecraft. Yet since the emergence of Zionism in the early twentieth century, certain radical individuals and groups have taken a militant stance regarding Jewish claims in Palestine. Up until his assassination in 1990, Rabbi Meir Kahane was widely known for his controversial claim that God has given the land of Israel to the Jews and that Arabs therefore have no rightful claim to reside there. Gershon Salomon has led symbolic marches at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (sometimes resulting in bloodshed) to reclaim the site for Jews rather than Muslims. A group known as Gush Emunim, also convinced of Jewish claims to the land, encourages the expansion of settlements by Jews on the West Bank of the Jordan River. From early in its history, there has been disagreement in the Christian church over the legitimacy of violence. Some have insisted that Christians must follow Jesus’ example of selfless love: ‘‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’’ (Matthew 5:44). Others have cited biblical texts that speak of the civil state as bearing the ‘‘sword’’ (Romans 13:1–4) and thus claiming a legitimate use of force. The earliest Christians seem to have been consistently pacifistic, rejecting the use of violence under any and all circumstances. Among the early Christian authors, Tertullian (c. 160–225) and Origen (c. 185–254) asserted that Christians were not allowed to take human life, a principle that barred Christians from serving in the military. Modern pacifist groups include the Mennonites and the Quakers (see section ‘Sanctions for nonviolence’ ahead). Once Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire in the early fourth century, there was a movement away from pacifism and in time Ambrose (c. 339–97) and Augustine (354–430) adopted and developed the doctrine of the ‘‘just war’’ (first formulated by Cicero). According to this doctrine, war was permissible (though never desirable) if certain strict criteria were met, such as an inability to resolve the conflict by peaceful means, a use of force no greater than that needed to conclude the conflict, and a refusal to bring injury on civilians or noncombatants. Since the 1960s, some Roman Catholic theologians have adapted the theory of the just war under the impact of liberation theology, arguing that the church that supports a just war could in principle also endorse a just revolution. The American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1891–1971), who began his career as a pacifist, later argued that Christians should not be pacifists because the pervasiveness of sin in the world sometimes makes it necessary to subdue evil with righteous force. The German Protestant

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–45) is another instance of a Christian pacifist who had second thoughts. At first supporting pacifism in the 1930s, the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich convinced him that violent force was needed to overthrow the regime and avert a far greater evil. Bonhoeffer’s life ended in a Nazi camp, where he was executed for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler. In addition to war, another kind of violence in Christendom has been religious persecution, perhaps best exemplified by the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. When confronted by the breakaway Christian sect of the Donatists, Augustine reasoned that coercion was allowable in certain cases (compelle intrahere, ‘‘force them to come in,’’ Luke 14:23), and this principle became enshrined in the imperial legislation of Theodosius (fifth century) and Justinian (sixth century). Yet until the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, the Christian Church was not involved in most cases of execution of purported heretics by mobs or lay rulers. While the Church wished to curtail heresy and bring heretics to repentance, it did not condone their execution in principle. The high Middle Ages brought a change. The cultural metamorphosis that brought a new sense of spiritual unity throughout twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe, a renewal of learning, and a revival of monasticism, also brought a growing fear and antipathy to ‘outsiders’ within the body politic. Anti-Semitism increased, heretics were hounded and punished, and holy war was declared in the Crusades against the Muslims in Palestine. A series of church councils in the middle 1100s prescribed the penalties of excommunication, confiscation of property, and imprisonment for heresy, yet still did not recognize death as a proper penalty. The fierce battle against the heretical Cathars in southern France led Emperor Frederick II to decree that in Lombardy, relapsed heretics (i.e., repeat offenders) were to be burned at the stake. Because Catharism had not been uprooted but only driven underground, Pope Gregory IX established a tribunal in 1233 at Toulouse, and the later popes of the thirteenth century extended the power of the Inquisition. Pope Innocent IV, in his bull Ad extirpanda (1252), stipulated that heretics handed over to the secular arm should be executed within five days and that torture could be used to elicit information from the accused. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Inquisition had developed a systematic plan of operation. A place reputed to harbor heretics was visited by an inquisitor who, in a sermon that all were required to attend, preached on the wrongfulness of heresy and invited anyone who might have heretical tendencies, or knew of those with such tendencies, to appear before him. The suspect was presented with depositions from accusers but was not informed of their identities. Only two accusers were necessary, and the accused could exonerate themselves only if they were able to discover the identity of the accusers and demonstrate to the inquisitor’s

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satisfaction that they acted from enmity. Otherwise, the accused had to either admit to heresy or deny it. If they admitted to it, a penalty was inflicted. Denying it meant a return to prison, and often the use of torture to secure a confession. Suspects who refused to confess to heresy, and those confessed heretics who were thought to have lapsed again into falsehood, were liable to be handed over to the secular authorities for punishment at the stake. Heretics who recanted their errors while being led off to die were sent to lifelong imprisonment if their conversion seemed to be genuine. If not, their pleas were ignored. While the heresy of the Cathars declined in France by the late 1200s, the Inquisition continued to develop in other parts of Europe along the lines already established. Under papal leadership it spread to Eastern Europe and Germany, though in the latter region the local bishops sometimes resisted papal interference. England never accepted the Inquisition at all. In Castile and Aragon it became an integral element in the political machinery of the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who, with the help of the Grand Inquisitor Toma´s de Torquemada (1420–98), used it against the Moors (Muslims) and Marranos (Christianized Jews and Muslims). In the fourteenth century, groups such as the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Be´guines, and the Spiritual Franciscans were investigated and prosecuted. By the late 1400s an ominous new aspect appeared with a rising tide of accusations against witches and sorcerers, best illustrated in the witch-hunters’ handbook of 1486, the Malleus maleficarum. By the close of the seventeenth century, perhaps a million women and men were hanged or burned at the stake on the charge of witchcraft. Within the Muslim community, violence is justified and even required for subduing the enemies of the faith and insuring that the true religion of Islam has ample opportunity to spread itself into new territory and there take root. Islam divides the world into dar al Islam (‘the house of Islam’) and dar al harb (‘the house of warfare’), the latter being that territory where Islam does not yet exist. Conflict on behalf of Islam is known as jihad (or djihad), a term that literally means ‘exertion’ yet carries militant connotations. Some authors, especially Shi’ites, distinguish between a ‘‘lesser jihad ’’ of physical conflict and a ‘‘greater jihad ’’ that is spiritual and consists in a battle to attain moral and religious perfection. Another distinction is between a nonviolent ‘‘jihad of tongue or pen’’ (see Qur ’an, 16:125) and a violent ‘‘jihad of the sword’’ (Qur ’an, 2:193). In light of the wide semantic range of the term, it is not accurate simply to equate jihad with ‘holy war’, though conversely it is not accurate to say (as some recent Muslim apologists have said) that the term has no association with violence. In about two-thirds of the instances where the verb jahada or its derivatives occur in the Qur ’an, it denotes warfare. Jihad is a collective duty that requires a sufficient number of persons to engage in conflict

and so fulfill the community’s obligation. In Islamic tradition, those killed in jihad are called martyrs; their sins are forgiven, and they go immediately to paradise. Jihad is based on the conception of Islam as universal, and hence it is always conceived as a battle between Muslims and non-Muslims. Conflicts between Muslim groups thus cannot be classified as jihad, at least according to the general Sunni opinion. According to some Shi’ite authorities, however, refusal to subscribe to their tenets may be considered as equivalent to unbelief and thus may elicit a call for jihad. According to both Muslim and secular scholars, the Qur ’an shows varied emphases in its teaching on jihad. Some texts enjoin defensive warfare to ward off aggression (2:190, 9:13). Other passages seem to encourage an initiatory attack, provided it does not occur during the four sacred months (5:9). Still other texts stress peaceful persuasion, and hence there is a principle that jihad is never to be conducted unless the people opposed have first been invited to join the house of Islam. Among scholars of Islam there is disagreement as to whether jihad includes only self-defense by Muslims or rather implies the right of offensive attack against unbelievers. Muslim authorities have argued that the ‘‘sword’’ verses in the Qur ’an (e.g., 5:9) came later in time and thus ‘‘abrogated’’ the more peaceable teachings (2:190) and so Muslims have a standing order to engage in jihad against unbelievers. Others contest this and hold that there must be provocation from non-Muslims prior to attack. In either case, the doctrine of jihad has often been used to justify the expansion of Muslim states into non-Islamic regions. Strictly speaking, Muslim law does not allow jihad to be used as a means of forcible conversion to Islam. The only valid conversions are those that occur voluntarily and involve a genuine change of heart. As James Turner Johnson points out in his writings on holy war, modern Westerners and Islamic traditionalists have fundamentally and perhaps irreconcilably divergent viewpoints on the proper relationship between religion and war. In the post-Enlightenment era, Westerners have adhered to a secular theory of the state that makes war for religion a thing of the past. Within the framework of traditional Islam, however, war for religion is associated with continuous striving for God in heart, word, and deed. It also reflects a deeply rooted understanding of religion as properly integral to the political order,a conception radically at odds with the modern West’s separation of church and state. It comes as no surprise that today’s radical Muslims (or Islamists) commonly regard the very notion of a secular state as a repudiation of Islamic principles and that communication between non-Muslims and Muslims is often stymied by profound mutual misunderstanding. During the 1990s, a small yet influential group of radical Muslims began to interpret Islamic teachings on

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jihad in new ways. While the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is now famous and infamous throughout the world, the roots of bin Laden’s ideology and the attacks of 11 September 2001 are not as well known. A major influence on bin Laden and other radical Muslims was Sayyid Qutb (1906–66), a prolific Islamic scholar and author executed in Egypt under the Nasser regime. Qutb proposed that ‘‘any system (of government) in which the final decisions are referred to human beings . . . deifies humans beings by designating others than God as lords over men.’’ Thus the only legitimate form of government was one in which divine law – or rather Islamic or shariah law – directs human affairs. Qutb convinced many younger Muslims that Arab rulers who collaborated with Western ‘‘infidel’’ powers in Europe and North America were a greater adversary than the Western rulers themselves. Qutb understood jihad as an active and aggressive struggle. The early expansion of Islam, he noted, was offensive rather than defensive in character. It was Western scholars of Islam who had promoted the idea of jihad as defensive warfare in order to lull Muslims into defeatism. Similarly, the Iranian Shi’ite cleric and spiritual leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–89), insisted in a talk in 1942 that ‘‘Islam is not a religion of pacifists’’ and that ‘‘whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword!’’ From the 1960s through the 1990s, radical Muslims struggled by legal and extralegal means for the implementation of Islamic law in their respective nations. The 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, after he signed a peace treaty with Israel, emblemized the battle of radical Muslims against their national governments. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic fighters, termed mujahadin, came to this nation from other regions to oppose the atheist Soviet regime. Nonetheless the conflict there was not a global jihad as such. Arab and non-Arab Muslims moved to Afghanistan, were armed, indoctrinated, and radicalized in training camps, and then most returned to their homelands after a period of time. The new thinking on jihad as propounded by the Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden and the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri came in response to the US military intervention in Kuwait in 1991. Rejecting bin Laden’s offer to mobilize his Islamic fighters to reclaim Kuwait from Iraqi forces, the Saudi rulers had turned instead to their American ally. Non-Muslim US soldiers trod upon Arabia’s holy territory containing the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina and, even worse, they did not withdraw after the Gulf War ended. In 1996 Bin Laden published his ‘‘Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.’’ Condemning what he called the ‘‘Zionist-Crusader alliance,’’ bin Laden held that jihad was the duty of individual Muslims everywhere in the world and that it should be directed against all Americans,

all allies of the Americans, and all Muslim ‘‘apostates’’ in league with them. No longer did jihad need to be the official policy of an Islamic nation in warfare with a non-Muslim nation. Instead, it was a global struggle of all individual Muslims against all perceived opponents. To further his aims, bin Laden established the World Islamic Front in 1998 and recruited al-Zawahiri as a strategist and publicist for the terrorist movement that soon became known as al-Qaeda (‘the base’). Yet bin Laden represented only a small part of the international jihad ist movement, which, by and large, had been moving in the opposite direction. As early as the 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was becoming a part of the political mainstream and promoting itself by legal means rather than by acts of terror. In the late 1990s, the defeat of radical Muslims at the hands of moderate Arab rulers led to rethinking among jihad ists. The largest jihad ist organization in the Arab world, al-Jama’a Al-Islamiya, underwent a process of ideological revision known as tashih al-mafaheem (‘‘correction of concepts’’). After the September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda, al-Jama’a Al-Islamiya published a critique of bin Laden under the title Al-Qaeda Strategy: Mistakes and Dangers. Bin Laden, the critics said, had imperiled the cause of jihadists by directly assaulting the USA. This unleashed antiIslamic fervor in the USA and throughout the world. Moreover, the 9/11 attacks were un-Islamic because the hijackers came as guests to the USA and then had turned against their hosts. Because of the extensive publicity surrounding bin Laden, opposition to him among Muslim jihad ists around the world has not been widely reported. One irony in the situation, noted by Fawaz Gerges, is that the strategic shift from the ‘‘near enemy’’ (i.e., moderate Arab regimes) to the ‘‘far enemy’’ (i.e., the USA) was not primarily due to any changes in the US foreign policy but to defeat and dissension among jihad ists themselves. Al-Zawahiri noted that the jihad ists’ failures in Arab nations during the 1990s led him to believe that a focus on the ‘‘far enemy’’ might unify and mobilize the Muslim world on behalf of radical Islam. Time will tell if the US intervention in Iraq will serve the long-term interests of alQaeda in enlisting and radicalizing Muslims throughout the world.’’

Varieties of and Sanctions for Nonviolence Varieties of Nonviolence Almost all religious traditions, both ancient and modern, Western and non-Western, have imperatives against taking human life. The Hebrew Bible teaches that ‘‘you shall not murder’’ (Exodus 20:13), and similar injunctions are found in the New Testament and in the Qur’an which states: ‘‘Slay not the life that God has made sacred’’

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(6:152). In Buddhism, the commandment not to kill is the first of the Five Precepts, while the sacred writings of Jainism state that ‘‘if someone kills living things . . . his sin increases’’ (Sutrakrtanga 1.1) and those of Hinduism say that ‘‘the killing of living beings is not conducive to heaven’’ (Manusmrti 5.48). Notwithstanding these imperatives, the general principle of ‘nonviolence’ is something other than the mere commandment not to take life. The term ‘nonviolence’ is a literal translation of the Sanskrit word ahimsa (literally ‘nonharm’), and it came into English usage only in the twentieth century through its association with Mohandas Gandhi and his approach to resolving conflicts. Mark Juergensmeyer distinguishes three aspects of nonviolence in world religions. The first is an inner state or attitude of nondestructiveness and reverence for life, especially as it exists in Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions, in certain African and Native American tribal societies, and in certain Christian groups such as the Quakers. The second aspect is an ideal of social harmony and peaceful living with others, associated with the Hebrew term shalom and the Arabic word salaam, and often visualized as a perfect state to be achieved at the end of the world. A similar ideal is also found in ancient Greece where the deities Demeter and Apollo were embodiments of peace and harmony. The third aspect is an approach to social conflicts that repudiates violence and calls for a readiness to undergo suffering and even death rather than to inflict injury on others. This last aspect brings together the Jewish conception of martyrdom with the Christian notion of self-sacrificial love and a practical strategy for conducting and concluding conflicts in a nonviolent fashion. Sanctions for Nonviolence During the Vedic period in India (c. 1500–500 BCE), the concept of nonviolence was virtually unknown, inasmuch as the culture was permeated with military values and animals were used for food and sacrifice. Moreover, the Hindu texts from this period present the gods and goddesses as engaged in acts of violence, vengeance, and warfare. Nonviolence is first mentioned as a moral virtue in the Chandogya Upanishad (3.17.4), where the word ahimsa implies self-sacrifice and restraint. Somewhat later, nonviolence becomes a prerequisite for those engaged in yogic practices, and in time it becomes a part of Hindu notions of karma that stipulate that each person reaps in future lives what he or she has sown in the present one. Acts and attitudes destructive to life are thought to be especially harmful to one’s karma. The notion of ahimsa came to occupy a central place in the teachings of the great heterodox teachers of India during the sixth century BCE, namely Mahavira, the founder of the Jains, and Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. In the religions originating in India (viz., Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism), it

is not feasible to separate the issue of human killing from animal killing, since humans and animals (and also gods and demons) are all inextricably linked in a immense cycle of death and rebirth with constant transitions from one of these forms of life to another. Hence our discussion of nonviolence in Asian religions will refer to animal as well as human killing. The Jain ideal of nonviolence was extraordinarily strict, since even an accidental association with killing of any sort was thought to block one’s advance toward karmic purity. Consequently many Jains wear masks over their faces to prevent breathing in and thus destroying tiny insects, and for the same reason they carry small brooms when traveling to brush the ground ahead before they step on it. Needless to say, the Jains are also vegetarians. Within Buddhism the ideal of ahimsa has never been quite so strict as in Jainism, since there is a stress on motives as well as acts, and the guilt of killing applies only to persons who knowingly and intentionally bring about the death of some living thing. Some Buddhists will eat meat so long as they have not themselves been involved in the act of slaughtering. Even defensive warfare – though not war for political expansion – has been justified by some Buddhists on the grounds that such violence has the nature of a response and not an intent to harm. The great Buddhist emperor Ashoka (third century BCE) instituted nonviolence as his official state policy, and yet did so only after he had greatly extended his territory through bloody wars of conquest. In modern Buddhist societies such as Thailand, kingship has a religious as well as political dimension, and this introduces a certain tension between the principle of nonviolence and the demands of secular rule. In such countries as China and Japan, wherein Buddhism is closely intertwined with indigenous religious traditions such as Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto, the stringent Buddhist principles of nonviolence are maintained only by the monks. Moreover, the rulers of East Asia typically justify violence by appealing to non-Buddhist teachings from Confucianism and Shinto. Taoism, however, fits well with Buddhist nonviolence through its own principle of wu-wei (‘non-action’ or ‘non-striving’), which teaches that one must live peacefully and noncoercively by allowing things to follow their natural course. In modern times, it was Mohandas Gandhi who brought the concept of nonviolence into the political sphere. By combining the notion of nonviolence with the general strike, Gandhi was able to make mass movements of nonviolent noncooperation into powerful forces for political change. He used the term satyagraha (‘soul force’) to describe his novel method of conflict resolution, suggesting that the spiritual realm had powers no less effective than those of the material realm. Gandhi applied this word to both his campaign for India’s independence and his way of resolving everyday disputes. While he insisted on nonviolence as a general rule, he made minor exceptions for the violence

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required to stop snipers or rapists as they attacked, and he permitted the killing of pests and wild animals that threatened his rural commune. The Hebrew Bible, as we have already seen, contains militant and militaristic elements, yet presents aspects of nonviolence as well. Some of the psalms exalt the ideal of peace and disparage the practice of warfare (Psalms 20, 33, 120). ‘‘Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war’’ (Psalm 120:6–7). King David, who had waged many wars during his reign, was not allowed to build the Temple in Jerusalem because he had shed blood (1 Chronicles 28:2–3). The building was left to his son Solomon, whose very name is related to the word for peace – shalom. The ideal of shalom, which grows in importance in such later books as Isaiah and Jeremiah, includes not only an absence of warfare but also a more general sense of completeness, wholeness, security, and prosperity. Shalom thus includes many of the aspects of ahimsa, especially the absence of the desire to harm. In later Judaism, the concept of martyrdom is central to a tradition of nonviolent resistance. The term kiddush ha-Shem, or ‘‘sanctifying the (divine) name,’’ suggests that those who revere God must be perseveringly loyal to him, even at the cost of their lives. A rabbinical council of second century CE specified three offenses that a Jew is not to commit even under threat of death: idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder. It is better to die than to deny God through committing one of these acts. In times of political oppression, the ideal of kiddush ha-Shem inspired acts of courage and resistance even at the risk of life. The Spanish Inquisition resulted in the deaths of many Jews as martyrs. In the days of the Third Reich, many Orthodox Jews faced their Nazi opponents with dignity and composure, determined to avoid compromising their practice of Judaism even if this brought them to their deaths. Nonviolence finds its clearest expression in Christianity in pacifist groups that renounce the use of violence under any and all circumstances. Among the Christian pacifists are the early Church (perhaps most Christians prior to the fourth century), the Waldensians (beginning in 1170), St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) and the Franciscans, the Lollards of fifteenth-century England, the Hussites and Taborites in the Czech Republic and their Moravian successors, the Anabaptists of Switzerland and the Netherlands in the sixteenth century (including Menno Simon and the Mennonites), and the Quakers or Society of Friends. In a sad and ironic twist of fate, many Anabaptist and Quaker pacifists of the 1500s and 1600s met their deaths at the hands of fellow Protestant and Catholic Christians. The Quakers’ pacifism owed something to the doctrine of the ‘‘inner Christ,’’ which led them to recognize God’s presence in all whom they encountered. The Quakers became known for their respect for the Native Americans and for their

vigorous opposition to slavery. Beginning in eleventhcentury Europe, the Truce of God (pax Dei) movement was an attempt to control violent behavior by members of the nobility and knightly classes, a kind of limited pacifism. It sought to prohibit bloodshed on the Lord’s Day, or more precisely between Saturday evening and Monday morning. Later, the church seasons of Advent and Lent were also brought within the truce. Many pacifist movements of the twentieth century, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, are closely akin to their predecessors. Others have been influenced by Western humanist and Asian pacifism, most notably the ideas of Gandhi. Gandhi was himself influenced by Christian pacifists such as Leo Tolstoy (1829–1910) and the teaching on nonretaliation against evil in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). In the twentieth-century United States, pacifist ideas played a major role in Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent struggle for racial justice, the protest movements against the Vietnam War, and the campaign for nuclear disarmament. Some recent Christian leaders and thinkers have been ‘nuclear pacifists’ who believe that while some wars might be just, nuclear war – because of its wanton destruction of whole civilian populations – can never be just. While the concept of nonviolence is not as well developed in Islam as in many other religions, the notion of salaam, etymologically related to the Hebrew shalom, offers a vision of a harmonious social order free from violence and conflict. Some Muslim mystics, known as Sufis, reject the traditional notion of jihad and replace it with an ideal of inner struggle, a ‘‘greater jihad,’’ that is the battle of truth with falsehood in the heart and mind of every individual. A few overtly pacifist sects exist in Islam, such as the Maziyariyah and Ahmadiyah movements. When confronted by oppressive regimes, Muslims have sometimes responded with noncooperation and nonretaliation toward evil, meeting their end as martyrs in a fashion much like those in the Jewish and Christian traditions.

Ultimate Nonviolence: The Eschatological Hope One cannot fully understand the religious sanctions for nonviolence without giving due attention to eschatology, or religious teachings regarding the end of the world. A key element in biblical eschatology is the vision of universal peace among the nations as classically expressed by the prophet Isaiah (2:1–4, New Revised Standard Version): In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and

War, Suicide and Sacrifice 407 the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and neither shall they learn war any more.

The nations will be in harmony, the passage seems to imply, only if and when they live under God’s direction. The concluding phrases, inscribed on the facade of the United Nations Building in New York City, sum up an aspiration toward peace that is common to the great religions of the world, but frequently contradicted by the persecutions and holy wars conducted within these very same religions. See also: Peaceful Societies

Further Reading Armstrong, K. (1991). Holy war: The crusades and their impact on today’s world. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday Press. Bainton, R. H. (1960). Christian attitudes toward war and peace. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Bostom, A. G. (ed.) (2005). The legacy of jihad: Islamic holy war and the fate of non-Muslims. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Candland, C. (ed.) (1992). The spirit of violence: An interdisciplinary bibliography of religion and violence. New York: Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Craigie, P. C. (1978). The problem of war in the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Press. Finucane, R. C. (1987). The inquisition. In Eliade, M. (ed.) The encyclopedia of religion. New York: Macmillan. Frend, W. H. C. (1967). Martyrdom and persecution in the early church: A study of a conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus. New York: New York University Press.

Gerges, F. A. (2005). The far enemy: Why the jihad went global. New York: Cambridge University Press. Girard, R. (1977). Violence and the sacred. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hawley, J. S. (ed.) (1994). Sati, the blessing and the curse: The burning of wives in India. New York: Oxford University Press. Johnson, J. T. (1997). The holy war idea in western and Islamic traditions. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Juergensmeyer, M. (1987). Nonviolence. In Eliade, M. (ed.) The encyclopedia of religion, vol. 10, pp. 463–468. New York: Macmillan. Juergensmeyer, M. (1993). The new cold war?: Religious nationalism confronts the secular state. Berkeley: University of California Press. Juergensmeyer, M. (1995). Violence and religion. In Smith, J. Z. (ed.) The HarperCollins encyclopedia of religion. San Francisco: HarperCollins. Kakar, S. (1996). The colors of violence: Cultural identities, religion, and conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kepel, G. (2002). Jihad: The trail of political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lea, H. C. (1963). The inquisition of the middle ages: Its organization and operation. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Lewy, G. (1974). Religion and revolution. New York: Oxford University Press. Mojzes, P. (1994). Yugoslavian inferno: Ethnoreligious warfare in the Balkans. New York: Continuum. Murphy, T. P. (ed.) (1976). The holy war; Fifth conference on medieval and renaissance studies. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Nardin, T. (ed.) (1996). The ethics of war and peace: Religious and secular perspectives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Qutb, S. (1990). Milestones. Indianapolis, IN: American Trust. Schwartz, R. (1997). The curse of Cain: The violent legacy of monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sells, M. (1996). The bridge betrayed: Religion and genocide in Bosnia. Berkeley: University of California. Shea, N. (1997). In the lion’s den: A shocking account of persecution and martyrdom of Christians today and how we should respond. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman. Tambiah, S. J. (1992). Buddhism betrayed? Religion, politics, and violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

War, Suicide and Sacrifice V Hazboun, Guidance and Training Center for the Child and Family, Bethlehem, Palestine ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Background Theory Clinical Research Clinical Experience

Glossary Intifada Palestinian uprising against the occupying forces. Nakbeh The disaster (Arabic). Sacrifice The slaughter of an animal or a person or the surrender of a possession as offering to a deity, made holy by religious association.

Research Stress Management in War Further Reading

Suicide The act of a person intentionally killing him- or herself. War A quarrel between nations conducted by force, a state of open hostility.

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Background It is the hope of the author to present, from a clinical perspective, the experience of war, suicide, and sacrifice. For centuries, people have launched wars with other nations and peoples to pursue ideals, goals, or possessions. Others have fought wars in self-defense and in anticipated concern about their safety. Others have been invaded and occupied and have resisted the occupation through warlike tactics. People have committed suicide, for a purpose or for no purpose, because of an ideal or an illness. People have sacrificed so that others can benefit; this altruism has been a characteristic that elevates humans from the selfish and decadent position that they can become fixated on. In the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict goes back several decades, and it is impossible to address all the issues here. However, a summarized orientation to the problem is necessary to understand the trauma and stress sustained by this population. The following years are significant: . 1948 – The Nakbeh (the disaster, in Arabic) is the word used by the Palestinian population to refer to the partitioning of Palestine and the massive Palestinian refugee exodus and displacement. The Israelis refer to this same period as their independence day. . 1967 – The 7-Day War and the occupation of the rest of Palestine by the Israeli armed forces. . 1989 – The first Intifada, the Palestinian people’s uprising against the occupying forces. . 1994 – After the Oslo talks, the declaration of the Palestinian Authority. . 2000 – The second Intifada, a rekindling of the first Intifada after major disappointments and tragedies that continued in the area despite the Palestinian Authority’s presence. . 2004 – The building of the separation wall, still in progress in 2006.

Theory The psychoanalytic model is a scientific perspective that has been used by the author in her 25 years of clinical experience as a psychiatrist dealing with traumatized patients. The author’s clinical experience has allowed her the opportunity to compare cases from economically impoverished areas such as the ghetto of Los Angeles and the refugee camps in Palestine, along with more economically viable areas such as Hollywood and Jerusalem. War here is considered to be a state of open hostility possibly causing trauma to individuals and the masses alike. The individual or national reaction to such hostility remains a very personal experience, even from a national perspective. Some people are traumatized from such hostility; others are rendered stronger and more resilient, determined, and

creative. Both the aggressors and those experiencing aggression should reflect on this and perhaps learn to refrain from aggressive behavior; aggressors give those experiencing aggression a chance to become noble and most creative, resilient, and determined, and if those experiencing aggression become aggressive in return they lose their values and become the same as the original aggressors. Trauma is an experience that can be caused from within or from the outside. That means that people can experience trauma internally without anyone contributing to this phenomena. This situation of internal conflict is well known to psychiatrists, who are constantly challenged with such circumstances. External traumatizing events and their impact on people’s psychological wellbeing have been very clearly and concisely defined and presented in the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edn.; DSM-IV) and subsequent articles on the subject. The Middle East conflict seems to tie together many important aspects of our civilization: politics and the search for democracy; religion or the lack of it, and its abuse through fanaticism; justice and its continued absence, leading to intolerable injustice; violence and aggression; gender difference; equality and the lack of it; pride and the feeling of superiority and being chosen, leading to prejudice and the dehumanizing of the other; occupation that is viewed as liberation for others; terrorizing others and the feeling of being terrorized at the same time; and war and the yearning for peace. Here I present a psychoanalytic look at the Middle East conflict, hoping that it sheds light on the 50-year conflict and encourages the different parties to engage in deep reflection, seeking the answers in an arena that has not been explored before. I believe that human nature and people’s unconscious processes and defenses are interfering with the capacity of the people involved to seek and realize peace, whereas a scientific understanding of these processes might alter the escalating cycles of violence and convince people to adopt a different approach, one that will lead to a lasting peace. This then could serve as a model for other areas of escalating conflict and confrontation. Let us first examine the basic ideas behind the understanding that led to the conclusions presented here. The work of Sigmund Freud was at the basis of the understanding that was later developed by Melanie Klein that the power of the unconscious and its impact on human existence needs to be addressed. To become conscious of unconscious processes liberates people, who can then either choose to be led by their neurotic thoughts or choose to venture into a life of free choice, risk taking, and responsible action led by thought and reflection rather than by impulse and magical thinking. Freud taught us about the defense mechanisms in the human mind and attitudes, namely the early defenses of splitting and projecting. As evidenced in

War, Suicide and Sacrifice 409

many human relationships, and certainly in politics, the good and the bad reflect this very notion of splitting, seeing the self as good and the other as the enemy on whom all kinds of evil projections can be accommodated. Melanie Klein further developed these thoughts with the idea of projective identification. She suggested that when magical thinking is used to develop a person’s wishful thoughts (in action or in thought) it renders the person responsible for the possible damage that occurs to other people, regardless of the real cause of this damage. The sense of responsibility or guilt may lead to self-punitive behavior or feelings, but it is the feeling of entrapment that can cause more damage, tarnishing the person’s life; that is, the person may feel that, if he or she magically caused irreversible damage in other people’s lives, then this magical fate is the only possible fate.

Clinical Research The work presented here is based on many years of clinical observations. . 1984 – The author observed and analyzed the drawings of 50 children in three refugee camps in Palestine. The drawings were compared to those of children in the same age group in the Los Angeles County Hospital’s children’s inpatient unit. The drawings of the children living in the Palestinian refugee camps were more often about healthy community activities scenes such as picking olives in the fields, weddings, and home scenes; the inpatient children’s drawings in Los Angeles were more morbid, showing bars, blood, and death scenes and issues. . 1991–1994 – As mental health supervisor for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the author gathered clinical evaluations. The reports indicated that, of 1500 new cases seen yearly, 450 children were diagnosed as having pervasive developmental disorder, 350 as having depression, and approximately 250 as having PTSD. . 1992 – During the first Intifada, the author visited the same three refugee camps as in the 1984 study and examined the drawings of 50 children in each camp. These drawings had an extremely different tone; they were overwhelming in their gory depictions of pain, blood, barbed wire, prison and death, violence, and injustice. . 1996 – Mental health workers, social workers, and psychologists randomly administered 360 questionnaires in the West Bank. These questionnaires were translations from English of DSM-IV criteria. The diagnostic criteria for three disorders was analyzed and used: PTSD, depression, and pervasive developmental disorder. The results indicated an alarming 35%, 40%, and 45% incidence, respectively. These results will be reassessed soon to evaluate the impact of the second Intifada and the continued unrelenting trauma that has haunted the area.

Clinical Experience It has been the experience of the author that, although war is traumatizing, it does not necessarily have a paralyzing effect on the population. Aside from the obvious trauma of the loss of people’s lives and property, heritage and development, health and hope, it is the observation of the author after 20 years of living among and serving this population that the reality of becoming refugees, being displaced, losing loved ones, and tolerating a great deal of frustration and humiliation has not turned the masses into desperate people who let their impulses and instincts control them; instead, people who recognize the wisdom of maintaining educational pursuits and developing future generations who will honor their traditions seem to be the norm. The fact that some people resort to the idealization of martyrdom, death, and violent suicide/homicide remains to be understood and investigated. Next I present the results of my clinical experience and research done to try to analyze and understand this phenomena. As part of the initial assessment of the children at the Guidance and Training Center for the Child and Family (GTC) in Bethlehem, the author asks the children to express three wishes. In the mid-1980s, the children expressed many very creative wishes expressing a great many ambitions and objectives in life. In the mid-1990s, 10 years later, the majority of the children did not express any wishes; they remained silent. After some psychotherapeutic intervention, if they expressed any wishes, the wishes all could be summarized as a wish to become a shaheed, a martyr. This inability to express wishes followed by a wish to become a martyr indicates a paralysis of the mind and creativity and a total embracing of a death wish. These children can relinquish these thoughts after a solid psychotherapeutic intervention and a facilitation of their reintegration into the school system. Clinical Vignettes Patient 1

A young woman, a would-be suicide bomber, spoke on local public TV about her previous intentions to blow herself up for what she thought was a nationalistic pursuit and about how, feeling uncomfortable with her plans, she sought psychotherapy. Then, she spoke about her change of heart after her psychotherapeutic experience at our center. However, she reported that she had been unable to convince her brother to come in for treatment and that he ended up as a suicide bomber, killing himself and others. Patient 2

Another patient, a 7-year-old boy, was brought in for treatment because he was sleepwalking at night; this behavior endangered his life, especially because the city

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was under curfew during most of the period when the child exhibited this behavior. It turned out that this child had been arrested and taken for interrogation for throwing stones at the occupying forces. During the arrest, his grandmother tried to stop the soldiers from taking the child; she was pushed and she fell, hurting her head and landing in a pool of blood. The boy thought she was dead as he was taken for his interrogation. But on his release a few hours later, he saw that his grandmother was well and not dead as he had feared. Following this episode, the child started to exhibit a phobia about leaving the home and refused to go to school; he eventually presented with sleepwalking, which led to his being brought in for treatment. During his therapy, when the boy was asked about dreams, he reported having a repetitive dream of someone kidnapping him and putting him in dangerous situations. When the author said that she might know who the kidnapper was, the child was surprised and interested in the answer. The author told him that she thought he was both the kidnapper and the kidnapped because he was the author of the dream and therefore was trying to tell us something about himself – that he kidnapped himself at night while asleep and put himself in dangerous situations. The dream also was residual trauma from the arrest and interrogation that he sustained, but it was interpreted at a deeper level because the child was receptive to this level of interpretation, and he eventually benefited from the interpretation. The sleepwalking stopped, and the child was able to go to school and did not continue to repeat the trauma that he had sustained by having this disturbing dream and exhibiting dangerous behavior that could have cost him his life. The child felt guilty about his grandmother’s injury and felt he had caused it by his behavior, which led to the army’s intrusion into their home. He felt identified with this projection and trauma and wanted to feel in control through this repetitive dream of the kidnapper. He felt guilty and entrapped by the fate that he thought he caused his grandmother to have. Patient 3

Another patient, a breast-feeding mother, told the author, ‘‘This infant I can feed this way, but the others at home, how will I feed them? If someone were to give me a bomb, I would go to the checkpoint and blow myself up. This way, my children at least will be proud of their mother, the martyr.’’ The author took this into consideration as she continued to treat this patient and offered her an incomegenerating opportunity at the clinic doing some embroidery. This woman is now taking care of her family and running an income-generating embroidery project of her own, helping other women sustain their livelihoods and those of their families.

Research A brief study was carried out at the center to assess the impact of the separating wall being built by the Israeli government on the population living in the West Bank, asking people’s views of this new cement barrier separating them from the families that had been living next door to them prior to this construction. The study also assessed people’s views vis-a`-vis the Holocaust. The questionnaire was given to 30 Palestinian professionals; the results are shown in Table 1. Twenty years ago, the results for the last four questions were as listed in Table 2. When the present-day results are compared to the assessments made 20 years ago, it becomes apparent that this construction has decreased the compassion people feel toward the other side and increased their feelings of being oppressed and persecuted. After the construction of the separating wall and the population’s increasing feelings of frustration and desperation, and the claim by the other side that the construction of the separating wall would provide security for the Israelis, the author investigated the opinion of the community about suicide bombers. The idea for this questionnaire came from the observation, first with children and then with adults, that those who came to the Table 1 Assessment of the views of Palestinian professionals vis-a`-vis the Holocaust and the separation wall being built by the Israeli governmenta Question

Yes

No

1. Wall will destroy life in Palestine 2. Wall will help Palestinians get a Palestinian State 3. Wall will eliminate Palestinians by Israel 4. Israelis are doing to Palestinians what Hitler did to them 5. Consider Jews living through a massacre in Germany 6. Feel sad about Holocaust 7. Feel happy about the Holocaust

28 7

2 23

25 23

5 7

28

2

22 1

8 29

N = 30, 20 males and 10 females.

a

Table 2 Assessment of the views of Palestinian professionals (questions 4–7) 20 years agoa Question

Yes

No

4. Israelis are doing to Palestinians what Hitler did to them 5. Consider Jews living through a massacre in Germany 6. Feel sad about Holocaust 7. Feel happy about the Holocaust

20

10

29

1

29 1

1 29

N = 30.

a

War, Suicide and Sacrifice 411

center for psychiatric and psychological treatment expressed wishes or plans to become suicide bombers. After these patients received psychological interventions at the center, which either facilitated their being mainstreamed back into the school system or into the workforce, these thoughts of suicidal/homicidal plans disappeared and were replaced with hope and gratitude toward the people who helped them find hope for the present and future; they relinquished their death wish and embraced a life wish. The questionnaire was given to 91 mental health workers; the results are shown in Table 3. They indicate that a high percentage of the population honor and glorify this sacrifice and do not view it as reflection of emotional difficulties, seeing suicide bombing as the patriotic sacrifice of a hero, done in the name of God, and not as an expression of suicidal thoughts, depression, or psychological injury. The results show that suicide bombers are seen as desiring revenge, being aware of what they are doing, and not feeling guilty about the pain of other people. These ideas are not the same as those expressed by the population that comes for consultations at the guidance and training center, as presented in the earlier material. Further research is planned that may help us further understand the state of mind of the populations in this area. This includes a study comparing trauma in Palestinian and Israeli populations and the capacity to forgive and a study comparing the mental health disorders observed in Palestinians living in West Bank to disorders in Palestinians living in Lebanon.

Stress Management in War Although it is well known that suicide attempts, psychotic episodes, and admissions to psychiatric hospitals increase after a war is over and there is peace, it is the author’s observation that the mental health demands in Palestine are increasing and becoming overwhelming. It is with

this in mind that the interventions discussed here are being provided. The prediction that things will become even worse when there is peace in this area makes the author concerned about meeting these increasing mental health needs, and the author hopes that the prediction is wrong. The mental health services are not sufficient at the present time, and should things continue to deteriorate, the outcome is of concern to many health workers. The use of psychoanalytic interventions and understanding, behavioral and relaxation techniques, special education therapy, individual (talk or play) and group therapy, medications, and other modalities to reduce stress and trauma in the population has become common. A thorough initial evaluation and treatment plan are necessary for each patient who consults a treatment center, and the provision of mental health services is urgent and necessary at this time. That a majority of the population does not pursue psychotherapeutic assistance and yet seems to manage and maintain its existence and sanity implies that human nature is capable of self-healing and reasoning, of developing the necessary wisdom through people’s own thinking and their culture and religion to pursue healthy avenues in their decision making, taming their aggressive impulses and discovering on their own that in this way creativity is allowed to develop and flourish. The few individuals pursuing violent resistance seem to hurt the cause and the people themselves more than help them. This leaves the author concerned about the repercussions of such attitudes; two wrongs never made a right. This is explained by Klein’s projective identification defense, as previously elaborated on. The fact that war has contributed to the confusion of suicide with sacrifice should not cause mental health workers to confuse the issues; they should always try to sort things out in a clear and ethical way, trying to provide patients with inner harmony, helping them think more clearly and wisely through the psychotherapeutic intervention. It is important to also mention that in times of war and political chaos and injustice it is the moral obligation of

Table 3 Assessment of views about marytrdom (%)a Do you think that the people who conduct martyrdom operations:

Yes

No

No answer

1. Desire to commit suicide? 2. Do a patriotic sacrifice? 3. Do a sacrifice in the name of God? 4. Do it due to their difficulties in life? 5. Suffer from depression? 6. Are psychologically hurt? 7. Desire revenge? 8. Are aware of what they are going to do? 9. Feel guilty about the pains of other people? 10. Are heroes?

17.6 84.6 83.5 60.4 49.5 64.8 84.6 45.1 34.1 46.2

76.9 12.1 13.2 35.2 44.0 28.6 9.9 49.5 60.4 49.5

5.5 3.3 3.3 4.4 6.6 6.6 5.5 5.5 5.5 4.4

a

N = 91 mental health workers.

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the mental health workers to maintain a standard of ethical service to the community and to try to attend to the needs of the masses by training others who can provide triage and quality interventions and by using the media (magazines, newspapers, radio, and television) to present mental health issues and prevention-measures training. All these different interventions have proved to be worthwhile efforts during the author’s years of experience in the Middle East. Along with attending to the needs of the masses from a mental health perspective, it is also important to keep in mind that help along the lines of mainstreaming kids back into the school system is essential and that providing income-generating projects for the population may play a role in preventing disasters. Working in a vacuum is not a creative way to intervene, and the involvement of professionals who are eclectic, versatile, creative, and passionate about their work makes the difference between touching people and helping them versus observing, reporting, and being afraid to get involved in the struggle to find and spread inner harmony. See also: Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors; Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of; Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes; War Stress in the Former Yugoslavia; WarRelated Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading Adelson, E. (1975). Sexuality and psychoanalysis. New York: Brunner, Mazel Inc.

Freud, S. (1993). The interpretation of dreams. U.S.A: Basic Books. Goldstein, J., Freud, A., Solnit, A. J., et al. (1986). In the best interest of the child: the least detrimental alternative. New York: The Free Press. Hazboun, V. (2002). Autobiographical chapter. In Armbruster, D. (ed.) Tears in the Holy Land. Wilsonville, OR: Bookpartners. Hazboun, V. (2003). A psychotherapeutic view of violence. In Special issue on two traumatized societies. Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture 10(4) [online]. Hazboun, V. (2003). A psychotherapeutic view of violence and its alternatives. RAHAT Medical Journal 1(5), 17–23. Hazboun, V. (2004). La testimonianza di una psichiatra suelle conseguenze del lungo conflitto Palestinese. Il Regno 49(945). Hazboun, V. (2004). Psychotherapeutic interventions with Palestinian children and their families. Dynamic Psychiatry 204–205, 69–77. Hazboun, V. (2005). Clinical experience in the field of war and PTSD. Trauma e Guerra, Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria 129(1), 115–124. Hazboun, V. (2005). L’intifada e la condizione dell’infanzia in Palestina: Nel Suo Nome, conflitti, riconoscimento, convivenza delle religioni. Il Regno 141–145. Hazboun, V. and Ziskoven, M. (2002). Ein schmerzhafter frieden ist besser als die qualen des krieges. Forum der Kinder-und Jugendpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie 12(2). Hazboun, V. and Ziskoven, M. (2002). Ein schmerzhafter frieden ist besser als die qualen des krieges [A painful peace is better than agonies of war]. Psychosoziale Arbeit in Bethlehem Gesundheitsmagazin. Dr. Med. Mabuse, 136, Maerz. Klein, M. (1984). Love, guilt and reparation. New York: The Free Press. Lewis, M. (1982). Clinical aspects of childhood development. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger. Mason, A. (1983). The suffocating super ego. In Grotstein, J. (ed.) Dare I disturb the universe. Caesura Press. Segal, H. (1978). Introduction to the work of Melanie Klein. Hogarth Press. Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture (1996). A guide to working with young people who are refugees. Victoria, Australia: Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture. Wener, C. (1982). Psychopathology from infancy through adolescence. New York: Random House.

Combating Bioterrorism Dean A Wilkening, Centre for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The Nature of the Threat Strategies for Combating Bioterrorism Diplomacy Deterrence

Glossary Active Defense Interdicting or intercepting an opponent’s weapons when the attack is underway (e.g., weapons in flight) before the weapons detonate on their targets. Biodefense Any passive defense measure intended to protect humans, livestock, or agriculture from intentional attacks using pathogenic microorganisms or toxins. Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention A treaty introduced in 1972 that bans the development,

Preemption Defense Conclusion Further Reading

production, stockpiling, acquisition, and transfer of biological agents of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes. Geneva Protocol A treaty introduced in 1925 after World War I that banned the first use of chemical and bacteriological weapons in war. Medical Prophylaxis Medical treatments, for example, antibiotics, antiviral drugs, and vaccination, that either

Combating Bioterrorism

kill the microorganism in the host or boost the host’s immune system to help combat the disease. Passive Defense Protecting the target of attack from the effects of a weapon after it has detonated.

Concern that a terrorist group might attack civilian populations or agriculture by releasing deadly pathogens has grown in the past decade. Failed attempts by the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo to release botulinum toxin and anthrax in Tokyo on several occasions in the early 1990s, and the 2001 anthrax letter attacks in the United States seem to confirm these fears. However, there were only five fatalities in the US case and none in the Japanese case. The question naturally arises: How serious is this threat and, if it is serious, what strategy should states take to combat it? This article draws on US experience to outline a strategy for combating bioterrorism that is general enough to apply to most states, especially ones with well developed public health and medical infrastructures.

The Nature of the Threat Historically, attacks using biological agents are rare. This is not surprising given the relative ineffectiveness of biological weapons as a military weapon due to the difficulty of infecting opposing forces, the availability of protective clothing (a simple mask will do in most cases), prompt medical treatment for troops, and the risk that the attacker’s troops may also become infected. The centuries-old revulsion to killing people with poison or disease codified in the 1899 Hague Convention, the 1925 Geneva Protocol, and the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) is perhaps the best explanation for why we have not witnessed more deaths due to biological attack. Norms have a powerful, albeit imperfect, influence over human behavior. Finally, with respect to terrorist use, the traditional view has been that ‘‘terrorists want lots of people watching, not lots of people dead.’’ To the extent this is true, terrorists have little incentive to attack civilians indiscriminately because they would loose political support within their community and the attack would likely provoke a draconian response by the state to eliminate the group. The question is whether this trend will continue. There is reason for concern regarding bioterrorism because the knowledge, materials, and equipment to make biological weapons are spreading worldwide; the incentives for states or terrorists to acquire and use such weapons may be increasing; and civilians, as well as agricultural sectors, remain quite vulnerable to such attacks. The knowledge, materials, and equipment to manufacture biological weapons are spreading due to advances

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Preemption Thwarting an opponent’s ability to strike first by destroying his weapons before they can be launched when the threat of their use is imminent.

in biomedical technology, the dual-use character of this technology, the global nature of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, and the pervasive access to knowledge through rapid global information sharing. Unlike nuclear weapons, where 5–15 kg of fissile material is required to build a rudimentary fission bomb, no such barrier exists for biological weapons. In fact, biological weapon proliferation is governed more by the spread of knowledge than the spread of material and equipment. Traditional biological agents can be found in the environment or in numerous unprotected strain collections around the world and large batches of bacteria or virus can be grown in simple fermenters. Former state biological programs represent another potential source of materials, equipment and, especially, knowledge. The remnants of the former Soviet biological weapon program, estimated by some accounts to have once employed over 50 000 scientists and technicians, represents an avenue by which states or terrorists might acquire biological weapons without the painstaking research and development required to create them ab initio. President Yeltsin declared in 1992 that the former Soviet biological weapon program had been dismantled and that Biopreparat, the civilian biomedical research organization that conducted much of the biological weapons research, would be converted solely to peaceful pursuits. Due to a lack of transparency, concerns remain that a covert biological weapons program may still exist in Russia. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria are also believed by the US government to have biological weapon programs, at various levels of development, and South Africa and Iraq formerly had programs from which materials or expertise could leak. In addition, numerous countries have biological weapon defense programs, which produce small quantities of pathogens for peaceful purposes (e.g., testing prophylaxis efficacy), which is allowed under the BTWC, from which knowledge or materials could also leak. Biological weapons of varying degrees of sophistication clearly are within a state’s means to acquire covertly. The dual-use nature of the equipment and supplies make biological weapon programs easy to hide under the guise of legitimate biomedical activities. Only small quantities of pathogens are required for seed stocks, and biological agents emit no detectable signal, making them virtually impossible to detect remotely. The fact that biological weapon facilities can be small and have no distinct physical features makes their identification difficult even with intrusive on-site inspections, as the UN Special

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Commission charged with locating and destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction discovered after the 1991 Iraq War. It took the Commission 4 years to locate most of Iraq’s biological weapon facilities and then only after Kamel Hussein divulged the scope of the secret Iraqi program after defecting to Jordan in 1995. Finally, legitimate peaceful activities such as vaccine and biopesticide production can be converted to biological weapon production within weeks to months. It is less clear whether terrorists can acquire effective biological weapons without state support. Terrorists operating rudimentary laboratories face challenges obtaining lethal pathogen strains, extending pathogen shelf life and, in particular, mastering the ‘weaponization’ hurdles – agent drying, stabilization, and aerosolization (i.e., creating a respirable aerosol of viable agent less than 5 mm in diameter so it does not settle out of the atmosphere close to the release point and so it can penetrate the alveolar region of the lungs where pathogens are most infectious). Wet pathogen slurries are relatively easy to produce but difficult to disseminate in a 5-mm aerosol. Dry powders can be ground to less than 5 mm prior to dispersal (although clumping and electrostatic charge can be a problem), but dry agent is more difficult to produce and handle in a safe manner. Thus, each path has its hurdles. Most terrorists lack the practical knowledge required to circumvent these hurdles, even if they have trained microbiologists in their ranks, unless they receive outside help. (Aum Shinrikyo failed to kill anyone with anthrax because they used a nonlethal vaccine (Stern) strain in 1993 and attempts to aerosolize the spores failed. This led the cult to carry out its more infamous Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.) Of course, terrorists may not strive for highly efficient weapons. Causing panic, if not terror, is possible even with a rudimentary biological weapon. Not only are the means for acquiring biological weapons spreading but the incentives to acquire, and possibly use, them are increasing as well. The United States emerged from the Cold War as the world’s unrivaled conventional military power, while the collapse of the former Soviet Union left its allies to fend for themselves. Consequently, opponents of the United States must search for ‘asymmetric’ means – including, possibly, biological weapons – to counter US military might. The suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan are a current example of this approach. Terrorists’ incentives to use such weapons may be changing as well. The 11 September 2001 attack in the United States and subsequent indiscriminant attacks in Bali, Madrid, Beslan, and London suggest that terrorists may wish to inflict mass casualties. Biological attacks can also devastate sectors of the US or world economy – an attractive goal to some terrorists. Still, some constraints may exist. For example, terrorists may be reluctant to use contagious agents because the subsequent contagion might spread to their home country or

social group, which may have less access to public health. They may also eschew biological attacks because the operation is more likely to fail, preferring conventional explosives instead. To divinely inspired perpetrators, failure can be a deterrent because it suggests that God does not support their actions. The vulnerability of civilian populations and agriculture may encourage bioterrorism. While modern military forces are relatively invulnerable to biological attack, civilians are quite vulnerable because they do not have protective clothing, would not know when to put it on if they had it, and they do not routinely receive prophylaxis against common biological warfare agents. The agricultural sector in most countries is also vulnerable because farms, animal pens, animal feed, and even finished agricultural products (e.g., milk) typically are not very secure against malevolent actors. The sudden appearance of diseases such as foot and mouth disease, bovine spongiform encephalitis, wheat rust, or similar plant or animal diseases can shut down an agricultural sector very quickly, preventing exports if not domestic consumption, as demonstrated by natural outbreaks of these diseases in the past. The bioterrorism threat is complex and diverse. Biological weapons may be toxins or living pathogens. They may target humans, livestock, or crops and, hence, be aimed at mass murder or economic impact. Pathogens may be lethal or nonlethal, contagious or noncontagious, and they may infect the host via contact with openings in the skin, animal or insect vectors, ingestion of contaminated food or water, or inhalation, giving rise to a wide range of delivery mechanisms and attack outcomes that vary by many orders of magnitude in terms of their consequences. The current threat largely involves naturally occurring pathogens and toxins. In many ways, biological attacks are similar to the scourge of disease that has wrought havoc on human, animal, and plant populations for millennia, the main difference being that the consequences are greatly compressed in time if not scope. In the future, genetically altered or synthetic pathogens may be possible because the science of genetic manipulation and DNA synthesis is evolving rapidly. This diversity of threats makes it difficult to comprehend bioterrorism as a singular phenomenon requiring a singular strategy.

Strategies for Combating Bioterrorism The complexity of the bioterrorism threat suggests a multifaceted approach. To simplify the remaining discussion, this article focuses on the elements of a strategy for combating bioterrorism aimed at humans, especially airborne releases because they have the potential for creating the greatest number of casualties. The strategy for protecting the agricultural sector will have similar elements but requires a separate analysis.

Combating Bioterrorism

The strategy for coping with any proliferation problem involves four complementary elements: diplomacy, deterrence, preemption, and defense. Diplomatic initiatives may help prevent the spread of proscribed weapons, thereby eliminating the problem at its source. If weapons proliferate, deterrence may dissuade their use. If deterrence is about to fail, preemptive attacks may destroy the weapons before they can launch and, if preemption is not a viable option, ‘active’ defenses may interdict weapons before they arrive and ‘passive’ defenses may protect people from their effects after detonation. This framework applies to any proliferation problem – nuclear, biological, chemical, or ballistic missile. All four elements are important, with different emphasis depending on the nature of the proscribed weapon. For example, the Cold War nuclear threat was principally addressed by deterrence, complemented by diplomatic (i.e., arms control) efforts to circumscribe the threat and limited efforts at preemption and defense. For biological weapons, the main emphasis should be on defense, complemented by diplomatic efforts, preemption, and deterrence.

Diplomacy Diplomatic efforts to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons include the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which bans the first use of biological (and chemical) weapons; the 1972 BTWC, which bans the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition, and transfer of biological agents ‘‘of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes’’ and their means of delivery; the Australia Group, which coordinates the export control policies relating to chemical and biological weapons materials and equipment among the 40 or so member states; and UN Security Council Resolution 1540, which calls upon states to ‘‘refrain from providing any form of support to non-State actors that attempt to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer, or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery,’’ to adopt and enforce domestic legislation to prevent non-State actors from engaging in these activities, and to establish domestic controls to prevent such proliferation. The fundamental problem with monitoring biological weapon proliferation is that biological agents, material and equipment are quintessential dual use items, making it difficult to separate benevolent from malevolent applications, and covert biological weapon facilities have few unique signatures that would allow for identification without intrusive inspections. Even with intrusive inspections, it can be difficult to identify covert facilities. For this reason, the BTWC did not include any monitoring or verification provisions, common to most arms control treaties, because member states could not agree on

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inspection provisions. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that the BTWC allows states to acquire small quantities of pathogens for prophylactic and other peaceful purposes. The difference between a small pathogen sample used to test antibiotics or vaccines and one used as seed stock in a biological weapon production facility is solely one of intent. Attempts during the 1990s to strengthen the BTWC with an inspection protocol ended in 2001 when the Bush Administration withdrew its support; arguing, with some justification, that covert biological weapon programs could easily be hidden even if this protocol entered into force; that legitimate facilities could be converted to produce biological weapons in a short period of time (weeks to months); and that any inspection regime that was intrusive enough to detect covert programs could compromise proprietary information crucial to commercial companies. Similarly, the Australia Group faces an enormous challenge distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate end uses for exported biological material and equipment. At best, export controls may impede large-scale acquisition or activities, but it probably cannot thwart small-scale operations. Future diplomatic efforts should extend beyond traditional arms control treaties and export control regimes. For example, the US–Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which has focused principally on securing nuclear weapons, materials, and scientists in the former Soviet Union, should be expanded to cover a wider range of former Soviet biological weapon facilities and activities. Material protection, accounting, and control would help prevent the spread of pathogens, equipment, and materials; and funding to employ key former Soviet personnel on peaceful biomedical research would discourage them from selling their expertise to foreign bidders. The latter is particularly important because biological weapon acquisition is largely an issue of acquiring the tacit knowledge, as opposed to the equipment and materials, to build such weapons. An international code of conduct for biomedical researchers could help reinforce the norm against biological weapons development. The promulgation of international standards and shared best practices for safety and security at pathogen collections or biocontainment facilities that work with deadly pathogens, for example, could reduce the risks associated with accidents or diversion and would help promote interaction among biomedical practitioners engaged in potentially dangerous research. International association and collaboration among biologists, medical professionals, and public health practitioners would help address emerging infectious diseases and the transparency produced through such collaborations would have, as a collateral benefit, the potential to detect covert activities. The Soviet biological weapons program would have been more difficult to conceal had there been international collaboration with Soviet biologists, medical and public health

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practitioners during the Cold War. Detecting covert biological weapon activities increasingly will be a matter of detecting the people involved, not the weapons. Improving international disease surveillance, specifically improving public health laboratories in less-developed countries and their connectivity to the international health community, is a worthy objective that also has security benefits. If an attack with a contagious agent occurs in a foreign country, the sooner this is detected, the better governments will be able to limit its entry into their state by monitoring borders and ports of entry, and restricting travel. Improved international disease surveillance might also detect the presence of covert biological weapon programs in the event of an accident that infects the local population. The 1979 accidental anthrax release in Sverdlovsk, Russia would have been readily detected if such a surveillance system were in place at that time. Of course, hiding covert programs, as well as avoiding political embarrassment from natural disease outbreaks, is precisely why some states will resist disease surveillance that is not under their control. Still, efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to implement the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network are well placed and the recently revised WHO International Health Regulations, which require reporting of any disease of international public health concern within 24 hours, when fully implemented, will have public health and security benefits for all nations. These efforts need sustained diplomatic and financial backing. Ultimately governments must recognize that the spread of disease does not respect international boundaries. Hence, public health is not solely a sovereign issue, especially in an age of rapid international travel and commodity transport. However, diplomacy alone ultimately cannot prevent the spread of biological weapons. Revelations about the size and scope of the covert Soviet biological weapons program during the Cold War, much of which existed under the guise of legitimate biomedical research, demonstrates the limited utility of diplomatic means. Diplomacy’s greatest benefit may be to reinforce the widely held norm against the use of disease as a weapon of war or terror. Reinforcing this norm is important not because one hopes to convince malevolent actors to abide by the norms to which the status quo powers adhere, but rather for deterrence; it convinces malevolent actors of the sincerity with which the United States and other like-minded states abhor biological weapons and, hence, the resolve with which they will respond if attacked.

Deterrence Despite the best diplomatic efforts, biological weapons may still spread. The question then becomes whether

states can dissuade other states or terrorists from using them. The efficacy of deterrence against ‘rogue’ states or terrorists has been questioned because their leaders are believed to be irrational and, hence, cannot be dissuaded by retaliatory threats. This argument distorts the character of regional leaders. Authoritarian leaders may be ruthless, unsavory characters with little regard for their civilian population; however, generally, they are not suicidal. Similarly, terrorist groups often have clear strategic and tactical goals, with an infrastructure that supports their operations logistically and financially. While those who carry out acts of terror may be suicidal, the top- and mid-level leadership frequently is not. Therefore, in principle, one may be able to identify targets against which retribution will dissuade some terrorist groups from acting. In practice, this often is more difficult, especially if one wants to avoid civilian casualties. Effective deterrence depends upon the ability to identify the perpetrator of an attack. Therefore, attribution, especially against terrorists or state-sponsored terrorists, is crucial for effective deterrence. By holding states responsible for terrorists who acquire material from them, states will have greater incentive to secure any biological agents they might possess and they will be more reluctant to provide them to terrorist groups with whom they sympathize. Unauthorized acquisition is a problem and will be the obvious cover for any state that contributes to a terrorist’s biological weapon capability, UN Security Council Resolution 1540 notwithstanding. Deterrence relies upon clearly communicated, credible retaliatory threats whose consequences outweigh any benefits the attacker might hope to gain. Credibility, in turn, depends on a state’s capability and resolve to retaliate. Public commitment to the Geneva Protocol, the BWTC, and UN resolution 1540 helps convey resolve, in conjunction with statements by top government officials. However, states often lack the capability to respond, in part, because they lack biological weapons themselves with which to make tit for tat retaliatory threats. Nuclear threats, for those states that can make them, are less credible because they require nuclear first use – a difficult political/strategic decision under any circumstances. The United States may be alone in having sufficient conventional military power with which to threaten retaliation, for example, to topple the regime that aided or carried out the attack. Although nuclear response options cannot be ruled out, the United States clearly should emphasize conventional military capabilities to deter biological attack. Such threats may help deter biological attacks by states, but they are bound to be less effective than deterrence of nuclear attacks during the Cold War. Deterring terrorists may have common elements with deterring states, assuming one can locate enough of the top leadership and infrastructure that supports their operations. However, terrorists have less to lose so the cost-benefit

Combating Bioterrorism

calculus is more difficult to shift in the deterring state’s favor. Perhaps the best way to dissuade terrorists from attacking is to deny the success of the attack. Terrorists often are risk averse when it comes to the success of their mission, preferring tactics, techniques, and targets that assure success. Dissuading an opponent by convincing him that his chances for success are slim is referred to as ‘deterrence by denial’. However, this terminology confounds deterrence with defense. True, defenses may divert an attack to less well defended targets or dissuade a terrorist group from attacking altogether because of the reduced chance of success. However, the objective of a defense is not to influence terrorist calculations, but to protect the defender regardless of their calculations.

Preemption Preemptive attacks, that is, thwarting an opponent’s ability to strike first when the threat is imminent by destroying his weapons before they can be launched, is frequently practiced in conventional war and was considered by both the United States and the former Soviet Union with respect to nuclear war. Preemption will play less of a role against biological attacks because it is impractical – biological facilities and weapons are easy to conceal and, even if located, they are not easy to destroy without the risk of collateral damage, whether this is from the radioactive fallout from a nuclear blast or the dispersal of pathogens due to their incomplete destruction in a conventional strike. Against terrorist attacks, preemption certainly will be attempted if a state knows where biological weapons are located but, again, this is unlikely unless intelligence or law enforcement agencies get lucky. Efforts to improve intelligence on suspect groups or individuals are useful; however, there are no technical fixes in the offing that will allow intelligence agencies to improve their ability to detect covert biological weapon programs in the future. Better human intelligence is imperative. Therefore, while states should be alert to the opportunity to preempt state or terrorist attacks, it is impractical to rely upon preemption for coping with biological attacks because of the demands it places on accurate, timely intelligence.

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complicating surveillance efforts. Again, there are no clear fixes that will allow intelligence agencies to improve their ability to determine who, when, where, and how a biological attack might occur. Therefore, interdiction programs like the Proliferation Security Initiative – a US effort to create international agreements and partnerships with other countries to allow the United States and its allies to board airplanes or ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction or their components – may have some deterrent role but without accurate and timely intelligence, it will likely be of limited effectiveness against biological threats, unlike chemical, nuclear, or ballistic missile threats where the cargo is easier to detect. Examples of efforts to improve border and transportation security in the United States either focus on identifying potential terrorists (e.g., the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program) or dangerous cargo (e.g., advance electronic cargo manifests, the Container Security Initiative, and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program). Screening travelers at ports of entry is useful because it potentially detects malevolent actors, not their weapons. Screening cargo is much less useful for biological threats because, again, biological agents emit no detectable signature. Not surprisingly, most cargo screening efforts focus on detecting nuclear or radiological materials. Traditional forms of defense such as air and ballistic missile defense will be of limited use against bioterrorism attacks. Air defenses can be effective provided air defense networks are alerted to the attack, but covert air delivery using a commercial or private airplane will be very difficult to detect without prior intelligence. Ballistic missile defenses are of limited use because terrorists are unlikely to have ballistic missiles at their disposal, except possibly very short-range missiles or rockets. Against the latter, defenses such as Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors or the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) may have some utility, assuming they can prove their effectiveness on the test range. Against biological weapon attacks by a state, ballistic missile defenses also will be of limited value because biological submunitions released early in flight, a technology the United States and the former Soviet Union mastered in the 1950s, can easily overwhelm missile defenses.

Defense Active Defense/Interdiction

Passive Defense

‘Active’ defenses interdict weapons before they reach their targets. Interdiction frequently is cited as a preferred strategy against terrorists. However, interdiction is difficult against covert biological delivery because pathogens have no signature that allows one to detect them in transit on a person, in luggage, or in any other container. Moreover, biological agents can be released in a myriad of ways,

‘Passive’ defenses protect a population from the effects of weapons after they detonate. Against biological weapons, passive defenses can be quite effective. Physical protection

Inhalation is the most infectious method of exposure for biological agents. Therefore, a simple mask can provide

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considerable protection if one knows when to don it. Standard, inexpensive N95 or N99 masks filter out 95% or 99%, respectively, of the submicron particles from inhaled air, thereby substantially reducing the inhaled dose. Their use, for example, would substantially reduce the scale of an epidemic if donned immediately after a contagious disease outbreak is detected, thus increasing the effectiveness of any medical response because it could focus on a smaller infected population. In principle, homes could be outfitted with HighEfficiency Particle (HEPA) filters, although this would require substantial modifications to most home heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and would require positive overpressure systems to prevent infiltration through cracks. However, hermetically sealed office buildings frequently have HEPA filters and positive overpressure HVAC systems, making it easier to ‘harden’ such buildings if they are likely targets of attack or if they perform critical functions in the midst of an emergency. Despite the simplicity and relatively low cost associated with most physical protection schemes, they all suffer from the fact that, to be effective, protection must either be in place at all times (e.g., hermetically sealed office buildings) or individuals must know when to seek shelter or don masks. The latter relies upon adequate warning and the ready availability of shelters and masks, both of which currently are not available in most countries. During the 1991 Iraq War, most Israeli citizens carried gas masks which they donned each time their ballistic missile surveillance system warned of an incoming Iraqi Scud missile attack. However, most countries do not have such plans or provisions and, in any case, at best they work only in war and not against covert bioterror attacks in peacetime. Preattack vaccination

Preattack vaccination conceptually is the simplest approach to preventing disease from a biological attack. This is the approach taken for most infectious diseases of public health concern. For example, almost all children in the United States are vaccinated against Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Pertusses, and Varicella; and large segments of the population who may be at risk are vaccinated against pneumococcal infection, Hepatitus A, Hepatitus B, Tetanus, and Influenza. The reason this approach has not been widely adopted as a defense against bioterrorism is twofold. First, unlike Mother Nature, terrorists are strategic opponents. When it becomes known that a population has been vaccinated against specific pathogens, terrorists will choose an alternate pathogen or, if sufficiently sophisticated, they may design the pathogen to circumvent the vaccine. Second, some vaccines have serious medical side effects in a very small percentage of cases. Vaccinating the

entire population prior to an attack could produce several hundred severe reactions, possibly including death, and hence is an option of which political leaders will be chary unless the threat of attack is imminent, which as noted above will be difficult to determine. Postattack medical prophylaxis, on the other hand, does not suffer from this political liability and, hence, is the preferred strategy, assuming it can be effective. If, however, postattack medical intervention is not effective against some pathogen or if the threat of attack from a particular pathogen is a clear and present danger, then a case can be made for preattack vaccination against this particular agent, assuming the vaccine exists. Otherwise, preattack vaccination is contraindicated until safer vaccines become available. Postattack medical response

All biological agents, with the exception of toxins, incubate in their hosts for a period of days to weeks, depending on the pathogen and the dose to which the individual is exposed. Moreover, medical intervention – antibiotics and vaccines in the case of bacterial agents, and antiviral drugs and vaccines in the case of viral agents – can be very effective if administered prior to the development of symptoms in the host, or shortly thereafter under some circumstances. Therefore, a window exists inside of which medical intervention can be very effective at saving lives. This is the basis for the most important element of a biodefense strategy, namely, rapid postattack medical response. Postattack medical response involves three elements: biological agent detection and identification, medical logistics to deliver supplies to the exposed population, and a prophylaxis campaign that can dispense the appropriate medications to the entire exposed population in a short period of time, including to a potentially large number of people who believe they have been exposed but are not. All three steps must occur before too many people become symptomatic if this strategy is to provide a high degree of protection. The incubation period for a given disease sets the timescale on which these activities must occur. The medical efficacy of postattack antibiotic treatment against inhalation anthrax, for example, is illustrated in Figure 1, which plots the percentage of hypothetical victims that can be saved as a function of the time at which medical intervention begins. The airborne anthrax release upon which this calculation is based is one for which the exposed population is approximately 300 000 people, 8000 of which would become infected in the absence of medical treatment. The medical intervention posited here consists of antibiotic distribution to 95% of the exposed population over a period of 48 hours (possibly followed by vaccination), that antibiotic treatment prior to the onset of symptoms is 98% effective, and that postsymptomatic antibiotic treatment is approximately 50% effective if delivered within 4 days of symptom onset, assuming intensive medical care is available of

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100

Percent saved

80

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Day after release that prophylaxis campaign begins Figure 1 Efficacy of medical response as a function of the time it begins.

the sort provided to the victims of the fall 2001 US anthrax letter attacks (i.e., multidrug regimens and pleural fluid drainage). (Different curves are required for different attack sizes and different diseases, and, in the case of contagious diseases, one must account for secondary transmission.) From Figure 1, one observes that over 90% of this exposed population can be saved if treatment begins within 3 days after exposure. The maximum medical efficacy asymptotes at 93% due to assumptions embedded in the model. Clearly, the sooner one can provide prophylaxis to the exposed population, the better. As the detection and identification time is reduced, more time is available to implement the medical response. And, some functions can overlap in time; for example, the logistics associated with activating the Strategic National Stockpile (warehouses in the United States that currently store medical supplies for a massive infectious outbreak) and setting up and staffing the points of distribution (PODs) where people will eventually queue up to receive treatment can occur simultaneously and immediately after an attack is detected but before the agent has been identified. This figure should be interpreted with care because it is based on optimistic assumptions, given current US preparedness, regarding the detection time, the speed with which medical logistics can deliver antibiotics to the PODs within the affected area, the speed with which queues can be processed at these PODs, and the effectiveness of the prophylaxis regime (e.g., certain medications may be contraindicated for some subpopulations such as children, pregnant women, and immuno-compromised individuals and other victims may not comply with the entire prophylaxis regimen). But, Figure 1 does represent the level of protection that, in principle, can be achieved. Moreover, a 90% effective medical response against an attack that hypothetically infects 8000 people, still leaves 800 people infected, which in the case of inhalation anthrax implies close to 800 deaths, a horrific outcome compared to any

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bioterrorism witnessed to date. This will likely be viewed as an unacceptable outcome. Thus, the tendency will be to strive for medical effectiveness well above 90%. To achieve levels of protection above 90%, it will be very important to implement policies that reduce the percentage of people who do not receive prophylaxis (assumed to be 5% of the exposed population in Figure 1) or that do not adhere to the full antibiotic regimen over time – both of which are important social, as opposed to technical, challenges for a prophylaxis campaign. Finally, it is important to note that this strategy overlaps with efforts to improve public health. Consequently, some of the cost for biodefense will have benefits even if an attack never occurs. Given the low, albeit uncertain, likelihood of a biological attack, emphasizing those biodefense programs and activities that have substantial public health benefits is a prudent way to proceed, although some important biodefense programs will not meet this criterion (e.g., developing an improved smallpox vaccine). Moreover, given that infectious diseases are the leading cause of death in many developing countries, a strategy for coping with bioterrorism that does not address the legitimate public health concerns of the developing world will gain little sympathy, support, or cooperation. Contrariwise, the developed world stands to gain tremendous good will if it helps the governments of developing countries solve their public health problems – a commodity not irrelevant in the global struggle against terrorism. Attack detection and identification

Two issues are important with respect to detecting a bioterrorism event: low false alarm rate and speed. False alarms quickly erode confidence in any detection system, not to mention their economic costs, and consequently should be very infrequent (e.g., on the order of one per decade for a given facility or urban area being monitored). The false positive rate depends on the detection technology, the detection threshold (lower thresholds give more false positives), and background biological aerosol levels in the environment that cannot readily be discriminated from the agents one wishes to detect. As a rule, using two or more different detection technologies, with uncorrelated noise and background signals, reduces the false alarm rate considerably. These detection methods can be sequenced in time to reduce cost, with the first detector cueing the second; however, this increases the detection time. Rapid agent detection and identification is important because medical treatment is most effective if delivered prior to a victim becoming symptomatic. Prophylaxis efficacy drops rapidly after symptoms appear and intensive supportive care is required to ward off death, making medical intervention more burdensome and costly and, hence, less likely to reach as many people. Real-time detection is not required, unless physical protection – donning masks or entering protected buildings – is part

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of the defensive strategy. Detection within 24 hours is a reasonable goal for rapidly incubating diseases such as anthrax, thus leaving 1–2 days to conduct an effective medical response. For diseases that incubate more slowly (e.g., smallpox) or for contagious diseases where preventing secondary infections is an important part of preventing a widespread epidemic, slower detection speeds are acceptable. Finally, detailed DNA analysis and trace element detection is important for forensic evidence; however, this can be collected and analyzed within days or weeks after an attack. The US government has funded the development of a wide range of biological agent detectors. They fall into two categories: environmental sampling and detecting the host response to infection. Environmental sampling involves collecting air, water, food, or swab samples and analyzing them for the presence of pathogens using antibody tests, or matching DNA sequences to known pathogens. Environmental sampling has the virtue that it can, in principle, be rapid (on the order of a fraction of a day, depending on how frequently samples are taken) and it can be used to identify the pathogen, though not necessarily whether the pathogen is virulent. The US BioWatch program, which currently monitors the air in approximately 20 American cities for a range of pathogens, is an example of this approach. If a pathogen plume passes one of the BioWatch air sampling stations in sufficient concentration, it would be detected within approximately 1 day. The disadvantage of environmental sampling is that a large number of sensors, or air collection stations, must be deployed to ensure that small releases are detected with high probability. If intelligence is available, mobile sensors can be deployed to the area of concern. However, without reliable intelligence, the system costs become prohibitive if one wishes to monitor the air for small releases in hundreds of cities all the time. Finally, such a sensor network provides little benefit to public health because it cannot detect contagious diseases of public health concern, for example, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or influenza, because the concentration of these microorganisms in the open environment is well below any detection threshold. Methods to detect the human response to infection currently involve clinical diagnosis and syndromic surveillance, the data from which would be sent over a nationwide alerting network. Clinical diagnosis relies upon symptomatic patients visiting a physician or hospital emergency room. Not all symptomatic victims would seek medical care immediately because the early symptoms of diseases caused by biological agents are frequently similar to those for influenza – fever, nonspecific cough, congestion, etc. Physician aids can improve differential diagnosis of the relatively uncommon diseases caused by biological warfare agents, thus reducing the time for detection and

identification; however, one must still wait for the first few victims to present which may take on the order of 1–2 days. Moreover, laboratory cultures commonly used to confirm the infectious agent take an additional 1–2 days, although antibody tests such as Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISA) can reduce this to a fraction of a day if the test is conducted immediately. Therefore, clinical diagnosis currently cannot warn of an attack within 24 hours. Syndromic surveillance systems monitor clinical reports, pharmacy sales, school absentee rates, and other data to detect an above-normal rate of symptoms in a geographic area. These systems, for example, BioSense in the United States, have detected unusual increases in local infection levels from natural outbreaks. However, they detect events only when the number of symptomatic cases rises above the background level which, by definition, is late for effective medial intervention in the event of a biological attack. Hence, while syndromic surveillance systems may have public health benefits, they cannot provide sufficient warning (i.e., within 24 hours) of a biological attack to implement a highly effective medical response. Veterinary and wild animal disease surveillance may detect disease among animal and bird populations before they become apparent in the human population, as was the case with the West Nile virus natural outbreak between 1999 and 2001 in the United States. However, monitoring animal disease outbreaks benefits public health more than defense against intentional attacks, where exposure of animal and human populations would be simultaneous, because the incubation period in animals and birds frequently is comparable to that in humans, implying that animal disease detection is unlikely to precede the detection of zoonotic diseases in humans. In any case, rapid veterinary and wild animal disease detection, and its integration with human disease surveillance systems, has not occurred in the United States. Future research and development in the area of attack warning should emphasize improving the detection time for the host’s response to infection, as opposed to environmental sampling, because the latter will be expensive and have very limited benefits for public health. Automated laboratory testing, for example, using ELISA techniques or DNA chips, can reduce detection and identification times to a few hours (from the time samples enter the laboratory); however, clinical diagnosis still requires the presentation of symptomatic patients. Presymptomatic diagnostic techniques that detect the early host immune response to infection, for example, mRNA transcription of the genes involved in the host’s immune response which begins within approximately 24 hours of exposure, would be more useful, assuming further research demonstrates that gene expression patterns are reliable fingerprints for the presence of a given pathogen or small class of pathogens. Such techniques could reduce the warning time to approximately 1 day, assuming it is used routinely

Combating Bioterrorism

in hospitals and medical clinics, by detecting asymptomatic victims who visit for other reasons. Presymptomatic diagnostic methods would have tremendous benefits for routine medical diagnosis of common infectious diseases and the resulting economies of scale will reduce their cost. The United States currently can probably detect and correctly identify a bioterrorism event within approximately 4 days of the initial release by clinical diagnosis. Note, however, that it took 7–10 days to diagnose cases from the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, including the time for blood culture confirmation. Diagnosis information would then be conveyed to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) via the Public Health Information Network in a matter of hours from most major urban areas, although this network has not been fully implemented. In the future, the US National Biosurveillance Integration System is being designed to provide warning of disease outbreaks of natural or terrorist origin, integrating food, agriculture, public health (clinical diagnosis and syndromic surveillance), and environmental sampling data. The speed with which this system will be able to detect an outbreak will be constrained by the above-mentioned limits associated with the different detection methodologies. Again, real-time detection is not required. Twenty-four hour warning should be sufficient to mount an effective medical response. Since medical prophylaxis should begin within approximately 48 hours of an atmospheric release (in the case of anthrax), a 24-hour detection capability would leave at least one day to implement medical logistics and to begin providing prophylaxis to a large number of exposed and worried citizens.

Medical logistics and the prophylaxis campaign

Providing prophylaxis to a large number of people requires the delivery of large quantities of medical supplies to the exposed population. The suggestion that people keep supplies of the necessary medications at home, thus obviating the need for rapid distribution, have been rejected because some people will take the medications inappropriately (e.g., antibiotics when they have the flu), they may take inappropriate doses, a large selection of medications would be needed to protect against all possible biological agents, and self-vaccination would not be possible. Consequently, current US plans call for stockpiling the necessary medical supplies (antibiotics, antiviral drugs, vaccines, syringes, intravenous supplies, ventilators, etc.) in central warehouses referred to collectively as the Strategic National Stockpile, with the intent to rapidly dispense these supplies after an attack has been detected. Palletized ‘push packs’ of medical supplies can be delivered to any local staging area in the United States by aircraft or truck within 12 hours of a decision to deploy them. The greater challenge is to distribute these supplies from the local staging area to the PODs where people queue up to receive medications. These PODs could be

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local schools, fire stations, or shopping malls, but not hospitals. Hospitals should remain free from congestion to handle acute cases of victims who have passed into the symptomatic disease phase. The United States has little hospital surge capacity due to managed healthcare. However, hospital surge capability is important only for those victims who need intensive care. The principle challenge for effective medical response is to provide prophylaxis prior to the appearance of a large number of symptomatic cases. If hospitals become overwhelmed with acute cases, surge capacity is not the answer but rather more rapid and effective presymptomatic prophylaxis. Therefore, POD surge capacity is more important, in particular, augmenting the personnel capable of servicing queues to increase POD throughput. Diagnostic techniques to triage noninfected individuals will greatly reduce the number of people requiring prophylaxis because the number of people concerned about exposure will exceed the actual number of people who become infected by a factor of 10 to 100, if not more. The time it takes to transfer medical supplies from the local staging area to the PODs depends on the time required to repackage supplies into smaller quantities and to transport them to individual PODs, most likely via small trucks. Efforts clearly should be made to minimize the extent to which repackaging is necessary. Helicopter backup may be required if roads are congested with people fleeing an exposed area. Depending on the size of the urban area, several tens to several hundred PODs will be required to minimize the time required to treat the exposed population. Local officials must identify suitable POD locations, transportation, and staff for each POD, and exercise these logistics plans so they go smoothly in an emergency. This is beginning to occur in the United States. The prophylaxis campaign requires medically trained personnel to triage individuals according to their medical status and prescribe the appropriate prophylaxis regimen. Paperwork is required to track individuals and the mediations they receive, and to provide information about the medications and possible side effects. Security personnel will be required to ensure order. If detection occurs within 24 hours, and it takes 12 hours to distribute supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile to local staging areas, 12 hours to distribute supplies from there to the PODs, and 24 hours to set up the PODs (this can occur concurrently with stockpile dispersal), then prophylaxis can begin within 48 hours of a release. If 40 urban PODs can process 500 people each per hour around the clock, then such a rapid medical response can, in principle, provide prophylaxis to approximately 1 million people within 2 days, thereby saving over 90% of a population exposed to anthrax according to Figure 1. Again, these numbers do not reflect current capability but rather the level of protection that is possible with sufficient effort.

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Medical research and development

Effective medical treatment depends on stockpiling the appropriate medications in sufficient quantity. While antibiotics have an efficacy of approximately 98% for healthy individuals, they may be contraindicated for certain subpopulations (e.g., children, pregnant women, and immuno-suppressed individuals). In the United States, the immuno-suppressed population is growing due to cancer treatments, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), organ transplants, and other medical interventions, which is cause for some concern if a highly effective medical response is desired for all significant subpopulations. Vaccination is an effective defense against many infectious diseases. However, vaccines often take 3–4 weeks for primary seroconversion, and may require one or more booster shots thereafter to achieve full protection. Consequently, they are generally less effective for postattack prophylaxis unless antibiotic or antiviral drugs are available to control the disease until vaccination takes effect. Moreover, vaccines do not exist for some biological agents and they do not exist in sufficient quantity for others because they are not routinely stockpiled for diseases that are not current public health concerns. Therefore, research and development should focus on new broad spectrum antibiotics, antiviral drugs, and safe, effective vaccines against known biological agents that can be administered to most segments of the population. Medical research in these areas will also have important benefits for public health as new treatments are discovered for emerging infectious diseases. Concern with antibiotic or antiviral resistant pathogens is best addressed by limiting the overuse of these drugs and by having multiple medications on hand that are effective against a given pathogen strain, again highlighting the importance of medical research and development. Finally, genetically engineered pathogens that have enhanced effects, circumvent detection systems, or circumvent medical countermeasures may become more widespread in the future. However, increasing the virulence of pathogens through genetic manipulation is not trivial, notwithstanding the Australian mousepox experiment. Nor would terrorists need to go to this trouble since natural pathogens are terrifying enough. At the current time, bioterrorism countermeasures should focus on naturally occurring pathogens. However, biotechnology is in its infancy and powerful discoveries lie ahead. Hence, any defensive policy must strike a balance between developing countermeasures to current versus possible future pathogens. Research on new prophylactic drugs and vaccines should be carried out largely by private biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies because they have the resources and the expertise to create new drugs, with government sponsored financial incentives to encourage them to develop countermeasures that otherwise would be unprofitable. The US Bioshield Act of 2004 and

follow-on Bioshield II legislation currently under Congressional review illustrate the kinds of incentives that may be effective, for example, tax credits, patent extension, and liability limitations. Debates have also surfaced about the wisdom of censorship in biomedical publications. The world has a lot more to gain from improved public health than it stands to lose from bioterrorism by allowing unfettered access to scientific advances in biology and medicine. Thus, censorship or classification schemes to keep certain information from malevolent actors should be carefully scrutinized, with open access being the norm unless a clear and present danger exists. This is the best hope for having the medical countermeasures available if and when the need arises while at the same time providing benefits to public health. The US government has established the National Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a group of 25 biologists, physicians, and security experts from outside the government, to help maintain the balance between scientific openness and preventing bioterrorism. In addition to developing guidelines for research and publications in the life sciences, they have helped draft a code of conduct for life science professionals and fostered international cooperation to help define these issues. Decontamination

Decontamination is required to prevent bioterrorism from becoming a threat to physical infrastructure by rendering buildings unusable for months or years because public officials cannot certify that they are safe for occupancy. An effective decontamination policy must determine safe public exposure levels, which depend on site use and individual susceptibility to infection. Little data exists on environmental background levels for common pathogens. Moreover, the scientific debate regarding the effects of low-level exposure to pathogens may be as contentious as the low-level radiation debate. Therefore, the seemingly simple question of how clean a site must be to ensure public safety will, in fact, be difficult to answer with existing scientific data. Answering this question should be the first priority for decontamination research. Pathogen levels will have to be monitored for months to years after an event, which is both expensive and complicated by the fact that some detection techniques (e.g., DNA sequence matching) do not distinguish living from dead pathogens. In addition, communicating the risks associated with residual contamination to the public in a credible way is vital to allay public anxiety and the economic consequences that flow from these fears. This will be a nontrivial challenge for federal, state, and local authorities working in conjunction with the media. Postattack vaccination of the local population is an important adjunct to any decontamination strategy because vaccinated individuals can live safely with much higher residual contamination. However, not everyone can be vaccinated due

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to health risks and vaccinating all visitors to a contaminated area will be inconvenient. Decontamination strategies differ for outdoor and indoor contamination. Outdoor contamination can be partially removed by washing surfaces with water and, in any case, will decrease with time due to environmental degradation of the agent (e.g., ultraviolet light reduces anthrax spore viability by 10- to 100-fold each day). Locating ‘hot spots’ will be important but costly because all possible outdoor locations where pathogens might collect in quantity must be sampled initially and monitored thereafter. Outdoor chemical decontamination is expensive and, therefore, will be feasible only for areas on the order of a few square kilometers. Indoor contamination is a more serious problem because of the absence of ultraviolet light, thus slowing environmental degradation, and because of the amount of time people spend indoors, thus increasing exposure. Indoor remediation can be very expensive, as demonstrated by the experience with the Hart Senate Office Building and the Brentwood Postal Facility after the 2001 US anthrax letter attacks, the latter of which took 1 year at a cost of approximately $130 million to clean up. Moreover, current decontamination chemicals (e.g., chlorine dioxide, methyl-formaldehyde, para-formaldehyde, methyl-bromide, hydrogen peroxide, and household bleach) are corrosive, carcinogenic, and/or toxic. Safer, more effective decontaminants are an important area for research and development, for example, gaseous germination agents that cause anthrax spores to germinate whereupon the vegetative bacillus becomes much more vulnerable to environmental degradation. Combining advanced decontamination agents with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) vacuuming could reduce the indoor decontamination problem to a manageable level, especially when combined with vaccination of the local population. Ultimately, a mixed decontamination strategy that takes advantage of environmental degradation, washing, chemical decontamination, and vacuuming where appropriate should be able to render public areas usable, but the cost may be quite high depending on the extent to which future decontamination technologies can avoid a repeat of the 2001 US anthrax decontamination experience.

assumptions. The tendency to focus on worst case scenarios, which leads one to the conclusion that biological weapons are the poor man’s nuclear weapon, originate, in part, from exaggerations by those trying to move governments to action, which may have the unintended consequence of convincing some that defense against bioterrorism is too hard and others that pathogens are an ideal weapon of terror. Hence, states must develop a coherent strategy for combating bioterrorism at reasonable cost. Such a strategy involves diplomacy, deterrence, preemption, and defense, with the emphasis on defense. Arms control and export controls may constrain large-scale biological weapon programs. More importantly, they reinforce the norm against the acquisition or use of pathogens in war or as weapons of terror. This helps reinforce deterrence, which may be effective against states but is less likely to be effective against terrorist groups. Attribution will be crucial to deter states from aiding terrorist groups. However, neither diplomacy nor deterrence is sufficient alone, or in combination, to reduce the biological weapon threat to a satisfactory level. In terms of limiting damage from such threats, preemption, attractive as the concept might be, will be impractical because it relies on accurate, timely intelligence. Interdiction of covert biological attacks also will be very difficult because one must detect the malevolent actors since one cannot detect the biological weapons themselves. Consequently, the emphasis should be placed on passive defense, which involves detecting the release of pathogens in a timely manner, rapid postattack medical intervention, and effective decontamination to restore contaminated areas to a usable state. In principle, postattack medical response can protect over 90% of an exposed population if pathogens can be detected within 1 day of their release, medical logistics can deliver appropriate medical supplies to the exposed population within 1 day, and a prophylaxis campaign can be mounted to treat the exposed population, potentially numbering into the millions, within 2 days. While no state currently can claim to have such an effective defense in place, except possibly against small outbreaks, such a defense is possible. Moreover, to the extent biodefense overlaps with efforts to improve public health, the expenditures may be justified because resources are not wasted even if a biological attack never occurs.

Conclusion

See also: Chemical and Biological Warfare; Health Services, Effects of War and Political Violence on; Health Consequences of War and Political Violence

The logic behind the belief that bioterrorism is a serious emerging threat is sound, although reasonable people can disagree about its urgency. Moreover, this threat is multifaceted and complex, owing to the range of pathogens, delivery modes, and targets for attack. Substantial uncertainties exist in predicting the outcome of any hypothetical biological attack, which implies that attack outcomes can look bleak or relatively benign depending on one’s

Further Reading Alibek, K. (1999). Biohazard. New York: Random House. Chyba, C. F. (2006). Biotechnology and the challenge to arms control. Arms Control Today 36(8), 11–17. Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation (2005). Biological weapons threat reduction. Issue Brief March 31.

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Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of Their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare Threats, National Research Council (2006). Globalization, biosecurity and the future of the life sciences. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Committee on Research Standards and Practices to Prevent the Destructive Application of Biotechnology, National Research Council (2004). Biotechnology research in an age of terrorism. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Domaradskij, I. V. (2003). Biowarrior: Inside the Soviet/Russian biological war machine. Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books. Grotto, A. J. and Tucker, J. B. (2006). Biosecurity: A comprehensive action plan. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. Guillemin, J. (2005). Biological weapons: From invention of statesponsored programs to contemporary bioterrorism. New York: Columbia University Press. Hoffman, B. (1994). Responding to terrorism across the technological spectrum. Terrorism and Political Violence 6(3), 366–390. Jackson, R. J., Ramsay, A. J., Christensen, C. C., Beaton, S., Hall, D. F., and Ramshaw, I. A. (2001). Expression of mouse interleukin-4 by a recombinant Ectromelia virus suppresses cytolytic lymphocyte responses and overcomes genetic resistance to mousepox. Journal of Virology 75, 1025–1010. Jenkins, B. M. (1975). Will terrorists go nuclear, P-5541. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Jenkins, B. M. (2006). Unconquerable nation: Knowing our enemy, strengthening ourselves, MG-454-RC. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Jernigan, D. B., Raghunathan, P. L., Bell, B. P., et al. (2002). Investigation of bioterrorism-related anthrax, United States, 2001: Epidemiologic findings. Emerging Infectious Diseases 8(10), 1019–1028. Kahn, L. H. (2006). Confronting zoonoses, linking human and veterinary medicine. Emerging Infectious Diseases 12(4), 556–561. Kaplan, D. E. and Marshall, A. (1996). The cult at the end of the world. New York: Crown Publishers.

May, M. and Haldeman, Z. (2004). Effectiveness of nuclear weapons against buried biological agents. Science and Global Security 12(1–2), 91–114. Rabinowitz, P., Gordon, Z., Chundnov, D., et al. (2006). Animals as sentinels of bioterrorism. Emerging Infectious Diseases 12(4), 647–652. Seghetti, S. L. M., Lake, J. E., and Robinson, W. H. (2005). Border and transportation security: Selected programs and policies. Congressional Research Service, Report RL32840. Washington, DC. Smith, D. D. (2006). Deterring America: Rogue states and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ch. 6. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. US Congress, Government Accountability Office (2005). Federal agencies face challenges in implementing initiatives to improve public health infrastructure, GAO-05-308. Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office. US Department of State (2005). Adherence to and compliance with arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements and commitments. Washington, DC: US Department of State. Watman, K. and Wilkening, D. (1995). US regional deterrence strategies, MR-490-A/AF. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Wein, L. M., Liu, Y., and Leighton, T. J. (2005). HEPA/vaccine plan for indoor anthrax remediation. Emerging Infectious Disease 11(1), 69–76. Whitehair, R. and Brugger, S. (2001). BWC protocol talks in Geneva collapse following US rejection. Arms Control Today 31(7), 26–27. Yuan, L. (2000). Sheltering effects of buildings from biological weapons. Science and Global Security 8, 329–355.

Relevant Websites http://www.biosecurityboard.gov – National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, US National Institute of Health. http://www.bt.cdc.gov – Strategic National Stockpile, Emergency Preparedness and Response.

VII. COMBAT REACTION AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

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Combat Stress Reaction M Dobson, New South Wales Health Department, North Sydney, Australia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Combat Stress Reaction and Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Risk Factors for Combat Stress Reaction

Glossary Combat Stress Reaction (CSR) The acute psychological breakdown experienced by combat soldiers as a result of their exposure to the stress of individual, unit, and battle factors in the war zone. Expectation A treatment principle that states that psychiatric casualties should be treated with the expectation that soldiers will return to their unit. Immediacy A treatment principle that states that psychiatric casualties should be treated as soon as possible after symptom onset. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A chronic pathological reaction following exposure to a traumatic

CSR is an acute psychological breakdown experienced by combatants in a war zone. It is characterized by labile polymorphic manifestations ranging from overwhelming anxiety, irritability, and restlessness to psychological withdrawal, confusion, and psychomotor retardation. Other characteristics include apathy, anxiety, depression, paranoia, conversion symptoms, signs of sympathetic arousal, and psychosomatic reactions such as diarrhea, abdominal pains, nausea, and vomiting. The defining criterion for CSR is that the soldier ceases to function effectively as part of his or her combat unit by acting in a manner that endangers his or her life and/or the lives of his or her fellow soldiers.

Introduction CSR is a significant concern for the military because of its potential impact on the fighting effectiveness of combat units. It has been estimated that the ratio of psychiatric casualties to the number of soldiers killed and the number wounded in action during a battle of average intensity is This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 495–500, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Treatment of Combat Stress Reaction Prevention of Combat Stress Reaction Summary Further Reading

event characterized by the intrusive reexperiencing of the traumatic event, the avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event, a reduced responsiveness to the external world, and a range of autonomic and cognitive symptoms. Proximity A treatment principle that states that psychiatric casualties should be treated on or near the battlefield. Risk Factor A variable that epidemiological evidence suggests is associated with an increased probability of a specific health outcome; the nature of this association is not necessarily causal.

1 : 1 : 4. Belenky reported that the ratio of psychiatric casualties to wounded was 30 : 100 in the 1973 ArabIsraeli War and 23 : 100 in the 1982 Lebanon War. By way of comparison, the ratio of psychiatric to wounded casualties for the American army in World War II was 36 : 100. All these estimates attest to the significant impact of psychiatric casualties on the fighting capacity of a military unit. For a number of reasons, the availability of scientific evidence on CSR is limited. In part, this is due to the difficulty of conducting prospective epidemiological investigations on the acute stress responses of combat soldiers during wartime. It is also a reflection of the elusive nature of CSR. That is, the polymorphic and labile nature of CSR means that clear diagnostic criteria cannot be developed. Another reason is that the introduction of the PTSD diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn.; DSM-III) marshaled an extensive research effort into examining the long-term effects of combat exposure, particularly among U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War. Although the political and social factors driving this research effort were understandable, the voluminous research literature available on PTSD serves only to highlight the absence of empirical data on CSR. The only exception to this is a series of controlled studies on Israeli CSR casualties by Zahava Solomon and

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her colleagues. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of CSR by reviewing the literature on (1) the relationship between CSR and combat-related PTSD, (2) the identification factors for CSR, (3) the effectiveness of frontline treatment for CSR, and (4) the use of prevention programs to reduce CSR symptoms.

Combat Stress Reaction and CombatRelated Posttraumatic Stress Disorder An adequate conceptualization of CSR must define the relationship between this acute reaction and the range of other stress responses that may be experienced by combat soldiers. Combat exposure can elicit a range of stress responses that can be divided into three categories: (1) a transient, nonpathological stress response, (2) CSR, and (3) PTSD. This division recognizes the need to distinguish between a soldier’s adaptive response to combat stress and an acute or chronic reaction. An adaptive response is the manifestation of a transient stress response that is commensurate with the stress of daily life on or near the battlefield. CSR differs from a transient stress response in that it is an acute stress reaction that incapacitates soldiers to the degree that they can no longer function in combat. In some cases, CSR can be transient, with soldiers able to return to military duty after a few days rest from combat. In other cases, it may be the precursor to the development of combat-related PTSD. This form of PTSD is a chronic psychopathological stress reaction that occurs in soldiers after they have been exposed to a combat-related trauma. It should be noted that CSR is not a necessary precursor to the onset of combat-related PTSD. However, it has been suggested that CSR creates a latent vulnerability that can lead to the subsequent development of combat-related PTSD long after the war has ended. CSR and combat-related PTSD are similar in that they share a number of common symptoms such as increased physiological arousal, startle reactions, restlessness, and psychological withdrawal. However, CSR differs from PTSD in that it may not necessarily develop following exposure to a specific combat event. CSR also differs in its symptoms of confusion, nausea, vomiting, and paranoid reactions. The critical pathological difference between these stress responses is that the symptoms associated with combat-related PTSD will endure. In PTSD, the symptom duration is expected to be at least a month, with the trauma being persistently reexperienced throughout the course of the disorder. The relationship between CSR and combat-related PTSD has been extensively investigated in a series of studies examining the postwar adaptation of Israeli combat veterans. Solomon, Weisenberg, Schwarzwald, and Mikulincer assessed the prevalence and severity of

combat-related PTSD in 382 Israeli CSR casualties 1 year after they had received treatment. Control group subjects were selected from those combat veterans who had fought in the same units as the CSR casualties but had not exhibited any symptoms or presented for treatment. Matching with CSR casualties also occurred on the following variables: age, education, military rank, and assignment. The results showed that 59% of the CSR group developed PTSD, compared to 16% in the control group. There was also a significant difference in the number of PTSD symptoms reported. The CSR group patients reported a higher number of PTSD symptoms than their control group counterparts who also had PTSD. These findings suggest that those CSR casualties who develop PTSD experience a more intense form of the disorder than those combat veterans who develop PTSD without a history of CSR. In a subsequent study, Solomon and Mikulincer found that 1, 2, and 3 years after the war, symptoms of combatrelated PTSD were more prevalent among CSR casualties than among their matched controls. Similar trends were observed for social functioning, perceived selfefficacy in battle, and somatic complaints. The only reduction in the symptom levels observed during the study occurred when the intensity of intrusion and avoidance symptoms dropped substantially in the third year. However, the authors noted that this reduction in symptom levels should not be seen as evidence that the CSR veterans were getting better. These findings suggest that CSR casualties are more vulnerable to the subsequent development of combat-related PTSD.

Risk Factors for Combat Stress Reaction The identification of risk factors for CSR is central to an understanding of the etiology of combat-related psychopathology. As discussed earlier, the epidemiological literature on Israeli combat veterans has shown that a higher percentage of CSR casualties subsequently developed PTSD than did controls with no CSR history. This suggests that an understanding of the risk factors for CSR may provide further insight into the factors associated with the development of chronic combat-related stress reactions such as PTSD. The intensity of combat exposure has been identified as a significant risk factor for CSR. Belenky reported the findings from an Israeli Defence Force study that correlated objective measures of combat stress such as battle type and availability of tactical and logistic support with the incidence of physical and psychiatric casualties. This study found that battalions exposed to higher levels of combat stress had both a higher casualty rate and a higher ratio of psychiatric to physical casualties.

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In addition to the intensity of combat exposure, there are a variety of other factors in the combat environment that may affect CSR onset. In a review of the clinical presentation of 158 U.S. army stress casualties during Operation Desert Storm, McDuff and Johnson identified a number of environmental stressors associated with stress reactions. Although this study does not purport to be a systematic investigation of CSR risk factors, it demonstrated that a soldier’s exposure to fatigue, cold, sleep deprivation, poor unit leadership, lowered morale, and threats to personal safety led to the onset or worsening of combat-related stress symptoms. The identification of modifiable risk factors for CSR will play an important role in the development of effective prevention programs for combat soldiers. Despite this, there are few published studies that focus solely on CSR risk factors. A search of the recent research literature identified two controlled studies that investigated the association between a range of variables and CSR onset. Solomon, Noy, and Bar-On examined the association between demographic, military, and personality variables and CSR. One of the strengths of this study is that the researchers were allowed access to official military records in order to collect data on these variables. Age, education, combat suitability, military rank, and type of military service were identified as risk factors for CSR. These risk factors suggest that the onset of CSR can be accounted for by a combination of individual and situational factors. This study found that 80% of the sample of psychiatric casualties were reservists. The psychiatric casualty rate for reservists was in marked contrast to the rate for career soldiers, which was the lowest of any of the groups studied. It appeared that a soldier’s reservist status was a marker for a number of interrelated risk factors, all of which increased vulnerability to combat stress. Because the reservists were the oldest group of soldiers studied, the authors suggested that their age may have reduced their capacity to deal with the physical aspects of frontline service. Furthermore, reservists were more likely to have been exposed to combat in previous wars, which in turn may have reduced their capacity to cope with any subsequent exposure to combat stress. Being older, reservists were more likely to have established family and career commitments. These factors increased the stress on reservists when they had to adapt from civilian to military life. Also, in contrast to the career soldier, reservists had to make this change in a relatively short period of time. Solomon and Flum investigated the association between life events and CSR. They hypothesized that a combatant’s exposures to stressful life events before the war may increase their vulnerability to CSR. However, the findings of this study did not provide support for this hypothesis. There was no relationship between the number, magnitude, or type of life events experienced by

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individuals prior to combat and CSR onset. However, prewar life events were implicated in the subsequent onset of PTSD.

Treatment of Combat Stress Reaction Frontline treatment interventions for psychiatric casualties are based on the principles of proximity, immediacy, and expectancy. These principles indicate that casualties should be treated in a setting close to the combat zone (proximity) as soon as possible after the onset of the CSR (immediacy) with the expectation that the soldiers will return to the frontline following their recovery (expectation). In the frontline setting, the main aim of treatment is to restore a casualties’ depleted physiological condition by satisfying their needs for sleep, food, and drink. This usually lasts for a few days and takes place in an area of relative safety. During this time, casualties are provided with the opportunity to discuss their traumatic experiences. One of the advantages of providing treatment on or near the frontline is that it allows casualties the opportunity to maintain their role as soldiers in a military unit. This enables access to their combat peers and opportunities for ventilation, which, in turn, reinforces the soldiers’ sense of commitment to their combat unit. Another benefit of treatment in this setting is that it acts as a form of desensitization by exposing the soldiers to conditions similar to those that precipitated the CSR. Also, the immediate provision of treatment in the frontline places the expectation on the soldiers that they will be able to return to their combat duties. Other principles of combat psychiatry that have been cited in the literature include simplicity and centrality. Simplicity refers to the use of uncomplicated treatments such as rest, food, and hot showers to provide the CSR casualty with a respite from the stresses of combat. Centrality refers to the process of assessing all CSR casualties at a central screening area so that an experienced team of mental health professionals can minimize the likelihood of inappropriate evacuations to the rear. Although the principles of frontline treatment have been in use since World War I, it is only recently that the question of their effectiveness has been subjected to empirical investigation. Belenky highlighted the successful use of frontline treatment by the Israeli army during the Lebanon War, with 60% of CSR casualties returning to combat duties within 72 h. This return rate confirms the earlier findings of Solomon and Benbenishty, who investigated the relative contribution of proximity, immediacy, and expectancy in CSR recovery. Their study followed up 82% of the Israeli army CSR casualties of the Lebanon War to compare the effectiveness of frontline treatment with treatment in a civilian setting at the rear (for security reasons, the precise number of subjects

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involved in this study could not be provided by the authors). Data on the immediacy and expectancy principles were collected through the use of self-report questionnaires. The outcome measures in this study were return to military unit and PTSD onset. The results demonstrated a strong association between each of the frontline treatment principles and CSR casualties’ unit return rate. A high percentage of CSR casualties who were treated at the front (43%) or near the border with Lebanon (59%) returned to their units. In contrast, a significantly lower percentage of CSR casualties returned to their units after being airlifted to the rear (21%) or treated in a civilian facility at the rear (28%). A high percentage of those soldiers who received treatment immediately after the onset of a CSR returned to their units (44%), whereas those who waited until after the war had ended before seeking treatment showed the lowest return rate (24%). Of the three treatment principles, expectancy displayed the strongest association with the unit return rate. CSR casualties who perceived that their therapist expected them to return at all costs had a higher unit return rate (53%) than casualties who were unclear about their therapist’s expectations (26%). The application of frontline treatment principles also had a significant impact on PTSD. Although the relationship between proximity and PTSD did not reach statistical significance, there was a strong trend suggesting that treatment proximity was a factor in the subsequent development of PTSD. When treatment occurred at the front or near the border, the percentages of CSR casualties who subsequently developed PTSD were 52 and 48%, respectively; when treatment occurred outside the war zone, this percentage increased significantly (66%). There was also a significant relationship between treatment immediacy and PTSD onset. In this study, the highest rate of PTSD (74%) was observed among those CSR casualties who had waited until after the war to seek treatment. Similar to the unit return rate findings, Solomon and Benbenishty reported a strong relationship between expectancy and PTSD. Casualties who perceived that their therapist expected that they would return to their unit at all costs exhibited the lowest rate of PTSD (55%).

Prevention of Combat Stress Reaction Because combat is an unpredictable and chaotic experience, prevention programs for combat soldiers can only be formulated in general terms. The development of specific prevention programs targeting CSR must address the complex interaction among individual, unit, and battle factors that determine a soldier’s vulnerability to combat stress. These programs need to recognize that the occupation of combat soldier routinely exposes individuals to

multiple stressful and/or traumatic events and that, over time, this reduces the soldiers’ capacity to cope with combat stress. This is further complicated by the soldiers’ perception of combat and their role in the war zone. Soldiers’ subjective interpretations of a battlefield event as stressful or traumatic will be shaped by their acceptance of the violent nature of their occupation as well as by their previous experiences with such an event. Prevention programs for CSR should also acknowledge that combat soldiers can be exposed to high levels of prolonged combat stress without ever being exposed to a specific traumatic event. This means that prevention programs that target specific mental health outcomes such as PTSD should not be seen as providing a complete alternative to the complex task of preventing CSR. As military personnel, combat soldiers also have to deal with all the normal occupational stresses that are experienced on a daily basis by the members of any large hierarchical organization in the civilian setting. It has generally been expected that, in the combat setting, the individuals most likely to experience this form of prolonged occupational stress, such as combat soldiers or medical personnel, will by virtue of their selection, training, and background be able to cope with the effects of their exposure. The U.S. army’s approach to the management of combat stress during Operation Desert Storm highlighted the importance of identifying and managing individual, unit, and battle factors in the onset of CSR. Examples of individual factors include combat experience, sleep, food, fitness, and stability of personal life. Also, soldiers’ perceptions of their preparedness for combat, the loss of a family member at home, and/or a major threat to family during their service can affect their capacity to deal with combat stress. Unit factors include length of rest periods, the tactical situation, adequacy of supplies, communications, terrain, group cohesiveness, leadership, and morale. As noted previously, the intensity of combat exposure is a known risk factor for CSR. Specific examples of combat stressors include exposure to human suffering, risk of capture by the enemy, fear of torture, threat of personal injury, and death. It is argued that prevention programs must target the range and type of combat stressors that soldiers are likely to encounter. Stress management techniques can be used to educate soldiers about the inevitability of experiencing fear during combat. The value of this experience should be emphasized, and soldiers should be assisted in managing any anticipatory anxieties that they might have about maintaining control of their emotions in combat. Other stress management techniques such as problem solving, conflict resolution, and relaxation can also be used to strengthen soldiers’ abilities to cope with the stressors that they are likely to encounter in the course of fulfilling their military duties as a combat

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soldier. These techniques can also be used by combatants who have the added responsibility of leadership to manage their own stress levels. Military training provides an opportunity for the prevention of combat stress through the use of realistic training exercises. Using live ammunition, these exercises are designed to simulate the life-threatening challenges inherent in the combat experience. The successful completion of such exercises should increase soldiers’ confidence in their ability to deal with the future stress of combat. As Oei, Hennessy, and Lim noted in their review of the literature on military training, the use of wellrehearsed drills during training exercises should lead to the development of automatic reactions in soldiers. When these are activated during combat, they reduce the level of cognitive demands on individuals, which in turn minimizes the effect of combat stress. For military personnel who are in a support role, which may or may not involve active participation in combat, a general program of education about the likely occupational and interpersonal stresses that are frequently encountered in this setting would be beneficial. Based on the experiences of military personnel during the Vietnam War, this might include discussing (1) the problems associated with fighting an ambiguous enemy, (2) the definition of individuals’ roles in the war zone, (3) a realistic appraisal of their contribution to the war effort, and (4) reasonable expectations of leadership.

Summary CSR is an acute psychological breakdown that incapacitates soldiers to the degree that they are no longer able to function in combat. It is characterized by labile and polymorphic manifestations ranging from overwhelming anxiety and confusion to psychological withdrawal and psychomotor retardation. The variety of symptoms that are manifested during CSR has meant that clear diagnostic criteria have not been developed. Risk factors for CSR include the intensity of combat exposure, age, education, combat suitability, military rank, and type of military service. Treatment for CSR is based on the principles of proximity, immediacy, and expectancy. These treatment principles emphasize the need to treat CSR casualties in a setting near the combat zone as soon as possible after symptom onset and with the expectation that the soldier will be able to return to combat after a brief period of rest and recuperation. The task of preventing CSR provides a complex challenge to military psychiatry. It requires an understanding of the interplay between a diverse range of individual, unit, and battle variables. Based on the evidence available to date, the use of realistic exercises

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during military training and the implementation of stress management techniques can play a role in minimizing the impact of combat stress. See also: Combat, Acute Reactions to; Combat Reaction, Chronic; Korean Confliflict, Stress Effects of; Persian Gulf Gulf War, Stress Effects of

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 3rd edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Belenky, G. (1987). Psychiatric casualties: the Israeli experience. Psychiatric Annals 17(8), 528–531. Camp, N. (1993). The Vietnam war and the ethics of combat psychiatry. American Journal of Psychiatry 150, 1000–1010. Dobson, M. and Marshall, R. (1997). Surviving the war zone experience: preventing psychiatric casualties. Military Medicine 162, 283–287. Grinker, R. and Spiegel, J. (1945). Men under stress. New York: Blakiston. Jones, F. and Hales, R. (1987). Military combat psychiatry: a historical review. Psychiatric Annals 17(8), 525–527. Kormos, H. (1978). The nature of combat stress. In Figley, C. (ed.) Stress disorders among Vietnam veterans, pp. 3–22. New York: Brunner/ Mazel. McDuff, D. and Johnson, J. (1992). Classification and characteristics of army stress casualties during operation desert storm. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 43(8), 812–815. Marshall, R. and Dobson, M. (1995). The treatment of trauma reactions in war veterans: the seductive elegance of the PTSD diagnosis. In Vialle, W. (ed.) Why psychology?: selected papers from the 29th annual Australian Psychological Society conference. Miller, L. (1995). Tough guys: psychotherapeutic strategies with law enforcement and emergency services personnel. Psychotherapy 32, 592–600. Oei, T., Lim, B., and Hennessy, B. (1990). Psychological dysfunction in battle: combat stress reactions and posttraumatic stress disorder. Clinical Psychology Review 10, 355–388. Solomon, Z. (1993). Combat stress reaction: the enduring toll of war. New York: Plenum. Solomon, Z. and Benbenishty, R. (1986). The role of proximity, immediacy, and expectancy in frontline treatment of combat stress reaction among Israelis in the Lebanon war. American Journal of Psychiatry 143(5), 613–617. Solomon, Z. and Flum, H. (1988). Life events, combat stress reaction and post-traumatic stress disorder. Social Science & Medicine 26(3), 319–325. Solomon, Z., Laror, N., and McFarlane, A. (1996). Acute posttraumatic reactions in soldiers and civilians. In Van der Kolk, B., McFarlane, A., and Weisaeth, L. (eds.) Traumatic stress: the effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body and society, pp. 102–114. New York: The Guilford Press. Solomon, Z. and Mikulincer, M. (1987). Combat stress reactions, posttraumatic stress disorder, and social adjustment: a study of Israeli veterans. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 175(5), 277–285. Solomon, Z., Noy, S., and Bar-On, R. (1986). Risk factors in combat stress reaction – a study of Israeli soldiers in the 1982 Lebanon War. Israeli Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences 23(1), 3–8. Solomon, Z., Weisenberg, M., Schwarzwald, J., et al. (1987). Posttraumatic stress disorder among frontline soldiers with combat stress reaction: the 1982 Israeli experience. American Journal of Psychiatry 144(4), 448–454. Weisaeth, L. (1996). PTSD: the stressor-response relationship. Baillie´res Clinical Psychiatry 2(2), 191–216.

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Combat, Acute Reactions to R H Rahe, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Acute Reactions to Combat Stress Predispositions and Precipitants

Treatment Prevention Further Reading

Introduction

soldier to leave a secure setting. These people often are the last in line when heading toward danger, casting frequent glances back toward safety. They may unnecessarily check and recheck their equipment – these adventitial movements representing a displacement of anxiety. They may also show considerable difficulty understanding instructions and carrying out even simple tasks. Widely opened eyes, dilated pupils, and tremulousness and rapid shallow breathing signal strong sympathetic nervous system activation. Sympathetic nervous system hyperarousal is the major physiological component of an acute stress reaction. When blood or urinary measures for catecholamines are gathered from soldiers with this disorder, epinephrine and norepinephrine are both found to be significantly elevated. It is also likely that the soldier’s serum cortisol is also elevated throughout this reaction. As an acute combat reaction worsens, the affected soldier may not take cover during an assault, or he may remain hidden in a bunker and unable to fire his weapon or to care for a buddy in trouble. In its most severe form, affected individuals may show an overflow of undirected motor activity, which may mimic tics or seizures. Conversely, hyperarousal can also lead to a freezing of motor function, which may resemble paralysis. An acute combat stress reaction can develop, and resolve, within a matter of minutes. Because recovery from this entity can be very rapid, the soldier may show a dramatic transition from gross panic at one instant to rational thought and behavior a few minutes later. Therefore, a cardinal rule is not to move an afflicted soldier further than the battle aid station closest to the front lines and assume there will be a rapid recovery.

Disabling psychological reactions to stress, particularly to combat stress, have been witnessed frequently but codified differently in the various wars occurring over the past 150 years. Diagnoses coined for combat stress have varied from soldier’s heart in the Civil War to shell shock in World War I to war neurosis and battle fatigue in World War II to combat stress in the Korean War and Vietnam conflict. In most instances, what was defined was either a precipitous or gradual breakdown in a serviceman’s ability to perform his combat functions, accompanied by a variety of acutely distressing and/or chronically disabling mind–body symptoms. Drawing from the military psychiatry literature, as well as from studies of human responses to stress encountered in a variety of civilian settings, a case can be made for distinguishing acute combat reactions from chronic ones. In so doing, clinical presentations, predispositions, precipitating factors, treatment approaches, and expectations about return to duty become more specific.

Acute Reactions to Combat Stress The Israeli Defense Forces in the 1980s and 1990s used the term battle shock to denote the acute and disabling psychological reactions to combat that appear within minutes to hours after stress exposure. In civilian settings, we find very similar conditions of acute stress reactions to trauma. These reactions are characterized by an abrupt onset of physiological hyperarousal following an exposure to an intensely stressful event(s) occurring during the previous hours, days, or weeks. The signs and symptoms of this disorder and its treatment are considered here. Unsettling but manageable manifestations of this reaction are common to all humans facing trauma. It is, therefore, the degree of response rather than symptoms themselves that leads to a diagnosis. An early sign of vulnerability to military stress is a marked reluctance of the This article is a revision of the previous edition article by R H Rahe, volume 1, pp 487–490, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Predispositions and Precipitants It should be emphasized that no single factor by itself, even if the stress is tremendous, totally accounts for the development of an acute stress reaction. Rather, it is the sum of separate forces acting in concert over a brief period of time. These forces usually include developmental factors, environmental conditions, and interpersonal stresses. Developmental factors influencing susceptibility to acute stress response include childhood family traumas,

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especially abuse and neglect; poor socialization while growing up; low educational attainment; and little success in managing major life stresses (Figure 1). These individuals often join the military to escape from their troubled lives. The last thing they expect, and what their early lives has left them unprepared to handle, is to go into combat. In contrast, resistance factors to acute stress reaction include enriched childhood and developmental experiences, prior stress experiences that the person handled successfully, high intelligence and educational achievement, plentiful social support, and prior training on how to handle stress (Figure 2). A positive attitude and an ability to resist rash behaviors are traits that enhance resistance to stress. Environmental stresses, such as fatigue, hunger, sleep loss, cold, and heat, are common experiences of men in battle. They take on additional significance when other precipitants of acute battle stress coexist, for example, when a battle is being waged in sustained heat (such as a desert war) and soldiers are dehydrated. The high magnitude of the stress situation, especially with a high casualty rate, makes stress reactions more likely to occur. A surprise event leading to disorientation, concurrent illness, and poor physical endurance add even further to a susceptibility to acute stress response. Interpersonal factors also contribute to susceptibility to stress, including recent life stresses outside of combat, such as family upheaval at home, financial problems, and difficulties getting along with peers. Reserve status, rather than a regular commission, and membership in a support unit

(usually armor) are frequently an interpersonal precipitant of this disorder. Soldiers, who are members of elite units, in which the esprit de corps and morale are generally quite high, tend to perform far better in combat than men in less cohesive units. A further interpersonal stress occurs when reserves are brought forward to replace the dead and injured. These reserves may be assigned to tanks that are still bloody from the previous campaign and find themselves communicating, by radio, with people they have never met. A replacement soldier is seen as a new guy by the others and is a reminder that one of their buddies was killed or severely wounded. It may take weeks to months for a new soldier in a unit to lose this new guy label. Factors of older age and inexperience are two additional interpersonal precipitants of this stress response. An infantryman in his late twenties or early thirties has a much higher probability of developing an acute combat reaction than one in his late teens or early twenties. Soldiers are especially vulnerable to acute stress reactions when they witness death for the first time. One of the major functions of military training is to prepare soldiers for the rigors of battle so that they can function almost reflexively in that environment. Yet it is impossible to train men for the experience of seeing their buddies killed.

Treatment The treatment of an acute combat reaction should be immediate. It is far easier to reverse this reaction in its early stages

Figure 1 Early developmental and personal susceptibility factors for acute stress response.

Figure 2 Early developmental and personal resistance factors for acute stress response.

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than when the condition lingers. This means that the location where treatment is provided is usually at, or very near, the front lines of battle. Significantly, the person who carries out treatment is usually not a doctor; he is more likely to be a buddy or a medic/corpsman. The most important first step in treatment is to help the affected individual gain control over his hyperaroused physiology. Rapid, shallow breathing will quickly cause hypocapnia with resultant light-headedness and feelings of panic. Hypothermia, hyperthermia, and tachycardia can produce similar effects. The first rule in such a situation is to stop! Once the person begins to cool down (often literally), rational thinking can return. Having the affected person count slowly or make respiratory expirations last longer than inspirations is an easy remedy. When rational thinking returns, reorientation can take place and priorities can be reestablished. An acutely stressed individual often has a need to talk about his recent trauma. A buddy or medic should listen to the story once, at most twice. Further recitations will have very little anxiety-reducing effect. Following one or two recitals, a soldier should be evaluated to determine if he is ready to be sent back to his unit (with a buddy) or needs rest and replenishment over the next 24 to 48 hours. These men can be treated at a battle aid station or in a separate section of a field hospital. Medications, if required, are generally hypnotics and anti-anxiety preparations. Because of this condition’s ready reversibility, return to duty rates can be as high as 90%. It has become a rule not to mix soldiers with disabling psychological reactions to combat with others who are physically wounded. When that occurs, men with psychological reactions quickly identify with the wounded and their psychological disabilities increase. A special effort must be made to keep these two classes of patients apart; otherwise, in the normal logistical flow of patients rearward, those with acute combat reactions will be separated from their unit. A special problem arises when a soldier experiences both an acute combat reaction and a physical wound. He is usually treated for the wound and not for his psychological condition. In civilian settings, people with acute stress disorders should ideally be treated with psychiatric first aid. Groups of disordered individuals should be gathered in a large room such as a cafeteria. They should be able to sit around small tables and undergo a brief interview concerning their stress experience (again, no more that two recitals), sign a roster of attendance with home address and telephone, and be given some paper and a pen to write out their recent stress experience. Putting their stresses down in writing helps them to regain their concentration and reduces inclinations to repeatedly talk about their stories to others. Snacks should be available; foods high in fat, such as donuts, are most comforting. Doctors, nurses, and chaplains should act like they are social workers; that is,

they should periodically circle the room asking victims if they have eaten recently, direct them to Red Cross personnel to inquire about family and friends, and to provide counseling as needed. When ready to leave the room, transportation to their homes should be facilitated if possible. It is counterproductive for psychiatrists and psychologists to set up an office and expect victims to come in for a lengthy session. The good news about acute reactions to stress, including combat stress, is that they are short-lived and recovery from distressing symptoms is generally seen in 70–90% of affected people (Figure 3). A lasting disorder can occur in 10–30% of victims. Recovery from acute stress does not imply that disturbing memories of the event go away. Instead, several memories may persist during the person’s lifetime. They do change from frequent awareness to distant recollections over time. However, during and shortly following a new and severe acute stress situation, these memories can make a renewed, and usually temporary, appearance.

Prevention The environmental, interpersonal, and personal aspects of prevention should be considered as much as the precipitating event of this disorder in a multifactorial framework. It takes efforts in several areas to appreciably reduce the likelihood of acute stress reactions. It is military doctrine to keep soldiers properly fed, warm, and rested whenever possible. When these conditions cannot be met, as is frequently the case in battle, command should realize that the chances for acute stress reactions are thereby increased. Although resupplies may not be under a commander’s control, communications with his men regarding the progress of the campaign, the motivations and armament of the enemy, and so forth are certainly within his influence. Also, battle plans should be phrased in clear, concise, easy-to-remember language.

Figure 3 Acute stress response progression to rapid recovery or a psychiatric disorder with a more uncertain outcome.

Combat Reaction, Chronic

A most effective preventive force is realistic stress training. Seldom, however, is such training carried out. Perhaps the best example of preventive training that is currently performed is survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training conducted by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force. These 1–2 week programs are designed for aviators, who by the nature of their duties are at high risk for capture and prisoner-of-war status. However, realistic training for combat troops could also be provided. An important element of such training is allowing soldiers to actually experience panic symptoms under controlled conditions. The treatment steps of stopping and controlling hyperphysiology (allowing return of rational thinking and action) are then implemented. Also, mental rehearsal prior to stress training of the steps a soldier should follow in a panic situation should be part of this training. Physical fitness leading to increased endurance leads to increased parasympathetic tone. Parasympathetic activation may well act as a brake on the sympathetic nervous system’s hyperarousal during panic-producing situations. A soldier’s personal commitment to the battle and attitude under stress are greatly shaped by his training. In civilian settings, a positive attitude, with realistic optimism can stave off a stress reaction. It was John Wooden, the eminently successful basketball coach at UCLA, who encouraged his players to ‘‘Be quick, but don’t hurry.’’ Such an attitude imparts a perception of personal control over fast-moving events.

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Further Reading Brill, N. Q. and Beebe, G. W. (1955). A follow-up study of war neuroses. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Belenky, G. L., Tyner, C. F., and Sodetz, F. J. (1983). Israeli battle shock casualties: 1973 and 1982. Report NP-83-4. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Division of Neuropsychiatry, Washington, DC. Glass, A. J. (1958). Observations upon the epidemiology of mental illness in troops during warfare. In: Symposium on preventive and social psychiatry, pp. 185–197. 15–17 April. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Grinker, A. A. and Spiegel, J. P. (1945). Men under stress. Philadelphia: Blakiston. Keller, S. and Seraganian, P. (1984). Physical fitness and autonomic reactivity to psychosocial stress. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28, 279–287. Medical and surgical history of the war of the rebellion (vol. 1). (1870). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Rahe, R. H. (1988). Acute versus chronic psychological reactions to combat. Military Medicine 153, 365–372. Shalev, A. Y., Schreiber, S., and Galai, T. (1993). Early psychiatric responses to traumatic injury. Journal of Traumatic Stress 6, 441–450. Trimble, M. R. (1981). Post-traumatic neurosis. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Turner, M. A., Kiernan, M. D., McKechanie, A. G., et al. (2005). Acute military psychiatric casualties from the war in Iraq. British Journal of Psychiatry 186, 476–479. Yehuda, R., McFarlane, A. C., and Shalev, A. Y. (1998). Predicting the development of posttraumatic stress disorder from the acute responses to a traumatic event. Biological Psychiatry 44, 1305–1313. Yitzhake, T., Solomon, Z., and Kotler, M. (1991). The clinical picture of acute combat stress reaction among Israeli soldiers in the 1982 Lebanon War. Military Medicine 156, 193–197.

Combat Reaction, Chronic R H Rahe, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Problems with a Diagnosis of PTSD

Further Reading

Introduction

the United States Army by General Omar N. Bradley in 1943. Colonel Long wrote: ‘‘Of the possible diagnostic terms discussed, this term [combat exhaustion] was chosen because it was thought to convey the least implication of neuropsychiatric disturbance.’’ Since the early 1980s this disorder has been frequently referred to as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As in acute combat reactions, causes of the chronic condition are multiple. Military men developing a chronic reaction have typically been under combat stress for many weeks, months, or perhaps even years. Their physiological state appears to be characterized by hypoarousal. Instead of fight-or-flight physiology, these men tend to show signs and symptoms of conservation/withdrawal.

Chronic stress reaction is appreciably different from the acute reaction described in a separate article. In the American and British militaries, dating from the American Civil War, a chronic stress disorder was generally what was referred to when medical personnel used terms such as soldier’s heart, neurasthenia, battle neurosis, shell shock, traumatic neurosis, and battle fatigue. Of interest is that any of the above terms were literally ordered out of existence in

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by R H Rahe, volume 1, pp 491–494, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

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The affected soldier frequently isolates him/herself from peers and shows signs and symptoms of depression. Once established, this chronic reaction is extremely difficult to reverse. In animal studies of defeat situations, a similar syndrome is seen. Signs and symptoms, predispositions, precipitants, treatment, and prevention of chronic combat reaction are outlined in subsequent sections of this article. Signs and Symptoms Early signs include impairment of previously displayed skills, severely lowered frustration tolerance, excessive griping, and even mild-to-moderate paranoia. As these characteristics are frequently manifested in all combat troops, it can be a subtle distinction to determine when they exceed the normal range and signal concern. In sum, when these traits cause a human to significantly isolate him/herself from his/her peers and his/her military performance is substandard, it is time to evaluate the individual. If excessive alcohol or drug use, and/or signs and symptoms of depression are also part of the picture, the diagnosis should be strongly suspected. If urine and blood samples could be collected in the field, catecholamines should be found to be at normal, or even low, levels in men with chronic combat reactions. In contrast, cortisol should be found to be significantly and persistently elevated throughout the circadian cycle. In a variety of chronic stress reactions, the baseline for cortisol secretion appears to be reset to a higher level. A further biochemical correlate of chronic stress is serum cholesterol. This high-density lipid is frequently seen in low serum concentrations during acute stress situations but shifting to high concentrations over a prolonged stress period (months to years). In its most severe form, the soldier with a chronic combat reaction is so slowed in his/her thinking and motor movements that he/she appears to resemble a robot. His/her vacant-eyed look seems to focus far into the distance and has been labeled the 1000 yard stare. At this point the person is totally unable to function.

between wounded-in-action rates and disabling chronic psychological reactions to combat. A critical environmental precipitant is lack of mobility and/or progress in battle. This condition was widely prevalent during World War I, when trench warfare resulted in men spending up to 2–3 years in the same labyrinth of trenches and tunnels. In Goodbye to All That, British author Robert Graves wrote about his years in the trenches, where the war never seemed to progress and the only way out was to be wounded or killed. An interpersonal precipitant is loss of confidence in leadership. If a mistake in tactics is made, for example a strike hits friendly forces, the soldier may then believe that his/her lack of confidence in command is justified. On a personal level, when a soldier loses his/her sense of purpose, and especially when he/she perceives that there is no end in sight to long-lasting stress, the risk for this condition increases markedly. Preexisting neurosis and character pathology are personal factors which increase the liability of a soldier to develop a chronic stress reaction. As in acute battle stress, a severely dysfunctional early family life, possible abuse, lack of socialization experiences while growing up, and low educational attainment have been shown to predispose these individual to chronic battle stress reactions (Figure 1). Several resistance factors making reactions to stress less likely to occur are the opposite of susceptibility factors. These factors are a healthy childhood and a healthy family medical history, high school graduation, plentiful socialization when growing up, and an ability to find and give social support. Added to these factors are good leadership qualities, optimism tempered by reality, and an ability to pace oneself throughout a long campaign (Figure 2). The progression of chronic stress reactions to recovery is approximately 40%, compared to a 60% likelihood of developing a subsequent development of a disorder. These subsequent disorders include several possibilities – not just chronic PTSD (Figure 3).

Predispositions and Precipitants

Treatment

Many of the susceptibility factors making individuals more prone to chronic stress reactions are the same factors lending susceptibility to acute reactions to stress. These factors included childhood traumas, female gender, family and personal history for psychiatric illness, minimal social skills, low levels of education, and antisocial traits. These traits are frequently accompanied by recent, predeployment, life stress. Whereas intensity of battle is a major precipitant for an acute combat reaction, duration of combat is a large force shaping a chronic combat reaction. As in the acute disorder, high casualty rates add to the likelihood of this reaction. Frequently, a direct relationship has been seen

The first line of treatment for PTSD is buddy and/or group support. This will be most effective in the early stages of the disorder. Even then, because the affected individual is constantly complaining and mistrustful, it takes a strong commitment on the part of the group to bring him/her back into the fold. Such a group commitment has been seen to function extremely well in prisoner-of-war settings. Here, if buddy or group efforts failed to halt the withdrawal of a fellow prisoner, that person often died. The cause of death appeared to be chiefly determined by the person’s loss of hope and giving up. When specialized care is required for this condition, it means more time (from a few days to 3–4 weeks), more

Combat Reaction, Chronic

437

Chronic stress response Susceptibility factors Childhood trauma

Family illnesses

Recent life changes

Gender (female)

Minimal social skills

Antisocial traits

Duration of stress

Low level education

“No end in sight”

Symptoms

Timing Months, years

Exhaustion 1000 yard Stare Humorless Directionless Paranoia Isolation

Figure 1 A presentation of selected early developmental and personal factors influencing susceptibility to symptom response following chronic stress.

Chronic stress response Resistance factors

Timing Months, years

Healthy childhood

Healthy family

Few recent life changes

Plentiful socialization

Good education

Leadership

Excellent pacing

Social support

Realistic optimism

Symptoms Exhaustion 1000 yard Stare Humorless Directionless Paranoia Isolation

Figure 2 A presentation of selected early developmental and personal factors influencing resistance to symptom response following chronic stress.

professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, and possibly exercise therapists), and more resources (medications, a site for prolonged and specialized care) than is the case for acute combat reactions. The treatment site should be located near the front lines of battle but should be secure enough that it does not have to be moved frequently. The Israeli Defense Forces experimented with such a camp just inside their northern border during the Lebanon incursion. Here the men received medications (chiefly hypnotic and anxiolytic drugs), rest and replenishment, daily group therapy, and daily exercise sessions. This ‘‘walk ’em and talk ’em’’ approach resulted in return to duty rates between 40% and 70%. Therapy may also include attempts to modify prebattle life stresses. If, for example, the individual is worried about the health of his wife or children, some communication (preferably by telephone) might be allowed. Personal visits, especially periods of home leave, are frequently a big mistake! This is because, once the person becomes enmeshed in his family setting his resolve to return to the front begins to weaken and his return to duty becomes increasingly unlikely.

In the long term, treatment of chronic combat reactions should include an appraisal of the person’s need for renewal. Often, job redefinition and/or retraining become appropriate. In animal studies of chronic stress, when conservation/ withdrawal is seen, the animal becomes particularly motivated to learn new, and more adaptive, behaviors. Today, treatment is routinely offered to soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq – unlike the long delay in treatment that was the case for many servicemen from the Vietnam War. Dr. Michael Dinneen, a United States Navy psychiatrist, studied return to function of servicemen following their exposure to chronic stress. He emphasized that in assessing outcomes it is critical to know initial levels of functioning prior to the stress experience. If prior functioning was low, then recovery following stress meant a return to the low pre-existing level. Treatment following stress may well help these people make that recovery, as untreated individuals frequently develop PTSD (Figure 4). For individuals with moderate functioning prior to stress, early treatment not only helped them recover, but also often enhanced their pre-stress functioning (Figure 5). Lastly,

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Chronic stress response progression Recovery (memories persist)

~40% Symptoms Exhaustion 1000 yard stare Humorless Directionless Paranoia Isolation

Disorder Anxiety Depressive Alcohol/Drug Antisocial Chronic PTSD

~06%

Figure 3 The progression of a chronic stress response to either recovery or to a psychiatric disorder with a more prolonged and uncertain course.

Changes in function after stress

Functioning

Functioning

Changes in function after stress

Improvement (Recovery)

Recovery

(PTSD) Before

Stress

After

Figure 4 An illustration depicting a person’s functional outcome following stress dependent upon their prior functioning and if they received early treatment.

for individuals with good prior functioning, early post-stress treatment often facilitated an improvement in their poststress recovery to a ‘‘mastering’’ level (Figure 6).

Prevention Most line commanders will strive to control environmental stresses such as fatigue, heat, cold, hunger, and sleep deprivation in their men. However, the maintenance of communication and morale in a situation of long and deadly conflict is no easy task. A tremendously important support mechanism for American prisoners of war in Vietnam was maintenance of communication. Via the chain of command, each man was given an important role to carry out in their ongoing struggle to survive with dignity. Another important preventive measure is having predictable intervals set aside for rest and recovery. This may not be possible in some long-term battle situations, but

Before

Stress

After

Figure 5 An illustration depicting a person’s functional outcome following stress dependent upon their prior functioning and if they received early treatment. Note the possibility of improved function with treatment.

when it is, the effects are extremely salutary. Knowing that one would be rotated home 1 year to the day from arrival in Vietnam greatly assisted many soldiers in getting through their combat tours. It should be noted, however, that this policy also had undesirable effects, in that it inhibited group bonding and restricted a man’s identity with his unit. One interpersonal preventive measure frequently underemployed for combat troops is to allow for closure after a period of prolonged stress. Closure was inadvertently done well in the days of troop ship transport for soldiers returning from Europe and Asia following World War II. Aboard ship the men had ample opportunities to discuss their war experiences, compare their reactions with others, and to talk out several distressing thoughts and emotions. In a related manner, bringing men home as a unit markedly helps to prevent this disorder. Talking among trusted buddies on the return home is extremely supportive.

Combat Reaction, Chronic

Changes in function after stress

Mastery Functioning

(Recovery)

Before

Stress

439

A word should be said about the incredible importance of humor in prolonged stress situations. The ability to laugh, not only with others but also at oneself, is vital. Former prisoners of war have claimed that single instances of a humorous circumstance made them feel better for weeks to months later. Personal beliefs, such as conviction of cause, faith, and basic optimism, are tremendously sustaining. Even if these personal characteristics are not present in individuals at the beginning of a prolonged period of stress, they can be developed – especially through supportive group interactions.

After

Figure 6 An illustration depicting a person’s functional outcome following stress dependent upon their prior functioning and if they received early treatment. Note the possibility of mastering the experience with treatment.

In terms of personal preventive measures, one of the most disturbing early stresses reported by prisoners of war was their awareness of all the things they had left undone prior to being taken captive. A soldier has enough to think about during the early stages of a long-term stress without additional concerns regarding the lack of a will, the lack of sufficient insurance, and other problems left for the family. This problem surfaced again in America’s recent military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Especially National Guard units, where their tours of duty were extended from initial order for 6 months up to 15 months of combat duty, were affected. These soldiers often discovered their jobs were no longer waiting for them, their families could no longer afford their quarters, children were ill, and so forth, and yet they did not know when they might go home. Almost all persons experiencing chronic stress find physical fitness, especially of an endurance nature, to be of tremendous assistance. Endurance exercises not only help to pass time during periods of lull but also aid in maintaining feelings of vigor and well being. Of nearly equal importance is that exercise greatly facilitates sleep. Finally, a fitness program may even counter the tendency toward hypoactivity seen in chronic combat reactions. Perhaps the single most important personal preventive strategy for long-term stress is developing a sense of pace. Prisoners of war and hostages held for 1 year or more testify to the critical importance of the acquired skill of taking one day at a time. Much like a mountain climber who slowly but relentlessly proceeds up the slope, a soldier must learn to pace him/herself so that sustained function is possible over many days, months, and even years. Also like the mountain climber, some energy should be held in reserve. Occasionally, one has to draw upon this reserve in order to meet setbacks and/or unexpected demands. Personal traits of acceptance, humility, and humor can substantially facilitate this pacing.

Problems with a Diagnosis of PTSD Recovery from a chronic stress reaction occurs far more often than what it is generally believed to be the case. This misunderstanding is in large part due to today’s habit of diagnosing both acute and chronic stress reactions as PTSD. Early following a trauma, victims can be plagued by intrusive memories and dreams of the trauma, tend to avoid reminders of their experiences and develop feelings of emotional numbing. If the victim subscribes to high numbers of these symptoms, with moderate-to-high intensities, psychological raters routinely diagnose PTSD. These evaluators are apparently unaware that persons with acute and chronic stress reactions describe very similar symptom pictures. A very recent investigation found that persons suffering from nontraumatic life events gave a higher PTSD symptom profile than did other subjects that had experienced traumatic events. Therefore, the symptom profile described above is not specific to PTSD. Another problem with liberal use of this diagnosis is the common belief that no-one ever recovers from PTSD. One large element supporting this belief is that military veterans with this diagnosis often receive pensions for this diagnosis as long as they remain symptomatic. It literally pays the man or woman to remain disabled. Yet studies of severely traumatized military veterans, such as former prisoners of war, have found that over 90% of these men not only recovered from their torture experiences but also went on to live long and productive lives. A fuller description of how these former prisoners of war achieved such remarkable recoveries is presented in another article entitled: Captivity, Recovery from. A third problem resulting from the trauma criterion for PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM IV) was that it was expanded from personally experiencing a major trauma to now including those who only witnessed it. With this definition, at least 200 000 000 Americans fulfilled this criterion after watching television footage of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC. After years of just focusing on the trauma and the symptom picture, recent studies have introduced the importance of genetics, family medical history, past medical history,

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developmental factors, and resistance to stress – as noted above. Trauma by itself is a necessary, but not by itself sufficient, explanation of the etiology of this disorder. Lastly, distortion and fabrication have entered the picture. A recent study of persons applying for a Veterans Administration pension for PTSD found that 52% of the applicants had either unclear evidence in their medical records of combat exposure, or no evidence at all of being in combat. Another 5% of applicants’ military records showed that they had never served in Vietnam. A final 2% of applicants were found to have never been in the military. These six out of 10 applicants with little to no evidence of combat stress scored higher on their PTSD symptom profiles than did the four out of 10 applicants with clear evidence in their military files of combat exposure. A final complication was found for those who did serve in combat. Some of these men reported traumas more devastating than what actually occurred when their statements were compared to their military records. These problems with compensation for Vietnam combat veterans should not cloud the fact that many individuals did, in fact, experience war or civilian traumas of extreme severity. Further, several of these people went on to develop long-lasting physical and/or psychological disabilities. It was also true that Vietnam veterans returning home did not receive the treatment for chronic stress outlined above. In particular, they came home quickly by jet aircraft, alone from their unit, and were frequently welcomed with spit and abuse from antiwar citizens that blamed them for the war. To their credit, the Veterans Association today offers immediate access to both physical and psychological evaluation and treatment for veterans involved in today’s conflicts. The military also is alert to these needs for returning soldiers remaining on active duty. As mentioned above, early medical

and psychological treatment, with a goal of recovery, can prevent some of the prolonged disability seen in Vietnam era veterans.

Further Reading Brill, N. Q. and Beebe, G. W. (1955). A follow-up study of war neuroses. Washington, DC: VA Medical Monograph. Burkett, B. G. and Whitley, G. (1998). Stolen valor. Dallas, TX: Verity Press. Freuh, B. C., Elhai, J. D., Grubaugh, A. L., et al. (2005). Documented combat exposure of US veterans seeking treatment for combatrelated post-traumatic stress disorder. British Journal of Psychology 186, 467–472. Kushner, F. H. (1973). Doctor’s report from a V.C. prison. Medical World News. April. Mullins, W. S. (ed.) (1973). Neuropsychiatry in World War II, Vol. II. Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General (Army). McNally, R. J. (2002). Progress and controversy in the study of posttraumatic stress disorder. Annual Review of Psychology 54, 229–252. Nice, S., Garland, C. F., Hilton, S. M., et al. (1996). Long-term outcomes and medical effects of torture among US Navy prisoners of war in Vietnam. JAMA 276, 375–381. Rahe, R. H., Rubin, R. T., and Arthur, R. J. (1974). The three investigator study: serum uric acid, cholesterol, and cortisol variability during the stresses of everyday life. Psychosomatic Medicine 36, 358–368. Rahe, R. H. and Genender, E. (1983). Adaptation to and recovery from captivity. Military Medicine 148, 577–585. Sachar, E. J. (1980). Hormonal changes in stress and mental illness. In Krieger, D. T., Hughes, J. D., and Sunderland, M. A. (eds.) Neuroendocrinology. Sinquer Boston, MA: Associates Inc. Saskia, S. L., Mol, A. A., Job, F. M., et al. (2005). Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder after non-traumatic events: evidence from an open population study. British Journal of Psychology 186, 494–499. Schwinn, M. and Diehl, B. (1973). We Came to Help. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jonanovich. Segal, J. (1973). Therapeutic considerations in planning the return of American POWs to the continental United States. Military Medicine 138, 73–77. Yahuda, R. and McFarlane, M. B. B. S. (1995). Conflict between current knowledge about posttraumatic stress disorder and its original conceptual bases. American Journal of Psychology 152, 1705–1713.

Psychological Effects of Combat Dave Grossman, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR, USA Bruce K Siddle, PPCT Management Systems, Belleville, IL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction: A Legacy of Lies Psychiatric Casualties in War Physiological Arousal and Fear The Trauma of Close-Range, Interpersonal Aggression The Physiology of Close Combat

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 3, pp 139–150, ã 1999, Elsevier Inc, with revisions made by the Editor.

A Resistance to Killing Overcoming the Resistance to Killing The Price of Overcoming the Resistance to Killing Conclusion: A Cultural Conspiracy Further Reading

Psychological Effects of Combat 441

Glossary Evacuation Syndrome The paradox of combat psychiatry. Psychiatric casualties must be treated, but if soldiers begin to realize that psychiatric casualties are being evacuated, the number of psychiatric casualties will increase dramatically. Fear A cognitive or emotional label for nonspecific physiological arousal in response to a threat. Midbrain Sometimes referred to as the mammalian brain, it is the primitive part of the brain that is generally indistinguishable from that of any other mammal. During times of extreme stress, cognition tends to localize in this portion of the brain. Operant Conditioning Training that prepares an organism to react to a specific stimulus with a specific voluntary motor response. Operant conditioning is highly effective in preparing individuals to respond with desired actions in highly stressful circumstances. Parasympathetic Nervous System The branch of the autonomic nervous system that is responsible for the body’s digestive and recuperative processes.

The psychological effects of combat is a concept which encompasses a wide variety of processes and negative impacts, all of which must be taken into consideration in any assessment of the immediate and long-term costs of war. This article addresses the wide-spectrum psychological effects of combat, to include psychiatric casualties suffered during combat, physiological arousal and fear, the physiology of close combat, the price of killing, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Introduction: A Legacy of Lies An examination of the psychological effects of combat must begin by acknowledging that there are some positive aspects to combat. Throughout recorded history these positive aspects have been emphasized and exaggerated in order to protect the self-image of combatants, to honor the memory of the fallen and rationalize their deaths, to aggrandize and glorify political leaders and military commanders, and to manipulate populations into supporting war and sending their sons to their deaths. But the fact that these positive aspects have been manipulated and exploited does not deny their existence. There is a reason for the powerful attraction of combat over the centuries and there is no value in going from the dysfunctional extreme of glorifying war to the equally dysfunctional extreme of denying its attraction.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A psychological disorder resulting from a traumatic event. PTSD manifests itself in persistent re-experiencing of the traumatic event, numbing of emotional responsiveness, and persistent symptoms of increased arousal, resulting in clinically significant distress or impairment in social and occupational functioning. There is often a long delay time between the traumatic event and the manifestation of PTSD. PTSD has been strongly linked with greatly increased divorce rates, increased suicide rates, and increased incidence of alcohol and drug abuse. Psychiatric Casualty A combatant who is no longer able to participate in combat due to mental (as opposed to physical) debilitation. Purification Ritual A set of symbolic social mechanisms that help returning veterans come to terms with their actions in combat and successfully integrate back into peacetime society. Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) The branch of the autonomic nervous system that mobilizes and directs the body’s energy resources for action.

The ability to recognize and confront danger, the powerful group bonding that occurs in times of stress, the awe-inspiring spectacle of a nation focused and aligned to achieve a single aim, selfless dedication to abstract concepts and goals, and the ability to overcome the powerful imperatives of the survival instincts and willingly die for others: these common aspects of war represent both important survival traits and a potentially positive comment on basic human nature. But if war does have a capacity for reflecting some usually hidden, positive aspects of humanity, it irrefutably does so at a great and tragic cost. One obvious and tragic price of war is the toll of death and destruction. But there is an additional cost, a psychological cost borne by the ‘survivors’ of combat, and a full understanding of this cost has been too long repressed by a legacy of self-deception and intentional misrepresentation. After peeling away this ‘legacy of lies’ that has perpetuated and glorified warfare there is no escaping the conclusion that combat, and the killing that lies at the heart of combat, is an extraordinarily traumatic and psychologically costly endeavor that profoundly impacts all who participate in it. This psychological cost or war is most readily observable and measurable at the individual level. At the national level, a country at war can anticipate a small but statistically significant increase in the domestic murder rate, probably due to the glorification of violence and the resultant reduction in the level of ‘repression’ of

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natural aggressive instincts which Freud held to be essential to the existence of civilization. At the group level, even the most elite unit is usually psychologically destroyed when 50-60% casualties have been inflicted, and the integration of the individual into the group is so strong that this destruction often leads to depression and suicide. However, the nation (if not eliminated by the war) is generally resilient, and the group (if not destroyed) is inevitably disbanded. But the individual who survives combat may well end up paying a profound psychological cost for a lifetime. The cumulative impact of these effects on hundreds of thousands of veterans is pervasive, with significant potential to have a profound effect on society at large.

Psychiatric Casualties in War Richard Gabriel has noted that: ‘‘Nations customarily measure the ‘costs of war’ in dollars, lost production, or the number of soldiers killed or wounded.’’ But, ‘‘rarely do military establishments attempt to measure the costs of war in terms of individual suffering. Psychiatric breakdown remains one of the most costly items of war when expressed in human terms.’’ Indeed, for the combatants in every major war fought in this century, there has been a greater probability of becoming a psychiatric casualty than of being killed by enemy fire. A psychiatric casualty is a combatant who is no longer able to participate in combat due to mental (as opposed to physical) debilitation. Psychiatric casualties seldom represent a permanent debilitation, and with proper care they can be rotated back into the line. (However, Israeli research has demonstrated that, after combat, psychiatric casualties are strongly predisposed toward the more longterm and more permanently debilitating manifestation of PTSD.) The actual casualty can manifest itself in many ways, ranging from affective disorders to somatoform disorders, but the treatment for the many manifestations of combat stress involves simply removing the soldier from the combat environment. But the problem is that the military does not want to simply return the psychiatric casualties to normal life, it wants to return them to combat. And these casualties are understandably reluctant to do so. The evacuation syndrome is the paradox of combat psychiatry. A nation must care for its psychiatric casualties, since they are of no value on the battlefield (indeed, their presence in combat can have a negative impact on the morale of other combatants) and they can still be used again as valuable seasoned replacements once they have recovered from combat stress. But if combatants begin to realize that insane combatants are being evacuated, the number of psychiatric casualties will increase dramatically. Continued ‘proximity’ to the battlefield (through forward treatment, usually within enemy artillery range)

combined with an ‘expectancy’ of rapid return to combat are the principles developed to overcome the paradox of the evacuation syndrome. These principles of proximity and expectancy have proven themselves quite effective since World War I. They permit the psychiatric casualty to get the rest that is the only current cure for his problem while not giving a message to still healthy comrades that insanity is a ticket away from the madness of the battlefield. But even with the careful application of the principles of proximity and expectancy, the incidence of psychiatric casualties is still enormous. During World War II, 504 000 men were lost from America’s combat forces due to psychiatric collapse – enough to man 50 divisions. The United States suffered this loss despite efforts to weed out those mentally and emotionally unfit for combat by classifying more than 800 000 men (4-F) unfit for military service due to psychiatric reasons. At one point in World War II, psychiatric casualties were being discharged from the US Army faster than new recruits were being drafted in. Swank and Marchand’s World War II study of US Army combatants on the beaches of Normandy found that after 60 days of continuous combat, 98% of the surviving soldiers had become psychiatric casualties. The remaining 2% were identified as ‘aggressive psychopathic personalities’. Thus, it is not too far from the mark to observe that there is something about continuous, inescapable combat which will drive 98% of all men insane, and the other 2% were crazy when they got there. Figure 1 presents a schematic representation of the effects of continuous combat. It must be understood that the kind of continuous, protracted combat that produces such high psychiatric casualty rates is largely a product of twentieth-century warfare. The Battle of Waterloo lasted only a day. Gettysburg lasted only 3 days – and they took the nights off. It was only in World War I that armies began to experience months of 24-hour combat, and it is in World War I that vast numbers of psychiatric casualties were first observed. The democratic nations of this century have been better than most at admitting and dealing with their combat psychiatric casualties and information from non-Western sources is extremely limited, but we now know that America’s World War II experience is representative of a universal cost of modern, protracted warfare. Armies around the world have experienced similar mass psychiatric casualties, but many have simply driven these casualties into battle at bayonet point, shooting those who refused or were unable to continue. Japanese units in World War II employed a unique set of powerful cultural and group processes to delay psychiatric breakdown, but they only succeeded in temporarily delaying the cost of combat, a cost that eventually manifested itself in mass suicide. Ultimately the toll of modern combat is truly fearful, and no nation or culture has been able to escape it.

Psychological Effects of Combat 443

Combat exhaustion Soldier becomes ‘battlewise’

Period of maximum efficiency

Hyper-reactive stage

Emotional exhaustion stage

Degree of combat efficiency

Period of overconfidence

Vegetive phase 10

20

30 Days in combat

40

50

60

Figure 1 Effects of continuous combat.

Physiological Arousal and Fear The soldier in combat endures many indignities. Among these can be endless months and years of exposure to desert heat, sweltering jungle, torrential rains, or frozen mountains and tundras. Usually the soldier lives amidst swarming vermin. Very often there is lack of food, lack of sleep, and the constant uncertainty that eats away at the combatants’ sense of control over their lives and their environment. But, bad as they are, all of these stressors can be found in many cultural, geographic, or social circumstances, and when the ingredient of war is removed individuals exposed to these circumstances do not suffer mass psychiatric casualties. To fully comprehend the intensity of the stress of combat, we must keep these other stressors in mind while understanding the body’s physiological response to combat, as manifested in the sympathetic nervous system’s (SNS) mobilization of resources. And then we must understand the impact of the parasympathetic nervous system ‘backlash’ that occurs as a result of the demands placed upon it. The SNS mobilizes and directs the body’s energy resources for action. It is the physiological equivalent of the body’s frontline soldiers who actually do the fighting in a military unit. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for the body’s digestive and recuperative processes. It is the physiological equivalent of the body’s cooks, mechanics, and clerks who sustain a military unit over an extended period of time. Usually the body maintains itself in a state of homeostasis which ensures that these two nervous systems maintain a balance between their demands upon the body’s resources. But during extremely stressful circumstances

the ‘fight-or-flight’ response kicks in and the SNS mobilizes all available energy for survival. This is the physiological equivalent of throwing the cooks, mechanics, and clerks into the battle. This process is so intense that soldiers very often suffer stress diarrhea due to redirecting of energies from nonessential parasympathetic processes, and it is not at all uncommon to lose control of urination and defecation as the body literally ‘blows its ballast’ and redirects all available energy in an attempt to provide the resources required to ensure survival. This is reflected in World War II surveys in which a quarter of combat veterans admitted that they urinated in their pants in combat, and a quarter admitted that they defecated in their pants in combat. A combatant must pay a physiological price for an enervating process so intense. The ‘price’ that the body pays is an equally powerful ‘backlash’ when the neglected demands of the parasympathetic nervous system become ascendant. This parasympathetic backlash occurs as soon as the danger and the excitement is over, and it takes the form of an incredibly powerful weariness and sleepiness on the part of the soldier. Napoleon stated that the moment of greatest danger was the instant immediately after victory, and in saying so he demonstrated a powerful understanding of the way in which soldiers become physiologically and psychologically incapacitated by the parasympathetic backlash that occurs as soon as the momentum of the attack has halted and the soldier briefly believes himself to be safe. During this period of vulnerability a counterattack by fresh troops can have an effect completely out of proportion to the number of troops attacking. It is basically for this reason that the maintenance of a ‘un-blown’ reserve has historically been essential in

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combat, with battles often revolving around which side can hold out and deploy their reserves last. Clausewitz understood the danger of reserve forces becoming prematurely enervated and exhausted (and he provides insight into the root cause of the enervation) when he cautioned that the reserves should always be maintained out of sight of the battle. In continuous combat the soldier roller coasters through a seemingly endless series of these surges of adrenaline and their subsequent backlashes and the body’s natural, useful, and appropriate response to danger ultimately becomes extremely counterproductive. Unable to flee, and unable to overcome the danger through a brief burst of fighting, posturing, or submission, the bodies of modern soldiers in sustained combat exhaust their capacity to enervate and slide into a state of profound physical and emotional exhaustion of such a magnitude that it appears to be almost impossible to communicate it to those who have not experienced it. Most observers of combat lump the impact of this physiological arousal process under the general heading of ‘fear’, but fear is really a cognitive or emotional label for nonspecific physiological arousal in response to a threat. The impact of fear and its attendant physiological arousal is significant, but it must be understood that fear is just a symptom and not the disease, it is an effect but not the cause. To truly understand the psychological effects of combat, we must understand exactly what it is that causes this intense fear response in individuals, and it has become increasingly clear that there are two key, core stressors causing the psychological toll associated with combat. These stressors are: the trauma associated with being the victim of close-range, interpersonal aggression; and the trauma associated with the responsibility to kill a fellow human being at close-range.

The Trauma of Close-Range, Interpersonal Aggression During World War II the carnage and destruction caused by months of continuous German bombing in England, and years of Allied bombing in Germany, was systematically inflicted in order to create psychological casualties among civilian populations. Day and night, in an intentionally unpredictable pattern, for months and even years on end, civilians, relatives and friends were mutilated and killed and homes were destroyed. These civilian populations suffered fear and horror of a magnitude that few humans will ever experience. This unpredictable, uncontrollable reign of shock, horror, and terror is exactly what psychiatrists and psychologists prior to World War II believed to be responsible for the vast numbers of psychiatric casualties suffered by soldiers in World War I. And yet, incredibly, the

Rand Corporation’s Strategic Bombing Study published in 1949 found that there was only a very slight increase in the psychological disorders in these populations as compared to peacetime rates and that these occurred primarily among individuals already predisposed to psychiatric illness. These bombings, which were intended to break the will of the population, appear to have served primarily to harden the hearts and increase the determination to fight among those who endured them. The impact of fear, physiological arousal, horror, and physical deprivation in combat should never be underestimated, but it has become clear that other factors are responsible for psychiatric casualties among combatants. One of those factors is the impact of close-range, interpersonal, aggressive confrontation. Through roller coasters, action and horror movies, drugs, rock climbing, white-water rafting, scuba diving, parachuting, hunting, contact sports, and a hundred other means, modern society pursues fear. Fear in and of itself is seldom a cause of trauma in everyday peacetime existence, but facing close-range interpersonal aggression and hatred from fellow citizens is a horrifying experience of an entirely different magnitude. The ultimate fear and horror in most modern lives is to be raped, tortured, or beaten; to be physically degraded in front of loved ones or to have the sanctity of the home invaded by aggressive and hateful intruders. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association affirms this when it notes that PTSD ‘‘. . .may be especially severe or longer lasting when the stressor is of human design.’’ PTSD resulting from natural disasters such as tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes is comparatively rare and mild, but acute cases of PTSD will consistently result from torture or rape. Ultimately, like tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes, bombs from 20 000 feet are simply not ‘personal’ and are significantly less traumatic – to both the victim and aggressor. Death or debilitation is statistically far more likely to occur by disease or accident than by malicious action, but statistics have nothing to do with fear. Statistically speaking, cigarette smoking is an extraordinarily dangerous activity that annually inflicts slow, hideous deaths upon millions of individuals worldwide, but this fact does not dissuade millions of individuals from smoking, and around the globe few nations are motivated to pass laws to protect their citizens from this threat. But the presence of one serial rapist in a large city can change the behavior of hundreds of thousands of individuals, and there is a broad tradition of laws designed to protect citizens from rape, assault, and murder. When snakes, heights, or darkness cause an intense fear reaction in an individual it is considered a phobia, a dysfunction, an abnormality. But it is very natural and normal to respond to an attacking, aggressive fellow

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human being with a phobic-scale response. This is a universal human phobia. More than anything else in life, it is intentional, overt, ‘human’ hostility and aggression that assaults the self-image, sense of control, and ultimately, the mental and physical health of human beings. The soldier in combat is inserted straight into the inescapable midst of this most psychologically traumatic of environments. Ultimately, if the combatant is unable to get some respite from the trauma of combat, and if not injured or killed, the only escape available is the psychological escape of becoming a psychiatric casualty and mentally fleeing the battlefield.

Heart rate (beats per minute (bpm)) Above 175 bpm:

220

• Irrational fighting or fleeing • Freezing • Submissive behavior • Vasoconstriction (reduced bleeding from wounds) • Voiding of bladder and bowels • Gross motor skills (running, charging, etc.) at highest performance level

200

180

160

175 bpm: • Cognitive processing deteriorates • Loss of peripheral vision (tunnel vision) • Loss of depth perception • Loss of near vision • Auditory exclusion (tunnel hearing)

The Physiology of Close Combat An understanding of the stress of close combat begins with an understanding of the physiological response to closerange interpersonal aggression. The traditional view of combat stress is most often associated with combat fatigue and PTSD which are actually manifestations that occur after, and as a result of, combat stress. Bruce Siddle has defined combat stress as the perception of an imminent threat of serious personal injury or death, or when tasked with the responsibility to protect another party from imminent serious injury or death, under conditions where response time is minimal. The debilitating effects of combat stress have been recognized for centuries. Phenomenon such as tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, the loss of fine and complex motor control, irrational behavior, and the inability to think clearly have all been observed as byproducts of combat stress. Even though these phenomena have been observed and documented for hundreds of years, very little research has been conducted to understand why combat stress deteriorates performance. The key characteristic which distinguishes combat stress is the activation of the SNS. The SNS is activated when the brain perceives a threat to survival, resulting in an immediate discharge of stress hormones. This ‘mass discharge’ is designed to prepare the body for fight-orflight. The response is characterized by increasing arterial pressure and blood flow to large muscle mass (resulting in increased strength capabilities and enhanced gross motor skills – such as running from or charging into an opponent), vasoconstriction of minor blood vessels at the end of appendages (which serves to reduce bleeding from wounds), pupil dilation, cessation of digestive processes, and muscle tremors. Figure 2 presents a schematic representation of the effects of hormonal-induced heart-rate increase resulting from SNS activation. The activation of the SNS is automatic and virtually uncontrollable. It is a reflex triggered by the perception of a threat. Once initiated, the SNS will dominate all voluntary and involuntary systems until the perceived threat

115–145 bpm = optimal survival and combat performance level for: • Complex motor skills • Visual reaction time • Cognitive reaction time

140

120

155 bpm: complex motor skills deteriorate

115 bpm: fine motor skill deteriorates

100

80

60–80 bpm = normal resting heart rate

Effects of hormonal-induced heart-rate increase Figure 2 Effects of hormonal-induced heart-rate increase.

has been eliminated or escaped, performance deteriorates, or the parasympathetic nervous system activates to reestablish homeostasis. The degree of SNS activation centers around the level of perceived threat. For example, low-level SNS activation may result from the anticipation of combat. This is especially common with police officers or soldiers minutes before they make a tactical assault into a potential deadly force environment. Under these conditions combatants will generally experience increases in heart rates and respiration, muscle tremors, and a psychological sense of anxiety. In contrast, high-level SNS activation occurs when combatants are confronted with an unanticipated deadly force threat and the time to respond is minimal. Under these conditions the extreme effects of the SNS will cause catastrophic failure of the visual, cognitive, and motor control systems. Although there are endless variables that may trigger the SNS, there are six key variables that have an immediate impact of the level of SNS activation. These are the degree of malevolent, human intent behind

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the threat; the perceived level of threat, ranging from risk of injury to the potential for death; the time available to response; the level of confidence in personal skills and training; the level of experience in dealing with the specific threat; and the degree of physical fatigue that is combined with the anxiety. Once activated, the SNS causes immediate physiological changes of which the most noticeable and easily monitored is increased heart rate. SNS activation will drive the heart rate from an average of 70 beats per minute (BPM) to more than 200 BPM in less than a second. And as combat stress increases, heart rate and respiration will increase until catastrophic failure, or until the parasympathetic nervous system is triggered. In 1950, S. L. A. Marshall’s The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation was one of the first studies to identify how combat performance deteriorates when soldiers are exposed to combat stress. Marshall concluded that we must reject ‘‘. . .the superstition that under danger men can be expected to have more than their normal powers, and that they will outdo their best efforts simply because their lives are in danger.’’ Indeed, in many ways, the reality is just the opposite and individuals under stress are far less capable of doing anything other than blindly running from or charging toward a threat. Humans have three primary survival systems: vision, cognitive processing, and motor skill performance. Under stress, all three break down. Bruce K. Siddle’s landmark research at PPCT involved monitoring the heart-rate responses of law-enforcement officers in interpersonal conflict simulations using paintball-type simulation weapons. This research has consistently recorded heart-rate increases to well over 200 BPM, with some peak heart rates of up to 300 BPM. These were simulations in which the combatants knew that their life was not in danger. The combatant in a true, life-and-death situation (whether soldier or law enforcement officer), faces the ultimate, universal human phobia of interpersonal aggression and will certainly experience a physiological reaction even greater than that of Siddle’s subjects. The fundamental truth of modern combat is that the stress of facing close-range interpersonal aggression is so great that, if endured for months on end without any other means of respite or escape, the combatant will inevitably become a psychiatric casualty. But even greater than the resistance to being the ‘victim’ of close-range aggression, is the combatant’s powerful aversion to ‘inflicting’ aggression on fellow human beings. And at the heart of this dread is the average, healthy person’s resistance to killing one’s own kind.

A Resistance to Killing There is a notable reduction in the kind of psychiatric casualties usually identified with long-term exposure to

combat among medical personnel, chaplains, officers, and soldiers on reconnaissance patrols behind enemy lines. The key factor that is not present in each of these situations is that, although they are in the frontlines and the enemy may attempt to kill them, they have no direct responsibility to participate personally in close-range killing activities. Even when there is equal or even greater danger of dying, combat is much less stressful if you do not have to kill. The existence of a resistance to killing lies at the heart of this dichotomy between killers and nonkillers. This is an additional, final stressor the combatant must face. To truly understand the nature of this resistance to killing we must first recognize that most participants in close combat are literally ‘frightened out of their wits’. Once the bullets start flying, combatants stop thinking with the forebrain, which is the part of the brain which makes us human, and start thinking with the midbrain, or mammalian brain, which is the primitive part of the brain that is generally indistinguishable from that of an animal. In conflict situations this primitive, midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one’s own kind. During territorial and mating battles, animals with antlers and horns slam together in a relatively harmless head-to-head fashion, rattlesnakes wrestle each other, and piranha fight their own kind with flicks of the tail, but against any other species these creatures unleash their horns, fangs, and teeth without restraint. This is an essential survival mechanism that prevents a species from destroying itself during territorial and mating rituals. One major modern revelation in the field of military psychology is the observation that this resistance to killing one’s own species is also a key factor in human combat. Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall first observed this during his work as the official US historian of the European Theater of Operations in World War II. Based on his post-combat interviews, Marshall concluded in his landmark book, Men against fire, that only 15–20% of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their weapons at an exposed enemy soldier. Specialized weapons, such as a flamethrower, usually were fired. Crew-served weapons, such as a machine gun, almost always were fired. And firing would increase greatly if a nearby leader demanded that the soldier fire. But, when left to their own devices, the great majority of individual combatants throughout history appear to have been unable or unwilling to kill. Marshall’s findings have been somewhat controversial. Faced with scholarly concern about a researcher’s methodology and conclusions, the scientific method involves replicating the research. In Marshall’s case, every available, parallel, scholarly study validates his basic findings. Ardant du Picq’s surveys of French officers in the 1860s and his observations on ancient battles, Keegan and Holmes’ numerous accounts of ineffectual firing throughout history,

Psychological Effects of Combat 447

Richard Holmes’ assessment of Argentine firing rates in the Falklands War, Paddy Griffith’s data on the extraordinarily low killing rate among Napoleonic and American Civil War regiments, the British Army’s laser reenactments of historical battles, the FBI’s studies of nonfiring rates among law enforcement officers in the 1950s and 1960s, and countless other individual and anecdotal observations, all confirm Marshall’s fundamental conclusion that man is not, by nature, a killer. The exception to this resistance can be observed in sociopaths who, by definition, feel no empathy or remorse for their fellow human beings. Pit bull dogs have been selectively bred for sociopathy, bred for the absence of the resistance to killing one’s of kind in order to ensure that they will perform the unnatural act of killing another dog in battle. Similarly, human sociopaths represent Swank and Marchand’s 2% who did not become psychiatric casualties after months of continuous combat since they were not disturbed by the requirement to kill. But sociopaths would be a flawed tool that is impossible to control in peacetime, and social dynamics make it very difficult for humans to breed themselves for such a trait. However, humans are very adept at finding mechanical means to overcome natural limitations. Humans were born without the physical ability to fly, so we found mechanisms that overcame this limitation and enabled flight. Humans also were born without the psychological ability to kill our fellow humans, and so, throughout history, we have devoted great effort to finding a way to overcome this resistance. From a psychological perspective, the history of warfare can be viewed as a series of successively more effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms to enable or force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing.

Overcoming the Resistance to Killing By 1946 the US Army had accepted Marshall s conclusions, and the Human Resources Research Office of the US Army subsequently pioneered a revolution in combat training that eventually replaced firing at bulls-eye targets with deeply ingrained ‘conditioning’ using realistic, manshaped, pop-up targets that fall when hit. Psychologists know that this kind of powerful ‘operant conditioning’ is the only technique that will reliably influence the primitive, midbrain processing of a frightened human being, just as fire drills condition terrified school children to respond properly during a fire, and repetitious, ‘stimulus–response’ conditioning in flight simulators enables frightened pilots to respond reflexively to emergency situations. Throughout history the ingredients of groups, leadership, and distance have been manipulated to enable and force combatants to kill, but the introduction of conditioning in modern training was a true revolution. The application and perfection of these basic conditioning

techniques increased the rate of fire from near 20% in World War II to approximately 55% in Korea and around 95% in Vietnam. Similar high rates of fire resulting from modern conditioning techniques can be seen in FBI data on law enforcement firing rates since the nationwide introduction of modern conditioning techniques in the late 1960s. Figure 3 presents a schematic representation of the interaction between the killing enabling factors that have been manipulated throughout history including the key, modern ingredient of conditioning. One of the most dramatic examples of the value and power of this modern, psychological revolution in training can be seen in Richard Holmes’ observations of the 1982 Falklands War. The superbly trained (i.e., ‘conditioned’) British forces were without air or artillery superiority and consistently outnumbered three-to-one while attacking the poorly trained but well-equipped and carefully dugin Argentine defenders. Superior British firing rates (which Holmes estimates to be well over 90%), resulting from modern training techniques, has been credited as a key factor in the series of British victories in that brief but bloody war. Any future army that attempts to go into battle without similar psychological preparation is likely to meet a fate similar to that of the Argentines.

The Price of Overcoming the Resistance to Killing The extraordinarily high firing rate resulting from modern conditioning processes was a key factor in America’s ability to claim that US ground forces never lost a major engagement in Vietnam. But conditioning that overrides such a powerful, innate resistance carries with it enormous potential for psychological backlash. Every warrior society has a ‘purification ritual’ to help returning warriors deal with their ‘blood guilt’ and to reassure them that what they did in combat was ‘good’. In primitive tribes this generally involves ritual bathing, ritual separation (which serves as a cooling-off and ‘group therapy’ session), and a ceremony embracing the veteran back into the tribe. Modern Western rituals traditionally involve long periods while marching or sailing home, parades, monuments, and the unconditional acceptance of society and family. Table 1 outlines some of the key factors in the killing experience rationalization and acceptance processes, using the example of US troops in Vietnam as a case study of an extreme circumstance in which the purification rituals broke down. For example, combatants do not do what they do in combat for medals, they are motivated largely by a concern for their comrades; but after the battle medals serve as a kind of ‘Get Out of Jail Free Card’: a powerful talisman that proclaims to them and to others that what the combatant did was honorable and acceptable. Although medals were issued in Vietnam, the

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Demands of authority

Proximity of authority Respect for authority Predisposition of killer

Target attractiveness of victim

Total distance from victim

? Physical distance Emotional distance • • • •

• Intensity of demand for kill • Legitimacy of authority

Group absolution

Identification with group Proximity of group

Cultural Moral Social Mechanical

• • • • •

• Training/conditioning • Recent experiences • Temperament

Relevance of available strategies Relevance of victim Payoff Killer’s gain Enemy’s loss

• Intensity of support for kill • Number in immediate group • Legitimacy of group

Figure 3 Killing enabling factors.

Table 1 Killing experience rationalization and acceptance processes, a comparative study Process

Past wars

Vietnam

Praise from peers and superiors (medals, citations) The presence of mature, older comrades Circumstances limiting civilian kills/atrocities Rear lines and safe areas Presence of close, trusted friends throughout the war Cool-down period with comrades while returning home Knowledge of victory, gain, and accomplishments Parades and monuments Reunions and continued commodore with comrades after the war Acceptance and praise from friends, family, and society Support to veteran from religious and political systems

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes (not worn) No (reduced) No (reduced) No No No No No (delayed) No No (mixed) No (mixed)

social environment was such that veterans could not wear the medals or their uniforms in public. Similarly, the young combatant needs the presence of mature, older comrades to seek guidance and support from, but in Vietnam the average age of the combatant was 19, as opposed to 26 in World War II. Other key factors unique to the American experience in Vietnam include the absence of any truly safe, secure area in-country; the individual replacement system that hampered bonding and ensured that soldiers often arrived and left as strangers;

and the use of aircraft to immediately return veterans to America without the usual cool-down, group therapy period experienced for thousands of years as veterans sailed or marched home. For America’s Vietnam veterans the purification ritual was largely denied, and a host of studies have demonstrated that one of the most significant causal factors in PTSD is the lack of support structure after the traumatic event, which in this case occurred when the returning veteran was attacked and condemned in an unprecedented manner.

Psychological Effects of Combat 449

The traditional horrors of combat were magnified by modern conditioning techniques and this combined with the nature of the war and an unprecedented degree of societal condemnation to create a circumstance which resulted in between 0.5 and 1.5 million cases (the results of studies vary greatly) of PTSD among the 3.5 million US veterans of Southeast Asia. This mass incidence of psychiatric disorders among Vietnam veterans resulted in the ‘discovery’ of PTSD, a condition that we now know has always occurred as a result of warfare, but never before in this quantity. Armies around the world have integrated these lessons from Vietnam, and in Britain’s Falklands War, Israel’s 1982 Lebanon incursion, and in the US’s Gulf War the lessons of Vietnam and the need for the purification ritual have been closely and carefully considered and applied. In the former USSR’s Afghanistan War this need was again ignored, and the resulting social turmoil was one of the factors that eventually led to the collapse of that nation. Indeed, the Weinberger Doctrine, later referred to as the Powell Doctrine, which holds that the United States will not engage in a war without strong societal support, is a reflection of the tragic lessons learned from the psychological effects of combat in Vietnam. PTSD is a psychological disorder resulting from a traumatic event. PTSD manifests itself in persistent re-experiencing of the traumatic event, numbing of emotional responsiveness, and persistent symptoms of increased arousal, resulting in clinically significant distress or impairment in social and occupational functioning. There is often a long delay between the traumatic event and the manifestation of PTSD. Among Vietnam veterans in the United States, PTSD has been strongly linked with greatly increased divorce rates, increased incidence of alcohol and drug abuse, and increased suicide rates. Indeed, Veterans Administration data indicate that, as of 1996, 3 times more Vietnam veterans have died from suicide after the war than died from enemy action during the war, and this number is increasing every year. But PTSD seldom results in violent criminal acts, and US Bureau of Justice Statistics research indicates that veterans, including Vietnam veterans, are statistically less likely to be incarcerated than a nonveteran of the same age. The key safeguard in this process appears to be the deeply ingrained discipline which the soldier internalizes with military training. However, with the advent of interactive ‘point-and-shoot’ arcade and video games there is significant concern that society is aping military conditioning, but without the vital safeguard of discipline. There is strong evidence to indicate that the indiscriminate civilian application of combat conditioning techniques as entertainment may be a key factor in worldwide, skyrocketing violent crime rates, including a sevenfold increase in per capita aggravated assaults in America since 1956. Thus, the psychological effects of combat can increasingly be observed on the streets of nations around the world.

Conclusion: A Cultural Conspiracy It is essential to acknowledge that good ends have been and will continue to be accomplished through combat. Many democracies owe their very existence to successful combat. Few individuals will deny the need for combat against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. And around the world the price of civilization is paid every day by military units on peacekeeping operations and domestic police forces who are forced to engage in close combat. There have been and will continue to be times and places where combat is unavoidable, but when a society requires its police and armed forces to participate in combat it is essential to fully comprehend the magnitude of the inevitable psychological toll. It is often said that ‘all’s fair in love and war’, and this expression provides a valuable insight into the human psyche, since these twin, taboo fields of sexuality and aggression represent the two realms in which most individuals will consistently deceive both themselves and others. Our psychological and societal inability to confront the truth about the effects of combat is the foundation for the cultural conspiracy of repression, deception, and denial that has helped to perpetuate and propagate war throughout recorded history. In the field of developmental psychology a mature adult is sometimes defined as someone who has attained a degree of insight and self-control in the two areas of sexuality and aggression. This is also a useful definition of maturity in civilizations. Thus two important and reassuring trends in recent years have been the development of the science of human sexuality, which has been termed ‘sexology’, and a parallel development of the science of human aggression, which D. Grossman has termed ‘killology’. There is universal consensus that continued research in this previously taboo realm of human aggression is vital to the future development, and perhaps to the very existence, of our civilization. See also: Military Culture; Weaponry, Evolution of

Further Reading Gabriel, R. A. (1987). No more heroes: Madness and psychiatry in war. New York: Hill and Wang. Greene, B. (1989). Homecoming. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Griffith, P. (1989). Battle tactics of the American) civil war. London: Yale University Press. Grossman, D. (1995, 1996). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York: Little, Brown. Hoge, C. W., Castro, C. A., Messer, S. C., et al. (2004). Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health problems, and barriers to care. New England Journal of Medicine 351(1), 13–22. Holmes, R. (1985). Acts of war: The behavior of men in battle. New York: The Free Press. Kavanagh, J. (2005). Stress and performance: A review of the literature and its applicability to the military. Rand: Santa Monica, CA.

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Keegan, J. (1976). The face of battle. Harmondsworth, UK: The Chaucer Press. Keegan, J. and Holmes, R. (1985). Soldiers. London: Hamish Hamilton. Marshal, S. L. A. (1978). Men against fire. Peter Smith: Gloucester, MA. Nadelson, T. (2005). Trained to kill: Soldiers at war. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pissiota, A., Frans, O¨ ., Fernandez, M., et al. (2002). Neurofunctional correlates of posttraumatic stress disorder: A PET symptom

provocation study. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 252(2), 68–75. Siddle, B. K. (1995). Sharpening the warrior’s edge: The psychology and science of training. PPCT Management Systems: Millstadt, IL. Swank, R. L. and Marchand, W. E. (1946). Combat neuroses: Development of combat exhaustion. Archives of Neurology and Psychology 55, 236–247. Zillmer, E. A. (ed.) (2006). Military psychology: Clinical and operational applications. New York: Guilford Press.

Self-reported Combat Stress Indicators Among Troops Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: An Epidemiological Study Mark S Riddle and John W Sanders, U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3, Cairo, Egypt James J Jones, U.S. Army Forces Central Command, Troop Medical Clinic, Doha, Qatar Schuyler C Webb, Naval Medical Research Center, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Methods Results

Discussion Further Reading

Introduction

from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been described [2–5], and a single study has reported on psychiatric medical evacuations from the current theatre [6]. However, to our knowledge, no data are available describing the combat stress of military personnel during these deployments and potential determinants thereof. To evaluate and describe combat stress among troops deployed in current combat operations, we chose to describe health screening data collected from personnel systematically selected from current combat regions participating in a rest and recuperation (R&R) program in Doha, Qatar.

Combat stress has always been a part of military history and military medicine, only the names have changed. At the onset of World War I, there was no general consensus as to the etiology of a new disorder seen on the battlefield. This new malady was coined ‘‘shell shock’’ by a British Army physician who believed that this debilitating disorder was a result of exploding artillery shells creating nerve damage [1]. Although discovered to be a psychological reaction to extreme stress, the name remained. During World War II and the Korean War, the term ‘‘battle fatigue’’ or ‘‘combat fatigue’’ was used by the military, and it was agreed upon to be psychological in nature. To date, evident mental health needs among combat veterans after their return

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, nor the U.S. Government. This work was supported by work unit number GEIS-E0018. Declaration of interest: All authors report no declaration of interest between funding source for this study. Copyright statement: I am a military service member. This work was prepared as part of my official duties. Title 17 U.S.C. } 105 provides that ‘Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government.’ Title 17 U.S.C. }101 defines a US Government work as a work prepared by a military service member or employee of the US Government as part of that person’s official duties.

Methods The US military systematically selects deployed units within Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and other countries within the region to take part in a 4-day R&R leave program located at a number of sites, including Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar. During troop in-processing, a mandatory completion of a clinic screening form designed to identify individuals who may need medical treatment is conducted. In addition to questions regarding current or recent experience of diseases syndromes and injury, 4 questions were asked about current mental health problems (‘‘Do you feel depressed?’’ ‘‘Do you feel like hurting yourself ?’’) and preference for consultation with a mental

Self-reported Combat Stress Indicators Among Troops Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan

health provider or a chaplain. In addition, the survey form included demographic information, military unit (from which country was derived), rank, and current medications. Additional data on monthly rates and counts of deaths among forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were obtained and used to evaluate temporal associations of these events with combat stress indicators [7]. We conducted descriptive analysis on these data collected from active duty troops participating in R&R from October 1, 2003 to January 31, 2005. Differences between categorical variables were tested using Chi-square or Fisher exact test. Poisson regression was used to estimate rates of self-reported mental health measures and evaluate differences due to potential predictor variables of country, rank, and calendar month. Multivariate Poisson regression was used to assess for confounding and report incident rate ratios for primary predictors based on each of the outcomes. All data were double-entered into Epi-Info version 6. Stata V9 (StataCorp, College Station, TX) was used for all analyses. Statistical significance was 2-tailed and set at P <.05 for each analysis. This study was conducted on data that was originally collected for a primary clinical purpose. A determination of exempt from institutional review board (IRB) review was made by the NAMRU-3 institutional review board because the research involved the study of existing data, documents, or records, and information was recorded by the investigator so that subjects could not be identified directly.

Results Overall, 40 620 troops completed a clinic screening form between October 2003 and January 2005. Of these, troops from Iraq accounted for 60.1% (n ¼ 24428) of the population, and 13.7% were from Afghanistan (n ¼ 5569). The remainder of troops were from Uzbekistan (n ¼ 337) or other various countries in the region (n ¼ 138). Twenty-five

451

percent (n ¼ 10 148) of troops failed to complete the unit of assignment item on the clinic screening form. Troops not reporting unit of assignment were of lower rank as compared with those that did complete the field (64.5% vs 55.3%, P < .0001) and based on the population from which the R&R program draws from were considered to be from Iraq or Afghanistan. Based on these data and the primary objectives of this study (combat stress), we chose to conduct analysis on the 40 145 (98.8%) troops reporting to be from Iraq and Afghanistan and those not stating a country assignment. Table 1 describes the reported rate of responses to the mental health indicator questions stratified by country of deployment and rank. Overall, rates of self-reported depression were 70.3 per 10 000 person-surveys, with the highest rate of 92.8 per 10 000 among those who failed to complete the current country assignment on the form. Rates of self-reported depression among those in Afghanistan were lower than those of troops from Iraq (32.3 vs 69.7 per 10 000 person-surveys, P < .0001). Compared with self-reported feelings of depression, the rates for other combat stress indicators were considerably lower, with overall rates of feelings of self-harm, preference of seeing a mental health provider or seeing a chaplain reported as 6.5, 7.5, and 11.2 per 10 000 person-surveys, respectively. There were similar differences in these combat stress indicator rates among country of deployment as was found with feelings of depression. In addition to country of deployment, rank was associated with differences in self-report of combat health indicators. Feelings of depression and self-harm were inversely correlated with rank of individual (4-level ordinal grouping) (bCoef ¼ .21, P ¼ .0006; bCoef ¼ .49, P < .0001, respectively). Preference for seeing a chaplain trended toward a positive correlation with increasing ordinal levels of rank (bCoef ¼ 1.24, P ¼ .13). Because country of deployment and rank were both associated with the combat stress outcomes and with each

Table 1 Characteristics of combat stress indicators among US military personnel from Middle East Region, October 2003 to January 2005 (N ¼ 40 145) Response rate per 10 000 person-surveys

Characteristic Country Iraq (n = 24428) Afghanistan (n = 5569) Not stated (n = 10148) Total (Poisson 95% CI) Rank E1-E4 E5-E6 E7-E9 Officer/CWO

Feel depressed

Feel like harming self

See mental health provider

See chaplain

69.7 32.3 92.8 70.3 (62.4–79.0)

7.8 3.6 4.9 6.5 (4.2–9.5)

8.2 3.6 7.9 7.5 (5.0–10.7)

10.7 9.0 13.8 11.2 (8.2–15.0)

75.5 76.8 51.4 28.4

8.3 5.2 0 3.2

8.7 5.2 9.3 6.3

9.6 11.2 14.0 18.9

CI indicates confidence interval; CWO, Chief Warrant Officer.

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Self-reported Combat Stress Indicators Among Troops Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan

other, a multivariate Poisson regression model for the outcomes and covariates of country of deployment and rank were fit. After adjusting for rank, troops from Iraq (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 2.1) and ‘country not stated’ (IRR 2.8) were at higher risk for self-reported feelings of depression compared with troops deployed to Afghanistan (P < .01). Rank remained independently associated with the depression outcome, with enlisted demonstrating higher risk of selfreported depression compared with officer ranks (IRR, 2.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.3–4.8). Similar direction and magnitudes were noted for other combat stress indicators, although the association was not statistically significant. There were distinct temporal trends found in reported combat stress rates over time that appeared to match the rate or number of deaths reported in the country during the same period. For self-reported depression in Iraq (Figure 1), the rate during May 2004 was higher than other months and was preceded by a month (‘‘Bloody April’’) [8] where troops experienced high fatality rates. Similarly, for Afghanistan, although more variable, there appears to be an association between rates of self-reported depression and numbers of reported fatalities during that month (Figure 2).

Discussion The stress associated with combat presents itself as a spectrum of outcomes ranging from normal battle

reaction (not a casualty), to acute anxiety and depressive syndromes, to atypical syndromes with numerous determinants falling under the broad categories of biological, situational, intrapsychic, and interpersonal factors [9]. In our clinic screening data, we found self-reported combat stress indicators that were relatively higher among troops in Iraq compared with Afghanistan, more common in the lower ranks, and temporally associated with higher intensity combat periods (at least in Iraq). These associations persisted when adjusting for potential confounding. Our findings are not novel and have, in fact, been well described in previous conflicts throughout the decades. The finding of twice the rates of combat stress (as measured by depression and other indicators) among troops deployed to Iraqi compared with Afghanistan is consistent with the overall fatality rate for 2004 (a proxy measure for battle intensity) between the 2 combat settings (Operation Iraqi Freedom [OIF]: 5.0 deaths per 1000 person-years, Operation Enduring Freedom [OEF]: 2.7 deaths per 1000 person-years) [7,10]. Few published studies have addressed combat mental health issues during current combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan [6,11,12], whereas a number of studies have addressed the neuropsychiatric consequences among veterans returning from theatre [2,5,13]. Although not designed specifically to measure incidence of mental health, a recent report from an Army Reserve Combat Stress Control Prevention Team, which was dispatched to Afghanistan and imbedded

Figure 1 Rates of self-reported depression and monthly death rates among deployed troops in Iraq during October 2003-December 2004.

Self-reported Combat Stress Indicators Among Troops Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan

453

Figure 2 Rates of self-reported depression and monthly death counts among deployed troops in Afghanistan during October 2003–December 2004.

in an Army airborne division and Special Operations forces between June and December 2002, described incident mental health encounters seen by their team members [12]. Among a catchment population of 7000 troops (during a 6-month period), no suicides or homicides were reported; however, 634 soldiers were seen and diagnosed as having depression (25%), adjustment disorders with mixed emotional features (25%), anxiety disorders (10%), occupational problems (20%), combat stress (5%), bereavement (5%), and others (10%). Based on these reported events and population denominator, an estimated incidence of diagnosed psychiatric illness is approximately 1.5 events per 100 person-months (9% cumulative 6-month incidence). In addition, a recent report released by the Mental Health Advisory Team IV (MHAT IV) found that among 1882 soldiers and marines deployed in Iraq, a positive screen for any mental health illness was 20% among soldiers and 15% among marines (9% vs 4% for acute depression for soldiers and marines, respectively) [11]. These rates are much higher than what our data described, which could be due to differences in the sample population or bias with the combat stress indicator measurement used. For example, the MHAT IV reported that among their study sample, only 5.2% of soldiers and 6.5% of marines reported use of the R&R program. Because of theatre policy, it was likely that these troops had higher exposure to combat stresses compared with our sample, which might account for the higher rate of illness. Relative

rates of mental health illness were not described based on R&R program involvement. More importantly, the combat stress indicator we used and the setting in which this indicator was collected are quite different compared with the diagnosis of mental health illness by the MHAT IV and Army Reserve Combat Stress Control Prevention Team, which used standardized assessment tools. It should be made clear that questions inquiring about depression and preference to seek care from a mental health provider during the in-processing setting upon arrival to R&R do not constitute diagnosable psychiatric illness or psychiatric treatment needs, rather they are indicators (with unknown sensitivity and specificity) of combat stress and not comparable to these other reports. Lack of sensitivity, concern of stigma or consequences of reporting depression in this setting may have resulted in underreporting of true mental health illness. However, aside from the absolute difference in magnitude of the indicator measurement we reported as compared with other studies, our findings of rank and battle intensity are concordant with other reports among troops in the present conflict, as well as historically. We found that rates of combat stress indicators were approximately twice as high among troops deployed to OIF compared with OEF. Interestingly, Hoge et al. [5] also recently described higher rates (approximately double) of various mental health indicators in OIF vs OEF veterans upon returning home. The MHAT IV report also found significant correlation between diagnosis of mental health

454

Self-reported Combat Stress Indicators Among Troops Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan

illness and combat intensity [11]. Historically, lowintensity warfare has resulted in casualties with depressive symptoms, whereas those from mid- to high-intensity combat primarily present with anxiety, conversion, and dissociative symptoms. Similarly, Jones [14] found that although anxiety and fear symptoms predominated among combat soldiers in Vietnam, combat-support troops were more likely to present with depressivetype symptoms. Other factors associated with differential rates of combat stress indicators were rank and monthly casualty count. Levav et al. [15] described rates of psychiatric breakdown among officers being one fifth those of enlisted men. Furthermore, previous studies have found associations of increased combat stress and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among enlisted ranks compared with officers [16,17], and these disorders are higher among enlisted ranks compared with the general US population [18]. Our findings were consistent with this trend and can be interpreted based on differences between the ranks in terms of role in combat, stressors at home, and possibly prior experience in real or enacted combat situations. Our findings show a strong correlation between monthly rates of fatalities and selfreported combat stress indicators, particularly in Iraq and less so in Afghanistan. As previously discussed, this is consistent with what previous authors have reported. The relatively poor correlation between monthly casualties and combat stress indicators in OEF might also be explained by differences in combat environments, troop population sampling, or other factors. Our study is not without limitations, particularly stemming from the fact that we analyzed data that were originally collected as part of a clinical health screening tool and not for epidemiological study purposes. We are limited in that we do not have a reference group to ascertain if the rates of combat stress indicators are any different than that of similar nondeployed troops in garrison or deployed troops to noncombat situations. However, we believe that given the differential rates are consistent with factors that have been described among reports in the current combat setting, as well as historically, we feel the combat stress indicators used measure a real phenomenon and might prove useful as a population-based surveillance tool to evaluate the impact of theatre-wide policies and programs designed to mitigate mental health illness impact. Our definition of our primary stress indicator, depression, was based on a single question asking the soldier if they felt depressed. However, at least one randomized controlled trial in a primary care setting has found that a simple question about depression had similar performance compared with a 20-item questionnaire [19]. However, as previously discussed, we caution the interpretation of the actual reported rates of combat stress because these cannot be construed as measuring actual psychopathology. Because these soldiers are being interviewed

having just arrived to Doha, Qatar, often after a long journey and expecting to spend the next 4 days with relatively few constraints, there is likely to be an underreporting of the outcomes, thus explaining the relatively low rates reported (ie, depression rate of 7 per 1000 troops). Furthermore, we are not able to infer whether the self-reported depression had any functional impact on the war fighter, nor were we able to assess any other common combat stress outcomes. Future studies, specifically designed to address these limitations could be conducted. We concur with the recent recommendations of the MHAT IV to provide better predeployment training related to coping with the stressors of combat and deployment. We also think it would be useful to study, perhaps within a cohort type design, surveillance for behavioral and mental health events (eg, depression, anxiety, acute combat stress), their impact on functional performance, and the efficacy of any intervention provided within the field. Within this type of cohort study, the association between events identified within combat and subsequent development of PTSD or other mental health diagnosis could also be evaluated. Furthermore, we believe that the data collected through the R&R clinic screening, despite its limitations, could possibly serve as a monitor (although not real-time) for secular changes in combat stress and could be further used to evaluate theatre-wide policies and programs directed at the reduction of combat stress. Currently, there is no standardized joint reporting system for monitoring mental health status surveillance in the combat environment [11]. We also think that it would be interesting to study if the R&R leave program has any effect on decreasing combat stress as was postulated during the Korean War [20]. The MHAT IV identified that only 5% of soldiers reported taking in-theatre R&R despite a 9-month average deployment [11]. Furthermore, the inequality of access to this type of program was 1 of 2 significant issues cited among troops during focus groups contributing to low individual and unit morale [11]. We agree with the MHAT IV that the in-theatre R&R policy needs to be restructured to ensure more equitable access. The effectiveness of such a policy change in mitigating combat stress should also be evaluated. This study serves to reinforce our understanding of determinants of combat stress, as well as prompt a number of questions regarding factors related to differential combat stress in the current combat environments. We also believe that this secondary use of data collected for the primary purpose of clinical screening could be used as a useful surveillance tool for measuring ongoing levels of combat stress. Further study based on good epidemiologic study design and appropriate combat stress paradigms should be conducted and used to mitigate the immediate effects of combat stress, and the subsequent development of posttraumatic stress disorder is warranted.

Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes 455

Further Reading Department of Defense. Military Personnel Statistics. Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, Accessed January 21, 2006. http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/index.html. Engel, A. G. and Aquilino, C. A. (2004). Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and mental health problems. N Engl J Med 351(17), 1798–1800. Gahm, G. A., Lucenko, B. A., Retzlaff, P., and Fukuda, S. (2007). Relative impact of adverse events and screened symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression among active duty soldiers seeking mental health care. J Clin Psychol 63(3), 199–211. Glass, A. J. (1953). Psychiatry in the Korean Campaign (Installment 1). U S Armed Forces Med J 4, 1387–1401. Grossman, D. (2001). On killing. II: The psychological cost of learning to kill. Int J Emerg Ment Health 3(3), 137–144. Hoge, C. W., Castro, C. A., Messer, S. C., McGurk, D., Cotting, D. I., and Koffman, R. L. (2004). Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health problems, and barriers to care. N Engl J Med 351(1), 13–22. Hoge, C. W., Auchterlonie, J. L., and Milliken, C. S. (2006). Mental health problems, use of mental health services, and attrition from military service after returning from deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. JAMA 295(9), 1023–1032. Hoge, C. W. (2006). Deployment to the Iraq war and neuropsychological sequelae. JAMA 296(22), 2678–2679. Hoge, C. W., Terhakopian, A., Castro, C. A., Messer, S. C., and Engel, C. C. (2007). Association of posttraumatic stress disorder with somatic symptoms, health care visits, and absenteeism among Iraq war veterans. Am J Psychiatry 164(1), 150–153. Iraqi Coalition Casualty Count. http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx (cited 2006, 21 January).

Jones, F. D. (1985). Psychiatric lessons of low-intensity wars. Ann Med Milit Fenn [Finland] 60, 128–134. Jones, F. D. (1995). Chapter 1: Psychiatric lessons of war. In Jones, F. D. (ed.) War Psychiatry Textbook of Military Medicine Part I, Warfare, weaponry, and the casualty vol. 4, pp. 1–33. Bethesda (Md): Office of the Surgeon General, United States Army Medical Department Center and School; Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Levav, I., Greenfeld, H., and Baruch, E. (1979). Psychiatric combat reactions during the Yom Kippur War. Am J Psychiatry 136(5), 637–641. Mental Health Advisory Team III: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Appendix A: WRAIR Report of Soldier Health & Well-Being Assessment. U.S. Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 2004. Mental Health Advisory Team IV: Operation Iraqi Freedom 05–07 Final Report US Surgeon General, Department of the Army and Office of the Surgeon Multinational Force-Iraq, 2006. Accessed January 17, 2008 http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat_iv/ MHAT_IV_Report_17NOV06.pdf. Reyes, V. A. and Hicklin, T. A. (2005). Anger in the combat zone. Mil Med 170(6), 483–487. Riddle, J. R., Smith, T. C., Smith, B., Corbeil, T. E., Engel, C. C., Wells, T. S., et al. (2007). Millennium cohort: the 2001–2003 baseline prevalence of mental disorders in the U.S. military J Clin Epidemiol 60(2), 192–201. Steele D. Bloody April. Army Magazine. 2004: Accessed April 16, 2006: http://www.ausa.org/www/armymag.nsf. Turner, M. A., Kiernan, M. D., McKechanie, A. G., Finch, P. J., McManus, F. B., and Neal, L. A. (2005). Acute military psychiatric casualties from the war in Iraq. Br J Psychiatry 186, 476–479. Williams, J. W., Jr, Mulrow, C. D., Kroenke, K., Dhanda, R., Badgett, R. G., Omori, D., et al. (1999). Case-finding for depression in primary care: a randomized trial. Am J Med 106(1), 36–43.

Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes J A Boscarino, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY and Geisinger Health System, Danville, PA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Vietnam War Vietnam Veteran Studies Psychobiological and Biomedical Findings Studies of Other Veteran Populations after Vietnam

Glossary Autoimmune Disease A disease produced when the body’s normal tolerance of its own antigenic markers on the surface of cells is lost. Cohort Study An observational study design commonly used in epidemiological studies of populations exposed to pathogens that could result in future diseases. Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) A mental health diagnostic interview based on standard psychiatric

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by J A Boscarino, volume 3, pp 656–661, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Implications for Medical Sciences, Research, and Treatment Conclusion Further Reading

nomenclature that made population mental health surveys and population-level estimates possible. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-III) The third edition of standard psychiatric nomenclature used to classify all emotional and mental health disorders in 1980 and the edition in which the definition of PTSD was included. Heritability The proportion of variance of the liability to a disease that is due to shared genetic factors.

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Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes

Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) System Three key anatomic structures that collectively participate in hormonal responses to stressors by regulating human neuroendocrine functions and, hence, the body’s adaptation to environmental stressors. National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) A national cross-sectional survey of male and female Vietnam veterans and nonveterans conducted to determine the prevalence and etiology of psychosocial readjustment problems and mental disorders among Vietnam veterans. Operation Ranch Hand The U.S. military’s operational code name for the application of herbicides (chiefly agents orange, blue, green, pink, purple, and white) in Vietnam by aircraft in order to destroy enemy cover and food crops. Operation Ranch Hand Study A follow-up study of the health status of the men involved in the Operation Ranch Hand herbicide operations. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A specific disabling psychiatric disorder that develops after exposure to psychologically traumatic events; the

The Vietnam War Although U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War officially ended over 30 years ago for the 3.14 million men and 7200 women who served there, the impact of their postwar experiences altered society in many ways. The postwar experiences of Vietnam veterans were different from veterans of many previous wars. For example, unlike earlier U.S. wars in the twentieth century, the Vietnam veteran returned home from a conflict that was controversial and unpopular. Furthermore, many veterans were draftees who often came from lower socioeconomic (SES) households. In addition, of all men eligible for the military draft, only a specific subgroup was primarily inducted, due to the Selective Service System’s deferment policy, which generally exempted men from higher SES groups. Within this context, it became clear to at least some healthcare professionals during the war that many returning veterans were experiencing postwar adjustment problems. During this period, the work of Charles Figley stood out as a classic in stress research because it documented the emotional and psychological trauma many veterans began to manifest by war’s end. Based on Figley’s work, and that of others, health-care researchers and medical professionals in the late 1970s formulated specific etiological models of the pathogenesis of mental disorders among Vietnam veterans. They also contributed to the development of case definitions to characterize these syndromes. These efforts eventually culminated in the inclusion of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical

disorder could last for decades. Symptoms include the reexperiencing of the event, avoidance of stimuli related to the event, and persistent symptoms of increased arousal associated with the event. Psychoneuroendocrinology A field of medical research that focuses on the association between neuroendocrine function and psychological status, especially as this relates to steroidogenic biological alterations and psychiatric illness. Syndromes A group of symptoms of a disordered function related to one another by means of a common pathology. Vietnam Experience Study (VES) A national cohort study of male, U.S. Army Vietnam-theater and nonVietnam-theater veterans, conducted to determine the prevalence and etiology of diseases and medical conditions associated with Vietnam service. Vietnam Era Twin (VET) Registry A registry composed of male twin pairs who both served in the U.S. military between 1965–1975 in order to study the effect of genetic factors on health status.

Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn.; DSM-III). Once this was achieved, more accurate assessments of the scope and nature of traumatic stress (and related disorders) among Vietnam veterans and others were possible. Finally, studies of the postwar experiences of Vietnam veterans have led to many research developments and have accelerated the accumulation of knowledge related to the psychology and biology of PTSD, including the possible long-term medical and health consequences of this syndrome. Although clinical documentation of the adverse psychological effects of combat exposure goes back at least as far the U.S. Civil War, the etiology of these syndromes were neither clearly understood nor well defined. Ninety years ago during World War I, soldiers with acute adverse psychological reactions after combat were believed afflicted with shell shock, thought to result from the concussion effects of artillery bombardments. During World War II, combat fatigue was used to categorize soldiers exhibiting acute adverse psychological reactions after combat because it was thought that exhaustion played a role in this condition. From the 1950s to 1970s, the term war neurosis often was used to broadly characterize soldiers’ adverse psychological reactions after combat. For example, the psychiatric literature during this period associated a wide range of postwar psychological problems with combat exposure, including irritability, jumpiness, disturbed sleep, hysteria, disorientation, and panic attacks. However, for years the long-term effects of combat exposure remained elusive, in part because of a poor case definition and in part because reliable and valid observational studies were not available

Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes 457

until years after World War II. After reviewing these and other findings related to natural disaster and concentration camp survivors, Dohrenwend concluded that there was clear and compelling evidence that many individuals develop functional psychiatric disorders after extreme stress exposures that had not been present before these experiences, a discovery that had been made earlier by Freud.

Vietnam Veteran Studies Initial Research Initial studies of the postwar experiences of Vietnam veterans provided the first clinical and scientific evidence linking combat exposures in Vietnam to postdischarge problems and adjustment difficulties also observed among previous veterans. However, in part because Vietnam veterans often came from lower SES groups, the postwar status of these veterans was controversial. In addition, many early studies were methodologically flawed. One difficulty was that these studies were limited because of biases associated with using nonrepresentative samples. Another problem was the use of nonstandardized mental health measures or the use of measures that assessed only mental health symptoms. Thus, although clinicians had observed that many individuals exposed to combat exhibited certain postwar syndromes afterward (including hyperalertness, exaggerated startle responses, sleep disturbances, and other symptoms) linking these to combat exposure was problematic because of existing methodological shortcomings. However, when DSMIII was being developed in the late 1970s, clinicians and others involved with Vietnam veterans were successful in eventually incorporating these syndromes into DSM-III under the diagnostic nomenclature defining PTSD, originally labeled the post-Vietnam syndrome and later conceptually broadened to include other types of trauma, such as sexual abuse. Once PTSD was included in DSM-III, undertaking large-scale, standardized surveys of Vietnam veterans was feasible and had other research benefits. During this early research period, Robert Laufer’s Legacy Study, although not based on a true probability study, stood out as a landmark investigation. This is because it included over 1000 subjects (both Vietnam veterans and civilians) and used several standard symptom scales common in the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, at the time, this study provided the best assessment of the mental health status of Vietnam veterans and served as a benchmark for future studies. Later Research As part of Public Law 98–160, the U.S. Congress in 1983 mandated that research on Vietnam veterans be undertaken to determine ‘‘the prevalence and incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder and other psychological problems in readjusting to civilian life.’’ In addition to Public Law 98–160, the U.S. Congress passed other public laws mandating studies of the health effects of Vietnam service. As a

consequence of these new laws, several well-designed cohort studies of Vietnam veterans were undertaken during the 1980s. These studies avoided many of the shortcomings of previous research, chiefly because of advancements in sampling and measurement that evolved from earlier research. One of these included the availability of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS), which for the first time permitted the gathering of DSM-III psychiatric diagnoses by means of population surveys, something previously not possible. This later research confirmed that Vietnam combat veterans had higher rates of postwar adjustment difficulties, mental health disorders, medical morbidity, and postwar mortality than noncombat veterans or comparable nonveterans. Most important, however, these studies indicated that the postwar adjustment difficulties and health problems experienced by these veterans were often due to combat exposures in Vietnam, not to the selection biases or measurement inadequacies that had affected earlier studies. Among the later studies, the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS), which involved over 2000 Vietnam-theater and nontheater veterans (in addition to hundreds of civilian nonveterans), is considered one of the most comprehensive psychosocial assessment to date. The NVVRS indicated that 15% of male Vietnam veterans were current PTSD cases (9% of female veterans) and that 31% of male veterans (27% of female veterans) had PTSD during their lifetimes. Those with PTSD also were more likely to have other stress-related psychiatric disorder, such as depression and anxiety disorders, as well as many other postwar adjustment problems. The NVVRS further indicated that the PTSD-positive veterans often had profoundly disrupted lives in almost every domain of life, including in employment and family relationships. Furthermore, the prevalence of PTSD and other postwar psychological problems were found to be significantly higher among those with greater combat exposure and among Hispanic and African American veterans. However, as significant as the psychosocial consequences of the war was for Vietnam veterans, their postwar experiences went beyond psychosocial outcomes. For example, the Vietnam Experience Study (VES) indicated that Vietnam veterans had higher rates of postwar mortality in the first 5 years after discharge, primarily due to suicides, homicides, drug overdoses, and motor vehicle accidents. Furthermore, VES findings related to the postwar medical morbidity experienced by these veterans confirmed that Vietnam-theater veterans as a group had higher rates of health-care use and reported themselves to be in poorer health than veterans without Vietnam service. In addition, theater veterans also tended to have higher rates of hearing loss, evidence of past hepatitis B infection, and higher thyroid-stimulating hormone levels after discharge. In addition, when the postwar health status of Vietnam veterans was examined in relation to whether the veteran had PTSD, PTSD-positive veterans had substantially higher (i.e., 50–150% greater)

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postwar rates of many major chronic diseases, including circulatory, nervous system, digestive, musculoskeletal, and respiratory diseases, even after controlling for the major risk factors for these conditions. For example, 25% of PTSD-positive veterans reported physiciandiagnosed circulatory diseases nearly 20 years after the service (vs. 13% of PTSD-negative veterans) and 19% reported physician-diagnosed nervous system disorders (vs. 6%). Altogether, 68% of PTSD-positive Vietnam veterans reported the occurrence of a chronic diseaserelated medical condition 20 years after Vietnam service (vs. 48% of PTSD-negative Vietnam veterans). Finally, PTSD-positive veterans also were significantly more likely to show electrocardiographic evidence of myocardial infarction and to have abnormally high white blood cell counts (>11,000/mm3) and other immune system abnormalities 20 years after military service. The most compelling evidence, however, linking PTSD to adverse health outcomes was a VES study that examined the causes of death among 15,288 male U.S. Army veterans 30 years after their military service (see Table 1). The analyses adjusted for race, Army volunteer status, Army entry age, Army discharge status, Army illicit-drug abuse, intelligence, age, and for cancer mortality, also pack-years of cigarette smoking. The findings indicated that adjusted postwar mortality for all, cardiovascular, cancer, and external causes of death (e.g., motor vehicle accidents, accidental poisonings, suicides, homicides, and injuries of undetermined intent) was associated with PTSD among Vietnam-theater veterans (N ¼ 7924), with hazards ratios (HRs) of 2.2 (p < 0.001), 1.7 (p ¼ 0.034), 1.9 (p ¼ 0.018), and 2.3 (p ¼ 0.001), respectively. For Vietnam-era veterans with no Vietnam service (N ¼ 7364), PTSD was associated with all causes of mortality (HR ¼ 2.0; p ¼ 0.001). PTSD-positive Vietnam-era veterans also appeared to have an increase in external-cause mortality as well (HR ¼ 2.2; p ¼ 0.073). This study essentially suggested that Vietnam veterans with PTSD were at approximately twice the risk of postwar death from multiple causes. Other postwar studies were also conducted, such as the Operation Ranch Hand Study, which sought to assess the postwar health effects of exposure to herbicides used in Vietnam. Others include the Vietnam Era Twin (VET) studies, which focused on the genetic liabilities for PTSD, substance abuse, and other mental health disorders, not just the impact of Vietnam service. To date, however, the VES has provided the most compelling evidence related to the adverse health effect of combat service and PTSD during that conflict.

Psychobiological and Biomedical Findings There are clinical reasons to expect alterations in neuroendocrine system functions in chronic PTSD cases

because long-term changes in the HPA system and the sympathetic arm of the autonomic nervous system have been reported following exposure to extreme stress. Evidence suggests that the physiological arousal often observed during the recollection of traumatic events is associated alterations in the neuroendocrine functions linked to the sympathetic-adrenomedullary and HPA stress axes. In the case of PTSD, it is thought that these neuroendocrine alterations reflect the consequences of an extreme state of physiopsychological conditioning that occurs following severe stress exposures. Furthermore, although this conditioning response is initiated in the central nervous system (CNS), it is subsequently carried out by multiple endocrine mechanisms that have wideranging effects on the body and nervous system. Similar findings related to this physiological-emotional conditioning process have also been observed with animal models. Several studies have reported lower cortisol levels among Vietnam veterans with PTSD, as well as increased catecholamine concentrations. Furthermore, one recent large-scale study, based on the VES and involving thousands of veterans, found not only that Vietnam-theater veterans with current PTSD had lower cortisol but that past combat exposure levels were associated with plasma cortisol concentrations in an inverse dose–response relationship (see Figure 1). In brief, research with Vietnam combat veterans suggests that PTSD-positive veterans tend to have lower cortisol levels but, paradoxically, higher catecholamine concentrations, together with heightened responses of the stress system to traumatic memories and other stimuli associated with the original trauma. It is known that chronicity and excessiveness of stress system activation can lead to pathogenesis, causing weight changes, depression, hypogonadism, and other systemic alterations, including increased metabolic load on the body’s systems. Thus, the physiological findings for PTSD-positive Vietnam veterans suggest that past traumatic stress exposure has resulted in neuroendocrine system alterations that make veterans potentially susceptible to a host of chronic diseases. As noted, PTSD-positive Vietnam veterans were found to have higher postwar rates of many chronic diseases, reinforcing this neuroendocrine-dysregulation disease hypothesis, which represents a cornerstone in human psychoneuroendocrinology research. Related to HPA dysregulation, it has been suggested that PTSD-positive veterans may be at risk for autoimmune diseases as well. For example, although there have been inconsistencies, investigators, as previously noted, have found that individuals who developed PTSD, particularly men exposed to combat, appeared to have lower plasma cortisol concurrent with higher catecholamine levels. As suggested, Vietnam veterans with current PTSD not only had lower cortisol, but this had an inverse dose–response relationship with combat exposure. In addition, also as

Table 1 Cox proportional hazards regressions: crude and adjusted hazard ratios by veteran and PTSD statusa

Veteran status

All-cause mortality (total deaths ¼ 820)

All veterans PTSD (unadjusted) 2.5 PTSD (adjusted)c 2.1 Vietnam-era veteransd PTSD (unadjusted) 2.6 PTSD (adjusted)c 2.0 Vietnam-theater veteranse PTSD (unadjusted) 2.5 PTSD (adjusted)c 2.2

Cancer mortality (total deaths ¼ 188)

External-cause mortality (total deaths ¼ 175)

95% CI

P value

HR

95% CI

P value

HR

95% CI

P value

HR

95% CI

P value

2.1–3.0 1.7–2.6

<0.001 <0.001

1.7 1.6

1.1–2.6 1.1–2.4

0.010 0.027

1.8 1.5

1.1–2.8 1.0–2.4

0.013 0.075

2.7 2.3

1.8–4.0 1.5–3.5

<0.001 0.001

1.7–3.8 1.3–3.0

<0.001 0.001

1.3 1.2

0.5–3.6 0.4–3.4

0.57 0.69

1.1 0.9

0.4–3.6 0.3–3.1

0.84 0.92

2.9 2.2

1.3–6.7 0.9–5.2

0.012 0.073

2.0–3.2 1.7–2.7

<0.001 <0.001

1.8 1.7

1.1–2.8 1.0–2.7

0.015 0.034

2.2 1.9

1.3–3.7 1.1–3.3

0.003 0.018

2.6 2.3

1.6–4.1 1.4–3.9

<0.001 0.001

b

a HR ¼ hazards ratio; CI ¼ confidence interval; PTSD, ¼ posttraumatic stress disorder. Adapted from J. A. Boscarino (2006). Posttraumatic stress disorder and mortality among US Army veterans 30 years after military service. Annals of Epidemiology 16, 248–256. Reproduced with permission by Elsevier Publishing. b N ¼ 15,288; person-risk years ¼ 229,565; total PTSD cases ¼ 1050. c All models adjusted for race, Army volunteer status, Army entry age, Army discharge status, Army illicit drug use, age at interview, and intelligence. For cancer mortality, models adjusted for the above variables, in addition to pack-years of cigarette smoking. d N ¼ 7364; person-risk years ¼ 110,553; total PTSD cases ¼ 214. e N ¼ 7924; person-risk years ¼ 119,453; total PTSD cases ¼ 836.

Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes 459

HR

Cardiovascular mortality (total deaths ¼ 241)

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Figure 1 Adjusted plasma cortisol concentrations and standard errors bars (95% confidence limits) for Vietnam-theater veterans by combat exposure levels (N ¼ 2457). Results shown are for morning, fasted plasma cortisol (in micrograms per deciliter). Combat level was measured by the Combat Exposure Index scale, a standard measure of combat exposure. Cortisol results are adjusted for demographic variables, alcohol use, drug use, smoking status, and body mass index using analysis of covariance. A trend test for cortisol by combat exposure level was statistically significant (p ¼ 0.0001), confirming the inverse dose–response association between cortisol and combat exposure. Adapted from J. A. Boscarino (1996), Post-traumatic stress disorder, exposure to combat, and lower plasma cortisol among Vietnam veterans: findings and clinical implications, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 64, 191–201. Reprinted with permission from the American Psychological Association.

previously noted, research indicated that Vietnam veterans with current PTSD had clinically elevated leukocyte and T-cell counts, and similar findings have been reported in nonveteran studies as well. These veterans were also found to have other significant neuroendocrine abnormalities, such as elevated thyroid hormones. Consistent with these clinical findings, it has recently been reported that PTSD was in fact associated with several autoimmune diseases among Vietnam veterans, including rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Again, analogous results have been reported in animal models as well. Of course, not all of the variance in disease outcomes should be associated directly with PTSD. Research with the VET Registry suggested that about one-third of the liability for PTSD was associated with genetic factors. Some of the same genes that make one liable for PTSD could also make one liable for specific diseases as well.

Studies of Other Veteran Populations after Vietnam Following the first Persian Gulf War (PGW) in 1991, cohort studies were again used to evaluate the health impact of this conflict on war-theater military personnel.

These studies are still in progress, and a number of them evolved from or were related to the original NVVRS and VES research designs. The PGW research to date has established a link between service in the PGW and mental illness, postservice injury, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other multisymptom conditions. The reasons for these associations are still being investigated, and the results from PGW research are being used to inform a new generation of veteran studies, related to personnel deployed in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters of war following the September 11, 2001, attacks. For these recent conflicts, however, military personnel were being assessed both before deployment and after return, something rarely done in the past but often desired after service exposure had occurred. Finally, following the September 11 attacks in New York City (NYC) in 2001, a number of the investigative teams, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to assess the population impact of this event, used the prospective cohort method as well as measurement instruments that had been developed originally for Vietnam veteran population studies. Thus, the field of disaster epidemiology has emerged as a subspecialty within epidemiology, informed, at least in part, by the original work with Vietnam veterans over the previous decades.

Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes 461

Implications for Medical Sciences, Research, and Treatment The postwar findings reported for Vietnam veterans documented that veterans exposed to combat have more stress-related psychosocial disorders, altered neuroendocrine functions, higher medical morbidity, and greater mortality years after the war. The scientific findings related to the postwar experience of the Vietnam veteran suggest that psychobiological models are probably required to understand the impact of this experience on the lives of those who served there. For example, it has been suggested that traumatic stressors act as unconditioned aversive stimuli that evoke severe physiological distress. Consequently, previously neutral external stimuli (e.g., the sound of a helicopter) and internal stimuli (e.g., physiological states) that accompanied the traumatic stressor, can function as conditioned stimuli capable of producing psychological and physiological distress when the traumatic stressors are no longer present. Experience with psychotherapy treatments suggests that when stress victims are gradually exposed to aversively conditioned stimuli the symptoms may decrease because desensitization to the stressor could occur. A psychotherapeutic technique often used in PTSD therapy with veterans is to teach the patient to verbalize the traumatic experience with the help of a support group consisting of other veterans. This process allows veteran to redefine the external and internal stimuli that affect psychological arousal, develop better self-control, and, with assistance, desensitize him- or herself to a range of thoughts, actions, and situations associated with the traumatic events. A more structured and currently widely used approach that appears to be effective is cognitive-behavioral therapy. Thus, psychosocial processes appear to be instrumental in treating a condition that is psychosocial in origin but that also has a physiobiological basis – that is, research with Vietnam veterans and others tells us that PTSD has both a psychosocial and a physiobiological foundation. The recognition of a multifactorial PTSD model is consistent with the report that both pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy are effective in treating PTSD. In the case of pharmacotherapy, the pathophysiology of PTSD, in part, appears to involve the serotonergic and the noradrenergic systems; thus, drugs known to potentiate these mechanisms have been effective. In the case of cognitive-behavioral therapy, this approach has been found to be effective in reducing PTSD-related symptomotology by achieving desensitization to stressful stimuli, by increasing control of adversive arousals, by enhancing anxiety management, and by using other known behavioral-psychological mechanisms. Although the underlying interventional mechanisms differ for pharmacological versus cognitive-behavioral

therapy (e.g., pharmacokinetic vs. psychological), the outcomes are similar – the psychopathology and underlying pathophysiology are reduced and fewer adverse patient symptoms are manifested, hence lowering the risk of other adverse outcomes. Thus, we expect that as trauma-related symptoms are reduced through treatment, the risk for other adverse outcomes will also decrease. Recent research has, in fact, confirmed this hypothesis in NYC following the September 11 attacks. For example, it has been reported that NYC adults who received emergency crisis counseling at work shortly after the attacks not only had better mental health outcomes but also had better outcomes in terms of binge drinking, alcohol dependence, and alcohol consumption, lowering the possibility of future adverse health outcomes. Although the findings discussed here chiefly involve veterans, exposure to combat, they are applicable to other populations. Traumatic stress reactions occur among individuals exposed to extreme, life-threatening situations, including natural disasters, physical attacks, wartime combat, and other situations. In addition, it is likely that human exposure and response to stress take place along a stress continuum, with traumatic stress on one end of this continuum. Furthermore, genetic liability is also likely involved with respect to whom may succumb to PTSD. Finally, the postwar experiences of the Vietnam veteran suggest that more than psychosocial explanations are needed to understand PTSD and to treat it effectively. In addition to higher-order cognitive models, findings in Vietnam veteran suggest lower-order biological models are also necessary. Research also consistently suggests that those with less social support exhibit greater levels of traumatic stress, which may explain the high rates of PTSD among Vietnam veterans, given the low community support during and after the war. This finding has clinical implications for the future treatment of both combat and noncombat-related stress victims.

Conclusion Psychoneuroendocriniology represents a growing area of medical research that focuses on the association between neuroendocrine function and psychological status, especially as this relates to steroidogenic biological alterations and psychiatric illness. Just as with other areas of medicine – orthopedics, plastic surgery, emergency medicine, and so forth – developments in military medicine and veterans’ health have been translated into medical advances for other populations. For example, today, research related to the biological and medical consequences of anxiety disorders is more commonplace, as are epidemiological studies of other veteran populations and nonveteran studies involving exposure to human-made and natural disasters.

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Table 2 Key biological correlates of PTSD among a national random sample of Vietnam veteransa Biometric measure

PTSD negative (%)

PTSD positive (%)

P value

White blood cell count elevated Total lymphocytes elevated T lymphocytes elevated B lymphocytes elevated CD4 cells elevated CD8 cells elevated Erythrocyte sedimentation rate elevated Triiodothyronine (T3) uptake elevated Thyroxine (T4) elevated Immunoglobulin-A elevated Immunoglobulin-M elevated Dehydroepiandosterone reduced Cortisol/dehydroepiandosterone ratio elevated N¼

2.8 4.2 2.9 9.9 3.5 2.4 6.1 7.9 1.7 16.4 1.2 2.3 4.4 4139

4.6 6.8 6.2 13.7 5.6 5.9 9.6 10.8 5.0 23.5 3.4 4.6 7.1 323

0.063 0.023 0.001 0.032 0.055 <0.001 0.013 0.06 <0.001 0.001 0.001 0.008 0.023 –

Data are from the Vietnam Experience Study and represent a national random sample of male U.S. Army veterans of the Vietnam War era, half of which served in Vietnam and half of which served elsewhere. PTSD cases represent both combat and noncombat cases. Assessment was done approximately 20 years after military service. PSTD, posttraumatic stress disorder.

a

The medical promise of this body of research can be illustrated using the findings shown in Table 2. As shown, PTSD-positive veterans have a distinct clinical profile, suggesting an increased inflammatory response related to a broad range of potential pathophysiologies that could be associated with a host of diseases, including cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases. The reasons for the findings shown in Table 2 are not clear at this time; they may be related to biological, psychological, or behavioral factors (or a combination of these) associated with PTSD and research also suggests that genetic factors are indeed involved. What is clear is that this area of research holds promise for understanding the psychosomatic basis for the causes and prevention of many human diseases. In conclusion, despite of the suffering caused by Vietnam War, or perhaps because of it, the postwar experiences of the Vietnam veteran have resulted in significant advances in our knowledge about the nature and consequences of human stress exposures and will probably result in future medical advances that cannot currently be imagined. See also: Combat Reaction, Chronic; Combat Stress Reaction; Combat, Acute Reactions to; Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors; Korean Conflict, Stress Effects of; Nuclear Warfare, Threat of; Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of.

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 3rd edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Archibald, H. C., Long, D. M., Miller, C., et al. (1962). Gross stress reaction in combat – a 15-year follow-up. American Journal of Psychiatry 119, 317–322.

Boscarino, J. A. (1995). Post-traumatic stress and associated disorders among Vietnam veterans: the significance of combat and social support. Journal of Traumatic Stress 8, 317–336. Boscarino, J. A. (1996). Post-traumatic stress disorder, exposure to combat, and lower plasma cortisol among Vietnam veterans: findings and clinical implications. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 64, 191–201. Boscarino, J. A. (1997). Diseases among men 20 years after exposure to severe stress: implications for clinical research and medical care. Psychosomatic Medicine 59, 605–614. Boscarino, J. A. (2004). Association between posttraumatic stress disorder and physical illness: results and implications from clinical and epidemiologic studies. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1032, 141–153. Boscarino J. A. (2006). Posttraumatic stress disorder and mortality among US Army veterans 30 years after military service. Annals of Epidemiology 16, 248–256. Boscarino, J. A., Adams, R. E., Foa, E. B., et al. (2006). A propensity score analysis of brief worksite crisis interventions after the World Trade Center disaster: implications for intervention and research. Medical Care 44, 454–462. Centers for Disease Control (1987). Postservice mortality among Vietnam veterans. Journal of the American Medical Association 257, 790–795. Centers for Disease Control (1988). Health status of Vietnam veterans. I: Psychosocial characteristics. Journal of the American Medical Association 259, 2701–2707. Centers for Disease Control (1988). Health status of Vietnam veterans. II: Physical health. Journal of the American Medical Association 259, 2708–2714. Chrousos, G. P. and Gold, P. W. (1992). The concepts of stress and stress system disorders: overview of physical and behavioral homeostasis. Journal of the American Medical Association 267, 1244–1252. Dohrenwend, B. P. (1975). Sociocultural and socialpsychological factors in the genesis of mental disorders. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 16, 365–392. Figley, C. R. (1978). Stress disorders among Vietnam veterans: theory, research and treatment. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Freud, S. (1953–1974). Introduction to psychoanalysis, war neuroses (1919). In Strachey, J. (ed.) Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 17, pp. 205–215. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Frey-Wouters, E. and Laufer, R. S. (1986). Legacy of a war: The American soldier in Vietnam. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.

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Galea, S., Ahern, J., Resnick, H., et al. (2002). Psychological sequelae of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. New England Journal of Medicine 346, 982–987. Hanson, F. R. (1949). The factor of fatigue in the neuroses of combat. In Hanson, F. R. (ed.) Special issue on combat psychiatry. Army Medical Bulletin 9, 147–150. Helzer, J. E., Robins, L. N., and McEvoy, L. (1987). Post-traumatic stress disorder in the general population: findings of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study. New England Journal of Medicine 317, 1630–1634. Hoge, C. W., Auchterlonie, J. L., and Milliken, C. S. (2006). Mental health problem, use of mental health services, and attrition from military service after returning from deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Journal of the American Medical Association 295, 1023–1032. Hyams, K. C., Wignall, F. S., and Roswell, R. (1996). War syndromes and their evaluation: from the U.S. Civil War to the Persian Gulf War. Annals of Internal Medicine 125, 398–405. Institute of Medicine (2001). Veterans and agent orange, update 2000. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Keane, T. M., Zimering, R. T., and Caddell, J. M. (1985). A behavioral formulation of posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans. Behavior Therapist 8, 9–12. Kulka, R. A., Schlenger, W. E., Fairbank, J. A., et al. (1990). Trauma and the Vietnam War generation: report of findings from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

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Mason, J. M., Giller, E. L., Kosten, T. R., et al. (1988). Elevation of urinary norepinephrine/cortisol ratio in posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 176, 498–502. McEwen, B. S. (2000). Allostasis and allostatic load: implication for neuropsychopharmacology. Neuropsychopharmacology 22, 108–124. Polner, M. (1971). No victory parades: the return of the Vietnam veteran. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston. Robins, L. N., Helzer, J. E., Croughan, J., et al. (1981). National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule: its history, characteristics, and validity. Archives of General Psychiatry 38, 381–389. Salmon, T. W. (1919). War neuroses and their lesson. New York Medical Journal 109, 993–994. True, W. R., Rice, J., Eisen, S. A., et al. (1993). A twin study for genetic and environmental contributions to liability for posttraumatic stress sympotoms. Archives of General Psychiatry 50, 257–264. van der Kolk, B. A. and Saporta, J. (1993). Biological response to psychic trauma. In Wilson, J. P. and Raphael, B. (eds.) International Handbook of traumatic stress syndromes, pp. 25–33. New York: Plenum Press. Wolkowitz, O. M. and Rothschild, A. J. (eds.) (2003). Psychoneuroendocrinology. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing. Yehuda, R. (2002). Current status of cortisol findings in post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychiatric Clinics of North America 25, 341–368.

Traumatic Stress and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, the Israeli Experience E Klein, Faculty of Medicine Technion, Haifa, Israel J Zohar, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Posttraumatic Reactions in Holocaust Survivors Combat Stress Reaction and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in War Veterans The Impact of Terror on Traumatic Stress Responses in the Israeli Population

Glossary Acute Stress Disorder An anxiety state lasting up to 4 weeks following a traumatic event. Acute Stress Reaction An acute and time-limited (up to 48 h) anxiety state following a traumatic event. Animal Models Experiments in which animals are used to mimic and study human diseases. Combat Stress Reaction An acute stress reaction that develops on the battlefield. Gulf War The 1991 war in which the United States and the allied countries fought against Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait.

Neurobiology and Psychophysiology of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Animal Model for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Conclusion Further Reading

Intifada Recent Palestinian campaigns directed at intifa¯d. ending the Israeli military occupation (from ah, shaking off; Arabic for uprising). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A chronic disorder that develops in survivors of traumatic events. Stressful Life Event An event that might cause emotional distress. Traumatic Event A life-threatening event. Yom Kippur War The 1973 war in which Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.

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Introduction Emotional trauma and stressful life events have been implicated in the development of psychiatric disorders, particularly anxiety and depression. Traumatic events differ from stressful life events in that they involve a direct threat to life or physical/psychological integrity. Posttraumatic responses can be diverse, but the most typical form of psychiatric morbidity resulting from exposure to a traumatic event is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is estimated that at least 50% of the people in Western countries are exposed to traumatic events during their lifetime. Because PTSD occurs in approximately 10–20% of the individuals who are exposed to a traumatic event (the majority eventually adapt), the estimated life prevalence is 10% of 50% (i.e., 5%). Indeed, epidemiological studies show that 1–3% of the adult population in the United States suffer from PTSD. The finding that only a fraction of those exposed to traumatic events develop PTSD suggests that the traumatic event is necessary but not sufficient for its development and that additional factors are important in determining the individual vulnerability of trauma survivors to developing PTSD. The study of human responses to trauma has been intimately associated with the history of wars in the twentieth century. There have been anecdotal accounts of posttraumatic responses in soldiers in the American Civil War and other wars in the nineteenth century, but World War I (1914 –1918) is clearly the cradle of the modern study of trauma and its consequences. Only in the last 2 decades has trauma research evolved to focus on civilian populations that have been exposed to violence, sexual abuse, terror activity, traffic accidents, and health conditions (e.g., heart attacks), which have all been shown to cause PTSD and are responsible for the high prevalence of the disorder in civilians. Israel has become, since its establishment in 1948, a live laboratory for the research of trauma and PTSD. The horrors of the Holocaust and its emotional scars in the survivors, followed by seven wars and waves of terror, have unfortunately served as an experimental field for the study of trauma and its consequences. This article reviews key findings from studies done in Israel on trauma and PTSD during the last 2 decades and highlights their contribution to the existing body of knowledge in this field.

Posttraumatic Reactions in Holocaust Survivors The Holocaust is an unparalleled event in human history that has left enduring emotional scars in all its survivors. Most Holocaust survivors were able to readjust surprisingly well and restore their lives, whereas others were not

able to overcome the dreadful events, which continued to cast a shadow on their entire life, making it impossible for them to regain security and emotional well-being. Studies of Holocaust survivors were done mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, before the era of modern trauma research and the conceptualization of the definitions currently used in the field. This, and the fact that many of the survivors have already died and those who are still alive are in their 80s, explains the relative paucity of updated data on posttraumatic responses in Holocaust survivors.

Combat Stress Reaction and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in War Veterans The Yom Kippur War and Lebanon Wars In contrast to the earlier wars in the short history of the state of Israel (1949, 1956, 1967), which were not studied systematically in the context of traumatic stress, some of the soldiers with combat stress reaction (CSR) during the Yom Kippur (1973) and Lebanon (1981) wars were identified early on, received treatment, and were followed over time, so that data could be collected about the short- and long-term consequences of exposure to traumatic events during wartime. The Lebanon war constituted the first systematic effort to apply and study the principles of proximity immediacy and expectancy (PIE) in the treatment of soldiers who developed CSR. These treatment principles, originally formulated during trench combat in World War I, are based on experience with soldiers who developed CSR and were removed from the artillery range. The basic premise of this treatment approach (which was never tested with appropriate scientific tools) is that the chances of overcoming CSR are highest when treatment is applied in proximity to the war zone, as early as possible after the condition develops, with an expectancy for full and rapid return to functioning. These relatively simple treatment principles were applied by the medical teams, including psychologists and social workers, that were part of the fighting units and were specially trained to deliver this treatment. Due to constraints of the war situation, the treatment was not available to all soldiers who developed CSR, and thus the prospective short-term and long-term outcome of treated and untreated veterans with CSR was limited. The data that emerged from these studies indicate that (1) CSR constituted approximately 15–25% of warrelated casualties; (2) only one-half of the veterans who eventually developed PTSD applied for treatment in the front line; (3) among those who were treated according to the PIE principles, 15–20% eventually developed PTSD; and (4) the long-term beneficial effects of the PIE treatment need to be further explored.

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465

Prisoners of War

Lessons from the Persian Gulf War

Prisoners of war (POWs) from these wars were also studied. Twenty years after their captivity, 13% of the POWs still suffered from PTSD, compared to only 3% in a comparison group of combat veterans. It was also evident that recovery from PTSD among POWs was slower and incomplete compared to the control group.

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the entire population in Israel was, for the first time, under a direct threat of warfare and missile attacks. This constituted a serious psychological threat to the civilian population that had not been directly involved in war activity until that time. Data are not available about the prevalence and the magnitude of acute traumatic stress reactions in the entire population during that period. However, data are available about those who were evacuated to hospitals following the missile attacks. Over a period of 2 weeks in the winter of 1991, approximately 40 surface-to-surface Iraqi SCUD missiles were launched and sent to Israel, targeting mainly the central coastal region of the greater Tel Aviv area. The uncertainty about the place, time, and type of warhead (chemical, biological, or conventional) was a source of stress and anxiety for the entire population, mainly in the targeted region. Furthermore, it was the cause of many traumatic stress reactions at or near the sites where the missiles hit. Approximately 800 citizens were evacuated to regional hospitals following these attacks, of which approximately 40% were diagnosed as psychological casualties. In addition, approximately 30% of the evacuees had mistakenly injected themselves with atropine, an antidote used during chemical warfare. These findings indicate that psychological responses constitute a significant portion of the casualties resulting from this kind of warfare and that rescue teams and hospitals have to be trained and prepared accordingly. The specific psychological responses of mothers and children following the missile attacks were also studied. In a survey done 2 years after the war, families that were evacuated from homes that were destroyed or damaged in the missile attack were compared to families who did not have to leave their homes and were not directly affected by missile attacks. Mothers and children from the evacuated families manifested more posttraumatic symptoms and higher degrees of emotional distress. Stress symptoms tended to decrease over time in the displaced children from the evacuated families but not in their mothers. No differences in the children’s adaptive behavior in the two groups were observed. Mothers who manifested more posttraumatic symptoms during the war were found to be more symptomatic at the follow-up, and the degree of stress in the children correlated with the mother’s symptoms. These findings suggest that a maternal stress-buffering capacity is crucial for children’s effective coping with stressful situations. The degree of family cohesion was also found to be an important factor in the successful coping of these children with the stressful situation. A follow-up study 5 years after the Gulf War showed significant decrease in posttraumatic symptoms in the evacuated children.

Secondary Traumatization Life often becomes literally a nightmare for many of those suffering from PTSD. What has been realized only in more recent years is the impact of the disorder on those living with the victims and on their caregivers. It has been shown that both close family members and therapists who are exposed to the traumatic memories and suffering of the victims tend to develop emotional distress and PTSD-like symptoms, including intrusive thoughts, emotional numbing and avoidance, and symptoms of increased arousal. This phenomenon was called secondary traumatization. Traumatic Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Another issue that received attention during the last years of the war activity in Lebanon, before the final withdrawal of the Israeli army from Lebanon, was the effect of traumatic injury on the development of PTSD. The assumption that bodily injury inflicted during the trauma does not increase the risk for PTSD, and in fact might even serve as a protective factor, prevailed among trauma experts in the past. It was believed that, being visible, the injury engenders sympathy and support from the environment to a greater extent than the psychic wounds of the trauma. It was further postulated that the injury also provides a focus for coping that distracts the subject’s mind from the trauma and, last but not least, in the case of war, evacuation due to the injury removes the source of anxiety and danger from the soldier by providing a legitimate escape from the stressful situation. However, when injured and uninjured soldiers who were involved in identical war activities in Lebanon were compared for posttraumatic symptoms, it was found that the injured soldiers had an eightfold higher risk for developing PTSD compared to their uninjured peers. These findings clearly demonstrate that injury in the context of trauma exerts an additional risk factor and increases the risk of PTSD. Possible explanations for this finding are that injury amplifies the sense of horror and perceived threat for life. In addition, the medical procedures and the pain resulting from the injury create an additional source of stress and serve as retrieval cues for the traumatic memories.

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The Impact of Terror on Traumatic Stress Responses in the Israeli Population The years 1987–2005 of the Israeli-Palestinians conflict, known as the Intifada, have exposed the civilian population in Israel to an unprecedented degree of violence and direct threat to lives as a result of numerous terror attacks and suicide bombers. The peak of the terror wave was in the years 2000–2004, and during this period 963 Israelis were killed and more than 6300 were wounded in hundreds of terror attacks and many more were directly exposed to the impact of terror and violence with direct threat to their lives. A survey conducted in 2002 revealed that 16% of a representative population sample of approximately 560 people had been directly exposed to a terrorist attack and 37% had a family member or a friend who had been exposed. Ten percent of the sample met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD and approximately 60% reported feeling depressed. However, approximately 80% of the respondents expressed optimism about their personal future and 67% were optimistic about the future of the country. Seventy-five percent of the respondents expressed self-confidence about their ability to function in a terrorist attack. Despite the fact that many of the respondents expressed a low sense of safety with respect to themselves and their relatives, only 5% reported a need for professional help. Altogether, these findings indicate that, considering the nature and length of the Israeli traumatic experience during this period, the psychological impact of the situation may be considered moderate to low, and despite the fact that participants showed distress and a lowered sense of safety, only a minority developed psychiatric distress. These apparently discrepant findings may be related to a process of habituation and to effective psychological coping mechanisms. Interesting differences were evident between urban communities exposed to different levels of stress and terror activities. To a certain degree, those communities that were exposed to more violence and terror activity showed better coping abilities and lower degrees of personal distress than did communities with low exposure when facing stressful conditions. Gender differences in the prevalence of PTSD have been reported. Although men are more frequently exposed to traumatic events, most studies have reported higher rates of PTSD among women. Studies done in Israel during 1999–2003 showed lower rates of direct exposure to terror among women, yet, compared to men, women reported more subjective distress and more posttraumatic symptoms and were using more coping strategies to overcome the distress. Sixteen percent of the women (but only 2.5% of the men) in the Israeli survey met the full criteria for PTSD.

Neurobiology and Psychophysiology of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Sleep and Posttraumatic Disorder Sleep complaints are among the most frequently reported symptoms in PTSD. Difficulty falling asleep, restless and interrupted sleep, and recurrent dreams with nightmares are very common complaints. Sleep disturbances and complaints of disrupted sleep in the early aftermath of the trauma have been associated with higher rates of PTSD later on. Some people with PTSD tend to develop a reversed sleep cycle, staying wake most night hours with a tendency to oversleep during the day. However, despite the high prevalence of subjective sleep complaints in PTSD, objective sleep measures have shown inconsistent findings. Unlike major depression, in which shortened rapid eye movement (REM) sleep latency is a well-established finding, polysomnographic sleep studies in patients with PTSD have not defined a clear pattern of sleep alterations that might be correlated with the subjective complaints of the patients. Some studies have shown fragmented REM sleep, whereas others have shown reduction in slowwave sleep or increased awakening thresholds from slow-wave sleep. However, these findings are inconsistent. It has been suggested by some researchers that the subjective complaints of disrupted sleep in PTSD that are not corroborated in the polysomnographic studies are due to an altered sleep perception, namely, that the neurophysiology of sleep is not disturbed but there is a state of sleep misperception that causes a dissociation between an apparently normal sleep pattern and its altered perception by the subject. This could explain the relative inefficacy of sleep medications in PTSD, which is a widely acknowledged phenomenon and results in the excessive use and often abuse of sleep medications in these cases. Physiological Arousal and Posttraumatic Disorder Symptoms of increased arousal and exaggerated startle response are characteristic of PTSD. When exposed to loud tones 1 and 4 months after a traumatic event, subjects who developed PTSD showed a greater heart rate response, altered skin conductance, and eye muscle electromyogram (EMG) responses when compared to subjects who did not develop PTSD after a traumatic event. No such differences were evident between the groups immediately after the trauma, indicating that these findings were state-dependent and characteristic of trauma survivors who develop PTSD. Furthermore, subjects with PTSD failed to show the habituation in response to repeated loud tones that is

Traumatic Stress and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, the Israeli Experience

normally seen and was evident in the comparison subjects who did not develop PTSD. This phenomenon could reflect a more generalized inability for habituation of stressful signals; the recurrent intrusive memories in PTSD could be considered to be a failure of habituation to the content of the traumatic memories. Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability in Posttraumatic Disorder Increased heart rate is a determinant of physiological arousal seen in PTSD. Subjects who develop PTSD have been shown to have higher heart rates during the immediate aftermath of the trauma compared to traumatized individuals who do not develop PTSD. The elevated heart rate is caused by the increased noradrenergic tone, suggesting that increased noradrenergic activity immediately after the trauma may play an important role in the neurobiological processes involved in the development of PTSD. From a clinical perspective, this finding suggests that elevated heart rate immediately after the trauma is a predictor of PTSD.

Animal Model for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder The validity of an animal model for psychiatric disorders is often questionable. However, there is a clear advantage for PTSD because an exposure to threat (a predator, in the case of a rat) certainly addresses some of the validity issues that might be problematic in animal models of other psychiatric disorders. An animal model of PTSD composed of exposure to a predator (the smell of a cat, in this case), applying behavioral cut-off criteria to differentiate between the maladaptive rats and the welladapted rats was developed in Israel in 2003. This enables investigators to further advance PTSD research by examining questions such as early life adversities, stress-dependent increase in cortisol levels, and therapeutic (preventive) effects of early administration of medications that are often used in the treatment of PTSD, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Conclusion The unique (although unfortunate) combination in Israel of having many Holocaust survivors, several wars, exposure to repeated waves of terror, and the presence of a pure form of PTSD (i.e., very low rates of alcoholism and drug abuse), coupled with the expertise in research, have helped Israeli researchers and clinicians to develop vital

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and advanced treatment and research in stress-related disorders, including acute stress reaction, CSR, and PTSD. The key findings have called into question some of the accepted notions of PTSD. Issues such as a direct linkage between terror exposure and PTSD were not found. The use of PIE principles in the modern battlefield seems to require further research, as do the apparently strong link between physical injury and PTSD and the lack of objective findings in a sleep laboratory in regard to sleep disturbance in PTSD. The development of a new animal model for PTSD, with the focus on behavioral cut-off criteria, along with further research in regard to the genetic vulnerability to PTSD, may pave ways to deepen our understanding of this intriguing phenomenon.

Further Reading Barak, Y., Aizenberg, D., Szor, H., et al. (2005). Increased risk of attempted suicide among aging holocaust survivors. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 13(8), 701–704. Bleich, A., Gelkopf, M., and Solomon, Z. (2003). Exposure to terrorism, stress-related mental health symptoms, and coping behaviors among a nationally representative sample in Israel. Journal of the American Medical Association 290(5), 612–620. Cohen, H. and Zohar, J. (2004). An animal model of posttraumatic stress disorder: the use of cut-off behavioral criteria (review). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1032, 167–178. Gil, S., Caspi, Y., Ben-Ari, I. Z., et al. (2005). Does memory of a traumatic event increase the risk for posttraumatic stress disorder in patients with traumatic brain injury?: a prospective study. American Journal of Psychiatry 162(5), 963–969. Koren, D., Arnon, I., and Klein, E. (1999). Acute stress response and posttraumatic stress disorder in traffic accident victims: a one-year prospective, follow-up study. American Journal of Psychiatry 156(3), 367–373. Koren, D., Arnon, I., Lavie, P., et al. (2002). Sleep complaints as early predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder: a 1-year prospective study of injured survivors of motor vehicle accidents. American Journal of Psychiatry 159(5), 855–857. Koren, D., Norman, D., Cohen, A., et al. (2005). Increased PTSD risk with combat-related injury: a matched comparison study of injured and uninjured soldiers experiencing the same combat events. American Journal of Psychiatry 162(2), 276–282. Laor, N., Wolmer, L., and Cohen, D. J. (2001). Mothers’ functioning and children’s symptoms 5 years after a SCUD missile attack. American Journal of Psychiatry 158(7), 1020–1026. Laor, N., Wolmer, L., Mayes, L. C., et al. (1997). Israeli preschool children under Scuds: a 30-month follow-up. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 36(3), 349–356. Nadler, A. and Ben-Shushan, D. (1989). Forty years later: long-term consequences of massive traumatization as manifested by Holocaust survivors from the city and the kibbutz. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 57(2), 287–293. Pillar, G., Malhotra, A., and Lavie, P. (2000). Post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep – what a nightmare! Sleep Medicine Reviews 4(2), 183–200. Shalev, A. Y. and Freedman, S. (2005). PTSD following terrorist attacks: a prospective evaluation. American Journal of Psychiatry 162(6), 1188–1191. Shalev, A. Y., Freedman, S., Peri, T., et al. (1998). Prospective study of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression following trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry 155(5), 630–637.

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Shalev, A. Y., Peri, T., Brandes, D., et al. (2000). Auditory startle response in trauma survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder: a prospective study. American Journal of Psychiatry 157(2), 255–261. Solomon, Z., Shklar, R., and Mikulincer, M. (2005). Frontline treatment of combat stress reaction: a 20-year longitudinal evaluation study. American Journal of Psychiatry 162(12), 2309–2314.

Solomon, Z. and Lavi, T. (2005). Israeli youth in the Second Intifada: PTSD and future orientation. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 44(11), 1167–1175. Solomon, Z., Neria, Y., Ohry, A., et al. (1994). PTSD among Israeli former prisoners of war and soldiers with combat stress reaction: a longitudinal study. American Journal of Psychiatry 151(4), 554–559.

War Stress in the Former Yugoslavia M Flo¨gel, S Sˇupraha Goreta, and G Lauc, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Historical and Political Background of the Conflict Migrations, Ethnic Cleansing, and Social Impact Effects on Health Effects on Mortality

Glossary Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) PTSD is a psychological disorder affecting individuals who have experienced or witnessed profoundly traumatic events,

War is the multifaceted threat to human existence. It exposes people to the health-damaging psychological, physical, chemical, biological, and mechanical stressors. The war has a deep and devastating social and economic impact on the population involved, thus producing additional and lasting repression. It is too soon to make long-term estimates of the damages caused by war in the area of former Yugoslavia, but the data concerning increased social and health impairments due to the war in Croatia are indicative for the whole area and show the level and the type of vulnerability when humans are exposed to the stress of war. War integrates the deprivation of basic existential needs and of all human rights and values; it eliminates emotional comfort; it causes irreversible material and kin losses, physical exhaustion, and psychological breakdowns; and it makes futile all everyday routines. The first and the only benign response to stress is the escape, but there is no possibility of running away from stress experiences in war – one stressor can only be substituted by another. This is why the full display of adaptation mechanisms takes place in subjects experiencing war stress: changes in behavior, hormonal

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by M Flo¨gel and G Lauc, volume 3, pp 678–683, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Effects on Social Behavior and Violence Conclusion Further Reading

such as torture, murder, rape, or wartime combat, characterized by recurrent flashbacks of the traumatic event, nightmares, irritability, anxiety, fatigue, forgetfulness, and social withdrawal.

impairments, neurological disorders, metabolic changes, genetic shifts, and all kinds of diseases. Stress-induced consequences, depending on the severity and the duration of the exposure to the stress experience, can be identified as PTSD, interrupted pregnancies, susceptibility to malignant diseases, cardiovascular insults, suppressed immune response, hormonal disorders, and all types of emotional instabilities or psychological impairments including suicide, homicide, and other types of violence.

Historical and Political Background of the Conflict The federal republics of prewar Yugoslavia had national and cultural identities with distinct historical backgrounds. At times in the past they were sovereign states, and they have been trying to reestablish their independence ever since they lost it. Neither the first (monarchist) nor the second (communist) Yugoslavia was an expression of the people’s will. When the Berlin wall collapsed, the Soviet block was dismantled, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and the ruling communist party was defeated. The sweeping changes in eastern Europe provided an opportunity for the national republics

War Stress in the Former Yugoslavia

constituting Yugoslavia to secede freely, as the Czech and Slovak republics have done. In response, the Yugoslav army under the command of the Serbian generals tried to annul the free and democratic decision by the electorate in four of the six Yugoslav republics to separate from Yugoslavia. The Serbs, inspired by the idea of Greater Serbia, were the only nation to support the continuation of Yugoslavia. The Serbian idea of turning Yugoslavia into a greater Serbia triggered the outburst of the latent but strong mistrust and intolerance between the Serbs, on one side, and all other nations, on the other. The Communist Party of Serbia, subsequently re-formed as the Socialist party, had control over the powerful Yugoslav army and turned into an aggressive Greater Serbian force that started to conquer and ethnically cleanse as much as possible of the territory of the republics whose majority of the population had voted for independence. The local people, if not ethnic Serbs, had to leave the occupied territories. Deprived of all goods and rights, they experienced the misery of homeless and jobless refugees. Those who tried to defend their homes were either massacred and killed or put into concentration camps, tortured, and raped. The process started in Croatia in 1991 and ended by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention in Kosovo in 1999. Instead of democratization and prosperity, first the Croats, then the Bosnians, and at the end the Albanians experienced war, violence, fear, exile, and loss of kin. Macedonia and Montenegro experienced the menace of social and economic turbulence introduced by the hundreds of thousands of refugees that poured into their countries. Only the Slovenians succeeded in withstanding the austerities of Serbian aggression. At least 2.5 million victims (including almost the total population of Kosovo) were expelled from their homes and were, for varying periods, in exile or temporary housing.

Migrations, Ethnic Cleansing, and Social Impact The first victims of the Serbian aggression were the Croats, who were removed from 30% of Croatian territory. That territory was not only occupied by the Yugoslav army and the local Serbs and ethnically cleansed of Croats; in addition, Serbs from other parts of Croatia or Bosnia were persuaded to resettle in abandoned Croatian homes in the territory cleansed for Greater Serbia. Such behavior escalated national animosities as the aggression spread further and further. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 70% of the territory was ethnically cleansed of Croats and Bosnians, and only the Dayton Agreement and NATO intervention stopped the war in Bosnia and forced the Serbs to restrict their control to the Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska), encompassing 49% of Bosnian territory. In 1991, Bosnia had 4 364 600 inhabitants; 250 000 men were killed during the war and 35 000 women were raped.

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At the peak of the war, almost 2 million people were displaced. Even a decade after the end of the war in Bosnia, several hundred thousand people still had not returned to their homes. The total population of Croatia (in 1991) was 4 760 000. It is estimated that 260 000 people left the country during the war. The war in Croatia killed 14 000 people, among whom 43.4% were civilians and 213 were children; 34 000 veterans, 9890 adult civilians, and 1142 children were injured; 7551 people were detainees of concentration camps and 23 000 children lost one or both parents. In addition, 389 433 civilians were displaced within the country (it is estimated that this number is 6% larger because of unregistered people). More than 100 000 houses were destroyed. Hospitals, schools, and many plants and farms were demolished, drastically raising the unemployed and retired percentages of the population and putting exhausting pressure on the remaining working population. There were 870 000 retired people, 260 000 jobless, and only 970 000 employed (compared to 1 650 000 employed before the war). The collapse of order and the rise of poverty, insecurity, and hopelessness were widely reported throughout the population.

Effects on Health One of the major problems in the interpreting of the effects of war on the health of the population is the great extent of migration associated with the war. Croatia is the only country in the region where health parameters can be followed before, during, and after the war. Although migrations from Croatia and within Croatia were large, the number of displaced people never exceeded 12% of the total population and all the victims of migrations within Croatia are included in the official statistics. The statistical parameters depict a very gruesome picture of the effects of war on the health of the population in Croatia. The rates of several diseases that are known to be associated with stress, such as diabetes, tumors, cardiovascular diseases, and gastric ulcers, increased sharply during and immediately after the war (Figures 1–2). Infectious diseases also increased significantly, probably due to the stressinduced depression of the immune system. Most other diseases displayed a slight decrease in 1991–1992 (mirroring the temporary population decrease at the peak of the war in Croatia) and subsequently returned to the prewar values. The exception is rheumatoid arthritis, which stayed significantly decreased for several years and then increased rapidly to over 150% of prewar values. During this time, infant mortality continually declined, indicating that there was no significant decrease in the general quality of the health-care system. Despite the preserved level of health care, the postwar health of the population significantly deteriorated due to stress and other effects of war compared to 1990. In 1994, Croatia had 60 000 more cases of infective diseases, 40 000

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Figure 1 Number of cases of various disease groups registered in general hospitals in Croatia, 1990–1994. Data from Croatian Health Service Yearbook 1997, Zagreb, 1998.

Percentage of prewar (1990) values

220 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 1990

1991

Leukemia Ischemic heart disease Inborn defects

1992

1993

1994

Diabetes mellitus Gastric and duodenal ulcers Complications during pregnancy

Figure 2 Number of cases of specific diseases registered in general hospitals in Croatia, 1990–1994. Only diseases with the highest increase of incidence are presented. Data from Croatian Health Service Yearbook 1997, Zagreb, 1998.

more people with diabetes mellitus, 32 000 more people with various neoplastic diseases, 30 000 more patients with heart diseases, 40 000 more people with kidney diseases, and 24 000 additional patients with duodenal or gastric ulcers. Because the total population of Croatia was approximately 4.5 million, the addition of 200 000 ill people represented a substantial burden for an already overloaded health system. Stress due to the war had a particularly strong impact on pregnancy and prenatal development. In addition to a decreased birthrate, as is usual in the time of hardship,

there was a continuous increase in extrauterine pregnancies and other complications during pregnancy and delivery. In addition and completely unexpected, there was a sharp increase in various inborn defects (Figure 2).

Effects on Mortality In addition to the decreased birthrate, the war diminished the population by increasing the mortality (Figure 3).

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Figure 3 Number of live births and deaths per 1000 people, 1990–1997. Data from Statistical Yearbook 1998, Republic of Croatia Central Bureau of Statistics, 1998.

Not taking into account the 14 000 people killed during the war, the most prominent immediate effect of war on the Croatian territory was the more than doubling of the rate of mortality from ischemic heart diseases, resulting in the unexpected deaths of more than 6000 people during the two war years 1991 and 1992. The prolonged effects of war, manifested in a ruined economy and prewar social structures, still kills people with an annual rate of approximately 4000. The increase in the ischemic heart disease alone has taken more human lives than were killed during the whole war in Croatia. Unfortunately, due to the massive migrations in Bosnia and Kosovo, it is not possible to determine the exact numbers for them, but if the percentage of people killed was similar to that in Croatia, several hundred thousands people probably died because of stress. It is worth noting that, in addition to the stress imposed by the war, the transition from a centralized socialistic economy to a free-market economy introduced stressful existential problems to a part of the population, which probably also contributed to the increased mortality from ischemic heart disease. One recent study in Lithuania reported that the breakup of the Soviet Union resulted in a quadruple increase in the mortality rate from ischemic heart diseases for some age groups. However, in other countries, such as Hungary and Poland, this pattern is not so prominent. The transition in Croatia is expected to be less stressful than in other socialist countries because even during socialism Croatia was open to the West and had accepted a few elements of the market economy. Thus, the war and its consequences remain the major factors influencing the increased mortality from ischemic heart disease in Croatia.

Effects on Social Behavior and Violence Quantitative analysis of the psychological effects of war on the Croatian population is limited to the subjects

who were/are seeking medical help. However, only a small number of individuals suffering from psychological disorders are under medical surveillance. There are more then 10 500 diagnosed cases of PTSD; many more are unregistered. Studies estimated that patients suffering from PTSD have up to a sevenfold increased incidence of suicides and fourfold increased risk of death from all external sources. Violence in general has increased, but it is very hard to know the exact figures because the health-monitoring statistics do not include violent behavior in their reports and official policy makers in Croatia refuse to acknowledge the incidence of violence and suicides to be disturbing. However, some trends are clearly visible. During and immediately after the war (1991–1992), there was a twofold increase in the level of violence, both as reported in police statistics and in hospital admissions. Although, according to the same sources, the reported homicides and violent crime returned to prewar values in subsequent years, there is a disquieting increase in suicides and other self-inflicted injuries in young people. The number of young people committing suicide is continuously rising, and compared to 1990, in 1997 this rate is doubled or quadrupled, depending on the age group (Figure 4). In the last four years, primary and secondary schools report a rapidly growing number of hyperactive and aggressive children who need special care in the classroom. The incidence of depressive symptoms and insomnia is reported to be great in the elderly and in veterans. Drug abuse is disturbingly frequent compared to the prewar statistics, but the number of treated addicts has remained constant. It is correct to attribute these changes in behavior to the stress imposed by the war, and it is interesting how the various target groups (children, the elderly, veterans, etc.) within the population have responded differently to the stress.

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120

Number of suicides

100

Further Reading

80 60 40 20 0 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995 1996 1997 1998 Ages 0−14

Ages 15−18

Ages 19−25

Figure 4 Number of suicides and attempted suicides in different age groups in Croatia, 1990–1998. Data from official statistics of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Croatia.

Conclusion The majority of the population in each of the states originating from the former Yugoslavia has experienced war stress. Various health and social disorders evolved from that experience. Although the data presenting the consequences of the war stress are incomplete and although they are, because of the availability, reduced to Croatia only, they provide unique evidence of human vulnerability when living through war. See also: Diasters and Mass Violence, Public, Effects of; Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors; Nuclear Warfare, Threat of; Persian Gulf War,

Babic-Banaszak, A., Kovacic, L., Kovacevic, L., et al. (2002). Impact of war on health related quality of life in Croatia: population study. Croatian Medical Journal 43, 396–402. Black, P. H. and Garbutt, L. D. (2002). Stress, inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 52, 1–23. Breslau, N., Kessler, R. C., Chilcoat, H. D., et al. (1998). Trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder in the community: the 1996 Detroit Area Survey of Trauma. Archives of General Psychiatry 55, 626–632. Bullman, T. A. and Kang, H. K. (1994). Posttraumatic stress disorder and the risk of traumatic deaths among Vietnam veterans. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 182, 604–610. Dekaris, D., Sabioncello, A., Mazuran, R., et al. (1993). Multiple changes of immunologic parameters in prisoners of war: assessments after release from a camp in Manjaca, Bosnia. Journal of the American Medical Association 270, 595–599. Kocijan-Hercigonja, D., Sabioncello, A., Rijavec, M., et al. (1996). Psychological condition hormone levels in war trauma. Journal of Psychiatric Research 30, 391–399. Lauc, G., Zvonar, K., Vuksˇic´-Mihaljevic´, Zˇ., et al. (2004). Postawakening changes in salivary cortisol in veterans with and without PTSD. Stress Health 20, 99–102. Lukenda, J., Kolaric, B., Kolcic, I., et al. (2005). Cardiovascular diseases in Croatia and other transitional countries: comparative study of publications, clinical interventions, and burden of disease. Croatian Medical Journal 46, 865–874. Markotic, A. (2002). Balkan syndrome. Lancet 359, 166. Marsland, A. L., Bachen, E. A., Cohen, S., et al. (2002). Stress, immune reactivity and susceptibility to infectious disease. Physiology & Behavior 77, 711–716. Reiche, E. M., Nunes, S. O., and Morimoto, H. K. (2004). Stress, depression, the immune system, and cancer. Lancet Oncology 5, 617–625. Sabioncello, A., Kocijan-Hercigonja, D., Rabatic, S., et al. (2000). Immune, endocrine, and psychological responses in civilians displaced by war. Psychosomatic Medicine 62, 502–508. Sapolsky, R. M. (1996). Why stress is bad for your brain. Science 273, 749–750.

War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of L B Slone and M J Friedman, National Center for PTSD, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Dartmouth Medical School, White River Junction, VT, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Stressors Assessment and Diagnosis

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by R Rosenheck and A Fontana, volume 3, pp 672–677, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Treatments Summary Further Reading

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Glossary Comorbid Occurring at the same time as another medical condition. Imaginal Exposure Exposure involving imagination, images, or imagery of the traumatic event. In Vivo Exposure Exposure to a real-life situation. Pharmacological Having to do with drugs.

Introduction Some service members handle their transition from the war zone to the home front in a matter of weeks. Others require more time, and perhaps assistance. A significant minority fall short and develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, alcoholism, some other psychiatric problem, or functional impairment. Although the present focus is PTSD, these other potential postdeployment problems should not be overlooked. The treatment of PTSD in veterans is similar in many ways to the treatment of PTSD in the civilian population, with some special considerations. Although there are universal aspects to any combat experience, every war is different, thereby posing unique challenges to the practitioner. For example, 50% of American troops that served in Iraq and have left active duty are members of the National Guard or Military Reserve rather than active duty combatants. This has implications for the identification and treatment of PTSD in this cohort.

Stressors Traditional severe combat stress involves situations in which a service member experiences comrades being killed or injured; having personally killed enemy combatants and, possibly, innocent bystanders; uncontrollable and unpredictable life-threatening attacks; and more. In addition to direct combat stress, a variety of other war zone stressors are experienced, such as feeling helpless to alter the course of potentially lethal events, observing or handling the remains of civilians and soldiers, and observing devastated communities produced by combat. Military sexual trauma (MST) is now known to be highly prevalent, affecting both women and men in combat. An unprecedented number of military personnel are surviving serious injuries due to dramatic advances in medical technology, and being wounded in battle is associated with the highest PTSD rates. This may be compounded by the impact of life-changing severe injuries such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), traumatic amputations, spinal cord injuries, and blindness. A common denominator for many returnees is the sustained hypervigilance and persistent anxiety about potential

Psychometric Quantitative assessment of psychological trends and measures. Psychotherapeutic Of, relating to, or used in treatment of mental or emotional disorder or maladjustment involving verbal communication. Reservists Military personnel who serve part-time unless activated. Includes both National Guard and Reserve components.

threats at any time or place, which often leads to difficulty transitioning from the theater back to civilian life. Clinicians faced with patients who have had a difficult re-entry to the home front need to be aware of this reintegration process. They must consider the likelihood that postdeployment difficulty for a particular patient may be part of an otherwise normal readjustment trajectory or could be manifestations of a clinically significant problem such as PTSD.

Assessment and Diagnosis A routine assessment should begin with a few questions about the patient’s exposure to war zone trauma and other traumatic experiences. Once the presence of traumatic exposure is established, the following step is to screen for PTSD. The National Center for PTSD has developed a four-item (yes/no) screen with excellent psychometric properties (Primary Care PTSD Screen [PC-PTSD]). Designed for use by primary care practitioners, the PC-PTSD consists of four questions, one from each PTSD symptom cluster, asked in reference to the past month: (1) Have you had nightmares or thought about the trauma when you did not wish to? (re-experiencing), (2) Have you tried to avoid thoughts and situations that remind you about the event? (avoidance), (3) Are you easily startled or frequently on guard? (hyperarousal), and (4) Have you felt numb or detached from other people or things? (numbing). A patient that endorses three of the four items should receive a more thorough assessment for PTSD. Recent research with the PCPTSD shows that it correctly positively identifies those that have PTSD 78% of the time (sensitivity) and correctly negatively identifies those that do not have PTSD 87% of the time (specificity). Given sufficient evidence from screening that the patient may have PTSD, a more formal assessment is warranted. This can be accomplished through a comprehensive diagnostic interview in which each of the 17 PTSD symptoms is assessed, by use of a structured clinical interview such as the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) or using well-validated self-report questionnaires such as the

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PTSD Checklist (PCL), the PTSD Diagnostic Scale (PDS), the Davidson Self-Rating PTSD Scale, or others. There are a few things that clinicians need to keep in mind when dealing with veteran patients. Clinicians should be aware that service members often fear being stigmatized if they disclose any sign of psychiatric problem, including PTSD. Furthermore, those that are most symptomatic are more likely to feel stigmatized and therefore less likely to seek treatment. It is also necessary to recognize that although social support is a powerful protective factor against developing PTSD, it is much less available to National Guard and military reservists and their families than to full-time military members. Whereas the latter may inhabit military bases where many military families live close together, undergoing the same deployment stressors, reservists, and especially their families, are neither embedded in a full-time military culture nor surrounded by others who share their plight. This may explain why reserve troops in the Persian Gulf War had higher prevalence of PTSD and depression than active duty personnel.

Treatments Effective evidence-based psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments for PTSD are available. Detailed discussion of the empirical treatment literature can be found in clinical practice guidelines. Psychotherapeutic Treatments Clinical guidelines published to date designate cognitivebehavioral therapy (CBT), which includes cognitive therapy, prolonged exposure, and cognitive processing therapy, as the treatment of choice for PTSD. CBT techniques are designed to alter the conditioned fear and cognitive distortions associated with PTSD. Prolonged exposure essentially involves clinicians asking patients to construct narratives about intolerable traumatic events they can recall. With repeated, therapist-guided exposure to these traumatic memories (imaginal or in vivo), patients experience progressive reduction in distress and thereby achieve clinical remission. Cognitive therapy and cognitive processing therapy focus on changing the maladaptive automatic thoughts associated with PTSD. Cognitive restructuring is a technique through which the therapist challenges distorted beliefs (perceiving the world as dangerous, seeing oneself as powerless or inadequate, or feeling guilty for outcomes that were outside of one’s control), thereby enabling patients to overcome intolerable trauma-related emotions. Exposure and cognitive therapies have performed very well and with equal efficacy. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a technique that involves patients being instructed to imagine a painful traumatic memory and associated negative

cognitions while visually focusing on the rapid movement of the clinician’s finger. Although there are now many studies showing that such eye movements are not needed for EMDR to work, evidence-based practice guidelines indicate that EMDR is an effective treatment despite the lack of a defined mechanism of action. In practice, both exposure and cognitive therapies are considered first-line treatments for PTSD. In exposure therapy, a clear memory of the traumatic event must be accessible. For cognitive therapy, the focus is primarily on the automatic, erroneous cognitions and behaviors that are associated with traumatic memories. In practice, exposure therapy has successfully addressed erroneous cognitions, and cognitive therapy has successfully addressed fear-based avoidant behavior. Therefore, at this time, the choice of CBT therapy for PTSD is up to the clinician. Given the scarcity of trained CBT therapists, neither option of evidence-based treatment may be available. Pharmacological Treatments A number of medications have been tested as treatment for PTSD patients. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are currently the treatment of choice, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved two, sertraline and paroxetine, for the treatment of PTSD. What has been especially exciting about the SSRI results is that these drugs appear to be broad spectrum agents that work to reduce all the symptom clusters of PTSD. Successful randomized clinical trials have also been conducted with the SSRI fluoxetine, the alpha-1 adrenergic antagonist, prazosin, tricyclic antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and venlafaxine. Because the psychobiology of PTSD is complex, other medications such as antiadrenergic agents, anticonvulsants, and a variety of agents currently under investigation may prove as effective as SSRIs. Finally, randomized trials of benzodiazepines have yielded negative results, so this class of medication cannot be recommended for PTSD treatment. When choosing medications and other elements of treatment, keep in mind that PTSD is highly comorbid with other psychiatric problems.

Summary Many important questions about treatment have yet to be tested systematically. These include how to select treatment, define realistic goals, combine various treatments, and approach complex comorbid conditions; how long to stick with a specific treatment; and when to acknowledge clinical failure. As new psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments are developed and empirically tested, these essential questions should also be addressed. In the meantime, it is essential that clinicians select evidencebased treatments whenever possible.

Peacekeeping

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (2000). Practice guidelines for the treatment of acute stress and posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 161, 1–31. Asnis, G. M., Kohn, S. R., Henderson, M., et al. (2004). SSRIs versus non-SSRIs in post-traumatic stress disorder: an update with recommendations. Drugs 64, 383–404. Brewin, C. R., Andrews, B., and Valentine, J. D. (2000). Meta-analysis of risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in trauma-exposed adults. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68, 748–766. Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., and Friedman, M. J. (2000). Effective treatments for PTSD: practice guidelines from the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies. New York: Guilford Press. Friedman, M. J. (2002). Future pharmacotherapy for PTSD: prevention and treatment. Psychiatric Clinics of North America 25, 427–441. Friedman, M. J. (2005). Veterans’ mental health in the wake of war. New England Journal of Medicine 352, 1287–1290. Friedman, M. J. (2005). Acknowledging the psychiatric cost of war. New England Journal of Medicine 351, 75–77. Hoge, C. W., Castro, C. A., Messer, S. C., et al. (2004). Combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health problems, and barriers to care. New England Journal of Medicine 351, 13–22. Kulka, R. A., Schlenger, W. E., Fairbank, J. A., et al. (1990). Trauma and the Vietnam War generation: report of findings from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

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Murdoch, M., Polusny, M. A., Hodges, J., et al. (2004). Prevalence of inservice and post-service sexual assault among combat and noncombat veterans applying for Department of Veterans Affairs posttraumatic stress disorder disability benefits. Military Medicine 169, 392–395. National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (2005). Post-traumatic stress disorder: the management of PTSD in adults and children in primary and secondary care. London: Gaskell and the British Psychological Society. Prins, A., Ouimette, P. C., Kimerling, R., et al. (2004). The primary care PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD): development and operating characteristics. Primary Care Psychiatry 9, 9–14. Resick, P., Nishith, P., Weaver, T., et al. (2002). A comparison of cognitive processing therapy with prolonged exposure and a waiting condition for the treatment of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder in female rape victims. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 70, 867–879. Shapiro, F. and Maxfield, L. (2002). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): information processing in the treatment of trauma. Journal of Clinical Psychology 58, 933–946. VA-DoD Clinical Practice Guideline Working Group, Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs and Health Affairs, Department of Defense: Management of post-traumatic stress. Washington, D.C: Office of Quality and Performance publication 10QCPG/PTSD-04 2003. Wilson, J. P. and Keane, T. M. (2004). Assessing psychological trauma and PTSD, 2nd edn. New York: Guilford Press.

Peacekeeping B Litz and S Maguen, VA Boston Healthcare System, Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC), and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Types of Peacekeeping Missions Unique Stressors of Peacekeeping Psychological Impact of Peacekeeping

Glossary Peace Enforcement A process by which military personnel necessitate a cessation of hostilities and facilitate a peace process. Peacekeeping Maintaining a military presence that increases the likelihood of peace and reduces the likelihood of fighting among two or more formerly warring parties. Peacekeeping Roles Duties such as guarding and patrolling vulnerable areas, helping maintain crowd control, operating checkpoints, providing humanitarian assistance, and facilitating the rebuilding of infrastructure, all of which can expose peacekeepers to potentially dangerous and life-threatening situations.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by B Litz and E Bolton, volume 3, pp 134–137, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Conclusions and Recommendations Further Reading

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A psychological disorder that may result from exposure to severe stress and that involves reexperiencing of the traumatic event, avoidance of cues associated with the event, emotional numbing, and hyperarousal symptoms. Role Conflict in Peacekeepers Conflict resulting from exposure to competing demands of neutrality and restraint in the face of life threat or danger, which may lead to feelings of helplessness or frustration. Rules of Engagement Rules prohibiting use of weapons except in extreme circumstances, which is quite different from ways in which soldiers are traditionally trained to handle provocation and life threat.

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Peacekeeping

Types of Peacekeeping Missions Peacekeeping has changed considerably following the inception of the United Nations in 1945. There have been 60 peacekeeping missions since 1948, and currently there are 17 active operations throughout the world. Historically, the role of the military in peacekeeping operations has been that of maintaining a strictly neutral presence by overseeing peace accords between formerly warring parties. However, post-Cold War, peacekeepers have shifted to enforcing peace in the midst of active hostilities. These modern missions have placed peacekeepers into more dangerous and conflict-laden environments. Modern missions require soldiers to be combat trained, yet able to model restraint and maintain neutrality. As a result, peace enforcement is one of the most stressful duties a soldier can be exposed to in the modern military, and the possibility of exposure to traumatic events and death has become even more likely in modern missions. For example, Seet and Burnham found that more deaths have occurred among UN peacekeepers in the past decade than in the previous 40 years, and that deaths from hostile acts have significantly increased following the Cold War. This article provides brief summaries of the stressors associated with peacekeeping in three different peacekeeping missions, briefly reviews recent peacekeeping missions, summarizes the unique stressors of peacekeeping, and highlights the psychological impact of these missions. The Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the UN and other multinational organizations have engaged in an ongoing struggle to create and maintain peace between Israel and its neighbors. An example of a very successful attempt to maintain peace in this region is the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai. Due to the stability of the peace between Israel and Egypt and the receptiveness of both parties to the presence of the MFO, peacekeepers in the Sinai have been exposed to few potentially traumatizing events directly related to their service as peacekeepers. The MFO is an example of a successful peacekeeping mission in which the duty of peacekeepers is strictly to observe, monitor, and report transgressions.

peacekeepers became peace enforcers, and the risk of exposure to potentially traumatic events grew exponentially. Although Operation Reserve Hope (ORH) was a great success with regard to the provision of medical and food supplies, the mission is often considered to be a failure because Somalia continues to be at risk for the devastating effects of famine, political instability, and violence. While in Somalia, U.S. military personnel were assigned to a variety of tasks, ranging from policing duty to combat-like duty (e.g., patrols, disarming civilians). Peacekeepers were exposed to a fairly well armed civilian population who were actively engaged in interclan war. Peacekeepers in Somalia were also subjected to acts of aggression by some Somalis, yet the strict rules of engagement sharply restricted options for protection or retaliation, creating a general sense of threat. Operation Joint Endeavor and Operation Joint Guard In 1991, following the declaration of independence of Slovenia and Croatia, a civil war erupted in the former Yugoslavia. The disillusion of the state gave rise to power struggles over governing control of the remaining states and to old race-based hatreds. Horrible atrocities were perpetrated, including genocidal acts. In response, approximately 60 000 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and U.S. military personnel were deployed as peacekeepers. Peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been subjected to shelling and sniper attacks, and a minority of peacekeepers have also been taken hostage. Some UN peacekeepers have had to stand by helplessly while atrocities were taking place. Recently Established Peacekeeping Missions Locations of recent UN peacekeeping missions include (1) Sudan (UNMIS), which began in March 2005 to support implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, (2) Burundi (ONUB) since May 2004, (3) Haiti (MINUSTAH) since April 2004, (4) Cote D’Ivoire (UNOCI) since February 2004, (5) Liberia (UNMIL) since September 2003, (6) East Timor (UNMISET) since May 2002, and (7) Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) since September 2000.

Operation Restore Hope and Operation Continue Hope in Somalia

Unique Stressors of Peacekeeping

As a result of the civil war that erupted in Somalia in 1991, humanitarian relief efforts aimed at curbing famine and the spread of disease were interrupted and sabotaged. The UN, with extensive support from the United States, decided to guarantee the provision of humanitarian aid as well as to enforce the peace in Somalia. During this mission,

Peacekeepers are at risk for exposure to stressors that are typical of a war zone (artillery fire, land mines, small arms fire). Even when peacekeepers are tasked with maintaining a firm peace, they are faced with the possibility of life threat. They may be fired upon as a result of a misunderstanding, accidentally in crossfire between two armed

Peacekeeping

feuding parties, or during firing close, which occurs when the opponent wishes to intimidate the peacekeepers in order to keep them away from a certain area. Peacekeepers may also witness atrocities committed against fellow peacekeepers and civilians and the malicious destruction of property. Other types of stressful experiences for peacekeepers are boredom, isolation, family separation, exhaustion, unfavorable climatic conditions, and demoralization about the mission’s efficacy. Role conflicts may also provoke additional stress in peacekeepers. For combat-trained soldiers from larger nations, peacekeeping duty may feel incongruent with their training. For example, peacekeepers, unlike traditional soldiers, are often restrained from taking offensive action in conditions of life threat. In addition, the types of defensive military structures that are commonplace in war are often not as available on peacekeeping missions due to the proximity that is required in order to provide humanitarian assistance and protection. The emphasis on proximity rather than protection creates considerable hypervigilance and arousal in peacekeepers and contributes to a general sense of fear. Peacekeepers who are unclear about how to respond to threats and/or experience repeated threats of injury, with little or no opportunity for recourse, are likely to experience great anxiety. Furthermore, peacekeepers who are forced to suppress their frustration, fear, and anger are at risk for acting out their feelings during a mission and/or upon their return home.

Psychological Impact of Peacekeeping Although there are many potentially traumatizing experiences and psychological conflicts associated with being a peacekeeper, the great majority of soldiers appear to adapt well. However, a sizeable number of peacekeepers are at risk for the development of psychopathology related to their deployment. The most frequent mental health problems associated with peacekeeping are PTSD, depression, anger and hostility problems, and alcohol abuse. Mehlum and Weisaeth reported that 7 years following service, 16% of prematurely repatriated soldiers from southern Lebanon met criteria for PTSD. Passey found that more than 20% of the soldiers deployed as peacekeepers to Bosnia endorsed symptoms of PTSD and depression. In Litz and colleagues’ examination of U.S. military personnel who deployed to Somalia, 25% of Somalia veterans reported clinically significant psychological distress, particularly hostility and anger problems, and 8% reported clinically significant PTSD; Dirkzwager and colleagues found similar rates of PTSD among peacekeepers who served in Yugoslavia. Among Kosovo peacekeepers, Maguen and colleagues found that 4% endorsed clinically significant PTSD symptoms; Dirkzwager and colleagues found similar rates of PTSD among peacekeepers

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who served in Cambodia. Gray and colleagues found that although most follow a standard pattern of PTSD development, some peacekeepers exhibit delayed-onset PTSD after a period of minimal distress. Adler and colleagues examined factors that predicted PTSD in U.S. military personnel deployed to the Bosnia peacekeeping mission and found that longer deployments and first-time deployments were associated with an increase in distress scores. Interestingly, the association between deployment length and distress was significant only for male soldiers. In a prospective study of Kosovo peacekeepers, Maguen and colleagues found that pre-existing stress symptoms and exposure to stressful war zone events (e.g., going on dangerous patrols) were the most robust predictors of PTSD symptoms. Similarly, in Litz and colleagues’ study of Somalia peacekeepers, the extent of exposure to stressful war zone events and frustrations with aspects of the peace enforcement mission (e.g., restrictive rules of engagement) predicted the severity of PTSD. The relationship between war zone exposure and PTSD was strongest for Somalia veterans who had high levels of frustration with the negative aspects of peacekeeping duty. Additional variables associated with PTSD symptoms reported by Dirkzwager and colleagues were feelings of powerlessness and threat, belief that the mission had become meaningless, and lack of control during deployment. Litz and colleagues also found that cohesion and morale during deployment were negatively associated with symptoms of psychological distress and PTSD. On the other hand, Michel and colleagues found that postdeployment adversities most strongly contributed to poor mental health among Swedish peacekeepers that deployed to Bosnia. Peacekeeping duty can also promote positive outcomes. Dirkzwager and colleagues found that the majority of peacekeepers reported positive consequences of their deployment, with 82% reporting a broadening of their horizon and 52% reporting increased self-confidence. Britt and Adler, and Bartone documented that following deployment to Bosnia, many peacekeepers reported an increase in political understanding, stress tolerance, and professional qualifications. They also found that soldiers who identified more closely with the role of peacekeeper and who believed their assignment to be important were more likely to report a perceived benefit from their peacekeeping experience and were less likely to report burnout and adverse psychological consequences. Finally, the researchers noted that soldiers who reported benefits as a result of the deployment had at least some exposure to the physical damage caused to the local civilians and soldiers from other nations.

Conclusions and Recommendations Even in the context of conflicts that arise as a result of counterterrorism, peacekeeping and peace enforcement

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missions will thankfully outnumber wars internationally. Although the psychological casualties resulting from peacekeeping stress do not compare to combat, it is important to appreciate the mental health needs of soldiers who return from peacekeeping missions, particularly ones that entail unforeseen escalations in hostilities. Peacekeepers may experience a wide range of potentially traumatic events and numerous uniquely stressful experiences. Peacekeeping, especially peace enforcement, missions should include provisions for secondary prevention interventions for those soldiers most at risk for chronic mental health problems following homecoming. See also: War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading Adler, A. B., Huffman, A. H., Bliese, P. D., and Castro, C. A. (2005). The impact of deployment length and experience on the well-being of male and female soldiers. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 10, 121–137. Britt, T. W., Adler, A. B., and Bartone, P. T. (2001). Deriving benefits from stressful events: the role of engagement in meaningful work and hardiness. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 6, 53–63.

Dirkzwager, A. J., Bramsen, I., and van der Ploeg, H. M. (2005). Factors associated with posttraumatic stress among peacekeeping soldiers. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping 18, 37–51. Gray, M. J., Bolton, E. E., and Litz, B. T. (2004). A longitudinal analysis of PTSD symptom course: delayed-onset PTSD in Somalia peacekeepers. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 72, 909–913. Litz, B. T., King, L. A., King, D. W., Orsillo, S. M., and Friedman, M. J. (1997). Warriors as peacekeepers: features of the somalia experience and PTSD. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 65(6), 1001–1010. Litz, B. T., Orsillo, S. M., Friedman, M., Ehlich, P., and Batres, A. (1997). Post-traumatic stress disorder associated with peacekeeping duty in Somalia for U.S. military personnel. American Journal of Psychiatry 154, 178–184. Maguen, S. and Litz, B. T. (2006). Predictors of morale in U.S. peacekeepers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 36, 820–836. Maguen, S., Litz, B. T., Wang, J. L, and Cook, M. (2004). The stressors and demands of peacekeeping in Kosovo: predictors of mental health response. Military Medicine 169, 198–206. Mehlum, L. and Weisaeth, L. (2002). Predictors of posttraumatic stress reactions in Norwegian U.N. peacekeepers seven years after service. Journal of Traumatic Stress 15, 17–26. Michel, P. O., Lundin, T., and Larsson, G. (2003). Stress reactions among Swedish peacekeeping soldiers serving in Bosnia: a longitudinal study. Journal of Traumatic Stress 16, 589–593. Passey, G. and Crocket, D. (1995). Psychological consequences of Canadian UN peacekeeping in Croatia and Bosnia. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Boston, MA. Seet, B. and Burnham, G. M. (2000). Fatality trends in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, 1948–1998. Journal of the American Medical Association 284, 598–603.

A Model of Suicidal Behavior in War Veterans with Posttraumatic Mood Disorder Leo Sher, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, Suite 2917, Box 42, New York, NY 10032, USA ã 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction The Concept of Posttraumatic Mood Disorder The Concept of PTMD and Suicidal Behavior in War Veterans Genetic Factors Prenatal Development Biological and Psychosocial Influences Between Birth and Mobilization/Deployment Mobilization/Pre-deployment Stress

Combat Stress, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Physical Injury Post-deployment Stress Biological and Psychosocial Influences After the Deployment Trigger (precipitant) of a Suicidal Act Preventing Suicide in War Veterans with PTMD Summary Further Reading

Introduction

More than a million of United States and thousands of United Kingdom troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past several years [2,3]. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have presented soldiers and marines with a unique set of stressors that are chronic in nature,

Many wars have been fought during the history of civilization. About 30 armed conflicts are occurring now around the globe involving more than 25 countries [1].

A Model of Suicidal Behavior in War Veterans with Posttraumatic Mood Disorder

including civilian threats such as guerilla warfare tactics and terrorist actions. A significant proportion of members of the military service who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan report symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or major depressive disorder (MDD) including suicidal ideation and behavior [1–3].

The Concept of Posttraumatic Mood Disorder PTSD and major depression are frequently comorbid. For example, one study assessed lifetime anxiety and mood disorders comorbidity in a community sample of outpatients and found that PTSD was the anxiety disorder most likely to be associated with MDD, with 69% of individuals with PTSD also meeting criteria for MDD [4]. I have previously proposed that some or all individuals diagnosed with comorbid PTSD and MDD have a separate psychobiological condition that can be termed ‘‘posttraumatic mood disorder’’ (PTMD) [5–7]. This suggestion was based on the fact that a significant number of studies suggested that patients suffering from comorbid PTSD and MDD differed clinically and biologically from individuals with PTSD alone or MDD alone. Individuals with comorbid PTSD and MDD are characterized by greater severity of symptoms, increased suicidality and the higher level of impairment in social and occupational functioning compared to individuals with PTSD alone or MDD alone. Neurobiological evidence supporting the concept of PTMD includes the findings from neuroendocrine challenge, cerebrospinal fluid, neuroimaging, sleep and other studies [5–9]. Both PTSD and MDD are associated with suicidal behavior [5–7,10–12]. An analysis of National Comorbidity Survey data demonstrated that, after controlling for a group of variables including demographics, lifetime mood disorder diagnosis, and substance use disorders, PTSD was the only anxiety disorder uniquely predictive of suicide ideation and attempts [10]. About 56–87% of individuals who commit suicide suffer from MDD [11]. In the National Comorbidity Survey, persons with a lifetime history of a major depressive episode were 10 times more likely to report having thought about killing themselves and 11 times more likely to have made a nonfatal suicide attempt [12]. The risk was even greater when the definitional criterion for depression was modified to exclude having thoughts of death, which could have potentially confounded the effect of depression on suicide outcomes. Comor-bidity of PTSD and MDD is associated with increased illness burden, poorer prognosis, and delayed response to depression treatment [5–7]. Individuals suffering from PTMD (i.e., comorbid PTSD and MDD) are at a high risk for suicidal behavior [57–7,13]. For example, patients with comorbid PTSD and MDD make more suicide attempts compared to individuals with MDD alone [13].

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The Concept of PTMD and Suicidal Behavior in War Veterans The risk of suicide attempts among the PTSD population is six times greater than in the general population and even higher among treatment seeking war veterans with PTSD [14–16]. In fact, war veterans are two times more likely to die of suicide than are nonveterans [17]. In one study, Vietnam veterans were assessed for suicidal thinking and behaviors, and symptoms of PTSD and depression [18]. Thoughts of ending one’s life and a previous suicide attempt were significantly correlated with a diagnosis of PTSD. Veterans with a diagnosis of PTSD and MDD or dysthymia were also more likely to report suicidal thinking and behaviors than veterans with only one of the diagnoses. It is possible that many war veterans suffer from PTMD and their suicidal behavior is related to PTMD. In this paper, I propose a model of suicidal behavior in war veterans with PTMD (Figure 1). The model consists of the following components: (1) genetic factors; (2) prenatal development; (3) biological and psychosocial influences from birth to mobilization/deployment; (4) mobilization/ deployment stress; (5) combat stress, traumatic brain injury, and physical injury; (6) post-deployment stress; (7) biological and psychosocial influences after deployment; (8) trigger (precipitant) of a suicidal act; and (9) suicidal act. The first four components determine vulnerability to combat stress (Figure 1). The first seven components determine predisposition (diathesis) to suicidal behavior (Figure 1). Risk factors for suicide can be organized according to whether their effect is on the threshold for suicidal acts, or whether they serve mainly as triggers or precipitants of suicidal acts. A predisposition to suicidal behavior is a key element that differentiates PTMD patients who are at high risk versus those at lower risk. Suicidal behavior in PTMD can be attributed to the coincidence of a trigger with a predisposition for suicidal behavior.

Genetic Factors Converging evidence from diverse research designs supports a role for genetic influences in the etiology of PTSD [19]. Family studies have laid the foreground for research in this area, indicating increased risk for PTSD in relatives. Twin studies also support the heritability of PTSD. MDD and suicidal behavior are also related to genetic predisposition [20,21]. A wealth of data indicate that additive genetic effects contribute to at least 30% of the variance in liability to major depression [20]. A recent study suggests that common genetic liability explained 62.5% of PTSD-MDD comorbidity [22]. Significant genetic overlap between MDD and PTSD implies that genes implicated in the etiology of MDD are strong candidates for PTSD and vice versa.

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Genetic factors

Prenatal development Vulnerability to combat stress Biological and psychosocial influences from birth to mobilization/deployment

Mobilization/deployment stress

Predisposition to suicidal behavior

Combat stress traumatic brain injury physical injury

Post-deployment stress

Biological and psychosocial influences after the deployment

Trigger (precipitant) of a suicidal act

Suicidal act Figure 1 A model of suicidal behavior in war veterans with PTMD.

Prenatal Development There is evidence that antenatal maternal stress may adversely influence the psychological development of offspring [23]. Low birth weight and maternal malnutrition in pregnancy have been associated with a higher rate of affective disorders in adulthood [24,25]. One study found that low birth weight and younger maternal age are associated with off-spring suicide as young adults [26]. The authors also found higher maternal parity to be a risk factor for attempted, but not completed, suicide. Another study found that higher maternal parity, younger maternal age, non-professional parental occupations and low birth weight were independently associated with higher suicide risk of offspring as young adults [27]. Exposure to the World Trade Center disaster has been associated with increased risk of small-for-gestational age

births as well as decrements in birth weight, birth length, gestational duration, and head circumference in a cohort of pregnant women with term births exposed to the World Trade Center [28,29]. Posttraumatic stress symptomatology and moderate depression were associated with longer gestational durations, although only posttraumatic stress symptomatology was associated with decrements in infant head circumference at birth [29].

Biological and Psychosocial Influences Between Birth and Mobilization/ Deployment A lot of different biological and psychological factors may affect the sensitivity of a person to traumatic events and play a role in the development of PTMD. Temperamental

A Model of Suicidal Behavior in War Veterans with Posttraumatic Mood Disorder

predisposition, previous exposure to traumatic events, family history of psychological problems, history of mental disorders, psychosocial problems, and life adversity may sensitize people to later traumas [30,31]. With a large degree of variability across study samples, it is possible that some individuals (e.g., nurses, firefighters) develop adaptive coping skills that may protect them from adverse responses to future traumas. It has been suggested, however that if normal stress hormones are activated over prolonged periods of time, brain physiology and anatomy may be altered, leading to a depletion of hormones that results in an inadequate physiological response to later trauma exposure [32]. Psychiatric pathology and maladaptive personality features prior to the deployment may contribute to the development of PTMD. In the two meta-analyses, psychiatric history was found to confer a small degree of risk for the development of PTSD [33,34]. However, when one of these research groups examined a subset of studies that specifically investigated prior depression, the degree of risk increased significantly [34]. In a prospective study of risk for developing PTSD, the authors measured maladaptive cognitions of student firefighters during their training and prior to deployment [35]. Pretrauma catastrophic thinking strongly predicted (24% of the variance) the level of PTSD symptomatology 20 months after training was completed, indicating that a tendency to catastrophize about aversive events is a risk factor for the eventual development of PTSD.

Mobilization/Pre-deployment Stress For soldiers and their family members, a deployment begins long before actual departure [36]. During predeployment, soldiers experience a range of difficult emotions, which, usually starts with shock and anxiousness that accompany deployment notification, followed by some form of grief, denial, sadness, anger, distancing and resentment. Frequently, pre-deployment stress is related to anticipatory anxiety. Feelings of loneliness, guilt, and abandonment can also be present as departure approaches. Symptoms of pre-deployment stress include shortened tempers, difficulty sleeping and trouble concentrating.

Combat Stress, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Physical Injury Most theoretical models suggest the presence of a doseresponse model of PTSD in which symptom severity is a function of traumatic event severity [30,31]. Most likely, time, duration and type of stressor, sense of controllability, degree of personal impact, immediate reactions to the event, presence of dissociation at the time of the traumatic event and persistence of life threatening events play a role

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in the development of PTMD and determine symptom severity [1,30,31,36]. Peritraumatic variables measured to date include a range of factors such as physiology, affect, and cognitions that occur during the trauma, as well as particular aspects of the type of traumatic event [30,31]. It was observed that experiencing combat and rape or molestation were events that were especially likely to increase one’s odds of developing PTSD [37]. Pre-existing depression increases risk for developing PTSD among individuals exposed to traumatic events [38]. The incidence of first-onset depression is elevated among individuals who develop PTSD following trauma compared to the trauma-exposed who do not develop PTSD [39]. Thus, the relation between MDD and PTSD is multifaceted; MDD appears to increase risk for PTSD and vice versa. This underlines the importance of the concept of PTMD. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a potential comorbid illness in cases of PTSD and PTMD [39]. At the time of impact, the kinetic energy of blunt force trauma, or blastoverpressure trauma, produces a mechanical loading. This loading is dynamic to the head. The strain to tissue is a result of compression, tension, and shear. Mild TBI is significantly associated with psychiatric symptoms and syndromes, notably PTSD. This association remained significant after combat experiences had been controlled for. A history of mild TBI in the combat environment, particularly when associated with loss of consciousness, reflects exposure to an intense traumatic event that threatens loss of life and significantly increases the risk of PTSD. Persons with TBI have a higher risk of suicide than persons without TBI. Among outpatients with TBI, 23% reported suicide ideation and 18% reported having made a suicide attempt post-injury [40]. Physical injury during a traumatic event increases the risk for PTSD [41] and probably for PTMD. Non-injured trauma survivors do not have to contend with the psychological challenges posed by pain, disfiguration, prolonged physical impairment, or hospitalization, all of which are factors that may increase an individual’s vulnerability for developing PTSD.

Post-deployment Stress The issue of post-deployment stress has been well recognized [42]. The transition from deployment to home is hard and many war veterans are having problems. A war veteran returning from combat with a particular condition is most likely to experience negative consequences of that condition to the extent that the war veteran has other vulnerabilities and encounters stressful events and circumstances. War veterans have to deal with problems readjusting to the family and the job. They may have significant interpersonal, family and occupational difficulties that often go unaddressed and unidentified.

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Biological and Psychosocial Influences After the Deployment Multiple factors such as perceived social support, stressful situations, ongoing threat to safety, the state of health, nutrition, alcohol and drug use, climate may affect the mental condition of a war veteran [3,43,44]. A recent study suggests that adult attachment, parental bonding, and spiritual love play a role in the adjustment to military trauma [45]. Risk factors for suicide common in patients in veterans’ hospitals include the male sex, the elderly, those with diminished social support, medical and psychiatric conditions associated with suicide, and the availability and knowledge of firearms. It is important to note that manifestations of posttraumatic responses to combat may not appear until long after traumatic events. War veterans and concentration camp survivors who have no apparent symptoms for many years may develop florid PTSD in response to a stressful event in later life, such as the birth of a child, the loss of a spouse, retirement, or physical illness.

Trigger (precipitant) of a Suicidal Act Suicidal act refers to the occurrence of suicide attempts, which can be defined as self-directed injurious acts with at least some intent to end one’s own life [46]. Suicidal behavior ranges from fatal acts (completed suicide), to highly lethal and failed suicide attempts (where high intention and planning are evident, and survival is fortuitous), and to low-lethality attempts (usually impulsive attempts that are triggered by a social crisis). Most likely, precipitants of suicidal acts in war veterans include interpersonal losses or conflicts, financial trouble, and job problems [43,44,47].

Treating suicidal ideation is important because suicidal ideation is one of the main predictors of suicidal acts. Both psychological and pharmacological treatments can be used to treat suicidal ideation. More studies are needed to develop new treatments for suicidal ideation in individuals with PTMD. It is also important to treat other symptoms of PTMD that may be associated with suicidal behavior, e.g., insomnia. Pharmacological treatment aimed at improving cognitive symptoms is indicated for war veterans with TBI. Clinicians should facilitate the patient’s understanding of the triggering internal and external events as well as the key cognitions that occur at the time of the attempts, thus potentially deactivating the suicide mode and averting self-destructive behavior. The placebo effect plays a role in the treatment of PTSD and depression [49,50], and consequently may play an important part in the treatment of PTMD. The benefits of therapeutic interventions in patients with PTMD can be enhanced by placebo effects. Large, longitudinal study on the natural course of PTMD among war veterans, including predictors of relapse and recovery are needed. Such a study should gather data pre-deployment, during deployment, and at multiple time points post-deployment. Suicide remains a difficult issue to study, whether in a civilian or military context. The exigencies of warfare, however, demand the selection and training of young men (and women in many countries) to commit controlled violence in a rational, emotionally-detached manner. It is extremely important to understand PTMD, to optimize assessment and treatment for people with PTMD, and to identify processes that facilitate recovery from exposure to traumatic events. Every nation, every generation, faces traumas that cause suicide. The world needs to deal with this and it is one thing that the world can come together on.

Preventing Suicide in War Veterans with PTMD

Summary

Suicide prevention in war veterans with PTMD should focus on (1) improvement in recognition of PTMD; (2) treating symptoms of PTMD, especially symptoms associated with suicidal behavior; (3) preventing a relapse when a patient is in remission; (4) treating suicidal ideation; (5) treating comorbid psychiatric conditions including alcohol and drug abuse; (6) treating medical and neurological disorders including traumatic brain injury; and (7) social support. War veterans often do not seek treatment, fearing it might damage their career or cause their peers to lose confidence in them. Besides, denial of PTSD or PTMD may stem from a fundamental human difficulty in comprehending and acknowledging our own vulnerability [48]. An appropriate treatment can be administered only if a correct diagnosis is established. There is thus a pressing need to improve recognition of PTSD/PTMD.

Many wars have been fought during the history of civilization. About 30 armed conflicts are occurring now around the globe involving more than 25 countries. Many war veterans have symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) including suicidal ideation and behavior. PTSD is frequently comorbid with MDD. I have previously proposed that some or all individuals diagnosed with comorbid PTSD and MDD have a separate psychobiological condition that can be termed ‘‘posttraumatic mood disorder’’ (PTMD). This idea was based on the fact that a significant number of studies suggested that patients suffering from comorbid PTSD and MDD differed clinically and biologically from individuals with PTSD alone or MDD alone. Individuals with comorbid PTSD and MDD are characterized by greater severity of symptoms, increased

A Model of Suicidal Behavior in War Veterans with Posttraumatic Mood Disorder

suicidality and the higher level of impairment in social and occupational functioning compared to individuals with PTSD alone or MDD alone. Neurobiological evidence supporting the concept of PTMD includes the findings from neuroendocrine challenge, cerebrospinal fluid, neuroimaging, sleep and other studies. In this paper, I propose a model of suicidal behavior in war veterans with PTMD. The model consists of the following components: (1) genetic factors; (2) prenatal development; (3) biological and psychosocial influences from birth to mobilization/deployment; (4) mobilization/pre-deployment stress; (5) combat stress, traumatic brain injury, and physical injury; (6) post-deployment stress; (7) biological and psychosocial influences after the deployment; (8) trigger (precipitant) of a suicidal act; and (9) suicidal act. The first four components determine vulnerability to combat stress. The first seven components determine predisposition to suicidal behavior, a key element that differentiates PTMD patients who are at high risk from those at lower risk. Suicidal behavior in PTMD can be attributed to the coincidence of a trigger with a predisposition for suicidal behavior. Suicide prevention in war veterans with PTMD should focus on (1) improvement in recognition of PTMD; (2) treating symptoms of PTMD; (3) preventing a relapse when the patient is in remission; (4) treating suicidal ideation; (5) treating comorbid psychiatric conditions including alcohol and drug abuse; (6) treating medical and neurological disorders including traumatic brain injury; and (7) social support. It is extremely important to understand PTMD, to optimize assessment and treatment for people with PTMD, and to identify processes that facilitate recovery from exposure to traumatic events. Every nation, every generation, faces traumas that cause suicide. The world needs to deal with this and it is one thing that the world can come together on.

Further Reading Atova B. Family concerns are part of deployment preparation. HQ US Army Installation Management Command, Europe Region. Public Affairs Office. Press Release #07-52, July 30, 2007. (accessed on November 19, 2008). Breslau N., Davis G., Andreski P., Federman B., Anthony J. C. (1998). Epidemiologic findings on PTSD and comorbid disorders. In: Dohrenwend B, editor. Adversity stress, and psychopathology. Oxford University Press; p. 319–330. Bowman, M. L. and Yehuda, R. (2004). Risk factors and the adversitystress model. In Rosen, G. M. (ed.) Posttraumatic stress disorder: issues and controversies. New York: Wiley; p. 15–16. Brewin, C. R., Andrews, B., and Valentine, J. D. (2000). Meta-analysis of risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in trauma-exposed adults. J Consult Clin Psychol 68, 716–748. Brown, A. S., van Os, J., Driessens, C., Hoek, H. W., and Susser, E. S. (2000). Further evidence of relation between prenatal famine and major affective disorder. Am J Psych 157(2), 190–195. Brown, T. A., Campbell, L. A., Lehman, C. L., Grisham, J. R., and Mancill, R. B. (2001). Current and lifetime comorbidity of the DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders in a large clinical sample. J Abnorm Psychol 110(4), 585–599.

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Bryant, R. A. and Guthrie, R. M. (2005). Maladaptive appraisals as a risk factor for posttraumatic stress. Psychol Sci 16, 716–749. Engel, S. M., Berkowitz, G. S., Wolff, M. S., and Yehuda, R. (2005). Psychological trauma associated with the world trade center attacks and its effect on pregnancy outcome. Paediatr Perinat Epid 19(5), 334–341. Flint, J., Shifman, S., Munafo, M., and Mott, R. (2008). Genetic variants in major depression. Novartis Found Symp 289, 23–32. Glover, V. and O’Connor, T. G. (2002). Effects of antenatal stress and anxiety: implications for development and psychiatry. Br J Psych 180, 389–391. Ghafoori, B., Hierholzer, R., Howsepian, B., and Boardman, A. (2008). The role of adult attachment, parental bonding, and spiritual love in the adjustment to military trauma. J Trauma Dissociation 9(1), 85–106. Godleski, L., Nieves, J. E., Darkins, A., and Lehman, L. (2008). VA telemental health: suicide assessment. Behav Sci Law 26, 271–286. Hampton, T. (2732). Research, law address veterans’ suicide. JAMA 298(23), 2007. Hoge, C. W., McGurk, D., Thomas, J. L., Cox, A. L., Engel, C. C., and Castro, C. A. (2008). Mild traumatic brain injury in US Soldiers returning from Iraq. N Engl J Med 358, 453–463. Kaplan, M. S., Huguet, N., McFarland, B. H., and Newsom, J. T. (2007). Suicide among male veterans: a prospective population-based study. J Epid Commun Health 61(7), 619–624. Kessler, R. C., Borges, G., and Walters, E. E. (1999). Prevalence of and risk factors for lifetime suicide attempts in the national comorbidity survey. Arch Gen Psych 56(7), 617–626. Koenen, K. C., Fu, Q. J., Ertel, K., Lyons, M. J., Eisen, S. A., True, W. R., et al. (2008). Common genetic liability to major depression and posttraumatic stress disorder in men. J Affect Disord 105(1-3), 109–115. Koren, D., Hemel, D., and Klein, E. (2006). Injury increases the risk for PTSD: an examination of potential neurobiological and psychological mediators. CNS Spectr 11(8), 616–624. Kramer, T. L., Lindy, J. D., Green, B. L., Grace, M. C., and Leonard, A. C. (1994). The comorbidity of posttraumatic stress disorder and suicidality in Vietnam veterans. Suicide Life Threat Behav 24(1), 58–67. Landrigan, P. J., Forman, J., Galvez, M., Newman, B., Engel, S. M., and Chemtob, C. (2008). Impact of september 11 world trade center disaster on children and pregnant women. Mt Sinai J Med 75(2), 129–134. Mittendorfer-Rutz, E., Rasmussen, F., and Wasserman, D. (2004). Restricted fetal growth and adverse maternal psychosocial and socioeconomic conditions as risk factors for suicidal behaviour of offspring: a cohort study. Lancet 364(9440), 1135–1140. Mills, P. D., de Rosier, J. M., Ballot, B. A., Shepherd, M., and Bagian, J. P. (2008). Inpatient suicide and suicide attempts in veterans affairs hospitals. Joint Comm J Qual Patient Saf 34(8), 482–488. Nad, S., Marcinko, D., Vuksan-Aeusa, B., Jakovljevic, M., and Jakovljevic, G. (2008). Spiritual well-being, intrinsic religiosity, and suicidal behavior in predominantly catholic Croatian war veterans with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder: a case control study. J Nerv Ment Dis 196(1), 79–83. Nugent, N. R., Amstadter, A. B., and Koenen, K. C. (2008). Genetics of post-traumatic stress disorder: informing clinical conceptualizations and promoting future research. Am J Med Genet C Semin Med Genet, May 15 148(2), 127–132. Oquendo, M., Brent, D. A., Birmaher, B., Greenhill, L., Kolko, D., Stanley, B., et al. (2005). Posttraumatic stress disorder comorbid with major depression: factors mediating the association with suicidal behavior. Am J Psych 162(3), 560–566. Ozer, E. J., Best, S. R., Lipsey, T. L., and Weiss, D. S. (2003). Predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder and symptoms in adults: a metaanalysis. Psychol Bull 129, 16–52. Reyes, G., Elhai, J. D., and Ford, J. D. (eds.) (2008). The encyclopedia of psychological trauma. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. Rihmer, Z. (2007). Suicide risk in mood disorders. Curr Opin Psych 20(1), 17–22. Riordan, D. V., Selvaraj, S., Stark, C., and Gilbert, J. S. (2006). Perinatal circumstances and risk of offspring suicide. Birth cohort study. Br J Psych 189, 502–507. Rona, R. J., Jones, M., Iversen, A., Hull, L., Greenberg, N., Fear, N. T., et al. (2009). The impact of posttraumatic stress disorder on impairment in the UK military at the time of the Iraq war. J Psych Res 43(6), 649–655.

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Rosenman, S. (2002). Trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder in Australia: findings in the population sample of the Australian national survey of mental health and wellbeing. Aus N Z J Psych 36(4), 515–520. Sareen, J., Houlahan, T., Cox, B. J., and Asmundson, G. J. (2005). Anxiety disorders associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in the national comorbidity survey. J Nerv Ment Dis 193(7), 450–454. Simpson, G. and Tate, R. (2002). Suicidality after traumatic brain injury: demographic, injury and clinical correlates. Psychol Med 32(4), 687–697. Sher, L. and Mann, J. J. (2003). Neurobiology of suicide. In Soares, J. C. and Gershon, S. (eds.) Textbook of medical psychiatry. New York: Marcel Dekker; p. 701–711. Sher, L. (2003). The placebo effect on mood and behavior: possible role of opioid and dopamine modulation of the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal system. Forsch Komplementarmed Klass Naturheilkd 2003; 10(2), 61–68. [in English]. Sher, L., Oquendo, M. A., Galfalvy, H. C., Cooper, T. B., and Mann, J. J. (2004). Age effects on cortisol levels in depressed patients with and without a history of post-traumatic stress disorder, and healthy volunteers. J Affect Disord 82, 53–59. Sher, L. (2004). Preventing suicide. QJM 97(10), 677–680. Sher, L. (2004). Recognizing post-traumatic stress disorder. QJM 97(1), 1–5. Sher, L. (2004). The role of endogenous opioids in the placebo effect in post-traumatic stress disorder. Forsch Komplementarmed Klass Naturheilkd 11(6), 354–359. [in English]. Sher, L. (2005). The concept of post-traumatic mood disorder. Med Hypotheses 65(2), 205–210. Sher, L. (2005). Posttraumatic mood disorder: a new concept. Can J Psych 50(2), 127–128. Sher, L., Oquendo, M. A., Li, S., Burke, A. K., Grunebaum, M. F., Zalsman, G., et al. (2005). Higher cerebrospinal fluid homovanillic

acid levels in depressed patients with comorbid post-traumatic stress disorder. Eur Neuropsychopharm 15, 203–209. Sher, L. (2008). The concept of post-traumatic mood disorder and its implications for adolescent suicidal behavior. Minerva Pediatr 60(6), 1393–1399. Statement by Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, MD, the Surgeon General, United States Army. Record version. Committee on Armed Forces, United States house of representatives, Subcommittee on Military Personnel. In: First session, 109th congress. Mental health services. 26 July 2005. (accessed on November 20, 2008). Tanielian, T. and Jaycox, L. H. (eds.) (2008). Invisible wounds of war. Psychological and cognitive injuries, their consequences, and services to assist recovery. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Tarrier, N. and Gregg, L. (2004). Suicide risk in civilian PTSD patients. Predictors of suicidal ideation, planning and attempts. Soc Psych Psych Epid 39, 655–661. Thompson, C., Syddall, H., Rodin, I., Osmond, C., and Barker, D. J. (2001). Birth weight and the risk of depressive disorder in late life. Br J Psych 179, 450–455. Ursano, R. J., Benedek, D. M., and Fullerton, C. S. (2008). Posttraumatic stress disorder: neurobiology, psychology, and public health. Psych Times 25(3). (accessed on November 18, 2008). Yehuda, R. (ed.) (2006). Psychobiology of posttraumatic stress disorder: a decade of progress. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. Zivin, K., Kim, H. M., McCarthy, J. F., Austin, K. L., Hoggatt, K. J., Walters, H., et al. (2007). Suicide mortality among individuals receiving treatment for depression in the veterans affairs health system: associations with patient and treatment setting characteristics. Am J Public Health 97(12), 2193–2198.

Is There an Epidemic of Suicides among Current and Former U.S. Military Personnel? Han K Kang and Tim A Bullman, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Ave., NW, Washington CE 20420 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Epidemiology of Suicide Vietnam War Veterans Gulf War Veterans

Selected Abbreviations and Acronyms OEF/ OIF PTSD SMR CDC CI

Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom posttraumatic stress disorder standardized mortality ratio Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 95% confidence interval

From the Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Epidemiology Service (H.K.K., T.A.B.); Washington, DC VA Medical Center , WarRelated Illness and Injury Study Center (H.K.K.); and George Washington University (H.K.K.).

OEF/OIF Veterans Activated Military Personnel Summary Further Reading

Introduction Recently, there have been reports in the news media of increased risk of suicide among current and former U.S. military personnel, particularly those who are serving or have served in either Afghanistan or Iraq, as part of Operations Enduring Freedom or Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) (1). This review examines relevant published studies and government reports that address suicide among current and former U.S. military and summarizes literature of suicide among the general population to provide some context.

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Epidemiology of Suicide In 2005 suicide was the third leading cause of death for all males between 20 and 29 years of age, for a rate of 19.8/ 100,000 persons (2). Men are at higher risk than women across all age and race groups, with white males having the highest suicide rate. Risk factors for suicide include mental disease (3, 4), chronic physical illness (5), and exposure to a traumatic event (4). That suicide is a leading cause of death among younger U.S. adult males should be of interest to the military, as 51% of those who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan through May 2008 were 20 to 29 years old in 2003 (6). Because mental disease is a risk factor for suicide, the fact that 22.6 % of OEF/OIF veteran patients were diagnosed with potential posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by the Department of Veterans Affairs suggests that a significant number of OEF/OIF veterans may be at risk for suicide (6).

Vietnam War Veterans Table 1 summarizes mortality studies of various U.S. military cohorts. The first three studies did not report a statistically significant increased risk of suicide among Vietnam veterans when their mortality was compared to that of Vietnam-era veterans or the U.S. general population (7–9). While Vietnam veterans in general did not have an increased risk of suicide, two studies found that specific groups of Vietnam veterans were at increased risk of suicide. In one study, Vietnam veterans with a diagnosis of PTSD, when compared to the U.S. general population, had an almost seven-fold statistically significant increased risk of suicide (SMR, 6.74; 95% confidence interval [CI], 4.409.87) (4). Vietnam veterans who were hospitalized because of a combat wound or wounded more than once also had statistically significant increased risks of suicide (10). A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assessing 30 years of mortality followup data for a sample of Army Vietnam veterans also reported that Vietnam veterans were not at increased risk for suicide compared to either the U.S. general population or Vietnam-era veterans (11). The crude annual suicide mortality rates per 100,000 persons for some of the Vietnam veterans groups in the table are 25.5 for Army Vietnam veterans (24.7 for non-deployed veterans) (11), 20.8 for Marine Vietnam veterans (18.1 for non-deployed veterans) (8), and 36.5 for wounded Vietnam veterans (10).

Gulf War Veterans A study that compared the mortality of 621,902 Gulf War veterans to that of 746,248 Gulf War-era veterans did not

find an increased risk of suicide among that war’s veterans (12, 13). Compared to the U.S. general population, neither group of veterans had an increased risk of suicide. Another study of all U.S. military personnel on active duty during the Gulf War also did not find an excess risk of suicides among those who served in the Gulf theater when their mortality was compared to those who served elsewhere (14).

OEF/OIF Veterans Among OEF/OIF veterans as a whole, the risk of suicide after deployment was higher, but not statistically significantly different than that in the general population (SMR, 1.15; 95% CI, 0.97-1.35) (15). However, suicide risk among former active duty unit OEF/OIF veterans was significantly higher than that of the general population (SMR, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.03-1.69). In addition, OEF/OIF veterans diagnosed with a selected mental disorder had a higher suicide risk than the general population (SMR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.01-2.87).

Activated Military Personnel Four of the studies presented in Table 1 examined suicide risk and/or rates among groups of activated military personnel (14, 16–18). One study reported a suicide rate of 9.96/100,000 person-years among all active duty military personnel between August 1990 and July 1991 (14). Another study compared the cause-specific mortality rates of Army personnel in 1986 to that of the U.S. general population and found no increased risk of suicide (16). Comparing suicide rates between 1980 and 1992 among US military personnel to national rates, a study reported lower rates among the military (17). The final study looked at the suicide rates among all U.S. military personnel between 1993 and 2003 (18). The rates, while initially decreasing over time, increased between 2002 and 2003. This trend of increasing military suicides seems to be continuing. According to a report released by the U.S. Army in January 2009, the rate of suicide among Army personnel was 20.2/100,000 in 2008, compared to a rate of 16.8/100,00 in 2007 (19). However, this rate remains near that of U.S. males.

Summary Published studies do not suggest that the risk of suicide among veterans of the Vietnam War or the 1991 Gulf War, as a whole, is significantly higher than non-deployed veterans or than the U.S. general population. Their crude annual suicide mortality rates ranges from 15.3 to 25.5/ 100,000, while a comparable general population rates range from 20 to 24/100,000 (2). However, since historically the rates of suicide among veterans in general have

Table 1 Risk of Suicide among Current and Former U.S. Military Personnel Description

Results, suicide

Watanabe et al.7 (J Occup Med., 1991)

Proportionate mortality

PMR ¼ 0.96 Vietnam Army; PMR ¼ 0.99 Vietnam Marine

Watanabe and Kang8 (Ann Epidemiol., 1995)

Retrospective cohort mortality

Cypel and Kang9 (Ann Epidemiol., 2008) Bullman/Kang4 (J Nerv Ment, Dis., 1994)

Retrospective cohort mortality Retrospective cohort mortality

Bullman/Kang10 (Am J Public Health., 1996)

Retrospective cohort mortality

Boehmer et al.11 (Arch Intern Med., 2004) Kang/Bullman12 (N Engl J Med., 1996)

Retrospective cohort mortality

Kang/Bullman13 (Am J Epidemiol., 2001) Writer et al. 14 (JAMA., 1996) Kang/Bullman15 (JAMA., 2008) Rothberg et al.16 (JAMA, 1990) Helmkamp17 (Mil Med., 1995) Allen et al.18 (Mil Med., 2005)

Retrospective cohort mortality

Compared mortality of 24,145 deceased Army Vietnam veterans to that of 27,917 deceased Army Vietnam-era veterans (PMR); compared mortality of 5,501 deceased Marine Vietnam veterans to that of 4,505 deceased Vietnam-era veterans (PMR); included deaths through 12/31/1984 Compared mortality of 10,716 Marine Vietnam veterans to that of 9,346 Marine Vietnam-era veterans (RR). The mortality of both groups also compared to that of U.S. general population (SMR). Mortality followed from end of service through 12/31/1991 Compared mortality of 4,586 female Vietnam veterans to that of 5,325 female non-Vietnam veterans (RR) and the U.S. population (SMR) Compared mortality of 4,247 Vietnam veterans diagnosed with PTSD on AOR to that of 12,010 Vietnam veterans on the AOR with no clinical diagnosis (RR); mortality of both groups also compared to that of U.S. general population (SMR); mortality followed from date of AOR exam through 8/16/1990 Risk of suicide for 34,534 Army Vietnam veterans who received non-lethal wound in Vietnam was assessed relative to severity of wounds and number of times wounded; severity based on whether or not veteran was HOSP and number of times wounded, once vs. two or more (2+); mortality of veterans also compared to that of U.S. general population (SMR); mortality followed from date received first wound through 12/31/ 1991 Compared mortality of 9,324 Army Vietnam veterans to that of 8,989 Army Vietnam-era veterans, stratified by years since discharge; mortality followed from date of discharge through 12/31/2000 Compared the mortality of 695,516 Gulf War (PG) veterans to that of 746,291 Gulf War-era veterans; mortality of both groups also compared separately to that of US general population (SMR); mortality followed from end of service through 1993 Compared mortality of 621,902 Gulf War veterans (PG) to that of 746,248 Gulf War-era veterans (PE), separately for males and females; mortality followed from end of service through 12/31/1997 Compared mortality rates of U.S. Gulf War veterans (PG) to those not deployed to the Gulf region (PE) Compared suicide rates for all U.S. military deployed as part of OEF/OIF to U.S. general population Compared the mortality rates for all U.S. Army in 1986 to U.S. general population. Compared 1980-1992 suicide rates for all active duty military by subgroup to rates for U.S. general population Presented suicide rates all activated military personnel 1993-2003, by branch of service

Retrospective cohort mortality

Retrospective cohort mortality study Retrospective cohort mortality study Retrospective cohort mortality study Retrospective cohort mortality study Retrospective cohort mortality study

RR ¼ 1.19 (0.78-1.83); SMR ¼ 0.91 (0.67-1.21) Marines Vietnam veterans; SMR ¼ 0.79 (0.561.09) Marines Vietnam-era veterans RR ¼ 0.90 (0.44-1.85); SMR ¼ 1.22 (0.67-2.04) RR ¼ 3.97 (2.20-7.03); SMR ¼ 6.74 (4.40-9.87) PTSD dx; SMR ¼ 1.67 (1.05-2.53) no PTSD Dx

RR ¼ 1.25 (0.91-1.17) HOSP; RR = 1.50 (1.012.24) 2+; SMR ¼ 1.22 (1.00-1.46) HOSP; SMR ¼ 1.58 (1.06-2.26) 2+

RR ¼ 1.72 (0.76-3.88); 0-5 yr since discharge RR ¼ 0.93 (0.64-1.34); >5 yr since discharge RR ¼ 0.94 (0.79-1.12); SMR ¼ 0.69 (0.61-0.77) PG; SMR¼ 0.73 (0.65-0.82) PE RR ¼ 0.92 (0.83-1.02) Males; RR ¼ 1.29 (0.782.31) Females SMR ¼ .34 (0.16-0.63); Rate of PG ¼ 3.78; Rate PE ¼ 10.82; Rate both PG and PE ¼ 9.96 SMR ¼ 1.33 (1.03-1.69) all active; SMR¼ 1.77 (1.01-2.87) dx with mental disease; SMR¼ 0.69 (0.56-0.82) Rate all military ¼ 11.84; Rate U.S. general population ¼ 15.10; Unadjusted rate ratio ¼ 0.8 Rates generally decreased over time, until 2003 when rate increased

PMR = proportionate mortality ratio; RR = relative risk estimate; SMR = standardized mortality ratio; AOR = Agent Orange Registry; PTSD = posttraumatic stress disorder; dx = diagnosed (with); HOSP = hospitalized; PG = Persian Gulf**; PE = Persian Era***; OEF = Operation Enduring Freedom; OIF = Operation Iraqi Freedom. Note: All RRs, SMRs, and PMRs are adjusted for covariates. Rate is number per 100,000 persons, unless otherwise indicated. All confidence intervals appear in parentheses and are calculated at the 0.05 level. Only those that do not include 1.00 are considered statistically significant.

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Study design

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Authors

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been lower than that of the U.S. population, the recent increased risk of suicide observed among OEF/OIF veterans when compared to the U.S. population (15), even though not statistically significant, warrants attention. Finally, while serving in a conflict by itself was not strongly associated with risk of suicide, level of combat trauma as indirectly measured by having PTSD and being wounded were positively associated with the risk of suicide. These associations are especially pertinent for OEF/OIF veterans as the number of those wounded was 33,907 through March 2009 (20). While the rate of suicide among all military is increasing, there does not seem to be a veteran/military suicide epidemic as reported by the media.

Further Reading Allen, J. P., Cross, G., and Swanner, J. (2005). Suicide in the Army: a review of current information. Mil Med 170, 580–584. Boehmer, T., Flanders, D., McGeehin, M., Boyle, C., and Barrett, D. (2004). Postservice mortality in Vietnam veterans: 30-year follow-up. Arch Intern Med 164, 1908–1916. Bullman, T. A. and Kang, H. K. (1996). Risk of suicide among wounded Vietnam veterans. Am J Public Health 86, 662–667. Bullman, T. A. and Kang, H. K. (1994). Posttraumatic stress disorder and the risk of traumatic death among Vietnam veterans. J Nerv Ment Dis 182, 604–610. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Web-bases Injury Query and reporting System (WISQARS) Online. (2005) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC (producer). Available at: www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/default.htm. Cypel, Y. and Kang, H. (2008). Mortality patterns among women Vietnam-era veterans: results of a retrospective cohort study. Ann Epidemiol 18, 244–252. Environmental Epidemiology Service, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. VA Healthcare Utilization among 908,690 OIF/OEF Veterans Through 3rd Qt FY 2008. October 2008 [in-house report].

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Helmkamp, J. C. (1995). Suicides in the military: 1980-1992. Mil Med 160, 45–50. Henriksson, M. M., Aro, H. M., Marttunen, M. J., Heikkenen, M. E., Isomatsa¨, E. T., Kuoppasalmi, K. I., et al. (1993). Mental disorders and comorbidity in suicide. Am J Psychiatry 150, 935–940. Ikeda, R. M., Kresnow, M., Mercy, J. A., Powell, K. E., Simon, T. R., Potter, L. B., et al. (2001). Medical conditions and nearly lethal suicide attempts. Suicide Life Threat Behav Suppl 32, 60–67. Kang, H. K. and Bullman, T. A. (1996). Mortality among US veterans of the Persian Gulf War. N Engl J Med 335, 1498–1504. Kang, H. K. and Bullman, T. A. (2001). Mortality among U.S. veterans of the Gulf War: seven year follow-up. Am J Epidemiol 154, 399–405. Kang, H. K. and Bullman, T. A. (2008). The risk of suicide among U.S. veterans after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan war zones. JAMA 300, 652–653. Keteyian A. The veteran suicide ’epidemic’. November 13, 2007. Available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/ cbsnews_investigates/main 3496470. Accessed March 26, 2008. Rothberg, J. M., Bartone, P. J., Holloway, H. C., and Marlowe, D. H. (1990). Life and death in the US Army in corpore sano. JAMA 264, 2241–2244. U.S. Department of Defense. American Forces Press Service News Articles. Army Works to Combat Rising Suicide Rates. Available at: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id = 52879. www.defenselink.mil/news.newsarticle.aspx. U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Manpower Data Center. Global War on Terrorism Casualties by Military Service Component October 7, 2001 through March 28, 2009. Available at: http://siadapp.dmdc. osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/gwot_component.pdf. Watanabe, K. K., Kang, H. K., and Thomas, T. L. (1991). Mortality among Vietnam veterans: with methodological considerations. J Occup Med 33, 780–785. Watanabe, K. K. and Kang, H. K. (1995). Military service in Vietnam and the risk of death from trauma and selected cancer. Ann Epidemiol 5, 407–412. Writer, J. W., DeFraites, R. F., and Brundage, J. F. (1996). Comparative mortality among US military personnel in the Persian Gulf region and worldwide during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. JAMA 275, 118–121.

Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors H Soreq, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Acute Psychological Stress and Exposure to Anticholinesterases Cause Similar Delayed Effects The Blood–Brain Barrier Is Disrupted under Stress Early Immediate Response Genes Modulate Acute Stress Signals Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Involvement in Acute Stress Responses Poststress Changes Are Long-Lasting

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by H Soreq, volume 2, pp 302–312, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Acetylcholinesterase Accumulation Confers Protection against Anticholinesterases Acetylcholinesterase Gene Expression Associates with State and Trait Anxiety Delayed Nervous System Deterioration under Persistent Acetylcholinesterase Overexpression Retrospective and Prospective Implications Further Reading

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Glossary Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) Inhibitors Chemical agents capable of preventing the enzyme acetylcholinesterase from performing its catalytic function, namely, the hydrolysis of acetylcholine. These inhibitors may vary in their chemical structure and include natural compounds, drugs, commonly used insecticides, and chemical warfare agents. Alternative Splicing A molecular process through which a single gene may produce more than one protein with distinct properties. Blood–Brain Barrier (BBB) The complex structures and processes that prevent the free penetration of compounds into the brain (and free exit from it). It includes the epithelial cells lining the walls of blood vessels in the brain and the end foot of astrocytes surrounding these blood vessels. The tight junctions between endothelial cells in brain blood vessels are

major players in this function, as are several proteins and active pumps controlling the move of compounds in and out of the brain. Psychological Stress An emotional state of anxiety and hyperexcitation that may have various origins and causes and that varies in intensity. It probably is important to ensure rapid, alert functioning under external insults; however, it may also cause delayed adverse consequences at different levels and functions. Transgenic Overexpression The excessive production of a foreign protein in the cells and tissues of an organism that has been made transgenic by the introduction of foreign DNA into its genome. The transgene included in this DNA directs the production of its protein product in the host organism, leading to overexpression because it is produced in addition to the normal functioning of the host gene.

Acute Psychological Stress and Exposure to Anticholinesterases Cause Similar Delayed Effects

in-depth study of the causal relationships leading to these changes.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves delayed cognitive deterioration, depression, irritability, and persistent deficits in short-term memory, as summarized by Robert Sapolsky in 2003. Stress-induced changes in nervous system structure and function appear in many diverse species, suggesting that they reflect an evolutionarily conserved adaptation to environmental insults. For example, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrates reduced hippocampal volume in PTSD patients. Surprisingly similar effects are often reported years after acute or chronic exposures to cholinesterase inhibitors. The use of the carbamate anticholinesterase (anti-AChE) pyridostigmine during the Gulf War for prophylactic protection under threat of chemical warfare emphasizes the importance of this topic, as does the increasing use of anti-AChE drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Table 1 summarizes these reports. Neurophysiological stress events are initiated by millisecond-long bursts of neurotransmitter release, whereas the long-term, persistent brain changes occur at a very slow pace, sometimes over years. Moreover, stress responses primarily elicit hormonal modulations in peripheral tissues, and ACh controls inflammatory reactions. Yet, it is not clear how this imprints on brain structure and function in a longdelayed manner. Finally, the link between structural and functional properties in the brain itself calls for an

The Blood–Brain Barrier Is Disrupted under Stress Several studies have demonstrated enhanced penetration of the brain by anti-AChEs under psychological stress. This stress-induced disruption of the BBB can explain some of the nervous system-associated sequelae reported by Gulf War veterans. Soldiers at the Gulf were exposed to unknown doses and combinations of various harmful xenobiotics. For prophylactic protection from the anticipated chemical warfare agents, which would have irreversibly blocked acetylcholinesterase (AChE), Gulf War soldiers were administered pyridostigmine, a reversible carbamate cholinesterase inhibitor. Pyridostigmine includes a quaternary ammonium group that under normal circumstances prevents its crossing the BBB. Thanks to this property, it is used routinely to treat peripheral neuromuscular junction deficiencies in patients with the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis. During peacetime clinical tests that involved healthy volunteers, pyridostigmine caused mild, primarily peripheral side effects. In contrast, during the Gulf War, pyridostigmine in the same dosage caused a significant increase in reported central nervous system (CNS) symptoms. Friedman and colleagues showed, in animal experiments, that the dose of pyridostigmine required to block 50% of brain AChE was 100-fold lower in stressed mice.

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Table 1 Common outcomes of psychological stress and anticholinesterase exposurea Organism

Inducer

Neuropathological phenomena Excessive sprouting and retraction of neuronal processes Decreased density of dendritic spines, where synaptic connections take place Atrophy of apical dendrite in the hippocampus region CA3 Reduced hippocampal volume Degenerative changes in the spinal cord

Mollusk Transgenic mice overexpressing AChE Tree shrews (primate) Humans (war veterans) Hens

Variety of stressors Cage life

Degeneration of the hippocampus

Rats

Arrest of neuronal proliferation

Primates (rhesus)

Restraint stress Acute traumatic war experience Low-level exposure to the organophosphate anti-AChE leptophos Low-level exposure to the organophosphate anti-AChE fenthion Sociological stress

Rats Rats

Mild behavioral stress Restraint stress and electric tail shock

Mice

Forced swimming stress, transgenic AChE overexpression Psychological stress

Impaired functioning Enhanced long-term depression of hippocampal activity Enhanced long-term depression and suppressed long-term potentiation of hippocampal activity Increased permeability of the blood–brain barrier Behavioral changes Deficits in short-term memory, long-term psychopathologies Impaired firing of CA1 neurons in the hippocampus

Primates (Callithrix jacchus jacchus) Humans Rabbits

Combat-related stress, childhood abuse

Suppressed long-term potentiation in the hippocampus

Rats

Memory impairments

Rats

Increased permeability of the blood–brain barrier Deficient cognitive performance Progressive deterioration of memory and general cognitive decline Intensified traumatic memories

Rats Rhesus monkeys Humans

Acute exposure to the organophosphate anti-AChE parathion Acute exposure to the organophosphate anti-AChE soman Low-level exposure to the organophosphate anti-AChE DFP or phosphorodithioate Soman intoxication Soman intoxication Organophosphate pesticide poisoning

Mice

Immobilization stress

Long-term consequences of psychological insults and anticholinesterase exposures in various evolutionarily remote species. Note the similarities in the nature of the changes observed in both the structural and functional properties of neurons. AChE, acetylcholinesterase; DFP, diisopropyl-fluorophosphonate.

a

The sudden need for energy in the stressed brain suggests that the disruption of the BBB may be beneficial when neurons are overactivated. Nevertheless, BBB disruption may also allow toxic agents and unneeded proteins to penetrate the brain, which may impair brain functioning under stress. However, the linkage between neuronal excitability and the nature of those impairments is still largely obscure. AChE inhibitors, which increase cholinergic signaling by preventing acetylcholine (ACh) hydrolysis, were reported to cause transient permeabilization of the BBB. Revealing the molecular mechanisms underlying the links between cholinergic and other elements in BBB-associated cells should therefore contribute significantly toward our understanding of the mechanism(s) leading to BBB disruption under psychological stress.

Because cholinergic neurotransmission is imbalanced following traumatic impacts, this question was addressed using transgenic mice overexpressing synaptic AChE. Diffusionweighted MRI showed impaired water diffusion and BBB functioning, and DNA microarray analyses demonstrated the enhanced production of multiple ion channels and the water channel aquaporin 4. Thus, persistent cholinergic imbalance may by itself cause BBB malfunctioning.

Early Immediate Response Genes Modulate Acute Stress Signals The similar symptoms reported for patients with PTSD and those exposed to anti-AChEs pointed to ACh as the

490

Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors

common inducer of these delayed responses. Several pieces of evidence support this conclusion. 1. Robust elevations of ACh levels occur under both PTSD and anti-AChE intoxication. 2. ACh interaction with an ACh receptor(s) elevates intracellular Ca2þ levels, inducing the transcription of genes that have promoters with Ca2þ response elements (CRE motifs). 3. One of these Ca2þ-induced genes encodes the early immediate transcription factor c-Fos. Interestingly, c-Fos expression is elevated drastically within minutes under stress. Both the choline acetyltransferase gene, ChAT, and the AChE gene, ACHE, are subject to stress-induced regulation. The first intron in the ChAT gene includes the coding sequence for the vesicular ACh transporter VAChT. Together they form the cholinergic locus. Therefore, these two mRNA transcripts are coregulated, and the early immediate gene (IEG) c-Fos can control both the initiation and the termination of cholinergic neurotransmission. This operates through regulating ACh production by ChAT, its vesicle packaging by VAChT, and its hydrolysis by AChE. Measurements of mRNA levels in conjunction with neurophysiology tests have indeed demonstrated the suppression within 3 h of the initial cholinergic hyperexcitation, most likely through the suppression of ACh synthesis (through decreases in ChAT and VAChT mRNA levels) and the enhancement of its hydrolysis (through increases in AChE mRNA levels) within 30 min postinsult. However, the association of stress processes with the bimodal suppression of the initial increase in released ACh does not tell us how specific c-Fos dimers sort out their respective promoters to induce the observed opposing effects. Moreover, it is not clear how much of the increased intracellular Ca2þ is due to influx through specific channels in the plasma membrane and how much of it results from Ca2þ release from intracellular stores. In addition, other IEGs may also contribute to the observed phenomenon. For example, the activation of muscarinic cholinergic receptors induces multiple IEGs. Also, the time scale of the Ca2þ-induced transcriptional response should be refined. Most important, the initial phase of the feedback response probably leads to delayed cascades of the transcription of other relevant genes, and both the scope and the nature of these secondary phenomena are still unknown.

Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Involvement in Acute Stress Responses Stress-induced activation of the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis enhances the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from the hypothalamus and of corticosterone from the adrenals. Corticosterone, in turn, stimulates the production of several cytokines, among them

interleukin (IL-)1, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and IL-6. Tracey and colleagues have found that ACh controls the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines by tissue macrophages. This suggests that AChE overproduction and the resultant reduction in ACh levels induce an increase in the inflammatory reactions, as summarized in Figure 1. Thus, the capacity for AChE overproduction under stress affects both peripheral and brain-mediated responses. When produced in the brain, IL-1 interacts with IL-1 type I and type II receptors. This induces c-Fos overproduction, which further potentiates the peripheral production of steroid hormones. Therefore, many responses evoked by stress depend on the activation of the HPA axis, are prevented by adrenalectomy, and can be mimicked by exogenous corticosterone (or cortisol in humans). Glucocorticoids induce increases in intracellular Ca2þ within the hippocampal neurons, inducing neurotoxic effects in the brain, mainly atrophy and degeneration of hippocampal neurons that are enriched in glucocorticoid receptors. Brain endothelial cells also express IL-1 receptors, suggesting a link between this cytokine, the BBB, and the HPA axis. Not all stress responses are totally dependent on adrenal functions. An example is the cholinergic feedback response to stress and anti-AChEs described earlier, which apparently includes an HPA-independent component. This is supported by the following: 1. Acute ACh release and its delayed suppression occurred in adrenalectomized rats. 2. Stress-induced overproduction of c-Fos mRNA occurs in adrenalectomized mice. 3. The transcriptional feedback response occurs in brain slices. 4. Transgenic mice with a cholinergic, but not HPA, imbalance show impaired BBB and stress neuropathology. Altogether, this information calls for further research into the specific contributions of the HPA and internal brain processes to the cholinergic feedback response.

Poststress Changes Are Long-Lasting Alternative splicing produces three AChE isoforms. Of these, the readthrough variant (AChE-R) encodes a hydrophilic enzyme form secreted as a globular monomer following stress events. The amphiphilic soluble properties of the stress-induced AChE isoform may provide easy accessibility to extracellular spaces flooded under stress with excess ACh. This form of the enzyme is therefore best suited for suppressing the activation of ACh receptors that is associated with stress or anti-AChE exposures. Biochemical analyses of catalytically active AChE demonstrated that globular monomers are produced following treatment with diisopropylfluorophosphonate

Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors

491

Figure 1 Cholinergic reactions to stress. a, Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and acetylcholine (ACh) balance determines the cholinergic signaling status; b, cholinergic excitation modifies the alternative splicing of AChE-mRNA transcripts; c, origins of risk factors affecting stress reactions; d, links among stress, cholinergic signaling, and inflammatory reactions. In b, cholinergic synapses are presented as glass beakers, with ACh inflow shown as the top taps and ACh outflow as water streaming out. Impaired splicing (i.e., accumulated synaptic AChE-S) potentiates the outflow, whereas protective splicing (production of AChE-R) maintains balanced flow. When mimicked in transgenic mice, impaired splicing exacerbates stress neuropathology, whereas protective splicing ablates it. In c, a schematic graph shows inherited, experience-derived (e.g., increased body mass index), and environmental measures (e.g., insecticides exposure) affecting the level of risk for stress-induced damages. In d, stress induces ACh release, which induces a shift from synaptic AChE-S to the stress-induced AChE-R splice variant. The excess AChE reduces ACh, which relieves the control over production by tissue-residing macrophages of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Therefore, AChE-R levels are associated with those of proinflammatory cytokines (stars). AChE-R, readthrough variant of acetylcholinesterase; AChE-S, synaptic form of acetylcholinesterase; IL, interleukin; TNFa, tumor necrosis factor a.

(DFP; a potent AChE inhibitor) and in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of Alzheimer’s disease patients. In the nonstressed brain, AChE mRNA is positioned around the nucleus of cortical neuronal somata. Following stress or under anti-AChEs, AChE-mRNA appears throughout the cell body, extending to prolonged dendrites. Intracellular changes in the distribution of mRNAs are often associated with modified functions of their protein products. Therefore, Meshorer and coworkers postulated in 2002 that this altered localization may be physiologically significant. The poststress accumulation of AChE takes place primarily in cholinoceptive brain regions involved in learning and memory, such as the cortex and the hippocampus. The accumulation of the enzyme in the hippocampus is relatively short-lived (a few hours). This suggests the cessation of the poststress AChE-mRNA transcription (or the enhanced degradation of AChE-mRNA or protein) in brain regions that extend cholinergic afferents to the

hippocampus. In contrast, cortical AChE levels remain significantly elevated over 3 days poststress. This may reflect continuous local production in cortical cholinergic interneurons. The initiation of CNS stress responses can thus lead, within milliseconds and continuing for several days at least, to AChE excess in the mammalian cortex. Interaction of the stress-induced AChE with signaling kinases can explain the changes induced in neuronal functioning.

Acetylcholinesterase Accumulation Confers Protection against Anticholinesterases The accumulation of brain AChE increases the concentration of binding sites for anti-AChEs. For example,

492

Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors

Kaufer et al. demonstrated in 1998 that pyridostigmine doses that reduce body temperature in normal, untreated FVB/N mice have no effect when administered 24 h after stress treatment. Similarly, transgenic mice overexpressing AChE in their brain neurons also display resistance to the hypothermic response to pyridostigmine. This supports the conclusion that the stress-induced resistance to anti-AChEs is due to AChE accumulation because elevated AChE levels persist in the brains of these mice. Pyridostigmine protects against the lethal effects of chemical warfare agents that are anti-AChEs. The protection conferred by pyridostigmine may therefore be related, at least in part, to AChE overproduction that is induced by pyridostigmine during the first few hours following treatment.

Acetylcholinesterase Gene Expression Associates with State and Trait Anxiety Recent genotype–phenotype interaction studies support the notion of AChE interactions with stress responses. In the U.S. population, volunteers with polymorphisms debilitating the functioning of the ACHE gene or the adjacent paraoxonase PON1 gene on the long arm of chromosome 7 were found to display increased trait anxiety or the tendency for state anxiety, as shown in Figure 2.

Delayed Nervous System Deterioration under Persistent Acetylcholinesterase Overexpression Apart from its capacity to hydrolyze ACh, the AChE protein possesses other, noncatalytic activities. These are apparently related to neurite extension in cholinergic as well as dopaminergic neurons and are fully sustained in genetically inactivated AChE. This suggests that the structural effects of AChE might also operate when the AChE protein is inactivated catalytically by anti-AChEs. The long-term outcome of neuronal AChE excess was studied in patients with the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis and in rats with experimental autoimmune myasthenia. In both cases, the chronic overproduction of AChE-R was observed. Antisense oligonucleotide suppression of this excess enzyme improved neuromuscular functioning in treated rats. Parallel outcomes in clinical trials was reported at the U.S. Society of Neurology in 2004. In the neuromuscular junctions of AChE transgenic mice (the synapses connecting motor neurons with the innervated muscle), impaired neuromuscular transmission was observed. Similar phenomena were reported for patients with neurodegenerative or neuromotor syndromes associated with cholinergic malfunction, such as Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and myasthenia gravis. Indeed, Farchi and co-workers reported the deterioration

Figure 2 Association of AChE and PON variations with state and trait anxiety. a, Gel electrophoresis of serum samples from volunteers with high or low trait anxiety; b, the putative genomic link; c, age-dependent changes in the capacity for AChE overproduction (R 2 ¼ 0.73). In a, note that subjects with low anxiety show more AChE monomers (M) than those with high anxiety, although tetramers (T) and dimers (D) remain unmodified (N ¼ 472 volunteers). Thus, the alternative splicing process yielding AChE-R monomers links to trait anxiety. In b, the ACHE and PON1 genes are positioned close to one another on the long arm of chromosome 7. Exposure of AChE to organophosphate inhibitors (OP) inhibits its activity by forming irreversible AChE–OP complexes. This induces a feedback response leading to AChE overproduction. However, paraoxonase (PON) degrades OPs, thus protecting the AChE protein. In addition, PON functions as a peroxidase, protecting blood proteins (AChE included) from oxidative stress. In c, blood AChE levels increase by over 25% between the ages 15 and 66, suggesting a progressive limitation in the capacity for stress-induced AChE overproduction (arrows).

Gulf War Syndrome, Psychological and Chemical Stressors

Start site

PON1

(a)

−909 G/C

−162 −108 L55M A/C C/T (TTG ATG)

Start site

ACHE

Q192R (CAA CGA)

493

−17 Kbp Δ ΔTTGT

P446 H332N (CAC AAC) (CCC

CCT)

Control (n = 171)

100

Nonexposed PD (n = 40) HDL particle interior

55

Haplotype frequency (%)

Exposed PD (n = 33)

HDL-anchored paraoxonase

(c)

H2 H1

(b)

192

10

1 C/wt

T/wt

C/Δ

T/Δ

(d)

Paraoxon-blocked acetylcholinesterase

Figure 3 Risk-associated ACHE/PON1 polymorphisms are strongly overrepresented in exposed Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. a, The ACHE/PON1 locus; b, the PON1 protein and frequent polymorphisms; c, graphs of increased incidence of debilitating ACHE/PON1 haplotype in insecticide-exposed Parkinson’s patients; d, the AChE protein and its interaction with paraoxon. In a, a diagram of the adjacent ACHE and PON1 genes is shown, with the tested nucleotide polymorphisms marked below. The two debilitating polymorphisms found frequently in patients with Parkinson’s disease who were continuously exposed to agricultural insecticides are circled. In b, the crystal structure of paraoxonase is shown with the two frequent changes in it, in positions 55 and 192. Note that PON1 interacts with blood lipids (HDLs). The paraoxon binding site is circled. In d, the crystal structure of the AChE protein is shown. Paraoxon is circled in its deep-buried binding site, where its binding blocks AChE functioning irreversibly. Star indicates a statistically significant difference in the incidence of the debilitating ACHE/PON1 polymorphisms within insecticides-exposed Parkinson’s disease patients. C/D, carriers of the robust PON1 and the debilitated AChE variant; C/wt, carriers of the two robust variants; HDL, high-density lipoprotein; T/D, carriers of the two debilitated variants; T/wt, carriers of debilitated PON1 and robust AChE.

of the physiological responses of AChE transgenic muscle, reminiscent of those of myasthenia patients. Exposure to agricultural insecticides, which serves as a case study for the risks involved in exposure to chemical warfare agents, also increases the risk of Parkinson’s disease. It was known for several decades that this risk also involves predisposing genotype–phenotype elements. In a study performed in Israel, this increased risk was found to be associated with debilitating polymorphisms in the ACHE and the PON1 genes. Exposed patients showed an increased incidence of such debilitating polymorphisms, suggesting that an inherited interactive weakness of AChE and PON1 was the cause. These findings, reported by BenMoyal-Segal and co-workers, are schematically presented in Figure 3.

Retrospective and Prospective Implications The feedback response to acute stress and anti-AChEs apparently varies in its intensity with age, body mass index, gender, and ethnic origin. Homozygous carriers of

mutations in the ACHE homologous BCHE gene, encoding serum butyrylcholinesterase (BCHE; e.g., the atypical variant), have anomalous responses to cholinergic drugs. In such individuals, relatively low doses of anti-AChEs may penetrate the brain quite effectively, which results in higher effective doses than intended. This creates a genetic predisposition to adverse responses to anti-AChEs. This inherited sensitivity, and the findings already summarized, raise a concern with regard to the long-term dangers of chronic exposure to household and agricultural insecticides because these are frequently organophosphate or carbamate anti-AChEs. Moreover, the partial symptomatic relief offered by the currently approved Alzheimer’s disease anti-AChE drugs appears to be limited in its duration, suggesting that the feedback response to stressor antiAChEs marks the initiation of progressive damage caused by the production of excess AChE. AChE, an important constituent of cholinergic neurotransmission, may thus cause neuropathological damage when it accumulates in the mammalian brain over long periods. Like many other essential proteins, AChE should be there at the right time and in the right amount or else it can initiate a vicious cycle of long-term harmful responses.

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Is there an Iraq War Syndrome?

Acknowledgments Writing this article would not have been possible without the contribution of my co-workers. Special thanks are due to Daniela Kaufer, Alon Friedman, Ella Sklan, and Noa Farchi for research contributions and to Eyal Soreq for artwork. Research was supported by grants from the Israel Science Fund, The Israel Ministry of Defense, and Ester Neuroscience, Ltd. See also: Combat Stress Reaction; Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of; War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading Benmoyal-Segal, L., Vander, T., Shifman, S., et al. (2005). Acetylcholinesterase/paraoxonase interactions increase the risk of insecticide-induced Parkinson’s disease. FASEB Journal 19(3), 452–454. Birikh, K., Sklan, E., Shoham, S., et al. (2003). Interaction of ‘‘readthrough’’ acetylcholinesterase with RACK1 and PKCbetaII correlates with intensified fear-induced conflict behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100, 283–288. Brenner, T., Hamra-Amitay, Y., Evron, T., et al. (2003). The role of readthrough acetylcholinesterase in the pathophysiology of myasthenia gravis. FASEB Journal 17(2), 214–222. Darreh-Shori, T., Hellstrom-Lindahl, E., Flores-Flores, C., et al. (2004). Long-lasting acetylcholinesterase splice variations in anticholinesterase-treated Alzheimer’s disease patients. Journal of Neurochemistry 88(5), 1102–1113.

Farchi, N., Soreq, H., and Hochner, B. (2003). Chronic acetylcholinesterase overexpression induces multilevelled aberrations in mouse neuromuscular physiology. Journal of Physiology 546(1), 165–173. Friedman, A., Kaufer, D., Shemer, J., et al. (1996). Pyridostigmine brain penetration under stress enhances neuronal excitability and induces early immediate transcriptional response. Nature Medicine 2, 1382–1385. Kaufer, D., Friedman, A., Seidman, S., et al. (1998). Acute stress facilitates long-lasting changes in cholinergic gene expression. Nature 393, 373–377. Meshorer, E., Erb, C., Gazit, R., et al. (2002). Alternative splicing and neuritic mRNA translocation under long-term neuronal hypersensitivity. Science 295(5554), 508–512. Meshorer, E., Biton, I., Ben-Shaul, Y., et al. (2005). Chronic cholinergic imbalances promote brain diffusion and transport abnormalities. FASEB Journal 19(8), 910–922. Nijholt, I., Farchi, N., Kye, M., et al. (2004). Stress-induced alternative splicing of acetylcholinesterase results in enhanced fear memory and long-term potentiation. Molecular Psychiatry 9(2), 174–183. Pollack, Y., Gilboa, A., Ben-Menachem, O., et al. (2005). Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors reduce brain and blood interleukin-1b production. Annals of Neurology 57(5), 741–745. Sapolsky, R. (2003). Bugs in the brain. Scientific American 288(3), 94–97. Sklan, E. H., Lowenthal, A., Korner, M., et al. (2004). Acetylcholinesterase/paraoxonase genotype and expression predict anxiety scores in Health, Risk Factors, Exercise Training, and Genetics study. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101(15), 5512–5517. Soreq, H. and Seidman, S. (2001). Acetylcholinesterase – new roles for an old actor. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, 294–302. Tracey, K. J. (2002). The inflammatory reflex. Nature 420(6917), 853–859. Weinberger, D. R. (2001). Anxiety at the frontier of molecular medicine. New England Journal of Medicine 344(16), 1247–1249.

Is there an Iraq War Syndrome? Comparison of the Health of UK Service Personnel After the Gulf and Iraq Wars O Horn, L Hull, M Jones, D Murphy, T Browne, N T Fear, M Hotopf, R J Rona, and S Wessely, King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 9RJ, UK ã 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Methods Discussion

Introduction Not long after the end of the 1991 Gulf war, reports started appearing in the USA and subsequently in the UK of non-specific ill health in members of the armed forces who had served in the conflict. Large-scale epidemiological studies confirmed an increase in general symptomatic ill-health in service personnel from the USA,1 UK,2,3 Canada,4 Denmark,5 and Australia.6 However, no increase was noted in mortality,7,8 cancer registrations,9 or well defined physical outcomes,10 with the possible exception of an increase in the incidence of motor neuron

Summary Further Reading

disease.11,12 This phenomenon became widely known as Gulf war syndrome, although no compelling evidence existed of a range of symptoms or signs uniquely associated with Gulf service. Irrespective of the label applied, the increase in ill health was substantial, was associated with disability, caused great concern, resulted in political controversy, cost substantial resources in terms of war pensions and disability payments, and has not yet been resolved.13 Among the more plausible suggested explanations were psychological stress, side-effects of medical counter-measures such as vaccinations or pyridostigmine bromide, unobserved exposure to nerve agents, and

Is there an Iraq War Syndrome?

495

Iraq war study

Proportion reporting (%)

60 50 TELIC 1 Era

40 30 20 10 0

Gulf war study

Proportion reporting (%)

60 50 40

Gulf Bosnia Era

30 20 10 0 Symptoms

Figure 1 Frequencies of symptoms.

cultural and media pressures.14 Despite an intense research effort, no explanation has proved compelling. Many of the concerns that had surfaced in the context of the controversy over Gulf war syndrome were not resolved by the start of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, the need was recognised for an improved system of health surveillance and research in the aftermath of the 2003 war. We report the results of a large-scale epidemiological study of the physical and psychological health of a random sample of UK Armed Forces personnel, of which half took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In this paper we address specifically the question of whether or not there has been an increase in symptomatic ill health similar to that observed after the 1991 Gulf War.

Methods Study design and population We defined two populations of UK armed forces personnel: those that were deployed on the first phase of the Iraq war, where major combat duties took place (Operation TELIC 1; group designated TELIC 1), and those that were serving at the time but did not deploy on this operation (designated Era). Random samples of a comparable size were provided from each of these populations by the Ministry of Defence. A separate report15 provides

a detailed description of the sampling, methods used to contact respondents, and measures. We report here on the sections of the survey related to symptomatic ill health: the occurrence of any of 50 nonspecific symptoms in the past month (using the same checklist used in our previous cohort study of Gulf war veterans),2 fatigue (assessed with a validated 13-item fatigue scale),16 and a single item indicating general health taken from the SF-36 questionnaire (‘‘In general, how would you rate your health?’’, options: Poor/Fair/ Good/Very Good/Excellent);17 We only compared respondents from the TELIC 1 and Era cohorts that were regular armed forces personnel at the time of the Iraq war (Jan 18, 2003, to June 28, 2003); an effect of deployment had been noted in the reserve armed forces, as reported in the companion paper.15 The present analysis was exploratory, in so far that we could not predict the shape and form that a new syndrome might take. We also restricted this analysis to men, to make results comparable to those from our previous Gulf war survey.2 The demographic characteristics of this subsample were similar to those of the entire sample described in our companion paper.15 Our Gulf war survey2 comprised three randomly sampled groups: personnel who served in the Gulf region between Sept 1, 1990, and June 30, 1991 (Gulf war group); personnel who served in Bosnia between April 1, 1992, and Feb 6, 1997 (Bosnia group); and a comparison group who were serving on Jan 1, 1991, but had not been

496

Is there an Iraq War Syndrome?

deployed to the Gulf war or Bosnia (Era group). Special forces were not included for security reasons, and only men were included in the analyses Analysis The proportions of respondents who had each of the 50 symptoms in two groups were presented in a graph to show differences and similarities in the pattern and frequencies of symptoms. This graph was then assessed alongside its equivalent from our previous Gulf war cohort study2 to show any differences in the deployment effects on symptomatic ill health between the two studies. The rank ordinal positions of all symptoms were tabulated and compared between the studies. The frequencies of the 15 most common symptoms from each survey were tabulated and odds ratios (ORs) with 95% CI were computed by logistic regression to express differences between the groups within each survey. ORs were also calculated for the proportion of cases of fatigue (scores >3)16 and for the proportion of respondents reporting their health to be fair or poor on the general health perception item, in each survey. The ORs in the analyses relating to the Iraq war survey were calculated adjusting for medical downgrading status only (medical downgrading refers to the system of assessment of fitness and employability, including deployability, of UK Armed Forces personnel, on the basis of a medical examination). However, there was a slight difference in the sample selection for the 1991 Gulf study, in that the individuals in the deployed and non-deployed samples were all graded as fit to fight—ie, downgraded personnel who could not deploy were excluded. For this reason, adjustment was not necessary for the Gulf war survey sample. All statistical analyses were done with SPSS for Windows (version 13). Role of the funding source The UK Ministry of Defence funded this project. They had no role in the design, analysis, interpretation, or decision to submit this paper. The Ministry of Defence provided us with the names and contact details of potential participants in the study. We disclosed the paper to Ministry of Defence at the point when we submitted it for publication, and any errors of fact identified by the Ministry were corrected at the same time as addressing the comments of reviewers. The corresponding author had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication. Results Details of follow-up rates are described in the companion paper.15 10 272 (61%) of our contacted sample responded to the questionnaire, of which 7937 regular servicemen were included in these analyses (all regulars

who were not included were women). The figure shows the proportion of TELIC 1 (n=3642) and Era (n=4295) respondents who experienced each of the 50 symptoms, along with these proportions for each of the three groups in our previous Gulf war study: Gulf war (n=3293), Bosnia (n=1835), and Era (n=2422). The symptoms were ordered by descending frequency according to the deployed sample in each graph (so that the patterns of symptoms were not directly comparable between the two studies). The raised frequencies of symptoms in the deployed group observed in the Gulf war study were not evident in the Iraq war survey. We also did the same analyses for servicewomen, and compared those who deployed after TELIC 1 (when the nature of the operation changed to counter-insurgency) with those not deployed. No effect of deployment was shown for either analysis (data available from authors). Most symptoms showed little or no change in rank order of frequency between the Gulf war and Iraq war studies (0–2 ordinal positions; table 1). Table 2 shows ORs for the 15 most frequent self-reported symptoms by deployment status in the studies. Personnel deployed to the Gulf war were significantly more likely to experience all the 15 most common symptoms than their nondeployed counterparts (table 2). By contrast, in the Iraq war survey, two symptoms were significantly less common in those deployed on TELIC 1 (joint pain and joint stiffness) than in the non-deployed group, and five symptoms (irritability, forgetfulness, feeling distant or cut off, chest pain, and night sweats) were significantly more common. The rank order of all 50 symptoms between the deployed groups both the studies was very similar (r¼0.96, p<0.0001, data available from authors). Personnel deployed to the Gulf war had significantly higher ORs for being a fatigue case than their nondeployed colleagues; this was not the case in the Iraq study (table 3). Whereas personnel deployed to the Gulf war were more likely to report their health as fair or poor compared with the non-deployed group, no significant difference was noted between the deployed and nondeployed groups in the Iraq war sample (table 3).

Discussion Our results show that no substantial increase in symptomatic ill health has occurred in members of the regular UK armed forces who took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, compared with those who did not take part. This finding is in marked contrast to the situation after the 1991 Gulf war, when a substantial increase in symptomatic ill health was noted. Comparison of the two control groups showed that overall, symptoms have increased in frequency between the two wars. This increase is clearly not an effect of deployment, and is more probably a further

Is there an Iraq War Syndrome?

497

Table 1 Ranked order of self-reported symptoms

Feeling unrefreshed after sleep Irritability/outbursts of anger Headaches Fatigue Sleeping difficulties Forgetfulness Joint stiffness Loss of concentration Flatulence or burping Joint pain, without swelling or redness Feeling distant or cut off from others Avoiding doing things/situations Chest pain Tingling fingers and arms Feeling jumpy/easily startled Nightsweats that soak bedsheets Itchy or painful eyes Sore throat Distressing dreams Numbness in fingers/toes Ringing in the ears Inability to breathe deeply enough Wheezing Diarrhoea Unintended weight gain >10 lb Dry mouth Tingling legs and toes Loss of interest in sex Dizziness Rapid heartbeat Feeling short of breath at rest Increased sensitivity to light Increased sensitivity to noise Persistent cough Passing urine more often Stomach cramp Loss or decrease in appetite Intolerance to alcohol Shaking Faster breathing than normal Feeling disoriented Constipation Feeling feverish Nausea Lump in throat Unintended weight loss >10 lb Double vision Pain on passing urine Burning sensation in the sex organs Vomiting

Gulf study ordinal position

Iraq study ordinal position

Change in rank order

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

1 5 2 4 3 6 7 9 8 11 14 15 13 17 20 16 18 10 19 32 25 26 22 12 27 21 34 24 31 23 36 41 38 29 35 28 30 33 37 39 43 40 42 44 45 49 47 48 50 46

0 3 -1 0 -2 0 0 1 -1 1 3 3 0 3 5 0 1 -8 0 12 4 4 -1 -12 2 -5 7 -4 2 -7 5 9 5 -5 0 -8 -7 -5 -2 -1 2 -2 -1 0 0 3 0 0 1 -4

Symptoms ranked by frequency in the deployed sample in each study.

manifestation of a general increase in reporting of symptoms.18 Our study has several strengths. It is representative of all three branches of the services, and includes serving and ex-serving personnel. The test sample was compared with an appropriate military control group, identical except that they did not deploy during the invasion of Iraq. Numbers are large. The questions we asked were the

same as those we asked after the 1991 Gulf war, making direct comparisons possible. In a separate analysis using the same data15 we showed a small increase in total physical symptoms in people deployed to Iraq, and we report that five of the most common 15 symptoms were reported more frequently in deployed than in non-deployed personnel. However, these symptoms are, by definition, common; the sample

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Is there an Iraq War Syndrome?

Table 2 15 most frequent self-reported symptoms by deployment status 1991 Gulf war

2003 Iraq war

Number (%)

Feeling unrefreshed after sleep Irritability or outbursts of anger Headaches Fatigue Sleeping difficulties Forgetfulness Joint stiffness Loss of concentration Flatulence or burping Pain without swelling or redness in several joints Feeling distant or cut off from others Avoiding doing things or situations Chest pain Tingling in fingers and arms Night sweats Sore throat Diarrhoea

OR (95% CI)

Gulf (n=3284)

Era (n=2408)

1842 (56%)

761 (32%)

1813 (55%)

Number (%)

OR (95%CI)

TELIC 1 (n=3642)

Era (n=4295)

2.8 (2.5-3.1)

1712 (47%)

2066 (48%)

1.00 (0.91-1.09)

621 (26%)

3.5 (3.2-4.0)

1296 (36%)

1458 (34%)

1.12 (1.02-1.23)

1757 (54%) 1665 (51%) 1576 (48%) 1475 (45%) 1314 (40%) 1304 (40%) 1120 (34%) 1057 (32%)

857 (36%) 667 (28%) 684 (28%) 412 (17%) 566 (24%) 364 (15%) 518 (22%) 347 (14%)

2.1 (1.9-2.3) 2.7 (2.4-3.0) 2.3 (2.1-2.6) 3.9 (3.5-4.5) 2.2 (1.9-2.4) 3.7 (3.2-4.2) 1.9 (1.7-2.1) 2.8 (2.5-3.2)

1646 (45%) 1444 (40%) 1562 (43%) 1078 (30%) 974 (27%) 894 (25%) 940 (26%) 628 (17%)

1891 (44%) 1825 (43%) 1879 (44%) 1102 (26%) 1405 (33%) 1043 (24%) 1118 (26%) 874 (20%)

1.08 (0.99-1.18) 0.93 (0.85-1.01) 1.01 (0.93-1.11) 1.27 (1.15-1.40) 0.80 (0.72-0.88) 1.07 (0.96-1.18) 1.02 (0.92-1.13) 0.87 (0.78-0.98)

923 (28%)

265 (11%)

3.2 (2.7-3.7)

561 (15%)

602 (14%)

1.19 (1.04-1.35)

880 (27%)

248 (10%)

3.2 (2.7-3.7)

558 (15%)

685 (16%)

1.01 (0.89-1.14)

831 (25%) 811 (25%)

284 (12%) 267 (11%)

2.5 (2.2-2.9) 2.6 (2.3-3.1)

565 (16%) 545 (15%)

574 (13%) 619 (14%)

1.23 (1.08-1.40) 1.10 (0.97-1.25)

808 (25%) n/a n/a

238 (10%) n/a n/a

3.0 (2.5-3.5) n/a n/a

552 (15%) 632 (17%) 596 (16%)

525 (12%) 748 (17%) 719 (17%)

1.32 (1.16-1.50) 1.01 (0.90-1.13) 0.99 (0.88-1.12)

ORs for Iraq war survey adjusted for medical downgrading status only. Sore throat and diarrhoea were not of the 15 most frequent symptoms in the Gulf war survey; they were of the 15 most frequent symptoms in the Iraq war survey (reported for the latter only).

Table 3 Relation between deployment and fatigue and between deployment and perceived fair or poor general health Number (%)

OR (95% CI)

Era (n=2361) Bosnia (n=1761) Gulf (n=3174)

485 (21%) 450 (26%) 1483 (47%)

Reference 1.33 (1.15–1.54) 3.39 (3.00–3.83)

Iraq war survey Era (n=4232) TELIC 1 (n=3554)

1296 (31%) 1119 (32%)

Reference 1.08 (0.98–1.19)

239 (15%) 125 (13%) 724 (27%)

Reference 0.83 (0.66–1.05) 2.00 (1.70–2.35)

533 (13%) 381 (11%)

Reference 0.94 (0.82–1.09)

Fatigue Gulf war survey

Fair or poor general health Gulf war survey Era (n=1564) Bosnia (n=960) Gulf (n=2735) Iraq war survey Era (n=4268) TELIC 1 (n=3590)

ORs for Iraq war survey adjusted for medical downgrading status only.

size is large; and multiple outcomes have been tested; so there is a risk of type 1 error. The effect size for each

symptom is small, and no symptom was very much more frequent than others. We do not know exactly when the increase in ill health after the 1991 Gulf war developed. Although anecdotal reports emerged quite swiftly, systematic surveys did not commence until at least 2–3 years after the conflict. Thus, although we can confidently say that 2 years after the invasion of Iraq there is little, if any, evidence for an increase in physical ill health, it will be prudent to continue health surveillance for a further period. We report our results in regular forces men only, which made up 93% of the deployment. Because of a differential response rate and interaction by deployment,15 we have elected to analyse reservists separately. In our Gulf war studies2 we noted no difference between the health of reservists and that of regulars, with both being equally affected by the rise in frequency of symptoms. This is no longer the case. Our results will serve to allay concerns raised by sporadic media reports of a new Iraq war syndrome, or Gulf war syndrome II. But do they shed any light on what happened after the 1991 Gulf war? All wars are different, and the 1991 war differed from the 2003 invasion in many respects. Nevertheless, both the similarities and differences allow us to draw some tentative conclusions. First,

Is there an Iraq War Syndrome?

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no one can disagree that war is stressful to many combatants. The fact that before 1991, similar syndromes to Gulf war syndrome had been observed after many of the major conflicts of the 20th century involving the British military19 had seemed to many commentators, ourselves included, as arguing that at least part of the Gulf war syndrome story was the non-specific stress of war. Yet in military terms the 1991 and 2003 conflicts were similarfought over similar terrain, involving similar forces, being relatively brief in historical terms, and the initial fighting period being free from mass casualties amongst the coalition forces. Yet one led to prolonged ill health in a substantial minority, and the other has not yet done so. Second, before both conflicts, the UK armed forces used medical countermeasures to counteract the threat from biological and chemical weapons. However, there were differences in the measures used. Although pyridostigmine bromide was issued in both conflicts, the pattern of vaccination changed. In 1991, personnel were offered the combination of vaccinations against anthrax (linked with pertussis as an adjuvant) and plague. In 2003, anthrax and plague vaccines were given without pertussis. Efforts were also made to space out the time scale in which vaccinations were given, and the nature of the consent and information procedures changed. Observational data such as ours do not permit any definitive conclusions about whether or not these changes made any difference, although we will be looking in more detail at the associations and persistence of side-effects in further follow-up of the cohort. If we had found an increase in morbidity after the Iraq war equivalent to that after the Gulf war we could say that these changes were not related to the occurrence of symptoms; all we can now say at this stage is that our new data add to the evidence that there was some relation between the specific pattern of medical countermeasures used in 1991 and ill health.20 Additionally, the true threat from chemical and biological weapons was different between the 1991 and 2003 conflicts. Finally, it is possible that one factor that amplified, even if it did not create, the Gulf war syndrome crisis, was the perceived neglect of health surveillance and research on both sides of the Atlantic, allowing rumour and conjecture to flourish. The implementation of improved health surveillance, including but not restricted to the present study, might also have reduced some health concerns.

also principal investigator, alongside R Rona and S Wessely, who all planned, designed, and supervised the study. S Wessely is the grant holder, and also contributed to the writing of the paper and its supervision.

Contributors

Acknowledgments

O Horn managed electronic aspects of data collection for the study, did the analysis, and was involved in the writing of the paper. L Hull co-ordinated the study. M Jones, D Murphy, and T Browne were involved in data collection and tracing. N Fear and M Hotopf gave epidemiological advice, and commented on previous drafts. M Hotopf was

We thank the UK Ministry of Defence for their cooperation in this study; in particular we thank Defence Medical Services Department, the Defence Analytical Services Agency, the single services, the Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency and the Veteran’s Policy Unit. This study was funded by the UK Ministry of Defence.

Conflict of interest statement S Wessely is honorary civilian adviser in psychiatry to the British army. All other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Summary Background UK armed forces personnel who took part in the 1991 Gulf war experienced an increase in symptomatic ill health, colloquially known as Gulf war syndrome. Speculation about an Iraq war syndrome has already started. Methods We compared the health of male regular UK armed forces personnel deployed to Iraq during the 2003 war (n=3642) with that of their colleagues who were not deployed (n=4295), and compared these findings with those from our previous survey after the 1991 war. Data were obtained by questionnaire. Findings Graphs comparing frequencies of 50 nonspecific symptoms in the past month in deployed and non-deployed groups did not show an increase in prevalence of symptoms equivalent to that observed after the Gulf war. For the Iraq war survey, odds ratios (ORs) for self-reported symptoms ranged from 0.8 to 1-3. Five symptoms were significantly increased, and two decreased, in deployed individuals, whereas prevalence greatly increased for all symptoms in the Gulf war study (ORs 19-3-9). Fatigue was not increased after the 2003 Iraq war (OR 1-08; 95% CI 0-98-1-19) but was greatly increased after the 1991 Gulf war (3-39; 3-00-3-83). Personnel deployed to the Gulf war were more likely (2-00, 1-70-235) than those not deployed to report their health as fair or poor; no such effect was found for the Iraq war (0-94, 082-1-09). Interpretation Increases in common symptoms in the 2003 Iraq war group were slight, and no pattern suggestive of a new syndrome was present. We consider several explanations for these differences.

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Further Reading Barrett, D. H., Gray, G. C., Doebbeling, B. N., Clauw, D. J., and Reeves, W. C. (2002). Prevalence of symptoms and symptom-based conditions among Gulf War veterans: current status of research findings. Epidemiol Rev 24, 218–27. Canadian Department of National Defence (1998). Health study of Canadian forces personnel involved in the 1991 conflict in the Persian Gulf. Ottawa: Goss Gilroy Inc. Cherry, N., Creed, F., Silman, A., et al. (2001). Health and exposures of United Kingdom Gulf war veterans. Part I: The pattern and extent of ill health. Occup Environ Med 58, 291–98. Chalder, T., Berelowitz, G., Pawlikowska, T., et al. (1993). Development of a fatigue scale. J Psychosom Res 37, 147–53. Croft, P. (2000). Is life becoming more of a pain? BMJ 320, 1552–53. Eisen, S. A., Kang, H. K., Murphy, F. M., et al. (2005). Gulf War veterans’ health: medical evaluation of a U.S. cohort. Ann Intern Med 142, 881–90. Hotopf, M., Hull, L., and Fear, N. T., et al. (2006). The health of UK military personnel who deployed to the 2003 Iraq war: a cohort study. Lancet published online May 16. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06) 68662-5. Hotopf, M., David, A., Hull, L., Ismail, K., Unwin, C., and Wessely, S. (2000). Role of vaccinations as risk factors for ill health in veterans of the Gulf war: cross sectional study. BMJ 320, 1363–67. Horner, R. D., Kamins, K. G., Feussner, J. R., et al. (2003). Occurrence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis among Gulf War veterans. Neurology 61, 742–49.

Hotopf, M., David, A. S., Hull, L., Nikalaou, V., Unwin, C., and Wessely, S. (2003). Gulf war illness—better, worse, or just the same? A cohort study. BMJ 327, 1370. Ishoy, T., Suadicani, P., Guldager, B., Appleyard, M., Hein, H. O., and Gyntelberg, F. (1999). State of health after deployment in the Persian Gulf. The Danish Gulf War Study. Dan Med Bull 46, 416–19. Jones, E., Hodgins-Vermaas, R., McCartney, H., et al. (2002). Postcombat syndromes from the Boer war to the Gulf war: a cluster analysis of their nature and attribution. BMJ 324, 321–24. Kang, H. K. and Bullman, T. A. (2001). Mortality among US veterans of the Persian Gulf War: 7-year follow-up. Am J Epidemiol 154, 399–405. Kelsall, H. L., Sim, M. R., Forbes, A. B., et al. (2004). Symptoms and medical conditions in Australian veterans of the 1991 Gulf War: relation to immunisations and other Gulf War exposures. Occup Environ Med 61, 1006–13. Macfarlane, G. J., Thomas, E., and Cherry, N. (2000). Mortality among UK Gulf War veterans. Lancet 356, 17–21. Macfarlane, G. J., Biggs, A. M., Maconochie, N., Hotopf, M., Doyle, P., and Lunt, M. (2003). Incidence of cancer among UK Gulf war veterans: cohort study. BMJ 327, 1373. Rose, M. R. (2003). Gulf War service is an uncertain trigger for ALS. Neurology 61, 730–31. Unwin C., Blatchley N., Coker W., et al. Health of UK servicemen who served in Persian Gulf War. Lancet 199; 353: 169–78. Wessely, S. (ed.) (2006). The health of Gulf War veterans. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361, 531–730. Ware, J. E. Jr. and Sherbourne, C. D. (1992). The MOS 36-item shortform health survey (SF-36). I. Conceptual framework and item selection. Medical Care 30, 473–83.

Gulf War Illnesses Simon Wessely, N Greenberg, C Woodhead, and N T Fear, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK ã 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In your Editorial of Nov 29 (p 1856)1 you repeat the conclusion of the ‘‘Binns committee’’ report, sponsored by the US Veteran’s Administration, to the effect that those who served in the 1991 Gulf war are at increased risk of ill health, and that it is unequivocally the result of exposure to pyridostigmine bromide and pesticides. The former conclusion is hardly new, and the latter is far from certain. We were the first to confirm, in this journal, that service in the 1991 Gulf war affected the subjective health of some UK service personnel,2 even though this effect did not amount to a new illness per se.3 However, if either pyridostigmine bromide or pesticides were indeed associated with ill health, one would have expected a new ‘‘Iraq war syndrome’’ in UK Armed

Forces as of 2003, since pyridostigmine bromide was again issued, and used, by 73% of UK forces during the invasion of Iraq, as it was in the 1991 Gulf war. Likewise, pesticides were again used to combat the threat of insect-borne disease. Yet despite the use of both agents by UK personnel, we found no evidence that history did repeat itself.4 The evidence implicating organophosphate agents in the cause of ill health in UK military personnel who deployed to the Gulf is far from compelling. We have found no evidence of peripheral neuropathy in UK personnel.5 We agree with the Binns committee that psychological disorders are not the most plausible explanation for Gulf war illness. Given that there is no dispute that Iraq has

1

4 Horn O, Hull L, Jones M, et al. Is there an Iraq war syndrome? Comparison of the health of UK service personnel after the Gulf and Iraq wars. Lancet 2006; 367: 1742–46. 5 Sharief MK, Priddin J, Delamont RS, et al. Neurophysiologic analysis of neuromuscular symptoms in UK Gulf War veterans: a controlled study. Neurology 2002; 59: 1518–25.

The Lancet. Justice delayed: acknowledging the reality of Gulf War illness. Lancet 2008; 372: 1856. 2 Unwin C, Blatchley N, Coker W, et al. Health of UK servicemen who served in Persian Gulf War. Lancet 1999; 353: 169–78. 3 Ismail K, Everitt B, Blatchley N, et al. Is there a Gulf War syndrome? Lancet 1999; 353: 179–82.

Gulf War Illnesses

proven to be a longer, harder, and more dangerous campaign than Gulf 1991, if frank mental health disorders were a major causative factor, then we would have found the opposite results to those that we reported.4 NG is a full time active member of the Royal Navy. SW is partly funded by the South London and Maudsley

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NHS Foundation Trust/Institute of Psychiatry NIHR (National Institute of Health Research) Biomedical Research Centre. However this submission was prepared independently and not subject to alteration by the Ministry of Defence or NIHR. We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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VIII. PRISONERS OF WAR AND TORTURE

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Prisoners of War C Tennant, University of Sydney, St. Leonards, Australia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mortality, Physical Morbidity, and Cognitive Impairment Psychological Morbidity

Glossary Physical Morbidity Illness and hospital admissions.

Mortality, Physical Morbidity, and Cognitive Impairment Mortality There have been relatively few studies of physical health and mortality in prisoners of war (POWs) and controls; studies from different countries have produced different findings. The largest series of studies is based on a cohort of U.S. World War II Pacific, European, and Korean POWs and controls assessed by a series of researchers. In the early postwar years, there was increased mortality in all POW groups, due largely to tuberculosis (TB) and postwar trauma. By 1965, no increased mortality appeared in European POWs. Mortality was still increased in Pacific POWs, due to cirrhosis, tuberculosis, and trauma, and in Korean veterans, due to trauma. This increased mortality in Pacific and Korean POWs had persisted for 9 and 13 years, respectively, postwar, whereas death from cirrhosis of the liver had increased from the tenth year of follow-up. In an Australian study of POWs of the Japanese in the 1950s, more deaths from suicide, trauma, cirrhosis, and TB were initially reported. In an Australian controlled cohort study (40 years postwar), no increase in mortality in POWs was found. Physical Health and Hospital Admissions In U.S. POWs from all three theaters, general hospital admission rates to 1965 were increased significantly. However, in a 40-year follow-up of a subsample, no increased rates of hypertension, diabetes, or myocardial infarction were found. A full medical examination of the Australian cohort revealed no differences in current medical disorders. Higher rates of peptic ulcer were, however, This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 3, pp 247–251, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Etiological Factors Summary Further Reading

Psychological Morbidity Anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and psychiatric admissions.

generally found in World War II POWs and in U.S. naval POWs in Vietnam; the latter also experienced excessive disorders of the peripheral nervous system. Thus, postwar peptic ulcer, trauma, TB, and cirrhosis appear more common in World War II POWs than in combatant controls. Although mortality appears to be increased in the U.S. studies, there may have been sampling biases; findings from a well-matched Australian cohort study suggested no difference. Cognitive Impairment U.S. World War II and Korean prisoners of war

High- and low-weight-loss POWs have been compared with combatant controls. Cognitive impairment (memory and learning) was greatest in POWs with the greater weight loss; there was, however, little difference between low-weight-loss POWs and their controls. Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese

No significant differences in the Australian cohort follow-up (50 years postwar) were found between POWs and combatant controls using detailed psychometric tests; high- and low-weight-loss groups similarly did not differ on any tests or on prevalence of clinically diagnosed dementia. These similarities occurred despite POWs having a greater incidence of depression that could have impaired their psychometric performance, a factor that may have accounted for the positive findings in U.S. studies, which relied on volunteers. Finally, in the same cohort, POWs and controls did not differ on any neuropsychological tests or on brain width (using cerebral X-ray computed tomography, CT, scan); however, POWs, interestingly, had a shorter mean anteroposterior brain diameter. Taking into account methodological problems of some studies, cognitive impairment is not confirmed in POWs postwar.

505

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Psychological Morbidity Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Questionnaire Studies (U.S. World War II and Korean Prisoners of War) U.S. World War II prisoners of war

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) symptom profiles (depression, anxiety, and somatic concern) were elevated (from highest to lowest) in POWs with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), POWs recovered from PTSD, POWs with other psychiatric diagnoses, POWs with no psychiatric disorder, and normal men. The personality profiles of denial and suppression were also elevated. Korean prisoners of war and combatant controls

Hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychasthenia, paranoia, and ego strengths distinguished the POWs and the controls. The MMPI assesses both personality and psychological symptoms. It shows some unexpected personality differences in POWs and controls, presumably because the personality subscales are sensitive to change in mood. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (a more stable measure) showed no differences when used in other Australian POWs and controls. Psychiatric Admissions and General Psychological Morbidity Data U.S. prisoners of war (World War II and Korea)

Hospital admission rates were significantly higher in the Pacific POWs for 27 of the 33 somatic conditions studied and for all nine of the psychiatric diagnoses, whereas in Korean POWs, admissions were elevated in only nine somatic conditions and three psychiatric conditions. Admission rates in the European POWs were not increased. Bias was possible due to a response rate of only 59% for the initial medical questionnaire. Again, 45 years postwar these POWs had moderately elevated rates of hospitalization and depressive disorders and greatly elevated PTSD; no difference was found in bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or physical health. Australian World War II prisoners of war of the Japanese

These POWs (88% response) were no more likely to have had psychiatric admissions than combatant controls and indeed had fewer postwar multiple psychiatric admissions. Diagnosed clinical anxiety and major depression in POWs were twice that of controls; alcohol abuse and psychosis were no different. These findings were consistent with their significantly higher scores on

questionnaire measures of anxiety and depression. Surprisingly, 10 years later there had been a significant decline in both diagnosed clinical anxiety and depression. General psychological morbidity is elevated significantly for many years postwar; however, admission data findings vary between U.S. and Australian POWs. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder World War II and Korea U.S. prisoners of war

This group has been studied extensively by Engdahl and colleagues and by Sutker and colleagues. Initial questionnaires were returned by only 35% of the sample surveyed; some 500 of these were then studied 40 years postwar with a 75% response. In the first series of 426 POWs, the rate of PTSD was increased greatly and lifetime prevalence of depression was increased moderately, but bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and alcoholism were not. In 262 of this sample, 53% met the criteria for lifetime PTSD and 29% for current PTSD; in Japanese POWs, the rates of PTSD were higher, 84% lifetime and 59% current PTSD prevalence. In 62 of the World War II POWs, 50% had PTSD within 1 year of release and 29% has PTSD 40 years later. A lifetime diagnosis of generalized anxiety was found in over 50%. In another study of 915 of the original World War II cohort, 53% of POWs initially responded and 188 of these were interviewed. Sixty-seven percent of this sample had PTSD; 50% had shown no recovery, 24% had some residual symptoms, 39% had mild symptoms, and 29% had fully recovered. It is important to note the possibility of considerable sample selection bias in this series of studies (due to poor response rates), which may have inflated the rates of psychiatric morbidity. The second U.S. series of studies are those of Sutker and colleagues. Korean and Pacific veterans (n ¼ 326) had experienced more extreme trauma and had the highest prevalence rates for lifetime and current mental disorders, including PTSD. In a small subsample, 77% of the Pacific POWs had current PTSD and 78% a lifetime diagnosis, compared with 18 and 29%, respectively, in controls. In Korean POWs, PTSD symptoms were found in 90–100%. Finally, World War II aviators were less likely to have PTSD than nonaviators. The sample bias was also probable in these studies because the subjects were selected from attenders at a Veteran’s Administration (VA) medical center. Other studies have used questionnaires to assess PTSD with similar high prevalence rates in military and civilian POWs. Canadian prisoners of war

Higher rates of PTSD and other symptoms were found in POWs from Europe 50 years postwar, whereas in former

Prisoners of War 507

Far East POWs, 30% had current PTSD 50 years postwar and 90% had at least one PTSD symptom. Australian prisoners of war

In the Australian cohort, no subjects appeared to meet full Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed. (DSM-III) criteria for PTSD 40 years postwar, although a majority of the sample had some PTSD symptoms and 50% had a clinical affective disorder or anxiety. At a further follow-up 10 years later, 4% of subjects had been diagnosed as having PTSD using DSM-IV criteria; there was, however, a significant decline in psychiatric disorders overall, from 50 to 36%. French and German prisoners of war of the Russians

Forty years postwar, 71% of a selected sample (response 40%) had symptoms consistent with PTSD, whereas in a randomly selected subsample, the frequency of individual PTSD symptoms ranged from 84% (for recurring dreams) to 18% (for panic symptoms). Dutch Resistance Veterans

Sample veterans were studied 40 years postwar (76% response); half had been imprisoned and half had not. Interestingly, 54% of both groups had PTSD and a similar rate of other psychological symptoms. Paradoxically, this study followed an earlier study showing that, 15 years postwar, imprisoned Dutch resistance fighters had less incidence of psychiatric disorders than those not imprisoned. There is little doubt that significant rates of PTSD are found long after the war, although not in all samples; the very high rates of PTSD found, particularly in U.S. samples, may be due in part to various forms of sampling bias.

British prisoners of war from the Persian Gulf War

In POWs studied both 6 and 18 months postwar, psychological symptoms (using the General Health Questionnaire, GHQ) reduced significantly; a poorer psychological outcome was associated with POWs witnessing physical violence and self-perceived deterioration in physical and mental health during captivity. Balkan prisoners of war

In Croatian POWs, 36% had postwar psychiatric disorder; camp conditions contributed to psychiatric symptoms (particularly threats against family members); however, group cohesion diminished the level of disorder. In another sample, only 4.5% met the full criteria for PTSD, 28% had no PTSD symptom cluster, and the remainder had some PTSD symptoms. Comorbidity of Psychiatric Disorders in Prisoners of War In one selected sample of Korean POWs, PTSD was found the most; depressive comorbidity occurred in 75%, anxiety in 45%, and alcohol abuse in 20%. In the other U.S. series, of 262 World War II and Korean POWs (who had sought mental health treatment), 53% met the criteria for lifetime PTSD; 29% of those with PTSD had other axis I disorders. In a subsample, depression and anxiety coexisted in 61% of the sample. Depression was found in 10% of those without PTSD, in 23% of those with recovered PTSD, and in 61% of those with ongoing PTSD. The Australian POW study also found that anxiety and depression coexisted in a significant portion of the sample.

Other Conflicts Israeli prisoners of war of the Yom Kippur War

Etiological Factors

POWs, combatants (who had experienced combat stress reactions), and normal combat veterans were compared; the prevalence of PTSD more than 18 years postwar in the three groups was 23, 37, and 14%, respectively, whereas current PTSD prevalence was 13, 13, and 3%. Psychophysiological complaints were also more frequent among POWs, as were trauma-related and general psychiatric symptoms. In terms of coping, those with high sensation-seeking qualities adjusted better to the stress of captivity and had fewer PTSD or other psychiatric symptoms; active coping strategies were used by high sensation seekers, whereas low sensation seekers used detachment and denial. In general, poor psychological adjustment was associated with more helplessness, more suffering, and less active coping, as well as hostility and ambivalence.

The severity of the stressful experiences of POWs differed in different theaters. Both Korean and Vietnam POWs were interrogated, brain-washed, and tortured, whereas Vietnam POWs were also kept for long periods in solitary confinement. POWs of the Japanese suffered gross physical deprivations, malnutrition, random brutality, hard physical labor, major physical illness, and ultimately a high mortality rate. European theater POWs did not suffer as severely, although resistance fighters (such as the Dutch) had a similar experience to Holocaust survivors. The POW experience in more recent conflicts has generally been briefer and less brutal. Studies addressing etiology have been somewhat piecemeal; World War II POWs provide the most consistent findings.

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World War II Prisoners of War In U.S. POWs, studied by Engdahl and colleagues, generalized anxiety and depressive disorders were related to captivity severity; preexisting psychopathology and family history of psychiatric disorder were not predictive. Chronic depression was predicted by a younger age at time of capture, lower education, more medical symptoms during captivity, and poorer social supports after release. Specific captivity stressors (weight loss, torture, and disease during captivity) correlated strongly with psychological morbidity and PTSD, whereas age and education were protective. These findings have been largely replicated in the other U.S. series of studies by Sutker and in Canadian, French, and Australian POWs. Vietnam Prisoners of War Captivity trauma was greater in POWs captured before 1969 and was associated with more subsequent psychiatric morbidity. Aviators were more resilient to captivity than nonaviators; this was attributed to their higher educational status and military rank and better personal resources. Furthermore, there was no particular coping style indicative of psychiatric illness in this group. Paradoxically, still-serving POWs reported that the harshness of the war experience was associated with a belief of having actually benefited from imprisonment. The severity of the captivity experience, especially as manifest in gross physical hardship and deprivation, predicted the subsequent short- and long-term psychological morbidity.

Summary The POW experience varied according to the theater of war; the Japanese were particularly brutal captors. In the early postwar years, excess physical morbidity and mortality occurred particularly in Pacific POWs. Although this declined subsequently, deaths from cirrhosis showed a delayed increase. Significant psychiatric morbidity has been the most consistent finding in all the studies, including conflicts since World War II, and morbidity has persisted for many years postwar. Studies in the United States have focused

specifically on PTSD and show very high rates of prevalence, but sampling bias may, to some degree, contribute to their particularly high rates. Other anxiety disorders and depression are also increased, but psychoses are not. The comorbidity of disorders is common. Furthermore, the high rates of psychological disorder correlate with a range of indices of captivity severity, whereas some sociodemographic factors seem protective. Former POWs who served their countries well and suffered terribly continue to live with the legacy of the inhumanity of their captors during war. See also: Combat Stress Reaction; Concentration Camp Survivors; Korean Conflict, Stress Effects of; Persian Gulf War, Stress Effects of; Vietnam Veterans, Postwar Experiences and Health Outcomes; War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading Beebe, G. W. (1975). American Journal of Epidemiology 101, 400–422. Bisson, J. I., et al. (1998). British Journal of Medicine and Psychology 71, 247–252. Eberly, R. E. and Engdahl, B. E. (1991). Hospital and Community Psychiatry 42, 807–813. Engdahl, B. and Dikel, T. N. (1997). American Journal of Psychiatry 154, 1576–1581. Engdahl, B. E., et al. (1991). Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 179, 181–187. Engdahl, B. E., et al. (1991). Social, Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 26, 63–67. Goulston, K. J. (1985). Medical Journal of Australia 143, 6–10. Jorm, A. F., et al. (1997). Personality and Individual Differences 23, 371–377. Kluznic, J. C., et al. (1986). American Journal of Psychiatry 143, 1443–1446. Nefzer (1970). American Journal of Epidemiology 91, 123–138. Neria, Y. and Solomon, Z. (1998). Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 186, 174–182. Solomon, Z., et al. (1998). European Journal of Personality 12, 271–285. Sulway, M. R., et al. (1996). Neurology 46, 650–655. Sutker, P. B. and Allain, A. N. (1991). Psychological Reports 68, 279–284. Sutker, P. B. and Galina, Z. H. (1990). Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 58, 323–328. Tennant, C. and Fairley, M. J. (1997). Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 185, 686–689. Tennant, C. and Goulston, K. (1986). American Journal of Psychiatry 143, 618–621. Tennant, C., et al. (1986). Psychology and Medicine 16, 833–839. Wilson, J. P. and Raphael, B. (eds.) (1993). International handbook of traumatic stress syndromes. New York: Plenum Press.

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Captivity, Adaptation to R H Rahe, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Stage I: Startle/Disorientation Stage II: Disbelief Stage III: Hypervigilance Stage IV: Resistance/Compliance

Stage V: Depression Stage VI: Eventual Acceptance Comment Further Reading

Introduction

Captives may well be at a loss initially about how to deal with them. To challenge the captors’ actions, even by a scornful laugh, may lead to impulsive retaliation and possibly to execution. Successful coping with capture is constrained by the extreme brevity of this stage. Captives should regain their orientation and control of anxiety as quickly as possible. Some captives cope with the initial shock in a dissociated state, feeling more like observers than participants. Others can be in a state of dazed shock, unable to take any immediate actions. The captives’ ability to bring their minds into focus on the details of their surroundings, such as counting the number of captors or studying their behaviors, may greatly help to limit these acute responses to captivity stress.

Few life experiences are as difficult and challenging as being held hostage or as a political prisoner. In reviews of the literature and from my own clinical work dealing with former hostages and prisoners-of-war, six stages of adaptation to captivity became apparent. The time course over which these stages occur progressively lengthen from the first to the final stage. More specifically, the first stage lasts only seconds to minutes, whereas the next stage lasts minutes to hours. The third stage generally lasts a few hours to a few days, whereas the fourth stage lasts from several days to a few weeks. The fifth stage is protracted, lasting several weeks to a few months. Finally, the sixth stage can last from several months to a year or two. In the presentation that follows, a general description of each stage is given and mention is made of key captor and captive behaviors, along with useful coping techniques.

Stage I: Startle/Disorientation The first stage lasts from seconds to minutes. The development of this stage is influenced greatly by the setting in which a captive is taken. Military personnel who are at high risk for capture as prisoners-of-war have often gone through intensive training on what they might encounter. Hostage takings are generally unanticipated and often life-threatening. A common theme in both groups is the abrupt transition from life as usual to sudden, often brutal, subjugation. Such a transition is impossible to assimilate quickly. Captures frequently experience extreme disorientation, seek possible means of escape, and have anxieties for their lives and the lives of others during these first seconds to minutes. Captors at this stage are generally highly excitable and fervently driven by political and/or ideological causes.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by R H Rahe, volume 1, pp 381–384, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Stage II: Disbelief The second stage lasts from minutes to hours. Captives from Western countries, accustomed to protections under the law and an emphasis on human rights, may well respond with utter disbelief when they are suddenly thrust into a situation in which all personal freedoms are forcibly withdrawn. They may think, ‘‘This can’t be happening,’’ or ‘‘Surely we’ll be rescued shortly.’’ At some deeper psychological level, captives know that such expectations can be or are wrong, but these thoughts often persist during this stage. The captors’ behavior during this time can be tyrannical, with beatings and physical restraint. Dehumanization includes stripping away the captives’ clothes and personal possessions, binding them, blindfolding them, and taking photographs of the subjugated captives for later propaganda use. Captives may even be tortured to obtain early confessions. The captors’ plans for the captives are frequently unstable at this stage, with the group moving several times from one location to another being the typical scenario. The captives generally have little chance to communicate with one another, and their attempts to do so are likely to bring swift and painful retaliation.

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Many prisoners cope with this stage by convincing themselves that conditions will improve shortly. Hopes for rescue may be sustaining, and sometimes rescue does occur. However, it is probably best for captives to try to escape their circumstances by turning their attention inward. Some captives engage in thoughts of retaliation, but it is more helpful for them to focus on images of loved ones, valued friends, prayer, and other sustaining elements of life and freedom.

Stage III: Hypervigilance The third stage lasts from hours to days. Although efforts by the captives to orient themselves to their new environments may start at the very beginning of captivity, the emergence of the hypervigilant stage releases unexpected talents of observation. Assessing mileage while being driven blindfolded, remembering labyrinthine pathways through city streets, and accurately keeping track of passing time are examples of such orientation skills that frequently emerge. Captor behavior is usually unpredictable during the first days of captivity. The leaders of the captors are often confused about their ultimate goals and objectives. Generally, some form of interrogation begins, with an emphasis on intelligence gathering. Guards tend to be highly attentive to possible escape attempts during these early days of captivity. Early in their incarceration, captives turn their hypervigilance to orienting tasks. Even when confined in a cell without daylight, nonvisual cues (changing of the guards, when meals are served, etc.) are gleaned to construct a 24-h cycle. The captives examine their surroundings in minute detail, including the behavior of their guards. They also structure their environment as much as possible – sandals placed here, the latrine bucket placed there, and so on. A frequent mistake made by captives during this stage is to misinterpret bits of their captors’ conversations that they overhear, particularly concerning the release of the captives. The captives’ wishful thinking about an early rescue leads to the generation of false rumors and disappointment becomes inevitable.

Stage IV: Resistance/Compliance The fourth stage lasts from days to weeks. This stage frequently begins when the captors begin to coerce the captives into cooperating with them; captors may demand that captives sign confessions of their crimes or make enforced public appearances to help dramatize the captors’ achievements. Interrogations at this point change

from intelligence gathering to exploitation. The degree to which a captive capitulates to these tactics depends on the severity of the torture applied combined with the captive’s ability to resist coercion – which may include torture. It is clear from the literature that anyone can be forced to cooperate with his or her captors if sufficient physical and psychological torture is brought to bear. Nevertheless, people with strong character, and particularly those who have been trained to resist such demands, do much better than others without these assets. The captors’ behavior at this stage is so similar for all prisoner-of-war and civilian hostage situations that it is as if they all had read the same manual. The original architects of many of these behaviors were the secret police in Czarist Russia, with modifications later introduced by the state police in Nazi Germany. Asian refinements were added a decade later by North Korean military. These behaviors include intimidating arrests, imprisonment for indeterminate lengths of time, physical and nutritional deprivation, disturbances of body rhythms, physical and sensory isolation, deprivation of daylight, stressful (often brutal) interrogations, unpredictable responses from guards and inquisitors, frequent threats of death, and attempts to reeducate the captives. Isolation appears to be the most stressful captor tactic, dreaded by many more captives than physical torture. The settings used are generally cramped, filthy, and pest-ridden. The captives are kept uncomfortably hot or cold, with poor lighting and ventilation. Communication with fellow captives, and even with guards, is usually prohibited. Finally, extremely few allowances are provided for personal hygiene. Periods of isolation may be alternated with friendly interrogations, especially if the captive becomes eager for human contact. Interrogations are almost always unpredictable as to timing (day or night), duration, and approach of the interrogator(s). The overall aim is to soften the captives’ resistance and make them susceptible to the will of their captors. The captives’ behavior is highly variable. Some attempt to resist all coercive attempts until they are thoroughly beaten and broken, even to the point of death. Others prove to be unable to withstand even moderate deprivations without making major concessions. Most captives, however, learn to resist torture, isolation, and other deprivations until severe physical and/or psychological damage becomes a likely result of continued resistance. Then, they comply sufficiently for captors to suspend their tortures, giving the captive critical time to rest and recover. Providing clever admissions during interrogations, especially information that takes a long time to validate, can provide precious time for captives to replenish their physical and mental reserves. One extremely important coping maneuver is physical fitness. Hours of physical training can be carried out even

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in extremely confined settings. Flexibility exercises minimize the risk of joint dislocations and bone fractures from ensuing torture sessions. Running in place promotes endurance conditioning, with attendant feelings of stress reduction and increased ability to sleep. Perhaps the most important coping activity is communication with fellow captives. The ingenuity of captives in passing voice, hand, tap, or other signals to their cohorts is truly remarkable. By such methods, communication can be carried out even with people confined to isolation. To feel part of a supportive network of fellow sufferers provides immeasurable sustenance to a captive. Also of extreme importance is faith, prayer, and thoughts of loved ones.

Stage V: Depression The fifth stage lasts from weeks to months. When captives begin to confront their several recent losses, particularly if they dwell on these losses, they frequently enter into depression. In reality, captives have lost not only their freedom and most everything else that they have valued in life, but they may have even also lost their future. Further, they are deprived of information about the outside world and are often misled by captors as to the degree of interest in their welfare shown by their own government and countrymen. Perhaps most cruel is the indeterminate length of stay in captivity. Prisoners-of-war sometimes reflect with envy on civilian prisoners who have finite prison sentences to serve. Captives with depression may wish to spend most of their day in bed. Loss of appetite far exceeds the poor quality of the food provided in causing large weight losses. Communication between captives may be avoided even though opportunities for such interactions present themselves. The captives may also feel guilt over their performance during interrogations. Thoughts of suicide may become prevalent, but actual suicide attempts are rare. The captives’ coping with depression is aided enormously by a strong support group. Repeated documentation exists of the virtually life-saving influences of support people in the lives of depressed captives. One excellent coping skill is for captives to use their intellect constructively to combat the potentially devastating boredom. Even a single book can be read and reread, with new meanings found on each reading. Creative work, such as writing, can be extremely helpful. Even without these tools, captives can use their intelligence to elaborate future life plans that they want to achieve. One captive, deprived of paper and pencil, composed books of children stories in his mind and after his release wrote and published the stories. Humor has an immense coping value. Captives getting the best of their guards on occasion not only provides humorous remembrances that can be savored later but gives the captives a

Figure 1 Former American hostages held in Iran (N ¼ 35) found to be healthy 1 year after release were frequently healthy throughout captivity. None of the former hostages who reported being ill 1 year after release were healthy during captivity.

moment of control in what otherwise is a totally uncontrolled life situation. Although nearly all captives experience depressive symptoms during this stage, for some the symptoms are mild and the duration is fleeting. Others become significantly depressed and, in addition, physically ill. The most common physical symptoms are gastrointestinal, dermatological, cardiovascular (hypertension), neurological (headache), orthopedic (injuries), and respiratory. The number of symptoms that captives experience, provided their captivity experience was roughly the same as that of others, often reflects their susceptibility to stress. Figure 1 presents data on illness symptoms reported during and 1 year after captivity for 35 Americans held hostage in Iran. Of the 14 former captives who experienced significant mental and physical symptoms during the first year following their release from captivity, suggesting stress susceptibility, 100% of them also reported having had significant symptoms during captivity. Conversely, of the 21 former captives who reported good health during the first year following their release from captivity, suggesting a low susceptibility to stress, only 46% reported having had significant illness symptoms during captivity. The captors’ behavior at this point is generally limited to custodial care. Unless there is a continuing need for propaganda statements, interrogations are greatly reduced in number. The guards may be changed because the routine generates little excitement for the original captors; escape may become possible at this time, due to the laxity of the new guards. The captors may occasionally reassert their position of control by staging prisoner movements, issuing new policies, and so forth.

Stage VI: Eventual Acceptance The sixth stage lasts from months to years. Until this stage, captives have actively resisted the idea of a prolonged incarceration. It is now clear that a release, or a rescue, is not likely to occur any time soon. Thus, this final stage of adaptation starts with the conviction that captives

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must make a more productive use of their time than waiting for rescue if they are to successfully tolerate their ordeal. Much as a sailor steers a disabled ship by simply concentrating on one wave then the next, captives find that it’s best to live their lives one day at a time. Although they may dwell on the past, not much thought is given to a future more distant than tomorrow. Small things begin to take on huge importance. A frequent preoccupation of captives is what will be served, generally with rice, for the next meal. Meal times, exercise periods, bedtime, and so forth are carried out with compulsive regularity. Social niceties may disappear, and personal appearance may slide. Swearing and crude language can become the norm. Interpersonal difficulties often arise more from intolerance about how a roommate chews his food rather than from philosophical or political differences. The passage of time becomes distorted. As characterized in Thomas Mann’s famous novel, The Magic Mountain, although a single day may appear to progress very slowly, weeks and months seem to fly by. Captives have been amazed to find, on release, that they greatly underestimated the time they spent on various activities. The involvement in creative tasks makes time pass swiftly. A German prisoner-of-war, held along with Americans in Vietnam, composed a German-English-French dictionary. He used cloth from his prison pajamas for a book cover, charcoal and water for his ink, paper obtained from his captors, and foil from fellow prisoners’ cigarette packets to insulate his book cover. When he was fully absorbed on this project he found that ‘‘There just weren’t enough hours in the day.’’ The acquisition of new knowledge is assiduously pursued during long-term captivity. Some captives learn a second language from their cellmates. Others build homes in their imagination – board by board, nail by nail. One prisoner-of-war held in North Vietnam reviewed his entire schooling and found he could recall the names of every classmate, where each one had sat in class, the names of every one of his teachers, and even the subject matter they taught. Reading and writing are important coping activities. Even if they are never delivered, writing letters to family and loved ones is an enormous source of support for captives. Group activities lend a vital cohesive force to the captive group. These activities range from church services and group games to theater and fitness activities. Even forced labor can become a sustaining activity, as is so aptly illustrated in Boulle’s famous novel, The Bridge over the River Kwai. The captors’ behavior remains custodial in the main during this period. With the exception of reeducation

sessions given in some prisoner-of-war settings, captors are primarily concerned with keeping their victims alive and presentable as bargaining chips for future negotiations.

Comment The emphasis in this report on the stages of adaptation to captivity is on the captives’ stress. Very little has been studied about the stresses experienced by the immediate families of the captives. Certainly family members experience their own stages of adaptation, some of which are probably similar to those of captives. However, family members not only have to deal with loss of the captive, but they also must learn to deal with a nearly constant intrusion into their lives by the public and press. The families also need support groups. The success of such groups was demonstrated by the families of Vietnam prisoners-of-war and families of the Americans captured in Iran. These families developed support groups for enhanced communication, emotional solidarity, and political influence, and these associations proved to be extremely effective.

Further Reading Boulle, P. (1954). The bridge over the River Kwai. New York: Vanguard Press. Guarino, L. (1991). A P.O.W.’s story: 2801 days in Hanoi. New York: Ivy Books. Gunderson, E. K. E. and Rahe, R. H. (1974). Life stress and illness. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. Hinkle, L. E. Jr. and Wolff, H. G. (1956). Communist interrogation and indoctrination of ‘‘enemies of the state.’’ Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 76, 115–174. Hubbell, J. G. (1976). P.O.W. New York: Reader’s Digest Press. Mann, T. (1924). The Magic Mountain. Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag. Rahe, R. H. (1990). Life change, stress responsivity, and captivity research. Psychosomatic Medicine 52, 373–396. Rahe, R. H. (1995). Stress and psychiatry. In Kaplan, H. I. and Sadock, B. J. (eds.) Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (vol. 6). Baltimore, MD: William and Wilkins. Rahe, R. H. and Arthur, R. J. (1978). Life change and illness studies: past history and future directions. Journal of Human Stress 4, 3–15. Rahe, R. H., Karson, S., Howard, N. S., et al. (1990). Psychological and physiological assessments on American hostages freed from captivity in Iran. Psychosomatic Medicine 52, 1–16. Schwinn, M. and Diehl, B. (1976). We came to help. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. Stockdale, R. and Stockdale, S. (1984). In love & war. New York: Harper a & Row. Wolf, S. and Ripley, H. S. (1954). Reactions among allied prisoners of war subjected to three years of imprisonment and torture by the Japanese. American Journal of Psychiatry 104, 180–193.

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Captivity, Recovery from R H Rahe, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Stage I – Brief Euphoria Stage II – Hyperarousal Stage III – Compliance/Resistance Stage IV – Denial

Stage V – Restitution Stage VI – Gradual Readjustment Comment Further Reading

Introduction

Stage II – Hyperarousal

There are six stages of adaptation to captivity (see Captivity, Adaptation to); the time course over which these stages occur progressively lengthen from the first through the final stage, the initial stage lasting seconds to minutes, the next stage lasting minutes to hours, the third stage lasting the first hours to the first days, the fourth stage lasting the first days to the first weeks, the fifth stage lasting the first weeks to the first months, and the sixth stage lasting from the first months to the first years. The literature, along with my own experience, also suggests that recovery from captivity can be similarly summarized into these six stages.

The second stage lasts from minutes to hours. Hyperarousal at the second stage is appreciably different from the hypervigilance described during adaptation to captivity. In the hypervigilance stage, the captives’ alertness is high, their observational powers are keen, and they are aware of even subtle cues regarding the behavior and motivations of their captors. In the hyperarousal state, returnees tend to be overstimulated and mentally slowed. The commotion around them, along with the great assortment of new stimuli, can render them punch drunk. During this early stage of recovery, it is critical to protect former captives from overzealous politicians, well-wishers of all sorts, and particularly the press. Sensitive politicians will make their presence brief and depart shortly along with their entourage, well-wishers can be a significant problem in terms of crowd control, but most difficult to manage are members of the press. During the transition to freedom, former captives often have been severely sleep deprived. Yet, because returnees typically do not wish to offend any of the greeting party, they may talk at length with people who approach them. If the period of captivity has been a long one, family members may have developed close friendships with representatives of the press. These family members may require repeated explanations as to the need to shield ex-captives from news media exploitation. In their vulnerable state, ex-captives may agree to interviews in which statements are made that they live to regret. A treatment imperative, then, is to protect returnees from further exhaustion. Because physical examinations and psychological debriefings are often needed, the best place for these assessments may be a hospital with limited access to the public. In the case of the returned hostages from Iran, an Air Force hospital in Germany proved to be ideal for these purposes. The debriefings themselves had a positive effect for many ex-captives through the venting of strong emotions and the opportunity to obtain feedback on how they performed during captivity. The press and even family members were kept at the perimeter of the hospital. Although telephone contact was encouraged

Stage I – Brief Euphoria The first stage lasts from seconds to minutes. Despite preconceived notions that the general public may have about how jubilant captives will be on release, a true rejoicing rarely materializes. Captives initially may feel euphoric, but this feeling is fleeting and any planned celebrations may fall flat. When ex-captives are returned to the United States by plane, the aircrew may have champagne aboard and decorations in place only to find that the celebration consists of a brief cheer on take-off followed a few seconds later by quiet conversations and individual contemplation. Released captives’ behavior is, in large part, guided by a deep suspicion that this release may amount to nothing more than another false hope. Emotional restraint and careful inspections of events are typical. Ex-captives generally realize, however, that the public wishes a show of enthusiasm on their return, and they try not to disappoint it. This display, however, often tends to be hollow and fragile.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by R H Rahe, volume 1, pp 385–388, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

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between returnees and their family and friends, actual visits were discouraged. These restrictions allowed necessary medical examinations to be conducted in a restful and recuperative setting.

Stage III – Compliance/Resistance The third stage lasts from hours to days. Initially returnees are likely to comply with most requests. They are, of course, accustomed to following orders from their guards and captors without much thought given to their own preferences. A danger, therefore, exists that health-care personnel may request too much. For example, ex-captives may complete hours of psychological testing or other paramedical activity not directly related to their immediate care without demurral. As the ex-captives begin to regain feelings of individual power, they start to resist such activities. Who is going to reprimand a noncompliant man or woman who has just returned from months to years of captivity stress? The transition from compliance to resistance became obvious to physicians caring for the ex-hostage group released from Iran around the third hospital day. Initially, the former captives were extremely candid and cooperative. Most were grateful for the clinical interactions. Two to three days later, however, many started to become somewhat cavalier about keeping their appointments, began to skip ward routines, and stayed out past bedtime hours. Some limits has to be set. Early rehabilitation programs for Korean War POW, conducted as the men returned home aboard ship, were similarly disrupted. Treatment plans should allow for this emerging independence. For example, some time from the hospital routine should be allowed for shopping, a meal out, and so forth. The hospital setting should not cause returnees to be treated as in-patients; ex-captives should wear leisure clothing instead of hospital pajamas. Doctors, nurses, and other health-care providers must watch their own countertransference reactions. Offering too much too soon and/or attempts to personally help the former captive make up for past deprivations can lead to unprofessional behaviors. Allowing ample communications among returnees is very important. All returnees from Iran were placed in the same wing of the hospital. Between their physical, psychiatric, and dental examinations, returnees mingled in common areas, passed on information of importance to the group, and shared personal experiences. Many former hostages did not possess a full knowledge of the experiences of other captives until these exchanges.

Stage IV – Denial The fourth stage lasts from days to weeks. After medical examinations and debriefings and a few days of rest and

recuperation, released captives should begin to meet the press. This is a time that many make personal statements regarding their captivity experiences. However, one question the press asks repeatedly is: ‘‘What kinds of problems are you now having due to the stresses of your captivity?’’ Returnees might answer this question quite candidly on their first day or two after release, but as they begin the denial stage their answer will be: ‘‘The doctors may think that something bad may happen, but I know that I will be perfectly okay.’’ There is a readiness of the public to believe such answers because such statements reinforce a hero image of the former captives. Such statements, however, frequently omit significant physical and/or psychological difficulties and should not be taken at face value. It is important for health-care providers not to be taken in by such denial but also not to vigorously challenge it. Gentle reminders to continue with periodic follow-ups should be given and lines of communication should be kept open. Later, the ex-captives’ possible entry into treatment, if needed, can be proposed. Often working with family members is also important at this point. Denial also presents problems such as impulsive actions on returning home. Ex-captives are sometimes prone to buying expensive cars or investing savings accrued during captivity in poorly conceived financial schemes. Many entrepreneurs will try to use the ex-captives’ notoriety to support their own enterprises.

Stage V – Restitution The fifth stage lasts from weeks to months. Efforts toward making restitution are an interesting psychological phenomenon. The area of food is a good example. Due to generally severe and prolonged nutritional deprivation, most hostages return with a lean body mass that, combined with the plentiful exercise during captivity, renders them extremely fit. Some weight gain over the first few months home should be expected. However, moderate to gross obesity was seen in several of the returned hostages from Iran just a few months after their release. When questioned about how they had gained so much weight in such a short time, the typical answer was: ‘‘I just felt that when tempted I couldn’t deny myself.’’ A second area of restitution occurs in readjustments among family members. Long-term captivity, especially with extended periods of social isolation, appears to have the greatest impact. Captives’ emotional and intellectual functions may have become dulled from the monotony of prison life. Table manners and bathroom and sleeping habits acquired in captivity may be unacceptably crude in the home situation. Further, family members may have become accustomed to managing their daily lives by themselves and resist direction from the ex-captive. Ex-captives may try to reestablish the

Captivity, Recovery from

family structure and function that existed before their capture and find that they are not wanted. Former captives may also try to provide, over a very short period of time, all the love and attention that they were prevented from giving family members during captivity. A third problem area is when ex-captives return to work. Employers are frequently tempted to offer long vacations to returnees, but the returnees themselves generally wish to resume work as soon as possible. This is frequently due to a need to reaffirm their previous skills and demonstrate their worth to their organizations. In some cases, particularly those involving people held in long-term captivity, job refresher courses and even retraining are necessary. In the instances of the returned military ex-hostages held along with U.S. Embassy officials in Iran, most were given 3 months of vacation in addition to their first 2 weeks of medical treatment and official receptions. This prolonged vacation period led to problems for several men in terms of how to use this time profitably. The long time away from the military also contributed to the decision by some of the men to resign from the military and switch to other occupations that had been offered to them on their return home. In addition, family and friends should be advised to limit recitals of the ex-captives’ experiences during the first days to weeks after their return. Such early recitals can recreate suffering. In contrast, weeks to months later, giving lectures and speeches on their captivity experience can be therapeutic for releasees. If ex-captives have a talent for writing, the preparation of an article or book about their experiences may help them in working through their captivity experiences.

Stage VI – Gradual Readjustment The sixth stage lasts from months to years. If the criteria for readjustment from captivity stress simply included whether former captives returned to work or whether their marriages remained intact, the majority would be declared as recovered. If the criterion for recovery is freedom from the psychological scars of captivity, complete recovery may never occur. Life-long anxieties and depression have been seen in victims of especially severe captivity stress, such as Nazi concentration camp survivors. Hardly a day goes by that they do not suffer distressing psychiatric symptoms emanating from their Holocaust experiences. Illnesses that develop following ex-captives’ return are often an indicative of incomplete recovery. In follow-up studies of American POWs from Korea, as well as from Asian POW camps in World War II (where torture and nutritional deprivation were extremely severe), returned POWs showed significantly increased illness rates for infectious, cardiovascular, degenerative, and psychiatric disorders for the next 25–30 years. Even accidental deaths

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were higher for returned captives than for controls during this time. In contrast, when U.S. Navy aviators returned from prisoner-of-war captivity during the Vietnam War were similarly studied, the elevated illness rates for physical and psychological illness returned to control-group levels 8 years following their return. Thus, even with the best outcome, these studies point to an enduring effect of severe and prolonged captivity on physical and psychological health. Some returnees do better than others in terms of illness during their subsequent years of life. How can medical personnel learn to correctly identify people who will probably do well versus those who will probably have multiple problems? The answer is: carry out an illness assessment 1 year after return. When 133 Navy returned prisoners of war from Vietnam were seen after their first year of return, they fell into two groups: The first group, comprising 96 men, reported good health over the previous year; the second group, comprising 37 men, reported significant psychiatric illnesses. The most prevalent psychiatric illnesses were substance abuse and adjustment reaction. As shown in Figure 1, more than two-thirds of men who were healthy at follow-up year 1 stayed healthy during follow-up years 2–5. Of the group (30 men) that reported illnesses during years 2–5, 63% of the illnesses were minor in severity (e.g., mild anxiety disorder). In contrast, of the group that was ill in year 1, more than three-quarters continued to report significant illnesses in years 2–5 (Figure 2). Further, 59% of these reported illnesses were of major significance (e.g., major depressive disorder). Although the sample is smaller, this same phenomenon was observed in the Americans held hostage in Iran. As Figure 3 shows, 21 of the 35 former hostages studied reported good health during the first follow-up year. Of this healthy group, two-thirds remained healthy during the years 2–5. Of the group who were ill during years 2–5,

Figure 1 More than two-thirds of former prisoners of war (returned Navy Vietnam POWs; N ¼ 133) who were healthy 1 year after release were also healthy 5 years after release. Sixty-three percent of those who were ill at the fifth follow-up year reported illnesses minor in severity.

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Figure 2 More than three-quarters of former prisoners of war (returned Navy Vietnam POWs; N ¼ 133) who were ill 1 year after release were also in ill health 5 years after release. Fifty-nine percent of those who were ill at the fifth follow-up year reported illnesses of major severity.

Figure 4 More than 70% of former American hostages held in Iran (N ¼ 35) who were ill 1 year after release were also in ill health 5 years after release. Sixty percent of those who were ill at the fifth follow-up year reported illnesses of major severity.

vast numbers of military stress survivors as having posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the long-term psychological health of this Navy group of severely stressed individuals is truly remarkable. Part of the answer to the long-term health of these Navy POWs is that they were a group of highly intelligent and talented aviators. Throughout their lives, these individuals had responded to challenges in their lives with success. Many then saw the challenges of surviving being prisoners of war as yet another life challenge that they would overcome. And most of them did so. Such individuals serve as an inspiration to all of us by their indomitable spirit in the face of enormous adversity. Figure 3 Two-thirds of former American hostages held in Iran (N ¼ 35) who were healthy 1 year after release were also healthy 5 years after release. Eighty-six percent of those who were ill at the fifth follow-up year reported illnesses minor in severity.

86% reported that these illnesses were minor in severity. In contrast, in the group (14 men) that was initially ill, more than 70% remained ill during years 2–5 (Figure 4). In addition, 60% of the illnesses reported were major in severity.

Comment The chances to study returned captives from stressful incarcerations, such as prisoners of war or political hostages, are rare. The military and in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have conducted the bulk of such investigations. Follow-up studies of World War II POWs liberated from Japan, POWs returned from the Korean War, and former U.S. Navy POWs held in North Vietnam have spanned 20 years or more. A recent report assessing psychiatric illnesses in the Navy POW group found a 20-year prevalence rate of just 10%. In this day of labeling

See also: Captivity, Adaptation to; Combat, Acute Reactions to; Combat Reaction, Chronic

Further Reading Beebe, G. W. (1975). Follow-up study of World War II and Korean War prisoners. II: Morbidity, disability, and maladjustment. American Journal of Epidemiology 101, 400–422. Blakey, S. (1978). Prisoner at war. the survival of Commander Richard A. Stratton. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday. Brill, N. Q. (1946). Neuropsychiatric examination of military personnel recovered from Japanese prison camps. Bulletin of the US Army Medical Department 5, 429–438. Clavell, J. (1962). King rat. New York: Dell Publishers. Engdahl, B., Dikel, T. N., Eberly, R., et al. (1997). Poattraumatic stress disorder in a community group of former prisoners of war: a normative response to severe trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry 154, 1576–1581. Hall, R. C. W. and Malone, P. T. (1976). Psychiatric effects of prolonged Asian captivity: a two-year follow-up. American Journal of Psychiatry 133, 786–790. Hall, R. C. W. and Simmons, W. C. (1973). The POW wife. A psychiatric appraisal. Archives of General Psychiatry 29, 690–694. Matusek, P. (1975). Internment in concentration camps and its consequences. New York: Springer-Verlag. Neizger, M. D. (1970). Follow-up study of World War II and Korean War prisoners. I: Morbidity, disability, and maladjustment. American Journal of Epidemiology 91, 123–138.

Torture 517 Nice, D. S., Garland, C. F., Hilton, S. M., et al. (1996). Long-term health outcomes and medical effects of torture among US Navy prisoners of war in Vietnam. Journal of the American Medical Association 276, 375–381. Richlin, M., Shale, J. H., and Rahe, R. H. (1980). Five-year medical follow-up of Navy POWs repatriated from Vietnam. US Navy Medicine 71, 1926.

Segal, H. A. (1954). Initial psychiatric findings of recently repatriated POWs. American Journal of Psychiatry 111, 358–363. Segal, J. (1973). Therapeutic considerations in planning the return of American POWs to continental United States. Military Medicine 2, 73–77. Spaulding, R. C. (1977). The Pueblo incident: medical problems reported during captivity and physical findings at the time of release. Military Medicine 142, 681–684.

Torture I Genefke, H Marcussen, and O V Rasmussen, International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, Copenhagen, Denmark ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Torture in the World Today Types of Torture Delimitation Symptoms and Aftereffects Rehabilitation Models

Glossary Governmental Sanctioned Torture Institutional and political torture, in contrast to torture by criminals, torture by youth gangs, domestic violence, and employer-committed harassment opposed by governmental laws. International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) A group founded in 1985 in Copenhagen to disseminate information about torture, its consequences, and the possibility of preventing torture. The IRCT also promotes education and training and raises international funds for the IRCT network, consisting of 98 accredited and globally distributed rehabilitation centers for victims of torture. Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) Established in 1982, a center in Copenhagen that examines and documents torture and develops diagnostics and treatment of torture victims through research.

Torture in the World Today The definition of torture executed by states or stateconnected institutions used in this article is that expressed by the United Nations (UN) Torture Convention,

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by I Genefke, H Marcussen, and O V Rasmussen, volume 3, pp 613–619, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Prevention of Torture Impunity Conclusion Further Reading

UN Convention against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Convention (1984), with 33 articles, that defines governmental and political torture in article 1. UN Vienna Declaration Declaration (1993) that refers in chapter 5 to torture as ‘‘one of the most atrocious violations against human dignity’’ and ‘‘urges all states to put an immediate end to the practice of torture . . . and abrogate legislation leading to impunity for torture.’’ World Medical Association’s Tokyo Declaration Declaration (1975) stating that ‘‘Torture is defined as the deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason.’’

adopted in 1984 and entered into force in 1987. This convention states that torture is present when (1) severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, (2) is intentionally inflicted on a person (3) for such purposes as obtaining from him or her or a third person information or a confession . . ., (4) at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in a official capacity. The World Health Organization (WHO) introduced in 1986 the concept of organized violence, including ‘‘torture, cruel, inhuman or

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degrading treatment or punishment’’ as in article 5 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Imprisonments without trial, mock executions, hostage taking, or any other form of violent deprivation of liberty fall under the category of organized violence. Democracy and Torture Article 8 of the Vienna Declaration states that ‘‘Democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing.’’ From this statement, it could be concluded that a necessity for development is democracy based on the respect for human rights. In other words, there exists a close correlation between democracy and torture. The more democracy in a given country, the less torture is carried out. The more torture, the less democracy, inter alia, as it appears from Amnesty International’s regular annual reports. Torture works against democracy. Torture can even be said to be a very strong tool against democracy, since torture goes against the concepts of democracy, freedom of speech and expression, and the right to political dissent. One purpose of torture is to silence the tortured and those who think alike. A result of this is that people living under pressure and lawless conditions, and consequently with prospects of violations and torture, more or less constantly find themselves in stressful situations. Those tortured can be identified as ethnic groups and parts of a population, as individuals as well as groups, and as men and women who hold leadership positions and make a stand for democracy in authoritarian regimes. The latter may be politicians in opposition, student leaders, journalists, leaders of ethnic minorities, union members, or human rights defenders. The Magnitude of the Problem Torture ranks as one of the most profound human rights abuses, and the magnitude of this worldwide problem is immense. Torture as well as awareness of torture have increased. Government-sanctioned torture exists in more than 40 UN member states and is carried out sporadically in many more. A worldwide survey by Amnesty International (AI) showed that 150 countries, out of 195 investigated, practiced torture. It is also known from AI’s yearly reports that torture may occur sporadically in prisons and by the police, even in civilized and democratic societies. Recently, solid evidence that torture exists even in democratic states has been demonstrated by U.S. military personnel torturing prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004 as well as by information of abuses and alleged torture by coalition forces in Iraq. There is not a good methodology to calculate the magnitude of the problem of torture worldwide.

The number of torture survivors is probably approximately several million. Every year, torture forces many thousands to flee from their home country. Globally, there are more than 14.5 million refugees, and an additional 19 million have been internally displaced in their home country. A large number of these people have been tortured, although an exact figure does not exist. Community samples are rare. Jaranson and co-workers found in 2004 prevalence rates of torture ranging from 25 to 69% among selected East African communities in Minnesota. Victims of torture often do not want to report on or tell about their traumatic past, either because of fear of retaliation or persecution or because of the deep feelings of shame that are a result of the torture.

Types of Torture The torture process typically starts with the arrest of the victim, usually at night, with a formidable display of power and unnecessary use of violence. The softening phase, which often follows, usually consists of a couple of days and nights of unsystematic violence with beating, kicking, and other humiliations. After this, systematic torture starts when the torturers explore the weak spots of the victim to make him or her break down. The aim is to not break down the victim too quickly. Systematic torture can be conducted in both physical and psychological forms, usually performed at the same time, which aim for a long-lasting destruction of the physical and psychological well-being of the victim. Sophisticated torture methods can cause destruction of the identity and self-respect of human beings while allowing the perpetrators to claim that the victims were never exposed to torture. A new science has developed, and modern day torture is practiced in many countries with the assistance of medical doctors and psychologists. Physical Torture The following is a summary of physical torture methods. Electric shocks are applied to the most sensitive areas of the body, or the victim is suspended for hours by his or her arms or by a leg. The head can be forced under water until the victim is about to suffocate, or the skin is burned by cigarettes or red-hot iron rods. The victims are beaten systematically, typically under the feet until the soles are badly damaged. Sexual offenses are common. Women in particular are attacked as sexual objects, and men are harmed in their ability to function as men. Trained dogs can be used for direct attacks or for rape of both men and women. Mock executions bring the individual to a loss of reality and a nightmarish state of almost suspended animation. The situation during the victim’s detention is further worsened by filthy food and drinking water. Freedom of movement is

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limited, and prisoners are closely packed in small cells and thus forced to take turns sleeping. Sanitary conditions are extremely poor, and any request for visiting the toilet will often be turned into a pretext for torture. Psychological Torture Psychological torture takes place at the same time as physical torture: for instance, deprivation of sleep, blindfolding, and lack of human contact are forms of psychological torture. These methods leave the victim with a deep sense of helplessness, fear, and extreme stress and may cause hallucinations. The victim can be totally isolated for months or years, and during that time the victim does not know what is going to happen. The victim’s family will often have no knowledge of his or her whereabouts. Psychological methods of great social and psychological impact are sexual torture and situations in which victims are forced to be present during torture to others, particularly relatives and children. Many victims are threatened with having to do or say things that go against their ideology or religious convictions, with purpose of attacking fundamental parts of their identity, such as self-respect and self-esteem. The victims’ political and ethical values are particularly attacked by the torturers when they, e.g., force the victims to sing songs that praise everything they fought against. The attempt to break down the victims’ personality often begins at the time of arrest, with the removal of personal belongings, including life-saving drugs and glasses, and replacing them with badly fitting uniforms. Names are replaced with numbers, and victims are instructed to address their jailers with great respect. It is important to understand that the nature of torture influences even common life situations. During torture, the perpetrators often avail themselves of common objects used by everyone, such as cigarettes, telephone books, knives, needles, water, light, and noise (often the radio is tuned to music), and as a result, the survivors will in the future associate torture with these everyday objects. In such a manner the trauma of torture is specific. The survivor of torture will be reminded of his or her torture on the conscious as well as the unconscious level nearly constantly throughout the day, year in and year out. And this is what the torturer intends: that the recollection of the torture, the reminders should nag and plague the survivor for a long time or even the rest of his or her life. In the treatment process this is counteracted by psychotherapy, among other options.

Delimitation History The recognition of symptomatology related to torture was a phenomenon of the 1970s. At that time, there was no

systematic medical literature on torture. Subsequently, a series of findings was encountered that were contrary to expectations. The first detailed, systematic studies of the methods of torture and its immediate aftereffects were presented by Danish medical doctors in 1974–75. The search for forensic medical evidence that torture had occurred had begun. At an early stage, it was concluded that the worst sequelae of torture were psychological. That was the first surprise, confirmed by other international studies: not only is torture unbearable and extremely painful, but it also stays with survivors and haunts them many years later. Diagnosing Government-Sanctioned Torture Physicians have learned much about the documentation of torture based on both physical and psychological sequelae. Examination methods, interview techniques, and data collection have become more sophisticated. Through medical examination, physicians can now detect indications of torture in most of the major organ systems, including the dermatological, cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, neurological, urological, gynecological, otorhinolaryngological, and ophthalmological systems, as well as in the teeth. Psychological symptoms now fit into the well-defined category of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as defined by the WHO and the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV). The medical profession’s level of sophistication in assessing torture victims has evolved to the extent that the concept of a torture syndrome based on the results of both physical and mental torture has been proposed.

Symptoms and Aftereffects The Effect of Torture The mental health consequences of torture are usually more persistent and protracted than the physical aftereffects, although there is considerable overlap of the physical and psychiatric effects. Torturers today are capable of creating conditions that effectively break down the victim’s personality and identity and his or her ability to live a full life with other human beings. Deep feelings of guilt and shame often occur after torture. Feelings of guilt may be caused by the mere fact having survived when friends died while being tortured, or perhaps by having given information that could have harmed friends. Guilt may also be produced by the so-called impossible choice, when victims are forced to choose between, for instance, revealing the names of their friends and seeing members of their family tortured. Regardless of what the victim chooses, the end result is a disaster for

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which the victim feels responsible. And that is exactly the aim of torture as it is practiced in this day and age. Psychological studies of survivors of torture at the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) have revealed the following symptoms: anxiety, memory gaps, depression, changed personality, frequent nightmares about prison and torture, and difficulty in remembering and concentrating. Fatigue, headache, and sexual disturbances are also common. These reactions may in many situations be considered normal in ordinary people who have been exposed to something as perverse, cruel, and abnormal as torture. In situations with beatings, studies have suggested an association between head trauma and neuropsychiatric symptoms that could be recognized as cognitive deficits. The psychological aftereffects of torture can be considered to be the same in all torture survivors, whereas the physical aftereffects of torture depend upon the type of physical torture methods used. Falanga (persistent beatings on the soles of the feet) results in impaired walking, suspension by the arms results in shoulder pain, and so on. Over the years the examinations of many hundreds of survivors from approximately 100 countries have provided knowledge about the methods of torture and their aftereffects. These studies have made it possible to ascertain that the methods of torture used are the same all over the world. This is a natural consequence of the fact that the aim of torture is the same all over the world: to break down strong persons’ identities. The methods are the same, and so are the aftereffects. This knowledge, which is most useful in medical work on torture, was obtained through systematic analysis. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Torture Survivors Neuropsychiatric symptoms are often difficult to correctly diagnose. The multiplicity of symptoms is great and comorbidity occurs. Psychiatric disorders such as major depression and PTSD are frequently seen in torture survivors. At the Centre for Victims of Torture in Minnesota, nearly 70% of the clients meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD, with nearly all of the clients exhibiting at least one or two symptoms of this disorder. Mollica and Caspi-Yavin then concluded that ‘‘the attempts to describe a single ‘torture syndrome’ . . . are generally unconvincing.’’ Finally, they, who have considerable experience working with refugee survivors from southeast Asia, concluded that ‘‘medical investigations of torture survivors not only failed to demonstrate a unique torture syndrome, but demonstrated symptoms closely associated with the DSM-III-R diagnosis of PTSD.’’ Consequently, investigators have shifted their focus away from demonstrating the presence of a unique syndrome to establishing the prevalence of PTSD in torture survivors.

However, the association between PTSD and torture is not a simple linear one. Research has shown that although there is an association between torture and PTSD, different forms of torture produce different PTSD symptoms. More specifically, individuals who experienced isolation or blindfolding, impact torture, and other types of physical torture had a predominance of PTSD intrusion symptoms, whereas individuals who had been sexually tortured described more avoidance phenomena. This may suggest that PTSD in the cases of tortured individuals is not a uniform syndrome. It should be kept in mind that controversy exists about the applicability of diagnosing PTSD in torture survivors. In countries where torture is routinely practiced, PTSD often is considered as Western ethnocentric and limited diagnostic category that fails to capture the magnitude of torture as a trauma. Vesti and Kastrup from the RCT concluded in 1995 that a substantial proportion of survivors developed symptomatology similar to that of PTSD but that others did not. This is consistent with the knowledge that there are individual differences in response to severe stress, which are in the early stages of being described. Basoglu et al., for instance, documented that perceived severity but not objective severity of torture was associated with PTSD, anxiety, and depression in torture victims. Impact of the captivity experience on the victim’s family was the strongest predictor of PTSD symptoms. Age, personality, previous emotional and physical health, ideological and political commitment, and quality of the posttorture environment can affect the development of PTSD and other symptoms. The presence or absence of social support and the individual’s perception of other persons’ helpfulness are important variables for the reduction of the probability of full-blown PTSD. Petersen et al., who reexamined 22 Greeks who had been tortured, found that eight of them met the criteria for the chronic organic psychosyndrome. These criteria included symptoms, experienced daily, of at least three of four types: (1) reduced memory or ability to concentrate; (2) disturbances of sleep; (3) emotional lability, anxiety, and depression; and (4) vegetative symptoms of the gastrointestinal or cardiopulmonary systems. Some centers in developing countries placed an emphasis on the recognition of torture as a medical issue and the need for a formal account of the symptoms that follow severe violations of human rights. These centers pointed out that no compensation is currently given to victims and that there is no understanding in their populations or among their politicians that sequelae of torture exist. Therefore, the diagnosis of posttorture syndrome is important. Regarding the existence of a torture syndrome, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) acknowledges that influential researchers on torture have shifted their focus away from a unique torture

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syndrome and includes the psychopathological syndromes following torture as a subtype of the PTSD category. However, the criteria for PTSD are not sufficient for the categorization of the entire picture after torture. The psychological and physical profiles of PTSD and the posttorture state diverge considerably. Symptoms that are core criteria for the definition of the posttorture state are described in the DSM-IV definition of PTSD as associated symptoms that are not necessary for a diagnosis of PTSD. These core symptoms are survivor’s guilt with low self-esteem, changed personality (the continuity, wholeness, and autonomy of the self is negatively affected), physical sequelae without organic substrate, and many physical complaints without corresponding medical findings. Diffuse pain is a crucial element in the physical and psychological profile of the torture survivor. Further research in this field might suggest that when the extreme traumatic stressor is interpersonal, the posttorture psychological and physical picture cannot be adequately described by the PTSD entity as it is currently defined. Systematic torture constitutes a more fundamental assault on the individual’s self and assumptive world than random violence or other forms of extreme trauma, such as natural disasters. Therefore, there is a continuing need for specialized research on the hypothesis of a torture syndrome.

Rehabilitation Models Today we know how to diagnose and document torture. The basic principles of diagnosis and documentation are given in the Istanbul Protocol, a UN manual on the effective investigation of torture. Also, today we have the knowledge of how to rehabilitate torture victims, and several different rehabilitation models have been developed. The rehabilitation model most often used is the holistic approach, in which the psychological, somatic, social, legal, spiritual, family, and cultural aspects are taken into consideration. A point of conceptual importance is to consider torture survivors as not having any premorbid psychopathology. The treatment principles of this approach are (1) to treat physical and psychological symptoms at the same time, (2) to secure the patient’s trust and confidence, (3) to respect the individual, (4) to avoid situations that remind the patient of torture, and (5) to inform the patient carefully about examinations. Physical treatment in relation to diagnostic examination can be practiced, and fair results are possible even many years after torture. Repair of pain is a very important goal for treatment, and the medical profession can in many cases accomplish that goal. Treatment rehabilitation methods can be individual, couple, family, or group therapy or counseling, which is a

method that, to some degree, takes into account a deeper understanding of the individual’s experiences, giving relief and understanding and helping the person to solve problems and make choices. Other forms of therapy include the following: psychological insight therapy, used for the meeting, the initial setting, the emotional phase, reintegration, and the end of therapy; psychological supportive therapy, used to deal with practical matters such as bodily dysfunctions, social matters such as housing and language, and integration matters, for refugees to get a basic understanding of their new country, as well as to provide balance between insight and supportive psychotherapy; special programs for children and families, such as couples therapy, family therapy, individual child therapy, group therapy, and network meetings; and the outreach method for screening and rehabilitation of torture victims. This last model has four points of importance: availability, accessibility, adaptability, and appropriateness. Availability refers to the services being available to meet the victims’ health needs, both general and special. Accessibility means that the services must not be too distant or culturally insensitive. Adaptability refers to the likelihood of the project being acceptable to the refugees and therapeutically effective at the same time. Appropriateness is related to the question of whether a project is appropriate to the refugee groups covered by it. The aim of all rehabilitation models is to facilitate the social functioning of the victim by strengthening adaptive coping mechanisms, discouraging nonadaptive processes, and facilitating access to social opportunities. Furthermore, it aims to facilitate the psychological treatment of traumatic experiences, loss, and bereavement by consoling, comforting, and protecting victims, sharing their experiences and emotions, recognizing their suffering and pain, and supporting them in their expression of grief when the first survival needs are satisfied. The final step is to treat the victims who have developed psychological disturbances. Counseling is defined as a method that, to some degree, takes into account a deeper understanding of the individual’s experiences, providing relief and understanding and helping the person to solve problems and to make choices. The counselor must respect the confidentiality of information given and must be capable of handling situations that are loaded with painful feelings without getting lost, and using them for the benefit of the client. He or she must also be skilled in analyzing problems, giving advice, and knowing how to help the client arrive at his or her own decisions. The counseling program is aimed at recruiting persons who are not health professionals such as doctors or psychologists to act as counselors. The program was created because in many countries health professionals are not available in sufficient numbers. However, other very capable professionals, such as teachers, journalists, monks, and

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nuns, will be able to learn the program and do a good job as counselors – not necessarily at the same level as the trained psychotherapist, but they will still be able to provide valuable help. The aim of counseling is to increase awareness of experienced traumas and the reactions to them. Furthermore, it aims to provide relief from psychological suffering, to reduce aftereffects of traumatic experiences, and to help the victim regain control of life situations in order to become, once more, a fully integrated member of society. The majority of torture victims cope with the help of family or community. Some of them, because of the severity of their symptoms, are not able to reintegrate into society and thus need assistance. Assuming the efficacy of treatment, an important challenge is to identify these victims and help in their communities.

Prevention of Torture Prevention of torture can be differentiated into the steps of primary prevention, directed toward society itself, secondary prevention, directed toward groups within society, and tertiary prevention, directed toward individuals. Primary prevention of torture involves creating awareness of the problem by making torture visible. This can be done by establishing centers and programs for the rehabilitation of victims of torture. Information and education are also very important tools in the endeavor to create awareness. Secondary prevention is directed toward teaching relevant personnel – military, police, and prison personnel – that torture always is prohibited, even when an order to torture is given. The rehabilitation of torture victims serves as tertiary prevention against further violations involving torture, as the presence of rehabilitation services renders the problem visible. Torture may induce a belief in violence and loss of confidence in humanity, but rehabilitation can make people believe in humanity again. In the long run, rehabilitation can help the development of democracy and prevent future conflicts in favor of less stressful conditions. The UN Convention against Torture contains all the necessary provisions to be able to punish perpetrators and to compensate, prevent, control, educate, and inspect. This instrument was adopted in 1984 and came into force on June 26, 1987, which was proclaimed as the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture – a day not only for creating awareness but also for providing moral support to torture victims. It is a symbolic gesture that recognizes the victims and their families and honors those who did not survive the torture. The convention has been ratified by 141 countries, including all of those countries that had troops in Iraq in 2005 and until now.

Support from the UN, many governments, human rights organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and numerous initiatives is important in helping to break through the silence, insecurity, and indifference surrounding the issue of torture and will help make a stand for visibility, for openness, for acceptance among the boards of various foundations, and for the understanding of the necessity for moral rehabilitation of torture victims.

Impunity The UN Convention states that torture is an offense under the criminal law of the country in which it occurs and that persons who are accused of torture are to be taken to court and, if found guilty, given penalties that take into account the grave nature of the offense. Article 60 of the Vienna Declaration points to the problem of impunity. It states that legislation leading to impunity for those responsible for torture and other grave violations of human rights should be abrogated. Not much progress has been made in this area, although promising changes in public opinion in Chile and Argentina have led to ongoing legal proceedings against tyrant generals from the time of dictatorships. In several countries where torture takes place or has taken place, the identity of many of the torturers and those responsible for torture is well-known. Still, there are very few examples of these persons being punished, which is problematic for several reasons. First of all, this is troublesome for the moral rehabilitation of the victims of the torture. If the torturers are not punished, the victims will easily be left with the sentiment of being powerless and humiliated. Second, victims of torture go through unnecessary fear and distress when exposed to the risk of encountering their torturers in the streets. Third, impunity creates a twisted set of norms and values in society. Allowing the persons responsible for gross human rights violations to go free while at the same time hitting hard on conventional crime can lead to an increased brutalization of society. The veil of impunity is broken down slowly but surely, and medical professionals, with their ability to diagnose and document the incidence of torture, have a key role to play in ensuring that torturers face prosecution and that the victims of torture receive proper rehabilitation and compensation. The work of the Criminal Tribunal in the Hague should be mentioned. The work of the tribunal has shown the need for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. This initiative can be a future platform for prosecution of those responsible for torture and thereby an important instrument for the eradication of torture and the moral rehabilitation of victims of torture. It is of great importance, however, that the protection and the support of the victims will be ensured by this court.

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Conclusion More than 30 years of professional, medical, and psychological work on torture have taken place. Today we may say that we have enough knowledge about the phenomenon of torture and enough conventions and declarations. Also, the experience available makes it possible to talk about torture and its effects in a more substantial and assured way. Sufficient basic knowledge (i.e., social analysis on a medical and psychological basis) allows us to make strong statements against the practice of torture. What is needed, however, is national and international recognition of the phenomenon of torture as well as recognition of the magnitude of the problem and its transgenerational effects and the necessity of implementation of conventions and declarations.

Further Reading Allodi, F. (1991). Assessment and treatment of torture victims: a critical review. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 179, 4–11. Amnesty International. (2000). Torture worldwide. An affront to human dignity. New York: Amnesty International USA. Basoglu, M. (ed.) (1993). Torture and its consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press. Basoglu, M., Jaranson, J. M., et al. (2001). Torture and mental health: a research overview. In Gerrity, E., Keane, T. M., and Tuma, F. (eds.) The mental health. Consequences of torture, pp. 35–62. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

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Dune´r, B. (ed.) (1998). An end to torture. London: Zed Books. Elsass, P. (1997). Treating victims of torture and violence. Theoretical, cross cultural, and clinical implications. New York: New York University Press. Hougen, H. P., Kelstrup, J., Petersson, H. D., et al. (1988). Sequelae to torture: a controlled study of torture victims living in exile. Forensic Science International 36, 153–160. Iacopino, V., Ozkalipci, O., and Schlar, C. (1999). The Istanbul Protocol: international standards for the effective investigation and documentation of torture and ill treatment. Lancet 354, 1117. Jaranson, M. and Kastrup, M. (2004). Developments and progress, 2001–2004. In World Psychiatric Association (ed.) Section on the psychological consequences of torture and persecution. Lavis, Italy: Masson. Mollica, R. F. and Caspi-Yavin, Y. (1992). Overview: the assessment and diagnosis of torture events and symptoms. In Basoglu, M. (ed.) Torture and its consequences: current treatment approaches, pp. 253–274. New York: Cambridge University Press. Peel, M. and Iacopino, V. (2002). The medical documentation of torture. London: Greenwich Medical Media Ltd. Petersen, H. D., Abildgaard, U., Daugaard, G., et al. (1985). Psychological and long-term effects of torture: a follow-up examination of 22 Greek persons exposed to torture, 1967–1974. Scandinavian Journal of Social Medicine 13, 89–93. Quiroga, J. and Jaranson, J. M. (2005). Politically-motivated torture and its survivors: a desk study review of the literature. Torture 15, 1–112. Rasmussen, O. V. (1990). Medical aspects of torture: torture types and their relation to symptoms and lesions in 200 victims, followed by a description of the medical profession in relation to torture. Danish Medical Bulletin 37(Supplement 1), 1–88. Somnier, F. E. and Genefke, I. K. (1986). Psychotherapy for victims of torture. British Journal of Psychiatry 149, 323–329. Torture, quarterly journal on rehabilitation of torture victims and prevention of torture, 1991–2005. Vesti, P. and Kastrup, M. (1995). Refugee status, torture and adjustment. In Freedy, J. R. (ed.) Traumatic stress: from theory to practice, pp. 213–235. London: Plenum Press.

Torture (State) Raymond R Corrado, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada Irwin M Cohen, University-College of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, BC, Canada Published by Elsevier Inc.

Introduction Definition of State Torture Objectives and Techniques of State Torture The Making of the Modern State Torturer

Glossary Crimes of Obedience Acts that are perpetrated under the explicit or implicit orders of the authorities that would not occur without official authorization. Process of Authorization The belief in victimizers that they are serving a higher purpose which serves to allow them to neutralize any negative feelings they may have about participating in torture.

Explanations for the Use of State Torture International Responses to the Use of State Torture Conclusion Further Reading

Process of Dehumanization The process of objectifying an individual in the eyes of the victimizer. Process of Routinization The professionalization and normalization of the practice of torture. State Torture Acts of torture that are carried out by a government or its agents.

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Introduction As a result of the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 in Washington and New York, and the subsequent American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the global War on Terror, there has been both a theoretical and practical shift in the practice, role, and utility of state torture. In an attempt to respond to 9/11 and a need to prevent other terror attacks, the international community has entered a new era in the use of state torture which has significantly differentiated the contemporary period from the post World War II era. With the end of World War II, the international community placed a larger and growing emphasis on the protection of human rights. However, Western nations, primarily led by the United States and the United Kingdom, have redefined the global security condition post 9/11 which places national security needs above human rights. This has resulted in a reconceptualization of torture. What has not changed since 9/11 is that the use of state torture continues to be a worldwide phenomenon. However, its utility as a strategy of state policy still varies according to a number of macroeconomic, geopolitical, and ideological variables. Given this, this article will deal exclusively with the use of torture perpetrated by the state in an attempt to achieve some political, social, and/or economic objective. In addition to a general description of the definition, objectives, and techniques of torture, an overview of the selection and training of state torturers will also be included. Moreover, this article also examines the current shift in state torture policies, the factors that contribute to the utility or disutility of torture, and international strategies designed to curb the spread and abolish the use of state torture. While it must be kept in mind that not all instances of torture are committed by governments or their representatives, this article focuses exclusively on state torture. Certain acts by nongovernmental agents, such as death squads, revolutionaries, or terrorists, and certain cultural norms which may be sanctioned but not carried out by the state, such as foot binding or genital mutilation, can be understood as examples of torture; however, our focus is on the actions of governments and their agents.

Definition of State Torture State torture is simply a method used by governments to effect compliance, deterrence, and/or obedience, or to achieve some general or specific ideological goal. During the contemporary period, torture has been used, among a myriad of other reasons, as a form of punishment, not only for common criminals, but also most frequently for political prisoners, to coerce compliance, or to

elicit confessions. Since 9/11, state-sanctioned torture has taken on a greater role in information gathering, especially among Western nations, such as the United States. Definitions of torture generally include the notion that it involves the deliberate infliction of pain or suffering, but frequently these definitions also include the motivations for torture, its specific goals, and the identity of its agents. Acts of systemic torture are overwhelmingly ‘political’ because torture is inflicted directly or indirectly by agents of the government against people who are targeted for any number of reasons that is explicitly authorized either by law or as part of a standing internal policy. The centrality of torture as a state activity was made explicit in 1984 in the United Nations Convention against Torture: . . . any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. (1984)

In the Convention’s subsequent documents, the United Nations has rejected some of the more common defenses and justifications for the systematic use of torture. Most importantly, the Convention denies government agents the right to torture under the pretext of following orders. This is of particular significance given the disclosures about the torture of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad and the treatment of foreign detainees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Several theorists have defined torture as a crime of obedience, unlike ordinary crime. Torture would constitute an ordinary crime if it was carried out by officials at their own behest and in disregard of the policies and orders under which they function. However, for an act to be defined as state torture, it must be carried out under the explicit or implicit orders of the authorities. As such, state torture is defined as a crime of obedience because of the presumption that the act would not take place without official authorization. Combining the main principles found in the generally accepted definitions of state torture, Cohen and Corrado define state torture as ‘‘the infliction of physical or mental pain, or both, as a political act implemented with the consent or tolerance of the state as part of a national policy to respond to real or perceived internal threats’’ (Cohen and Corrado, 2006: 105).

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Objectives and Techniques of State Torture There are several general objectives associated with the use of state torture which have contributed to its continued practice over the centuries. These objectives include information, incrimination, isolation, indoctrination, and intimidation. Objectives of State Torture Torture has always been associated with obtaining confessions. During the Middle Ages, the practice of torture attained prominence as the most efficient method of procuring a confession in legal proceedings. Even before that, torture was used, and continues to be used, to force victims to provide information concerning criminal, political, or military knowledge to which the victim is presumed to have access. Although this motivation remains the most readily cited basis of implementing a strategy of state torture, the paradox is that the information that one obtains through torture is unreliable because people will typically say anything to stop their torture. Given this, most experts accept that while torture does compel people to provide information, it is a rather inefficient method of acquiring reliable information. Although this conclusion is generally accepted, since 9/11, the use of torture, particularly by liberal democratic nations, has shifted from trying to obtain information about past events to a technique to gain information about possible future actions. In this way, the conceptualization of torture has shifted in the contemporary period from being a cruel form of prisoner treatment to a legitimate intelligence gathering technique in the War on Terrorism. This is particularly dangerous as this objective may provide those nations traditionally opposed to the use of torture the rationale to support its limited use for this national security purpose. A related purpose of torture is to force individuals to divulge information that can be used to either incriminate themselves or others. However, this objective is often secondary to the primary motivation of intimidating political opponents or gaining information about past or future events. In many circumstances, especially in failed states or developing states, incrimination and information gathering can be secondary to the goals of isolation, indoctrination, or intimidation of the direct victim in a manner that will terrorize others. Moreover, while incrimination remains a significant objective of torture in many countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, this is less palatable in the West. However, as mentioned above, since 9/11, torture appears to be more acceptable in the West when it is framed as forward-looking intelligence gathering than when it is used to obtain confessions about past activities.

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In addition to being a specific technique of torture, a further objective of state torture is isolation where the state severs the prisoner from all external contact. Isolation conditions the victim to the notion that they are helpless against the state. A related goal of state torture is indoctrination which is intended to force the victim to abandon their previously held beliefs and to adopt those of the regime. Finally, intimidating others beyond the immediate victim can be an important goal of torture. For the goal of intimidation to be effective, torture must act as a general deterrent to intimidate others from behaviors that the authorities considered unacceptable. Torture is a particularly effective general intimidation tactic when the victim or the media disseminates the gruesome details of certain methods of torture or by allowing people to see the effects of the torture on victims. All of these reasons for torture must be understood as being part of the process of establishing complete domination over a victim’s physical and mental world and imposing the will of the state on the immediate victim as well as others. Torture may also be employed to intimidate people into denouncing other groups or their own groups. It is interesting to note that, especially in the West after 9/11, debate and discussion at the governmental level about the merits of torture as a method to deter or intimidate the enemy has increased. Techniques of State Torture Throughout history, the state has developed a myriad of techniques and instruments to torment their victims. The wide variety of specific torture techniques can be classified into five main categories: active physical pain, such as beatings or whipping; passive physical pain, such as forced positions or suspending an individual; techniques that produce extreme exhaustion, such as continuous physical activity; fear-inducing techniques, such as near-drowning or near-suffocation; and a combination of physical and mental pain, such as sleep deprivation and sexual assault.

The Making of the Modern State Torturer Recruitment of State Torturers There are several routes that one can take to becoming a torturer for the state. One of the most common routes is through career advancement. Here, an individual is promoted from within a military or civilian organization into a special unit that engages in political torture. In this case, the individual does not seek out the role of a state torturer, but by demonstrating the necessary qualities and skills required to become a successful torturer, such as a willingness to follow orders, having an extreme loyalty to the organization, or prior experience, that individual is deemed suited for this duty. Another route involves

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individuals being drafted into specialized units of the armed forces. The traditional profile of these individuals is that they are from lower income groups, poorly educated, and come from families or communities that share the same ideological orientation as the regime in power. In some cases, captured insurgents, guerrillas, or terrorists can be made to torture their own people because of the promise of good treatment. Finally, Crelinsten contends that serendipity can also play a role in becoming a state torturer. For example, some people may simply be ‘‘scooped up and press-ganged into service’’ (Crelinsten, 2003: 298–299) or an individual chooses to join a specific unit, not because of its duties, but because of some other instrumental reason, such as its location or its prestige. Training of State Torturers Once a successful recruitment occurs, however, the more difficult part begins, the transition process of an individual into a state torturer. There are two main goals in the conversion process. The first objective is to impart in the new recruit obedience to authority that will allow them to follow exceptional and disturbing orders. The second aim is to create a level of desensitization regarding torture. This objective is aimed at providing torturers with the necessary psychological defenses to perform their duties. There are several processes used by the state to transform ordinary people into torturers. For torturers to carry out their duties, they need to believe that they are serving a higher purpose or a greater good. The process of authorization is aimed at providing recruits with the justifications that enables them to neutralize their negative feelings about committing brutal acts. The process of authorization also allows recruits to view themselves as playing a vital and necessary role in the protection of the state. Authorization not only trains recruits for their future duties, but also introduces them to the hierarchical structure of the torture complex. Understanding that they must obey orders, torturers are able to justify their actions as simply following orders and doing what a good soldier’s duty requires. A second process is routinization. As Kelman suggests, the ‘‘professionalization of the practice of torture clearly contributes to normalizing their work’’ (Kelman, 1993, 34). Routinization is aimed at enabling recruits to view their participation in torture as a profession, like any other profession. The routinization process involves building an individual’s tolerance and confidence levels to the point where they can function without hesitation. The process of routinization involves training, socialization, and indoctrination, in addition to normalizing torture and professionalizing it. The aim is to desensitize and resocialize the torturer to such a degree that being a torturer is viewed as a vocation, a necessary task, and a duty that one should be proud of.

The final step in the process is dehumanization. The aim of dehumanization is to turn the victim into an object, to strip victims of all their human status in an attempt to legitimize and rationalize the appalling treatment of that individual. Prisoners are defined as terrorists, insurgents, or dissidents who do not have to be accorded the same treatment as those who support the ruling regime. The process of torture also helps to dehumanize the individual and this dehumanization helps the torturer to continue applying torture because when people witness the suffering of others, they tend to devalue the victims. Typology of State Torturers Based on the accounts of those who have been tortured and those who have engaged in torture, there appears to be different types of state torturers. According to Crelinsten and Schmid, zealots are individuals who are generally emotionally detached from what they are doing. They tend to be ordinary people who simply believe fanatically in what they are doing and in the ideological goals of the ruling regime. People who generally fit into the zealot category are those who are not well educated, but have a strong positive orientation to authority, an enjoyment of military activities, and a strong ‘us’ and ‘them’ differentiation. The professionals are those torturers interested in career development and see torture as a job that needs to be done efficiently in order to earn a promotion. They are often intelligent, educated, and disapprove of the excesses of the torture process. Sadists are very rare despite popular conceptions of torturers; nonetheless, there is evidence that some derive pleasure from inflicting pain. Predominately soldiers or members of the secret police directly engage in torture. However, the American experience in Iraq, especially in prison facilities, such as Abu Ghraib, suggests that employees of private security companies and those who previously worked in civilian correctional services have also been complicit in instances of state torture.

Explanations for the Use of State Torture There are many theoretical explanations for why states implement policies of state torture. Most contemporary theories incorporate central themes from the utilitarianexpediency perspective which evolved from the more general theoretical debate about government’s legitimate use of various types of coercion and violence. Expediency Perspective During the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham asserted that given the right set of circumstances, torture should be sanctioned because it is less penal than many of the

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other forms of punishment that society regularly uses, such as the death penalty. Moreover, Bentham believed that torture was more efficient than other forms of punishments. Bentham claimed that society’s most basic response to those who violate the law is imprisonment. The utilitarian-expediency argument is that one has to be kept in prison for a long time in order to possibly achieve the desired punitive and deterrent goals of the state. However, if torture can achieve these goals in a shorter period of time, torture is justified regardless of the mental pain and the long-term effects associated with being subjected to torture. One of the elements of this perspective that has regained favor in the West following the events of the 9/11 is the notion that while punishment is directed at past actions, torture is directed at future actions. Under the policy framework of the War on Terror, the Utilitarian argument has many contemporary theoretical policy proponents. For example, Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School has recommended the use of nonlethal torture under the supervision of judges as a way of responding to the threat of international and domestic terrorism. Sanford Levinson from Texas Law School argued that, in certain circumstances, the lesser evil of torture might outweigh the greater evil of another terror attack on the scale of 9/11. Similarly, Duvall and Stohl argue that the decision to engage in torture is based on the belief that the benefits of torture would outweigh its costs, and that the desired outcome will be reached through torture. An estimation of torture’s effectiveness depends, in part, on the ability to command relevant resources and the vulnerability of the target group. Duvall and Stohl argue that three considerations are most important in making this assessment. The first is the process of learning, where torture is considered a viable policy option based on its past success. Second, if a government believes that it has the ability to engage in torture and control the process, they are more likely to engage in it. Finally, the degree to which the target group resides outside the dominant social fabric also impacts on the decision to engage in torture. Given these considerations, and a situation in which the government finds itself in actual or alleged conflict with some socially marginal segment of society, a state is more likely to engage in sustained torture. Considering the condition that the target group resides outside the dominant social fabric, in a report written for Alberto R. Gonzales, then Legal Council to the US President and current Attorney General of the United States, Bybee argues that American held detainees from the War on Terror are not subject to the international treaties and conventions preventing the use of torture. In addition, the financial cost of adopting a policy of torture is an important aspect of the decision-making process. A state must also consider the reactions of others

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to their actions and include this in a decision to engage in torture. Presumably, the more reclusive the state, the less concern rulers need to be about external response costs. The other main cost concern of states is production costs. These are the costs, other than financial, associated with creating and maintaining torturers and a torture complex. All of these considerations are part of the Utilitarian perspective in understanding why and when states decide to implement policies of state torture. Threat Assessment Perspective As demonstrated by the United States’ War on Terror, torture can arise from a combination of the state’s vast power and its vulnerability to enemies from within and without. To combat these real and supposed threats, a state may adopt a policy of torture. Here, the primary goals of torture are to maintain the authority of those in power by systematically destroying those who are a threat to them and to intimidate all others into conformity. In order to legitimize the use of state torture, the authorities frequently point to a history of violence against the state, real or imagined. This violence generally takes the form of insurgency, guerrilla operations, or terrorist attacks. As part of the threat assessment approach, people can be subjected to torture, not because of criminal acts that they have performed or are planning to perpetrate, but because they hold political or religious beliefs that are deemed dangerous to the state. This perspective suggests three points at which the perceived threat to the state provides the basis for a policy of torture. First, any possible threat to the state enables the authority to create a purpose and a justification for the implementation of a torture policy. Second, the state sanitizes torture in the eyes of the public. Torture is defined as necessary to protect society from internal and external threats. Again, in the post-9/11 era, several Western governments have defended the use of torture as necessary to ensure national security. Third, the state determines the legitimate targets of torture by successfully applying negative labels to specific groups or individuals. As the research of Lauderdale and Corrado demonstrated, if required by a state’s political ideology, the ‘enemy’ is defined in such strong terms as to gain popular support for the implementation of a policy of torture. Examining the torture regimes of Latin and South America, Lopez argued that specific political climates make torture more viable and defensible. He contended that new regimes feel extreme pressure to consolidate power, especially after a coup d’e´tat, widespread revolt, or long-term rule by force. In these situations, governments may resort to purges, exterminations, and state torture. In addition, sustained torture is an effective method of achieving postrevolutionary goals, such as

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changes in the distribution of wealth. Importantly, Lopez considered the support mechanisms for torture. Beyond those in the government who directly benefit from policies of torture, a history of violence in a state forces its citizens to self-censure themselves. Members of the general population who are not subjected to torture benefit from a policy of sustained torture because it provides a deterrent to social unrest and upheaval which, in turn, may promote social and economic development. Postmodern Perspective Although Foucault examined torture in eighteenthcentury France, his approach to the use of state torture as ideologically based punishment is extremely relevant today. Foucault suggested that the purpose of torture was not to demonstrate why the law was enforced, but to demonstrate who its enemies were. Torture, therefore, must be seen as an expression of state power and a method of constituting and expressing the domination of the state over its subjects. Foucault contended that the institutionalization of state torture to obtain information or confessions is just one of the state’s strategies. For example, it has been argued that the detainees from the War on Terror held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba possess little valuable, actionable intelligence. Given this, it appears that deterrence and control are the primary motivations behind the continued use of torture. In effect, the use of torture serves to transform an individual into the enemy. The use of torture fabricates the enemy for all to see validating the state’s use of torture. This transformation is perhaps the most important aspect of torture for Foucault. The Disutility of State Torture Model According to Cohen and Corrado, decisions to implement policies of sustained state torture can be explained, for the most part, by changes to the global economy, the expansion of liberal-democratic ideologies, and the rise in Islamic terrorism. In this way, states differ in the degree to which policies of torture can be useful in achieving a government’s national objectives. The fundamental argument is that there is a growing disutility for domestic state torture among advanced capitalist states, while there remains a utility for torture among agrarian states, industrializing states, and failed states. This is not to say that advanced capitalist states have not or will not implement policies of state torture, but that this is becoming increasingly unlikely, especially domestically. The primary factors in the disutility of state torture are economic in that the degree to which a country is part of the global economy, with respect to their level of national economic external dependency, the greater amount of pressure the international community can place on a country to desist

from engaging in torture, if it chooses to do so. According to Cohen and Corrado: . . . debt-ridden countries in need of foreign aid frequently turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance, as well as lender countries for debt relief. Since the funding from the IMF and other such organizations is provided by advanced capitalist nations, these agencies demanded certain political economic reforms that reflected liberal-democratic and procapitalist principles (Cohen and Corrado, 2006: 116).

In other words, for a nation to receive international financial aid, or to avoid sanctions, boycotts, or an embargo, states, since the end of the Cold War, may have to demonstrate an acceptance of liberal-democratic principles. Another central economic factor related to the utility of state torture is the distribution of wealth within a country. Without a minimum level of wealth redistribution through taxation or other means, vastly unequal lifestyles and opportunities can develop in a country, especially when the unequal distribution of wealth is based on race or ethnicity. In this circumstance, the political and/or ruling elites are much more susceptible to violent attacks from the ‘have-nots’. Given this, state torture and other terror tactics may be used by the regime to ensure the status quo and control any disenfranchised groups. However, in advanced capitalist societies, the distribution of wealth helps to maintain a standard of living among most citizens which diminishes the potential for internal violent conflict. In addition to economic factors, the political organization of the state plays an important role in the utility of state torture. As mentioned above, the presence of wellestablished liberal democratic institutions reduces the utility of state torture because the resultant political stability eliminates the need for leaders to resort to policies of violence to govern, especially in the West. However, more authoritarian political systems face fewer political, social, or economic constraints to the use of torture. Moreover, agrarian and industrial nations have traditionally experienced a significant degree of political instability with military governments that have benefited from policies of torture in order to maintain their power positions, such as in the Republic of Haiti, Uganda, Iran, and Iraq. In those countries where torture has been used successfully in the past, and with little or no international interference, torture is likely to persist. According to Cohen and Corrado, violence among groups that define themselves based on ethnic differences can also contribute to policies of state torture. Again, there is an increased disutility for torture in the West because full participation in the political, economic, and social fabric of the state is not, for the most part, based on ethnicity. There are partial exceptions, such as Israel and

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Northern Ireland. However, excluding entire groups of people from positions of authority or opportunities for education because of their ethnicity is more common in agrarian and industrializing nations. Again, high levels of civic exclusion can lead to anti-state terror which may invoke a strong counter-terrorism response, including the implementation of torture policies. Two other main factors contributing to the increasing disutility of policies of sustained state torture in the contemporary period is the increased role and influence of the media and the international community. With the spread of global media outlets, it has become much more difficult for governments engaged in torture to avoid detection and exposure. Again, this is more so the case in countries with a free and independent press. The secondary impact of the media is that they have the capacity to shame individual states or the international community into action against governments that engage in torture. As will be discussed in greater detail in the next section, the international community also plays a pivotal role in the disutility of state torture by exposing regimes that engage in torture, influencing individual citizens and governments to act against those using torture, and to directly pressure those governments that participate in torture. Given this, it is the contention of Cohen and Corrado that state torture, as a way to respond or prevent real or imagined internal threats to a state or government, will continue be to extremely unlikely in advanced capitalist nations and are likely to diminish in agrarian and industrial nations. This conclusion is related to the dependency between nations in the current context of the global economy, the expansion of liberal democratic principles, and the role of the media and the international community. Still, this assessment does not preclude the implementation of policies of torture against real or perceived external threats by states, including liberal democratic countries. However, as evidenced by the national attention in the United States on the use of techniques of torture by service people and private contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba, it is increasingly difficult to sustain policies of state torture, even in times of war.

International Responses to the Use of State Torture Between the end of World War II and the terror attacks of 9/11, the prohibition against the use of torture, as part of the international community’s concern for human rights, was seen as a universal value, in much the same way as the prohibition against slavery. However, since 9/11, the prohibition against the use of torture, especially in Western countries, has been questioned in light of counter-terrorism needs and objectives. Although the

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United Nations and regional political organizations, such as the European Union and the Organization of American States, which include most North American and Latin American countries, have adopted laws and declarations against practice of state torture, the United States, and other countries, have attempted to redefine, weaken, and/or circumvent the anti-torture norm in the name of national security. Nonetheless, there are several conventions and declarations that are designed to abolish the use of state torture. In 1945, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that: ‘‘no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment’’ (Article 5). The challenge derived from this declaration was that it depended upon the goodwill of states for its implementation and was unnecessarily vague as to intent and meaning. In an attempt to address some of these concerns, the United Nations adopted Resolution 3452, or the Declaration for the Protection of All Persons from being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The main points of this resolution would be repeated in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading treatment or Punishment. Article 2 of the Convention states that there are no legitimate justifications for torture; be they war, a state of emergency, or, in the case of the individual torturer, an order from a superior officer. Article 4 states that all countries must make torture an offence under the criminal law, while Article 11 requires that a state’s procedures of interrogation and their treatment of prisoners must be kept under systematic review. The United Nations Convention Against Torture also declared that governments must educate ‘‘all law enforcement personnel, civil or military, medical personnel, public officials, and other persons that may be involved in the custody, interrogation, or treatment of any individual subjected to any form of arrest, detention, or imprisonment’’ regarding the prohibition against the use of torture. Finally, Article 13 of the Convention states that all witnesses and complainants, with respect to torture, must be ‘‘protected from ill-treatment or intimidation as a consequence of his complaint or any evidence given.’’ Doctors also play important roles in torture complex. A primary duty of doctors is to examine a victim to ensure that they are fit to undergo a session of torture or fit to be tortured again. Doctors ensure that prisoners do not die during questioning. Doctors are required to recommend how much torture a specific victim can endure and to make recommendations on how to use a prisoner’s particular psychological state or physiology to torture them more effectively. Other important roles for doctors in torture are to give legitimacy and credence to false autopsy reports on torture victims, to agree to falsify

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post-mortem records, to provide false medical certificates for persons who are tortured to death, and to disguise the cause of a torture victim’s death, often without ever having examined the body. Perhaps most commonly, doctors treat those who have been tortured with the full knowledge that once the victim is well enough they will be tortured again. Doctors are also encouraged to develop more effective torture techniques. Due to the participation of medical professionals in torture, several medical organizations and associations have also attempted to implement policies and directives to combat the use of physicians in torture. The World Assembly of the World Medical Association adopted the International Code of Medical Ethics which stated that under no circumstances was a doctor permitted to do anything that might weaken the physical or mental resistance of a patient, unless it was in the patient’s best interest. The World Medical Association adopted the Declaration of Tokyo which states that doctors should not condone or participate in the practice of torture regardless of the offence that the patient is suspected, accused, or guilty of in all situations including civil strife and war. The Declaration of Tokyo stated that doctors could not attend torture sessions, that they had to insist on complete independence with respect to their patients, and that they could not participate in force-feeding prisoners who were competent to make the decision to continue a hunger strike. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Principles of Medical Ethics which stated that doctors had to give the same degree of medical care to prisoners as they gave to free citizens and that they must not participate in torture. Specifically, this proclamation stated that it is a contravention of medical ethics for health personnel ‘‘to apply their knowledge and skills in order to assist in the interrogation of prisoners and detainees in a manner that may adversely affect the physical or mental health or condition of such prisoners or detainees.’’ For psychiatrists, the World Psychiatric Association adopted the Declaration of Hawaii which stated in part that doctors must never use their professional abilities to violate a patient’s human rights and that they must refuse to cooperate with anyone who demands that they ‘treat’ patients once the absence of a mental illness has been established. The British Medical Association’s policy is very clear. Medical ethics prohibit any participation by doctors in torture. Doctors have an obligation to assist other physicians that attempt to resist their government’s policies of torture and human rights violations. Perhaps the most influential nongovernmental organization, with respect to combating torture and other human rights violations, is Amnesty International. The focus of Amnesty International is to assist political prisoners or ‘prisoners of conscience’ wherever they are found, regardless of ideology, religion, cultural background, or race.

In 1972, Amnesty International officially began its campaign for the abolition of torture. Amnesty International acts on the basis of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has formal relations with the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization of American States, and Organization of Africa Unity. While it has failed in its goal of achieving the abolition of torture worldwide, Amnesty International has been very successful at focusing international attention on cases of state torture. Amnesty International calls on all governments to condemn torture officially, to allow independent investigations of reports of torture, to exclude all statements extracted under torture, to prohibit the use of torture in law, to prosecute all alleged torturers, to train all officials in the prohibition against torture, and to compensate and rehabilitate all victims of torture.

Conclusion The existence of international standards for the prevention of torture is not enough to impose a fundamental respect for basic human rights. States practice or use techniques of torture. Torture and other human rights violations are overwhelmingly perpetrated by governments in an attempt to achieve their political, social, or economic objectives. Like any other governmental policy, torture becomes simply another tool that is used by the state to assist in the achievement of these goals. Considering the contemporary state of torture, several broad conclusions can be drawn. Torture is the result of historical or situational dynamics as well as political processes created by the authority structure or government. With the American-led War on Terror, Western states have elevated the importance of intelligence gathering as part of their counter-terrorism strategy. In order to achieve this goal, First World countries have argued that certain practices commonly defined as torture should be tolerated or that those who are subjected to these practices fall outside the protection of international and national conventions against torture. It is interesting to note that this practice has had several unintended consequences. For example, many other governments, such as those in Asia, the Middle East, or Africa may feel less restrained against the use of torture as long as countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, consider counter-terrorist actions above the prohibition against torture. In addition, the traditional international policy against interfering in the domestic affairs of another country increases the likelihood of sustained policies of torture. This extends to those less democratic nations which are partners with the West in its War on Terror. Not only might these countries feel that the West will not condemn their internal behaviour because of their strategic partnerships, but some nations

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are being used by the West specifically because of their willingness to torture suspects. For example, the policy of rendering prisoners from non-torturing countries to those that will torture suspects is one example of how the primacy of counter-terrorism in the West has increased the potential for state torture. In terms of a policy of sustained state torture, its utility is affected by changes in the global economy, the growth of liberal-democratic ideology since the end of the Cold War, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. For the most part, due to the needs of an interdependent global economy, the utility of sustained state torture complexes will continue to diminish. However, as discussed above, state torture will still likely be a strategic choice in failed states, such as Iran and Iraq, in Third World or agrarian-based societies, and those countries with a history of successfully employing policies of state torture. Finally, torture is likely to persist in those countries, or in their proxy partners, in conditions where the real or perceived need to uncover actionable information in the name of national security takes precedence over due process and the protection of human rights. For all the public protests, international resolutions passed, and amendments to national criminal codes, state torture continues to be a common feature of political repression today. Clearly, prevention strategies must be aimed at those in positions of power within the state. However, the fundamental challenge in combating state torture is that those who have the power to prevent such abuses are generally those who benefit most from it, while those who are most interested in abolishing torture are not in a political position to do so. See also: Theories of Conflict

Further Reading Aburish, S. K. (1999). Saddam Hussein: The politics of revenge. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Amnesty International (1984). Torture in the eighties: An amnesty international report. London: Amnesty International Publications. Amnesty International (2001). China: Extensive use of torture. New York: Amnesty International News Release. Arendt, H. (1973). The origins of totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Bates, R. H. (2001). Prosperity and violence: The political economy of development. New York: W.W. Norton. Bentham, J. (1973). Bentham manuscripts: Of torture. Nothern Ireland Legal Quaterly 24(3), 305–320. British Medical Association (1992). Medicine betrayed: The participation of doctors in human rights abuses. London: Zed Books.

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Chomsky, N. and Herman, E. S. (1979). The political economy of human rights, vol. 1: The Washington connection and third world fascism. Boston, MA: South End Press. Cohen, I. M. and Corrado, R. R. (2005). State torture in the contemporary world. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 46(1–2), 103–131. Corrado, R. R. (1991). Contemporary political crime: National and international terrorism. Toronto, ON: Harcourt Brace & Jonanovich. Crelinsten, R. D. (2003). The world of torture: A constructed reality. Theoretical Criminology 7(3), 293–318. Crelinsten, R. D. and Schmid, A. (1993). The politics of pain: Torturers and their masters. Leiden: COMT. Dershowitz, A. (2002). Why terrorism works. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Duvall, R. and Stohl, M. (1983). Governance by terror. New York: Marcel Dekker. Foot, R. (2006). Torture: The struggle over a peremptory norm in a counter-terrorist era. International Relations 20(2), 131–151. Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books. Greenberg, K. J. (2005). The torture debate in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greenberg, K. J. and Dratel, J. L. (2005). Torture papers: The road to Abu Gharib. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Human Rights Watch (1995). Slaughter among neighbours: The political origins of communal violence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Human Rights Watch (1996). Human rights watch world report 1996: Events of 1995. New York: Human Rights Watch. Kelman, H. (1993). The social context of torture: Policy process and authority structure. In Crelinsten, R. D. and Schmid, A. (eds.) The politics of pain: Torturers and their masters, pp. 21–38. Leiden: Centre for the Study of Social Conflicts. Kelman, H. C. and Lee, V. H. (1989). Crimes of obedience: Toward a social psychology of authority and responsibility. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Keohane, R. O. and Nye, J. S. (2001). Power and interdependence. New York: Longman. Lauderdale, P. (1980). A political analysis of deviance. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Lopez, G. (1984). A scheme for the analysis of government as terrorist. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. McCoy, A. W. (2006). A question of torture: CIA interrogation from the Cold War to the war on terror. New York: Henry Holt. Peters, E. (1985). Torture. London: Basil Blackwood. Pion-Berlin, D. (1984). The political economy of state repression in Argentina. In Lopez, J. A. and Stohl, M. (eds.) The state as terrorist: The dynamics of governmental violence and repression, pp. 99–122. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Rejali, D. (1994). Torture and modernity: Self, society, and the state in modern Iran. Oxford: Westview Press. Schmid, A. (1992). Research on gross human rights violations. Leiden: COMT. Staub, E. (1990). The psychology and culture of torture and torturers. In Suedfeld, P. (ed.) Psychology and torture, pp. 49–73. New York: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation. Stohl, M. and Lopez, G. (1984). The state as terrorist: The dynamics of governmental violence and repression. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Stover, E. and Nighingale, E. O. (1985). The breaking of bodies and minds: Torture, psychiatric abuse, and the health professions. New York: W.H. Freeman. Suedfeld, P. (1990). Psychology and torture. New York: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation. Wantchekon, L. and Healy, A. (1999). The ‘game’ of torture. Journal of Conflict Resolution 43(5), 596–609.

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IX.

IMPACT OF WAR ON CIVILIANS

A. Indigenous and Civilian Populations

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B. Holocaust Survivors – Refugees

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A. Indigenous and Civilian Populations

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest Franke Wilmer, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Who are Indigenous Peoples? Indigenous Peoples and Conquest Indigenous Peoples’ Responses in Settler States

Glossary A Priori Rights Rights that are assumed to precede, and thus take precedence over other rights. Under international law, some states argue that the exercise of self-determination by indigenous peoples cannot disrupt the existence of the state, for example, by their attempting to claim a right to secede or withdraw from the state, since the state existed prior to the granting of self-determination to indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples counter this claim by asserting that they were self-determining prior to the creation of the state, and so their rights have an a priori status. Global South Those states created in the middle of the twentieth century formerly referred to as ‘Third World’ who share the common experience of having been colonized, and now with generally lower levels of economic development compared to the industrialized states, many of which are former colonial powers or benefited from the economy of European colonization. Indigenous Refers to the people who lived in self-determining societies in an area prior to European colonization, and, subjected to domination and ‘conquest’ by European settlers, have struggled to regain self-determination and land and resource rights following the establishment of a settler state. NGOs or Nongovernmental Organizations International organizations whose membership is made up of individuals who represent only themselves and do not represent states. This contrasts with IGOs or International Intergovernmental Organizations like the United Nations whose members are states. Indigenous peoples have formed hundreds of NGOs as a consequence of their transnational and international activism and alliances. As many as 15 indigenous NGOs have been granted consultative status at the United Nations. Norms Refers to the sociological phenomenon where social practices over time become accepted as legitimate uses of power and authority. Pakeha Maori word for settlers. Its use has become widespread among both Maori and Pakeha people in

Indigenous Resistance in Central and South America Conclusion Further Reading

New Zealand. It should also be noted that Maori refer to New Zealand by the Maori name of Aotearoa. Postcolonial States States formed in the aftermath of European decolonization, primarily since the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations which sought to oversee the transition of colonized peoples to independence. Self-Determination An international term referring to the ability of a people or society to control its own political destiny. People living under colonial rule were deprived of self-determination and have made claims to restore it in the aftermath of decolonization. Settler States States created by European colonization where a settler population established dominance and controlled the process of state-building. These are mainly Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia, and the states of Central and South America. Termination Policies Were pursued in the US aimed at ‘terminating’ the distinct collective existence of indigenous tribes and thereby assimilating individual indigenous peoples into the mainstream society. When a tribe was determined by the US government to be ‘ready’ for termination, it was usually offered monetary compensation in exchange for abandoning tribal claims to land and resources. The monetary settlement was also intended to assist individuals in establishing a new life for themselves apart from the tribe and within the mainstream society. Termination policies were initiated in the 1950s and by the mid-1960s successfully stopped by indigenous opposition. Terra Nullius A legal term referring to land that is considered undeveloped by human inhabitants and, literally, uninhabited. It was used to refer to aboriginal lands in Australia where the British Privy Council concluded that aboriginal peoples there were not fully human because their societies were judged by the British to be too primitive to constitute government power capable of asserting jurisdiction over land and resources. This allowed the legal justification for British colonization. The doctrine was overturned in 1993 by the Mabo case.

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Introduction The past three decades have witnessed a burgeoning political movement among the world’s indigenous peoples. Indigenous representatives from every continent have mobilized in international, regional, and national arenas to protest, lobby, litigate, and in rare cases, forcefully resist state policies aimed at their assimilation, cultural destruction, and expropriation of their traditional territories. Whether such resistances are a continuation of centuries’ long struggles in settler states or mounted in the face of state-building in the Global South, indigenous peoples have never remained passive in confrontations with those who seek their cultural or physical destruction. In 1993, the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations produced a Draft Declaration on Discrimination Against Indigenous Peoples following two decades of work prompted by indigenous activism. Hundreds of indigenous representatives and nongovernmental organizations interested in the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights attend the yearly sessions at the UN aimed at drafting principles for a convention to protect indigenous peoples. Like virtually all areas of international human rights law, indigenous peoples’ rights would impose on states as the undertake obligations to observe certain restraints in the exercise of their power and authority. In 2000 the UN Economic and Social Commission (ECOSOC) established a Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples, which met for its first session in New York in May 2002. According to the Forum’s website: ‘‘The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council, with a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights.’’ A United Nations fellowship program for indigenous human rights advocates trained 75 activists from 37 countries in procedural and practical matters pertaining to the promotion and protection of human rights. The United Nations Development Program has affirmed a commitment to the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the design and implementation of UNDP-sponsored projects, and acknowledges the ‘‘distinct legal status and rights’’ of indigenous peoples. ILO ‘‘Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries entered into force in 1991and is a legally binding international treaty’’. Representatives of 32 states, 12 UN agencies, and hundreds of indigenous organizations and NGOs attended the August 2003 session of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations which focused on the theme ‘Indigenous Peoples and Globalization.’ Participants discussed indigenous peoples’ ‘‘permanent sovereignty over natural resources,’’ grounding their claims on not only the 1962 General Assembly resolution (1803) on that subject, but also earlier General Assembly resolutions in 1974

declaring a New International Economic Order and the ‘‘Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States.’’ They further referenced cases from the World Court, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and six cases from the domestic courts of the US. They concluded that the right was also consistent with fourteen other international legal documents and substantiated the claim of an indigenous right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources in terms of a growing body of legal and official pronouncements of international norms. Some states have amended their laws or constitutions to include indigenous rights, though enforcement remains weak. The constitutions of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Venezuela, for example, all address indigenous rights. The UN process is continuously plagued by contentiousness between states and indigenous representatives and the Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples closed without adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Before examining international norms pertaining to the idea of conquest and indigenous peoples’ responses, we should clarify what is meant by ‘indigenous peoples.’

Who are Indigenous Peoples? In 1974 the National Indian Brotherhood in Canada organized and sponsored the first contemporary international meeting of indigenous peoples, and defined indigenous peoples as ‘‘. . . people living in countries which have a population composed of differing ethnic or racial groups who are descendants of the earliest populations living in the area and who do not as a group control the national government of the countries within which they live.’’ Since there are 4000–5000 distinct ethnic groups living in fewer than 200 states today, this definition could easily be applied to thousands of groups. The United Nations tried to develop a narrower definition of indigenous peoples to include those who had previously been referred to as ‘‘tribal,’’ ‘‘native,’’ or ‘‘aboriginal’’ peoples living in European settler states. This includes not only the native peoples of the settler states but also tribal peoples in the recently decolonized Global South who were self-governing prior to colonization but who do not now control their own political destiny. The question of who is indigenous has enormous political significance because state-building involves two assumptions about the state that diminish the selfdetermination of indigenous peoples. The first is that the state exists largely as a mechanism for appropriating resources for industrialization and capitalist development. This assumes a coherent and unified ‘national’ interest in industrialization, and is superior to the claims of

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 537

subnational groups to use any resources within the territory of the state for their own purposes. Indigenous peoples do not necessarily oppose industrialization but rather claim a right to exercise self-determination over the use of resources they have used traditionally to support their ways of life. Their claims predate the creation of the state. The second assumption is that the state has a legitimate interest in articulating and promoting a single national identity. In settler states this is often associated with ‘modernization’ schemes as well as in the nationbuilding process that accompanies state-building, and rationalizes the assimilation of indigenous peoples, thereby legitimating policies aimed at the destruction of their identities. Indigenous peoples become the targets of state policies that not only expropriate indigenous resources, but also aim at the destruction of their existence and identity as a people. Indigenous peoples’ resistances produce two historical patterns that characterize their political situation and relations with states today. First, some indigenous peoples live in settler states created by European colonization where a dominant population descended from European settlers now controls the political life of the state. Injuries to indigenous peoples in these states are a direct result of a settler population expanding its claim to territory and displacing indigenous people through a combination of public violence, war (often undeclared), and publicly sanctioned private violence as settlers moved into indigenous territories and violent clashes between settlers and indigenous peoples ensued. The second pattern involves postcolonial states where, after centuries of colonization, power was transferred from colonial governments to local elites who continue the ‘modernization’ and ‘development’ processes. These new local elites reproduce the settler–indigenous relationship and characterize indigenous groups who wish to remain distinct as ‘backward,’ legitimating them as targets for forced assimilation, relocation, and public and private violence. In the first case the subjugation of indigenous peoples and their resistance to it has taken place over several centuries, beginning with a period of initial contact during which there may have been treaties as well as violent confrontation. This is typically followed by a period of forced assimilation and relocation. Indigenous peoples in settler states today continue their resistance mainly through legal and political channels. In the second case, many indigenous peoples have only recently become the targets of official policies aimed at their assimilation and relocation. The situation of indigenous peoples in Central and South America represents a variation on these two patterns, since these states were also created as a result of colonial conquest. For a variety of reasons including geographic barriers, many indigenous peoples, like the Yanomamo, remained unintegrated or peripheral to

state-building in Central and South American well into the second half of the twentieth century. Others, in Guatemala and Ecuador, for example, became embroiled in a struggle involving both cultural and class cleavages. The numbers and locations of indigenous peoples – approximately 300 million worldwide – render the topic much too large to cover in one article (see Table 1). This article will therefore focus on the experience of indigenous peoples in settler states in order to illustrate the commonalities in indigenous–state relations over the longer historical period. The case of indigenous peoples in settler states is also instructive because it established norms that modernizing elites elsewhere implicitly and explicitly draw on as justification for their own policies aimed at the subjugation and assimilation of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous Peoples and Conquest While norms of conquest have been asserted as the basis for the domination of indigenous peoples, in practice European colonization was also accomplished in part by negotiating treaties with indigenous peoples. Treatymaking was erratic, arbitrary, and inconsistent. The first treaties in North America were negotiated between the Dutch and the Iroquois, and subsequently by the British and their successor settler states. An elaborate debate among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish theologians on the status of indigenous peoples according to the ‘‘law of civilized nations’’ produced a justification for the conquest and subjugation of indigenous peoples without treaty-making. In the southwest United States, native sovereignty ‘passed’ from the Spanish to the Mexican and finally the US government – all without the consent of the indigenous peoples. In New Zealand the Treaty of Waitangi was viewed by the British as the abdication of native sovereignty, while for the Maori it was the basis for shared sovereignty and co-equal coexistence. In Australia the British Privy Council concluded that the continent was terra nullius or ‘‘unoccupied’’ because the aboriginal peoples did not constitute ‘‘peoples’’ with discernible (to the British) governments capable of asserting proprietary rights to land and resources. (This claim was finally overturned by the Australian High Court in 1993, opening the door for the first time to indigenous land claims and initiating an indigenous–state dialog on the prospect of negotiating a contemporary treaty on aboriginal rights.) As the British, French, Belgians, Dutch, and Portuguese scrambled for dominance in Africa in the late 1800s, treaties of ‘‘friendship’’ and ‘‘tribute’’ were signed with African chiefs and headmen. Surprisingly, conquest remained a justification for dominance over indigenous peoples until very recently. When representatives of the Hopi and Navajo nations

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Table 1 Indigenous peoples: Locations and approximate numbers Region

Indigenous peoples

% of total

Central America Belize Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama

15 000 20 000 960 000 5 400 000 250 000 10 500 000 135 000 194 000

10 1 21 60 7 12.5 5 8

Total

(17.7 million)

South America Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador French Guiana Guyana Paraguay Peru Surinam Venezuela

477 000 4 900 000 325 000 1 000 000 708 000 3 750 000 4 000 30 000 100 000 8 100 000 11 000 290 000

Total

(19.7 million)

Asia Afghanistan (6.7 million Pathan, 300 000 Baluchis, 3 million Koochis) Bangladesh Burma India Indonesia Laos Malaysia (East) (Peninsula) Pakistan Phillipines Sri Lanka Taiwan Thailand Vietnam Japan (Ainu) China

1.5 71.0 .2 9.0 1.0 37.0 4.0 4.0 3.0 39.0 2.9 1.5

10 000 000 600 000-1 500 000 11 000 000 51 000 000 1 500 000 800 000 500 000 71 000 7 700 000 6 500 000 2 000 310 000 500 000 800 000 50 000 67 000 000 (55 minorities)

Total

(159 million)

First World Australia Canada USA New Zealand Pacific Colonies Inuit Saami

250 000 1 100 000 1 900 000 300 000 500 000 112 000 58 000

Total

(4.2 million)

CIS

1 000 000 northern peoples 6 000 000 Kazakhs 22 000 000 Turkick

Total

(29 million)

1 30 7 1 23 50 4 8 16 2 1 2

2.0 4.0 0.8 10.0

Continued

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 539 Table 1

Continued

Region

Indigenous peoples

Africa (Partial) Nomadic herders including: Maasai, Tuareg, Bororo Afar Somali herders— in Arabia San (Bushmen) Botswana Namibia Angola Mbut and forest peoples

25 000 29 000 8 000 200 000

Total

(19.3 million)

% of total

14 000 000 5 000 000

Sources: Burger, J. (1987). Report from the frontier: The State of the world’s indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books, and Canada Year Book 1992, and Wilmer, F. (1993). The indigenous voice in politics: Since time immemorial. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. (The World Bank uses a total of 230 million while the ILO uses a total of 300 million.)

appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission to uphold their sovereign rights to land and self-determination, representatives of the US State Department in 1987 defended its claim that the United States was not accountable to recognize indigenous rights by asserting the applicability of the law of conquest. Although modern writers have been ambivalent toward the application of conquest to the contemporary law of nations, even the ancient Roman law of conquest on which any modern claims rest, holds that it can occur legitimately only after a ‘‘just’’ war between equals, such as nation-states. Eighteenth-century international lawyer Emerich deVattel argued that it could not be applied to the relationship between European powers and the North American indigenous peoples, asserting that to claim conquest one must be the victor in a war fought in selfdefense. Two contemporary developments leave no doubt that a law of conquest has no validity in contemporary international law: the coming into force of the UN Charter, and the emergence of the principle of selfdetermination, which liberates peoples who were formerly subjugated to colonial and imperial power. While in practice the UN and World Court have seemed reluctant to apply the principle of selfdetermination beyond the formerly colonized areas of the Third World, the spirit and intent of self-determination is to liberate peoples politically, socially, economically, and culturally subjugated by colonial practices. The 1960 General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples holds that ‘‘the subjection of peoples to outside domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights,’’ and that ‘‘all peoples have the right of self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.’’ The Declaration, however, is also careful to balance the right

of self-determination with the a priori rights of the state by prohibiting ‘‘any attempt at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country,’’ holding that such action ‘‘is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.’’ Hesitancy to secure entitlement to self-determination for indigenous peoples follows not from any normative conflicts, but rather from the lack of political will on the part of states to do so. Indigenous assertions of sovereignty over land and resources, particularly in conjunction with existing treaties, are regarded as a threat to ‘‘national unity.’’ The threat to territorial integrity is less ambiguous. The majority of indigenous peoples do not aspire to secede from the state. The few who do, do not base their claims on a right of self-determination, but rather on the exercise of a continuous right of sovereignty predating the formation of contemporary states and that is supported by historical evidence indicating state recognition of their sovereignty. (Maori claims to sovereignty do not constitute an aspiration to secession, but rather to the exercise of co-equal sovereignty with the New Zealand state.) In fulfilling the right to self-determination, there is an enormous degree of latitude to delineate the terms by which external sovereignty may be limited, while leaving internal sovereignty intact. The central issue raised by indigenous peoples’ political resistance is how to achieve social justice in indigenous– state relations, both in older states, such as the settler states and Scandinavia, given the history of domination and its legacy, as well as in postcolonial states that have only come into existence as states in the aftermath of colonization and whose boundaries often seem particularly artificial. Attempts to secure a legal and normative justification for the international protection of indigenous peoples are only part of the story of indigenous peoples’ responses to conquest. Although most indigenous

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sociopolitical systems were not organized for the largescale use of force that characterizes European states, they did at times resist by means of military defense and rebellion. The history of indigenous responses to conquest, however, is primarily a history of political, legal, and rhetorical resistance within states, in regional and in international arenas. The next two sections will trace some of these developments by focusing primarily on the case of indigenous peoples in settler states, highlighting developments in Central and South America, as well as in regional and international arenas.

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses in Settler States From the Anglo-Powhatan War in 1609, to the Maori–Pakeha Wars of the 1860s, the Plains Indians’ resistance culminating in the defeat of the US army at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, the Frog Lake and Louis Reil rebellions in Canada, numerous indigenous African rebellions such as that of the Sotho and Zulu peoples led by Chaka against colonial domination, the Huaorani use of violence to resist multinational and missionary encroachment in Ecuador in the 1990s, and the recent and more publicized conflict in Chiapas – indigenous peoples have never passively accepted their physical, social, and cultural destruction at the hands of Western

colonists, settlers, and state expansionists. Their military defeat is explained not only by the more destructive technology of European weapons coupled with the devastating effects of alien disease, but also by the simple fact that the majority of indigenous societies were not and are not organized for large-scale military operations, either aggressive or defensive. Yet in spite of military defeat and near-physical decimation, indigenous peoples have never abandoned what for some has been a five centuries-long struggle for their cultural survival. The term ‘cultural survival’ is used here because to survive as assimilated individuals is not the same as surviving as indigenous peoples. Both indigenous and settler cultures have changed as a result of their contact with one another and no culture is stagnant. Worldwide, indigenous resistance movements confront issues of land rights, forced relocation, and cultural, political, and economic self-determination, as the examples in Table 2 illustrate. By the far the most effective and persistent forms of resistance have been nonviolent: appeals to international organizations, publicity, protests, litigation, and political participation, including grassroots political organization and campaigns to alter the constitutional basis for indigenous–state relations. Indeed, in January 2006, indigenous leader Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, was sworn in as the first indigenous president elected in Bolivia (or anywhere else in Latin America). The scope

Table 2 Examples of grass-roots indigenous-controlled political movements Country

Movement/Organization

Issue

USA Canada

American Indian Movement North American Indian Brotherhood

Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Maori Unity Movement

End termination sovereignty Oppose external interference in indigenous selfgovernment Recognition of Maori sovereignty

Australia Malaysia West Papua Pradesh, India Chotanogpur, India Philippines Norway Finland Sweden Alaska, USA Chile Ecuador El Salvador

Maori Peoples Liberation Movement of Aotearoa Waitangi Action Committee Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders Residents Action Committee Sarawak Indigenous Peoples’ Association Kanak Independence Movement Chipko Movement Jharkhand Parry

Halt Bakun Dam Construction Resist encroachment by logging companies Self-determination Protest to save forest homelands Call for creation of indigenous state

Cordillera Peoples Alliance Nordic Saami Council Saami Union

Autonomy Cultural rights, legal protection, language rights

Saami Youth Council Hakkaido Utari Federation of Alaskan Natives ADMAPU (Mapuche) CONFEN1AE, ECUARUNARI, COISE, CONAIE Association Nacional Indigena del Salvador

Ainu language, land rights Land Settlement Act Oppose allotment policy Resistance to encroachment by oil companies Land, cultural rights

Land rights, resource rights

Source: Wilmer, F. (1993). The indigenous voice in world politics: Since time immemorial. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Indigenous Peoples’ Responses to Conquest 541

of indigenous resistance today is truly global, as the participation of hundreds of indigenous organizations in the UN process of drafting principles for the protection of their rights, and local, national, and regional resistance movements indicates. The United States When the Europeans arrived in North America, hundreds of indigenous societies were living in a variety of sociopolitical organizations, (including a number of confederacies), practicing agricultural food production as well as hunting and gathering. Initially, the Dutch, French, and English engaged in treaty-making with North American indigenous nations, and there can be little doubt that during early colonization these treaties were viewed by both sides as agreements between equals. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the European and African slave population east of the Mississippi vastly outnumbered the indigenous population, and as settlement and conquest pushed westward, alien diseases and settler violence were rapidly devastating the indigenous peoples west of the Mississippi as well. The period following the Civil War through the Ghost Dance massacre of over 300 people at Wounded Knee in 1890 is sometimes referred to as the period of the Plains Indian Wars. Contemporary Native American political and legal activism was fueled both by US Federal Indian policies known as ‘termination’ (aimed at ‘terminating’ the collective, tribal existence of Native American Indian people and assimilating them as individuals into mainstream American society), and by the growing civil rights activism initiated by African–Americans in the late 1950s and 1960s. By 1970, as a result of Native American political opposition, the termination era was officially ended with many of the terminated tribes restored to their federally recognized status. The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was formed during a historic American Indian Conference in Chicago in 1961. Today it not only publicizes the sovereign rights of Native Americans, but also conducts voter participation drives, job training, and youth leadership and internship programs. The NIYC participated in protests in support of Indian fishing rights that became known as ‘fish-ins’ in the 1960s. The NIYC is one of 15 organizations with consultative status at the United Nations. The American Indian Movement adopted more radical, though still primarily nonviolent, strategies of resistance, leading to the 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, asserting treaty rights entitling Indians to the return of unused federal property. They were also instrumental in the week-long occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs following the ‘‘Trail of Broken Treaties’’ march to Washington, DC in 1972 and a two and a-half month stand-off at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in

1973. The Wounded Knee protest served both to expose the highly questionable legitimacy of the US-supported tribal government and to heighten solidarity and pride for Indian identity. Some of the early founders of the American Indian Movement went on to form the International Indian Treaty Council, which received consultative status at the United Nations and is headed by an international board of indigenous representatives. A number of factors converged – the Civil Rights movement, Red Power activism, more Native American students graduating from university and law school programs, and a federal policy allowing tribes standing to sue in federal court – to raise key indigenous issues in American courts beginning in the 1970s. A conflict over the Western Shoshone land and claims under the Treaty of Ruby Valley arose in the 1970s was heard and appealed through US courts. The Supreme Court upheld the US position that aboriginal land rights for the Shoshone had been ‘‘extinguished’’ through settlement and through the Indian Claims Commission. The case centers on the rights of the Danns to continue working a ranch that has been in their family for over 100 years, and before that was in the territory occupied by the 60 000 Shoshone in the area. In 1993 the Indian Law Resource Center filed a complaint on behalf of the Danns in the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and the Danns received the Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm, Sweden, for their ‘‘courage and perseverance in asserting the rights of indigenous people to their land.’’ Though many battles are still being fought – over the Black Hills and the Western Shoshone land claims, for example – there have also been some gains. (In a 1980 decision, the Supreme Court upheld a decision that acknowledged the illegality of US confiscation of the Black Hills. The Sioux, however, refused to acknowledge receipt of the monetary compensation, holding that only the return of land will satisfy their grievance.) The Blue Lake Lands taken from the Taos Pueblo by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 to be incorporated into National Forest lands were returned to them by a bipartisan congressional act strongly supported by President Nixon in 1970. Without a treaty-based claim, the Passamaquoddy instituted a suit in 1971 against the US government for land lost that, through appeals, was eventually upheld in 1980. Fishing rights entitling indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest to one-half of the harvestable fish were upheld in a 1974 case. Native American Indian activism also led to a series of legislative victories for Indian rights in the US: the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act in 1975, the American Indian Religious Freedom and Indian Child Welfare Acts in 1978, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act in 1979, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, also known as NAGPRA.

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Canada In the 1870s the Canadian government began negotiating a series of treaties to ‘open’ the western and northern provinces for Canadian expansion. The last was concluded in 1921. The Indian Act by which the Canadian government asserted ‘‘jurisdiction’’ over Indian affairs until the 1950s was so restrictive that Natives were required to have passes to leave their reserves, potlatch and other ceremonies were banned, and Indian women who married non-Indian men lost their status as Native people, as did their children. The Act also provided for involuntary enfranchisement. Amendments to the Act in 1951 provided only modest improvements in the situation. Native ceremonies were no longer outlawed, but provisions pertaining to the status of Indian women and involuntary enfranchisement remained until national voting rights were extended to Natives by 1960. After consulting with Native leaders in 1968 and 1969 the Canadian government issued a White Paper on Indian Policy that, like termination policy in the United States, proposed ending the special status of Native nations in Canada by repealing the Indian Act and assimilating them as individuals into the dominant society. Canadian First Nations mobilized rapidly to oppose the policy. As a result, in 1969 Indian agents were removed from reserves, and thus began an era of restructuring in Canadian–Indian relations. The Act was amended in 1985 and 1988 to (1) end gender discrimination and restore Native status to indigenous women (and their children) who married nonNatives, (2) to give control over enrollment to the First Nations councils, and (3) to allow First Nations to develop bylaws and on-reserve taxing power. The 1982 Constitutional Act also recognizes the aboriginal and treaty rights of Indians, Inuit, and Metis, although some indigenous nations opposed their inclusion in the Canadian constitution at all, arguing that they remained sovereign nations and that inclusion in the Canadian constitution would compromise their sovereign status. Shushwap leader George Manuel, then President of the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada (now the Assembly of First Nations) traveled to New Zealand to meet with Maori activists, attended the United Nations conference on the environment in Stockholm as a member of the Canadian delegation, connected with Saami there, and went on to the International Labour Organization and World Council of Churches in Geneva, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs in Copenhagen, and the Anti-Slavery Society and Survival International in London. These contacts led to a landmark international meeting of indigenous peoples in 1974, after which the NIBC was granted consultative NGO status at the United Nations. Although the Canadian government began to recognize the need to address Native claims in the 1970s, it was

not until 1991 that it lifted restrictions preventing consideration of pre-Confederation claims. Conflicts between Natives and the Canadian government over the James Bay hydroelectric project arose in 1974 and 1975 and led to several agreements addressing land claims, aboriginal rights, and compensation settlements. By 1996, over 700 specific claims had been filed resulting in 151 settlements and 354 still being processed. Under agreements with the Gwich’in, Sahtu Dene, and Metis, the DIAND (Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development) in 1994 and 1995 collected $70 million in resource royalties. Agreements with the Yukon First Nations, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, First Nation Nacho Ny’a’k Dun, Champagne, and Aishihik First Nations over land and monetary compensation have since been concluded. Twenty-five First Nations in Saskatchewan were awarded $450 million for land purchases to increase reserve territories. In 1992 a Treaty Commission was established in British Columbia, where the absence of treaties had complicated the claims issues. By 1996, 70% of the First Nations in British Columbia had become involved in negotiating the first ever treaty with the Canadian government. Conflicts in Mohawk communities in 1980 and 1990 led to violent confrontation between Native groups within Iroquois communities in disagreement over the legitimacy of tribal governments, and between Natives and the federal (Mounties) and provincial authorities. The 1990 standoff at Kanesatake/Oka, 30 miles northwest of Montreal, precipitated by plans to construct a municipal golf course in an area claimed to be a traditional burial site, lasted 78 days. When the provincial authorities dispatched a paramilitary unit armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and tear gas to disband the initially nonviolent protesters, the conflict turned violent, leaving one police officer dead. In solidarity with the Mohawks at Oka/Kanesatake, Kahnawake Mohawks blockaded the Mercy Bridge between Montreal and the outlying city of Chateauguay. In the 1980s the Sheshatshiu and LaRomaine Innu in Labrador/Nitassinin initiated a nationwide campaign protesting the use of airspace over their territory for NATO training overflights, which they say are detrimental to their way of life and destructive of the wildlife that they continue to hunt for food. The Innu engaged in civil disobedience, initiated land claims and litigation, and aroused publicity to bring pressure on the Canadian government to end the overflights. The Nisga’a and Nuxalk nations in British Columbia have vehemently opposed clear-cutting in disputed territory, arguing that they do not oppose development, but seek Native-controlled development. Protests accelerated in 1994, and in 1995 protest rallies were coordinated by the Forest Action Network in London, Ottawa, Los Angeles, Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver, although some Nuxalk representatives were annoyed with the

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Network’s ‘‘appropriation’’ of the issue for their own purposes. Three hereditary chiefs and 19 supporters were arrested in connection with a blockade against logging companies, with 21 of those arrested being found guilty of criminal contempt in June 1996. Another logging blockade organized by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth First Nations along with Friends of Clayquot and Greenpeace, followed in late June. In August Nuxalk Chief Quatsinas made a formal statement to the UN Subcommission on the Nuxalk Logging Dispute, explaining the nations’ commitment to the use of nonviolent means of opposition, the creation story in which the area in question appears as a sacred site, and his view of the logging operation as an act of ethnocide and continuing genocide aimed at destroying Native peoples as Native peoples. The process of political restructuring of indigenous– state relations continues in Canada. In 1994 the Canadian government and the First Nations in Manitoba agreed to dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs in the province. In 1995 a new round of negotiations were initiated to add further amendments to the Indian Act. A number of selfgovernment agreements have been signed between First Nations and the federal government, and in 1996, 13 First Nations signed a Framework Agreement on land management. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was created in 1991 to evaluate the need for rebuilding the relationship between Canada’s aboriginal and nonaboriginal societies. The final report recommends a new Royal Proclamation and companion legislation on treaty implementation, recognition of First Nations, a treaty tribunal, the creation of an Aboriginal Parliament, and reform of the federal agencies involved in Aboriginal Affairs. In a landmark settlement between the Inuit of Nunavut and the Canadian government, not only was 350 000 square miles transferred to the Inuit, but a new territory of Nunavut was created. Beginning in 1999 and concluding in 2009 the government of the Northwest Territories will transfer responsibilities to the new Inuit-controlled Nunavut government. Finally, in the course of its search for a new constitutional foundation, the Canadian government has undertaken extensive studies on the question of electoral reform for aboriginal peoples. The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing considered in detail the question of aboriginal electoral participation and alternatives for restructuring the basis of aboriginal political participation. Among the alternatives considered, the Commission examined the New Zealand/Aotearoa model for Maori participation in the federal government and the possibility of adapting such a model to Canada. New Zealand As the English colonists in North America prepared for a war with the British after two centuries of settlement,

Captain James Cook made the first English landing in New Zealand. Between Cook’s landing in 1769 and 1835, European settlement in New Zealand was sparse. Thirty-five raritanga met with James Busby in Waitangi in October, 1835, and signed a ‘‘Declaration of Independence’’ declaring a new ‘‘state’’ under the ‘‘United Tribes of New Zealand.’’ They agreed to meet on a yearly basis, but as English settlers began to arrive in increasing numbers, Maori sovereignty and land rights affirmed by the 1835 Declaration were increasingly ignored. By 1840 there were both intertribal conflicts as well as conflicts between the settlers and the Maori. These conflicts, particularly the latter, would come to be known as the ‘land wars’, and lasted over the next 20 years. In 1840 four Maori rangatira from the North signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which is now considered to be the foundational document of the New Zealand state. During the 1850s, concern over continued Pakeha (European settler) ignorance of their sovereignty and land rights, Maori leaders began to meet and discuss the possibility of unifying through a confederation and naming a single Maori leader in what came to be known as ‘The King Movement.’ In 1958 the first Maori king was named. The movement, however, did not resolve the growing tensions between the Maori and the English who were determined, as in North America and Australia, to conquer the land and people of New Zealand/Aotearoa by settlement and force. When, in 1863, conflicts arising over attempts by the Maori to retain self-government erupted over a controversy involving British purchase of Maori land at Waitara, the British invaded Waikato. From a Maori perspective, as noted by P. S. Jones, the ‘‘invasion of Waikato by England [led] troops [was used] as a pretext to force Maori to defend themselves and then confiscate their land for being ‘in rebellion’ against the English crown.’’ In the aftermath of defeat, a pacifist Maori resistance known as Pai Marire formed and spread through the northern tribes. During this period, a series of Land Acts were passed by the parliament in order to force the destruction of the Maori system of collective land tenure and authority in favor of individual titles, which in turn made the transfer and sale of property from the Maori to the settlers much easier. As in the western United States, this period was marked both by the most severe decline in the indigenous population and the most widespread dispossession of them from their lands. It is estimated that when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, the Maori outnumbered settlers 100 to 1. Within twenty years the populations were roughly equal, but for the next four decades Maori population steadily declined. As with the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, diseases against which they had no immunity, were devastating the Maori. As the settler population

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grew, their relationship with and view of the Maori were increasingly directed by an assimilationist policy. ‘Native’ schools established in 1867 were a prime instrument for the destruction of Maori culture. In 1926, Maori visionary and spiritual leader T W Ratana traveled to England to appeal to the King, and to Geneva to address the League of Nations on behalf of the Maori and their grievances against the settlers. He was granted an audience with neither. He went on to become a political leader in New Zealand, serving in the Parliament along with several of his followers. Apirana Ngata, who has been called ‘‘the most able Maori leader of the century’’ became the Minister of Maori Affairs in 1928 and from there spearheaded a Maori cultural revival and land recovery. The 1945 Maori Social and Economic Advancement Act promised help for tribal committees, assistance for Maori health, education, and welfare, and the creation of Marae (Maori community) administration. In 1967 a Maori Affairs Act made it still easier for Maoris to sell land to Europeans, leading to the loss of millions of acres of land formerly under Maori control, and a massive migration of Maoris seeking work in the cities. The 1967 Act also evoked widespread Maori protest as a new generation of younger Maori leaders emerged. They demanded that their Maori names be properly pronounced in public arenas, began to establish bilingual programs, and celebrated pride in Maori culture. The 1960s and 1970s have been called the period of Maori Renaissance. The Nga Tamata or Young Warriors and the Maori Organization on Human Rights provided organizational structure from which to launch protest through picketing, petitioning, and publicity. In 1975 organizers of the Maori Land March collected over 60 000 signatures on a petition protesting the sale of Maori land. In a 1977 land dispute at Bastion Point, Maori protesters occupied the area for 506 days in protest, although a court ruled in 1978 that the protesters were trespassing and had them removed. In 1975, the Treaty of Waitangi Act established the Waitangi Tribunal and for the first time recognized the conflict over Maori and Pakeha interpretations, but it was not until the Act was amended in 1985 that the Maori text achieved statutory recognition. The original act, which allowed only for claims pertaining to grievances from 1975 on, was amended so that Maori grievances extending all the way back to 1840 could be considered by the Tribunal. The effect was dramatic – during the first 10 years of the Tribunal, only 24 claims were made, but during the first 2 years after the amended act was passed, the number of claims jumped to over 150. As of 1993, six major negotiated agreements were underway; one followed Tribunal hearings and two followed Tribunal mediation. A large claim was settled in 1995 when Queen Elizabeth II signed a parliamentary bill apologizing to the Tainui people for the British military invasion of their lands in 1863. The settlement returned 39 000

acres and awarded (US) $112 million to the Tainui tribe. The Queen’s 1995 visit was also marked by protests when 60 Maori activists demonstrated against the Crown’s continued involvement in Maori affairs. Australia Of the 1007 settlers arriving in Australia in 1788, threefourths were convicts, and most of the rest were their wardens and caretakers. It is often alleged that the particularly ruthless treatment of aboriginal peoples by European settlers in Australia is in part attributable to the callous treatment of convicts-turned-settlers by their wardens (who also became settlers). Richard Broome, for example, writes of 8- and 9-year-old aboriginal girls being raped; of Tasmanian aboriginals being ‘‘flogged, branded, castrated and mutilated by convicts’’; the killing of between 100 and 300 people by 23 ‘‘troopers’’ on the Naomi River in 1838; at Mayall Creek six months later ‘‘about 30 [aboriginal people] were roped together, shot, stabbed and their bodies burned by a party of 12 stockmen’’; and 200 aboriginals killed at Gravesend the same year. Aboriginal resistance often became a pretext for white brutality. From an estimated original population of 300 000, by 1930 there were only 60 000 aboriginal people in Australia. The aboriginal population today remains below the preconquest level. As elsewhere in the settler states, many aboriginal Australians also died from contact with deadly alien diseases. In Victoria alone, an estimated 80% of the aboriginal population died from violence and disease between 1820 and 1840 – just 20 years. Early aboriginal resistance consisted mainly of raiding parties and what today would be called guerilla tactics. They were soon, says Broome, vastly outnumbered, and resistance leaders were designated as ‘‘outlaws’’ and thus ‘‘liable to be shot on sight.’’ Two things have profoundly shaped the course of aboriginal–white relations: (1) a growing aboriginal reliance on the expanding pastoral economy, particularly in the north; and (2) the absence of Commonwealth or federal involvement in aboriginal affairs until 1967. The history of aboriginal work on the pastoral stations is a history of labor exploitation, and thus resistance has often been combined with issues of economic marginalization and labor struggles. Before World War II only about half of the aboriginal cattle workers received any pay, and aboriginal wages were still much lower than whites for the same work. These conditions led to nonviolent aboriginal labor strikes beginning in the 1940s, and escalated to economic sabotage until the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders was created in the 1960s. The Federal Council pressured the labor movement and heavily lobbied the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress meetings in 1950, 1961, and 1963. When a case involving aboriginal laborers was sent by the North

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Australian Workers Union for arbitration in 1965, the Commission issued a landmark decision in favor of equal wages for aboriginal workers. Although implementation was delayed for 3 years, by the late 1960s aboriginal workers were paid an equal wage, ironically leading to a backlash against hiring aboriginal labor. The 1960s saw a tremendous increase in minority protest movements, freedom rides, student activism, pressures for voting rights, the return of reserve lands, and in Australia, petitions for aboriginal citizenship. The Australian federal government in 1967 took over responsibility for aboriginal affairs, granting citizenship to all aboriginal people and shifting reserve policy from government control to self-determination. Yet even with the granting of citizenship, many aboriginal people in the 1960s still found themselves unable, for instance, to obtain passports, since their births were often recorded in stock books. In 1972 aboriginal protesters established a ‘tent embassy’ in Canberra to publicize their plight. Youth leadership, employing strategies of direct action, emerged within a pan-aboriginal movement demanding publicity, accountability, and change. By the 1970s the Labour Party responded, recognizing the political value of taking on the issue of aboriginal equality, and repealed most of the discriminatory legislation by the 1980s. Federal investigations into land rights were initiated, while aboriginal leaders formed alliances with environmentalists, advancing their own concerns with land rights, mining rights, and restrictions on corporate development. Aboriginal peoples formed Land Councils to represent their interests, and in 1975 the Northern Territory passed an Aboriginal Land Rights Act including rights to royalties from mining and an aboriginal veto over mining in the state. The first controversy between an Aboriginal Land Council and mining interests went to court in 1978. Thirty percent of the Northern Territory was acknowledged to be under aboriginal ownership, as was 20% of South Australia. Aboriginal activists began flying a pan-aboriginal flag to symbolize their unity and right to self-determination. In 1979, the National Aboriginal Commission called for a constitutional amendment allowing the government to negotiate a compact (treaty) for the first time with aboriginal Australians. Parliament passed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission bill in 1979. The Aboriginal Development Corporation (ADC), wholly controlled by aboriginal people, was created in 1980. That same year aboriginal activists in Victoria staged the occupation of a proposed mining site against the Alcoa corporation. Activists pressed for the establishment of Aboriginal Studies programs, the teaching of aboriginal culture at all levels of education, the creation of aboriginal health services programs, and progressive self-management of their own affairs. Protests heated up as the Bicentenary approached, and a Royal Commission launched investigations into ‘‘deaths

in custody’’ – the problem of a disproportionate number of aboriginal people dying while in policy custody. The issue became the subject of international criticism from both the United Nations and Amnesty International. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody also publicized the need to address the ‘‘Lost Generation’’ on a national scale. (Aboriginal children were often forcibly removed from their families and placed either in white homes to learn ‘‘domestic skills’’ or in institutional schools, creating what has recently become known as the ‘‘Lost Generation.’’ In New South Wales, for example, one out of seven children had been removed between 1909 and 1969.) During the 1988 Bicentenary, aboriginal activists also ‘landed’ on the cliffs of Dover and proclaimed England ‘discovered’ by aboriginal Australians. During the 1980s, housing, health, and education grants for aboriginal programs increased by 80%. In 1988, Prime Minister Hawke spoke to a crowd of more than 10 000 at the Barunga Festival, promising the negotiation of an Australian–Aboriginal Treaty. A Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was created in 1991, made up of 12 aboriginal members, 2 Torres Strait Islanders, and 11 ‘other’ Australians. The most significant event to follow from two decades of sustained pan-aboriginal political activism involved the 1993 court case brought by Eddie Mabo and the Torres Strait Islanders against the government of Queensland. The court’s decision overturned the doctrine of terra nullius used to dispossess aboriginal peoples from their land. According to terra nullius, the continent was ‘‘unoccupied’’ upon the arrival of the British because aboriginal peoples did not possess governments like European governments and therefore did not exercise ownership of the land. This doctrine precluded any claim of native title under the Commonwealth or Australian governments for more than two centuries. Following the landmark Mabo ruling that aboriginal people did exercise ownership of the land and sovereignty prior to settlement and retained a right to land title in the present, the entire foundation of aboriginal–white relations crumbled. Land claims filled the courts. In December the Native Title Act was passed, reflecting a fragile balance between the landholder, aboriginal, and state interests. It outlined procedures for transfer to native title, provided funding for land acquisition, and promised additional steps toward social justice. Aboriginal peoples were awarded 250 000 square kilometers in the Kimberleys, the Wiradjuri claimed most of central New South Wales, claims were made in the Snowy Mountains, the Yorta Yorta claimed areas of the Barman Forest on the Murray River, and the Martu claimed 200 000 square kilometers on the east Pilbara. Recent struggles center on controversies over mining since many new mining projects seek access to aboriginal lands and involve areas now subject to native title applications. A resources boom in the 1970s brought a

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tremendous increase in both domestic and multinational mining activities in Australia. The Northern Territories passed legislation recognizing aboriginal interests in mining and gave them the right to share in royalties that were previously paid to the Crown. Being forced to deal with the issue of native title has brought mining companies and governments into negotiations with Aboriginal Land Councils as representatives of aboriginal interests. A 1991 Commonwealth Industry Commission report recommended federal recognition of aboriginal title to minerals in their territories, direct negotiation between commercial interests and aboriginal councils, and federal funding of aboriginal councils.

Indigenous Resistance in Central and South America As the British were successfully establishing colonial dominance in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, the Spanish proceeded unhindered with the colonization of Central and South America. However, unlike the British Commonwealth, Spanish and Portuguese colonization did not produce democratic settler states. Racially mixed births and a greater degree of acculturation produced a large Mestizo, mostly peasant population in many Central and South American countries, although the governments have for the past five centuries been controlled by descendants of European conquerors. Additionally, geographical factors made the southern hemisphere more difficult to penetrate, and many indigenous peoples were able to survive with little or no contact with outsiders into the middle of the twentieth century. Several states – Guatemala and Bolivia, for instance – today contain a majority indigenous population. As elsewhere, diseases also killed many indigenous peoples during the earliest period of contact, and where contact was more recent, continue to do so today. Within the past three decades, for example, as many as 85% of the Yanomami may have been killed by disease and violence at the hands of settlers. Contemporary resistance in Central and South America is partly a response to growing pressure for industrial development since the 1960s. As governments, multinationals, and miners attempt to penetrate dense tropical forests and mountain highlands, they encounter numerous indigenous peoples who managed to survive five centuries of European conquest and colonization. But their resistance is not only a result of recent indigenous activism as much of the region’s history has involved indigenous opposition to domination and brutal government responses. A 1934 ‘uprising’ of ‘peasants’ against the Salvadoran government, for example, met with the ruthless torture and murder of over 30 000 Indians. More

recently the mobilization of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico was partly in response to the murder of Indian leader Sebastian Nunez Perez by a landowner in 1990. The Zapatista movement itself grew out of a resistance alliance formed in 1989 with widespread Indian support. That same year, a less publicized armed uprising occurred along the Pichis River in Peru when some 50 000 Ashaninkas responded to a Tupac Amaru assassination of an Ashaninka leader. The subject of indigenous resistance in Central and South America is too vast to cover here, but some highlights will serve to illustrate its seriousness and effectiveness, as well as the generally nonviolent nature of contemporary indigenous movements. In 1992, on the occasion of the Columbian Quincentenary, the Organization of Indigenous People of Pastaza organized a march to Quito, capital of Ecuador, to draw attention to the situation and demands of indigenous peoples. They, called for government recognition of their legal right to land, for the reform of the Constitution to include indigenous rights, and for indigenous control over the remaining Amazon rainforests in Ecuador. Ten thousand Quichua, Shiwar, Zapara, and Achuar Indians, ‘‘wearing feathered plumes and toucan headdresses, carrying spears, they marched, followed by thousands of highland Indians in their traditional ponchos,’’ reports Veilleux. Ten thousand Indians protested the Columbian Quincentenary celebration in San Cristobal. In 1992, indigenous resistance and struggle for rights was internationally acknowledged when Guatemalan Indian human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu received the Nobel Peace Prize. Resistance movements in Central and South America over the past few decades have been aided by those indigenous peoples to the North whose struggles for cultural and physical survival in those more open and otherwise democratic states began 100 or more years earlier. They have also been aided by a growing global environmental movement, though their interests can be subverted by some environmental groups. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) allied with Yanomami leaders to combat invasions into Yanomami territory and advance indigenous rights have made the Yanomami a symbol of indigenous resistance in recent decades. In Venezuela, environmental activists and Pemon Indian groups have allied to oppose a plan to open the Imataca rain forest reserve to gold, diamond, and emerald mining. In Brazil, the Tapajos Roadway–Waterway ‘megaproject’ in the Munduruku Indigenous Area was suspended as a result of opposition by indigenous groups and environmentalists. In May 1997, in response to assassinations of indigenous leaders, activists staged a nonviolent protest at the Honduran capital as part of a continuing struggle for land rights. They were forcibly removed by Honduran armed forces, with reports of brutal beatings and disappearances accompanying the ‘removal’.

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One of the most successful and sustained indigenous resistances is the case of the Kayapo of the Xingu River in Brazil. To open the area to ‘development’ in the 1970s, the Brazilian government attempted to relocate them to an ‘Indian Park.’ The Kayapo quickly learned how to effectively utilize the media for their cause over the next 15 years as they engaged in a struggled against territorial encroachment with violence when necessary, while emphasizing the violations of their rights that drove them to do so. Their confrontations with the government in 1984 and 1988 became major media events, opposing a project in which 60 of 136 proposed dams would flood their lands. International human rights and environmental groups joined the protest. Kayapo leaders traveled to the World Bank to stop its financing. In 1989 they organized a meeting of investment bankers, government officials, environmentalists, and hundreds of representatives from 20 different Indian tribes. Environmental NGOs pressured international lending agencies to withdraw support for the project, and the dam projects were derailed. The experience of the Huaorani and other indigenous peoples in Ecuador is also illustrative. A coalition of indigenous peoples and environmentalists called for a 15-year moratorium on new oil development projects so that the Ecuadoran government could assess the damages such development had caused already and devise plans to implement safeguards against future damage. The government anticipated some $3 billion in foreign oil investments by the year 2000, but environmental activists in the United States, including the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, and Europe protested so strenuously that the Ecuadorian government was compelled to cool relations with Conoco. Indigenous alliances representing seven indigenous nations in the region have been spearheading opposition strategies. The ‘Declaration of Villano’ was issued at a meeting among these groups in January 1994, calling on petroleum companies to withdraw from petroleum auctions. In March the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador called for a United Nations mediation panel and an investigation into human rights violations as well as environmental damage. In addition to the National Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club has also become involved, filing a petition on behalf of the Huaorani with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In November 1993, indigenous organizations also filed a $1 billion damage suit in New York against Texaco, prompting Texaco to yield its exploration rights to other companies.

Conclusion One of the most striking features of contemporary indigenous resistance is the effectiveness of transnational and international mobilization as well as the speed with which it emerged. The formation of indigenous NGOs accelerated

in tandem with increased United Nations activity during the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1990s, on average more than 100 indigenous NGOs have participated in the annual Working Group meetings. The Center for Human Rights in Geneva lists over two hundred indigenous NGOs. Indigenous issues have been raised within the Food and Agricultural Organization, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Environmental Program, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. Thirteen indigenous NGOs now have consultative status at the United Nations, and in 1992 an indigenous representative was invited for the first time ever to address an international UN-sponsored conference, the Rio ‘Earth’ Summit. A workshop on the possible establishment of a permanent forum for indigenous peoples at the UN was scheduled for 1997. Indigenous activism has produced tangible results. In addition to the draft set of principles reported out of the Working Group and the ongoing efforts within the Organization of American States to develop a similar instrument, the World Bank has issued guidelines for the consideration of project impacts on indigenous peoples. In 1989 the International Labour Organization – the only international organization to have concluded a convention addressing the issue of indigenous peoples – was pressured into revising its 1957 convention (No. 107) Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries to eliminate its paternalistic tone and to reflect the concerns of indigenous peoples. The reconciliation processes in Australia and New Zealand were, at least partly, a response to international indigenous activism, and a number of Central and South American states have undertaken constitutional revisions to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. The most significant aspect of indigenous political activism is its overwhelmingly nonviolent nature. Indigenous peoples possess virtually no international resources associated with the ability to influence international political outcomes, such as weapons and monetary wealth. Thus their success in influencing national and international outcomes and utilizing international mechanisms to influence domestic outcomes challenges conventional thinking about international relations as a political arena of anarchy where might prevails over rights. Indigenous peoples have fought for their survival and advanced toward their objectives using primarily the tools of rhetorical power, moral suasion, and nonviolent resistance, accompanied by a sophisticated understanding of nonindigenous politics. Indigenous political activism suggests that international politics bears a much greater resemblance to ‘normal’ politics – struggles over interests, ideas, and values carried on through political and legal institutions – than conventional accounts of international relations acknowledge.

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Further Reading Alfred, G. R. (1991). From bad to worse: Internal politics in the 1990 crisis at Kahnawake. Northeast Indian Quarterly 8, 23–31. Anaya, S. J. (1996). Indigenous peoples in international law. New York: Oxford University Press. Broome, R. (1996). Aboriginal Australians: Black response to white dominance. Concord. MA: Paul and Co. Publishing Consortium. Brown, D. (1970). Bury my heart at wounded knee: An Indian history of the American west. New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston. Hornung, R. (1991). One nation under the gun. New York: Pantheon Books. Kawharu, I. H. (ed.) (1989) Waitangi: Maori and Pakeha perspectives of the Treaty of Waitangi. Auckland: Oxford University Press. Lyons, O., Mohawk, J., and Deloria, V., Jr. (eds.) (1992). Exiled in the land of the free. Sante Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers. Maybury-Lewis, D. (1997). Indigenous peoples, ethnic groups and the state. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Moody, R. (1988). The indigenous voice: Visions and realities. London: Zed Books. Nagel, J. (1996). American Indian ethnic renewal: Red power and the resurgence of identity and culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Snipp, M. (1986). The changing political and economic status of American Indians: From captive nations to internal colonies. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 45, 145–157. Van Cott, D. L. (1994). Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Walker, R. (1987). Nga Tau Tohetohe: Years of anger. Camberwell, VIC: Penguin Books. Wilmer, F. (1993). The indigenous voice in world politics: Since time immemorial. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Williams, R. A., Jr. (1990). The American Indian in western legal thought: The discourses of conquest. New York: Oxford University Press.

Relevant Websites http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/ – UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. http://www.innu.ca/ – Innu Nation. http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgmm_e.html/ – Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1997.

Health Consequences of War and Political Violence Nigel Hunt, Institute of Work, Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Historical Background Mental Health and History Methodological Issues War and Political Violence in the Twentieth Century Current Understanding of Mental Health Consequences Physical Health Consequences of Modern Warfare Social and Economic Health Consequences of Modern War The Impact of Different Types of War and Political Violence

Glossary Asylum Seeker ‘‘A person having a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country’’ (1951 Convention). Biological Warfare The uses of disease-producing microorganisms, toxic biological products, or organic biocides to produce death or harm to humans, animals, or plants. Dirty Wars Systematic acts of repression, such as torture, disappearance, exile, or execution, carried out by state regimes against their own citizens, usually

International Wars Civil Wars Dirty Wars Terrorism Low-Intensity War Other Types of War and Conflict Costs Relating to the Health Consequences of War and Political Violence Impact on Particular Populations Longer-Term Effects of War Conclusions Further Reading

labeled as terrorists or insurgents, in order to eliminate opposition to the regime. Epidemiology The study of the causes, distribution, and control of diseases in populations. Genocide The deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their racial, cultural, or political status. Guerrillas Originally used by the Spanish in their war against the occupying French forces during Napoleonic times (Guerrilla means ‘little war’), it has come to mean the operation of irregular armed forces that fight a stronger force (often the army of a nation-state) through sabotage, ambush, or harassment.

Health Consequences of War and Political Violence

Incidence The frequency of new occurences of a disease within a particular time period. Insurgents Another term for guerrilla. Irregular forces fighting against the armed forces of a nation-state. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Similar to asylum seekers, except that IDPs are people who have been forceably removed from their homes, or have voluntarily left due to persecution, and are living in another part of their own country. Low-Intensity Conflict (LIC)/Low-Intensity War These are often prolonged wars which have relatively low levels of fighting, use relatively few resources, and many people in the country where the LIC is taking place can live relatively normal lives. Such conflicts are often difficult to resolve, and there may be few or no pitched battles involving large numbers of personnel. Militarism The use of force as a significant political tactic. Militarism has occured throughout history, and is popular in countries ruled by dictators or countries which believe they have the military means to impose their own political will on others.

Introduction One of the primary goals of war is to inflict harm on the opposition, with the specific intent of making them suffer so much that they cease fighting and surrender. This has been the case for thousands of years and, though some claim that war can be fought ‘surgically’, with minimum damage to life: this is fallacious. Without physical and mental harm occurring to the enemy or to civilians, even if the war is mainly directed against the physical infrastructure, such as the bombing of houses, schools, factories, and hospitals, it would not succeed in its aims. As John Keegan said about how World War II ended, ‘‘both the Germans and the Japanese had had the stuffing knocked out of them’’ (Daily Telegraph, 1/6/2004). Unfortunately, there is no indication that the incidence and prevelance of war is decreasing. Whatever human nature is, war and fighting is part of that nature. With ever-improving technology, war leads to greater harm, to both military personnel and – increasingly – to civilians. Political violence is a form of war, usually on a smaller scale, but usually with an increased intent to harm the civilian population, both physically and psychologically.

Historical Background There is evidence throughout history regarding both the physical and mental health consequences of war and political violence on both military personnel and

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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Since 1980, PTSD has been recognized as a mental health disorder resulting from traumatic (life-threatening) experiences. Symptoms include intrusive thoughts and memories, avoiding reminders of the traumatic event, emotional numbing, and increased physiological arousal. Prevalence The number of people in a given population that has a particular disease at a particular point in time. Refugee A person who sought asylum because of persecution or fear of persecution in their own country and whose claim has been accepted by the host country. This usually means that they have full civil rights within the host country. Terrorism The systematic use of tactics designed to inspire fear in a population in order to gain political ends. Terrorism is often directed against a civilian population in order to persuade their government to adopt a different political position. Torture Inflicting severe physical or mental pain for punishment or coercion, often used to terrorize a population or to derive confessions and statements.

civilians. Much of this evidence stems from war having always been a popular subject for authors of books and diaries. Accounts of war go back thousands of years. Throughout history, people have systematically developed ever more effective means of killing and maiming each other. Even in early writings, we find something about the health consequences of war. In Homer’s Iliad, from about 800 BC, there are descriptions of the psychological problems experienced by Achilles, as he suffers the consequences of the loss of his friend and mentor Patroclus. There is also a description of an epidemic which killed many of the Greek soldiers encamped outside Troy. Later, in Herodotus, there is a description of an Athenian soldier who, during the battle of Marathon, falls to the ground. At the end of the battle he is found to have no apparent physical injury, but he is paralyzed and is blind. Herodotus relates how he remained blind for the rest of his life. From our modern perspective, we might argue that the soldier suffered a hysterical reaction. The fear felt at the sight of battle was so intense that his eyes just stopped working. Later, when the Romans defeated Carthage, they understood how to defeat a population, rather than just an army, and ensured that the city would not rise again by covering the whole area with salt, so nothing would grow, and hence any survivors would have to abandon the ruined city. Flooding is also a common tactic, not just as a deterent to stop troops, but as a means of drowning. In the seventeenth century the Dutch destroyed dykes and flooded their own territory to stop the French army. The Chinese

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blew up a dam in 1938 to stop the Japanese, killing thousands of men. Before the D-Day invasion in June 1944 the Germans flooded the lowlands at the base of the Carentan peninsular in Normandy to stop the Allied troops. When the paratroopers landed, many drowned in the water. Armies have always carried disease with them as they travel, ensuring a close relationship between war and the incidence of disease. Epidemics of various diseases have occurred as a direct result of being transported by armies. Armies themselves have been notoriously poor at hygiene and general protection from disease, which can make the situation worse. Until World War II, more soldiers were killed by disease than by fighting. Campaigns have had to be halted many times because so many of the soldiers have been struck down by various diseases. For instance, the invasion force of Henry V, which was to fight at Agincourt, was struck down by dysentry as they beseiged the town of Harfleur on the Seine. Henry’s forces defeated the French, took the town, but lost a large proportion of the army to dysentry. It was for this reason that Henry could not take advantage of the defeat of Harfleur and advance on Paris. The Battle of Agincourt was fought – and still won – because disease made Henry retreat to his own lands at Calais. In sieges through the ages there are stories of plagueridden bodies being catapulted into the city to bring about its fall through disease, early examples of biological warfare. At the siege of Caffa (now Feodosiya in the Ukraine) in 1346, the Mongols besieging the city were struck down by plague and catapulted many bodies in the town to try and force the Genoese who were defending to surrender because of the stench. It is thought that this is how the Black Death entered Europe, via ships leaving Caffa and escaping to Venice and Genoa. In the 1820s, the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe occurred after the Russians and the Turks fought in Wallachia. There is very little in the contemporary chronicles of the English Civil War concerning the mental health consequences of war, but we do have descriptions of the famines resulting from destroyed or untended crops; and we know that the death toll in these wars was proportionately higher than in any other English war, including World Wars I and II. The majority of the dead were civilians. This pattern is followed many times. Famine results from soldiers being taken away from their farms so they cannot sow and harvest crops, or from soldiers either destroying food supplies so they cannot be used by an enemy or taking food for their own use. Famine is a normal concomitant of large-scale wars. In 1918, people in Germany began to experience famine, partly as a result of the blockade imposed by Britain, and partly because the loss of manpower meant that farms were not functioning effectively. During World War II, the Russians deliberately destroyed all their crops, their animals, and their stores, as they retreated across Russia in 1941 and 1942. This was in order to stop the German Army from feeding

on captured supplies, but it also had a huge impact on the Russian civilian population. Many people had to flee their homes or starve. The Germans repeated this in reverse as they retreated from 1943 to 1945.

Mental Health and History As we have seen, we do have some evidence of mental health problems in war going back as far as the Iliad. At the end of the eighteenth century, during the French revolutionary wars, ‘nostalgia’ was prevalent among the troops. It was thought at the time that troops who were displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were actually experiencing the symptoms, not because they were distressed by battle experience, but because they were missing their homes, their wives, and their mothers. During the US Civil War, troops were experiencing psychological problems at the front, and many were unable or unwilling to fight. These were treated in various ways. Da Costa, writing after the war, said that the troops were suffering from soldier’s heart, a physical disorder of the heart, a ‘weak heart’. There was no conception that the problem could be psychological. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that there was a recognition of the psychogenic origin of war trauma, with the work of Breuer, Charcot, Janet, Freud, and others, but even by World War I there was still relatively little acknowledgment that this behavior was a recognizable, if not well-defined, disorder. On the western front the term ‘shellshock’ was introduced as it was thought that the symptoms resulted from tiny pieces of shrapnel or shellcase that caused microscopic brain damage. It was during this period though that the first effective treatments for war trauma were developed. The simplest, and only partially effective, method was known as PIE; standing for ‘proximity’: the soldier would be treated near to the front line (though treatment usually just meant bedrest), ‘immediacy’: he would be treated as soon as the symptoms showed, and ‘expectancy’, he would always expect to be sent back to his front line unit. By World War II these principles were forgotten, though they were quickly relearned by the British after the defeat of Dunkirk in 1940. Treatment did become more sophisticated and effective, and many soldiers benefited; though there was still a prevailing attitude among many that someone who broke down in battle was weak. But in Russia, Japan, and Germany, any breakdown was seen as disobeying orders and the victim was very likely to be shot. It was not until the US experience in Vietnam, where many soldiers came back traumatized, that detailed systematic research was carried out which led to the introduction of PTSD as a diagnostic category (see below for details).

Health Consequences of War and Political Violence

Methodological Issues There are difficulties in obtaining accurate information about the health consequences of war and political violence, so most of the figures included in this article are estimates. Sometimes they are good estimates, on other occasions they are little more than rough guesses. This is due to the nature of war; bodies are not left around to be counted, wars occur in obscure places which the epidemiologists do not reach. The figures are also obtained using a range of methods and are obtained from a variety of sources, not always reliable. With regard to mental health, most people are not assessed in any way, so the extent of mental health problems in a given war are simply not known, they are usually estimated from a number of small-scale unrepresentative studies. During most wars, few records are kept of the number of civilian or military casualties, and with the breakdown of the infrastructure, such numbers can only be guessed at. For instance, at the time of writing there are widely varying estimates of the number of civilians killed in the current Iraq war, from a few tens of thousands to approaching 1 million. While the war is on we will not know how many have died; and even when the war ends the numbers will never be accurately calculated, partly because it is not in the interests of certain parties to add the figures up, partly for other reasons (e.g., propaganda). This applies to every major war. When estimating the

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wounded and injured, it is also difficult to arise at accurate figures. How severe does an injury have to be to count? What about multiple wounds, that is one person being wounded on several occasions? What about the number of people who get a non-war-related severe illness but are not treated because of the war? The figures in Table 1 represent best guess estimates of the numbers of people killed where it is thought that at least 1 million people died as a direct or indirect consequence of the war or the political violence in the twentieth century. The table would have been impractically long had smaller scale wars been included. It is also problematic determining the scale of death because people are killed over a relatively short period of time, during which the country is in chaos, so that it is not possible to keep any statistics – and mostly the perpetrators will actively ensure that statistics are not kept. Afterwards, as whole communities have been killed or displaced, it remains impossible to obtain accurate statistics. For instance, in Rwanda in 1994 anywhere between 500 000 and 1 million people were killed within a few months. When whole communities are destroyed there may be no one left to work out how many lived and how many died, particularly as many people may have fled the danger and do not return. Also, when there is a political motivation to distort statistics, it can be difficult to resolve the problem. There are also problems with definitions. There is a lack of consistency here which makes it very difficult to

Table 1 Estimated deaths in twentieth-century wars and conflict where it is estimated that at least 1 million died War/conflict

Dates

Estimated deaths (million)

Congo Free State Mexican Revolution Chinese Revolution Armenian Massacres World War I Russian Civil War Chinese Nationalist Era Japanese Manchuria Soviet Union–Ukraine Stalin Purges World War II Chinese Civil War Partition of India Korean War Mao’s China Second Indo–China War Ethiopia Nigeria Bangladesh Rwanda and Burundi Cambodia Mozambique Afghanistan Iran–Iraq Sudan Congo Kinshasa

1886–1908 1910–20 1911 1915–23 1914–18 1918–22 1928–37 1931 1931–33 1936–39 1939–45 1946–49 1947 1950–53 1948–73 1960–75 1962–92 1966–70 1971 1959–95 1975–78 1975–92 1979–2001 1980–88 1983–current 1998

3–8 1 2.4 1.2–1.5 8–15 5–10 2–3 1.1 7 13 55 1.2–2.5 1 2.8–4 40 3.5 1–1.4 1 1.25 1.35 1.7 1 1.3–1.8 1 1.9–2 3.8

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determine how many people have been affected by war. The term refugee, though it has a precise definition regarding the granting of asylum, is not always presented in the same way. The number of refugees may be given as those who have been granted asylum, but on some occasions it may also subsume those who are asylum seekers, or who have been displaced for other reasons. Burnham and co-workers in 2006 carried out a useful study to estimate the number of excess deaths in Iraq in the 3 years from the 2003 invasion until 2006. Using a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey, selecting 50 clusters randomly selected from 16 Governates, and 40 households in every cluster, they obtained information on deaths from each household. Two survey teams interviewed people in each household about births, death, and migration. The data were collected carefully, and a number of potential confounds were accounted for. Finally, data from 1849 households were included. The authors estimate that pre-invasion death rates were 5.5 per 1000, while after the invasion it was 13.3 per 1000 in the 40 months after the invasion. They estimate that 654 965 excess deaths have occurred in Iraq since the invasion, 601 027 as a result of violence. While this methodology can be criticized, it does at least provide a reasonable estimate (with high confidence limits) of the numbers of deaths. Unfortunately, this methodology cannot be effectively applied retrospectively.

War and Political Violence in the Twentieth Century The scale of war and political violence expanded enormously through the twentieth century, partly as a result of technological change and globalization. This section looks at the types and changing nature of war and political violence. Civilians became more directly involved, increasing in proportion through the century from around 10% of casualties in World War I to around 50% of the casualties in World War II, to around 90% of the casualties in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Wars are now more likely to be fought by insurgents or terrorists striking civilian or military targets by surprise, and often seemingly at random. While the nature of war changed in terms of increasing firepower and hence increased destruction of both people and property, the type of weapons used also evolved, with the first use of chemical weapons in World War I, and the use of nuclear weapons to end World War II. While the casualty figures for the twentieth century are too large to comprehend, for every death there are several wounded, injured, or ill, so if we add this into the equation, along with the figures for those dead or injured in smaller wars, the overall figure regarding war-related casualties for the twentieth century must be around 1 billion.

Given that there were so many victims in such large countries as the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, even this might be an underestimate. All we can do is look at some of the general health consequences of these wars, and all others can do is focus on individual stories in order to obtain some personal meaning about these health consequences. The twentieth century saw dramatic changes in the technology used in war. At the beginning of the century there were no aeroplanes, submarines were in their infancy, there were few machine guns, and no sophisticated chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The century saw the development of evermore powerful weapons of mass destruction. During World War I, the machine gun came into its own, and for many symbolizes the killing fields of the war, though it was here that poisonous gas was also first used. Biological and chemical weapons were developed by many countries, even though the 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawed their first use. They were subsequently used by the Japanese against the Chinese, by the USA against the Vietnamese, and by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against the Kurds. By World War II, technology had advanced to allow large bombers to bring destruction on a massive scale to cities. The war saw the deaths of 60 000 British civilians, mostly as a result of German bombing (and later the V1 and V2 weapons), but this was little compared to the numbers of German dead as a result of the British and US bombing of German cities in the second half of the war. We do not know the exact figure, but it is estimated that around 600 000 German civilians died from bombing, so we can estimate that there were 1.5–2 million casualties overall, including many maimed for life. World War II also saw the introduction of nuclear weapons, and their first use in Japan. The Hiroshima bomb killed at least 40 000 people instantly; including the bombing of Nagasaki it is thought that over 200 000 died, either instantly or through radiation poisoning which led to several types of cancer, including breast, lung, and thyroid; along with skin, urinary tract, esophagal cancer, salivary gland tumors, and malignant lymphomas. The bombs also led to chromosomal abnormalities and microcephaly with mental retardation. There were many Japanese casualties from nonnuclear bombing, which is often forgotten when we think of the nuclear attack. Around 40% of urban houses in Japan were destroyed during the war by conventional high explosive and, particularly, incendiary bombs. It is the shift from military to civilian casualties over the century which is most dramatic. World War II (if we count it as starting in the 1930s in China) saw the biggest shift, with around 50% of the casualties being civilian, and many of these resulting from deliberate policies of killing, whether it is the Nazi extermination camps, mass executions in Russia, the murders committed by the Japanese on civilians in the Far East, or the indiscriminate bombing of many cities, culminating in the firebombing of Tokyo and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Health Consequences of War and Political Violence

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Table 2 UNHCR statistics for the numbers of refugees, IDPs, asylum seekers and total number of persons of concern, 1999–2005 (millions except asylum seekers column) Year

Refugee

IDP

Asylum seekers

Total persons of concern

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999

8.4 9.5 9.7 10.6 12 12 11.7

6.6 5.4 4.2 4.6 5.0 6.0 4.0

668 000 838 000 882 000 941 000 940 000 947 000 1 181 000

20.8 19.5 17.0 20.7 21.2 21.8 22.3

From shortly after World War II until the present day there have been large-scale wars in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, which have involved evermore civilians as casualties. In Europe the Bosnian war of 1992–95 saw the deaths of around 200 000 people, most of whom (perhaps 90%) were civilians. The Bosnian War also saw large numbers of the population being forcibly removed from their homes. Many became refugees in Western Europe and North America, others were moved from one part of the country to another, becoming internally displaced persons, IDPs). Bosnia is just one example, and by no means the largest example, of the forced movement of populations. During the twentieth century, this has been a common phenomenon, including the German movements west after both World Wars I and II, the population transfers in the Soviet Union and Communist China, and the many millions of people who have lost their homes in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Table 2 provides details of recent figures as issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). These statistics do not include the estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees living in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories. The other groups include those who have taken voluntary repatriation, resettlement, local integration, stateless persons, and others of concern who have not applied for asylum because it would be too dangerous. In 2005 Pakistan and Iran hosted the most refugees (21% of the total), but this was a significant reduction from the previous year because many Afghans had returned to their own country. The majority of refugees were in developing countries (68% at the end of 2004). Colombia has the largest population of concern, with over 2 million people, virtually all of whom are IDPs. The pattern has changed from the 1990s, with the proportion of refugees to the total of persons of concern dropping from 6 out of 10 to 4 out of 10.

Current Understanding of Mental Health Consequences A good historical analysis of the mental health consequences of war and political violence is a difficult task because conceptions of mental illness have changed

significantly. Before the twentieth century, understanding was, as we have seen, both very different and limited. There are serious mental health consequences resulting from war and political violence. These fall mainly in the PTSD spectrum of disorders, and also include depression, anxiety, and other problems such as substance abuse. The levels of PTSD vary among both military and civilian populations exposed to war. They vary according to a number of factors relating to experience such as torture, rape, abuse, or imprisonment, and social support. War can have permanent effects on survivors of conflicts. There are issues relating to the loss of family members, the breakup of families, and becoming a refugee or asylum seeker in another country. PTSD was introduced as a diagnostic category in DSM-III in 1980. It was introduced on the basis of research relating to war, specifically the US experience in the Vietnam War. Since then research has demonstrated that the symptoms of PTSD are appropriate for other forms of traumatic incidents, some of which can be war-related, such as the response to torture or rape; and some of which relate to other incidents such as natural or man-made disasters. The fundamental diagnostic criteria for PTSD do seem to be applicable not only in relation to the type of incident, but also across cultures. The main symptoms of PTSD are intrusive thoughts, where the person has uncontrolled memories of the traumatic event, perhaps expressed through nightmares, or flashbacks. Traumatic memories are closely associated with behavioral and emotional responses, such as fear, horror, or helplessness. The person not only experiences these memories, but tries to avoid them, by avoiding any reminders of the traumatic event. This can be associated with emotional numbing, whereby the sufferer numbs not only the negative emotions associated with the traumatic memories, but also positive emotions, and so cannot express feelings of love or happiness, which of course can have severe effects on relationships, which are likely to be already strained because of the war and its consequences. The person with PTSD also experiences forms of physical hyperarousal, which might be expressed as an exaggerated startle response, an inability to concentrate, or disturbance of sleep. In order to obtain a classification of PTSD the person must have these diagnostic criteria,

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and also be significantly affected at work, at home, or in their social life. PTSD symptoms must be felt for a period of at least 1 month for acute PTSD, 3 months for chronic PTSD, and delayed onset PTSD occurs when the person does not experience symptoms until at least 6 months after the event. PTSD is rarely experienced as a single disorder; most people also have other disorders, such as generalized anxiety or depression, which is why some criticize PTSD, claiming that it lacks validity and needs revision or even removal from the classification system. People with complex war-related traumatic experiences can have more complex disorders. DESNOS (disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified) is a category that is not yet in the classification system, but is recognized by many clinicians as appropriate for diagnosing people with complex experiences. The symptoms not only include the PTSD symptoms described, along with complex traumatic memories, but may also include problems with cognitive, biological, and affective selfregulation. It is not possible to know with any certainty the incidence of mental health disorders in a war zone or after a war. A proportion of people with depression or anxiety will have had these problems even without a war. There is only limited evidence relating to the increased incidence and prevalance of mental disorders, and that evidence is often gathered under difficult circumstances and so is likely to be less accurate than what we usually obtain through epidemiological studies. The mental health of civillians is usually more severely affected than that of combat troops in war; and women are generally more affected than men. Other vulnerable groups include children, older people, and the disabled. The majority of people do not experience pathological levels of mental disorder after a war. The figures about those who do vary dramatically, according to the particular war, the participants, and the kind of research that has been carried out.

Physical Health Consequences of Modern Warfare Political violence and war are a major public health problem, not only because of the direct consequences, the deaths and injury caused by war, but also because of the longer-term effects on health and well-being for individuals, families, and communities. As we have seen, disease and famine have always been common comcomitants of war and political violence, along with direct physical casualties, deaths, wounds, and disability. There are also consequences due to the loss of the health service infrastructure, which mean that people who fall ill during a conflict but not as a result of

the conflict, may be more likely to experience more serious health consequences, including death, than they otherwise would because there are limited medical facilities available. Iraq has had little peace since 1980, with the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq War, the First Gulf War of 1990–91, the sanctions imposed by the USA and Britain until the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the current (at time of writing, April 2007) Gulf War. It is estimated that up to 1 000 000 people died in the Iran–Iraq War (see Table 1), and around 100 000–200 000 died in the First Gulf War. According to UNICEF, up to 500 000 children died as a direct consequence of the US/UK sanctions, and that the figure for deaths in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 is unknown as no one keeps accurate records, but an article in The Lancet in October 2006 estimed that perhaps 600 000 have died, with countless more maimed and wounded, and we do not know how many have succumbed to illnesses as a consequence of the war or because medical facilities are inadequate because of the war. The infrastructure of the Iraqi healthcare service has been severely damaged, as has the ability to provide clean drinking water and electricity. We do not have figures to indicate how many of these deaths are a direct consequence of war and how many have occurred as an indirect consequence due to the destruction of health service provision and the reduced availability of medicines and other basic requirements. Iraq over the last few decades is an unfortunate example of the impact of war and political violence in terms of the breadth of physical and mental health consequences, and how sophisticated countries – in this case the USA – still do not keep accurate records of casualties and health problems. The proportion of wounded to dead is usually higher than in the past, particularly for developed countries, where most service personnel receive more effective lifesaving treatment. A wounded person is less likely to die of their wounds than in previous conflicts, but this has an impact on the cost to the state, with more people receiving disability pensions, and having longer periods in hospital, and a different impact on families, who may have to provide long-term care for a disabled person. The war in the Congo, which has so far continued for a decade, has resulted in the deaths of several millions of people, with a large proportion being young children. The causes of death tend not to be combat, but diseases that do not receive adequate treatment such as diarrhoea and malnutrition. Again, this is the result of the damage to the infrastructure of the country, meaning that hospitals have limited resources and food supplies often fail to get through to where they are needed. Since its recognition in 1981, HIV/AIDS has spread around the world very rapidly. It is estimated that there are around 40 million people currently living with HIV/ AIDS, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. While there are

Health Consequences of War and Political Violence

health programs which can be effective in reducing the incidence and prevalence of the disorder, these may only be temporarily effective because the permanent behavior change which is required does not last. The spread of HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa, has increased because of war and political conflict. This is because the incidence of violent rape and sexual abuse increases in a war zone, and traveling soldiers with the infection are likely to have sexual relations with people across a wide geographical area, thus increasing the spread of the disease.

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stems from. Some of the great wars of the past, for example, the Mongol Wars of the thirteenth century, involved civilians to the extent that locals were often massacred after a battle, for example, after one battle Ghengis Khan ordered the slaughter of over 1 million civilians. Many factors relating to war occur in all types of wars. The descriptions below relate only to elements that are specific to each category.

International Wars Social and Economic Health Consequences of Modern War There are severe social and economic consequences of war and political violence which have a direct impact on health. The most obvious is the burden on the health services, and the damage to the infrastructure of the health services which often means that while there is an increased number of people requiring healthcare (both from war-related injuries and increased prevalence of illness as a result of the war), the availability of such care is limited. This problem is compounded when the war occurs in developing countries (which is proportionally more likely), and which may not have had adequate healthcare services before the war. There are also indirect health consequences which are very difficult to measure, such as decreased economic productivity, which leads to increased poverty for the individual and slows the rate of recovery for the society. There is also an increase in the burden of both formal and informal caregiving, to look after the sick, the injured, and the maimed.

The Impact of Different Types of War and Political Violence Health consequences vary according to the type of war and political violence. This section examines these differences in the light of specific examples of recent wars and conflicts, including full-scale civil wars such as Bosnia and Somalia, international wars such as Afghanistan and Iraq, dirty wars, where governments are responsible for violence against their populations, and low intensity (Guerrilla or terrorist) wars such as Northern Ireland and Colombia. Civilians have always suffered from armies. For instance, many of the Napoleonic era conflicts, which appeared to be about the destruction of the enemy army, actually involved large numbers of civilians. In the Peninsular Wars, the French policy was to steal food from the populace, which led to many civilians fighting as guerrillas (literally ‘little war’), which is where the term

These occur between nations when one or more nations attempt to impose their will on one or more other nations. These nations may be roughly equal in power (e.g., World War I or World War II). They may also occur between nations that have differential power, for example, the colonial wars of the European powers, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or more recently between the USA and weaker powers (e.g., Iraq). These wars can be prolonged and have serious effects on mental and physical health, particularly if the victorious power destroys the infrastructure of the defeated.

Civil Wars Civil wars usually have a major impact on civilians, both directly through being attacked by military and paramilitary forces, and indirectly through the destruction of the infrastructure and the stealing or destruction of food supplies. The effects for many are potracted, often for a lifetime if someone becomes a refugee or is maimed through war action. There may also be high levels of mental health problems, again with long-term consequences.

Dirty Wars Other wars, the so-called ‘dirty wars’, are often fought entirely as guerrilla wars, with the population terrorized by guerrilla groups who want particular political objectives. This can be labeled as terrorism, as it involves deliberately making a population fearful, of attacking with bombs and bullets in unexpected places, avoiding direct contact with the legitimate armed forces, emerging only to attack, and then going back into hiding.

Terrorism Terrorism is a term that is currently used inappropriately in some quarters. Terrorism involves the deliberate targeting of civilians by an organized group of paramilitaries who have some political objective which they believe they

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will achieve through terrorizing the population. While this is not the place to discuss the types of terrorism, it does have consequences for health. Some terrorist organizations use terrorism even where they could put their arguments forward in a democratic manner, and have the freedom to debate their cause. This could apply to Northern Ireland, and to the Basques in Spain. Others use terrorist techniques because they have no alternative, because they do not have the means to discuss their political goals openly and fairly. One example is the Palestinians in Israel/Palestine. The consequences of terrorist activity can be severe, both mentally and physically. Bombs shatter bodies. If a person is near the bomb they may literally be blown to pieces, and sometimes bodies cannot be identified, even genetically. Those further from the blast experience the loss of limbs, or serious damage to the spine. These injuries have obvious permanent consequences. They create permanent disability, those involved may have to give up their work or change jobs, and they may require temporary or permanent support from the state. Other disabling injuries involve the loss of eyes or hearing, and permanent damage to internal organs. While many people with bomb-related injuries recover completely, it can take a long time, and is expensive on resources, particularly if the terrorist activity is taking place in a developing country which has limited medical resources. There are also severe mental health consequences for areas affected by terrorist activity. This can be a consequence of directly experiencing a terrorist attack, whether one is injured, observes the event, or is perhaps involved in a kidnapping; the consequences relate to PTSD as described above. If the PTSD is severe, again there can be consequences relating to work and family, and the drain on the health services. There are other problems associated with living in an area severely affected by terrorist attacks. Just the threat itself of an attack can affect the mental and social health of people – which is the intention of the people committing the acts. Beyond that, if the security services introduce severe measures to try and stop the terrorist attacks, as is happening now in Western Europe and North America, then they can also impact on the emotional well-being of the individual.

Low-Intensity War Many of the conflicts, particularly but not exclusively, in Africa and Latin America, can be characterized as lowintensity wars. They may be international, or they may be civil wars. In these wars (or conflicts) guerrilla-style tactics are used by the military forces of the country, sometimes fighting against other armed groups, often with the support of one or more foreign countries which might supply arms and money to support the fighting. For

instance, the fighting in Colombia, where the Colombian government is supported by the United States, which has an interest in reducing the supply of cocaine. A common tactic used in low-intensity warfare is the terrorizing of populations to ensure they do not provide active support, for example, food, shelter, to insurgents. The military may remove the population of certain areas, and then apply a scorched-earth policy, destroying villages, crops, and animals, so that insurgents cannot receive supplies. On some occasions, civilians become military targets, and are slaughtered by the military. Low-intensity warfare, then, has a number of healthrelated consequences. If populations are not killed then they may lose access to basic medical services, or they may not have enough to eat; both of these have potentially serious health consequences.

Other Types of War and Conflict It is sometimes difficult to categorize wars. For instance, the Chechen War and the Civil War in Georgia both started with terrorist activities, but expanded to become full-scale civil wars, with direct fighting between armies and rebels. The changing nature of war can have consequences on the people living in the area. When they are bewildered as to what is happening around them, there are also potential mental health consequences.

Costs Relating to the Health Consequences of War and Political Violence We have seen that there are many costs associated with the health consequences of war and political violence. These include the costs associated with healthcare, the loss of the economic ability of those killed, wounded, or ill as a consequence of war. The actual costs are difficult to determine because they are never fully added up. According to Ugalde and co-workers in 2000, there are three key areas where there is underassessment in evaluating the health costs of war. These include psychosocial behaviors, environmental destruction, and disruption to policymaking. While it is difficult to accurately measure these factors in terms of the impact on health, taking them into account will lead to a more accurate assessment. As an example, one of the psychosocial costs of war is the impact of increasing use of drugs and alcohol, along with their concomitant economic costs through drug-related illness, crime, and underemployment. These figures cannot be accurately quantified. For instance, the estimates of the costs of the Iraq war range from $100 billion to $300 billion (in the USA alone), with some commentators suggesting that the final cost may be $1 trillion.

Health Consequences of War and Political Violence

Impact on Particular Populations This section focuses on the health consequences for specific populations involved in war and political conflict. Children Children have always had a difficult time in war. Many are orphaned, lose their opportunities for education, or lose their homes. There is strong evidence that children do suffer mental health problems as a consequence of their war experiences. Instead of being brought up in a safe environment, everything is disrupted. This can have longterm consequences that we do not fully understand. There is very little research relating to the very long-term impact of war experiences on children, which is unfortunate given the large numbers of children who experience war. These effects relate to mental health, physical health, and to the consequences of the disruption of education. Women While there are many armies in which women fight alongside men, it is civilian women who experience the greatest health consequences. Women are often the ones who try to hold their homes together in war. They have to feed the family, look after the injured, and try to keep the physical environment acceptable to live in. Beyond the normal consequences, women have the social health consequences to consider. They may also be imprisioned or subjected to violence, sexual or otherwise, which may have permanent physical and mental health consequences. In some wars, the armed forces deliberately use sexual violence against women as a tactic to undermine the opposiing forces and establish dominance in certain regions (e.g., Bosnia 1992–95).

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have been permanently disabled through direct action, for example, the loss of limbs, eyes, genitals, or who have had serious injuries such as a broken back. People who have been exposed to chemical or biological attack may have permanent damage to, for instance, lungs or eyesight. Disease may also impact permanently on an individual. There can also be serious consequences relating to the experience of hunger during war. For instance, older people in certain parts of Andalucia in Spain suffer severe rickets because they were young children in the years during and after the Spanish Civil War, a time of famine in Andalucia. In the author’s own research, cases of World-War-II veterans who were held prisoner by the Japanese, and who, because of their experiences with tropical diseases and starvation in the prisoner of war (POW) camps, have had lifelong problems with their digestive systems have been noted. The longer-term consequences of war can increase for those people who are aging, as the aging process means that they have reduced resources to deal with their problems. The difficulties associated with an old wound may lead to arthritis and restricted movement, or the psychological problems associated with traumatic memories may re-emerge after retirement. Indeed, there is strong evidence that war-related traumatic memories do re-emerge after retirement, when the veteran has more time to think about their war experiences. In the end, while our understanding of the type of longer-term war-related health problems is fairly good, the extent of such problems is not known. Not only are the statistics difficult to obtain, it may not be possible to determine whether a particular disorder is related to war experience, or to some other cause.

Refugees

Conclusions

Refugees and asylum seekers are those who have left their homes, usually by force. They may have physical health problems, and many do have mental health consequences (e.g., PTSD, depression, and anxiety) as a result of their war experiences, including the experience of leaving their home country. One study showed that Bosnians who became refugees in the UK had more serious mental health consequences than those who lost their homes and were internally displaced. This is explained through refugees having less social support, and having to live in an alien country which has a difficult language and strange food and customs.

Many millions of people have died in conflicts from the beginning of the twentieth century. Just how many millions is not known, because it is impossible to obtain accurate figures for many wars, including major conflicts such as World War II. For every person who died, there are several who suffered, and are suffering, from injuries, often disabling, and from the mental health consequences of their experiences. While an accurate figure is not possible, it is estimated that around 1 billion people have been casualties of war in the twentieth century. Many are living in countries far from their birthplace, which itself has associated issues. As these effects can be long-lasting or permanent, there are vast numbers of people living with the health consequences of war and political violence. There is no doubt that war and public health remain at odds with each other. Wars continue to be fought, and fought brutally; and they affect the health, both mental

Longer-Term Effects of War The health consequencs of war can last for many years, sometimes permanently. This is the case for those who

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and physical, of many people, including millions of innocent civilians who have been caught up in the conflict. See also: Health Services, Effects of War and Political Violence on

Further Reading APA (2000). The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, (DSM-IV-TR), 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Bortolotti, D. (2004). Hope in hell: Inside the world of medicin sans frontieres. London: Firefly. Burnham, G., Lafta, R., Doocy, S., and Roberts, L. (2006). Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: A cross-sectional cluster sample survey. The Lancet 368(9545), 1421–1428. Friedrich, J. (2006). The fire: The bombing of Germany 1940–1945 (trans. Brown, A.). New York: Columbia University Press. Hunt, N. and Gakenyi, M. (2005). Comparing refugees and non-refugees: The Bosnian experience. Journal of Anxiety Disorders 19, 717–723. Levy, B. and Sidel, V. W. (2008). War and public health, 2nd rev. edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murthy, R. S. and Lakshminarayana, R. (2006). Mental health consequences of war: A brief review of research findings. World Psychiatry 5(1), 25–30.

Smallman-Raynor, M. and Cliff, A. D. (2004). War epidemics: An historical geography of infectious diseases in military conflict and civil strife, 1850–2000. Oxford: OUP. Taipale, I. (2001). War or health?: A reader. London: Zed Books. Ugalde, A., Selva-Sutter, E., Castillo, C., Paz, C., and Canas, S. (2000). The health costs of war: Can they be measured? Lessons from El Salvador. British Medical Journal 321, 169–172. UNHCR (2006). 2005 Global refugee trends. UNHCR: Geneva. Wesseley, S. and Jones, E. (2005). Shellshock to PTSD: Military psychiatry from 1900 to the Gulf War. London: Psychology Press. Wilson, J. P. and Drozdek, B. (2004). Broken spirits: The treatment of traumatised asylum seekers, refugees, war and torture victims. New York: Brunner/Routledge.

Relevant Websites http://www.cdc.gov – Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). http://globalhealth.org – Global Health Council. http://www.ncptsd.va.gov – National Center for PTSD. http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk – Refugee Council. http://www.unhcr.ch – United Nations Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). http://www.unfpa.org – United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). http://www.va.gov – United States Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

Health Services, Effects of War and Political Violence on Anthony B Zwi, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK Antonio Ugalde and Patricia Richards, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Impact on Health Services and Systems Positive Effects of Conflict on Health Systems

Glossary Cold Chain The systems and services required to ensure that vaccines are kept at a cool temperature to ensure their viability during processes of packaging, distribution, and ultimately delivery to the person being immunized. Primary Healthcare The basic level of healthcare that should be effective, equitable, accessible, acceptable, and affordable to users of services. The primary care approach is closely linked with a multisectoral model of

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 679–690, ã1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

Postconflict Challenges Conclusions Further Reading

health and development and is community oriented and accountable. Secondary Healthcare This term usually refers to hospital-level healthcare, operating at district or local government level. Tertiary Healthcare Institutions that receive referral cases from secondary care facilities. Tertiary care institutions are typically (but not always) located in the large urban areas and will include national referral centers and teaching hospitals.

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Vertical Programs These health programs focus on a single condition (e.g., malaria or tuberculosis), set of conditions (e.g., childhood diseases for which immunizations are available), or set of interventions (e.g., those necessary to promote safe delivery of children and the health of their mothers) and are typically

Introduction There is increasing recognition that political violence and war present a significant negative impact on health services and health systems. They also present opportunities, however, for the development of new services and systems; the challenge of confronting adversity allows for innovation, creativity, and the emergence of new technologies and systems that may have some positive benefits for health. This article examines how political violence of various forms affects health services and health systems. It presents a model, reflecting the mechanisms by which war and political violence adversely affect health systems and seeks to demonstrate the variety of ways in which this occurs. We highlight the challenges facing health systems in their attempts to maintain activity despite adversity. Lastly, we focus attention on societies emerging from conflicts and seek to highlight the role of international aid and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in supporting the reestablishment and development of health systems. Trends in Conflict As described elsewhere in this encyclopedia, the nature and number of wars have changed over time. Each of the last three centuries has revealed an increase in the number of wars and associated deaths. Over 107 million people have died in wars this century alone. While the vast majority of such conflicts have taken place in less-developed countries, there have been notable exceptions, such as the 1956 war in Hungary, the 1969 war on the Soviet–Chinese border, and the more recent conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and parts of the former Soviet Union. A variety of types of struggle, each with different determinants and effects, have been identified. Important factors include anticolonial struggles for independence; struggles based largely on superpower rivalry and the quest for regional hegemony; conflict within states, between classes, religions, ethnic groups, and tribes, often as a result of inequalities in access to political power and decision making, as well as in securing resources for development; and struggles between states over territory, some of which relate to the often arbitrary way in which historically colonized countries and their borders were defined.

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organized in such a way that a range of financial control, service delivery, logistics, human resources and training, information systems, and accountability are all located at one key point, often outside of the usual systems for maintaining these activities within the general health system.

Violent conflict may also result from populations seeking to redress the structural violence they have experienced: in this sense, war and conflict may represent a survival strategy. For different types of conflict, the extent, form, intensity, and severity of violence varies, as does its effect on health, health services, and systems. Additional influential factors will include the prior development of health services and systems, as well as the nature and form of the conflict, including its scope and geographic extent, its duration, speed of onset (sudden, gradual, chronic), and the level of social preparedness. Impact on Health Reveals Impact on Health System Examining certain ‘tracer conditions’ or health problems allows us to identify some of the mechanism by which these adverse effects occur. Aside from the direct effects of conflict on injuries and deaths, many of the other effects are mediated through an impact on health services and systems. Infant mortality, for example, may be susceptible to the impact of conflict through reduced access to primary care services, the unavailability of drugs for treatable conditions such as respiratory infections, and the disruption of immunization services. Other effects on nutrition, the family structure, and access to water and shelter will not be described here but clearly have important influences on health, probably more so than health services themselves. During the Ugandan civil war the infant mortality rate rose to above 600 per 1000 in certain war-affected areas; in 1989, UNICEF documented the massive impact of conflict on infant and child survival in Southern Africa. Refugees and internally displaced populations, many fleeing from the effects of conflict, have raised mortality rates, often resulting from the combined effects of poor nutrition, increased vulnerability to communicable diseases, diminished access to health services, poor environmental conditions, anxiety, and stress. In Ethiopia, for example, the sharp decline in immunization coverage during the expansion of the war front in 1991 is likely to have contributed significantly to increasing child mortality; Garfield and colleagues describe a war-related measles epidemic in Nicaragua, attributed in large part to the

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declining ability of the health service to immunize those at risk in conflict-affected areas. Similarly, the destruction of malaria control activities was instrumental in causing malaria epidemics in Ethiopia in 1991, and in Nicaragua and Mozambique, suggesting that these complex control programs, which require access to people and their homes, are particularly sensitive to disruption in periods of conflict. Increased rates of malaria may result from warrelated population and troop movements, the inability to carry out timely disease control activities, and shortages of personnel for the conduct of control programs in peripheral areas. Epidemics of louse-borne typhus and relapsing fever have been associated with crowded army camps, prisons, and relief camps, as well as the sale of infected blankets and clothes by retreating soldiers to local communities. Meningitis, dengue fever, and leishmaniasis have all been associated with conflict. Cholera in Africa has been linked with population movements, in great part a response to conflict; sleeping sickness has reemerged in Angola due to the ongoing civil war; and guinea-worm disease, which is targeted for worldwide eradication, is uncontrolled in South Sudan where an ongoing civil war is underway. A variety of authors have drawn attention to the ‘high risk situation’ for HIV transmission that occurs in times of conflict. HIV infection has reached high levels in many army forces; the ability of these men to command sexual services from local women through payment or force; the movement of troops to different parts of the country and the front, and their ultimate return to different parts of the country after demobilization, present significant risks to women. Aside from communicable diseases, nutrition programs and other community-based programs such as the provision of postpartum care maybe affected; hospital admissions may decline as a result of services put out of commission or the decline in availability of health service staff. Monitoring these trends may be difficult as the health information system itself may collapse. Violent political conflict may affect mental health in a variety of ways. The nature of the conflict, the nature of the trauma experienced (or inflicted, as in the case of torture and other repressive violence), the individual and community response to these pressures, the psychological health of those affected prior to the event, the state of community cohesion, and the relationship between the individual, community, and the political struggle taking place will all influence mental health outcomes. In each of these examples, the impact of conflict on health system activity, whether this be information collection and surveillance, delivery of basic healthcare services, maintenance of disease control programs, availability of health education and promotion activities, or immunization programs, impedes service delivery and health promotion. These are discussed in more detail further ahead.

Impact on Health Services and Systems Lee and Haines attempted to quantify the impact on health services of the war of the US-led coalition against Iraq in 1991. The prewar Iraqi health system was extensive, accessible to 90% of the population, and it reached 95% of the children requiring immunization. By the end of the war, many hospitals and clinics had been severely damaged or closed; those still operating in the months after the war were forced to cope with massive catchment populations, rendering them unable to provide appropriate care. The damage to infrastructure, such as water supplies, electricity, and sewage disposal, further exacerbated both the determinants of health and the circumstances in which health services operated. Access to Services The impact of war on health facilities and service delivery is time and location specific. Access will clearly depend on the prior availability of services and their distribution. Users of services are able to utilize them only if they have geographic access (i.e., they are not too far away), economic access (i.e., the services are affordable), and social access (there are no psychological or other barriers preventing use of services). During conflicts all these forms of access to services may be restricted. In Afghanistan following the takeover of Kabul and other towns by the Taliban, women lost access to many services that were previously available to them. Population movement to access services may be limited as people may be unable to reach services for fear of encountering military personnel or because access to health services is actively hindered. Risk of physical or sexual assault may deter women from seeking care, curfews may prevent people moving about, whether in daytime or nighttime, and the widespread use of antipersonnel landmines may, directly or indirectly, impede access to health services. People who have been injured may avoid using public services that carry a risk of security force surveillance and in which those with suspicious wounds may be detained or questioned. In South Africa and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, NGOs established alternative health services to allow those injured during uprisings against repressive regimes to seek care without fear of detection and detention. Many other factors conspire to reduce access: peripheral services may be directly targeted as in Mozambique or Nicaragua. Health workers, anxious to protect their own safety and that of their families, may move to urban areas and may be unwilling to work in more vulnerable peripheral sites. Increasingly, given the absence of drug supplies and logistics support, health workers operating in peripheral services may question whether they are achieving anything at all and may abandon their

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public sector work in favor of simply ensuring their own survival – either by migration, diversification out of healthcare provision, or privatizing the care they provide. In some cases services were not available prior to or during the conflict; in others, there is a rapid decline in service availability, especially where the affected society was fairly well resourced and supported, as in the former Yugoslavia, where the sudden lack of access to good quality medical care was a great shock to the population. Conflict may seriously disrupt the linkages between different levels of the health service: referrals from clinics to district hospitals, or from districts to provincial centers may be impeded by lack of logistics and communication support as well as by physical and military barriers. Towns and cities may be surrounded and entry into and out of them controlled; experience of besieged cities has taken place over millennia but has more recently been repeated in Sarajevo and in a number of towns in Southern Sudan, such as Juba. Health Services Activity As mentioned earlier, health service activity may adapt in a variety of ways. There is generally a tendency to shift from basic primary care activities, where these were provided, toward secondary care services. This partly reflects the shift from peripheral to more urban services, as well as a reduction in peripheral service availability as health workers themselves move to safer areas. In addition, if the military aspects of the conflict intensify, more effort is required to attend to the war wounded, and preventive care and health promotion drop down the list of priorities. Even in situations where there is a desire to promote preventive care, such as in the Tigrayan struggle for liberation, early efforts focused specifically on dealing with those wounded in war and making sure that fighting forces were sufficiently well to continue with their campaigns. In addressing the needs of the war wounded, including rehabilitation, longer-term health development and community-based activities may be sacrificed. Scarce healthcare personnel will be drawn into a more limited range of activities. A frequently disrupted set of services are those concerned with disease control programs. In relation to malaria control, for example, vector control programs, house spraying, the drainage of stagnant water, the availability of information and education activities, and the ongoing development of treatment protocols, training, and supervision necessary to ensure good quality early treatment of disease may all be compromised. The disruption of surveillance and health information systems will further exacerbate these problems and may reduce pressure to ensure that the problem is addressed. Public health programs geared to following up people with communicable diseases, contacting their families and partners, and making advice, information, screening, or

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care available to them, may be compromised. Community outreach activities invariably suffer as services contract and are offered only in safer, less peripheral areas. As the public health sector declines for the reasons cited above, other actors increasingly engage in healthcare provision. These include the local indigenous and medical private sector, as well as local and international NGOs. Activities become increasingly ‘projectized’, with a lack of overarching direction within a broad policy framework. Aid dependency increases; along with this comes an increase in donor control and a skewing in the nature and types of programs offered. Activities may become increasingly limited to small areas or specific districts and populations. Programs that do operate are likely to become increasingly vertical with a single system operating to assess needs, deliver services, monitor performance, and finance the system. The gap between these better-funded vertical programs and the general health services may widen substantially as the former are protected from the neglect and withdrawal of resources occurring elsewhere in the health system. Infrastructure The destruction of the physical infrastructure necessary for the delivery of health services may wreak havoc on systems attempting to maintain services. The direct targeting of clinics, hospitals, and ambulances may be against international humanitarian law but has frequently been experienced in latter-day conflicts. Increasingly, the delivery of aid, whether in the form of food or healthcare, has itself been targeted during intense international conflicts. In addition, related facilities such as those necessary for storage, water distribution, sewage removal, or electricity have been targeted with adverse health service effects. The Sudanese army deliberately destroyed hand water pumps in rebel areas, and the insurgency did likewise in government-held territory. During the Gulf War allied bombing damaged sewage treatment plants and water supplies in Iraq. Potable water availability declined from 7 million to 1.5 million cubic meters per day. Shortages of chemicals and electricity required for testing and ensuring water potability led to outbreaks of typhoid, cholera, and gastrointestinal diseases. In Nicaragua, the insurgency destroyed the main pharmaceutical storage facility of the country in Corinto, creating a severe shortage for months. The destruction of nonhealth physical infrastructure such as roads, electrical plants, and communication systems has indirect health consequences. In Cape Town, South Africa, transport difficulties prevented health workers from attending work; experiences in the occupied Palestinian territories and other regions of active ongoing conflict have been similar. In some Iraqi hospitals, elevators did not work during energy blackouts and patients could not be moved to surgical theaters, and emergency interventions had to be delayed or

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took place in suboptimal conditions. The displacement of rural dwellers and health workers from rural areas produced a more urban care system causing a total breakdown of several rural districts. Equipment and Supplies During violent political conflicts, fewer medicines and inputs to healthcare may be available to the public health sector because of budgetary reductions and import difficulties. The shortage of drugs may translate into an increase in medically preventable causes of death, such as those from asthma, diabetes, and infectious diseases. Shortages also lower the quality of care. In Somalia, amputations performed without intravenous antibiotics produced high rates of infections, and in former Yugoslavia operations were performed with inadequate anesthesia. In Uganda, the Essential Drugs Management Programme, funded by the Danish International Development Agency and organized in the early 1980s, was disrupted by the conflict. Many rural dwellers who for the first time had access to modern medicines were once more deprived of basic drugs. The cold chain, necessary for ensuring that vaccines are kept in appropriate conditions from the time of manufacture to transport and supply and ultimately delivery to the individual, may be disrupted with serious consequences for communicable disease outbreaks. The availability of basic healthcare technologies, such as functioning X-ray units or laboratories, may be undermined by lack of maintenance, spare parts, skilled personnel, chemicals, and other supplies. More sophisticated technologies, such as ultrasound or fetal monitoring, even where previously available, may no longer be present with health workers having to change their practice to less technologyintensive approaches. While this may not, in itself, necessarily be inappropriate, it does increase the levels of stress faced by both healthcare providers and users alike. Budget A key concern is the impact of ongoing military struggle on government spending on the social sector. In Ethiopia, the conflict against the Ethiopian Derg led to increases in military expenditure from 11.2% of the government budget in 1974 –75 to 36.5% by 1990–91, and to declines in the health budget from 6.1% in 1973–74 to 3.5% in 1985–86 and 3.2% in 1990–91. The deterioration of the economy during wars implies a reduction in public expenditure. Funds required to support the war shifts budgetary priorities and allocations from social services to the military. The result is a smaller percentage of a smaller budget for health. In Uganda, income per capita was reduced from $500 in 1965 to $250 by 1989 (in constant prices of 1989). In 1986 the public health budget was only 6.4% of what had been in

the early 1970s. The drastic reduction of funding at a time when needs were greater, the lack of available health workers and key health administrators, the destruction of physical infrastructure, and the weakening of civil and political institutions all contributed to the collapse of the health system. Before the beginning of political violence, Uganda enjoyed health services considered to be among the best in sub-Saharan Africa; by the end of the conflict in 1986, it was near the bottom. In El Salvador the gross national product (GNP) per capita (in constant prices of 1960) was reduced from $839 in 1978 to $619 in 1989, and the proportion of the national budget allocated to health plummeted from 10% in 1980 to 6% in 1990. In the same period the budget available to the ministry of health, as a percentage of the GNP, declined from 2% to 0.9%. Until 1980, the health budget had been higher than the defense budget, but during the first year of the civil war more funds were allocated to the military than to health, and at the peak of the conflict in 1986, the official figures (which probably represented a small part of the real allocations) showed that the military received about 4 times more than the health sector. During the 1967–70 civil war in Nigeria, the military expenditures rose exponentially. In 1966, only 7% of the national budget was dedicated to defense; by 1970 the percentage was 43%. During the same period, health expenditures as a percentage of the GNP fell from 4% to 0.8%. Human Resources Injury, killing, kidnapping, and exodus of health workers are common during periods of political violence and war. As in the case of the destruction of the physical infrastructure, there is evidence that in many countries, including Argentina, Guatemala, Mozambique, and Nicaragua, health workers were targeted for destruction. In Uganda, half the doctors and 80% of the pharmacists left the country between 1972 and 1985. After the war for independence from Portugal, Mozambique was left with only 80 of the 500 doctors present before independence. By 1960, 1 year after the Cuban revolution, half of the Cuban physicians had left that country. Other times, war-ravaged countries are left without health planning and administrative expertise. Shortage of personnel reduces the availability and quality of services and the control of communicable diseases. As supports to the delivery of healthcare decline, the morale of service providers is compromised and a vicious spiral of declining quality of care, declining utilization, and increasing privatization ensue. Health workers increasingly seek to protect their own interests, whether by moving to safer areas, by emigration, or by drainage into nongovernmental and private services. The lack of skilled personnel, referral systems, training, and support all detract from the quality of services provided and the satisfaction that service providers take in the care they offer.

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Community Involvement In many other struggles, particularly those of the ‘lowintensity’ form, there is evidence of community leaders and social structures being specifically targeted for destruction and annihilation. The war against the Marxist Frelimo state in Mozambique was waged, in part, through an attempt to reduce access to healthcare and educational services that the state had prioritized as a symbol of its commitment to improving the quality of life in rural and peri-urban areas. As a result, these services became specially targeted, for the same reason: in an attempt to undermine the support attracted by the state. In Nicaragua, another country in which the socialist uprising had sought to give priority to education and health services, these were targeted by opposition forces. The immediate and longer-term effect of such action is difficult to quantify: what is clear, however, is that local systems of democracy and accountability will be disrupted and involvement in community affairs discouraged. Health Policy Formation Violent political conflict tends to undermine national capacity to make decisions rationally and accountably. On the other hand, conflict may bring communities together to work collectively to solve problems, an issue discussed briefly further. During periods of conflict, established and routine systems of making decisions, planning, assessing needs, and responding to them may be seriously disrupted during periods of ongoing conflict. As mentioned earlier, normal services may be disrupted and resources, whether human or material, may be required for new needs. A key problem in conflict-affected settings is the wide range of actors operating and the lack of the usual lines of accountability for action. In regular health systems, decisions taken at a peripheral level are accountable, usually within the health sector, to district or provincial health authorities, and these are, in turn, responsible to central health authorities. During conflicts, the system of provision and response to needs may be highly decentralized with few lines of accountability. A related problem is that the policy framework, within which providers and purchasers of services operate, may be entirely lacking. There may be an inability to control and coordinate, or even simply to ensure awareness of, NGO and donor organization activities. There may be a serious lack of data on which to make important health policy decisions. A longer-term constraint will be the inability of local health service providers and policymakers to relate to the international debates around healthcare and health system reorganizations that take place all the time. As a result, lessons learned in other settings may fail to be adopted locally and the same mistakes may be made in

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new sites over and over again. While this is not solely due to conflict, the presence of conflict exacerbates any usual attempt to ensure that systems learn from their own experiences, and that systems of institutional memory are developed, as well as impeding the ability of individuals and systems to learn from the experiences of others further afield. It is notable that during the conflicts in Uganda, and during the period of antiapartheid political struggle in South Africa, the isolation of the country served to reduce contact with current international health policy developments and debates. This suggests that despite the nature of the struggle, relative isolation and focus on other key political struggles and concerns detracts from both individuals and systems keeping abreast of developments in the ‘outside world’. Locally available fora for debate around policy matters may be unavailable. For example, the media may be less accessible to people or may be less willing to take risks in highlighting discrepancies between, for example, what the government might say it does and what it actually does. In the postconflict setting, a key challenge is to reestablish these fora for debate and facilitate the exchange of ideas between the range of important stakeholders operating in the health environment. Policy shifts

In almost every country, the dominance of physicians in the health sector sustains policies favoring specialized and tertiary care at the expense of primary care services. By the late 1960s, it was becoming increasingly clear among public health scholars that in order to improve the health conditions of the poor in Third World countries, there needed to be a more even allocation of resources between primary and hospital care, and between rural and urban areas. During the 1970s, in spite of pressure from physicians, some countries had achieved modest gains in making primary care accessible to rural and underprivileged urban populations. In wartorn countries, the tertiary care needs of the wounded and the limited availability of resources reversed earlier changes, while in countries in which the implementation of primary care policies was under discussion, these were postponed, in some cases for extensive periods of time. The impact of war on the policy process has been studied in very few countries; information and insights into how systems adapt to and respond to ongoing conflict is therefore extremely scarce. (We base this section on work with which we have been involved directly or indirectly in Uganda, El Salvador, Cambodia, Palestine, and South Africa.) In Uganda, the political conflict paralyzed health policy formation. As one informant remarked, during the war years policy ‘‘was established by decree, no one knew what health policy really was.’’ During wars, due to scarcity of resources and government difficulties in accessing populations under the

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control of insurgents, NGOs fill part of the vacuum left by the public sector. The role of NGOs is extremely important both during and in the aftermath of ongoing conflict. During conflicts, indigenous NGOs and church groups may be among the few service providers who continue to operate during the conflict, especially in rural areas and those more directly affected by violence. A key problem, however, is that these NGOs often provide a patchwork of services that are relatively independent of the state and do not necessarily fit in with other service provision approaches or priorities. They may communicate poorly with one another, adopt different approaches and standards of care and health worker remuneration, and focus attention mostly at a very local level with some impact on the equity of service availability across large regions. In the postwar period, NGOs continue to have an important role and may remain the sole service providers in some areas. The link between the services they provided during the earlier emergency period and the services now needed in the postwar period may be at odds with one another, and a gradual transition from a relief mode of operation to one that is development-oriented is required. A number of key problems may emerge in relation to this transition, however. For one thing, different actors, whether donors or NGOs, tend to operate in either the relief/ emergency or the development phase, and there are few organizations with the skills, ability, political insight, and flexibility both in terms of funding sources and in types of activity, that can bridge this divide. In Uganda after the war, the public sector exhibited extreme weaknesses in planning. Coupled with the proliferation of NGOs (350 were registered in the country) most of which operated largely independently, the result was a degree of policy chaos and persistent fragmentation of health policy and service delivery that had begun during the political conflict. The conflict itself seriously delayed urgently needed policy debates during the reconstruction and development of the country and the form that this should take. Because of a lack of coordination, important programs such as malaria control were not adequately addressed by any of the key donors. In Cambodia, there was a similar neglect of disease control activity, and tuberculosis received inadequate attention during the period under a UN transitional authority. While some services in Cambodia and other conflict-affected countries were neglected, others were offered by a variety of providers. During the period of reconstruction in Uganda, little attention was paid to the more difficult tasks of creating selfsustainability and correcting structural inefficiencies. The policy process was also altered by war in El Salvador. The insurgency, assisted by foreign volunteers and funding, had developed a remarkable primary healthcare system based on health promoters, preventive care, and self-reliance. After the signing of the peace treaty in 1992, foreign funding for primary care began to dry up.

Because of economic constraints, the ministry of health was unable to provide services to the relatively extended and remote rural areas formerly controlled by the insurgency. In the absence of public services, the NGOs that had assisted the insurgents continued to offer services after the war. In the postconflict reconstruction effort, international donors promoted the provision of health services through the private sector and NGOs. In spite of the pressures by international agencies, the ministry was unwilling to coordinate activities with and transfer funds to the NGOs because, as former allies of the insurgency, it considered them to be too leftist. There were also conflicts in the policy approaches between the ministry and the NGOs. The former was more interested in a traditional medical care model, while the NGOs, as a result of the war experience, favored primary care more in line with current international recommendations (use of paramedics, preventive and educational programs, and self-reliance). The result of the impasse was delays in the formation and implementation of policies, friction between international donors and the ministry, delays in the transfer of international assistance, and a deterioration of primary services in the poorest rural areas of the country. In Cambodia, unique efforts were made by the Ministry of Health, with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO), to coordinate international aid to the health sector and ensure that services offered could be accommodated within a health policy framework on which a wide range of policy actors agreed. While this was an important and innovative effort, the coordination effort was inadequately resourced and had insufficient powers to ensure that coordination actually took place. As a result, much effort was duplicated, unnecessary services were established, conflicts between the NGO community and public sector emerged in some settings, and inadequate attention was devoted to the longer-term needs of the health system. More recent discussion of sector-wide approaches to health system development is receiving attention and may present some opportunities for ensuring that the donor community as a group engages with national policymakers to collectively determine how best to assist the reestablishment of the health system and its longerterm development. Almost inevitably, wars reinforce economic dependence in Third World countries; Uganda illustrates the consequence of dependence on the health policy process. After the war in 1988, about 50% of healthcare was provided by church missions. Foreign funding and outof-pocket payment of health services accounted for fourfifths of health expenditures in the country. Unable to control health funding, the public health sector lost policy-making power, and foreign agencies and donors became the de facto health policymakers. During the reconstruction, the World Bank, contradicting its own international health policy statements, paid lip service to

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primary care while at the same time advocated the rehabilitation of hospitals. According to the World Bank’s Uganda report: ‘‘Primary health care . . . will not necessarily be cost-effective . . . it can absorb great amounts of money without yielding results, and may be rejected by consumers . . . immediate future investment in the renovation of hospitals is likely to show a very effective return.’’ Our study in El Salvador found that the World Bank preferred to fund hospital construction and rehabilitation because it had more experience in the preparation, administration, and supervision of these types of loans than in primary care. The institutional needs of the World Bank appeared to be more important than the pressing health needs of populations emerging from wars. International banks such as the World Bank have been eager to lend money for reconstruction and rehabilitation of hospitals and other health facilities, in some cases providing opportunity costs and compromising the capability of the health sector for preventive, promotional, and primary care. In the Palestinian territories, donors too have shown a propensity to desire to fund infrastructural projects. In particular, the Japanese government and the European Community have both contributed sizeable sums for the construction of hospitals in Jericho and the Gaza Strip, respectively, despite hospital services not being the priority concerns at this point in time.

Positive Effects of Conflict on Health Systems Not all the effects of political violence on health systems are negative. In some cases, adaptations and organizational or political responses might be positive and may allow opportunities for health system and societal development. In the anticolonial liberation struggles in Mozambique, for example, the FRELIMO party encouraged community participation and self-reliance in health; this was a forerunner to more widely promoted primary healthcare policies in many countries. In the conflict between national groups and the Ethiopian Derg, community-based political movements in Eritrea and Tigray promoted community participation and control in decision making, and facilitated the development of multisectoral health promotion strategies. The system was so sophisticated that an underground hospital, hidden from air raids, was developed in Orota. In Tigray, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front ensured that health workers were trained and mobile services established. Innovative community-financing systems, operating through elected local governments, the baitos, were established, empowering health workers in communities to ensure that drugs and adequate services were available despite considerable constraints. Services that were destroyed during the military

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struggle were reconstructed, and a functioning referral system was also established. Similar experiences of the promotion of participation and control by communities over health resources, the promotion of primary healthcare, and recognition of the social determinants of ill-health have characterized other struggles such as those in Nicaragua and Vietnam. It is difficult to quantify the impact of conflict on community participation but it is apparent that there are times when it enhanced community mobilization, participation, and control over local decision making. Experiences in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Vietnam, Eritrea, and Tigray suggest that conflict may be an important organizing influence and that communities may come together to respond to this external threat. What is far less certain, however, is whether such participatory activity can be sustained in the longer term. A recent study in Tigray and North Omo, Ethiopia, showed that although the involvement of women in local government and political activity was actively promoted during the war, their ongoing involvement in the postwar period appeared to be declining. Relatively little is known about how health systems actively adapt to adverse conditions during wartime. This would be a fruitful area for research and warrants attention: if positive adaptations could be more directly supported, it may be possible to ensure that the core elements of health systems are maintained and sustained, or even develop during periods of conflict. One adaptation that consistently emerges in conflictaffected societies is the development of the private and traditional sectors. These important aspects of the healthcare system represent an important healthcare resource that could be usefully incorporated in the delivery of healthcare in the future. Understanding how this system emerges, what role it plays, and what support can be given to it to ensure that the quality of services delivered is appropriate, merit further attention. In some cases unique adaptations may occur. The WHO assisted the Bosnian and Croatian healthcare systems to develop a system for registering disabled people during the war. These registration systems can be extended and further developed in the aftermath of the conflict in order to ensure that disabled people retain access to important rehabilitation and social support services. Where services are developed in response to specific war-related needs, for example, the development of war surgery services to care for people with antipersonnel landmine injuries, these services could be extended to other emergency care needs and rehabilitation requirements in the aftermath of conflict. A variety of forms of health for peace initiatives have been promoted. These include truces to allow for immunization campaigns and other forms of cessation of conflict to perform vital public health activities. Health-related activity may be particularly useful in helping reestablish

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community functions by allowing a focus on services that all parties agree are beneficial. The extent to which health services reconstruction is able to facilitate a reduction in tensions between factions and a commitment to working together has been underexplored but warrants attention.

Postconflict Challenges In the postconflict period, the costs of reconstruction may be staggering. In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, it was estimated that Iraq would require $110–200 billion and Kuwait $60–95 billion to repair the war damage from the US-led coalition. In contrast, the goals adopted by the World Summit for Children in 1991 required $20 billion for their global implementation. Some of the key challenges facing postconflict health systems have been referred to earlier. A particularly important issue is to determine the extent to which the prior health system will be reconstituted or the extent to which it will be reformed in an effort to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. It is apparent from studying a number of countries emerging from conflict that the ‘default mode’ is to attempt to reestablish whatever services existed prior to the violence. In Uganda, however, the postconflict resource base was less than 10% of what it was prior to the civil war, making simple reestablishment of prior services totally infeasible. Furthermore, in the period between the commencement of periods of conflict and their resolution, which may last decades, approaches to the nature of health services and who purchases and provides them have changed. In recent years, for example, it has become accepted wisdom (often without careful assessment of local context) that charges be levied for health services and that the state need not be the only provider: where possible the engagement of other providers, including the for-profit and not-for-profit private sector, and the indigenous or traditional sector, have been enlisted in many countries. An even more important and difficult challenge is to establish the policy framework within which health services and the health system operate. Different stakeholders, including political actors, service providers, and international donors, each have their own agendas and services that they wish to prioritize. A key role of government, when it functions effectively, is to provide a framework within which the different actors can operate. In postconflict countries, this policy framework may be lacking given the inadequacy of government capacity, or challenges to its legitimacy. An important policy role is to facilitate the development of consensus about broad health system direction: in the absence of functioning government this is a particularly challenging task that could be assisted, or (more usually) hindered, by the involvement of the international community.

Among the issues to be debated at such a crucial time in the reestablishment of national policy is the extent to which reform of the health system is possible. Issues such as the extent to which services will be paid for and by whom, how decentralized the system will be, what the role of the private for-profit sector will be, and whether third-party payment mechanisms will be promoted are all key questions on which debate and direction are required. In the absence of resolving many of these issues amicably, services and systems may develop without any cohesiveness with resultant lack of efficiency and equity. Ensuring that, to as great an extent as possible, existing inequities in distribution and access to health services are resolved in the aftermath of conflict may be helpful in reducing causes of tension between groups. In the postconflict period, a fundamental concern is to understand and seek to address those factors that contributed to the conflict in the first place. Health may provide an opportunity to bring together community members from different factions. There are a variety of ways in which health services and health-related projects can assist in bringing together different groups. Although the evidence for the effectiveness and sustainability of such initiatives is limited, these deserve attention, experimentation, and careful evaluation. An additional factor that may contribute to reducing the level of tension between communities is to work toward the establishment of more equitable systems of distributing resources. Improving the proportion of the budget that can be allocated to primary care service provision, to rural areas, and to the poorest areas will all assist in reducing inequities. In seeking to address historical inequities, enhancing the quality of publicly, and where possible, privately provided services, as well as ensuring their longer-term sustainability are all important challenges. In seeking to ensure sustainability, some co-payment mechanisms may be necessary although appreciating the limited resource base in many postconflict settings is critical. It is important also to appreciate the need for enhancing quality and sustainability. An appreciation of gender inequalities in society, in health and in access to and utilization of services, is crucial to reestablishing a more effective and equitable service. During conflicts gender relations may change, for better or worse: where positive features develop, for example, where women are able to exert more control over household decisions, supporting these positive developments is desirable. In some conflicts, such as the South African, Tigrayan, and Palestinian conflicts, women played an important part in the political struggle and have continued to demand their right to influence ongoing political developments. Postconflict development of civil society and good governance thus reflect opportunities for positive change.

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Conclusions Political violence and conflict have an extensive negative effect on health and health systems. These negative effects are present in all aspects of the health system: their infrastructure, budgeting, planning and management, availability of human and material resources, and service provision. There is increasing evidence of these detrimental effects. Far less documented and understood are the impacts upon planning and policy making, and on relationships between services and the communities they serve. An important challenge for researchers is to understand how health systems adapt and respond to conflict and to determine whether those developments that are positive can be further reinforced and sustained. This applies not only to health systems, but to community and local government responses to conflict that may be positive and deserve to be reinforced. Notable among these may be positive changes in gender relations in which women have challenged their domination during conflict and demand that their needs receive attention in any postconflict arrangements. To examine how systems respond to conflict and if and how they protect key elements of service provision and functioning is an important challenge. To maintain information systems, for example, is crucial to ensuring that ongoing disease control efforts are sustained. The establishment of sentinel sites or areas of heightened surveillance in which ongoing monitoring can be preserved and promoted represent important challenges in urban and rural areas. Refining rapid assessment techniques that can be used in the aftermath of conflict to establish the extent to which services are able to function and health personnel are actively providing good quality care is another important challenge. How best to integrate a variety of personnel who may have been trained in different systems to different standards has barely been addressed in the literature. There remain many unknowns regarding how systems and services respond to conflict. Which characteristics of health systems allow them to maintain their activities during conflicts and complex emergencies deserve attention. Are these characteristics of the system of service providers, or alternatively, of the communities in which they function? Here, more research is clearly required: identifying positive developments or mechanisms for bolstering the resilience of health systems will assist in ensuring their survival during disruptive and destructive periods. A key challenge during and in the aftermath of conflict remains the effective coordination of available resources. A variety of stakeholders operate in these settings: government, private sector, international organizations, and a wide variety of nongovernmental groups. Various mechanisms have been tried in an attempt to ensure a degree of coordination between service providers: a key

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element is having in place a policy framework within which service providers operate. To stimulate policy dialog and debate, and to seek to ensure that policy is, at least in part, based on evidence of effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and sustainability, are key challenges to all the stakeholders operating in these highly politicized environments. It is important that in the postconflict reconstruction, priority be given to the reorganization of services with emphasis on preventive and primary care over the physical reconstruction of the infrastructure. In many settings, however, emphasis appears to be mistakenly placed largely on the rehabilitation and construction of hospitals and clinics, with little attention being devoted to the more difficult tasks of improving the policy process, improving management capacity, developing the provision of preventive care, and extending services to the poor.

Further Reading Barnabas, G. A. and Zwi, A. B. (1997). Health policy development in wartime: Establishing the Baito health system in Tigray, Ethiopia. Health Policy and Planning 12(1), 38–49. Cliff, J. and Noormahomed, A. R. (1988). Health as a target: South Africa’s destabilisation of Mozambique. Social Science and Medicine 27(7), 717–722. Coghlan, B., Brennan, R. J., Ngoy, P., et al. (2006). Mortality in the Republic of Congo: A nationwide survey. Lancet 367(9504), 44–51. Dodge, C. P. (1990). Health implications of war in Uganda and Sudan. Social Science and Medicine 31, 691–698. Dodge, C. P. and Wiebe, P. D. (1985). Crisis in Uganda: The breakdown of health services. Oxford: Pergamon. Fulco, C. E., Liverman, C. T., and Sox, H. C. (eds.) (2000). Gulf War and health. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Garfield, R. M. and Neugat, A. I. (1991). Epidemiologic analysis of warfare: A historical review. Journal of the American Medical Association 266, 688–692. Garfield, R. and Williams, G. (1992). Health care in Nicaragua: Primary care under changing regimes. New York: Oxford University Press. Garfield, R. M., Frieden, T., and Vermund, S. H. (1987). Health-related outcomes of war in Nicaragua. American Journal of Public Health 77, 615–618. Garfield, R. M., Prado, E., Gates, J. R., and Vermund, S. H. (1989). Malaria in Nicaragua: Community-based control efforts and the impact of war. International Journal of Epidemiology 18, 434–439. Jenkins, J. C., Scanlan, S. J., and Peterson, L. (2007). Military famine, human rights, and child hunger. Journal of Conflict Resolution 51(6): 823–847. Jong, J. de. (2002). Trauma, war and violence: Public mental health in socio-cultural context. Dordrecht: Springer. Kloos, H. (1992). Health impacts of war in Ethiopia. Disasters 16, 347–354. Lee, I. and Haines, A. (1991). Health costs of the Gulf War. British Medical Journal 303, 303–306. Levy, B. S. and Sidel, V. W. (eds.) (1997). War and public health. New york: Oxford University Press. Macrae, J. and Zwi, A. (eds.) (1994). War and hunger: Rethinking international responses to complex emergencies. London: Zed Books. Macrae, J., Zwi, A., and Birungi, H. (1994). A healthy peace? Rehabilitation and development of the health sector in a post-conflict situation. London: Health Policy Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

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Taipale, I., Physicians for Social Responsibility (Finland), and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (eds.) (2002). War or health. Dhaka: University Press. Ugalde, A. and Vega, R. R. (1989). Review essay: State terrorism, torture, and health in the Southern Cone. Social Science and Medicine 28, 759–765. Ugalde, A. and Zwi, A. (eds.) (1994). Violencia politica y salud en Ame´rica Latina. Mexico: Nueva Imagen. Ugalde, A. and Zwi, A. (1995). Violencia politica. In Vidal, G. (ed.) Enciclopedia iberoamericana de psiquiatria. Buenos Aires: Fundacio´n Acta Fondo para la Salud Mental. UNICEF (1989). Children on the front line. New York: UNICEF.

Walt, G. and Cliff, J. (1986). The dynamics of health policies in Mozambique 1975–1985. Health Policy and Planning 1(2), 148–157. Walt, G. and Melamed, A. (eds.) (1984). Mozambique: Towards a people’s health service. London: Zed Books. Zwi, A. (1996). Numbering the dead: Counting the casualties of war. In Bradby, H. (ed.) Defining violence: Understanding the causes and effects of violence, pp. 99–124. Aldershot: Avebury. Zwi, A. and Ugalde, A. (1989). Towards an epidemiology of political violence in the third world. Social Science and Medicine 28, 633–642. Zwi, A. and Ugalde, A. (1991). Political violence and health in the Third World – A public health issue. Health Policy and Planning 6, 203–217.

Long-Term Effects of War on Children James Garbarino and Lauren Zurenda, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Joseph A Vorrasi, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction: Beyond the Body Count The Concept of Trauma Social Maps Cumulative Risk Model

Predicting War’s Long-Term Effects on Children Conclusion Further Reading

Introduction: Beyond the Body Count

to the study of how war affects the psychological development of children. Conventional thinking about warfare tends to focus on quantitative measures (e.g., casualty rates). For instance, in their efforts to subdue the rebels in Afghanistan, Soviet forces lost 15 000 of their own troops. Through bombing, they obliterated more than half of Afghanistan’s 30 000 villages. All in all, about 1.3 million were killed – most of them women and children. Children have been involved directly in the prosecution of war in extraordinary and increasing numbers throughout the twentieth century. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that whereas in 1900 the ratio of civilian to military casualties was about 1:9; in recent decades this pattern has reversed, and now stands at approximately 8:1 (civilians to solders). Children constitute a significant proportion of these civilian casualties. In fact, more than half of all victims of worldwide armed conflict are children. In the past decade, approximately 2 million children have been killed in war zones. Of those children who were not killed, approximately 1 million have been orphaned. However disturbing these casualty data may be, they may actually mislead us to underestimate the overall effects of war. Specifically, these data do not account for the nonlethal assaults and physical injuries endured by children and their loved ones. For instance, casualty data do not account for the 6 million children in the past decade who have been injured or permanently disabled.

‘Childhood’ is a cultural creation with important developmental payoffs. Childhood offers a protected context in which young people can focus on developing competence through play. Many developmentalists see the social creation of ‘a long childhood’ as being a key to human cultural evolution – one of the keys to enhanced civilization. However, neither this process nor this context is automatic. When adult economic, sexual, and political forces preempt childhood, children lose the opportunity to fully experience the role of child. Unfortunately, this loss is a frequent casualty of war that is not included in the body count. This article seeks to provide a perspective on the long-term psychological effects of war on children. It is founded in an ecological perspective on child development (in the tradition of Urie Bronfenbrenner) that emphasizes ‘development in context’ (as defined by biological and social factors). This perspective is captured in the view that when the question is, ‘‘Does X cause Y?’’ the best scientific answer is generally, ‘‘It depends.’’ It depends upon context. One implication of this perspective is the need to ‘map’ the accumulation of risk factors and developmental assets in a child’s life as a prerequisite for assessing the course of individual development; rarely, if ever, does a single risk factor or developmental asset determine developmental trajectory. We bring this model

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The relationship between ‘assaults’ and ‘deaths’ varies in two important ways: (1) as a function of medical trauma technology (which can prevent an assault from becoming a homicide) and (2) weapons technology (which can affect the lethality of an assault). Military medicine documents this phenomenon. Over time, the ratio of casualties to deaths in conventional military operations has increased as medical trauma technology and transport of frontline casualties have improved. A civilian example shows a parallel trend. For instance, Chicago’s homicide rate in 1993 was approximately the same as it was in 1973, and yet the rate of serious assault increased approximately 400% in the 20 years spanning that period. Thus, the ratio of assaults to homicides increased substantially – from 100:1 in 1973 to 400:1 in 1993. Similarly, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) study concluded that if medical trauma technology today were at the same level of sophistication as it was in the 1930s, the homicide rate today would be 7 times what it is. This shift is reflected in the changing nature of war. The technology of modern war making emphasizes antipersonnel weapons that do not target specific individuals, but instead are used for indiscriminate bombing and shelling. Another factor that contributes to this shift is that modern war strategy is focused on attacking civilian infrastructure. Saturation bombing is one example of a strategy used to devastate a large target, without regard for the civilian lives that will be lost or disrupted as a consequence. Other examples include those tactics that are characteristic of guerrilla warfare and insurgency attacks (e.g., sabotage, kidnappings, hostage taking, raids, hijackings, and hidden explosives). These tactics stress deception and ambush, and are aimed at undermining an authority through drawn-out, low-intensity confrontation. The fear and threat that ensues from these types of random surprise attacks serve to capture the hearts and minds of those civilians who are able to endure them. The emotional and psychological toll of this type of warfare may especially be pronounced for children. Whether the body count includes soldiers or civilians, each number in that count represents a hole in the life of a child somewhere. Are these children not casualties of war as well? In contrast to conventional thinking about war that focuses on the physical atrocities associated with war, Apfel and Sijmon published a volume designed to underscore the emotional impact of war on war. In their book, Minefields in their hearts, the metaphor of war as an emotional minefield captures the essence of the psychological challenges that war presents to children. In this article, we take a similar approach, by addressing the long-term psychological effects of war on children. We consider the indirect impact of war on children via disrupted relationships and community infrastructure. Furthermore, we introduce the concepts of ‘acute trauma’ and ‘chronic trauma’ as a basis for understanding the psychological impact of war.

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Throughout the article, we draw examples from the international scene to provide a framework for understanding the developmental issues faced by children exposed to war. An understanding of the impact of war on children and young people is relevant to a large number of societies around the world, including countries that may not have overt war within their borders, but do accept numerous refugees coming directly from foreign war zones. In addition, many countries – the United States, for example – have chronic community violence in ‘urban war zones’ that affects the development of children and youth. For all children, growing up in a war zone presents a ‘developmental challenge’. Children embody a vulnerable population, and trauma experienced during this time may have consequences for various aspects of development (e.g., biological, cognitive, social, personality, and moral), and may also have implications for later relationships and coping abilities. Importantly, this developmental challenge may impact individual children in markedly different ways. For some children, the challenge leads to developmental impairment; for others, it leads to enhancement. In this article, we strive to focus on those processes and conditions that affect the course of development. Several concepts ground this discussion in an ecological framework for understanding child and youth development. These concepts include: (1) trauma; (2) social maps; (3) cumulative risk model. This conceptual foundation provides an intellectual context in which to better understand the impact of war on children. We will first consider these core concepts before detailing the specific forces that may have longterm effects for children.

The Concept of Trauma Trauma ensues when a child cannot give meaning to frightening experiences. This orientation is contained in the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which refers to threatening experiences outside the realm of normal experience. Trauma has two principal components: (1) overwhelming negative ‘arousal’ and (2) overwhelming negative ‘cognition’. The former component is especially relevant to young children. Specifically, as the development of the brainstem is not complete until the age of 8 years, younger children are not yet fully equipped to effectively modulate arousal. Trauma involves an inability to effectively handle the physiological responses of stress in situations of threat. The second component of trauma – overwhelming negative cognition – is captured in Herman’s formulation that to experience trauma is ‘‘to come face to face with human vulnerability in the natural world and with the capacity for evil in human nature.’’ This description illuminates the traumatic nature of living in a war zone for children. For example, in the war in Mozambique,

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children were forced to watch (and sometimes participate in) the execution of their parents. This type of encounter with evil is echoed repeatedly in first-person accounts of war produced by children and youth – notably child soldiers (e.g., Ishmael Beah’s autobiographic account of war in Sierre Leone, A long way gone). For the purposes of this article, we distinguish among two types of trauma: (1) ‘acute trauma’ and (2) ‘chronic trauma’. ‘Acute trauma’ refers to a response to exposure to a single traumatic event that has not been preceded by other traumatic events. This can be conceived of as the ‘singleblow’ type of trauma. ‘Chronic trauma’ refers to a reaction to long-standing exposure to persistent trauma. Because chronic trauma is the type that is likely to be experienced by children living in a war zone, it is this type of trauma that will be the focus of the article. However, before turning our attention to the effects of chronic trauma, we briefly discuss the effects of acute trauma on children. A traumatic experience that is cognitively overwhelming may stimulate conditions in which the process required to ‘understand’ these experiences itself has pathogenic side effects. That is, in coping with a traumatic event, the child may be forced into patterns of behavior, thought, and affect that are themselves ‘abnormal’ when contrasted with patterns prior to the event, as well as when compared with patterns characterized by un-traumatized children. Children – particularly elementary school-age children (6–11 years of age) who may be too old to benefit from parental buffering that may serve to insulate younger children – are especially vulnerable to trauma caused by threat and fear. For example, results from one study showed that children exposed to a trauma before age 10 were ‘3 times’ more likely to exhibit PTSD than those exposed after age 12. What symptoms are associated with PTSD in children exposed to acute trauma? While symptoms may vary according to age, developmental level, and individual characteristics of the child, sleep disturbances, day dreaming, extreme startle responses, and emotional numbing are common responses. Children may also display a repetitive pattern of play where they re-enact the trauma. They may even experience biochemical changes in their brains that impair social and academic behavior, as well as psychological problems that interfere with learning, behavior, and parent–child relationships. Children who experience disruptions in their relationships with their parents, along with intense traumatic stress, are especially vulnerable to permanent ‘psychic scars’. These may manifest as excessive sensitivity to stimuli associated with the trauma and diminished expectations for the future. While some children may suffer permanent effects of trauma, others achieve resolution and return to normal functioning shortly after the experience. Many children require months to fully process the trauma. As previously mentioned, the more common variety of trauma seen in war zones is not acute trauma (as described

above), but chronic danger. Chronic traumatic danger imposes a requirement for developmental adjustment. According to Piagetian theory, these developmental adjustments result from the inability of the child to ‘assimilate’ traumatic experiences into existing ‘schemata’, or conceptual frameworks. Rather, traumatic experiences require the child to alter existing concepts to permit the new experiential information to be known. This involves what Piaget termed ‘accommodation’. In the case of chronic danger, children must accommodate their psychic realities so that they allow for the processing of life’s atrocities. Put simply, children must adopt a negative view of the world. Vygotsky’s model of development provides additional dimensions to this analysis. By focusing on the intrinsically social nature of development, this approach highlights the role of adults in mediating the child’s experience of trauma. The key is the concept of ‘zone of proximal development’, which posits that the child is capable of one level of functioning on its own, but a higher level in relationships with the ‘teacher’ who guides the child toward enhanced development by offering responses that are emotionally validating and developmentally challenging. This provides a developmental grounding for understanding the ‘natural’ therapeutic efforts of adults (as parents) and for the ‘programmatic’ efforts of professionals (as teachers and therapists). How do accommodations to traumatic events manifest in children? Without effective adult ‘teaching’ (in the Vygotskian sense), they are likely to include persistent PTSD, alterations of personality, and major changes in patterns of behavior. Chronic traumatic danger demands that children rewrite their stories, and redirect their behavior. These accommodations are likely to be especially pronounced when that danger derives from violent overthrow of day-to-day social reality, when communities are substantially altered, when displacement occurs, or when children lose important members of their families and social networks. In the case of children exposed to the chronic horrors of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s, 50% of children exhibited persistent symptoms of PTSD ‘8 years’ after exposure. According to Van der Kolk, explosive outbursts of anger, flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, psychic numbing, constriction of affect, impaired social functioning, and the loss of control over one’s life are characteristic of the traumatized child.

Social Maps One of the most important features of child development is the child’s emerging capacity to form and maintain ‘social maps’. Social maps are representations of the world that reflect not only the cognitive competence of the child, but also the child’s moral and affective inclination. In this sense, cognitive maps suggest not just where the child has been, but how the child views pathways to the future.

Long-Term Effects of War on Children

Insofar as chronic danger is a prominent part of a child’s world, it will be incorporated into their his/her maps. For children living in war zones, we are especially concerned with how ‘worldviews’ are represented on social maps (e.g., ‘Adults are powerless and unreliable’, versus ‘Adults are to be trusted because they know what they are doing’). The forces shaping these maps include both the child’s social experiences and the child’s inner life. In this way, both cognitive competence and unconscious forces contribute to the formation of a child’s social maps. Cognitively, young children have vivid imaginations, and may not distinguish between what is ‘real’ versus ‘fantasy’ in the same way adults do. For instance, children are more likely to feel threatened by monsters under the bed, wolves in the basement, and invisible creatures that lurk in the dark corners of bedrooms. These parts of a child’s ‘fantasy life’ may lead the child to perceive risks that are imperceptible to adults. However unfounded these fears may seem to adults, they may be a salient part of the children’s social maps, and a frightening part of their reality. While the rich fantasy life of children can serve as an additional source of perceived danger, there is an opportunity factor present in this characteristic as well. Specifically, children are more likely than are adults to believe in ghosts, angels, and other supernatural beings who can serve supportive functions during times of crisis. Silverman and Worden offer documentation of this in a study of children whose parent had died. Some 57% reported speaking to the dead parent, and 43% of those children felt they received an answer. Eighty-one percent of children believed their dead parents were watching them. In contrast, Kalish and Reynolds found that 12% of adults reported this type of direct contact with the dead. Security is vitally important for a child’s well-being, and thus his or her social map. When children feel safe, they relax. When they relax they start to explore the environment. This is clear with both infants and very young children. When a parent or other familiar person is around, a child treats the adult as a secure base from which to explore the nearby space. If frightened – perhaps by a loud sound or by the approach of a stranger – the child will quickly retreat to the familiar person. In this sense, security facilitates a child’s exploration and understanding of the world. This pattern of exploration is an integral part of normal child development. It is so common that it is used to assess the quality of children’s attachment relations. Children who do not use their parents as a secure base from which to explore – and do not show anxiety when separated and relief when reunited – are thought to have an inadequate attachment relationship. These types of insecure attachments are called ‘anxious’, ‘ambivalent’, or ‘avoidant’, and are associated with parenting styles that are inconsistent or negligent. Thus, for very young

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children, the question of security is relatively simple, and usually hinges upon access to competent and psychologically robust mothers. As suggested by responses to mental health surveys, mothers in war zones (or refugee camps) are likely to become depressed, and psychologically unavailable to their children. This may lead to disruptions in the process of attachment formation. Osofsky reports that in an urban war zone, half the mothers of young children are severely depressed, and more than half of their children showed evidence of inadequate attachment relationships at 12 months. A survey of mothers in a Khmer refugee camp reported similar rates of maternal depression (but did not assess infant attachment). The absence of fathers in these (and other) dangerous environments is likewise a threat. As children grow older, their security needs are transformed, and their social maps change accordingly. Soon they are getting on school buses and visiting friends’ houses by themselves. Eventually they are on the streets at night on their own. However, security remains a constant theme for them. The social environment largely determines whether or not the child will make this transition smoothly. Whether it is real life or television imagery, violence need not be constant to set a tone of threat to a child’s social map. Even in the worst war zones – Sarajevo, for example – shooting and killing are intermittent. In highcrime neighborhoods, it only takes a few shots fired per month or an occasional homicide to create a year-round climate of danger. These occasional outbursts of violence are sufficient to establish insecurity and terror as the dominant psychological reality. In this type of climate, the consequences of even a single violent episode can be long lasting, as the constant sense of threat and vulnerability ensures that the emotional memory for trauma remains frighteningly fresh. Furthermore, traumatized children can be extremely sensitive, and their attention may be easily captured by stimuli that remind them of the trauma. These repetitive and often intrusive recollections can present a child with an overwhelming amount of fear and anxiety. Once this feeling of danger takes hold, it requires very little new threat to sustain it. In this sense, children who have been exposed to a ‘singleblow’ type of trauma, and are also living in perilous war zones, are likely to perceive danger that spurs them to reexperience the trauma. Thus, the distinction between acute and chronic trauma may be less relevant for children living in war zones, as the insecurity and constant threat that colors their world will make recovery from that single traumatic episode especially trying. When families cannot offer children support – as often happens during wartime – children may seek affiliation and security elsewhere. The needs for affiliation and security may drive children to join gangs. The violent and illicit economy that often exists in gangs offers a sense of

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solidarity and cash income for kids who have few prosocial alternatives for either. If children do not develop a sense of confidence that adults are committed to ensuring their safety, their willingness and ability to take advantage of developmental opportunities will decrease. Consequently, their futures may be compromised. Needs for belonging may also by satisfied by participating in the war effort itself. Recent legislation designed to prevent the subjugation of children in war (e.g., the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 defined 18 years as the minimum age for participation for recruitment into armed groups; the 1998 Statute of the International Criminal Court that has defined the conscription or enlistment of children under 15 years of age into the armed forces as a war crime). Despite these efforts, children have been increasingly exploited as soldiers in recent armed conflicts. It is estimated that at any given point in time, 300 000 children – sometimes as young as 6 years old – are active participants in armed conflicts. Some children are abducted and compelled to join armed groups through the use of force or coercion. Others, however, may choose to join the armed groups in response to social, ideological, or economic pressures. For example, orphaned children may join as a means of obtaining food and money for themselves and surviving relatives. Children who lose relatives in war-related violence may join armed groups in an effort to seek revenge. While there are currently no data with regard to longitudinal outcomes of children who partake in mass violence, it is clear that children are exploited. Some are used to keep watch at dangerous checkpoints, while others are used as porters, messengers, or cooks. Still others are used for sexual services. Children are typically viewed as dispensable as compared with adult soldiers, and so receive less training and are sent on more perilous missions. In addition, child soldiers are at a heightened risk for displacement than are other war-exposed children. Globally, displacement is one of the major consequences of modern war, with mothers and children comprising the majority of displaced persons. This type of ‘social’ disruption of families that so often accompanies war is one important process that affects children’s social maps, and translates war into a directly pathogenic experience for children. We call this consequence of war ‘compensatory realignment’ and will elaborate on it more fully in the discussion of our ecological model.

Cumulative Risk Model Risk accumulates; opportunity ameliorates. This is one conclusion we draw from research dealing with childhood coping. As negative (‘pathogenic’) influences increase, the

child may exceed his or her breaking point. Conversely, as positive (‘salutogenic’) influences increase, the probability of recovery and enhanced development increases – even in the presence of risk factors such as war exposure. We can term these pathogenic and salutogenic influences ‘risk factors’ and ‘opportunity factors’. Although most of the children of war in the latter part of the twentieth century reside outside of North America and Europe, much of the available research dealing with risk and opportunity comes from within these continents. The human catastrophe of the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia has been a macabre gold mine for research since it has allowed the testing of trauma and stress models in a European war context, without some of the uncertain assumptions that must be made when trying to make this application across radical cultural boundaries outside of a ‘Western’ framework. Similarly, the wars between Israel and Palestine provide one of the few contexts in the late twentieth century in which highly modernized populations have been both: (1) exposed to war and (2) accessible to Western-style research. Consequently, the war experiences of these children have been a focal point for research and clinical development. This research has given rise to models for understanding the relationship between stressful life events and childhood competence. Results suggest that most children are capable of coping with low levels of risk. However, once risk factors accumulate beyond some threshold, a major concentration of opportunity factors is necessary to offset harm. A study by Sameroff and his colleagues illustrates this point. Sameroff explored the impact of risk accumulation on intellectual development – itself a major salutogenic factor for children facing developmental challenges. Using a pool of eight risk factors that included indicators of ‘maternal dysfunction’ (e.g., mental illness), ‘family structure’ (e.g., large number of siblings), and ‘social status’ (e.g., low income), Sameroff and his colleagues found that one or two major risk factors produced little damage (i.e., IQ scores remained within or above the normal range). However, when risk accumulated (through the addition of a third and fourth risk factor), IQ scores dropped significantly below average. Subsequent researchers have expanded upon Sameroff ’s work by factoring counterpart measures of opportunity factors into developmental equations (e.g., a ‘present and highly involved father’ as the ‘opportunity counterpart’ to the risk factor of ‘absent father’, or a ‘flexible and highly supportive parent’ as the counterpart to a ‘rigid and punitive parent’). This type of approach more accurately captures the realities of the child’s experiences: in the real world of children, risk factors do not exist without some compensatory impulse in the social environment. Indeed, from a developmental perspective, one of the worst features of living in a war zone may be the dismantling of the compensatory, salutogenic infrastructure of the child’s world.

Long-Term Effects of War on Children

For this reason, the simultaneous assessment of both risk and opportunity factors is essential to our understanding of the long-term effects of early developmental experience. Perry et al. take the developmental equations approach toward understanding the impact of early trauma on brain development. Put simply, this research documents the risk that such trauma can produce deficiencies in abstract reasoning, moral development, and impulse control by interfering with cortical development. The processes involved in the link between war and brain development appear to be both ‘direct’ (by stimulating a stress-related hormone that impedes brain growth) and ‘indirect’ (by disrupting normal caregiving). As we will discuss, these issues are highly relevant to children living in war zones.

Predicting War’s Long-Term Effects on Children No single variable can be isolated as the leading cause of the developmental damage that is so common among children living in war zones. Rather, it is the interplay of several social and developmental variables that dictates the course and severity of the child’s Maladaptation. Some children in war zones thrive, while others deteriorate. There are many factors that contribute to the range of outcomes. We maintain that there are five primary variables mediating the relationship between living in a war zone and long-term negative psychological consequences. The first of these factors is the overall resilience and competence of the child. Those children best equipped to cope with their war experience stand the greatest chance of surviving the conflict. The second factor is the child’s degree of exposure to war atrocity, whereby the children who are most directly exposed to and threatened by the war are at the greatest risk. This is a particularly salient factor for children who are combatants, and are likely to be exposed to – or to carry out – war violence. The third factor is demographic information that predicts the developmental outcomes for children living in war zones. The fourth factor relates to the family unit. When the family responds to war by creating an atmosphere of security and stability, the family can play a protective role. However, when the family unit is disrupted or restructured as a result of war, this may place the child at an increased risk for Maladaptation. Finally, the variable that is most predictive of children’s responses to the challenges faced while growing up in a war zone is the adjustment of their parents. During the aftermath of a traumatic event, children look to familiar adults when assessing the severity of the situation. Insofar as children have the opportunity to view actively coping adult figures, they have the chance to model and internalize effective coping strategies. Consequently, they are less likely to suffer developmentally and psychologically.

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Competence and Resilient Coping Once again, we emphasize the tremendous variance in the developmental outcomes of the children. A large portion of this variation can readily be explained by the child’s prewar competence and use of resilient coping skills. Just as children ‘leave’ the war arena with varying degrees of consequence, they ‘enter’ the experience with similar disparity and inequity. While some become traumatized and developmentally impaired, others grow up to lead healthy and productive lives. This developmental model predicts that the children most at risk for falling victim to the long-term negative consequences associated with war are those who already live in the context of accumulated risk. According to this model, children who lack familial support or experience stressors related to low socioeconomic status (SES) are especially vulnerable to long-term effects of war-related trauma. Children who lack familial support ‘and’ experience stressors related to low SES are in an even more vulnerable position. In contrast, children who approach their war experiences from a position of strength – that is, with the salutogenic resources of social support, intact and functional families, and parents who model social competence – are better able to effectively cope with the developmental challenges posed by war experiences. In a review of the literature, Apfel and Simon posit several factors that collectively contribute to successful childhood coping that characterizes war’s most resilient children, who later become well-adjusted, highfunctioning adults. Resourcefulness. The hallmark of this attribute is the ability to seek out and take advantage of the limited emotional resources available in an impoverished social environment. With diminished social support (particularly parental support), the resilient child will cling to any warmth and affirmation that is attainable. This requires children to be perceptive and sensitive to subtle changes in their environment as war is a time when parental attention and availability are limited. The inability to seize these scarce opportunities is costly to the child living in a war zone. Also, resourceful children are more likely to solicit necessary care and approval from adults other than their parents. This allows these children to have their developmental and social needs met by means that are unavailable to less resourceful children. Curiosity and the ability to conceptualize. Together, these factors afford the child living in a war zone the knowledge and perspective that are necessary to frame the war experience most adaptively. The curious child is one who actively pursues a deep understanding of life events. As active agents in their environment, children explore ideas and collect information about the crisis through whatever resources are available. The impact of this knowledge allows children to accurately and adaptively conceptualize

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the adversity in their lives. Additionally, it allows them to process the war experience as a community – or often as a national epidemic – instead of as one that is experienced in seclusion. This insight works against the feeling of isolation, as it compels children to become aware of the effect of the war on other people. Altruism. Children who help others are aware of their ability to affect situations around them. This process of giving and helping often protects children from being overcome by feelings of helplessness. As actions are seen as having power and influence, coping becomes selfinitiated and deliberate. Commitment to survival. The commitment to survive often coexists with a sense of purposefulness and meaning. Children who regard their lives as serving a higher purpose will be more apt to persevere in the face of trauma and have greater insight into their vulnerabilities. Children with goals are likely to have this sense of internal purpose. Being told to look after the family residence or to accompany a sibling to a combat-free territory can supply a child with the psychic energy and sense of purpose to endure the atrocity and trauma that lies ahead. Command of affect and ability to recall positive images. A resilient child is able to ‘compartmentalize’ pain and anxiety and delay the expression of affect for the good of survival. There are many instances in which the overt expression of emotion is dysfunctional. For example, in order to avoid becoming incapacitated, Bosnian children often had to postpone grieving until after evacuation was complete and there was a safe environment in which to express their sadness. The same is true for victims of torture, who must await either a change of regime or resettlement in a safer country before beginning to process the traumatic experience. The result is not suppression or repression of appropriate affect, but rather ‘postponement’ of affect until the child is in a context that is safe. In addition to the importance of suspending present psychic reality, it is equally important that children be able to recall a more positive reality. The ability to remember the former strengths of a now diminished social map is crucial to resiliency. This process of ‘glorified recall’ protects the child from over-internalizing the aspects of his present situation by allowing him to conceptualize and interpret adversity as temporary and specific rather than stable and global. Experts agree that under adverse circumstances, about 80% of children will recover from developmental challenges (particularly if they received adequate care during their first 2 years of life). If the majority of children are able to overcome what seems to be devastating threat, can the high rates of recovery be explained by only personal strengths? Factors that lead to pro-social behavior and healthy adaptability in the face of stressful early experience include a series of ameliorating factors related to the child’s social environment and social map. Although Apfel

and Simon are thorough in their consideration of ‘personal’ factors that serve a protective function for warexposed children, their categories fall short with regard to ‘social’ factors that contribute to resilience. Losel and Bliesener augment these categories in a way that places increased emphasis on social and familial components. In addition to ‘‘active attempts to cope with stress, cognitive competence, self-efficacy, and temperamental characteristics’’, Losel and Bliesener include the following protective factors with regard to resiliency: . Stable emotional relationships with at least one parent or other reference person. . An open, supportive educational climate. . Parental model of behavior that encourages constructive coping. . Social support from persons outside the family. Importantly, this analysis was not conducted within the context of war-exposed children. Instead, these factors were identified in the context of ‘normal’ stresses experienced in the mainstream of modern industrial societies (e.g., poverty, family conflict, childhood physical disability, and parental involvement in substance abuse). Nonetheless, these social factors may serve to guide our exploration of factors that protect children in the extremely stressful circumstances of war. The magnitude of risk accumulation and the corresponding limits of resilience are illustrated by research conducted by Tolan and his colleagues. This research is drawn from an ‘urban war zone’ in which there is a high level of community violence (some of it semistructured, and much of it involving gunfire), and thus may be relevant to our study of war-exposed children. Tolan points out that virtually all children demonstrate negative effects of living in some stressful and threatening environments. For example, in his Chicago data, ‘none’ of the ethnic-minority males facing the combination of highly dangerous, low-income neighborhoods coupled with lowresource/high-stress families was resilient at age 15 when measured either by being more than one grade level behind in school or by scoring in the clinical range on the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist for a period of 2 years. This finding underscores our conceptualization of resilience as that which is contextual. Tolan’s findings parallel work done on the impact of chronic combat experience on adults. Studies from World War II and other conflicts indicate that if soldiers are exposed to chronic combat conditions for 60 days, 98% of them eventually end up as ‘psychiatric casualties’. Only those classified as having psychopathic personalities are able to function without becoming symptomatic. Why? Grossman and Siddle conclude that people with psychopathic personalities were stress resistant because they did not experience the same degree of arousal in the face of threat that others did; further, they did not have

Long-Term Effects of War on Children

difficulty violating moral prohibitions with regard to killing human beings. Insofar as people with psychopathic personalities were hostile, emotionally impoverished, and detached, they did not become symptomatic. The possible implications of this finding for child development in the urban war zone are equally chilling. This finding would suggest that the children best able to survive ‘functionally’ are those who have the least to lose morally and psychologically. In James Gilligan’s terms, such children are already dead, and thus experience no fear or inhibition. They view the world as having neither emotional barriers nor moral terrain. Our own interviews of youth incarcerated for murder and other acts of severe violence expand this view. Some of the most violent youths construct elaborate defense mechanisms against anxiety, fear, and abandonment; these defense mechanisms culminate in the persona of the cold-blooded ‘gangster’. Exposure to Atrocity With regard to the wide range of responses seen among warexposed children, many scholars have postulated that the degree to which a child is exposed directly to war dictates the severity and course of Maladaptation. These experiences can include separation from caregivers, bereavement, displacement, malnourishment, injury, or bearing witness to violent acts. We offer two recent and well-controlled studies that validate the relationship between the direct exposure to war and developmental damage. The first study was conducted by Al-Eissa, who surveyed 106 Kuwaiti families that were displaced to Saudi Arabia after the Iraqi invasion of their homeland. The Kuwaiti children were compared with a control group comprising 120 Saudi children. The mothers (or other close relatives) of the children were asked to report the degree to which the child had been exposed to trauma, and were also administered an objective measure of symptomatology (e.g., fear, anxiety, and maladaptive social behaviors). When compared to the Saudi controls, the Kuwaiti children were ‘twice’ as likely to be anorexic, destructive, hostile, overdependent, or withdrawn, more than ‘3 times’ as likely to be easily distracted or suspicious, more than ‘4 times’ as likely to have nightmares, more than ‘5 times’ as likely to have difficulty sleeping or concentrating, and almost ‘9 times’ more likely to be generally unhappy. Within the Kuwaiti group itself, it was suggested that the relationship between living in a war zone and subsequent somatic, affective, or behavioral symptoms is mediated by the child’s personal experience with aggression. Kuwaiti children who were either personally assaulted, or had parents or siblings who had been assaulted were at the greatest risk for Maladaptation. These children were twice as likely to have been suspicious, withdrawn, hostile, or easily distracted as their cohorts without a personal experience with aggression.

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The second study investigated the behavioral manifestations of a sample of 200 Lebanese children. Half of these children had been exposed to heavy shelling, while the other half had not. Behavior problems measured included bed wetting, excessive thumb sucking, stealing, frequent crying, nightmares, temper tantrums, refusal to sleep alone, and a general overdependence on parents. The exposed group displayed twice as many problem behaviors as their ‘nonexposed’ counterparts. Additionally, the intensity of the behavior problems was more severe for the exposed group than for the nonexposed. Taken together, these data provide evidence for isolating ‘displacement’ and ‘exposure to violence’ as two of many factors contributing to variance among children on outcome measures. The ‘frequency’ with which children are exposed to aggression, as well as the ‘degree’ to which war affects and intrudes upon their day-to-day lives appears to at least partially influence whether or not the child will be developmentally impeded. War is a time of great uncertainty and fear. Children’s lives are often structurally disrupted (e.g., kept from going to school), socially disrupted (e.g., parents and siblings leave home to fight), and emotionally disrupted (e.g., mother is less available and responsive). All this considered, it is plausible to expect that exposure to violence might be sufficient to throw the child over their threshold of natural coping capacity. Regardless of how much variability is seen among children, we can be certain that children who witness war directly are placed at greater psychological, emotional, and developmental risk than those who live in combat-free areas. Demographics of War There is little systematic evidence regarding the relationship between social class and psychosocial adjustment to war trauma. Nonetheless, most observers note that the prewar social class system continues to operate in most war zones, most of the time. In general, the families at the bottom of the social ladder are most likely to suffer the most grim consequences. Before we get into the more controversial issue of social class, we begin this section by addressing the two demographic variables that have a clear and undeniable impact on the child’s war experience – gender and age. With regard to gender, girls tend to fare better than boys on postwar outcome measures of functioning (but not necessarily affective status). As boys and girls have different developmental needs, they are affected differently by the war experience. Girls may experience a sense of independence in the absence of parental overprotection; this newfound autonomy may contribute to resilience on their part. Boys, on the other hand, may experience this independence very differently. Insofar as boys thrive under conditions of rules, structure, and parental supervision – all of which are

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compromised during a time of war – boys tend to have more difficulty maintaining positive developmental pathways, may be drawn into delinquency. We believe that this phenomenon largely explains the gender differences observed in postwar outcome measures of boys’ and girls’ levels of functioning, namely girls experience improvements in social functioning while boys experience disrupted social functioning. With regard to age, it seems logical that younger children would be at the greatest risk, especially in light of our earlier definition of trauma as a combination of overwhelming arousal and cognitions. Generally speaking, younger children have fewer neurological resources for combating intense arousal and fewer cognitive strategies for combating stress than do older children. Older children are better prepared to cope with the war experience largely because of their cognitive expertise. Further, older children can seek refuge and gather resources from areas outside of the family residence, and they can benefit from nontraditional surrogate role models. What is more, younger children have fewer life experiences from which to draw resilience. The reservoir of resilience in older children will be much deeper and, as a result, may facilitate adaptive coping. Returning now to social class, consider a study conducted by Macksoud and Aber. They found that demographic variables do play a role in moderating the relationship between exposure to war trauma and developmental outcome in a sample of war-exposed children in Lebanon. However, this relationship was counter to what would be expected. Below is an abridged summary of their results and explanations. Children of higher SES were more likely to be exposed to direct shelling. This finding could ‘not’ be attributed to the region in which the family lived, because shelling was distributed equally throughout all the targeted areas of interest. It is suggested that this trend is potentially the result of the lessrestrictive and liberal parenting styles that are characteristic of well-educated mothers. The children of well-educated parents are frequently afforded a more-independent and less-intruded-upon childhood experience; therefore, their chances of witnessing a direct attack is increased. Children of higher SES were more likely to be direct victims of violent acts. This finding can be explained by the same logic applied to the previous finding. In the Palestinian context, higher SES children are supervised less, and so are placed at greater risk than those who are kept under lock and key. However, Macksoud and Aber suggest that this may be attributable to the increased likelihood for a wealthy child to be kidnapped for a ransom. (The prevalence of kidnapping in Lebanon was not discussed in the report so we cannot confirm this.) Children of higher SES were more likely to be separated from their families. In addition to the ‘kidnapping hypothesis’, it is known that wealthier families are more likely to have

the resources (e.g., social contacts and money), to send their children to safer regions of the country or world. While this may serve the purpose of protecting children from the physical dangers associated with living in a war zone, it does not protect them from psychological consequences. As we will see, children who are separated from their families during times of war are at increased risk for a depression related to feelings of helplessness. Children of higher SES were more likely to have their entire family relocated. This is largely attributable to the fact that well-educated mothers may be better equipped to handle the demands of a foreign culture. In addition to cultural ‘know-how’, these families also have greater access to the financial resources needed to uplift and relocate the family unit. Children of lower SES were more prone to Maladaptation. Regardless of the frequency or type of war traumas experienced, higher status children are more likely to exhibit thoughtful and pro-social behaviors that serve to protect them from long-term Maladaptation. This finding is crucial if we are to develop an understanding of the role played by SES in the developmental outcomes of children exposed to war. Taken together, these findings suggest that war has a more ‘immediate’ effect on children from the higher social classes in the same environments, but a more ‘lasting’ impact on children in the lower social classes. That is, higher-status children have much more resilience with respect to war experiences, despite their increased exposure to trauma. We may speculate that higher SES children with better-educated parents may be encouraged to actively cope with the war experience. Additionally, their parents may have higher expectations, and ask them to play a functional role in the collective coping of the family unit by providing a service that gives their struggle meaning (e.g., caring for younger siblings, preparing family meals, or simply maintaining their present role as a student). This sense of purpose may provide higher status children with motivation to persevere. However, as these explanations are merely speculative in nature, more research is needed to identify the mechanisms by which higher SES children are able to overcome exposure to trauma. As Macksoud and Aber point out, the generalizability of their results is limited based on the fact that there are no similar studies to which these can be compared. We strongly urge continued systematic and scholarly investigation into this rather underreported area of psychological literature. Compensatory and Reactionary Realignment of Family Structure: A Case Study The Hassim family had enjoyed years of stability as Palestinian residents of Kuwait. With a booming economy and an intense labor shortage, Kareem Hassim found

Long-Term Effects of War on Children

steady work as a manager with a construction company. He spent time with his three children after work and on weekends. His wife, Safia, spent most of her time as a full-time mother and homemaker in the family’s apartment in Kuwait City. Sixteen-year-old Nabil attended high school, as did his 13-year-old sister, Cairo. Seven-yearold Fatah was the baby of the family, doted on by everyone. In August of 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and life changed dramatically for the Hassim family. Kareem followed the lead of his best friend, Assad, and joined the Kuwait armed resistance fighters. With Kareem gone from the home, Safia had to assume full responsibility for the family’s finances, and she began to work full time in a friend’s store in the market. Nabil shouldered the burden of becoming the ‘man of the house’ and found a job working for a neighbor who sold vegetables. He began to get in trouble with the authorities for vandalism and assault. Soon thereafter, he dropped out of school. Cairo also quit school so she could take care of little Fatah full time while her mother and older brother were working. This continued for nearly 2 months before Kareem sent word that his cousin was leaving the country and could take Fatah with him to stay with her grandparents in Jordan. Safia agonized over this possibility but when a child in the neighborhood was killed by an Iraqi soldier who was shooting at a resistance fighter she decided that her young daughter was better off living outside the country. Three days later Fatah was spirited out of the country and was separated from the rest of the family for nearly a year. Kareem was captured and severely tortured, but was ultimately released. Months later, he was still enduring the traumatic effects of his ordeal. He suffered from a depression and was prone to fits of rage. Children need not be living in a combat zone in order to be profoundly affected by war. Foster-care placements, loss of caregivers and authority figures, and the premature assumption of adult roles are all common challenges that a child faces when a parent leaves for combat. The role that the parent is forced to abandon has to be filled, and it is the ensuing realignment of the family dynamic that is so devastating to the child. The family must restructure to compensate for the loss of a key contributor – hence our term, ‘compensatory realignment’. Schwab and colleagues illustrate the impact that family realignment plays in adding to both the immediate and long-term consequences of war on the child. As was the case with the Hassim family, it is common for women and adolescent boys to enter the workforce as soon as their husbands and fathers leave for combat. Doing so requires the mother to ignore many of her prewar responsibilities in an attempt to compensate for her absent husband; most commonly sacrificed are her roles of caregiver and authority figure. Eldest daughters are frequently expected to carry out the responsibilities of their mothers by caring for younger siblings and elderly relatives. Like their

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brothers who often drop out of school to earn money for the family, many girls drop out to become full-time caregivers. While wage-earner and caregiver duties are regularly reassigned, the role of authority figure too often is grossly neglected. This lack of supervision contributes to the high levels of delinquency that is so prominent in the lives of children who are affected by war. Delinquency

Breakdown in parental supervision is a contributor to the excessive levels of delinquency in war-affected children. Even if the decreased supervision associated with war is eliminated as a catalyst, youth violence and delinquency are problems for any country involved in an armed conflict because of the dissolution of social infrastructure. Patriotism and dehumanization of the enemy decrease the normal forces inhibiting aggressive outbursts against others. It is easy to see how youths with diminished parental supervision would be placed at an especially heightened risk for delinquency. Therefore, compensatory realignment may partially explain why Jamal, Shaya, and Armenian found problematically high levels of aggression, hyperactivity, and poor school performance among their sample of combat-exposed Lebanese children – much as is the case in the hypothetical vignette presented earlier. What is more, the effects of this breakdown in parental authority structure can be long lasting, depending on the developmental age of the child. John Coie and his colleagues have linked the chronicity of antisocial behavior to the age at which it begins. Individuals who are referred to as ‘early starters’ are the most predisposed to life-long delinquency. Research on conduct disorder presents a similar finding: early family trauma may lead to a pattern of aggressive, antisocial behaviors that crystallizes at around age 10. Based on this finding, the duration and course of the delinquency resulting from compensatory realignment will likely depend on the age at which the realignment occurred, where the youngest children are at greatest risk for chronic delinquency and adult criminality. Displacement

Recall the youngest Hassim daughter who is relocated to a safer country. While familial intentions were to protect the vulnerable child from the dangers of living in a war zone, childhood displacement is a separate and distinct risk factor in and of itself. These relocated children are at increased risk for the subsequent development of depressive symptomatology. This is especially true for girls (despite the possible positive effects of enhanced independence on resilient social functioning) and younger children. Paradoxically, even children who are sent to safety are put at developmental risk, but for different reasons. While children sent to combat-free zones during times of war

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may be spared physical harm, children – particularly young children – separated from parental figures are prone to psychological problems (e.g., depression). Research suggests that older children manifest fewer psychological symptoms if they are evacuated from the site of conflict than children who remain in the war zone ‘and encounter chronic traumatic events’. Therefore, we can conclude that these displaced children may experience negative effects of displacement, but they are affected ‘less negatively’ than those who remain in the war zone when the whole picture is taken into account. Foreclosure of the role of the ‘child’

One way of viewing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is as an attempt to define what childhood should – and could – mean if societies committed themselves to putting the best interests of children first. One component of this definition is creating a protected time for young humams to experience ‘childhood’. However, war can erode the experience of childhood. Family realignment is largely to blame for the loss of this ‘long childhood’ that anthropologists and historians see as an important stimulus to individual and species development for human beings. The two older children in the Hassim family are forced to abandon their natural roles as children for adult roles left vacant by one or both of their parents. As unfortunate as this may seem, this is the common reality for many children living amidst war or community violence. War disrupts activities that are normally viewed as crucial components of child development. These ‘normal’ activities include school attendence, frequent contact with friends and family, playing outside, and sleeping in one’s own bed. As was the case with the older Hassim children, war often forces children to become caregivers and wage earners long before their time. Other long-term effects of family realignment

Resistance and conflict are not the only problems that may persist once the war is over. After the Vietnam War, many of the surviving American troops returned with PTSD. As a result of a veteran’s symptomatology, it was common for his children to feel unloved and rejected by him. It is this emotional distancing and outward displays of rejection and hostility that partially contributed to the prevalence of married mothers who considered themselves single parents, even though their husbands were alive and had long since returned from the war. Perhaps a study from a different context will help to illuminate this phenomenon. Elder, Nguyen, and Caspi also documented this phenomenon in economically distressed American families who survived the Great Depression. Although not likely to have been traumatized, fathers during the Depression tended to reject their children and become emotionally unavailable or unstable in much the same way war veterans did. Although these men

were not tallied in an official body count, extreme societal stress and pressure symbolically killed them, and their children lost the fathers that they once knew and loved. Parental adjustment

In times of disaster, the strongest predictor of maladaptation in children is the reaction and level of functioning of their parents. For example, Green et al. found the presence of parental psychopathology to predict PTSD symptomatology and coping capacity of children exposed to natural disasters. Additionally, parents who are well adjusted, high functioning, and attuned to their children’s needs have the capacity to actively promote effective coping. For example, in Kuwait during the Gulf War, parents reported that they could offer reassurance to young children by capitalizing on their imaginations and ‘redefining reality’ for them. Specifically, parents were able to draw young children into fantasy play in which they felt safe and secure (‘‘Let’s play the escape game!’’) as they prepared to escape from occupied Kuwait. Older children saw through this ruse and into the actual nature of the dangers they were facing. In their attempt to evade detection while fleeing over the border into Saudi Arabia, they could not benefit from this type of reassurance. In a study of Southeast Asian refugee children, Harding and Looney reported that children who were living amidst family support were far more adapted to their new lives than were those who were either separated from their families or placed in foster care: Hence, if parents can sustain a strong attachment to their children and have access to the basic needs of shelter, food, and medical care, then children will continue to successfully cope with new environments. (Al-Eissa, 1995: 1036)

It is common for war-affected mothers to have their ability to meet their child’s needs impeded as a result of the stressful and debilitating nature of war. Unfortunately, these mothers often report that they are fully aware that they are not meeting their child’s needs and, in most cases, they have no solution. The task of dealing with the effects of war as a developmental challenge falls into the laps of the people who teach children in that particular society – parents, relatives, teachers, and counselors. Generations of studies designed to explore the experiences of children living in war zones testify to the importance of adult response to danger as a factor contributing to psychological responses in children exposed to war. As long as adults present children with a model of calm and positive determination, most children can cope with a great deal of acute warrelated violence. Although children may be traumatized by their experiences, the adults around them will be able to serve as resources and will support the child in rehabilitative efforts to cope with the long-term consequences. Adults may further stimulate salutagenic experiences.

Long-Term Effects of War on Children

However, once adults begin to panic and decompensate, children suffer in the short term (and perhaps in the long run as well). Traumatized children need help to recover from their experiences, and emotionally disabled or immobilized adults are unlikely to offer the children what they need. Such adults are inclined to engage in denial, to be emotionally inaccessible, and are prone to misinterpretation of the child’s signals. Messages of safety are particularly important in establishing adults as sources of protection and authority for children living in conditions of threat and violence. These types of messages may be particularly difficult to communicate, especially since human service professionals and educators working in war zones are themselves commonly traumatized by their exposure to the violence. Children depend on adults as teachers. Thus, we must understand the teaching process as it relates to trauma. This leads us to interactional model of development proposed by Lev Vygotsky and noted earlier. In this approach, child development is fundamentally social; cognitive development proceeds at its best through the process of interactive teaching. He focuses on the ‘zone of proximal development’: the difference between what the child can accomplish alone versus what the child can accomplish with the guidance of a teacher. How, one might ask, is this relevant to the child’s ability to cope with war trauma? In the case of isolated acute trauma in a setting of peace (e.g., a single horrible incident that violates the normal reality of the child’s world), the child needs help believing that ‘things are back to normal’. This type of simple reassurance may serve to provide a therapeutic function. However, the child who lives with chronic trauma needs something more. As reservoirs of optimism, hope, and morality have been depleted as a result of the chronic exposure to atrocity, this child needs to be taught how to redefine the world in moral and structural terms. This child knows very little about what it means to live in an orderly, compassionate, and moral world – a knowledge that must be explicitly taught and modeled if these values are to be learned.

Conclusion We must stop thinking about war in terms of sheer numbers. Casualty rates and spreadsheets grossly underestimate the true costs of war, for they fail to consider the psychological costs absorbed by children. The developmental challenge of growing up in a war zone is, like all childhood experiences, a matter of context – as defined by both the biology of the child and the social elements of the environment. As a result, there is significant variation in outcomes among children. This variation can be explained in terms of the accumulation of risk and opportunity factors.

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The goal of this article was to explore the variables that place children in war-afflicted areas at risk for long-term Maladaptation, as well as to explain those mechanisms by which favorable or unfavorable outcomes may be achieved. Identifying these risk and opportunity factors allows us to better predict who will be most adversely affected by war, so our global society can focus rehabilitative efforts where they are needed most (i.e., intervention), as well as promote resiliency prior to the onset of war (i.e., prevention). One focus of international initiatives (such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) is to create ‘zones of peace’ for children – that is, to encourage combatants to institute and respect protected areas for children. Underlying all such efforts is an attempt to communicate a message of safety to children. We might go further to suggest that these zones of peace work to promote free play and moral learning so that the long-term process of accommodation fosters salutagenic influences for children. See also: Health Consequences of War and Political Violence; Psychological Effects of Combat

Further Reading Al-Eissa, Y. (1995). The impact of the Gulf armed conflict on the health and behaviour of Kuwaiti children. Social Science and Medicine 41(7), 1033–1037. Apfel, R. and Simon, B. (eds.) (1996) . Minefields in their hearts: The mental health of children in war and communal violence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Barenbaum, J., Ruchkin, V., and Schwab-Stone, M. (2004). The psychosocial aspects of children exposed to war: Practice and policy initiatives. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45(1), 41–62. Bell, C. (1991). Traumatic stress and children in danger. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 2, 175–188. Bellamy, C. (2002). The state of the world’s children 2002: Leadership. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund. Breet, R. and McCallin, M. (1998). Children: The invisible soldiers. Sweden: Radda Barnen. Coie, J., Terry, R., Lenox, K., Lochman, J., and Hyman, C. (1995). Childhood peer rejection and aggression as predictors of stable patterns of adolescent disorder. Development and Psychopathology 7, 697–713. Coles, R. (1990). The spiritual life of children. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Dodge, K., Pettit, G., and Bates, J. (1997). How the experience of early physical abuse leads children to become clinically aggressive. In Cicchetti, D. and Toth, D. (eds.) Rochester’s symposium on developmental psychopathology: Developmental perspectives on trauma, pp. 163–188. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Dunst, C. and Trivette, C. (1992). Risk and opportunity factors influence parent and child functioning. Paper presented at the Ninth Annual Smoky Mountain Winter Institute. Ashville, North Carolina. Ellison, C., Gay, D., and Glass, T. (1989). Does religious commitment contribute to individual life satisfaction? Social Forces 86, 100–123. Frankl, V. (1963). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logoiherapy. New York: Washington Square Press. Garbarino, J. (1995). Raising children in a socially toxic environment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Garbarino, J. (2008). Children and the dark side of human experience: Confronting global realities and rethinking child development. New York: Springer.

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Garbarino, J., Dubrow, N., Kostelny, K., and Pardo, C. (1992). Children in danger: Coping with the consequences. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Garbarino, J., Guttmann, E., and Seeley, J. (1986). The psychologically battered child. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Garbarino, J., Kostelny, K., and Dubrow, N. (1991). No place to be a child: Growing up in a war zone. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Garmezy, N. and Masten, A. (1986). Stress, competence, and resilience: Common frontiers for therapist and psychpatherapist. Behavior therapy 17, 500–607. Gilligan, J. (1996). Violence. New York: Putnam. Groves, B. Z., Marans, S., and Cohen, D. (1993). Silent victims: Children who witness violence. Journal of the American Medical Association 269, 262–264. Herman, J. (1992). Trauma and recovery. New York: Basic Books. Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. New York: The Free Press. Jung, C. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Kinzie, J., Sack, W., Angell, R., Manson, S., and Rath, B. (1986). The psychiatric effects of massive trauma on Cambodian children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 25, 370–376. Kurdahi-Zahr, L. (1996). Effects of war on the behavior of Lebanese preschool children: Influence of home environment and family functioning. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 66(3), 401–408. Losel, F. and Bliesener, T. (1990). Resilience in adolescence: A study on the generalizability of protective factors. In Hurrelmann, K. and

Losel, F. (eds.) Health hazards in adolescence, pp. 290–320. New York: Walter de Gruyter. Macksoud, M. S. and Aber, J. L. (1996). The war experience and psychosocial development of children in Lebanon. Child Development 67, 70–88. Osofsky, J. (1995). The effects of exposure to violence on young children. American Psychologist 50, 782–788. Pargament, K., Olsen, H., Reilly, B., et al. (1992). God help me (II): The relationship of religious orientations to religious coping with negative life events. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 31, 504–513. Pynoos, R. and Nader, K. (1988). Psychological first aid and treatment approach to children exposed to community violence: Research implications. Journal of Traumatic Stress 1, 445–473. Richters, J. and Martinez, P. (1993). The NIMH community violence project: 1. Children as victims of and as witnesses to violence. Psychiatry 56, 7–21. Sameroff, A., Seifer, R. B., Zax, R. M., and Greenspan, S. (1987). Intelligence quotient scores of 4-year-old children: Socioenvironmental risk factors. Pediatrics 79, 343–350. Schacter, D. L. (1996). Emotional memories: When the past persists. New York: Basic Books. Terr, L. (1990). Too scared to cry. New York: Harper and Row. Terr, L. (1991). Childhood traumas: An outline and overview. American Journal of Psychiatry 148(1), 10–20. UNICEF (1996). State of the world’s children. New York: Oxford University Press.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma and Mental Disorders Angela Nickerson, Richard A Bryant, and Derrick Silove, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Major Depressive Disorder Complicated Grief Other Anxiety Disorders Substance Abuse Transcultural Issues Course of Mental Disorders After Trauma

Mental Health Interventions Complex Trauma Special Populations Case Study Conclusions Further Reading

Individuals who are exposed to traumatic events experience psychological stress and in some instances these reactions can impact on long-term functioning. Individual-level trauma encompasses experiences such as road traffic accidents, violent crime, and rape; while at a community level, war and other forms of conflict and oppression including torture, natural and technological disasters, and acts of terrorism can affect whole societies. The range of normal responses to trauma includes acute fear for one’s life, grief after the death of a Loved one, and changed beliefs about the world. It may also involve social and practical challenges including the loss of material possessions, adapting to physical injury, uncertainty about the safety of family and loved ones, threat to social

cohesion, and damage to physical infrastructure and social institutions that would otherwise assist the individual to cope. The major post-traumatic mental disorders are described below.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most commonly identified and widely investigated psychological disturbance that occurs after exposure to a traumatic event. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association (APA), 1994) defines PTSD as an anxiety disorder that

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma and Mental Disorders 581 Table 1 Re-experiencing symptoms Intrusive memories (images, thoughts or perceptions) Nightmares Flashbacks Psychological or physical distress when exposed to reminders of the trauma One or more of these symptoms must be present for a diagnosis of PTSD Avoidance/numbing symptoms Avoidance of trauma reminders (thoughts, conversations, places, people etc.) Difficulty remembering important parts of the trauma Decreased interest in activities Feeling detached from other people Unable to feel strong emotions Feeling like one does not have a future Three or more of these symptoms must be present for a diagnosis of PTSD Hyperarousal symptoms Disturbed sleep Anger or irritability Difficulty concentrating Hypervigilance Feeling jumpy or easily startled Two or more of these symptoms must be present for a diagnosis of PTSD Adapted from the American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

occurs in response to a life-threatening event that elicits intense fear, helplessness, or horror. PTSD is characterized by re-experiencing of the traumatic event, avoidance and numbing, and hyperarousal (see Table 1 for elaboration of symptom clusters). Only a minority of persons exposed to trauma develop PTSD, with the National Comorbidity Study (NCS) conducted in the USA indicating that whereas over 50% of the population is exposed to trauma at some time during their life, only 8% of men and 20% of women develop PTSD.

Major Depressive Disorder Depression is also a common reaction in individuals who have experienced a trauma, being the second-most frequently observed psychological disorder in survivors of disasters, with 36% of studies in the field identifying depression as a significant problem. Depression overlaps with PTSD, with the NCS indicating that 48% of men and 49% of women with a diagnosis of PTSD also suffered from depression at some stage in their lives.

Complicated Grief Trauma often involves the death of a loved one or strangers, so that natural or ‘uncomplicated’ grief reactions

frequently occur in the aftermath. However, these responses normally remit within six months as the survivor adapts to life without the deceased. If these grief responses do not ease, they may indicate a complicated grief reaction. Complicated grief can include yearning or longing for the deceased, avoiding reminders of the person that has died, numbing, and a range of other feelings such as shock, disbelief regarding the death, emptiness, and a sense that the future is meaningless. Complicated grief and PTSD are distinct syndromes and should not be confused. Research indicates that approximately 10–15% of bereaved individuals develop a complicated grief reaction.

Other Anxiety Disorders Trauma can trigger other anxiety disorders such as panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Panic disorder is characterized by recurrent and often spontaneous episodes of intense anxiety in which the person fears they will have a heart attack, die, or go crazy. Panic is common during a traumatic event, and the aversive nature of the symptoms can itself create the foundation for further emotional disturbances in the survivor. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is associated with excessive and uncontrollable worry. Worry is common in trauma survivors who tend to become particularly distressed about future harm occurring to them. The NCS found that panic disorder co-occurred with PTSD in 7.3% of men and 12.6% of women, while GAD was comorbid with PTSD in 16.8% of men and 15% of women.

Substance Abuse Survivors of trauma may turn to nicotine, alcohol, or narcotic drugs to reduce their aversive symptoms, with the extent to which this occurs depending on culture and context. This form of self-medicating can then become a problem in its own right. Substance abuse is highly comorbid with PTSD, with the NCS in the USA finding that 51.9% of men with a lifetime diagnosis of PTSD also abused alcohol, while 34.5% abused drugs as well.

Transcultural Issues Non-Western developing countries are disproportionately exposed to natural disasters and mass trauma of a human-instigated type. The latter includes war, oppression and torture, often occurring in the context of social conditions that exacerbate trauma such as poverty. Most research into clinical interventions for traumatic stress has been conducted in Western countries. Some critics have questioned the transcultural validity of

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concepts such as PTSD. Chakraborty (1991) asserted that populations living in different cultural circumstances may respond to trauma in diverse ways, for example, by somatizing their symptoms. In addition, concerns have been raised that Western-derived psychological treatments may not be acceptable or effective when applied across cultures. An additional concern is that applying the term PTSD focuses attention on the individual rather than on the society as a whole, potentially deflecting attention from a cultural and community-based understanding of the problem of mass trauma. The consequence may be an excessive emphasis on individually focused treatment approaches imported from Western societies rather than acknowledging the community’s own capacities and resources which, if mobilized, could enhance psychosocial recovery for most of its members. Some of these concerns have been addressed by contemporary research. Transnational epidemiological data suggest that PTSD may be a universal response to trauma exposure, and there is emerging evidence that psychological techniques adapted from developed countries may assist survivors suffering from this disorder. It also appears true that the majority of persons recover from acute traumatic reactions but acknowledgement of that tendency should not deflect attention from the minority of survivors who experience chronic PTSD and other reactions requiring intervention. In spite of ongoing controversies, there is a consensus that cultural and contextual considerations are central in devising intervention programs for mass trauma across contexts.

Course of Mental Disorders After Trauma Vulnerability Factors Since only a minority of trauma survivors develop mental disorders, attention has turned to identifying vulnerability factors (at the level of the individual, the trauma, and the environment) that contribute to poor outcomes. Severity of trauma is the best predictor of risk to longer-term psychopathology. In addition, there is a dose–response relationship, that is, the greater the number of traumas, the more likely the person is to suffer severe PTSD symptoms. There is strong evidence that the combination of exposure to childhood abuse and preexisting psychiatric disorder increase the likelihood that someone will develop a severe reaction following later exposure to trauma. Lower intelligence and gender (with women being twice as likely as men to develop PTSD) are also contributing factors. After a trauma, ongoing stressors and lack of social support add to impaired post-traumatic functioning. Acute Post-Traumatic Reactions Most survivors experience acute stress reactions in the initial weeks after trauma exposure. For the majority,

these reactions are transient, being likely to remit in the initial 3–6 months after a traumatic event. This pattern may be different when traumatic events occur at a community level, such as natural disasters and war, situations in which the fundamental structures of society are so undermined that adjustment for individual survivors and families is made more difficult. For example, many persons may have experienced loss of residence; lack of food, water, or medical care; and poor access to other community-based support services. At an individual level, the category of acute stress disorder (ASD) was introduced in the DSM-IV to describe symptoms experienced by survivors in the first month after a traumatic event, with the aim of identifying people at high risk for developing ongoing PTSD. DSM-IV criteria for ASD are similar to those for PTSD (trauma exposure, intrusive, avoidant, and arousal symptoms) but with the additional requirement of dissociative symptoms (see Table 2). Longitudinal research has indicated that

Table 2 Dissociation A feeling of numbing or detachment Reduced awareness of surroundings Derealization (the feeling of being detached from reality) Depersonalization (the feeling of being outside one’s own body) Inability to remember an important part of the trauma Three or more of these symptoms must be present for a diagnosis of ASD Re-experiencing Recurrent images Recurrent thoughts Dreams Illusions Flashbacks Sense of reliving the trauma Distress when exposed to reminders of the trauma One or more of these symptoms must be present for a diagnosis of ASD Avoidance of reminders of the trauma Thoughts Feelings Conversations Activities Places People Marked avoidance must be present for a diagnosis of ASD Symptoms of anxiety or increased arousal Sleeping difficulties Irritability Difficulty concentrating Hypervigilance Feeling jumpy or easily startled Restlessness Marked anxiety must be present for a diagnosis of ASD Adapted from the American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

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although persons with ASD are at heightened risk, most people who develop PTSD do not initially display acute stress disorder. Hence, from a public health perspective, initial symptom indicators of risk may identify a minority who warrant early intervention, but they are not specific enough to cover the majority of persons who ultimately will develop PTSD.

Mental Health Interventions Early intervention approaches As previously noted, in the immediate aftermath of a trauma, almost all individuals exposed to the event will exhibit symptoms of transient distress. Therefore, providing immediate psychological interventions to all individuals is neither feasible nor necessary, an important principle particularly for low-resource settings where funds and expertise are scarce. Instead, after a mass traumatic event, survivors should be provided with assistance for immediate practical and psychosocial needs. In the case of large-scale trauma, such as natural disasters and war, survivors need to be provided with safety, food, water, shelter, and other practical requirements, in a setting of emotional and social support. Yet, over the past decade, individual trauma-focused psychological interventions have been implemented early after exposure to disasters and other forms of trauma. Although diverse in Box 1

approaches, interventions are referred to broadly as ‘debriefing’ (also known as critical incident stress debriefing or CISD). In their original form, they aimed to prevent longer-term psychological disorders (most notably PTSD) by allowing the individual to talk about the traumatic event and associated thoughts and feelings, a process often referred to colloquially as ‘catharsis’. Controversy has surrounded offering these blanket interventions to all survivors, with recent research suggesting that debriefing may be ineffective in preventing the onset of PTSD. Furthermore, some studies show that certain people may be at greater risk of developing posttraumatic stress responses if exposed to interventions that increase arousal in the early post-traumatic phase. There are also concerns that these interventions may not be congruent with the understanding and social response to trauma across diverse cultures. As a consequence, recent psychosocial forms of assistance have moved away from debriefing-style interventions, concentrating instead on meeting the broader needs of the individual and the group, by allaying anxiety and reducing arousal, and ensuring the survivor’s safety, access to emotional support, information, appropriate services, and knowledge about strategies for self-care (See Box 1). Some experts like Parker, Everley, Barnett, and Links (2006), for instance, have referred to this broad and flexible program of assistance as ‘‘psychological first aid.’’ More evidence is needed, however, to define clearly which elements of this package of

Principles of psychological first aid

The principles sof psychological first aid aim to facilitate the following in people after a trauma or disaster: ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

A sense of safety Calm Connectedness to others Self-efficacy/empowerment Hopefulness

Do

Don’t

* Help people meet basic needs for food, shelter & emergency medical attention * Listen to people who wish to share their stories and remember there is no wrong or right way to feel * Be friendly and compassionate even if people are being difficult * Provide accurate information about the disaster or trauma and the relief efforts. This will help people to understand the situation * Help people contact friends or loved ones * Keep families together. Keep children with parents or other close relatives whenever possible * Give practical suggestions that steer people towards helping themselves * Engage people in meeting their own needs * Find out the types and locations of government and non-government services and direct people to services that are available * If you know that more help and services are on the way do remind people of this when they express fear or worry

* Force people to share their stories with you, especially very personal details * Give simple reassurances like ‘‘everything will be fine’’ or ‘‘at least you survived’’ * Tell people what you think they should be feeling, thinking or doing now or how they should have acted earlier * Tell people why you think they have suffered by giving reasons about their personal behaviours or beliefs * Make promises that may not be kept * Criticize existing services or relief activities in front of people in need of those services

From Psychological first aid: How you can support well-being in disaster victims, downloaded from http://www.centerforthestudyoftraumaticstress.org/downloads/CSTS_Psych1stAid.pdf.

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Box 2

IASC Guidelines on mental health and psychosocial support in emergency situations

One notable example of recent international initiatives to regulate psychosocial interventions after trauma is the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings (IASC, 2007). These guidelines enable various organizations involved in the aftermath of a mass trauma to plan, coordinate and implement various minimum responses aimed at protecting psychological health in emergency situations. The guidelines were developed primarily for use in low or middle-income countries and promote cooperation amongst agencies in the aftermath of a mass trauma. The guidelines put forward a matrix of appropriate action that should be taken by various actors at differing stages during emergencies. The guidelines also include a set of action sheets which provide suggestions for the implementation of recommended minimum responses during the acute stage of an emergency. These action sheets encompass such areas as health services, community mobilisation and support, dissemination of information, education and food, security and nutrition. The guidelines also outline comprehensive actions that are to be implemented after the acute phase of the emergency.

interventions are most beneficial to individuals and the community as a whole. Nevertheless, recent international efforts have been directed at establishing consensusbased, and where available, evidence-based principles for such psychosocial interventions after large-scale trauma (see Box 2). Pharmacological therapy A limited range of pharmacological interventions are available for treating PTSD and trauma-related depression or anxiety. The mainstay of treatment is the newer antidepressants, particularly the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as sertraline and paroxetine as well as related medications such as mertazapine, which act on a range of neurotransmitter systems. There is good evidence that these medications are effective for PTSD following single-event civilian trauma in Western societies. They are used across cultures in spite of the small evidence-base supporting their efficacy in those settings. The ‘older’ antidepressants or tricyclics (imipramine, amitriptyline, doxepin) may be the only medications available in low-income countries and they appear to be relatively effective for PTSD but more so for depression. Their potential adverse effects need to be kept in mind, particularly their high lethality in overdose, and risks in the elderly and those with organ disease, so that their use needs to be monitored closely. Overall, minor tranquillizers such as the benzodiazepines (diazepam, alprazolam) should be avoided except occasionally for very short-term treatment of overwhelming anxiety or severe insomnia. Even then, they should be used in low dosage, intermittently, and for a few weeks only, except in exceptional cases. Other less well-established medications include the antipsychotics (e.g., risperidone) in low dosage, mood stabilizers such as valproate particularly where anger is prominent, lithium, and drugs that block the action of noradrenalin and hence reduce physiological arousal. In all instances, the benefits and disadvantages of prescribing medications need to be weighed. In some disaster or emergency settings, for example, in an emergency clinic after a disaster in a resource-poor developing country, medication may be the

only resort for severe cases of PTSD or depression. Even in that setting, however, the clinician should spend some time explaining the problem to the patient and where possible, the family; rule out physical or psychological contraindications (high suicide risk, serious organ disease) to prescribing medications; assess whether psychological interventions are available and if so, whether they have been trialled; consider what the cultural beliefs and practices are in relation to taking medications; explain carefully how the medications should be taken and how to detect side-effects or adverse effects; make sure that the medications are accessible over time and affordable; and ensure ongoing monitoring and feedback. Given that most acute traumatic stress reactions remit spontaneously, caution needs to be exercised in prescribing medication too readily to all survivors with such symptoms. In many cases, reassurance, explanation, expectation of resolution, and arranging appropriate practical and social support may suffice. It is important, however, to follow up cases to be assured that symptoms remit. Psychological therapy Psychological therapies for traumatic stress reactions have undergone trials, largely in Western countries. Most studies have focused on interventions following discrete traumas such as motor vehicle accidents or rape as opposed to large-scale traumas such as natural disasters and wars which affect entire communities. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is widely considered to be the treatment of choice for psychological disorders such as PTSD, depression, and other anxiety disorders. CBT has been shown to be effective in reducing post-traumatic symptoms in a range of settings, including after motor vehicle accidents, terrorist attacks, and rape. A modified form of CBT is also indicated for complicated grief. CBT is generally conducted over nine to twelve sessions and follows a similar structure for various disorders (see Box 3 for an elaboration of techniques used in CBT for PTSD). Preliminary data suggest that culturally adapted approaches can be effective for trauma-affected communities from diverse cultural backgrounds whether living in Western countries or in settings such as Africa.

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Box 3

Cognitive behavior therapy for PTSD

CBT for PTSD typically encompasses the following elements: ○ Psychoeducation: The individual is given information about the disorder and the psychological basis of their symptoms to normalize their experience. A treatment rational is also provided. ○ Anxiety management techniques: The patient is taught techniques to manage physical manifestations such as controlled breathing and progressive muscle relaxation. Mental stress is also addressed with self-talk strategies that correct catastrophic cognitions and thoughts. These techniques reduce arousal and facilitate engagement with the treatment components that follow. ○ Prolonged exposure: A central feature of treatment is the application of prolonged imaginal exposure which involves being guided through the memory of the traumatic event for extended periods of time (usually at least 50 minutes at a time). Typically patients also practise imaginal exposure between therapy sessions. ○ In vivo expsosure: In vivo exposure typically involves exposure to real-life reminders of the traumatic event in a graded manner, for example, visiting a bank where the patient experienced a hold-up. ○ Cognitive restructuring: This technique involves patients learning to identify and use evidence to challenge maladaptive appraisals or interpretations of the trauma, the self, the world or the future. For example, a victim of sexual assault may believe that ‘‘all men are dangerous’’. This technique would aid the individual to find evidence that contradicts this belief to facilitate her ability to function in everyday life. ○ Relapse prevention: Towards the end of treatment, relapse prevention is taught to identify possible situations or stressors that may lead to setbacks and to rehearse strategies to identify and manage these situations.

The challenge for the field is to identify the essential elements of these therapies and to what extent they need to be adapted to local cultures to maintain their effectiveness.

Special Populations

Complex Trauma

Refugees and other populations exposed to mass conflict and displacement are at heightened risk of PTSD and traumatic mental health problems. These populations often experience multiple and sequential stresses under conditions of war and persecution, during the period of flight and after reaching situations of temporary or permanent asylum in other countries. Since whole communities are affected, attention needs to be given not only to individual trauma but to the collective impacts of social and familial disruptions, and the cultural and contextual challenges of displacement and resettlement. The dilemma created by situations of mass trauma, particularly when populations reside in low-resourced settings, is to decide what form of interventions should be given priority. Broad-based psychosocial programs aim to engage the community in self-help strategies derived from local cultures and practices. As yet, there is scant systematic data indicating that these programs are beneficial to persons suffering from severe traumatic stress disorders. Similarly, involvement in processes such as truth and reconciliation commissions does not in itself appear to ameliorate symptoms of severe PTSD, although data in relation to that issue remains scant. At the same time, there is evidence that the broad conditions that prevail in the post-traumatic environment may influence the trajectory of PTSD symptoms, at least for the majority of survivors. The ADAPT model (Adaptation and Development After Persecution and Trauma) identifies five key social domains that are disrupted during war and epochs of mass persecution, namely, threats to safety; the integrity of family, community bonds and networks;

Traumas caused by human-instigated abuses, occurring over long periods of time, may lead to more complex reactions that affect the personality of the survivor. For example, there is compelling evidence that early childhood abuse is a risk factor to the development of borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality involves impulsivity, identity disturbance, relationship instability, and self-destructive behavior. PTSD symptoms are often present. Further, successful treatments for borderline personality disorder entail many of the components of CBT used to treat PTSD. At the same time, the features of borderline personality are more wide-ranging than those encompassed by PTSD, suggesting more complex impacts on personality of prolonged abuse, particularly in early development. A related issue is whether human-instigated abuses can cause personality distortions in adults, with some experts arguing in favor of including a category for ‘complex PTSD’. The reaction that has been described is thought to occur particularly among persons experiencing torture, other forms of extreme persecution and experiences such as prolonged incarceration in concentration camps and repeated sexual abuse. It is argued that these forms of trauma result in persisting changes in personality such as pervasive hostility, mistrust, difficulties in modulating emotions, and a fundamental fragmentation of the sense of self, often associated with a tendency to dissociation and somatization. As yet, there is little consensus as to whether the proposed constellation of characteristics described for ‘complex’ PTSD form a distinct cluster of maladaptive changes after severe trauma.

Populations Exposed to Persecution and Conflict Including Refugees and AsylumSeekers

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effective systems of justice; the capacity to perform roles and maintain identities; and the ability to engage in activities that confer meaning, such as religious practices, social and political pursuits, and cultural rituals. In general, survivor communities are active in their efforts to re-establish institutions and practices that re-create or strengthen these five pillars of stability. Aid programs that are effective focus on promoting the intrinsic resourcefulness and resilience of the target group to allow them to recreate these foundations of a stable society. Hence, the long-term psychosocial functioning of refugees is influenced not only by the trauma they have experienced or the specific availability of psychological therapies, but by post-trauma cultural, ecosocial and socioeconomic environments. Where refugees are provided with safe environments and conditions in which they can predict a secure and meaningful future for themselves and their families, they tend to experience a reduction in traumatic stress symptoms over time. Where groups such as asylum-seekers live in a state of uncertainty about the future or in harsh and threatening environments such as detention centers or refugee camps, traumatic stress symptoms tend to persist. Nevertheless, even under the best circumstances, there will be refugees who experience chronic and disabling traumatic stress disorders that warrant specific treatment. In summary, therefore, contemporary knowledge suggests that conditions in the post-traumatic environment, particularly a return to a state of safety and security, plays a significant role in ameliorating traumatic stress in the population as a whole. It seems likely that those with mild to moderate initial symptoms are most likely to recover under these circumstances. The risk however is that the residual minority with severe and disabling PTSD will not receive effective interventions in the medium-term, particularly in resource-poor conflict-affected countries of the developing world. Children Children are at similar risk to PTSD as adults. Although the PTSD symptom profile is broadly comparable, the behavioral manifestations observed differ according to the stage of development of the child. For example, preschool children tend to report fewer of the ‘internal’ or subjective features of PTSD, particularly reliving memories and avoiding thoughts and feelings related to the event, instead manifesting their distress in their activities, paintings, or enactments in play. CBT is also the intervention strategy of choice for children with PTSD. Terrorism Terrorist attacks have some distinctive feature with survivors not only having to deal with the aftermath but with the prospect of future attacks. Whereas the

DSM-IV definition of PTSD focuses exclusively on the historical nature of trauma, survivors of terrorism also experience anticipatory anxiety about the future. Further, when terrorist attacks are commonplace, it is difficult to conclude that this anxiety is unrealistic. Similar issues apply to those serving in the military or emergency response organizations and amongst asylum seekers at risk of being repatriated to the original situation of danger in their home countries. Treatment approaches are being modified to assist people to distinguish between understandable concerns about possible future threats and excessive worry that can interfere with their functioning.

Case Study The following case study illustrates the interaction of practical support and specific psychological therapies in facilitating recovery from mass trauma in a transcultural setting. In December 2005, a tsunami devastated southern Thailand. On that day, D was sitting by the shore repairing fishing nets. When the tidal wave approached, he frantically tried to reach safe ground in the hills. His wife and two children were sitting nearby. He tried to hold onto his children, pulling them away from the approaching waves. He was not able to hold on tightly enough and both children were swept away to their death. His wife was also killed. D managed to climb a palm tree, and helplessly watched the destruction below him. In the following 6 months, D suffered extreme anxiety, depression, and grief. He had frequent intrusive images of his children being swept away, overwhelming fear of the sea, and of another tsunami occurring. His grief was intense, being associated with much guilt for his inability to save his family. An international aid fund provided support to his entire village to rebuild their fishing boats. This initiative allowed him to resume regular activities, as well as assisting him and his whole village to re-establish their local economy and become self-sufficient again. An expatriate team had worked with local counsellors to develop a culturally adapted form of CBT, and that intervention was offered to D. In dedicated therapeutic sessions, D was guided through the process of re-experiencing the day of the tsunami by repeatedly talking about his experiences and recounting his emotional responses to the tragedy. Therapy occurred twice a week for 5 weeks. He confronted his guilt, recognizing gradually that it would have been impossible to counter the force of the tidal waves and save his family. Through ongoing mental health interventions and gradual increases in daily activity, resumption of his fishing activities, and the return to normal village life, D’s symptoms of PTSD, depression, and grief reduced over the following 12 months. The case indicates the importance of providing a package of interventions for cases such as these, with social, occupational,

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cultural, and contextual forms of assistance complementing more specific psychotherapies that have been adapted to the local setting.

Conclusions There is a growing awareness internationally that large sectors of the world’s population are at risk of experiencing major trauma. In parallel, there is better recognition that exposure to trauma does not automatically result in a psychological disorder, with most survivors and their communities drawing on their intrinsic capacities to adapt to and accommodate the changes brought about by the external stress. Yet, a significant minority of survivors suffer long-term psychological morbidity and associated disability. At a group level, a broad program of psychosocial assistance (psychological first aid) is now recommended in the immediate aftermath of mass trauma, while research has suggested that CBT is the optimal treatment for individuals with psychological difficulties that persist after a traumatic event. While most of the research on interventions has been undertaken in industrialized countries, the majority of large-scale disasters brought about by war, oppression, and natural events occur in developing countries that are culturally and linguistically distinct, and usually in settings where mental health systems are poorly developed. More needs to be learnt about how different cultures adapt to these experiences. Future challenges for the field are to define the cultural, social, and ecological factors that influence the way trauma impacts on societies and individuals, the vulnerability and resiliency factors that determine the range of outcomes, whether successful or dysfunctional, and the ways in which psychological, medical, and social interventions need to be shaped and adapted to render them acceptable and effective across contexts. See also: Traumatology

Further Reading American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Bonanno, G. (2004). Loss, trauma and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist 59, 20–28. Brady, K., Pearlstein, T., Asnis, G. M., et al. (2000). Efficacy and safety of sertraline treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association 283, 1837–1844. Bremner, J. D. (2002). Does stress damage the brain? New York: Norton. Breslau, N., Davis, G. C., Andreski, P., and Peterson, E. (1991). Traumatic events and posttraumatic stress disorder in an urban population of young adults. Archives of General Psychiatry 48, 216–222.

Brewin, C. R., Andrews, B., and Valentine, J. D. (2000). Meta-analysis of risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in trauma-exposed adults. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68, 748–766. Bryant, R. A. (2003). Early predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder. Biological Psychiatry 53, 789–795. Bryant, R. A. (2006). Recovery after the tsunami: Timeline for rehabilitation. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 67 (supplement 2): 50–55. Bryant, R. A. and Friedman, M. (2001). Medication and non-medication treatments of posttraumatic stress disorder. Current Opinion in Psychiatry 14, 119–123. Bryant, R. A., Sackville, T., Dang, S. T., Moulds, M., and Guthrie, R. (1999). Treating acute stress disorder: An evaluation of cognitive behavior therapy and counselling techniques. American Journal of Psychiatry 156, 1780–1786. Chakraborty, A. (1991). Culture, colonialism and psychiatry. The Lancet 337, 1204–1207. Charney, D. S., Deutch, A. Y., Krystal, J. H., Southwick, S. M., and Davis, M. (1993). Psychobiologic mechanisms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 50, 294–305. Davidson, R. J. and Foa, E. B. (eds.) (1993) . Posttraumatic stress disorder: DSM-IV and beyond. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. de Jong, J. T., Komproe, I. H., Van Ommeren, M., et al. (2001). Lifetime events and posttraumatic stress disorder in four postconflict settings. Journal of the American Medical Association 286, 555–562. Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., and Friedman, M. J. (eds.) (2000) . Effective treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder: Practice guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. New York: Guilford Press. Foa, E. B. and Meadows, E. A. (1997). Psychosocial treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder: A critical review. Annual Review of Psychology 48, 449–480. Galea, S., Ahern, J., Resnick, H., et al. (2002). Psychological sequelae of the September 11 terrorist attacks. New England Journal of Medicine 346, 982–987. Harvey, A. G. and Bryant, R. A. (2002). Acute stress disorder: A synthesis and critique. Psychological Bulletin 128, 886–902. Herman, J. L. (1992). Complex PTSD: A syndrome in survivors of prolonged and repeated trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress 5, 377–391. Hinton, D., Hinton, S., Pham, T., Chau, H., and Tran, M. (2003). ‘Hit by the wind’ and temperature-shift panic among Vietnamese refugees. Transcultural Psychiatry 40, 342–376. Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) (2007). IASC guidelines on mental health and psychosocial support in emergency settings. Geneva: IASC. Janet, P. (1907). The major symptoms of hysteria. New York: Macmillan. Kaminer, D., Stein, D., Mbanga, I., and Zungu-Dirwayi, N. (2001). The truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa: Relation to psychiatric status and forgiveness among survivors of human rights abuses. British Journal of Psychiatry 178, 373–377. Kessler, R. C., Sonnega, A., Bromet, E., Hughes, M., and Nelson, C. B. (1995). Posttraumatic stress disorder in the national comorbidity survey. Archives of General Psychiatry 52, 1048–1060. Linehan, M. M. (2001). The empirical basis of dialectical behavior therapy: Development of a new treatment versus evaluation of existing treatments. Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice 11, 325–335. McNally, R. J. (2003). Remembering trauma. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. McNally, R. J., Bryant, R. A., and Ehlers, A. (2003). Psychological debriefing and its alternatives: A critique of early intervention for trauma survivors. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4, 45–79. Neuner, F., Schauer, M., Klaschik, C., Karunakara, U., and Eelbert, T. (2004). A comparison of narrative exposure therapy, supportive counselling and psychoeducation for treating posttraumatic stress disorder in an African refugee settlement. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 72, 579–587. Norris, F. H., Friedman, M. J., Watson, P. J., et al. (2002). 60, 000 Disaster victims speak. Part 1: An empirical review of the empirical literature, 1981–2001. Psychiatry 65, 207–239. Ozer, E. J., Best, S. R., Lipsey, T. L., and Weiss, D. S. (2003). Predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder and symptoms in adults: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 129, 52–73.

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Parker, C. L., Everley, G. S., Barnett, D. J., and Links, J. M. (2006). Establishing evidence-informed core intervention competencies in psychological first aid for public health personnel. International Journal of Emergency Mental Health 8, 83–92. Pitman, R. K., Shalev, A. Y., and Orr, S. P. (2000). Posttraumatic stress disorder: Emotion, conditioning and memory. In Corbetta, M. D. and Gazzaniga, M. (eds.) The new cognitive neurosciences, 2nd edn., pp. 1133–1148. New York: Plenum Press. Prigerson, H. G., Shear, M. K., Jacobs, S. C., et al. (1999). Consensus criteria for traumatic grief: A preliminary empirical test. British Journal of Psychiatry 174, 67–73. Salmon, K. and Bryant, R. A. (2002). Posttraumatic stress disorder in children: The influence of developmental factors. Clinical Psychology Review 22, 163–188. Silove, D. (1999). The psychosocial effects of torture, mass human rights violations and refugee trauma: Toward and integrated conceptual framework. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 187, 200–207. Silove, D. and Steel, Z. (2006). Understanding community psychosocial needs after disasters: Implications for mental health services. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 52, 121–125. Silove, D., Steel, Z., and Watters, C. (2000). Policies of deterrence and the mental health of asylum seekers. Journal of the American Medical Association 284, 604–611.

Spiegel, D. (1996). Dissociative disorders. In Hales, R. E. and Yudofsky, S. C. (eds.) Synopsis of psychiatry, pp. 583–604. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. Steel, Z., Silove, D., Brooks, R., et al. (2006). Impact of immigration detention and temporary protection on the mental health of refugees. British Journal of Psychiatry 188, 58–64. Summerfield, D. (1999). A critique of seven assumptions behind psychological trauma programmes in war-affected areas. Social Science and Medicine 48, 1449–1462. World Health Organization (1992). The ICD-10 classification of mental and behavioural disorders: Clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines. Geneva: World Health Organization. Yehuda, R. (ed.) (1999). Risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.

Relevant Websites http://www.ncptsd.va.gov – National Center for PTSD. http://www.nice.org.uk – NICE Treatment Guidelines for PTSD. http://www.centerforthestudyoftraumaticstress.org – Psychological first aid: How you can support well-being in disaster victims, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress.

Traumatology Charles R Figley, Florida State University Traumatology Institute, Tallahassee, FL, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Trauma, Traumatic Stress, and Traumatology History and Overview of the Field Definitions and Theories Applications

Glossary Combat/Operational Stress Injury (COSI) The potentially irreversible changes in the brain and mind due to combat or operational stress that exceed in intensity or duration the ability of the individual to adapt. Symptoms of stress injury normally resolve over time as the injury heals, but intervention may be needed to promote healing in some cases. COSIs can be of three types, differing mostly in the cause of the injury: (1) traumatic stress injury, (2) fatigue stress injury, and (3) grief stress injury. Many COSIs include components of more than one type of stress injury since trauma, fatigue, and grief are not mutually exclusive. Combat Stress The perceived challenges of combat and its aftermath that can have either positive, negative, or a combination of reactions. Fatigue Stress The perceived challenges of enduring long periods of time under distressing and demanding circumstances without sufficient relief (e.g., sleep, rest)

The Forms of Treatment for the Traumatized Conclusion Further Reading

to adequately prepare – physically and mentally – to continue under the same conditions. Fatigue Stress Injury A stress injury caused by the wear-and-tear of unrelenting exposure to operational stress during long or repeated deployments, often compounded by concurrent stress from other sources such as family problems. Grief Stress caused by the loss of someone who is cared about, such as a buddy, leader, or family member. Grief Stress Injury A stress injury caused by the loss of someone who is cared about such as a buddy, leader, or family member. Though grief is normal under most circumstances, multiple losses of close friends, valued leaders, or family members inflict mental and emotional wounds that take time to heal, and may interfere with normal functioning until they do heal. Polygrief The condition of a person who has been subjected to multiple deaths and losses within the person’s social support network (see Grief). Polygrief

Traumatology

can also describe the condition of a patient who has been exposed to deaths from multiple traumatic events. Polytrauma The condition of a person who has been subjected to multiple, serious (i.e., life-threatening) injuries such as a serious and extensive burn injury along with a leg fracture. Polytrauma can also describe the condition of a patient who has been exposed to and is suffering a stress injury from multiple traumatic events. Post-Traumatic Stress Stress-based responses to the trauma both at the time of the event(s) and subsequently when the person is dealing with the memories of the event(s).It is identical in meaning to traumatic stress. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A psychiatric diagnosis found in the American Psychiatric Association’s (2004) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders and classified with Anxiety Disorders. It is also found in the International Classification of Diseases, published by the World Health Organization (2005). PTSD is a traumatic stress injury that lasts beyond 30 days and impairs functioning. It is when the injury fails to heal and the symptoms and behaviors remain significantly troubling or disabling beyond 30 days after their onset. PTSD is not the only stress disorder that can result from unhealed stress injuries; others include clinical depression and anxiety, and substance abuse or dependence. Stress In humans is a physical, chemical, or emotional demand that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation. Stress Adaptation or Stress Resiliency The normal process of coping with a stressor, usually by either changing oneself physically and mentally to be better suited for that particular stressor, or by becoming numb to the mental and physical effects of that stressor. Stress adaptation is always temporary, and although residual effects may remain, it always fades after the stressor is no longer experienced.

Trauma, Traumatic Stress, and Traumatology Tsunami! Terrorist attack! Hurricane! Cyclone! Tornado! Highway collision! When we think about traumatic events we most often think about those with which we are most familiar. These events create memories. The memories are far more formidable for those who were directly affected, often referred to as ‘victims’. Yet, as demonstrated by this volume, the implications of these types of traumatic events apply to areas and fields far beyond those immediately and personally affected. Yet, all are relevant to traumatology. As noted in the glossary, trauma is derived from the Greek word that means an injury or wound. Traumatic stress is the

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Stress Injury Identical to combat stress injury but applies to all other highly stressful and potentially traumatic contexts. Stressor Any mental or physical challenge or set of challenges perceived by the person to require action. Stress Reaction A psychosocial and behavioral response to demand and often described as distress. Trauma or Traumatic (from Greek word ‘trauma’ meaning injury or wound) The demands caused by a trauma either physical, chemical, emotional, or a combination thereof, that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation. Traumatic Event The context in which a trauma occurred – be it physical or psychological. Traumatic Stress The immediate and longer-term demands – physically and mentally – of recovering from a trauma. Traumatic Stress Injury A form of stress reaction to specific event(s) involving serious or sustained threat to one’s own life, loss of life, or witnessing serious injury; there’s a clear link between experiencing a traumatic event and evidence of hurt, damage, or loss that requires attention, failing which there is greater, and longer-lasting hurt, damage, or loss. Traumatic Stress Reactions Identical to Posttraumatic stress. Traumatic Stress Studies or Psychotraumatology Earlier terms for the field of traumatology but found too narrow and less useful than the more encompassing latter term since the former terms suggest that a trauma is limited to the psychological domain. Traumatology A field of study and treatment of physical and psychosocial wounds and injuries caused by events (natural, or human-caused) that are fearinducing and/or stressful.

demand for action derived from a trauma because it is a physical or psychological injury.

History and Overview of the Field The study of trauma has existed in the world since the middle of the twentieth century in Europe and is an outgrowth of surgery on the battlefield. Indeed, some have argued that the history of trauma is as old as medicine itself. The trauma research and practice focusing on psychological trauma has been called ‘traumatic stress studies’ and ‘psychotraumatology’. The first use of traumatology as a field representing this broader psychosocial

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meaning was published in Helping the Hurt Child by Donovan & McIntyre in 1990. The international journal, Traumatology, emerged in 1995. Traumatology refers to both the investigation and application of knowledge about the immediate and longterm consequences of highly stressful events and the factors that affect those consequences. The application of the term evolved to incorporate the much wider field that includes, but is not limited to the traumatology of medicine, dentistry, and nursing. It now also incorporates traumatic stress studies, thanatology, victimology, disaster studies, rape trauma/sexual assault trauma studies, holocaust survivor studies, and many others. This field emerged over the last 30 years, yet its origin can be traced to the earliest medical writings that discussed the symptoms and treatment of hysteria. Indeed, theories and explanations of traumatic stress symptoms are found throughout history. Ellenberger, for example, noted that symptoms such as flashbacks, dissociation, and startle responses were variously viewed as acts of God, the gods, the devil, and various types of spirits. One of the most important innovations, though, was the work done at the La Salpetriere Hospital in Paris. There, Jean-Martain Charcot was the first to demonstrate that hysteria had psychological origins. In reviewing the literature since the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was introduced in 1981, most traumatology contributions have been in the area of clinical practice. As with most fields, traumatology is composed of a body of scientific knowledge that is based on research, careful observation, and guided by theory. As will be noted in the next section, the latter has received much less attention than the other elements that make up the literature of traumatology. Today, traumatology is a health and social science field which is concerned with all the aspects of emotional trauma and crisis at the level of the individual, group, family, community, and society. Traumatology brings together a host of related sciences, such as psychology, social work, psychiatry, trauma medicine, sociology, psychogenesis, theology, nursing, nutrition, and others. Thus trauma is a far-reaching, complex, inclusive, and multi-, and interdisciplinary. However the field should be considered a ‘young’ science. It continues to evolve in its breadth and depth as a science that focuses primarily on practice. Despite this, it has an already existing, solid foundation of knowledge as a base. Notwithstanding the broad base on which it stands, it is specific to its content and purpose. The study of traumatology at its various levels prepares and enables the practitioner to provide supportive and curative interventions to sufferers of trauma. Because this volume focuses on the psychosocial causes and consequences of violence and conflict, and toward promoting and retaining peace, this article focuses on the human psychosocial consequences and treatments associated with exposure to traumatic events.

Definitions and Theories The Glossary section defines the most important terms in the field of traumatology. These terms are utilized in most of the major theories that currently dominate the field. Because the field is practice-centered, these theories, frameworks, and models have in common either an interest in explaining and predicting human reactions to traumatic events, variations in human response based on demographic or situational variables, or how and why certain interventions work to prevent, limit, or mitigate the reactions resulting from a single or series of traumatic events. What is missing in the field of traumatology is an evidence-based, unified theory of the trauma induction and reduction process. The distinctive feature about trauma and traumatology theory is that it follows the medical model to account for physical injury but adapts an interdisciplinary explanation for psychic injuries. What has emerged today is a blending of both. In the recent book, Combat stress injury: Theory, research, and management, Figley and Nash make an argument about the consequences of combat stress that can be applied to any extremely stressful environment capable of causing an injury in nearly anyone. They argue that human beings at some point cross a psychological boundary of endurance and coping with stress that leads to a stress injury. A psychological stress injury is analogous to a physical stress injury, such as repetitive stress injury, or repetitive strain. Repetitive stress injury (or RSI) is a medical syndrome resulting from placing too much strain on a joint. Understanding this parallel is important in understanding the potential utility of the psychological stress injury concept in general and especially its importance as the fundamental foundation of psychological trauma area of the field of traumatology. RSI happens when the same action is performed repeatedly such as typing on a keyboard, moving components on an assembly line, or doing something fun such as a video game or playing tennis. When a joint is strained, it, in turn, strains the tissues, muscles, and tendons around it. (Bursae are the small sacs filled with fluid that act as cushions between tendons and bones; tendons are tissue that attach muscles to bones). When the action is repeated enough the area does not have time to recover and it becomes irritated. This can cause the area to become a medical condition that is painful and swollen. The two most common RSI medical conditions are tendonitis (inflammation of a tendon or the fluid-filled sheath surrounding a tendon) and bursitis (inflammation of a bursa). Those involved in repetitively stressful work, hour after hour, day after day, are placing too much strain on their bodies and minds. This strain is greater, of course, when the stakes are high, such as working as air traffic controller, a nurse in an emergency department, and a 911 dispatcher. Just as RSIs can be avoided with sufficient

Traumatology

time for the joints to rejuvenate and heal, research has shown that workers are able to avoid stress injuries with sufficient downtime to ‘reset’ or heal their biophysiological system, though there are individual differences in stress tolerance before a stress injury and differences in the quality and quantity of downtime for resetting. Similarly, just as RSIs strain tissues of the bursae, muscles, and tendons, a stress injury, according to Figley and Nash, is associated with traumatic stress reactions and also exhaustion and grief to various degrees depending upon the injured individual’s circumstances. Thus, a potentially unifying theory of the psychological branch of the field of traumatology is the stress injury model that states, in its simplest form, that the quality and quantity of distress overwhelms an individual’s resilience capacity and causes a psychological stress injury in the form of traumatic stress reactions, stress-related exhaustion, and if the situation involves loss, a grief reaction. Roots of this theory of traumatic stress injury can be found throughout the literature. This is consistent with Terr’s observations in 1990 that ‘‘psychic trauma occurs when a sudden, unexpected, overwhelming intense emotional blow assaults the person from outside. Traumatic events are external, but they quickly become incorporated into the mind’’ Van der Kolk noted in 1989 that traumatization occurs when both internal and external resources are inadequate to cope with external threat. Predicting the onset and duration of stress injury is a challenge. Several types of models have emerged over the year: psychobiological psychological trauma, sociological, and systemic. Psychobiological Models Psychobiological models attempt to account for changes in brain function and structure. Many draw from animal studies but must demonstrate relevance to human responses to trauma. Of special interest is how neuroscience can demonstrate change resulting from a traumatic event and how such changes are a function of the event and the memories of the event. Kendall and Stien, for example, offer a ‘‘new psychobiological model of child development’’ which noted that traumatic stress injury during childhood dramatically affects development; that these children suffer from what they call a ‘‘biochemical imbalance.’’ As a result these children require a new set of interpersonal experiences and coping skills to ‘realign brain circuitry’. Brief treatments have not proven effective with these clients. This model combines the work of development neuroscientists(e.g., Allan Schore and Daniel Siegel, and ethologists Stephen Soumi and Myron Hofer) with the work of traumatologists (e.g., Frank Putnam, Bessel van der Kolk, Martin Teicher, and Bruce Perry). The latter group, as noted later, focuses on how, among other things, childhood trauma affects brain neurobiology.

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Psychological Trauma Models Psychological trauma models emerged in an effort to account for the post-traumatic symptoms of trauma survivors by identifying the degree of exposure to a traumatic stressor. The first research-based model was offered by Figley in 1978 who suggested that there were two competing perspectives on the current understanding of combat-related stress reactions: the stress evaporation perspective (i.e., time heals all wounds) and the residual stress perspective (i.e., time does not heal all wounds). The former suggests that most veterans of war recover with little or no unwanted distress and that their functioning was no different from others matched demographically but without combat exposure. The latter perspective argues that although there are few differences between combat and noncombat veterans, the differences found are profound. The differences include the potentially chronic problems associated with memory management in both the short and long term. Since those initial efforts models have emerged to account for both perspectives. Sociological Models Sociological models tend to focus on the effects and forces of groups as a by-product of a traumatic event or series of events. The best example of these models is the collection Cultural trauma and collective identity by Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen, Smelser, and Sztompka in 2003. These sociologists discuss how traumatic events affecting a particular group, community, or culture have a lasting effect through collective identity. Their model builds upon the humanities disciplines discursively and also draws upon empirical evidence. They argue that members of social groups, affected by the memories of an extraordinary and negative event, respond emotionally to form new and binding understandings of social responsibility or covenant. They view this form of ‘meaning making process’ as an open-ended social dialog among its members. Through spokespersons they re-present these collective meanings to outside groups – both friend and foe – to justify various social positions. As a result this model adopts a strongly constructivist approach to trauma in that meaning is derived as a result of an event (e.g., 11 September terrorist attacks) or series of events (e.g., the Nazi Holocaust, human trafficking). Systemic or Secondary Traumatic Stress Models Similar to sociological models, systemic and secondary stress models focus on traumatic stressors and stress reactions of people as a by-product of loving, living, or working with someone who has been traumatized. Specifically, the theory of systemic or secondary traumatic stress suggests that being in close contact with and emotionally connected to a traumatized person becomes a chronic

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stressor. Though unsure of the exact psychosocial mechanisms, spouses, parents, and other caregivers – including professional service providers – often experience symptoms of traumatization. It is as if these individual stress symptoms are communicable and those who are close to the trauma survivor can be ‘‘infected’’ with the trauma symptoms). Figley, and Figley and Sprenkle first suggested in 1978 that there is a psychosocial consequence as well as an individual psychological consequence of trauma exposure. Both noted the trauma survivor deficits in interpersonal functioning and, most importantly, the psychosocial effects of members of social networks that included the traumatized. The focus of attention here was on returning combat veterans. Since then, however, they and others have identified additional populations were experiencing what we would now call a stress injury: (e.g., police officers, firefighters, rape victims).

Applications The field of traumatology is primarily concerned about application in that all research and theory is expected to lead to more efficacious assessment, prevention, management, and/or mitigation of unwanted consequences of exposure to trauma, particularly traumatic stress. As noted earlier, the various theories of the trauma induction and reduction processes are concerned with memory management: coming to terms with, learning from, and accommodating to the reality of the traumatic event(s). Therefore, traumatology applications enable the traumatized to manage their memories in the most efficacious and efficient ways possible. Fundamentally, however, traumatology theory predicts that someone who is traumatized requires desensitization (i.e., unlearning the traumatic stress reactions conditioned during the traumatic event and reinforced since that time). Without some form or degree of desensitization, the traumatized are unable to address these fundamental questions, no matter the context or the person. Therefore, it is important to first understand desensitization. Desensitization and the Reciprocal Inhibition Hypothesis Most practitioners agree that desensitization, the elimination of the conditioned trauma response (e.g., most posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms), is a major goal in trauma treatment. Wolpe was one of the first to offer a hypothesis in 1958, regarding the desensitization process. In 1952 he noted that Pavlov’s contribution to psychology, among other things, was the idea that neurosis is learned and not a result of a damage, disruption, or conflict. Pavlov’s discovery of conditioning principles ushered in the age of behavior therapy that started in the 1950s and

continues today. He discovered and confirmed that neurotic behavior can be created and eliminated by virtue of conditioning. It was discovered that dogs’ salivation could be counter-conditioned. Today we know that it is both. Yet, when one is changed the other diminishes in importance. Wolpe was the first to effectively apply Pavlov’s Method in 1952. However, Mowrer postulated in 1939 that fear and avoidance were maintained by a two-stage process and applied to phobias and other anxiety disorders. As later elaborated by Mower in 1960, fear is provoked both by the direct cause (stressors that should cause fight or flight) and associated cause (conditioned stimulus or stressor). An example of this is an ambulance or some other warning device, and any and all things one associates with danger that were inadvertently associated ‘triggers’ of our troubling memories. This is called classical conditioning. Inspired by Pavlov, Wolpe reported in 1958 the results of a series of experiments in South Africa. In an effort to challenge the prevailing view (psychoanalysis) that relief from anxiety can come only through a careful analysis of family dynamics, Wolpe tested an alternative hypothesis: ‘‘successful treatment of the neuroses must also depend upon the learning process.’’ This classic program of research provided support for the hypothesis that learning is the active ingredient in dramatic change involving the reduction of unwanted subjective distress and other symptoms. Sherrington was the first to introduce the term ‘reciprocal inhibition’ in 1947. His work on the nervous system was well known to medical students and research physicians during the period of time that Wolpe was studying anxiety reduction. He found Sherrington’s idea of inhibition of one spinal reflex by another, such as the one that occurs when stimulation of an ipsilateral afferent nerve causes relaxation of a vastocrureus muscle contracting to a contralateral stimulus. He chose to expand the application to all ‘‘situations in which the elicitation of one response appears to bring about a decrement in the strength of evocation of a simultaneous response.’’ Wolpe also credited Hilgard and Marquis with the finding that enabling new habits to develop in the same general situation often eliminates habits. Wendt is credited with his finding in 1936 that temporary reciprocal inhibition of an activity caused a permanently weakened strength of reaction. Wendt and others convinced Wolpe that there was a ‘‘competition between reactions’’ as the basis for this occurrence. Yet, he sought to describe the mechanism accounting for it. Wolpe 1958) states his general principle in the following hypothesis: If a response antagonistic to anxiety can be made to occur in the presence of anxiety-evoking stimuli so that it is accompanied by a complete or partial suppression of the anxiety responses, the bond between these stimuli and the anxiety responses will be weakened (Wolpe, 1958: 71).

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Applied to the traumatized, the hypothesis could be stated as follows: If a response antagonistic (e.g., low distress due to laughter, sex or some other relaxation method) to the traumatic stress reaction (as measured by at least three physiological metrics can be made to occur in the presence of anxietyevoking stimuli (reminders of the traumatic event) so that it is accompanied by a complete or partial suppression (for a particular minimum amount of time that a SUDs reading is 0) of the traumatic stress responses, the bond between the trauma and the traumatic stress reactions will be weakened. (p. 71)

Thus, if eating (especially in a hungry state) when one is feeling anxious, acts to inhibit the anxiety (i.e., reduces stress); food therapy would be the logical approach to the treatment of anxiety. Indeed, for some people, food is therapeutic in terms of self-soothing. Why do I eat when I am not hungry by Callahan in 1991 illustrates this well, suggesting that many people overeat in an effort to reduce their anxiety. Unfortunately, there are heavy consequences (e.g., weight gain, blood pressure elevation, diabetes, heart disease etc.). Instead of using food with humans, Wolpe turned to alternative techniques that would be, he hoped, as selfsoothing as food and still serve as a ‘‘natural antagonist’’ to anxiety. The one most preferred was the Jacobson relaxation method. Wolpe would train clients to use this relaxation method in combination with anxiety-provoking thoughts or other cues at a ‘‘dosage’’ (degree of distress) the client could comfortably tolerate. The dosage was increased until the client completely overcame any and all anxiety associated with the cause of the anxiety. This is now called the ‘desensitization’ process. Wolpe discovered the essence of distress and some simple ways of eliminating it. He suggested more than 45 years ago that what can be learned can be unlearned/re-learned. Wolpe explained his rather elaborate theory or ‘‘neurophysiological view’’ as follows. He believed that there are anatomical relations among behaviors, such as those associated with fear and pleasure. (van der Kolk’s more contemporary theory in 2000, Opponents Process Theory of Emotion, helps explain traumatic re-enactments and Freud’s repetition compulsion phenomenon). Wolpe spent considerable space in his book describing the neural connections that are associated with learning and unlearning reactions. Regarding the latter he noted extinction as a conditioned inhibition associated with fatigue (reactive inhibition). Of greater importance, however, was his introduction of the concept of reciprocal inhibition. Wolpe noted that the application of this reciprocal inhibition to clinical settings is contingent upon two issues: the utilization of an anxiety antagonist (e.g., food), and a clinical setting acceptable to the clients. He argued

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that the most effective anxiety antagonists would most likely be among those evoking parasympathetic activation of the autonomic nervous system. The first three anxiety antagonists were assertive responses, sexual responses, and relaxation responses. The latter became the most useful in a clinical setting with the client seeking relief from anxiety disorders. (The RIH is an explanation for the weakening of old responses by new ones. Wendt first recognized this in 1936. However, he did not suggest how a permanently weakened strength of the fear reaction. This historic contribution came from Wolpe . He asserted that it is the process of unlearning through reciprocal inhibition. The other two responses, however, deserve empirical investigations. If the hypothesis is correct and the client can be trained in assertiveness, for example, the client’s anxiety about social settings can be weakened as a result of such training. Reciprocal inhibition refers to ‘‘. . . the complete or partial suppression of the anxiety responses as a consequence of the simultaneous evocation of other responses physiologically antagonistic to anxiety.’’ (Wolpe, 1954: 205). The challenge is both finding the antagonistic stimuli has been the challenge. Food worked for cats and relaxation worked for people. Most who have studied Wolpe’s model of reciprocal inhibition believe that it can account for most successful desensitization. Being less distressed and reactive enables the client not only to remember more effectively but also think more clearly about goals,both in therapy and in life generally. Thus, the traumatized are stuck with the consequences of their learning to fear the trauma until they can feel relaxed while facing the fear-causing trauma reminders. Some become more relaxed as a result of talking about them, others more so by not talking or even thinking about the trauma. Some find a way to laugh about or find inspiration in their trauma and, therefore, the bond between the reminder and the fear response is weakened.

The Forms of Treatment for the Traumatized What form these applications may take varies greatly by the context and the traumatized person. Yet, these factors are very important because of the psychosocial process of coming to terms with the traumatic memories. Most often this process is in the form of answering five fundamental questions: What happened to me (or to us)? Why did this happen? Why did I (or we) act as I (we) did during the crisis? Why have I (we) acted as we have since the crisis? What if it happens again? The degree to which these questions and related fears are addressed vary greatly among individuals and the trauma contexts.

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Traumatic Event-Related Contextual Application Factors Contextual application factors are determined most often by time since the event, the causative nature of the event, and the contextual customs and traditions for handling crises. Time since the event: It is well-established that the passage of time, for some, abates the intensity of traumatic stress reactions. Moreover, different types of assistance are important during, immediately, the following weeks, and months later. Time is a factor because human beings are not passive but adaptive; they attempt to master their environment and the traumatic memories emerging from life events. Most people, for example, recover quickly and completely from traumatic events. They do so by drawing upon their own resources – personal, interpersonal, and social – to recover over time. A small but significant percentage does not recover and the longer the period of time since the event about which they require assistance, the more challenging it is to recover . Causative nature of the event: The traumatic events of (1) 11 September 2001, (2) Hurricane Katrina, and (3) a life-threatening medical emergency appear on the surface to be very different by nature. Yet according to the field of traumatology, each share a common set of causative characteristics. The terrorist attacks of 11 September were caused by human beings who can be blamed and prosecuted. Potentially future events can be prevented. Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster that caused considerable distribution. Yet many more died than most other natural disasters because of human beings, and could have been prevented (e.g., the New Orleans levee system). In the case of the third causative context, the medical emergency may have been preventable but often isn’t; the quality of medical assistance may vary. Therefore, all three contexts have varying degrees of predictability, personal responsibility, and culpability. Each is important as the survivor attempts to address the five fundamental questions in order to learn from and let go of the details of the memory. Person-Related Contextual Application Factors Another significant set of factors that help determine what and how traumatologists help the traumatized are associated with the gender, age, degree of resilience (both trait- and state-based) cultural and group influences, and motivation to seek and utilize help. Gender of the traumatized: Men are often more exposed to traumatic events but are far less likely to become traumatized, suffer from chronic traumatic stress reactions, and seek help than women, controlling for the intensity and duration of the traumatic experience. Assistance that is more talk-oriented is better suited for

women, and assistance involving medication or some physical activity is better suited for men than women. Age of the traumatized: The older the person the more likely they are to be traumatized and require more talkoriented treatment approaches. Traumatized children respond more to expressive modes of intervention such as play, art, drama, and activities that are both fun and balance distraction with confrontation of the traumatic memories. Degree of resilience: This is the least known but the most fruitful area of research. Some who study personality have argued that human beings vary greatly in resilience and that this is independent of environment and the degree of trait- resilience is present not only over time but across situations. Most traumatologists, however, believe that resilience is more a function of the environment – both socialization and situational – that can be learned, unlearned, and re-learned in the wake of a traumatic event through variety intervention strategies. These include skills training in stress management, for example. Culture and group influences: This influence was noted earlier in terms of sociological and systemic theories of trauma. History and tradition play a major part in our conceptualizing and recovering from traumatic events. Religions, sectarian, tribal, and even organizational doctrine about how and why people become traumatized and how to handle the unwanted consequences have been studied by social scientists for centuries and described in various media – both fiction and nonfiction. What is critical for the practitioner is to understand, respect, and work in concert with the clients’ beliefs. Motivation: This influence is extremely important in the timing of services to the traumatized. Some are ready for help long before others. The edit for counselors and other helpers of ‘never working harder than your client’ is applicable here.

Treatment Approaches in Traumatology The Society for Traumatic Stress Studies was established in 1985 to serve as the learned society for the emerging field of traumatology. Now the International Society for Traumatic Stress studies (ISTSS), it published Effective treatments for PTSD: Practice guidelines from the ISTSS. Standards of Practice for the Traumatologist were published on line in 1997. Also, the Green Cross published in 2005 the equally important Standards of Self Care for traumatologists. Rather than suggest that one or two approaches were best, ISTSS chose to provide practice guidelines for the approaches that were most practiced at the time with the traumatized, particularly those suffering from PTSD. The twelve approaches to which ISTSS provided practice guidelines included the following:

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1. Psychological debriefing is an approach most often used immediately following a crisis event and is considered a crisis intervention. It is used most often in homogeneous work groups to address the facts and emotions emerging from the event. The purpose is to enable group members to find useful meaning from the event and acquire effective methods for managing the memories. Although research on one form of psychological debriefing is mixed, more recent research found that employer-sponsored psychological first aid results indicate that worksite crisis interventions offered by employers following the WTCD had a beneficial impact across a spectrum of outcomes, including reduced risks for binge drinking, alcohol dependence, PTSD symptoms, major depression, somatization,anxiety, and global impairment, compared with individuals who did not receive these interventions. In addition, it appeared that two to three brief sessions achieved the maximum benefit for most outcomes examined. 2. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most frequently used and empirically verified trauma treatment approaches. Practitioners focus on the client’s traumarelated beliefs and behaviors and help the client work out ways of breaking the connection beliefs-behavior through exposure to the fears, challenging the beliefs, and gradually learning to face and overcome their fears. 3. Pharmacotherapy as an approach involves selecting a drug whose pharmacological actions will correct the psychobiological abnormalities caused by traumatic stress and monitoring and readjusting the dosage to optimize efficacy. 4. Child and adolescent therapies are a set of approaches that effectively assess, diagnose, treat, and manage unwanted symptoms of traumatic stress in various age groups of the young. 5. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of CBT that uses a highly structured protocol to identify a scene (‘Target Memory’) that most represents the worst aspect of the traumatic event and guides the client through dual attention to both the target memory and some form of stimulation (e.g., eye movement, rhythmic tapping, or focusing on moving sound). The therapist thereby floods the client with exposure to the feared traumatic event while, at the same time, allowing some reprieve through a type of distraction. EMDR uses numerous in-treatment benchmark indicators of progress pointed out by Shapiro in 1995. Though the findings are mixed, overall, EMDR is comparable to CBT in effectiveness, according to Taylor et al. in 2003. 6. Group therapy approaches are treatments that enable those suffering from PTSD or some other trauma-induced problem (e.g., family members of PTSD patients) to help themselves and other group members (survivor helping survivor). Beyond this characteristic, the approaches adopt one or more of the treatment approaches noted earlier to overcome their unwanted symptoms. Foy et al. believe the approach has potential. They reviewed the

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relevant research in 2002 (two RCTs, five nonrandomized trials, and seven pre-/post-treatment single-group studies) and found little to validate the effectiveness of group therapy, or even clarify the active ingredients in its outcomes. 7. Psychodynamic therapy is the oldest and most established trauma treatment dating back to Janet, and Breuer and Freud. The approach assumes that repressed traumatic memories come at a price, some set of deficits that are reflected in the symptoms of PTSD. Through awareness or ‘catharsis’ the client ‘works through’ to more fully understand, accept, and incorporate the memories in ways that eliminate the unwanted symptoms. 8. Inpatient treatments, like group therapy, are more characteristic of the treatment setting than the specific treatment procedure. Inpatient treatment enables the client to experience a more controlled, sanctuary environment to more fully focusing on their post-traumatic symptoms and related problems without the distractions and the typical demands of life. 9. Psychosocial rehabilitation is a set of services that enable the traumatized clients to function more effectively in the world rather than services that desensitize or eliminate the post-traumatic stress symptoms. These services include but are not limited to interventions that improve daily living skills, social interaction with others, harmavoidance/health-promoting behavior (e.g., substance abuse treatment), and various educational and vocational skill-building. 10. Hypnosis like psychoanalyis is a very old and established treatment approach. Hypnosis is a procedure that induces sensations, perceptions, thoughts, or behaviors that enable the client to access memories, experience states of consciousness and peace, and be receptive to the therapists’ suggestions that result in better management of the traumatic stress symptoms, if not eliminating them all together. 11. Marital and family therapy is a set of treatment approaches that focus both on the symptoms of the traumatized as well as the secondary traumatic stress reactions of other members of the family. Most importantly, the approaches focus on the meanings of these symptoms and how best to either eliminate them or accommodate to them. 12. Creative therapies include various treatment approaches that enable clients to both access their memories of the traumatic event and derive pleasure in the process, in contrast to most times they remember. This is done through expressive methods such as drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, singing, drama, writing, or some combination of these media.

Conclusion The field of traumatology that focuses on human behavior and cognition has much to say about the immediate

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and long-term consequences of violence and other highly stressful experiences. Trauma-informed theories and approaches are useful not only in eliminating the unwanted post-traumatic stress reactions but also enabling the survivor to trust again. The field of traumatology can help those traumatized to overcome their distrust of others who they associate with their traumatic experiences. The challenges faced by the field of traumatology and traumatologists are the enormity of traumatic events. Our awareness of the events and their consequences increase yearly. When we think about traumatic events we most often think about those which affect us the most. These events create memories. Those memories are far more formidable for those who were directly affected, often referred to as ‘victims’. What are the physiological and psychological mechanisms for detecting, responding to, and recovering from highly stressful events? Traumatology is a new field with ancient roots, a body of literature, and a set of theoretical perspectives. The central tenet of this article is that theory matters and eliminating the distress (desensitization) is the sine qua non for treating the traumatized. The theory test is the extent to which one’s theory actually explains and predicts desensitization. See also: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma and Mental Disorders; Psychological Effects of Combat

Further Reading Alexander, J. C., Eyerman, R., Giesen, B., Smelser, N. J., and Sztompka, P. (2004). Cultural trauma and collective identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1998). Summary of the practice parameters for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with PTSD. Journal of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 37(9), 997–1001. Beck, A. T. (1984). Cognitive approaches to stress. In Lehrere, C. and Woolfold, R. L. (eds.) Clinical guide to stress management, pp. 255–305. New York: Guilford. Ben Arzi, N., Solomon, Z., and Dekel, R. (2000). Secondary traumatization among wives of PTSD and post-concussion casualties: Distress, caregiver burden and psychological separation. Brain Injury 14(8), 725–736. Block, J. H. and Block, J. (1980). The role of ego control and egoresidency in the organization of behavior. In Colhns, W. A. (ed.) Minnesota symposia on child psychology, vol. 13, pp. 39–101. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Block, J. and Kremen, A. M. (1996). IQ and ego-resiliency: Conceptual and empirical connections and separateness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70, 349–361. Bloom, S. L. (1997). Creating sanctuary: Toward the evolution sane societies. New York: Routledge. Bonanno, G. A. (1998). Emotional dissociation, self-deception, and adaptation to loss. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) The traumatology of grieving: Conceptual, theoretical, and treatment foundations, pp. 98–108. Philadelphia, PA: Brunner/Mazel. Boscarino, J. A., Adams, R. E., and Figley, C. R. (2005). A prospective cohort study of the effectiveness of employer-sponsored crisis interventions after a major disaster. International Journal of Emergency Mental Health 7(1), 9–22.

Breuer, J. and Freud, S. (1895). Studies of hysteria. New York: Basic Books. Callahan, R. (1991). Why do I eat when I am not hungry? New York: Doubleday. Cassirer, E. (1923). Substance and function and Einstein’s theory of relativity. New York: Dover. Catherall, D. R. (1989). Differentiating intervention strategies for primary and secondary trauma in post-traumatic stress disorder: The example of Vietnam veterans. Journal of Traumatic Stress 2(3): 28–304. Davis, N. (2001). The use of multi-sensory trauma processing to treat post traumatic stress disorder in law enforcement officers. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greenwood. Davis, J. H., Pruitt, J. H., and Pruitt, B. A., Jr. (2003). History. In Mattox, K. L., Feliciano, D. V., and Moore, E. E. (eds.) Trauma, 4th edn., pp. 3–17. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Donovan, D. (1991). Traumatology: A field whose time ahs come. Journal of Traumatic Stress 4(3), 433–436. Donovan, D. M. and McIntyre, D. (1990). Healing the hurt child. New York: Norton. Ellenberger, H. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious: The history and evolution of dynamic psychology. New York: Basic Books. Enzie, R. F., Sawyer, R. N., and Montgomery, F. A. (1973). Manifest anxiety of Vietnam returnees and undergraduates. Psychological Reports 33, 446. Everly, G. S. Jr. and Lating, J. M. (eds.) (1995) . Psychotraumatology: Key papers and core concepts in post-traumatic stress. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Farrell, K. (1998). Post-traumatic culture: Injury and interpretation in the nineties. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Figley, C. R. (1978). Introduction. In Figley, C. (ed.) Stress disorders among Vietnam veterans: Theory, research, and treatment, pp. i–xi. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Figley, C. R. (1983). Catastrophes: An overview of family reactions. In Figley, C. R. and McCubbin, H. I. (eds.) Stress and the family, vol. II: Coping with catastrophe, pp. 3–20. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Figley, C. R. (ed.) (1985) . Trauma and its wake: The study and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Figley, C. R. (1988). Toward a field of traumatic stress studies. Journal of Traumatic Stress 1(1), 3–11. Figley, C. R. (ed.) (1989) . Helping traumatized families. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Figley, C. R. (1998). Psychological debriefing, troubled children, and homophobia: Toward a multidisciplinary, multidimensional field of traumatology. Traumatology 4:2, Article 4. http://www.fsu. edu/~trauma/art4v4i2.htm (accessed on February 2008). Figley, C. R. (1998). Innovations in psychology book series editorial note. In Gallo, F. (ed.) Energy psychology: Explorations at the interface of energy, cognition, behavior, and health. Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie Press. Figley, C. R. (2001). Origins of traumatology and prospects for the future. Part I. Journal of Trauma Practice 1(1), 5–10. Figley, C. R. (ed.) (2002) . Breif treatments in traumatology: Special project of the green cross foundation. West Port, CT: Greenwood Publishing Figley, C. R. and McCubbin, H. I. (eds.) (1983) . Stress and the family, vol. II: Coping with catastrophe. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Figley, C. R. and Nash, W. P. (eds.) (2007) . Combat stress injury: Theory, research, and managements. New York: Routledge. Figley, C. R. and Sprenkle, D. H. (1978). Delayed stress response syndrome: Family therapy implications. Journal of Marriage and Family Counseling 4(1), 53–60. Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., and Friedman, M. J. (eds.) (2000) . Effective treatments for PTSD. New York: Guilford Press. Fontana, A. and Rosenheck, R. (1997). Effectiveness and cost of inpatient treatment of PTSD: Comparison of three models of treatment. American Journal of Psychiatry 154, 758–765. Fontana, A. and Rosenheck, R. A. (1997). Effectiveness and cost of inpatient treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 154, 758–765.

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Foy, D. W., Ruzek, J. I., Glynn, S. M., Riney, S. J., and Gusman, F. D. (2002). Trauma focus group therapy for combat-related PTSD: An update. Journal of Clinical Psychology 58(8), 907–918. Friedman, M. J. (1997). Drug treatment for PTSD: Answers and questions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 821, 359–371. Gallo, F. (1998). Innovations in psychology series: Energy psychology: Explorations at the interface of energy, cognition, behavior, and health. Delray Beach, FL: CRC Press. Gallo, F. (2000). Energy diagnostics and treatment. New York: WW Norton. Goff, B. S. N. and Smith, D. B. (2005). Systemic traumatic stress: The couple adaptation to traumatic stress model. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 31(2), 145–157. Goldberg, S., Muir, R., and Kerr, J. (eds.) (2000) . Attachment theory: Social, developmental, and clinical perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. Green Cross Academy of Traumatology (2007). Standards of practice by Traumatologists, vol. 3.2 revision. Tallahassee, FL. http://www. traumatologyacademy.org/standards.htm (revised 12 June 2007). Headman, N. C. (2001). The use of narrative therapy with couples affected by anxiety disorders. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greenwood. Heriot, S. A. and Pritchard, M. (2004). Test of time: Reciprocal inhibition as the main basis of psychotherapeutic effects by Joseph Wolpe (1954). Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry 9(2), 297–307. Horne, K. B. (2001). Constructing the crucible apology: Integration of sexual and marital therapy. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greenwood. Jacobson, E. (1938). Progressive relaxation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jacobson, E. (1940). Variation of pulse rate with skeletal muscle tension and relaxation. Annals of Internal Medicine 13, 1619. Jefferies, D. K. (2001). The MRI model of brief therapy and its use with parent-adolescent conflict. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greenwood. Johnson, D. R. (2000). Creative therapies. In Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., and Friedman, M. J. (eds.) Effective treatments for PTSD, pp. 302–314. New York: Guilford. Kendall-Tackett, K. A. (ed.) (2005) . Handbook of women, stress, and trauma. New York: Brunner-Routledge. Kendall, J. and Stein, P. T. (2004). Psychological trauma and the developing brain: Neurologically based interventions for troubled children. New York: Haworth Press. Kudler, H. S., Blank, A. S. Jr., and Krupnick, J. L. (2000). Psychodynamic theory. In Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., and Friedman, M. J. (eds.) Effective treatments for PTSD, pp. 176–198. New York: Guildford Press. Lazarus, R. S. and Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer. Leys, R. (1994). Traumatic cures: Shell Shock, Janet, and the question of memory. Critical Inquiry 20(4), 221–235. Leys, R. (2000). Trauma, a genealogy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mattox, K. L., Feliciano, D. V., and Moore, E. E. (2000). Trauma, 4th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mayou, R. A., Ehlers, A., and Hobbs, M. (2000). Psychological debriefing for road traffic accident victims. Three year follow-up of a randomised controlled trial. The British Journal of Psychiatry: The Journal of Mental Science 176, 589–593. Maxfield, L. (2001). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greewood. McCann, L. L. and Pearlman, L. A. (1990). Psychological trauma and the adult survivor: Theory, therapy, and transformation. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Meichenbaum, D. and Cameron, R. (1983). Stress inoculation training: Toward a general paradigm for training coping skills. In Meichenbaum, D. and Jaremko, M. E. (eds.) Stress reduction and prevention, pp. 115–154. New York: Plenum. Mitchell, J. and Everly, G., Jr. (1993). Critical incident stress debriefing. Ellicott City, MD: Chevron Publishing.

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Mowrer, O. H. (1939). A stimulus-response analysis of anxiety and its role as a reinforcing agent. Psychological Review 46, 553–565. Mower, O. H. (1960). ‘Sin,’ the lesser of two evils. American Psychologist 15, 301–304. Muss, D. (2001). The rewind technique. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greewood. Ogden, P. and Minton, K. (2001). Sensorimotor approach to processing traumatic memory. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greewood. Penk, W. and Flannery, R. B. (2000). Psychosocial rehabilitation. In Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., and Friedman, M. J. (eds.) Effective treatments for PTSD, pp. 224–246. New York: Guilford. Petersen, C., Maier, S. F., and Seligman, M. E. P. (1995). Learned helplessness: A theory for the age of personal control. New York: Oxford University Press. Pignotti, M. (2001). Using thought field therapy (TFT) to help survivors of destructive cults. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greewood. Pollock, J. C., White, D., and Gold, F. (1975). When soldiers return: Combat and political alienation among white Vietnam veterans. In Schwartz, D. and Schwartz, S. (eds.) New directions in political socialization, pp. 317–333. New York: Free Press. Quinn, W. H., VanDyke, D. J., and Kurth, S. T. (2001). A brief multiple family group model for Juvenile first offenders. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized, pp. 226–251. West Port, CT: Greenwood. Raphael, B. and Wilson, J. P. (eds.) (2000) . Psychological debriefing: Theory, practice and evidence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Regehr, C. and Hills, J. (2001). Crisis debriefings for emergency service workers. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greewood. Roemer, L., Riggs, D. S., and Harrington, N. T. (2002). Behavioral/ cognitive approaches to post-traumatic Stress: Theory-driven, empirically-based therapy. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greenwood. Scaer, R. (2005). The trauma spectrum: Hidden wounds and human resiliency. New York: Norton. Seligman, E. (1998). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. New York: Pocketbooks. Shapiro, F. (1995). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: Bask principles, protocols, and procedures. New York: Guilford Press. Sherrington, C. S. (1906). Integrative action of the nervous system. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sherrington, C. S. (1947). The integrative action of the nervous system. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Solomon, Z., Waysman, M., Levy, G., et al. (1992). From front line to home front: A study of secondary traumatization. Family Process 31, 280–302. Spiegel, D. (1992). The use of hypnosis in the treatment of PTSD. Psychiatric Medicine 10, 21–30. Strayer, R. and Ellenhorn, L. (1975). Vietnam veterans: A study exploring adjustment patterns and attitudes. Journal of Social Issues 31, 81–94. Taylor, S., Thordarson, D. S., Maxfield, L., et al. (2003). Comparative efficacy, speed, and adverse effects of three PTSD treatments: Exposure therapy, EMDR, and relaxation training. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 71(2), 330–338. Terr, L. (1992). Too scared to cry. New York: Harper and Row. Terr, L. (2006). Memoirs of a childhood trauma hunter. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Mapping trauma and its wake: Autobiographic essays by pioneer trauma scholars, pp. 185–200. New York: Routledge. Tichenor, V., Armstrong, K., Vann, V., and Green, R. J. (2001). Interventions for couples with acute stress reactions and PTSD. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greewood. Trimble, M. R. (1981). Post-traumatic neurosis. Chichester: Wiley. Valentine, P. V. (2001). Traumatic incident reduction approach: Moving beyond the wreckage of lives. In Figley, C. R. (ed.) Brief treatments for the traumatized. West Port, CT: Greewood. van der Kolk, B. A. (1989). The compulsion to repeat the trauma: Revictimization, attachment and masochism. The Psychiatric Clinics of North America 12, 389–411.

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van der Kolk, B. A., Burbridge, J., and Suzuki, J. (1997). The psychobiology of traumatic memory: Clinical implications of neuroimaging studies. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 821, 99–113. van der Kolk, B. A., McFarlane, A. C., and Weisaeth, L. (1996). Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society. New York: Guilford. Veith, I. (1965). Hysteria: The history of a disease. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wendt, G. R. (1936). An interpretation of inhibition and conditioned reflexes as competition between reaction systems. Psychological Review 43, 258–281. Wessler, R. L. (1982). Varieties of cognitions in the cognitively oriented psychotherapies. Rational Living 17, 3–10. Wolpe, J. (1950). Need-reduction, drive-reduction, and reinforcement: A neurophysiological view. Psychological Review 57, 19. Wolpe, J. (1952). Objective psychotherapy of the neuroses. South African Medical Journal 26, 825.

Wolpe, J. (1958). Psychotherapy by reciprocal inhibition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wolpe, J. (1978). Cognition and causation in human behavior and its therapy. American Psychologist 33, 437–446. Wolpe, J. and Lazarus, A. A. (1966). Behavior therapy techniques. Oxford: Pergamon.

Relevant Websites http://www.bumc.bu.edu – Boston University Trauma Center. http://www.trauma-pages.com – David Baldwin’s Trauma Pages. http://mailer.fsu.edu – Florida State University Traumatology Institute. http://www.traumatologyacademy.org – Green Cross Academy of Traumatology. http://www.istss.org – International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. http://www.ncptsd.va.gov – National Center for PTSD.

Impact of Terrorism on the Development of Mental Health Symptoms R Yehuda, Bronx VA Medical Center, New York, NY, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Relationship between Terrorism and Other Traumatic Experiences Differentiating between Acute Mental Health Symptoms That Will Probably Abate and Those That Will Develop into Long-Term or Pathological Mental

Health Consequences Risk Factors for Chronic Posttraumatic Symptoms The Role of Biological Studies in Helping to Identify Pathological Responses Further Reading

Introduction

severe. Posttraumatic risk factors, such as lack of social support, also seem to be important predictors of psychopathology, but the extent to which these reflect pre- or even peritraumatic risk factors is currently unknown. In considering the strength of the information available regarding the psychological consequences of terrorism and their biological correlates, it is important to point to gaps in our knowledge with respect to these issues that currently preclude a thorough understanding of the psychological and biological consequences of terrorism. The first concerns whether psychological outcomes related to terrorism are comparable with those observed in the case of other traumatic events such as combat, interpersonal violence, and natural disasters, whose immediate and long-term consequences have been well established. The second concerns whether the immediate effects of terrorism are pathological, that is, requiring mental health intervention. In the absence of empirical data regarding these gaps in knowledge, governmental and privately sponsored interventions following terrorist attacks are modeled after those developed for responding to natural disasters. Thus, it is important to supply the missing information so that responses to terrorism can be tailored to the specific needs of survivors.

Because the broad goals of terrorism are ultimately psychological, it is imperative to understand the magnitude and scope of the psychological casualties in the wake of terrorism and their biological correlates so as to identify the appropriate means of immunizing people to these effects. Although the majority of people exposed to terrorism experience acute distress, the most important observation to emerge from longitudinal studies of people exposed to terrorism is that these symptoms are transient for the great majority. It therefore becomes important from a public health perspective to be able to predict those at greatest risk for long-term problems. Those at risk for long-term symptoms appear to have a more intense reaction at the time of the trauma (e.g., peritraumatic dissociation, panic, or related emotional distress), associated with a more negative appraisal of danger. It is not clear whether and to what extent pretraumatic risk factors (e.g., prior adversity, family history of psychopathology, cognitive risk factors, or preexisting personality traits) influence the intensity of the peritraumatic response to trauma, but presumably these risk factors are more relevant in situations in which exposure is less

Impact of Terrorism on the Development of Mental Health Symptoms

Relationship between Terrorism and Other Traumatic Experiences Terrorism is a prototypic traumatic event (i.e., it meets the objective and subjective criteria as defined according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edn., DSM-IV) for those who directly experience a threat to their life or physical integrity or who experience loss, most notably, the sudden loss of a loved one. However, terrorism is not only about life threat to single individuals, or even a small group of people; it is designed to instill fear in society at large. Thus, in addition to those who experience the effects of terrorism firsthand, there are collateral effects. People who were not in proximity to the target where the terrorist event occurred and people who were not directly affected by the loss of someone important to them can also be affected in terms of mental health outcomes, particularly because such events often receive repeated coverage on television and other media outlets. It is not known whether mental health consequences in people indirectly exposed to terrorism are qualitatively or quantitatively different from those who have been directly exposed. The additive effect of anticipatory anxiety is also not known, yet the real threat of imminent attack may be related to how quickly those exposed to terrorism can recover from its effects. In applying knowledge from what has already been learned about the effects of other traumatic stressors, it is clear that a key variable in considering pathological outcomes is the passage of time. Although there are certainly immediate symptoms following any traumatic event, there is debate about whether and how to intervene in the acute aftermath of any trauma because, in most cases, such symptoms abate within weeks and months, and the consequences of interfering with the natural healing processes are unknown. One difference between terrorism and other traumatic events is that a single act of terrorism may represent the beginning or continuation of a situation or threat. In the context of an ongoing terrorist threat, identifying a persistent disorder may be more accurately defined only after the immediate threat of terrorism is substantially reduced in reality. This caveat does not suggest that people do not have mental health needs that should be met within this time frame; rather, it acknowledges that pathological responses that are defined by persistence and chronicity need to be considered in the context of actual ongoing threat.

Differentiating between Acute Mental Health Symptoms That Will Probably Abate and Those That Will Develop into Long-Term or Pathological Mental Health Consequences The high rate of spontaneous recovery in the aftermath of terrorism raises an important question with respect to

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how initial symptoms should be understood and treated. If the initial symptoms are understood as transient reflections of distress, it is not clear that such symptoms require mental health intervention. Alternatively, it can be argued that treating early symptoms, even in those who will experience spontaneous recovery, might help prevent long-term responses in the 7–12% who generally remain symptomatic or deteriorate as the broad population begins to improve. Clarifying the causes of high levels of immediate and long-term symptoms will no doubt lead to ideas about potential preventative treatments because it is now clear that the intensity of the exposure to trauma does not sufficiently predict who will develop or sustain symptoms. In the absence of a linear relationship between acute stress reactions and longer-term adjustment, there are two theoretical models for pathological responses in the aftermath of a trauma. The first defines a pathological response to trauma by the persistence of the same symptoms that within a specified period of time immediately following the event would otherwise be considered normal. The second defines posttraumatic pathology by the presence of a fundamentally different initial response to stress, resulting in persistent symptoms of hyperarousal, recollection of intrusive events, and avoidance of reminders. Both models are consistent with the idea that posttraumatic mental health consequences are based on a failure to recover from the universal distress in the immediate aftermath of trauma. In the first case, the persistence of symptoms probably results from postexposure factors that prevent recovery, such as lack of social support or other coping resources. In contrast, the second model implies that the initial symptoms are fundamentally different at the outset and probably result from pre- or peritraumatic factors. Supporting the idea that persistent responses are simply continuations of initial reactions are the findings that people who show high-magnitude posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (i.e., intrusive, avoidance, and hyperarousal) in the first few days and from 1 to 2 weeks after the event are those at greatest risk for subsequent symptom severity. However, many researchers performing longitudinal studies of acute trauma survivors have not been able to identify specific symptoms that can convincingly predict pathological mental health outcomes. More promising clinical predictors appear to be the presence of a panic attack and/or intense dissociation during or immediately after a trauma, which suggests additional or fundamentally different immediate responses. Both panic attacks and dissociative responses reflect catastrophic or negative interpretations of the event. Such interpretations may further perpetuate arousal associated with stress responses and reduce the body’s ability to achieve homeostasis following the trauma. The presence of catastrophic attributions (e.g., that posttraumatic symptoms signify a major problem and will not ultimately resolve) provides a

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way of drawing a distinction between being terrorized and being terrified. People exposed to a traumatic event are not traumatized unless they are deeply distraught at the time of the event and then make catastrophic interpretations that may result in fundamentally different biological stress responses. Indeed, although trauma exposure certainly results in the release of stress hormones such as catecholamines and cortisol, it has been noted that dissociation and panic attacks are specifically associated with increased catecholamine levels. It may be that a peritraumatic panic attack or other intense distress during and immediately after the traumatic event leads to higher levels of stress hormones that might, in turn, strengthen traumatic memories and increase the probability of intrusive recollections. On the other hand, extreme reactions of panic and dissociation may be facilitated by relatively lower levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol, that play an important role in containing the catecholamine response to stress.

Risk Factors for Chronic Posttraumatic Symptoms The finding that only a proportion of those exposed to trauma develop short- and long-term symptoms justifies an exploration of both the factors that increase the risk for and the factors that might serve to protect individuals from developing such symptoms following trauma exposure. Although there is not much known about the long-term consequences of terrorism specifically, there is information about factors that contribute to the development of chronic PTSD following exposure to other types of traumatic events. Putative risk factors for PTSD can describe the characteristics of the event or the response to the event or the characteristics of the people who experience those events. Indeed, a wide variety of risk factors, ranging from situational or environmental factors to familial or even genetic risk factors, for PTSD have now been identified. The identification of specific patterns of risk factors is relevant to an understanding of different types of acute reactions and for providing prophylaxis. It appears on the basis of retrospective studies that those at greatest risk for developing chronic symptoms following a traumatic event are people with prior exposure to trauma, specific cognitive factors, and certain preexisting personality traits, such as proneness to experiencing negative emotions and having poor social supports. However, increasingly, family and genetic studies are pointing toward the role of genetic contributions to posttraumatic stress reactions. The adult children of Holocaust survivors with PTSD show a greater prevalence of PTSD to their own traumatic events than the adult children of Holocaust survivors without PTSD. It is difficult to know the extent to which increased vulnerability to PTSD in family

members of trauma survivors with PTSD can be attributed to being raised by a parent with this disorder, to exposure of the fetus to the mother’s stress hormones during pregnancy, or to genetic factors. Evidence that family resemblance with respect to PTSD may be at least partly explained by genes comes from twin studies in which concordance for PTSD was examined in monozygotic and dizygotic twins. However, identifying those at risk will depend on identifying how these genetic factors interact with patterns or risk factors such as childhood trauma, low educational attainment, personal or family history of anxiety or mood disorders, history of heavy alcohol use in the months prior to the incident, poor social supports in the posttraumatic period, and greater levels of exposure during the incident together with symptoms in the peritraumatic period.

The Role of Biological Studies in Helping to Identify Pathological Responses There appears to be a distinct set of biological alterations in trauma survivors who develop chronic posttraumatic symptoms. Some of these reflect changes in stressresponsive systems that are qualitatively different than those predicted on the basis of the stress literature. Furthermore, the alterations in individuals with PTSD have been found to be distinct from those of similarly exposed individuals without PTSD and also different from those found in other psychiatric disorders, such as mood and other anxiety disorders. Together, these findings suggest that the biology of PTSD is not simply a reflection of a normative stress response but, rather, a pathological one. For example, in contrast to the normal fear response, which is characterized by a series of biological reactions that help the body cope with, and gradually recover from, stress (e.g., high cortisol levels), some recent prospective biological studies have demonstrated that individuals who develop PTSD symptoms appear to have attenuated cortisol increases in the acute aftermath of a trauma compared to those who do not develop this disorder. Moreover, people who develop PTSD show higher heart rates in the emergency room and at 1 week posttrauma compared to those who ultimately recover, suggesting a greater degree of sympathetic nervous system activation. Thus, it may be that long-term symptoms following trauma are facilitated by a failure to contain the normal stress response at the time of the trauma, resulting in a cascade of biological alterations that lead to intrusive, avoidance, and hyperarousal symptoms. This difficulty may occur because of pretraumatic biological risk factors. Basic science research on both memory consolidation and fear conditioning have demonstrated that heightened adrenergic activation can promote the consolidation and retrieval of fear-provoking memories. Thus, extreme sympathetic arousal at the time of a traumatic event may

Suicide and Other Violence Toward the Self

result in the release of stress-related neurochemicals (including norepinephrine and epinephrine), mediating an overconsolidation of trauma memories. The enhanced elevation of catecholamines in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event may increase the probability of intrusive recollections in the first few days and weeks posttrauma. One of the major gaps in our knowledge concerns the interplay of biological responses at the time of a traumatic event and cognitive factors. Indeed, it is easy to see how an increased catecholaminergic response to trauma could be the proximal cause of intense panic. Furthermore, it seems plausible that people who find themselves in a more intense biological state of fear might be likely to appraise a situation as more immediately dangerous. On the other hand, it may be that preexisting cognitive factors mediate the catcholaminergic response to the trauma that leads to the panic. These preexisting cognitive factors, in turn, may or may not be the cause, result, or correlate of a preexisting biological alteration that sets the stage for an extreme response. Clarifying the causes of high levels of immediate and long-term symptoms will no doubt lead to ideas about potential preventative treatments. For example, to the extent that panic reactions are associated with increased catecholamine responses at the time of trauma, aggressive intervention with adrenergic-blocking agents (such as propranolol) or cortisol or cognitive-behavioral stress management techniques emphasizing relaxation rather than any form of retelling (i.e., reexposure, as in debriefing) may be the most appropriate immediate interventions for people who panic in the hours immediately following a traumatic

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experience. For people who are not in a position to receive intervention within several hours or days posttrauma, it will be necessary to determine the impact of posttraumatic risk factors such as lack of social support on the longitudinal course of pathological responses to trauma.

Further Reading Breslau, N., Chilcoat, H. D., Kessler, R. C., et al. (1999). Previous exposure to trauma and PTSD effects of subsequent trauma: results from the Detroit Area Survey of Trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry 156, 902–907. Bryant, R. A. and Panasetis, P. (2001). Panic symptoms during trauma and acute stress disorder. Behaviour Research Therapy 39, 961–966. Galea, S., Ahern, J., Resnick, H., et al. (2002). Psychological sequelae of the September 11 terrorist attacks. New England Journal of Medicine 346, 982–987. Keane, T. M., Kaufman, M. L., and Kimble, M. O. (2001). Peritraumatic dissociative symptoms, acute stress disorder, and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder: causation, correlation or epiphenomena. In : Sanchez-Planell, L. and Diez-Quevedo, C. (eds.) Dissociative states, pp. 21–43. Barcelona: Springer-Verlag. Schelling, G., Kilger, E., Roozendaal, B., et al. (2004). Stress doses of hydrocortisone, traumatic memories, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in patients after cardiac surgery: a randomized study. Biological Psychiatry 55, 627–633. Yehuda, R. (1999). Risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. Yehuda, R. (2002). Post-traumatic stress disorder. New England Journal of Medicine 346, 108–114. Yehuda, R., Engel, S. M., Brand, S. R., et al. (2005). Transgenerational effects of posttraumatic stress disorder in babies of mothers exposed to the World Trade Center attacks during pregnancy. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 90, 4115–4118.

Suicide and Other Violence Toward the Self David Lester, Center for the Study of Suicide, Blackwood, NJ, USA Karolina E Krysinska, Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Suicide and Self-Destructive Behaviors The Epidemiology of Suicide Explaining the Social Suicide Rate Explaining Individual Suicides The Relationship between Murder and Suicide

Glossary Attempted Suicide/Parasuicide/Deliberate Self-Harm/Nonfatal Suicidal Behavior Suicidal actions that the person survives.

Suicidal Behavior in Prisons Suicide and War Prevention of Suicide Further Reading

Completed Suicide/Fatal Suicidal Behavior Suicidal actions that result in the person’s death. Self-Mutilation Mild self-injurious behavior without suicidal intent.

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Suicide is a behavior in which an individual acts in such a way as to intentionally cause his or her death. Typically, the actions must result in death in a short period of time and directly, such as hanging oneself by a rope, in contrast to a behavior such as smoking heavily with the intent to increasing the risk of death by lung cancer in the distant future. Suicide can be viewed as an act of aggression directed toward the self.

Suicide and Self-Destructive Behaviors Suicidal behavior that results in the individual’s death is called completed suicide. Many more individuals, perhaps 10 times as many, attempt to commit suicide but survive the attempt. These individuals are called attempted suicides, but scholars have questioned whether the majority of the attempters really intended to commit suicide. As a result, it has been suggested that attempted suicide be called parasuicide but, in more recent years, the terms self-injury and (deliberate) self-harm have become common. In order to avoid the confusion related to the problems in ascertaining suicide intent recently the terms ‘non-fatal suicidal behavior’ and ‘fatal suicidal behavior’ have been proposed. The lack of suicidal intent in many attempted suicides has also suggested that those making ‘gestures’ at suicide may share traits and psychodynamic forces with those who inflict minor damage on themselves, self-mutilators. Self-mutilators may cut their bodies, insert objects into bodily orifices, bang their heads, and so on, actions that seem to involve no suicidal intent at all. Such behaviors might aim at reducing distress and anxiety, coping with traumatic memories and dissociation, and communicating anger and self-abhorrence. In contrast to these trends, which remove the notion of suicidal intent from the terms describing those who fail to die as a result of their own actions, some scholars have suggested broadening the concept of suicide. For example, Karl Menninger viewed any self-destructive or selflimiting behavior as motivated in part, consciously or unconsciously, by suicidal impulses. Thus, Menninger saw behaviors such as alcoholism and drug addiction as methods of shortening an individual’s life, and he called these behaviors chronic suicide. Behaviors in which individuals destroy part of their body, such as blinding or castrating themselves, were labeled by Menninger as focal suicide, since the suicidal impulse appears to be focused on one part of the body, leaving the remainder of the person to survive.

The Epidemiology of Suicide Officially reported rates of completed suicide in nations of the world are very stable from year to year, ranging

Table 1 Suicide rates around the world 1990–2003 (the last year available; WHO, 2006) Lithuania Russian Federation Belarus Kazakhstan Slovenia Hungary Estonia Ukraine Latvia Japan Sri Lanka Belgium Finland Croatia Switzerland Cuba Austria Korea, Republic of France Moldova, Republic of Czech Republic Poland Hong Kong, SAR Romania Bulgaria China Denmark Germany Sweden Slovakia Seychelles Australia Ireland Iceland Canada Mauritius New Zealand Suriname Bosnia and Herzegovina Portugal Trinidad & Tobago Luxembourg Norway India USA Uruguay Kyrgyzstan Singapore Netherlands Puerto Rico Turkmenistan Spain El Salvador Zimbabwe Macedonia Italy United Kingdom Barbados Belize Argentina Israel

42.1 (2003) 38.7 (2002) 35.1 (2003) 28.8 (2002) 28.1 (2003) 27.7 (2003) 27.3 (2002) 26.1 (2002) 26.0 (2003) 23.8 (2002) 21.6 (1996) 21.1 (1997) 20.6 (2003) 19.5 (2003) 18.4 (2001) 18.3 (1996) 17.9 (2003) 17.9 (2002) 17.6 (2001) 17.2 (2003) 16.9 (2003) 15.5 (2002) 15.3 (2002) 14.1 (2002) 14.0 (2003) 13.9 (1999) 13.6 (2000) 13.5 (2001) 13.4 (2001) 13.3 (2002) 13.2 (1998) 12.7 (2001) 12.7 (2001) 12.6 (2001) 11.9 (2001) 11.9 (2000) 11.9 (2000) 11.9 (1992) 11.8 (1991) 11.7 (2002) 11.6 (1994) 10.9 (2003) 10.9 (2002) 10.7 (1998) 10.7 (2001) 10.3 (1990) 9.6 (2003) 9.5 (2002) 9.2 (2003) 8.7 (1992) 8.6 (1998) 8.2 (2002) 7.9 (1993) 7.9 (1990) 7.4 (2000) 7.1 (2001) 6.9 (2002) 6.5 (1995) 6.5 (1995) 6.4 (1996) 6.3 (2000) Continued

Suicide and Other Violence Toward the Self Table 1 Uzbekistan Costa Rica Chile Venezuela Malta Ecuador Brazil Albania Thailand Columbia Nicaragua Mexico Greece Paraguay Georgia Tajikistan Philippines Kuwait Armenia Azerbaijan Bahamas Iran

Continued 6.2 (2002) 5.9 (1995) 5.7 (1994) 5.1 (1994) 5.0 (2003) 4.8 (1995) 4.1 (1995) 4.0 (2003) 4.0 (1994) 3.5 (1994) 3.4 (1994) 3.1 (1995) 2.9 (2002) 2.3 (1994) 2.2 (2001) 2.6 (2001) 2.1 (1993) 2.0 (2002) 1.8 (2003) 1.1 (2002) 1.1 (1995) 0.2 (1991)

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the more lethal methods for which survival of the suicidal act is less likely. However, within each method for suicide, men die more often and women survive the act more often. Hormones (in particular testosterone, which is associated with aggressive behavior) and cultural expectations may also play a role in causing this sex difference in suicidal behavior. Suicide rates are higher in the more-developed nations with a higher quality of life. National suicide rates are also predicted by social variables such as divorce (nations with higher divorce rates have higher suicide rates) and religion (with Islamic nations having lower suicide rates).

Explaining the Social Suicide Rate Explanations for associations such as those mentioned above include direct social causation theories and composition theories. Social Causation Theories

from less than 1.0 per 100 000 per year in Iran to 42.1 in Lithuania and 38.7 in Russian Federation (see Table 1). The most notable trends include an increase in suicide rates over the last century in most nations, and an increase in youth suicide rates in many nations in the last 20 years. Although officially suicide rates are thought to be underestimates (since suicides are sometimes classified erroneously as undetermined and accidental deaths), the suicide rates of different immigrant groups to a country (such as the United States or Australia) are usually in the same rank order as the suicide rates in the nations from which they emigrated, indicating that differences in official national suicide rates may be valid. Suicide rates tend to increase with age, especially for men in developed nations, with the global suicide rate among those aged 75 and over being approximately three times higher than the rate among youth under 25 years of age. However, the pattern of suicide rates increasing with age is not found in every country, and in less-developed nations suicide rates peak at earlier ages, sometimes in those aged between 15 and 24. Also, over the last 30 years, many countries have registered an increase in youth and young adults’ suicide that has been paralleled by a decline in elderly rates. Official suicide rates are higher in men than in women in all nations of the world, with the exception of China, which has recently begun to report suicide rates indicating a higher suicide rate for women in the rural areas of the country. In contrast to the sex difference in completed suicides, most nations report a higher rate of attempted suicide in women than in men. One explanation for this sex difference focuses on the fact that men and women choose different methods for suicide, with men choosing

The classic direct social causation theory was proposed by Emile Durkheim in 1897. He suggested that the levels of social integration (the extent to which the members of a society are bound together in social networks) and social regulation (the extent to which the desires and aspirations of the members of the society are restrained by social norms, customs, and values) caused the societal suicide rate. Societies with extremely high or extremely low levels of these two social characteristics would have high suicide rates, and the type of suicide depends upon the level of the social characteristic (see Table 2). Modern revisions of this theory have noted that it is difficult to distinguish operationally between social integration and social regulation and, perhaps therefore, they should be combined into one broad social characteristic. Furthermore, suicide resulting from very high levels of social integration and social regulation – that is, altruistic and fatalistic suicide – are rare in modern Western societies, although at least some of the contemporary suicide bombers could fit into the former category. Thus, a modern version of Durkheim’s theory states that societal suicide rates are negatively associated with the level of social integration/regulation. This theory has had some success also in predicting regional variations in suicide rates within a nation. For example, for the states of the United States, the suicide Table 2 Durkheim’s four types of suicide very low social integration very high social integration very low social regulation very high social regulation

egoistic suicide altruistic suicide anomic suicide fatalistic suicide

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rate is negatively associated with the level of social integration (based on a cluster of measures such as divorce rates, interstate migration rates, church nonattendance, and alcohol consumption rates). According to Durkheim, the socioeconomic changes related to modernization, for example, urbanization, industrialization, and secularization, lead to individualism and erosion of social control underpinning the suicide potential. Research conducted in the Western countries using cross-national and historical data have generally found a positive relationship between suicide rates and modernization. However, recent studies on suicide in the developing areas of Asian countries (e.g., China and Japan) indicate that urbanization, as an indicator of modernization, may actually lead to decrease in suicide. It appears that the current social changes in these nations resulting in better access to medical care and education, and the general improvement in the standard of living, may reduce the suicide potential. Composition Theories Composition theories propose that societies with a high proportion of those at high risk of suicide will have a high suicide rate as a result of large numbers of these individuals committing suicide. So, if men, the elderly, and the divorced have higher suicide rates, societies with higher proportions of men, the elderly, and the divorced will have higher suicide rates. There is some evidence that composition theories are not sufficient to explain regional variations in suicide rates. For example, although the divorce rate of the states of America is positively associated with the suicide rate of the states, the divorce rate of the states is positively associated also with the suicide rate of the married, the widowed, and the single, as well as the divorced. Thus, for example, states with higher divorce rates also have higher suicide rates among married people. It appears, therefore, that the divorce rate may be a measure of a broader social characteristic of the regions, perhaps social integration as suggested by Durkheim’s theory.

Explaining Individual Suicides The strongest predictor of individual suicides is psychiatric disorder. Those with a psychiatric diagnosis of affective disorder (which includes depressive disorders and manic-depressive disorders), schizophrenia, or substance abuse, as well as psychiatric comorbidity (the cooccurrence of two or more psychiatric disorders), have higher rates of suicide than those with other diagnoses or with no psychiatric disorder. In addition, the level of depressed mood is a strong predictor of suicide.

In assessing individuals for their potential for suicide in the future, the most useful predictors, in addition to psychiatric diagnosis, are a history of previous suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, current suicidal ideation and planning, hopelessness, experience of severe stress in recent months, and having few friends and family to use as resources (for support, comfort, and problem-solving efforts) or having resources who are hostile toward you. Survivors of suicide (i.e., relatives and friends of suicide victims) are among the at-risk subpopulations due to the possible identification with the deceased, punishment for perceived self-blame, social modeling within the family, and/or genetic transmission of psychiatric disorders and impulsivity. Also, media reports on suicide may lead to the occurrence of imitative suicides (i.e., the ‘copycat’ suicides, ‘suicide contagion’, and ‘Werther effect’), and a high incidence of suicide using a particular method (e.g., burning, asphyxiation, and herbicides) within a short period of time and use of special locations (e.g., bridges, cliffs) may be related to social transmission of suicidal behavior, including media messages. Recent research has focused on neurophysiological factors, in particular the neurotransmitter serotonin. At first, serotonin was thought to be critical in causing depression and thence suicidal behavior, but later research has identified serotonin dysfunction in other disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, and behaviors such as arson. Current speculation is that serotonin may be associated with impulse control, and the association between serotonin dysfunction and suicidal behavior may be a reflection of the suicidal person acting impulsively on their selfdestructive impulses. Assessment of suicide risk includes identification of individuals with a potential for suicide, and although it may be possible to make a clinical judgment concerning the probability of an individual engaging in suicidal behavior, it precludes the accurate prediction of suicide attempts or completed suicide. This may seem to be a subtle distinction, but it indicates that, based on current knowledge, it is practically impossible to determine whether an individual will engage in suicidal behavior; it is possible only to judge the relative probability of it. The statistical rarity of suicide contributes to the difficulties in the prediction of potential suicides. The suicide rate in the United States is about 12 per 100 000 per year. If we have a population of, say, 100 000, and our prediction instrument is 75% correct, this means that we will predict 9 of the 12 suicides correctly, and we will classify three of the suicides as nonsuicides (false negatives). However, we will also predict 24 997 of the 99 988 nonsuicides as suicides (false positives). So we would have to monitor 25 006 individuals in order to save nine lives!

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The Relationship between Murder and Suicide Sigmund Freud, in his psychoanalytic theory, saw suicide as the opposite of outwardly directed aggression. When an individual is angry at someone, but for some reason this anger is forbidden (perhaps it is anger toward a beloved parent) or blocked, then the anger can sometimes be repressed (become unconscious) and can be directed inward onto the self. As Edwin Shneidman once said, suicide is murder in the 180th degree. This view was applied by Andrew Henry and James Short to societal suicide rates. They argued that when people in a society are stressed and exist in misery, they look for external agents to blame for their misery. If they can find external agents to blame for their misery, then they will become angry and, in the extreme, assaultive and murderous. However, if they cannot find external agents to blame for their misery, then they are more likely to blame themselves and become depressed and, in the extreme, suicidal. Thus, suicide rates and homicide rates should respond in opposite ways to social variables. There is some evidence for this. For example, nations with a higher quality of life have higher suicide rates and lower homicide rates. In nations where the quality of life for everyone is higher, there are fewer external agents on whom to place the blame for one’s misery, and so people are more likely to blame themselves. Thus, suicide rates will be relatively high and homicide rates will be relatively low. The reverse is true when the quality of life is poor. However, not all associations between societal suicide and homicide rates and social variables show these contrasting associations. In many nations, the oppressed have higher homicide rates, whereas the oppressors have higher suicide rates, as for example, for African-Americans and EuropeanAmericans in the United States. Again, the oppressed have clear external agents to blame for their misery and so will more often be angry and, in the extreme, homicidal; the oppressors have fewer external agents to blame for their misery and so will more often be depressed and, in the extreme, suicidal. Other explanations have been proposed for such differences in suicide and homicide. For example, Herbert Hendin has noted that some suicidal African-Americans are also outwardly violent, and he sees both forms of violence as a reaction to the overt racism and hatred to which African-Americans have been exposed. In general, at the individual level, there is a great deal of evidence that suicidal individuals are quite angry. Suicidal psychiatric patients are among the most violent and difficult to manage, and psychological tests often show levels of physical, verbal, and indirect hostility in suicidal individuals. Thus, murder and suicide do not show such a clear contrast at the individual level of analysis.

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Suicidal Murderers and Murderous Suicides There are a number of phenomena that combine both suicidal and murderous impulses and behaviors. Marvin Wolfgang drew attention to the fact that some murder victims play a role in precipitating the interpersonal conflict that results in their death. They may have started the argument or provoked the attacker in some way. Wolfgang called this behavior victim-precipitated homicide, and some commentators see this behavior as motivated in part by suicidal impulses, especially in those for whom suicide is an unacceptable behavior (perhaps it is a sin in their moral system). Wolfgang felt that about a quarter of the murder victims in his study of murder in Philadelphia were victim-precipitated. ‘Suicide by cop’, in which a criminal acts in such a way as to make it likely that he will be killed as the police try to arrest him, may be a similar phenomenon. Some suicidal individuals are thought to destroy themselves in response to the conscious or unconscious murderous impulses of others. The psychological theory of transactional analysis, proposed by Eric Berne, argues that suicidal individuals are responding to injunctions made to them when they were infants by their parents that they ought not to have existed and that they have no right to exist. Such injunctions may operate at the unconscious level. Adolescents may also be especially susceptible to such wishes on the part of their parents. Joost Meerloo called this phenomenon psychic homicide, killing someone by getting them to commit suicide. Alan Felthous and Anthony Hempel have proposed a classification of cases of murder-suicide based on the relationship between the people. In the consortial type – possessive subtype – the offender, typically a man, kills his wife or lover because she has rejected him. He then kills himself, sometimes after also killing the rival. In the consortial type – physically ailing subtype – either one or both partners may be very sick, and the murder-suicide is to spare both partners the pain of a drawn-out dying process and the loss of the partner. In the adversarial type, a disgruntled employee returns to the place of employment and murders those whom he holds responsible for his frustration, after which he typically commits suicide. In the filial type, depressed or psychotic parents kill their children prior to committing suicide. Here the murder of the children seems to be a response by a suicidal parent who wants to commit suicide and decides to kill the children too, perhaps to ‘spare the children further suffering’ (misguided altruism) or because the parent sees the children as extensions of himself or herself. Research indicates that the rate with which infants are murdered (both across nations and across regions within a nation) is associated with the suicide rate of the regions, and not with the murder rate.

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In the familial type, a person, usually the man of the family under severe stress often accompanied by psychiatric disturbance, annihilates his complete family. In the pseudo-commando type, a person, again usually a man, selects a public place and tries to kill as many people as possible. These mass murderers are usually resolved by the murderer committing suicide or by being killed by the police. Here the suicide seems to be a way of escaping from the consequences of the murderous acts. Studies on murder-suicide in non-Western countries (e.g., Hong Kong) have suggested that the psychosocial dynamics of the behavior may differ between the Western and Asian cultures. Although depression seems to play important role in both sociocultural settings, the importance of economic factors, the absence of mercy killings in elderly couples, and a higher prevalence of filicide-suicides seem to distinguish homicide-suicides in a Chinese society from those reported in the Western countries.

Suicidal Behavior in Prisons Prison environment presents limited opportunities for self-harm and suicidal behavior due to restricted access to many lethal means and a possibility of more effective observation of at-risk individuals. However, paradoxically, the suicide prison rates are approximately 2.5–15 times higher than in the general population. In addition, many prisoners injure themselves in order to accomplish some goal other than suicide; to obtain psychological relief, to escape bullying or to get taken out of isolation. Due to restricted availability of methods, the majority of suicides in prisons die as a result of hanging using bedding materials or blankets; and cell bars, light fittings, ventilation grilles, door handles, or beds are common hanging points. Prison suicides usually happen when an inmate is alone and the levels of staff supervision are reduced (e.g., at night). Theories of inmate suicide which focus on the custodial environment have suggested the role of the disgrace of arrest, imitation of the suicidal behavior of other inmates, and the stress of imprisonment, interacting perhaps with a particular personality which predisposes the inmate to suicide. However, no research has yet been done to test the validity of these possible intra-institutional causes of suicide. It is not possible to provide an accurate profile of prisoners who will attempt suicide or self-harm during their sentence. Although there is often lack of consensus and contradictory evidence, several factors correlated with an elevated risk for prison suicide have been identified. Unsentenced and on-remand prisoners are at higher risk than the sentenced inmates, as are the younger prisoners and those who have been incarcerated for the first time. Recently released prisoners are also at increased risk

of suicide. Probably due to the negative reactions from other inmates, as well as high levels of aggression and impulsivity, suicide risk is elevated among inmates imprisoned for violent or sexual offenses. The rate of suicide among death row prisoners in the USA is surprisingly high (considering the high security of the place) presumably due to the enormous stress of living with imminent death. It has been estimated that between 1997 and 1999, the suicide rate in this group was 108 per 100 000. Medical history, including the history of previous self-harm and attempted suicide, psychiatric diagnosis (especially major depression, psychosis, and antisocial personality disorder), as well as substance abuse-related withdrawal symptoms, is another risk factor for suicidal behavior in prisons. There may also be gender-specific characteristics related to the high risk of prison suicide, for example, the caregiver stress among incarcerated females who have been separated from children and other dependent family members. Members of indigenous minorities (e.g., the native peoples of North America, Australia, and New Zealand) are much more likely to be imprisoned than the nonindigenous majorities, but they are neither over- nor underrepresented among the self-harming inmates.

Suicide and War Emile Durkheim noted that suicide rates decline during wars, both in men and women, as they sometimes do in other types of crises. More recent studies have confirmed this phenomenon. The decline has been noted, not only in the armed forces, but also in civilians. Furthermore, the decline has been observed in nations that were at war and those that stayed neutral, and in both the victorious and the defeated nations. Since this decline is evident for people of all age groups, the decline is not due to suicides being concealed by the armed forces or by the potential suicides going off to fight and being killed in battle. (Those aged over 65, for example, would not have been in the armed forces.) Similarly, the decline in suicide rates in neutral nations suggests that the decline is not due to suicides during battle being covered up by means of phoney causes of death on the death certificate or by being labeled as ‘war casualties’. There is sometimes a high rate of suicide in the military leaders of the defeated nations. This was observed, for example, in both Germany and Japan after World War II. Suicide in German Concentration and Extermination Camps Commentators on the Holocaust, both scholars and camp survivors like Jean Amery and Primo Levi, have often

Suicide and Other Violence Toward the Self

asserted that suicide was rare in the concentration camps. Various explanations have been proposed to account for this seemingly surprising observation, including the possibility of ‘committing suicide’ by giving up and simply starving to death or succumbing to the many illnesses circulating in the camps (as was the case of the so-called Muselma¨nner in the camps), and the ease with which it was possible to provoke the guards at the camps into murdering the inmates. It has also been suggested, following Durkheim’s theory, that the low suicide rate in the concentration camps might have been due to the increased social integration forced upon prisoners by conditions in the camps and, following Henry and Short’s theory, to the existence of a clear external source to blame for their misery. It might also be that the intensive supervision in the concentration camps may have prevented suicide, but a high suicide rate on death row in American prisons has been documented despite the intense supervision. These speculations seem to be based on a misinterpretation of what survivors of the concentration camps mean by the word ‘rare’. Arad, in writing about the extermination camp at Treblinka, says that about 1000 Jewish prisoners worked at the camp. (Those who died were regularly replaced by people who arrived in new transports.) Arad reported that ‘‘dozens, perhaps hundreds, committed suicide’’ (p. 223) and ‘‘there were nights in Treblinka when the number of suicides was two or three, and nights that it reached fifteen to twenty’’ (p. 223). On the basis of anecdotal evidence such as this, it can be calculated that, if one person committed suicide by hanging each night in Treblinka (with a population of 1000 prisoners), this produces a suicide rate of 36 500 per 100 000 per year. Two suicides each night amount to a suicide rate of 73 000 per 100 000 per year, and 20 each night amount to an enormously high suicide rate of 730 000 per 100 000 per year! In this context, it can be understood that what survivors of the concentration camps meant when saying that suicide was ‘rare’ was that it is amazing that more prisoners did not commit suicide. Compassionate and Bellicose Nations Nations of the world have been rated for their ‘compassion’, a dimension that includes measures of civil violence, land and income inequality, health and education expenditures, international cooperation, support for world order, and international wars. Suicide rates are higher in the more compassionate nations while homicide rates are lower. However, nations more involved in warfare during the last 150 years have a lower recent homicide rate expressed as a proportion of the total lethal violence rate (the suicide rate plus the homicide rate).

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Explanations There are three explanations that have been proposed for the decline in suicide rates during wars. First, Durkheim argued that, at least for major wars, war increases the level of social integration as the citizens unite against a common enemy, and this lowers the suicide rate. Perhaps also, war diverts peoples’ attention away from their personal problems toward the larger issues of the society, which reduces the risk of suicide. Second, war may have an impact on other social conditions, such as the economy (e.g., unemployment), and these changes may result in the causal relationship between war and suicide rates. Third, following Freud’s psychoanalytic theory in which suicide is viewed as partly a result of blocked aggressive impulses, since war is a time of externally directed aggression, war may legitimate other-oriented aggression. Consequently, war should be associated with a relative drop in the suicide rate. Commentators, however, have preferred Durkheim’s explanation.

Prevention of Suicide A variety of suicide prevention programs and approaches have been developed, including national suicide prevention strategies implemented in a number of countries (e.g., Australia, Finland, the UK, and the USA). Treatment of psychiatric disorders, screening for individuals at risk of suicide, education and awareness programs for the general public, gatekeepers and primary care physicians, means restriction, and implementation of guidelines for media reporting of suicide are among the most popular approaches to suicide prevention. Several psychosocial and pharmacological interventions have been applied to prevent repetition of suicidal behavior in the high-risk group of suicide attempters and to reduce dropout rates in this population notorious for poor treatment compliance. These include a cognitive behavioral approach, psychodynamic counseling, problem-solving therapy, multimodal interventions, family interventions, inpatient treatment, and pharmacotherapy. Several approaches have yielded promising results, for example, gatekeeper and physician education programs, restricting access to suicide methods, and a number of psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments (e.g., problem-solving therapy and dialectic behavioral therapy for women with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder). However, to date there is insufficient evidence to indicate the most effective approaches to prevention of suicide, as well as for the treatment and continuing care of individuals with a history of suicidal behavior.

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Further Reading Arad, Y. (1987). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Berne, E. (1961). Transactional analysis in psychotherapy. New York: Grove. Chan, C. Y., Beh, S. L., and Broadburst, R. G. (2004). Homicide-suicide in Hong Kong, 1989–1998. Forensic Science International 140, 261–267. De Leo, D., Burgis, S., Bertolote, J. M., Ad Kerkhof, J. F., and BilleBrahe, U. (2004). Definitions of suicidal behaviour. In DeLeo, D., Bille-Brahe, U., Kerkhof, A. D. J. F., and Schmidtke, A. (eds.) Suicidal behaviour. Theories and research findings, pp. 17–39. Go¨ttingen: Hogrefe & Huber. Durkheim, E. (1897). Le suicide (English version (1951). Suicide. New York: Free Press). Paris: Felix Alcan. Felthous, A. R. and Hempel, A. (1995). Combined homicide-suicides. Journal of Forensic Sciences 40, 846–857. Henry, A. F. and Short, J. F. (1954). Suicide and homicide. New York: Free Press. Jobes, D. A. (2006). Managing suicidal risk. New York: Guilford. Lester, D. (1993). Testosterone and suicide: An explanation of sex differences in fatal suicidal behavior. Personality & Individual Differences 15, 347–348. Lester, D. (1997). Making sense of suicide. Philadelphia, PA: Charles Press. Lester, D. (1998). Suicide in African Americans. Commack, NY: Nova Science. Lester, D. (2005). Suicide and the holocaust. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Lester, D. and Danto, B. L. (1993). Suicide behind bars. Philadelphia, PA: Charles Press. Lester, D. and Tartaro, C. (2002). Suicide on death row. Journal of Forensic Sciences 47, 1108–1110. Litman, R. E. (1967). Sigmund Freud on suicide. Psychoanalytic Forum 1, 206–214.

Mann, J. J., Apter, A., Bertolote, J., et al. (2005). Suicide prevention strategies: A systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Association 294, 2064–2074. Maris, R. W., Berman, A. L., and Silverman, M. M. (2000). Comprehensive textbook of suicidology. New York: Guilford. Meerloo, J. A. (1962). Suicide and mass suicide. New York: Grune & Stratton. Menninger, K. (1938). Man against himself. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Retterstol, N. (1993). Suicide: A European perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sainsbury, P. and Barraclough, B. M. (1968). Differences in suicide rates. Nature 220, 1252. Shneidman, E. S. (1985). Definition of suicide. New York: Wiley. Wolfgang, M. E. (1958). Patterns in criminal homicide. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. World Health Organization (2006). Country reports and charts available. WHO: Geneva. http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/ suicide/country_reports/en/print.html (accessed in February 2008). Yip, P. S. F., Liu, K. Y., Hu, J., et al. (2005). Suicide rates in China during a decade of rapid social changes. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 40, 792–798. Yufit, R. I. and Lester, D. (2005). Assessment, treatment, and prevention of suicidal behavior. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Relevant Websites http://www.suicidology.org/ – AAS (American Association of Suicidology). http://www.med.uio.no/iasp/ – IASP (International Association for Suicide Prevention). http://www.who.int/topics/suicide/en/ – WHO (World Health Organization).

B. Holocaust Survivors – Refugees

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Concentration Camp Survivors J D Kinzie, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

History of Concentration Camp Syndrome Nazi Concentration Camp Survivors Prisoners of War Concentration Camp Survivors Cambodian Pol Pot Concentration Camp Survivors

Glossary Concentration Camp A camp where prisoners of war, enemies, aliens, or political prisoners are confined. The term implies that physical mistreatment, torture, indiscriminate murder, and genocide can occur. Depression A specific psychiatric disorder consisting of lowered mood and symptoms, such as decreased interest in most activity, loss of appetite and weight, poor sleep, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, poor concentration, and recurrent thoughts of death.

History of Concentration Camp Syndrome There is probably no more stressful environment than that of a concentration camp, where people are detained for their combatant or alien status, their political views, or even their ethnicity. The purposes of such camps are often to control, punish, or kill its occupants. Words cannot describe the worse conditions, but crowded living, forced labor, starvation diets, lack of medical treatment, torture, and random or systematic murder are usual. Understandably, the physical and mental effects of the survivors are severe. A constant and persistent group of symptoms were found among survivors of Nazi concentration camps, which then became known as the concentration camp syndrome. This consists of marked anxiety, motor restlessness, hyperapprehensiveness (startle reactions), sleep disturbance, nightmares, difficulty in concentration, obsessive rumination about the traumatic events, depression, and survivor guilt. Some symptoms seem to represent a form of brain damage, and early researchers found that beatings, malnutrition, and disease were the cause of this disorder; however, it eventually became apparent that the severe psychological trauma itself was the cause of this disorder, and it could occur in previously emotionally healthy persons. Several psychiatrists describing the survivors reported that none have escaped the effects; although the effects may be a subtle personality change, such as

Concentration Camp Survivors and the Global War On Terrorism Summary Further Reading

Holocaust The systematic destruction of over six million European Jews by the Nazis before and during World War II. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A specific psychiatric disorder following psychological trauma with symptoms of reexperiencing, such as nightmares and flashback; avoidance behavior, such as attempts to avoid thoughts and memories of the events; and hyperarousal symptoms, such as irritability, startle response, and difficulty sleeping.

apathy, seclusiveness, suspiciousness, hostility, and mistrust. The concentration camp syndrome never became a formal American Psychiatric Association diagnosis, but it had much similarity with diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was recognized in 1980.

Nazi Concentration Camp Survivors Background Six million people (mostly Jews) were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Some camps (Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzek, and Majdanek) were for exterminations. Others had less systematic murder, but were characterized by starvation, forced labor, torture, endemic disease, beatings, inadequate clothing, death marches, and a lack of proper medical facilities. While living with constant threats to their lives, camp prisoners were subjected to medical experimentation, gross humiliation, and separation from family and were forced to witness severe cruelty to others. They were defenseless without privacy or any means of protection. Further details may be obtained from A Teacher’s guide to the Holocaust. The experience lasted 4 years before liberation came at the end of World War II. Much information up to now has been accumulated on the effects of the survivors. Physical Effects

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 515–518, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

In a study of physical sequelae of the Holocaust in Norway, survivors had a higher mortality, more frequent

Concentration Camp Survivors

hospitalizations, and higher incidents of sick periods. Physical symptoms, such as headaches, persistent dizziness, and gastrointestinal complaints, which can persist 50 years later, were common. However, most survivors have reported symptoms with a psychogenic component. Few differences have been found for such diagnostic disorders as arthritis, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease. Psychiatric Effects There have been many community-based, large-scale studies on the Holocaust survivors, some 40 years after the events. Unlike the previous studies on patients seeking clinical help, these have consistently shown more distress in symptoms and lower mood in survivors than in controls. In one study, 43% of survivors had symptoms compared to 28% of controls. However, there was considerable overlap and some survivors had fewer symptoms than controls. In one study, 40 years after the Holocaust, 46.8% of survivors met the diagnosis of PTSD. Although the trauma experiences of the Holocaust victims were universally severe, some evidence that the more severe trauma, i.e., surviving a death camp setting or being incarcerated longer, had more symptoms. Greater psychological problems were seen in those who experienced the Holocaust as children and showed more PTSD symptoms. Female victims report more distress than males. The Nazi concentration camp victims tended to remain vulnerable to reactivation of symptoms during stress, whether this redevelopment of PTSD symptoms occurred in actual trauma, such as scud missile attacks during the Gulf War, or a perceived threat, such as a sense of increased antiSemitism. The Nazi concentration camps were so horrible and the evil committed was so beyond comprehension that clinical terms may not do justice to the existential and theological despair of mankind’s inhumanity.

Prisoners of War Concentration Camp Survivors Background Wars and upheaval in this century have led to thousands experiencing captivity by the enemy often with malnutrition, overcrowding, torture, poor diet, inadequate shelter, and terrorizing executions. The long-term effects have been reported in survivors in the United States, Australia, Israel, Canada, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and, more recently, Bosnia Herzegovina. Physical Effects American prisoners of war (POWs) from Japan had excess mortality from accidents and tuberculosis. POWs from the Korean War had increased cognitive deficits that were related to the amount of captivity and weight loss.

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Psychiatric Effects Follow-up studies of the POWs demonstrated a uniformly high rate of persistent and debilitating psychiatric disorders. High rates of psychiatric hospitalizations for neurosis were found in POWs from World War II of Germany and Japan. In another study, high rates of anxiety reaction, alcoholism, and even schizophrenia have been found with greater occurrence in the POWs held by Japan, which inflicted more cruelty on the prisoners. More than 40–50 years after World War II and the Korean War, over half had at sometime a diagnosis of PTSD. The severely traumatized group of POWs held by Japan had a PTSD lifetime prevalence of 84% and a current diagnosis of 58%. PTSD also greatly increases the risk of other disorders, including depression and alcoholism. From a series of studies, we know that the POW concentration camp experience has severe and persistent effects, with up to 50% having PTSD, depression, and alcohol abuse. Many studies found that few survivors actively sought medical treatment and were suffering quite privately.

Cambodian Pol Pot Concentration Camp Survivors Background One of the most recent and best-studied concentration camp experiences was that afflicted on the Cambodian people by the radical Marxist Pol Pot regime between 1975 and 1979. During this brutal time, millions of people were rounded up and placed in isolated camps with forced labor, no medical facilities, starvation diets, indiscriminate beatings, and murders, often with family members watching helplessly. Onequarter to one-third of Cambodia’s seven million people died during this time. Many survivors went to Thailand as refugees and were later given asylum in Western countries. Physical Effects Even after they have improved physically from acute effects, many Cambodian refugees continue to report somatic complaints; 15–20% reported much health impairment. A very high percentage of Cambodian clinic patients (59% of males and 49% of females) have documented hypertension. Incidence of type 2 diabetes is about the same as the population in the United States (about 13.5%) but its prevalence is higher in young people than in the United States. It is difficult to know if these effects are due to refugee status or dietary in addition to the probable long-term effects of trauma. Psychiatric Effects The first studies on Cambodian concentration camp survivors found that the symptoms of nightmares, startle

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reaction, intrusive memories of events, a strong tendency to avoid thinking about this, and marked concentration problems persisted. In addition to these symptoms of PTSD, most have major depressive symptoms. In a community study (nonpatients), 50% of Cambodians were found to have PTSD and 50% also had depression. The depression symptoms increased over time, unlike the PTSD symptoms, which tend to wax and wane, but continue to affect about 50% of Cambodians even 12 years later. An important finding was the marked sensitivity to stress. Cambodians who witnessed accidents, underwent surgery, or even saw violence on television, such as viewing the destruction of the twin towers on 11 September 2001, had acute PTSD symptoms involving the trauma in Cambodia. Interestingly, drug and alcohol abuse was a rare condition among Cambodians, unlike the POWs.

Concentration Camp Survivors and the Global War On Terrorism As a result of the global war on terrorism, detention centers for terrorist suspects or unlawful enemy combatants have been set up in Afghanistan, Iraq, and most published, Guantanamo Bay. These camps administered by United States military in no way match the horror of The Nazi or Khmer Rouge; however, evidence indicated that most detainees have been in legal limbo without an open and fair trial. As of June 2005, the United States was holding about 520 foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Released prisoners, usually held for many years without charge, have alleged ongoing torture, sexual degradation, and religious persecution. As of August 2003, 29 inmates had attempted suicide (the more recent number is 34) and one-fifth of all prisoners were taking antidepressants. There are no studies on the effects of the experience of the detainees, but if other concentration camps can be a model, many will suffer long-term psychological changes and develop PTSD, depression, and other health problems. The very existence of such camps represents a profound moral and ethical challenge for democratic societies.

Summary The concentration camp syndrome, as first described following the Nazi Holocaust, represented a catastrophic stress and resulted in a common symptom pattern present in most survivors. These symptoms included marked anxiety, restlessness, startle reaction, sleep disturbances, nightmares, poor concentration, and excessive rumination about the traumatic events. The concentration camp syndrome was never recognized as an official American Psychiatric Association diagnosis but

its symptoms are the core of what is now called PTSD. The symptoms have been found in other concentration camp survivors, such as POWs and the more recent Cambodian concentration camp survivors. The response is the result of extreme stress and indicates that such stress can produce a psychiatric disorder that is severe and persistent in many people. An associated aspect of the disorder is the tendency to have reactivation on symptoms when further stress occurs. A real or symbolic threat can reproduce symptoms or behavior (such as extreme fear or nightmares) just as if the person were in the concentration camp. This speaks to the powerful memories that such extreme stress can cause, even though these memories may be repressed for a time. Treatment of the concentration camp syndrome originally was not satisfactory, probably because the early methods used psychoanalysis (or similar techniques), which seemed too stressful for the patients. Current techniques using medication to reduce nightmares, sleep disorders, and hyperarousal, and supportive psychotherapy seem to help the patient integrate the experience and reconnect emotionally to others. An emerging issue is that children of concentration camp victims also seem to suffer indirect effects and may be more vulnerable to PTSD than others. Even under the most extreme conditions, only about 50% of concentration camp victims suffer the full PTSD (concentration camp syndrome) or other physical or psychiatric disabilities. Reasons for this vulnerability of some and resiliency of others are unknown, but genetic factors are thought to play a part. The relationship between such massive psychological trauma and the development of psychiatric disorders is an important area of research. The global war on terrorism has resulted in multiple concentration camps for detainees. Evidence is beginning to accumulate that torture occurs at such places and their may be severe long-term mental and physical for the survivors. See also: Holocaust, Stress Effects of; Korean Conflict, Stress Effects of; Prisoners of War; Survivor Guilt

Further Reading Camp X-ray (and Guantanamo Bay) Available online at: http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_X-ray (and Guantanamo Bay). Last accessed 1 October 2006. Danieli, Y. (1998). International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma. New York: Plenum Press. Eitinger, L. (1980). The concentration camp syndrome and its late sequela. In Demsdale, J. (ed.) Survivors, victims, and perpetrators: essays on the Nazi Holocaust. New York: Hemisphere. Guantanamo Bay. Available online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Guantanamo_Bay. Last accessed 1 October 2006. Florida Center for Instructional Technology. A teacher’s guide to the Holocaust. Available online at: http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/ timeline/camps.htm. Last accessed 1 October 2006.

Holocaust, Stress Effects of 613 Hunter, E. J. (1988). The psychological effects of being prisoners of war. In Wilson, J. P., Harel, Z., and Kahana, B. (eds.) Human adaptation to extreme stress from the Holocaust to Vietnam. New York: Plenum Press. Kinzie, J. D. (1988). The psychiatric effects of massive trauma on Cambodian refugees. In Wilson, J. P., Harel, Z., and Kahana, B. (eds.) Human adaptation to extreme stress from the Holocaust to Vietnam. New York: Plenum Press. Krystal, H. (ed.) (1968) Massive psychic trauma. New York: International Universities Press.

Marsella, A., Bornemann, T., and Ekblad, S. (eds.) (1994) . Amidst peril and pain. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Matussek, P. (1975). Internment in concentration camps and its consequences. New York: Springer-Verlag. Stenger, C. A. (2003). American prisoners of war in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and Somalia. Washington, DC: Department of Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee on Former Prisoners of War.

Holocaust, Stress Effects of P Valent, Melbourne, Australia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Stress Stress Stress Stress

Effects Effects Effects Effects

during the Holocaust Soon after the Holocaust over the Years in Recent Times

Glossary Holocaust The genocidal extermination of Jews during World War II. Stress Effects Biological, psychological, and social responses to stressors; they can form the constituents of traumas and illnesses. Stressors Noxious events that actually or potentially threaten life and its fulfillment.

Just as the experiences of Holocaust survivors (see Holocaust Survivors, Experiences of) can serve as a benchmark for the stressor nature of Holocaust traumatic situations, so the range and depth of the consequent stress effects of Holocaust experiences can serve as a standard against which stress effects from other traumatic situations can be compared. Further, because Holocaust stress effects have been well documented for over 60 years, the progression of stress effects – biological, psychological, and social – can be examined over an individual’s life cycle, as well as down the generations.

Stress Effects during the Holocaust Adults Although, understandably, not scientifically researched in an extensive manner, reports indicate a wide variety This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P Valent, volume 2, pp 390–395, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Lessons and Challenges Regarding Stress Effects from the Holocaust Further Reading

Survivor A person who has lived through traumas, in this case, the Holocaust. Trauma A state of irretrievable loss of a life-promoting equilibrium. Traumatic Stressors Stressors that lead to trauma. Traumatic Situations Situations that often lead to trauma.

of biological, psychological, and social stress responses associated with roundups and deportation, segregation into ghettoes, concentration camps, and being in hiding. Roundups and deportation

During roundups and deportations, severe anxiety and reactive depressions were ubiquitous and were perceived as understandable rather than pathological. However, panic attacks, severe depressions, suicide attempts and completed suicides, and the new development of angina and hypertension in these situations, although still understandable, were indistinguishable from physical and psychiatric illnesses. The sense in many of the neurotic and psychotic symptoms that also occurred can easily be discerned. For instance, agoraphobia developed in response to the danger of going outside. Hysterical symptoms to avoid deportation and paranoid delusions, such as of the gas man, are also quite understandable. The abeyance of

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prior neuroses and the development of new ones seemed to be dictated by survival needs. Ghettoes and hiding

Anecdotal evidence indicates that stress effects in ghettoes overlapped those of the roundups, deportations, and concentration camps. Hiding in some ways was more stressful than being caught because people had to cope with constant isolation in hostile circumstances and the fear of being caught could be worse than actually being caught. Concentration camps

On entering the camps, psychic shock (see Disaster Syndrome) was often described subjectively as apathy, exhaustion, and emotional blunting. When apathy and total exhaustion continued, they contributed to the 20–50% who just died without obvious disease soon after entering concentration camps. Older and middleclass people were more prone to such shock. Many of them also committed suicide. In the psychiatric ward in the concentration camp Teresienstadt, all psychiatric diagnostic categories were reported to occur well above expected rates. The diagnoses included schizophrenia and manic-depression. Reports from other concentration camps also described not infrequent cases of depressions, phobias, paranoias (such as of being poisoned), hallucinations, and psychotic reactions. Most psychiatrically ill prisoners died or were shot if their behavior did not conform to strict rules. Some psychoneuroses and psychosomatic illnesses disappeared, and new ones appeared. In some cases, psychosomatic illnesses that went into abeyance during internment reappeared after liberation. Most prisoners in concentration camps who were not actively murdered, succumbed to the just-as-lethal extermination process, which included starvation, cold, physical assaults, and disease. Physical symptoms such as stomach cramps, diarrhea, dizziness, and headaches due to a variety of diseases were frequent, although some may have been psychophysiological. Coping and defenses

Most people did what they could to help others and themselves. Mostly nothing could be done except to obey orders, resign oneself to circumstances, and maintain hope deep inside. The most potent factor in survival was luck. But, in addition, to survive victims had to have a strong desire to live no matter what. Other factors that helped them to survive were the suppression of feelings, dissociation and detachment, and living in small stretches of time. Some were helped by intellectual curiosity, others by magical beliefs, humor, and art. Socially, younger people, those who paired to help one another, and those who had strong

beliefs had better chances of survival. Religious beliefs helped some but hindered survival for others. However, hope was essential for everyone. The sudden loss of hope was deadening and could lead to a fast demise through infections such as typhus. Children Stressors were larger for children, and their responses to stress were frequently insufficient, especially among the youngest children. Children were often the first to succumb to starvation, cold, and disease, and they had the highest mortality rates – 90% of Jewish children died in Nazi-occupied Europe. The surviving children’s responses were shaped by their developmental phases. Younger children

The younger children’s worlds fragmented easily. Stress effects frequently included somatic symptoms such as stomachaches, diarrhea and asthma and uncontained emotions and behavior. Younger children tended also to have relatively more vivid, concrete, and phantastic interpretations of events. For instance, human persecutors were admixed with images of monsters, and separations from parents were interpreted as punishment for being bad. Older children

The older children, especially those beyond the age of seven, experienced dread, fear, grief, despair, anger, and guilt akin to the adults. Their capacities and ingenuity sometimes saved adults. Few children survived the concentration camps; however, in a relatively privileged part of Bergen-Belsen, children were noted to suffer night anxieties, enuresis, and phobias; to be irritable and aggressive; and to form gangs akin to civilian wayward youth. Coping and defenses

Especially when children felt themselves to be under their parents’ protective shields, they could interpret the frightening events in part according to their normal developmental phases. For instance, they could see deportation as an adventure. From about the age of four on, children’s psychological defenses resembled increasingly those of adults in their abilities to dissociate and freeze their emotions and the meanings of events. In addition they had amazing capacities for obedience and discerning that life was at stake. For instance, they separated silently from their parents, were docile with strange caretakers, and kept silent when hidden, even when alone and in the dark for long periods. They assumed and lived out a series of false identities and arranged their psyches as desired.

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Children also owed their survival to luck, an inner drive to live, suppressing feelings, and maintaining hope. The latter was often through a tenacious clinging to objects and memories representing loving parents. Being appealing, evoking caring impulses, and being plastic when making various adjustments also helped their survival.

Stress Effects Soon after the Holocaust Adults At liberation

The joy of liberation was mitigated by continued physical debilitation, which in some cases led to death. Unfortunately, too, manydied of eating food that their frail digestive systems could not handle. Mental debility from camp life could continue after liberation. For instance, in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, over 40 schizophrenic and several hysterical survivors maintained the psychiatric symptoms that had helped them to survive hunger, death, and torture during their incarceration. Many of the survivors continued to suffer dulled and blunted affect and decreased memory. Others developed reactive despair and paranoid delusions only after liberation. Postwar

Many postwar stressors were worse than the wartime ones. The reality of murdered families, empty communities, and hostile countrymen shattered the dreams that had kept survivors going. Many let go now and took ill. Some died. The rates for suicide and schizophrenic illnesses rose. Some became chronically depressed. Others developed psychosomatic pains, dizziness, and weight-gain problems, all of which often became chronic. Amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, abortions, and premature babies were not infrequent. Coping and defenses

Most victims resumed their survivor modes. They cut off emotions and memories, labored for today, and hoped for the future. Many married quickly and had children. Many started to achieve financial security, imbued with new hopes in their children and new countries.

On the whole, the children coped, like the adults, by suppressing their emotions and memories and by concentrating on establishing their school and social lives.

Stress Effects over the Years Adults: The Survivor Syndrome The wide-ranging and marked biological, psychological, and social effects of the Holocaust came to be recognized only slowly and reluctantly. Psychiatry had to invent diagnostic labels to designate the salient image of the shuffling corpse, and the pervasively psychologically scarred survivor with numerous symptoms. Survivor syndrome became the most commonly accepted label for these symptoms. Its features, described next, subsumed the many biological, psychological, and social symptoms and illnesses, which occurred in many fluctuating combinations and permutations. Physical sequelae

Research on ex-concentration camp prisoners (the same probably applies to other Holocaust survivors) found that they suffered excessive mortality and morbidity from a great variety of illnesses for decades compared to control populations. Illnesses included tuberculosis and other infections, cancer, hypertension, coronary heart disease, stomach ulcers, digestive disorders, hyperthyroidism, and accidents. Premature aging and arteriosclerosis were also noted. Survivors also suffered excessive autonomic nervous system psychophysiological symptoms. Common sympathetic (fight-or-flight) symptoms were tension, muscle pains, and digestive and cardiovascular symptoms, parasympathetic symptoms included tiredness, dizziness, lassitude, and exhaustion. In addition survivors relived symptoms such as stomach cramps, diarrheas, and headaches along with other wartime memories or (in somatization) as symbolic substitutes for them. Finally, any of these symptoms could be used hypochondriacally to signal anxieties directly or indirectly related to Holocaust fears. Psychosocial and psychiatric sequelae

Children

Psychosocial sequelae include mainly negative emotions, cognitions, defenses, psychiatric illnesses, and spiritual and existential dilemmas. They, in turn, affected relationships and worldviews.

Children also enjoyed their freedom, but came to despair when their parents did not materialize or had changed from those in their dreams. Others grieved at having to leave their foster families. Many children were now treated for tuberculosis and other neglected illnesses, and this could mean further separation from their parents. Many exhibited neurotic symptoms and nonsocial behaviors.

. Emotions. Anxiety, fear, and terror were the most common emotions, followed by depression. The latter was often associated with suppressed grief and was often complicated by survivor guilt (see Survivor Guilt). . Cognitions. Holocaust events could present as hypermnesias or amnesias. In the hypermnesias, the past events were relived vividly in dreams, nightmares,

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flashbacks, thoughts, and fantasies. The relived events might not be distinguished from the original ones. They could be especially set off by cues reminiscent of the initial Holocaust events; such cues could act as phobias, which survivors might avoid strenuously. The amnesias, on the other hand, were the consequences of avoidance and a variety of defenses such as dissociation, repression, regression, splitting, and projection. The tension between reliving and avoidance (the two main features of posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD) was noted to lead to restlessness, decreased concentration, sleeplessness, memory disturbances, moodiness, emotional lability, irritability, and physiological lability. . Psychiatric sequelae. As in the physical arena, Holocaust stresses led to a wide variety of psychiatric symptoms and illnesses. They could be present from early on or could develop after a latent period (even decades later). Most commonly, anxiety and depression intensified into a range of anxiety and depressive disorders, the latter again associated with unresolved mourning. Dissociative defenses were associated with dissociative symptoms such as depersonalization, projection, and displacement, with suspiciousness, persecutory delusions, nighttime hallucinations, schizophreniform psychoses, and schizophrenia. All of these constellations could emerge years later and usually had Holocaust-laden content. . Spiritual and existential sequelae. Survivors were ubiquitously plagued with moral, identity, spiritual, and existential problems, often causing more distress than the physical and psychological problems. Survivor guilt torments included ‘‘Why am I alive, when my family/such good people died?’’ and ‘‘Why did I acquiesce to go left, when my mother was sent right to her death?’’ Other questions included ‘‘How could such injustices occur?’’ ‘‘Where was the world/God?’’ ‘‘What does it all mean?’’ ‘‘Who am I now?’’ and ‘‘What purpose can my life have now?’’ Survivors could become cynical, lacking confidence in the world and themselves, always ready for further wounds.

Coping and defenses

Many survivors did well financially due to their singleminded efforts, and their wives helped in their businesses and ran spotless homes. These were scotomized areas of fulfillment because they were intermingled with insecurity. Survivors achieved meaning by having children to defeat Hitler’s genocide, bear witness, and execute missions of remembrance. Israel was the political answer to vulnerability. Many survivors found purpose by trying to prevent suffering in others. Thus, survivors provided more than their share of moral leadership, philanthropy and cultural accomplishments.

Children Like their parents, child survivors also suffered excessive mortality and morbidity rates from all types of illnesses, including psychoses and suicides. Child survivors, unlike their parents, often could not remember the events that still plagued them. This was because of their young age at the time and the strong desire of adults that the children not remember. Thus, they lived their unhappiness as a saturated solution of unacknowledged turmoil, out of which could crystallize clearer symptoms and illnesses. Child survivors coped, like their parents, by concentrating on survival, the future, their own children, and ameliorating suffering in the world. Only in the 1980s, in their forties and fifties, were child survivors recognized, and they recognized themselves. They explored their identities and memories beyond the molds that had been arranged by others.

Second-Generation Holocaust Survivors Instead of making sure that their post-Holocaust children’s experiences were linked to a normal external world, Holocaust survivors often linked their children’s experiences to the Holocaust that still dominated them. The children then became unconsciously attuned to their parents’ Holocaust experiences. For instance, a child was spanked for hopping happily in the park because to the parent this was an affront to all the dead; this child grew up to be a sad adult, pervaded by death, without knowing why. Children also absorbed unconscious roles, such as substituting for dead parents and prior children. Second-generation children often felt overburdened, overprotected, and frustrated with parents who did not recognize them, yet felt unable to be angry with their fragile parents who themselves craved care and understanding. The children developed both symptoms due to identifying with their parents and symptoms resulting from their own attachment problems and unintegrated identities. These children often copied their parents’ means of coping, such as being devoted to their own children and being prominent in humanist and healing occupations.

Stress Effects in Recent Times Adult Survivors As Holocaust survivors reach the ends of their lives, it can be seen that the effects of stress and trauma are lifelong. Retirement, the illnesses of old age, diminished brain function, and helplessness can intensify memories, and, for instance, doctors and nurses may be experienced by survivors as Nazis whose injections kill the sick.

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On the other hand, survivors enjoy seeing the generations flourish, and this can reconnect them with their preHolocaust memories. It is never too late to resolve guilt and integrate frozen meanings. For instance, many survivors have recently given testimonies to the Spielberg Shoah Foundation and have broken their silence with their children. Child Survivors Child survivors, having been recognized and having discovered their own identities, have emerged from hiding, which in a sense they had been in since the Holocaust. Although still suffering, some with increased symptoms like their parents, for many it is more important to retrieve their memories clearly, integrate their Holocaust traumas, and make meaning of their lives. To these retrieve memories, many have visited the places of their traumas and have broken the conspiracy of silence. Once they have regained their identity and memories, they trauma pains can be integrated and new meanings can be forged. Child survivors have formed local, national, and international groups. They have also given testimonies and feel the special privilege and responsibilities associated with being the last witnesses of the Holocaust. Second and Subsequent Generations The integration of the Holocaust by second-generation children has been harder because their Holocaust-derived culture has been pervasive and ego-syntonic. Nevertheless, many have come to realize the sources of their problems and have attempted to resolve them with their parents, including going with them to the places of their suffering. Alternately, they have attempted to work out in psychotherapy who they were and why.

Lessons and Challenges Regarding Stress Effects from the Holocaust If Holocaust stress and trauma effects are seen a kind of benchmark, what principles can be abstracted from them? 1. Biopsychosocial nature of stress effects. Holocaust stress effects indicate that a wide variety of biological, psychological, and social stress effects may occur in many combinations and are subsumed in a great variety of symptoms and illnesses. 2. Diagnostic categories arising from stress effects. This great variety of symptoms and illnesses challenges us to adopt a nonlinear model in which trauma is like the

big bang at the center and the symptoms and illnesses freeze out at different points on different ripples emanating from such a center. Survivor syndrome and PTSD may then be conceptualized as generic entities that subsume stress-derived symptoms and illnesses. 3. Multidimensional nature of stress effects. In addition to the rippling of stresses and traumas into symptoms and illnesses, the Holocaust, especially, indicates that trauma disrupts the human dimension, including morality, meaning, spirituality, identity, and purpose. The Holocaust further alerts us that stress effects take place in individuals, families, communities, and nations; in children and adults; and across generations. 4. Adaptive as well as maladaptive stress effects. During the Holocaust, many responses were adaptive and later could be elaborated into adaptive concerns that benefited large sections of the population. This must be remembered but not idealized – the suffering far outweighed any beneficial results of the traumatic events. In conclusion, the stress effects of the Holocaust are very varied, deep, and intense. The sense of the overwhelming nature of the effects and the despair about being able to do anything about them parallels our general avoidance of trauma and despair about being able to treat it. Yet the fear is excessive, and helpful recognition of even the greatest traumas can be very beneficial and rewarding to both survivors and to those in contact with them. See also: Concentration Camp Survivors; Disaster Syndrome; Warfare, Trends in; Survivor Guilt; WarRelated Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading Bergman, M. S. and Jucovy, M. E. (eds.) (1982) . Generations of the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press. Dwork, D. (1991). Children with a star; Jewish youth in Nazi Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Krell, R. and Sherman, M. I. (eds.) (1997) . Medical and psychological effects of concentration camps on Holocaust survivors; genocide: a critical bibliographic review. New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction Publishers. Krystal, H. (ed.) (1968) Massive psychic trauma. New York: International Universities Press. Marcus, P. and Rosenberg, A. (eds.) (1989) Healing their wounds; psychotherapy with Holocaust survivors and their families. New York: Praeger. Niederland, W. G. (1968). Clinical observations on the ‘‘survivor syndrome.’’ International Journal of Psychoanalysis 49, 313–315. Valent, P. (1998). From survival to fulfillment; a framework for the lifetrauma dialectic. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel. Valent, P. (2002). Child survivors of the Holocaust. New York and London: Brunner-Routledge.

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Holocaust Survivors, Experiences of P Valent, Victoria, Australia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cultural Background to Holocaust Experiences Overview of Stress and Trauma Experiences in Different Traumatic Situations

Glossary Holocaust The genocidal extermination of Jews during World War II. Stressors Noxious events that actually or potentially interfere with survival or the fulfillment of life’s goals.

The experiences of the Holocaust have become a benchmark of suffering in stress and trauma situations. This was the result of the vast Nazi machinery of the day having directed all political, military, industrial, psychological, and bureaucratic resources to the unrelenting persecution and extinguishing of the culture, dignity, spirituality, and physical lives of all Jewish people. The extent and severity of the persecution resulted in every possible stress and trauma consequence occurring in large numbers and sharp relief, and, unlike in other genocides, they have been extensively recorded from both the perpetrators’ and victims’ standpoints. Further, the Holocaust has been a moral watershed that has not only tortured survivors but challenged our civilization. For all these reasons, the Holocaust is worth studying in its own right, in addition to being used as a source that can inform other traumatic situations. The word experiences ambiguously subsumes events as well as subjective responses to them. This article concentrates on descriptions of stress and trauma inducing events (technically, stressors or traumatic stressors) of the Holocaust. (For the experiential consequences of the events, see Holocaust, Stress Effects of.) In what follows, first the cultural backdrop and the traumatic situations of the Holocaust are overviewed. Next, attacks on the morality and spirituality of the victims, including ultimate perversities and evil, are examined. Last, mitigating experiences are examined.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P Valent, volume 2, pp 396–398, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Stress and Trauma Experiences on the Moral and Spiritual Levels Mitigating Factors and the Truth Further Reading

Survivor A person who has lived through traumas, in this case the Holocaust. Trauma A state of irretrievable loss of a life promoting equilibrium. Traumatic Stressors Situations that lead to trauma.

Cultural Background to Holocaust Experiences The rise of Nazism ruptured an uneasy anti-Semitic equilibrium that had been present to varying degrees over the centuries in Europe, including Germany. The Nazis drew both on this anti-Semitism and on primitive tribal, religious, and ideological myths to demonize, dehumanize, and scapegoat Jews. Thus, Jews were portrayed variably as predatory monsters, subhuman parasites sucking German blood, and superhuman world conspirators. To the Jews, many of whom had fought for their various countries, including Germany, and who were frequently at the forefront of local culture, the authorities’ portrayals of them were an incredible betrayal. Persecution based on the false propaganda shattered their assumptions about a moral and just world. The total attacks on the deeper humanity and spiritual fiber of the victims made the physical attacks on their survival much harder to bear. The following two sections deal with the events that threatened physical and spiritual survival.

Overview of Stress and Trauma Experiences in Different Traumatic Situations Wartime Situations Some traumatic events, such as bombing and evacuation ahead of invading armies, were shared with the general population. Such events were felt to be far less noxious than the additional intentional sufferings for which Jews were earmarked.

Holocaust Survivors, Experiences of

The precursors to genocide were the following. In Germany and occupied territories, Jews had to display yellow stars on their clothes. Their identification cards indicated their Jewishness. Laws forbade their entry into public areas, segregated them in ghettoes, and appropriated their means of livelihood and property. Jewish children were not allowed to attend schools. In Germany, Krystallnacht in November 1938 broke the taboo on violence and killing. At government instigation, Jewish synagogues and property were smashed and burned, and Jews were killed. According to the new model of justice, Jews were blamed and collectively fined for the events. As genocidal plans were ever more intensely implemented, segregation, robbery, and killing were accelerated. In occupied countries, within hours of entering villages and towns, Jews were rounded up and killed by firing squads, burned in synagogues, or beaten to death. Alternately, they were slowly killed by starvation and disease in ghettoes. Extermination camps with gas chambers and crematoria were established to increase the efficiency of killing great numbers of people. Entering such places was like entering hell. The only respite from being killed was temporary slavery, with harsh conditions and cruelty. Some Jews escaped the Nazis to other countries in the early years. Others hid in forests, cellars, and holes. Some pretended to be non-Jews, which was called open hiding. The tension of hiding could be worse than being caught. Many were either caught or denounced and handed over. Totality of attacks

It should be emphasized that these attacks on Jews were total, relentless, and without mercy. Because the criterion for punishment was having 25% or more Jewish genes, there was no way out, such as conversion. Neither the elderly nor children were spared anything. Indeed, children were a prime target as the carriers of future genes. One and a half million children (90%) in Nazi-occupied Europe were murdered. For the Nazis, physical and genetic extinction were not enough. Schools, culture (e.g., anything written by Jews), and even cemeteries were destroyed. No evidence or memory of Jews was to survive. Postwar For those who survived the Holocaust, many postwar experiences were extremely stressful. Survivors had to come to terms with having lost most or all their relatives, friends, communities, property, and way of life. Dreams of reunion, taking up life where it had been disrupted, hopes that had sustained victims during their worst times, were now shattered. Worse, some local populations rejected returning Jews, withheld returning their property, expressed anti-Semitic views, and in some cases even killed the survivors. In such circumstances, survivors had to hide their wounds and cope with the new survival challenges of

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oppression, political persecution, uprootings, and emigrations. The children who had survived had to cope with all these adult stressor events, as well as with their changed and stressed parents.

Stress and Trauma Experiences on the Moral and Spiritual Levels In order to put the huge Nazi-inspired killing machine into action, it was essential to deprive Jews of human status. If they were deemed to not be human, then the principles of justice and law would not apply to them any more than they did to cattle or vermin and they could be killed without guilt like such animals. The Nazi machine therefore consciously used every means to first kill their victims’ humanity in preparation for their physical killing. Unrestricted and unabashed propaganda was used to portray the monstrous, parasitic, and demonic conspiracy nature of Jews. Their religion, culture, and values were attacked through constant lies. Personal humiliation and stripping of dignity were important conscious precedents and justifications to personal robbery, damage, and killing. Examples of public humiliations included cutting off old men’s beards, public mocking, beating, and being made to perform menial tasks. Laws equated Jews with dogs. ‘‘No Jews or dogs allowed’’ signs appeared in public places. Jews were transported in cattle cars like cattle to their places of slaughter. Degradation during transportation was effected through lack of food and drink, forced lack of privacy, and having to excrete in crowded conditions. On arrival in the concentration camps, the dehumanization continued. Prisoners were herded by dogs and whips, were cursed and beaten, and were branded with numbers. Those not slaughtered immediately had all control taken away. They had to work like animals, had to obey trivial orders and routine on the pain of death, and had their most intimate human functions such as of ingestion and excretion governed by guards. Even their deaths were undignified. Prisoners were stripped naked, beaten, and herded into communal impersonal killing machines. In other words, in addition to the constant threats to their lives, Jews had to contend with forces that were meant to strip them of their humanity, identity, and everything they cherished and loved, their very spiritual and existential meanings. Their souls were attacked as much as their bodies. Some attacks were particularly cruel and perverse. They included the forced separation of families. When attempts were made to keep family members together, such as when mothers chose to stay with their babies, this love was punished by killing both the mothers and children. Victims were forced to make perverse choices, sacrificing some in order for all not to be killed. For instance, communities were forced to give up their old and

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young so that all would not to be killed. Compounding this perversity, prisoners were forced to take part in the killing and the body-looting process. Worse, victims had to suppress their emotions in order to survive. Thus, in addition to being the targets of physical sadism and abuse of unlimited power, victims were forced to shed civilized values, relinquish what they held dear, and even turn against what had made their lives meaningful. Mengele, who like the Angel of Death chose with a motion of his finger who was to live and who to die, became a symbol of the victims’ powerlessness. The meaninglessness of the slaughter was highlighted by the banality of the industrialization and bureaucratization of the killing process, which used and parodied all the achievements of modern civilization, including the use of psychological knowledge to inure the killers to continuous killing.

Mitigating Factors and the Truth

helped one another whenever possible. Sometimes kindness and bravery were shown by outsiders at the risk of their lives. The truth of Holocaust experiences can often be absorbed against the background of survival, courage, and victory of goodness, as in Steven Spielberger’s film Schindler’s List. But the truth is that redemptive experiences were far outweighed by the suffering and pain, ineffectiveness of bystanders, meaningless deaths of millions, and long-term moral and existential wounds of the survivors. See also: Holocaust, Stress Effects of

Further Reading Friedrich, O. (1982). The kingdom of Auschwitz. New York: HarperCollins. Gilbert, M. (1986). The Holocaust; the Jewish tragedy. London: Collins. Levi, P. (1987). If this is a man. London: Abacus.

In the midst of genocide, there was no lack of devotion and courage among Holocaust victims, who risked and

Refugees, Stress in J D Kinzie, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, OR, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Scope of the Problem Stress in Refugees Stress-Related Disorders in Refugees

Conclusion Further Reading

Depression A specific psychiatric disorder consisting of lowered mood and symptoms, such as decreased interest in most activity, loss of appetite and weight, poor sleep, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, poor concentration, and recurrent thoughts of death. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder A specific psychiatric disorder following psychological trauma with symptoms of re-experiencing, such as nightmares and flashback; avoidance behavior, such as attempts to avoid thoughts

and memories of the events; and hyperarousal symptoms, such as irritability, startle response, and difficulty sleeping. Refugee A person who flees to another country as a result of, or to avoid, political prosecution, war, starvation, or other disasters. Schizophrenia A severe mental disorder characterized by loss of contact with reality, hallucination, delusions, and often impairment of social and vocational functioning.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by J D Kinzie, volume 3, pp 335–337, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Technically, a refugee is a person who flees to another country usually to escape political prosecution, war, starvation, and other disaster. This definition does not include those displaced internally in their own country. Refugees

Glossary

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are distinguished from migrants who voluntarily migrate to another country for economic education or personal reasons. A special group of refugees are the asylum seekers who flee to a foreign country without official recognition or on a temporary visa status and request refugee status usually because of perceived dangers if they return to their homeland. While their claims are reviewed, asylum seekers live in an ambiguous status with the threat of forced repatriation.

Scope of the Problem At the end of 2004, the United Nations High Commission of Refugees reported 19.2 million persons of concern (including refugees, asylum seekers, stateless, and other). This was a 13% increase from 2003. Those with formal refugee status comprise 48% of the 19.2 million but many stateless persons have not been systemically identified and therefore the total persons of concern is probably much greater than 19.2 million. The areas of southern Africa and CASWANAME (Central Asia, South West Asia, North Africa and Middle East) each hosted 30% of the global refugee population. The Americas only hosted 7%. Afghanistan has been the largest country of origin of refugees despite 3.5 million Afghans in the past 3 years voluntarily repatriated home. The continual civil wars and ethnic strife in Africa and the Middle East indicates the worldwide problems of refugees and asylum seekers will continue to exist.

Stress in Refugees Types of Stress The stresses on refugees are diverse, multiple, and frequently catastrophic in nature. The phases of stress are often divided into preflight; flight and separation; asylum; and resettlement. Preflight stress includes poor economic conditions, food shortage, famine, political persecution, social upheaval, and violence. The results can include hunger, malnutrition, physical disability, and physical and psychological trauma. The flight and separation phase can include separation from family and society, sexual assault, violence, and collapse of social support. The result can be multiple physical and social traumas and the sense of being isolated and alone. The asylum phase often includes temporary resettlement in a refugee camp and can involve the threats of being forced to return home, inhospitable living conditions, unemployment, food shortages, and lack of health services. The results can include malnutrition, illness, and despair. Resettlement stress, often in a third country, can include unemployment, social isolation, acculturation problems, limited social ties, prejudice, language barriers, intergenerational conflicts, and minority status.

The results can be severe economic hardships, social isolation, delinquency among adolescents, generational, and conflicts. The amount of direct physical and psychological trauma varies among the refugee groups and the amount of violence prior to and during their escape. Some, such as the first group of Vietnamese refugees, left because of fear of harm rather than direct harm or threats. Others, for example Cambodian refugees, suffered severe stress over 4 years, which involved a total collapse of their society with starvation, torture, witnessing executions, wanton deaths, forced labor for 4 years, and even violence during the escape and refugee camp experience. There have been mass murders in the name of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and murder, starvation, and random lawlessness with gang violence in Somalia. Refugees fleeing severe ethnic wars, and sadistic acts of cruelty in Africa are often displayed on television. Although technically not refugees (they still stay in their own country), survivors of powerful tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes experience many of the same stress as formal refugees. In general victims of acts of God have less psychiatric disturbance than those victims of man-made disasters, i.e., war. Vulnerable Groups At different times, different groups can be more vulnerable to stress or persecution. During armed conflict, young men are often singled out as potential enemies and severely persecuted or executed. Women are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse (rape) when fleeing from their own country or even in settlement camps. At the country of resettlement, women and the elderly are often isolated at home and experience more difficulty in adjusting. Children acculturate faster as a result of school experience, which can greatly increase the intergenerational conflicts in the family over time. Protective Factors Since studies during the bombings of London in World War II, it has been shown that children that stay in the care of their mother, even in dangerous bombing situations, do better than those sent to the safe countryside away from families. An intact family or extended family that can maintain daily routines can provide some protection against the most serious psychological effects. Many studies have shown that having effective social linkages and social support provide a sense of belonging and improved identity, which protects against the stress of social adjustment. Religious affiliations have been found to be protective in some refugee status, and strong ideological and political commitments have even reduced the effects of torture. The more massive and prolonged the psychological

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trauma, the less effective are any protective mechanisms and the more consistently symptoms are found. Asylum seekers arrive in a country on a temporary visa (or even illegally) and request refugee status. Usually, during a prolonged waiting period, their claims are reviewed, basic services are denied, and there is even the threat of forced repatriation. This group, which has been studied in several countries, has high postmigration stress and often severe premigration trauma. With an unclear legal status, this group is very vulnerable and may develop an increased rate of psychiatric symptoms.

Stress-Related Disorders in Refugees Physical Disorders The first studies of refugees occurred with Nazi concentration camp survivors who fled to another country after World War II. Their multiple symptoms were thought to be related to brain disease due to head trauma or malnutrition. Later, the symptoms were characterized as concentration camp syndrome (which is similar to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)) and were found primarily to be due to the massive psychological trauma of the holocaust. Nevertheless, many refugees do suffer from head trauma, which may explain some of the complaints of memory and concentration problems. Although long-term health effects are inconsistently found, many refugees report marked somatic distress, and 15–20% report health impairment. Among various groups of refugees (Cambodians, Vietnamese, Russians, Bosnian, and Somalis) hypertension was found in 40–50% and diabetes (type II) was found in 13–17%. Although dietary changes, refugee status, and effects of aging play a role, severe trauma contributes to high prevalence of these two diseases. Behavioral Disorders Refugee populations may be particularly sensitive to alcoholism, drug abuse, delinquency, or antisocial behavior. All the losses, including status and employment, may cause adult males to use alcohol and drugs as a temporary escape in both the camps and in the resettlement country. Asian refugees historically have tended to have lower rates of alcoholism, whereas Central American males tend to have high rates of substance abuse as refugees. Young people in resettlement countries have been found to engage increasingly in antisocial behavior and drug abuse. Refugee children can experience a severe disruption of family relationships and much intergenerational conflict in their new country. A lack of effective role models, a sense of social isolation, and poor academic performance may turn adolescents to use of drugs and drug dealing in an attempt to acculturate to the host society. Such behavior by adult and juvenile males can

increase family stress greatly and lead to family breakup and domestic violence. Indeed in refugee children from Central America domestic violence (often secondary to alcoholism) is more likely to be the major trauma than war-related violence. Psychiatric Disorders The most persistent effects on refugees have been the consistent finding of a high rate of psychiatric disorders. Earlier reports from European refugees after World War II indicate an increased rate of schizophrenia. Later studies have shown that those refugees from the Nazi concentration camps were found to have suffered from a specific disorder characterized by fatigue, irritability, restlessness, anxiety, depression, and frequent nightmares. This concentration camp syndrome was found to be related to massive psychological trauma. The syndrome was largely forgotten; but with a large influx of refugees in the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s, it was found that many refugees suffered from PTSD. PTSD is found to be similar, if not identical, to the syndrome called concentration camp syndrome. By definition, PTSD is the result of a traumatic event in which an individual experiences or confronts death or serious injury and responds with fear, helplessness, or horror. The symptoms can cause reexperiencing such as nightmares, avoidance behavior, or a numbing experience such as efforts to avoid thoughts of the events and hyperarousal symptoms such as difficulty falling asleep, irritability, poor concentration, and startle response. In a clinic treating refugees from Southeast Asia, a 54% rate of PTSD was found among the Vietnamese refugees. The traumatic experience was related both to the Vietnam War and to the escape processes. The 92% rate of PTSD among Cambodian patients all related to the Pol Pot concentration camps. Most clinics have found PTSD to be similarly high, although the rates for Cambodians in the community (nonpatients) tend to be lower. A great deal of research and clinical experience indicates that traumatized refugees have high rates of PTSD. Information exists on a number of refugees: Chilean, Salvadorian, Ethiopian Jews, Afghan, Somalis and Bosnians, as well as Tamil and Burmese asylum seekers. A recent community survey of Cambodian refugees two decades after resettlement in the United States found that 62% still suffered from PTSD. This is almost twice as high as among Cambodians living in Cambodia indicating that refugee status and/or immigration stress contribute to ongoing symptoms. The highly televised bombing of Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 was very disturbing to refugees and many (particularly Somalis and Bosnians) had markedly increased symptoms after repeated viewing. The symptoms are often quite persistent and can recur after periods of quiescence.

Survivor Guilt

Depression characterized by lowered mood, low energy, low interest, poor sleep, and poor appetite is also very high among refugees. PTSD has generally been found to be related to specific traumatic events, whereas depression relates more to postmigration stress. Depression tends to improve over time more than PTSD symptoms. Schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder characterized by delusions and hallucinations, which is found to be high in refugees from World War II, continues to be increased in current refugees. However, the number involved is not nearly as large as those having PTSD and/or depression.

Conclusion It is now clear that refugees suffer from much stress, sometimes of catastrophic proportions. This can result in symptoms of PTSD and depression, which are similar regardless of the culture of the refugees or the environment where the refugees resettle. As the number of refugees worldwide

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increases, the number of refugees impaired and suffering will continue to increase See also: Survivor Guilt; War-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Treatment of

Further Reading Boehnlein, J. K. and Kinzie, J. D. (1995). Refugee trauma. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 32, 223–252. Desjarlais, R., Eisenburg, L., Good, B., et al. (eds.) (1995) . World mental health: problems and priorities in low-income countries. New York: Oxford University Press. Jaranson, J. J. and Popkin, M. K. (1998). Caring for victims of torture. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. Marsella, A., Bornemann, T., and Ekblad, S. (eds.) (1994) Amidst peril and pain. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Wilson, J. P. and Drozdek, B. (eds.) (2004) Broken spirits: the treatment of traumatized asylum seekers, refugees, war and torture victims. New York: Brunner-Routledge Press.

Survivor Guilt P Valent, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

History of the Concept of Survivor Guilt Moral Features of Survivor Guilt Sense and Purpose of Survivor Guilt

Glossary Guilt An internal emotional judgment (an aspect of conscience) of having been bad or having done wrong to another. Survivor A person who has lived through a trauma.

History of the Concept of Survivor Guilt Survivor guilt as a clinical entity was emphasized for the first time in Holocaust literature in the 1960s. Psychiatrists such as Krystal and Niederland were struck with the ubiquity of feelings of intense, unabating guilt for having survived among their Holocaust survivor

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P Valent, volume 3, pp 555–557, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Range of Manifestations of Survivor Guilt Treatment of Survivor Guilt Further Reading

Trauma An experience in which a person’s life has been grossly threatened and out of which a variety of biological, psychological and social wounds and scars results.

patients. Survivor guilt came to be quickly recognized in other traumatic situations, including the Hiroshima atom bomb, combat, disasters, and civilian bereavement. It was noted after 9/11; indeed, it can occur in all traumatic situations, whether natural or man made. A special form of survivor guilt may be said to occur in rescuers and helpers who blame themselves for not having saved those for whom they viewed themselves as responsible. More subtle forms can occur in clinicians who feel guilt for their own well-being in the face of their patients’ suffering.

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Survivor Guilt

Moral Features of Survivor Guilt

Range of Manifestations of Survivor Guilt

The most striking feature of survivor guilt is its moral judgment of self-blame. It is directed to the survivor’s undeserved survival in contrast to others’ deaths. An individual suffering from survivor guilt often states that the dead should be alive instead of him- or herself. This feeling may be enhanced when the individual was saved by another who died. A common subtype of survivor guilt relates to not having saved others. The implication is that the survivor could have and should have saved others, but due to selfishness did not, instead saving him- or herself, thereby causing suffering and death to others. This feeling is enhanced if the person’s usual role, such as spouse, parent, or rescuer, was to protect those who died, or if the person did indeed put his or her survival ahead of others. However, a striking feature of survivor guilt is the contrast between the torment of self-blame of survivors and their innocence by any objective criteria. For instance, Holocaust survivors often blamed themselves for not following or saving their loved ones who were murdered, when actually they were separated at gunpoint and through physical force. Children who survived by hiding blamed themselves for the deaths of their parents. The Holocaust taught the paradox that victims are prone to survivor guilt while perpetrators rationalize theirs. Unjustified survivor guilt occurs in all traumatic situations. Medical staff may blame themselves for not saving unsavable patients. A child may grow up with unwarranted guilt for separation from parents or parental death.

If survivor guilt is appeased by effective rescue of others, it may be seen as a temporary stress. If it fails and become part of a trauma, it is lived and relived as part of the wounds and scars of the trauma. Then the following biological, psychological, and social manifestations may occur singly or in a variety of combinations.

Sense and Purpose of Survivor Guilt Observations of acute phases of traumatic situations indicate that survivor guilt is an unpleasant, instinctive social cue (that may be reinforced by others’ anger and blame) that can be appeased only through helping others. For instance, in a disaster those whose houses survive often appease their very intense guilt by sheltering those whose houses are destroyed. Survivor guilt thus helps to preserve as many people (or genes) in the community as possible. Later survivor guilt may be less useful practically, though it may prime adaptive reparative action for subsequent traumatic situations. It may also preserve the survivor’s retrospective hope that ‘if onlys’ may yet be able to be executed. Further, Danieli suggests that the guilt is a buffer against moral chaos and existential helplessness, as it preserves some assumption of moral order in the universe. Last, the guilt perpetuates close emotional links to the dead.

Physiological Responses Thus far, the physiological accompaniments of survivor guilt have not been delineated. Psychological Responses Emotion

Survivor guilt is one of the most painful human emotions. It may be felt as both mental anguish and a physical heartwrenching pain in the chest directed toward the dead, but turned angrily back on the survivor him- or herself. Cognitions

Poignant traumatic events may return in feelings, thoughts, images, dreams, and flashbacks, along with ruminations about what the survivor should have done but did not do. Cognitive schemas and meanings develop, such as that the survivor is an irresponsible person, even a destroyer of life. Defenses

Intense pain of survivor guilt such as having caused the death of beloved peoples, may be central in survivor defense formations. Psychic numbing, dissociation, and repression may fragment coherent awareness. Identification may lead to physical symptoms similar to the ones the dead had suffered. Displacement may lead to blaming others. Sublimation may lead to devotion to saving others. Some survivors may take on rescuer or helper professions. Social Responses In acute situations, people may vacillate between appeasing survivor guilt by helping others and other essential survival options. After the acute phase of the trauma, people may wring their hands as they anguish about the choices they made. They may blame themselves and withdraw in order to avoid the imagined blame of the question ‘‘Why did you survive?’’ Survivors may play down their survivorship, and may especially avoid enjoyment and vitality, as they can exacerbate their feelings of guilt. Sublimatory activity may be channeled through choosing helping or rescuing work and professions.

Survivor Guilt

Specific social settings may lead to characteristic responses. For instance, bereaved parents often withdraw to extremes, and emotional numbing admixed with intense blame and self-blame often result in divorce. Associated Clinical Features Survivor guilt may be associated with other judgments, such as shame and injustice. The sense of injustice may come from having been unfair to others, but also from having been put in unfair situations. Survivor guilt may interfere with grieving and is often at the kernel of unresolved grief and depression. Hence it may need to be resolved before the grieving process can proceed.

Treatment of Survivor Guilt Prevention of survivor guilt is part of the rationale for strict, following of protocols, early disaster intervention, debriefing, and grief therapy. Its resolution is a common goal in later psychotherapies. The first principle of treatment of survivor guilt is its recognition. Next, thorough investigation of the facts of the circumstances reveals how survivor guilt is objectively

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untenable. Its evolutionary sense and hence its presence is explained, and alternative, hopeful cognitive views are explored. With the thawing defenses of the survivor, the emotional pain of survivor guilt is identified, processed, and assimilated in the context of an empathic, therapeutic relationship. The survivor’s sense of morality is retrieved with the realization that past circumstances, not the survivor, were irrational and bad. Seeing him- or herself as a victim, not as a perpetrator, allows the survivor to grieve losses and to achieve new hopeful meanings for him- or herself. The survivor can then reclaim a purposeful life. See also: Holocaust Survivors, Experiences of; 9/11, Religion and Stress

Further Reading Danieli, Y. (1988). Treating survivors and children of the Nazi Holocaust. In Ochberg, F. M. (ed.) Post-traumatic therapy and victims of violence. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Krystal, H. and Niederland, W. C. (eds.) (1971) Psychic traumatization: aftereffects in individuals and communities. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. Raphael, B. (1986). When disaster strikes. London: Hutchinson. Valent, P. (1998). From survival to fulfillment: a framework for the lifetrauma dialectic. Philadelphia, PA: Brunner/Mazel.

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ECONOMICS AND COSTS OF WAR

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Economic Costs and Consequences of War Carlos Seiglie, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Microeconomic Analysis Macroeconomic Implications of War The Transfer Problem and War

Glossary External Cost The cost borne by noncombatant nations in a war. Externality When the action of a nation (individual) affects the consumption or production opportunities available to another. Internal Cost The cost borne by combatant or participating nations in a war. Opportunity Cost The value of a resource in their next-best alternative use.

In analyzing the cost of war, it is convenient to classify or partition costs in two ways. First, a distinction should be made between whether the cost and consequences are internal or external, that is, whether they are borne directly by the participants or by the wider international community, respectively. This distinction is similar to the one made in economics between private and social costs. If the decisions to go to war are based on the calculus of whether the private benefits outweigh the private cost of going to war, then many wars could be prevented if the parties involved internalized the higher social cost imposed by their actions. Once this distinction is emphasized, the importance of developing institutions which provide the proper incentives or mechanisms to account for these external effects becomes evident. Another useful classification is between the direct and indirect effects or consequences arising from war. Direct effects will involve those immediately arising during and after the war and generally are restricted to the economic effects from casualties, displacement of populations, and destruction of infrastructure and other types of physical capital. The indirect effects are much more subtle and will persist into the future as, for example, famine, disease, and the changes in the political and civil society that can occur as a consequence of the event. Since institutions are important to economic activity, these events have profound effects on the economy. Finally, we may also make a distinction between a static and dynamic analysis of the consequences of war. Table 1 presents an example of the categorization scheme.

Toward Measuring the Cost of War Further Reading

Terms-of-Trade The price of commodities that are imported relative to the price of those that are exported by a country. Value of Life From an economic viewpoint it generally focuses on the amount an individual is willing to pay to avoid death with some probability. This is referred to as the value of a statistical life. From an insurance viewpoint, it is the amount required to make the victim ‘whole’. The losses generally consist of: (1) the loss of wages and employee benefits net of personal consumption and (2) the loss of household services.

Microeconomic Analysis War leads to the destruction of resources: capital (factories, housing stock, weapons, etc.), human capital (reduction in the population as a result of casualties, disease, displacement and starvation), and other resources such as the possible loss of land or territory. Historically, if victory is achieved the potential private benefits to the countries involved are the confiscation of resources such as territory (land), slaves (labor), and other resources. Yet, not only does war reduce aggregate resources but the final distribution is generally different. Both the reduction in resources and their redistribution between the participants will lead to changes in the valuation or prices of commodities and factors of production. In effect, there is a wealth effect and a substitution effect from war. For example, if the nation does not lose territory but suffers a great number of casualties, then labor becomes scarce relative to land. This would lead to the price of land declining relative to the cost of labor in the postwar period. If the economy was closed after the war, the decline in population would also lead to a decline in the demand for many commodities and, therefore, their prices. A new level of relative prices and returns to factors of production will result. In the event of a victory, the winner may gain sufficient resources, for example, oil, to now have influence over prices. This may lead the victor to decrease production so as to increase price to a more profitable level. Figure 1 illustrates a possible scenario for country A. We label its production possibility frontier by AA. It

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Table 1 Some costs of war Internal (private) costs

External (social) cost

Direct effects Loss of productive resources: Human (due to casualties, emigration, etc.) and physical capital (wealth effects). Substitution effect from changes in prices. Trade diversion.

Trade diversion for noncombatants. Nuclear and biological fallout. Changes in terms of trade.

Indirect effects Famine from increases in food prices and/or decline in income. Uncertainty reduces capital formation and economic growth as a result of fear of future conflict. Feedback from economic disruption to political system leads to possible changes in civic and political institutions which may have an adverse effect on social welfare (e.g., the formulation of poor economic policies, restrictions of civil liberties, etc.).

Y

A B C

y′ E′

U0

E

Y′ C′

U1

p

p X

B

x′

X′

A

Figure 1

shows all the feasible combinations of commodities X and Y that the country can produce given its endowment and the state of technology available to produce these goods. The country is initially producing the equilibrium amounts given by point E, the point of tangency of the slope of the production possibility curve (which measures the relative cost to society of producing these goods) to the price of commodities X and Y given by the slope of the line, p. The amount produced of each commodity is denoted by (X 0 , Y 0 ), whereas the amount consumed by (x 0 , y 0 ). The level of utility or welfare of a representative citizen of country A consuming this amount is given by U. After a war, if the country suffers casualties and loses resources the new production possibility curve is given by BB, that is, the set of feasible choices is reduced. As shown,

Uncertainty of future conflict can reduce international trade and investment (capital mobility) leading to loss of welfare as gains from specialization and gains from trade are not fully exploited.

if we assume that world prices are unaltered by the conflict (the war is between two small nations), the level of output of both goods as well as the country’s comparative advantage has changed. Prior to the war, this country imported commodity Y by an amount (y 0  Y 0 ) and exported (X 0  x 0 ), yet after the war it now exports Y and imports X. In addition, the representative individual of country A has been made worse off by the amount U 0  U 1. Note that in this case, only the warring countries are assumed to be affected. Yet generally, wars will have an impact on the international community at large. As such, the social cost of war is greater than the private cost since the war leads to what may be termed a negative externality on the world community. Other possible costs may ensue because the terms of trade may change as a result of war. By the very nature of altering the amount and the distribution of resources available in the world, wars will affect prices. The effect of these price changes will be felt by both the participants (internal cost) and the rest of the world (external). As prices change, so will the income of different groups, both domestically in the participating nations and those in the noncombatant nations. Similarly, wars will divert trade both directly via disruption of commercial trading routes during the conflict and through the alteration of prices. When trade is reduced or diverted, then social welfare declines not only for the participants but also for the many nations that must now pay higher prices for the products that have been made scarcer, or whose transportation costs have risen. Those countries exporting the products whose prices have risen may be better off depending on the income and substitution effects created by the war, since the total amount exported may fall during wartime. There are other internal indirect effects from war such as famine. This results from the disruption of the distribution channels or from a reduction in the income of

Economic Costs and Consequences of War

certain groups. There may also be external indirect effects that we can envision resulting from war. If a warring country is a large producer of agricultural products such as wheat and rice, then disruption in the supply of these products raises world prices. This increase in the price of food may be large enough for noncombatant nations that starvation and disease in these countries may ensue. War leads not only to a direct reduction in physical and human capital as it destroyed, but the uncertainty created by enduring rivalries and the future possibilities of conflict will lead to a reduction in investments in both human and physical capital. This decrease in capital formation will reduce the level of output and economic growth of the participants from the level that would exist if peace prevailed. Conversely, if enduring rivalries induce investments in the military sector, including in weapons and the training of soldiers for war, this imposes a social cost on society since these resources could instead have been used to increase current and future production. The development of much more destructive weapons seems to have resulted in an increase in the divergence between the private and social cost of war than has been the case historically. When weapons were more primitive, casualties were generally confined to those directly involved in combat. As technology improved, so did the likelihood of casualty to the general population. The recent development of nuclear, biological, and other more destructive weapons has led to the cost of war now spilling over to the larger international community. The extreme example is the case of nuclear fallout. In the modern era, the realization of this dramatic external effect from war has led many in the international community to demand the elimination of these weapons possessing the potential for inflicting large external costs. Therefore, the weapons or technology employed in war will not only lead to the cost of war varying for the participants, but will also change the size of the divergence between the private and social cost. Finally, there must be a realization that the economic consequences of war will likely imply changes in the political, social, and civic institutions of the warring countries. Since economic policy is not derived in a vacuum, but is instead formed within political institutions there are costs and possibly benefits that may thus arise. For example, if war leads to an authoritarian regime coming into power then the general citizenry loses influence in the process of policymaking. This could lead to the adoption of economic policies that differ from those that would be adopted under a democratic regime. In addition, the mobilization of resources by governments during the war may lead to a reduction in civil liberties, which in many cases persists into the postwar period. The cost of these events, although implicit, must also be factored into account for the total cost of war. There has been a failure to realize that freedom of speech and association, for example, not only are rights

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that provide direct benefits to those endowed with them, but that they also serve to facilitate trade and therefore, make the economic system more efficient. In summary, since war generally leads to the redistribution of economic and political power, there arises the possibility that governments will adopt economic and social policies that impose a higher cost on society than had the event not occurred.

Macroeconomic Implications of War It appears that the earliest concern by economists about the effects of war had to do with the financing of military expenditures. In England, the systematic study of inflation and debt financing during the Napoleanic Wars by Ricardo, Malthus, J. S. Mill, and other British economists led to treatises on monetary and fiscal policy that are the foundation of our knowledge in these areas today. For example, it was as a writer on monetary policy in the discussion of war inflation that David Ricardo first made his reputation. Wars are generally accompanied by increase in government spending, unless the government reduces spending on nonmilitary goods. Therefore, governments can finance this increase by a combination of either taxing the current generation, that is, by raising taxes, borrowing (levying taxes on future generations to repay the debt), or printing money. The initial concern by economists was the impact that financing war would have on increases in the general price level or inflation. Like any government expenditure financed by printing money, inflation is the product. If war requires greater amounts of spending at the same time that a country’s access to the capital markets or its ability to tax is restricted, then higher rates of inflation would be associated with it. In fact, the early empirical work in macroeconomics examines the effects of monetary policy on inflation or hyperinflation during and after war periods. Lerner documents that the worst inflation in American history since the Revolution plagued the South during the Civil War. He finds that for 31 consecutive months from October 1861 to March 1864 the Confederate commodity price index rose at the average rate of 10% per month. When the Civil War had ended, the index was 92 times its prewar base. Similarly, Cagan documented the bouts of hyperinflation following World War I in Austria, Germany, and other European countries. There are two more recent issues in macroeconomics that have led economists to focus research on the consequences of war. The first deals with the tax-smoothing literature that suggests that optimal income taxation requires a smooth tax path and, therefore, unexpected events such as wars are optimally financed by debt. In other words, wars should be financed by fiscal deficits. Although in this literature war plays no special role

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outside of being assumed to be an unexpected event that governments must deal with, the second literature is more specific to the consequences of war or defense spending in general. The latter work assumes that individuals have a derived demand for national security to protect their well-being, and that of their descendants. Therefore, both temporary increases in defense spending (wars), as well as permanent increases during times of peace will be financed by debt. The key to deriving this result is that bequests, although operative, cannot be fully realized because there exists the possibility that international conflicts may break out. If so then a portion of these bequests may never reach one’s heirs since they may be confiscated by an adversary or destroyed during the conflict. As a consequence of war, a component of government expenditures, defense spending, is perceived by individuals as a form of protecting against these attacks or increasing the likelihood that bequests are realized. Therefore, increases in public debt to finance defense expenditure (which help to ensue that a portion of bequests are received by future generations) will not be fully offset by increases in saving. Consequently, we should expect to observe a position correlation between increases in the size of the public debt and defense spending in countries where such a concern exists. Another important implication from this model is that since defense spending lowers the amount bequeathed to future generations it lowers national savings. In particular, using time series data for 11 OECD countries, Seiglie finds robust results that both aggregate savings as well as the saving rate are reduced by defense spending. Since economic growth is largely determined by the accumulation of both physical and human capital partly financed by intervivos transfers, then defense spending can affect economic growth. A recent paper by Hess presents results that individuals in countries marred by war would be willing to give up 8% of their consumption to avoid experiencing this event.

The Transfer Problem and War Victory in war may lead to not only confiscation of the loser’s resources (e.g., territory) as the prize, but a more subtle form of compensation: reparation payments for war damages. For example, France was forced to pay Prussia indemnities after the 1870–71 war and Germany was made to pay France reparations after World War I. Economic research on the general question of the effects of transferring resources between countries on the terms of trade of the paying or receiving country was stimulated after World War I by debates between Keynes and Ohlin. After World War II, the beginning of the Marshall Plan led to a reexamination of this issue by Samuelson.

The transfer problem refers to the need for real resources to accompany the international transfer of financial resources between two countries or groups of countries in order for the latter to take place. Under standard assumptions, the problem is that for country A that loses a war to make reparations to country B the victor, country A must reduce its expenditures by the same amount as the recipient increases theirs. Otherwise, the transfer would lead to one or the other country’s term-of-trade changing (the price of imports relative to exports) and the transfer would be undereffected or overeffected. Restating the problem differently, when the loser gives the winner $100, the loser’s balance of trade will improve as they reduce their expenditures on imports and the recipient of the transfers will purchase more of the loser’s exports. If the improvement in the balance of trade via income changes does not lead to the loser making $100 of transfer in real resources (or commodities), then the term-of-trade will change to complete the adjustment. For example, if the balance of trade only improved by $90, then the transfer is undereffected and the price of this country’s exports relative to its imports would fall. As the price of exports relative to imports falls for the defeated country, this will further encourage their exports and discourage their imports until the full transfer is completed. It should be noted that much of the discussion on foreign aid and other transfers in the area of international political economy fails to account for this effect. Therefore, financial transfers that may appear as war reparations (or foreign aid) may lead to dramatic changes in terms of trade of the recipient country, with varying consequences.

Toward Measuring the Cost of War Adam Smith was one of the first economists to recognize the costs as well as the potential benefits of the military when used for national defense. In his book, the Wealth of Nation he states that ‘‘the first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from violence and invasion (by others), can be performed only by means of military force. But the expense both of preparing this military force in times of peace, and of employing it in time of war, is very different in the different states of society (and in) different periods.’’ He recognized that the cost of war, including death, destruction, and other casualties, will vary depending on the time and place. In other words, the opportunity cost of the resources employed or destroyed varies depending on the economic conditions of the particular actors. In the simple example shown in Figure 1, the cost of war was simply U0 – U1, since we assumed that there was no time dimension or externalities. Jean-Baptiste Say went even farther by noting that the loss of human life is a loss of wealth. This wealth is composed of the total expenditure used up in previous

Economic Costs and Consequences of War

years in maintenance and education. He wrote: ‘‘War cost more than its expense; it costs what it prevents from being earned.’’ This is one of the earliest recognitions that human beings are embodied with human capital, and therefore a part of the value of a human life is the foregone earnings or loss to society resulting from the inability of individuals to produce, that is, the reduction in output experienced by society. Consequently, the economic cost of war must account for the opportunity cost of the soldiers in their next-best alternative occupation. This cost will generally be substantially different from the budgetary cost allocated by the government. For example, if active-duty military personnel are stationed in country B their pay will already be reflected in the government’s budget. Now suppose that a military conflict erupts in country C which requires these individuals to be transferred there. In addition, assume the war requires an additional deployment of new recruits. The government’s budget will increase only by the additional expenditures on the new recruits and will not account for the value performed by the original group deployed in country B. If there was any value at all initially in having these soldiers deployed in country B, then their use in country C must also reflect this loss in order to arrive at the economic cost of having them deployed in the conflict. Therefore, we see that the amount budgeted by the government for the war will understate the true cost of the war. Similarly, government accounting may quantify the value of life of a soldier by the death benefits and life insurance to survivors resulting from the soldier’s death. Yet, this measure will generally underestimate the economic value of life of the individual. Another problem encountered when using accounting or budgetary allocations to determine the cost of a conflict arises in the understatement of disability payments to veterans over their lifetimes and the cost of their medical treatment to the government. The disability payments will not reflect the actual amount society forgoes from having these individuals injured and not employed in their best occupation. Similarly, medical cost included in the government budget fails to account for the expenditures incurred by the disabled veteran to meet their additional medical needs. Therefore, a proper analysis of the cost of war requires us to take these issues into account. Although it is difficult to value life in monetary terms, the value of life of a soldier killed in war can be calculated in two ways. The first, which is generally referred to as the value of a statistical life in the economics literature, is commonly used by the US and other governments when doing cost-benefit analysis of product safety regulations. Conceptually, it is determined by examining how much individuals are willing to pay to avoid being accidentally killed with some small positive probability. For example, suppose that the fatality rate in combat is one in 5000. Then the probability of being killed is 0.02%. If we

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surveyed 5000 soldiers each of which faced this probability of being killed about their willingness to pay to reduce this risk and each responded they would be willing to pay $1000, then the value of a statistical life would be $5 million dollars. This is so because of the 5000 respondents on average one will die. Therefore collectively the 5000 are willing to pay $5 million dollars to avoid this outcome. In a study of the Iraq War, Bilmes and Stiglitz use the US Environmental Protection Agency’s figure of $6.1 million per life to arrive at the cost of fatalities in that conflict. The second approach used more in legal contexts is the replacement value of economic losses resulting from death (or injury). In this case, an attempt at estimating the value of life amounts to estimating how much compensation is required to make the surviving family members ‘whole’. In order to do so, we estimate the present discounted value of the loss of wages and employee benefits net of the individual’s personal consumption, and then we add to this amount the loss of household services to the individual’s family as a result of their death. Since casualties during the war tend to be young, both as a result of soldiers being young and children being the most vulnerable to some of the spillovers of war such as starvation and disease, these costs based on normal life expectancy would tend to be high. For estimates of the cost to those disabled during war, we compute the present value of the differential between their expected pre- and postwar earnings, add to this amount the loss from the inability to carry out household services and any additional medical care expenditures required by the individual as a result of combat wounds. For the calculations of household services foregone we use the market value of the replacement cost of these services. It is important to emphasize that in calculating the economic costs of war, we do not just simply total the number of dead and wounded. Each individual has a value to society based on his or her ability to contribute to the production and therefore, wealth and happiness of a country. The cost of a casualty of a young person with the same amount of human capital as that of an older one will have a higher value to society, since, for example, his or her death at a younger age results in society foregoing more expected years of production. The amount of the loss or the economic cost is positively related to the life expectancy in society. This is consistent with Smith’s observation that the cost of war varies across time and space since so will economic conditions. We must equally account for the loss of earnings to others as a consequence of war or conflict. For example, there are currently many countries where the presence of relatively low intensity conflict has eliminated certain industries such as tourism. To measure this cost, we calculate the earnings prior to and during the war and the differential is an approximation of the damage to specific industries resulting from the conflict.

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Similarly, the adoption of weapons with the potential to impose externalities requires that we factor in these costs. As an example, exposure to chemicals during a conflict reduces the health and life expectancy of those exposed and this amount has to be accounted for in the calculus. Similarly, the environmental damage caused by war has to be factored in. This may include the cost to the environment of oil spills or burning oil wells. As a first approximation, we can estimate the reduction in the income of the affected parties. For example, oil spills resulting from a war may lead to a reduction in the catch of fish. We can then impute some monetary value for this loss. In a similar way, we can calculate the loss generated from the increases in infant mortality. This may be done by estimating the loss in production (earnings) for those who do not survive. In addition, we must add the cost of providing healthcare for those who are casualties of the war. Other costs of war (or more generally, the maintenance of a military) include the following: (1) the salaries and allowance of military personnel evaluated at their opportunity cost; (2) maintenance of paramilitary forces; (3) payments made to civilians employed in the military sector; (4) operations and maintenance; (5) procurement of weapons and the accelerated depreciation of these resulting from their use in combat; (6) research and development (R&D); (7) construction expenditures related to the military sector; (8) pensions to retire military personnel; (9) military aid to foreign countries including attempts at nation building; (10) civil defense; and (11) military aspect of atomic energy and space. All of these components of military spending could be attributed indirectly as a cost of war, even if these expenditures are made during peacetime. The reason is that the existence of war creates the necessity for nations to maintain standing armies and keep stocks of armaments ready for development, that is, to divert resources from alternative uses. Therefore, in calculating the cost of war we should include the loss in production of the factors employed in the war effort. For example, we should value the time of soldiers while engaged in war, not by the amount that they are paid by their government, but by the foregone earnings in their prewar employment. In calculating costs, even if soldiers are conscripted their time in the military should be valued at their market wages and not at what they are paid by the government. This is a fundamental issue in the debate on the costs and benefits of the draft versus a volunteer army. All of the other expenditures listed above should be evaluated at their opportunity cost. For example, we must account for the cost of weapons, expenditures on R&D, and the replacement of capital destroyed during war by the amount required to replace them at market prices. It is important to emphasize that when governments borrow to finance these expenditures (or finance them from tax

revenues or seigniorage), care should be taken when determining the appropriate rate of interest used to discount any flow of services. The rate used should be one that reflects the social opportunity cost of capital. As Harberger demonstrates, with distortions such as taxes in the economy the social rate of return will generally deviate from the private rate. But one thing is clear, the rate used should not necessarily be the rate paid by the government to finance expenditures since this rate will generally underestimate the social cost of capital. Using this lower rate will result in the actual net cost of many different military activities to be understated, leading to the adoption of military projects that have a net social loss to society. For example, if no distortions exist and the government borrows to finance a new weapon system or to fund pension systems, the rate used to evaluate these costs is the marginal productivity of capital in the private sector that without any risk premium and well-functioning capital markets will equal the market rate of interest. More generally, insofar as military expenditures raise claims on factors of production, they should be included in the cost of war. Finally, an economic valuation of war must also account for possible ‘savings’. For example, Davis et al. estimate the cost of the war in Iraq versus the alternative policy of containment to see which is the more cost-effective strategy to achieve some US government objective. Estimates of the cost of the Iraq War to the US by Bilmes and Stiglitz also account for savings to the US government from not having to police the ‘no-fly zones’ after the invasion. Therefore, one should account for possible offsets when deriving estimates of the cost of war. See also: Economics of War and Peace, Overview

Further Reading Barro, R. J. (1979). On the determination of the public debt. Journal of Political Economy 87, 940–971. Bilmes, L. and Stiglitz, J. (2006). The economic costs of the Iraq War. An appraisal three years after the beginning of the conflict. (paper presented to the ASSA meetings, Boston, January 2006). Cagan, P. (1956). The monetary dynamic of hyperinflation. In Friedman, M. (ed.) Studies in the quantity theory of money, pp. 25–120. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cranna, M. (1994). The true cost of conflict. New York: The New York Press. Davis, S. J., Murphy, K. M., and Topel, R. (2006). War in Iraq versus containment. NBER Working paper No. 12092, March 2006. Harberger, A. C. (1972). Project evaluation. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Hess, G. D. (2003). The economic welfare cost of conflict: An empirical assessment (Claremont Colleges Working papers in economics). Kennedy, G. (1975). The economics of defence. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. Keynes, J. M. (1929). The German transfer problem. Economic Journal XXXIX, 1–7. Lerner, E. M. (1956). Inflation in the confederacy, 1861–65. In Friedman, M. (ed.) Studies in the Quantity of Money, pp. 163–175. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Nordhaus, W. D. (2002). The economic consequences of a war with Iraq. Yale University, October 2002. Ohlin, B. (1929). The reparation problem: A discussion. Economic Journal (June). Samuelson, P. A. (1952). The transfer problem and transport costs. Economic Journal, LXII(246), 278–304. Samuelson, P. A. (1954). The transfer problem and transport costs. Economic Journal, LXIV(254), 264–289. Say, J. -B. (1803). Traite d’ economie politique. (English trans. edn., Catechism of political economy (1817)). Philadelphia, PA: M. Carey & Son.

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Seiglie, C. (1988). International conflict and military expenditures. Journal of Conflict Resolution 32, 141–161. Seiglie, C. (1998). Defense spending in a neo- Ricardian world. Economica 65, 193–210. Smith, A. (1776). An inquiry into the nature and cause of the wealth of nations. The Modern Library Edition (1937). New York: The Modern Library.

Economics of War and Peace, Overview Dietrich M Fischer, European University Center for Peace Studies, Stadtschlaining, Austria ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Conflict Resolution Economic Conversion and the Peace Dividend Inequity as Violence Dynamics of Arms Races and Strategic Stability The Risks of Nuclear War United Nations Reform

Glossary Arbitration Two parties resolve a conflict by asking a third party to chose an impartial outcome. The decision is binding. Basic Human Needs Survival, economic well-being, freedom, and identity, the opposites of death, misery, oppression, and alienation. Conflict Transformation Bridging the legitimate goals of all parties in a conflict to find mutually acceptable and sustainable outcomes. Conversion Shifting work forces, resources, and facilities from military-oriented to civilian-oriented activity. Cultural Violence The justification of direct and structural violence in literature, the arts, the media, and education. Direct Violence Hurting and killing people with deliberate force. Global Peace Service Volunteers from around the world working together on the solution of global problems. Mediation A neutral outside party helps parties with a conflict explore solutions that might be mutually acceptable. The proposals are not binding. Optimization Finding the most desirable outcome according to a given criterion, under constraints.

Financing the United Nations System Economic Sanctions New Aspects of International Security: Searching for Peace Further Reading

Pareto-Optimal Frontier The set of outcomes in which no negotiating partner can gain anything without others losing something. Peace System A series of mutually reinforcing trends that promote peace. Prisoner’s Dilemma A situation in which two parties seemingly act in their individual self-interest, but end up hurting each other. Public Good A good that cannot be supplied profitably by private enterprise because nonpayers cannot be excluded from consumption, and the costs of supplying the good are independent of the number of users. Structural Violence Death and human suffering caused by unjust social conditions rather than by military action. Sustainable Development Economic development that preserves availability of essential resources and a livable environment for future generations. Tobin Tax A tax on foreign currency exchange to stabilize exchange rates. Transarmament A shift from an offensive military posture to purely defensive or nonmilitary defense. War System A series of mutually reinforcing trends that promote war. World Treasury A UN agency, proposed by Jan Tinbergen, in charge of raising revenue to help finance the United Nations (UN) system.

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Until recently, most economists considered war an external event not amenable to economic analysis, which from time to time disrupts more normal conditions under which economic laws apply. But Tinbergen, co-recipient of the first Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1969, pointed out, ‘‘Warfare affects human welfare to such an extent that economists must raise their voices against it.’’ No issue traditionally addressed by economists threatens the survival of humanity as immediately as nuclear war. Moreover, economies are adversely affected not only by the destructive force of war itself, but also by military spending, which exceeds $3 billion per day worldwide, nearly half of it in the United States alone. In recent years, a growing number of economists have studied the economic consequences of war and military spending and explored causes of conflicts and their nonviolent resolution. They have also examined alternative resource allocations that contribute to peace and sustainable development.

Conflict Resolution To a large extent economics deals with methods of accommodating conflicting interests. For example, buyers prefer low prices, sellers high prices, and the market mechanism automatically determines a fair price at which supply and demand are in balance. Any voluntary market transaction is a so-called ‘win-win’ solution in which buyers pay less and sellers earn more than what the item is worth to each. Such win-win solutions, where both sides gain something, are a model for conflict resolution leading to stable outcomes. The more challenging problems in economics deal not with simple optimization, where a single decision maker is in control of everything, but with conflicts of interest, where two or more independent decision makers may seek to frustrate each other’s goals or may cooperate for mutual benefit. The theory of games, which was originally developed by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern to explain economic behavior, is a prominent tool to analyze conflicts and their resolution. With the end of the Cold War, the main focus shifted from analyzing war-winning strategies to methods of conflict resolution and global cooperation. Cooperative games have been studied before in other contexts, so there was a body of literature to build on. Fisher and Ury emphasize that for fruitful negotiations one should express one’s goals clearly but be flexible about ways to meet them. It is important to listen carefully to the needs and interests of others. If we make one-sided proposals in our favor, we cannot expect others to agree and thus hurt our own interests. They give the following illustration of that principle: During the 1979 peace negotiations at Camp David, Egypt demanded that the entire Sinai peninsula be returned to it. Israel was willing to give up most but not all of it. The negotiations were on the

brink of breaking down. But by exploring the underlying interests rather than the stated positions, President Carter and his advisers were able to find a compromise acceptable to both sides. Egypt’s main concern was its sovereignty. It did not want to cede territory again to a foreign aggressor after centuries of colonial domination. Israel’s main concern was security. It did not want Egyptian tanks on its border. By giving the territory to Egypt but keeping it free of national military forces and stationing an international peacekeeping force along the border, both sides’ principal concerns were met. Luce and Raiffa proposed that negotiations should not stop as soon as a mutually acceptable solution has been found. The search for further mutually beneficial tradeoffs should continue until they reach the Pareto-optimal frontier, where neither side can make further gains without the other side giving up something. In negotiating a new contract between management and labor, even after the two sides have reached an initial agreement, both may prefer another solution that offers higher pay in return for longer work hours during a period of unusually high demand. Similarly, even if two countries have settled a territorial dispute, both may perceive themselves better off if one that would otherwise be land-locked gains access to the sea in return for a larger portion of territory elsewhere. The systematic search for new or amended international agreements that can bring benefits to two or more parties can be a major area of economic studies. Economic cooperation and closer ties should help reduce the threat of war and maintain mutually beneficial relations. After World War II, the French economist Jean Monnet concluded that mutually beneficial economic cooperation between France and Germany might help overcome their century-old hostility. He conceived of the Coal and Steel Union, which has since evolved into the European Union, which has indeed made another war between Germany and France practically unthinkable. Other countries with tense relations can learn from this. Developing mutually beneficial trade and joint ventures is something that is relatively easy to agree to because the benefits are mutual and clearly visible. Such cooperation on easy issues can increase mutual trust and understanding and prepare the way for successful negotiations on more controversial issues later. A model widely used to explain apparently irrational behavior is the prisoner’s dilemma game. A simple illustration is ruinous competition. If one of two gas stations at the same street corner lowers its prices, it may increase its profits by drawing away customers from the competing station. But if both lower their price, they may both have the same number of customers as before, only less revenue. What appears advantageous if one side does it alone may hurt the interests of both sides if they both pursue the same strategy. There are numerous examples of this in real life. If one country arms, it may gain military

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superiority. But if two rivals engage in an arms race, both become less secure and burdened with heavy military spending. Disarmament negotiations that lead to verifiable and enforceable agreements can help two countries improve their mutual security and reallocate resources to meet their people’s needs. National defense is often cited as a textbook example of a ‘public good’ because it protects all citizens of a country, regardless of whether they contributed to it. For this reason it cannot be profitably supplied by private enterprise and has to be funded by governments out of taxes. But at the international level, military spending is a ‘public bad’ because one country’s arms acquisitions threaten the security of its neighbors. Conflicts can rarely be completely eliminated, but we can develop methods to deal with them without war. For example, there has been an intense struggle between Netscape and Microsoft over providing access to the Internet, but they would never dream of bombing each other’s headquarters. Instead, they compete through better quality, lower prices, advertisements, and sometimes battles in court. Governments could learn from that. A successful businessman once criticized governments’ often confrontational approach toward international relations. He proposed that to search for areas of common interest was more fruitful than to focus on differences. ‘‘If I sit down at the negotiating table and want to strike a deal, I don’t begin by breaking the teeth of my counterpart across the table,’’ he said. Peaceful conflict transformation, developed by Johan Galtung, is a three-step process that explores all parties’ goals through separate dialogs, distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate goals, and finds creative solutions that meet all parties’ legitimate goals. For example, selfdetermination is a legitimate goal that does not preclude any other party’s right to self-determination, but domination over others is not. An example of successful conflict transformation is the following. Peru and Ecuador fought a series of wars over a relatively small uninhabited border region. In 1995, Galtung suggested a proposal to make the contested territory into a binational zone, jointly administered by both countries, with a natural park to attract tourists and bring both countries additional income. This proposal led to a peace agreement in 1998. The costs of such mediation are minuscule compared to the costs of a peacekeeping operation to end fighting after a war has erupted, and more importantly, it can save many lives.

Economic Conversion and the Peace Dividend The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) publishes an annual volume with estimates of each country’s military spending. During the height of

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the Cold War, world military spending reached nearly $1 trillion per year. From 1989 to 1998 it declined, mainly in the former Soviet Union, but since then, world military spending has increased again. In 2005, it was estimated as $1,118 billion, 48% of it in the United States, followed by the UK, France, Japan, and China with 4–5% each. Leontief and Duchin used an input/output model of the world economy to analyze the economic implications of various levels of reductions in military spending. All countries would enjoy higher rates of economic growth with lower military spending because they could afford to invest more in their civilian economy. Emile Benoit found a positive correlation between military spending and economic growth rates in some developing countries. Other authors (e.g., Klein et al.), taking other variables into account, have found the opposite. This question has sparked a long and heated debate. Some believe that military spending increases the level of technical competence of the general population and thus explains higher rates of economic growth. Others argue that it could be a confusion of cause and effect. If people with growing incomes spend more on alcohol consumption, one cannot conclude that drinking raises income level, but rather that higher incomes allow for bigger spending. Similarly, a government that can afford to spend more for military purposes may be tempted to do so. Some have pointed out that technologies originally developed for military purposes later found civilian applications. But if the same engineering and scientific talent were directed to develop new civilian technologies, the benefits would be far greater. During the Cold War, a third to a half of the world’s physicists and engineers worked on the development of new weapons systems. Dumas stressed that because employers in the defense sector are reimbursed by the government for whatever they spend, they do not hesitate to offer high salaries and state-of-the-art facilities to the top students in engineering and science. Market-oriented civilian firms do not automatically get their costs reimbursed by taxpayers. They are thus at a disadvantage in the competition for the ‘best and brightest’ engineers and scientists. This makes the loss to the civilian economy even more serious. Because many governments are willing to spend lavishly on their militaries, those who make decisions on weapons purchases are less frugal than private consumers, who spend their own hard-earned money. Anyone who can reach into the almost bottomless pocket of the public treasury is tempted to spend freely. The end of the Cold War has raised hopes for a large peace dividend in the form of reduced military spending that can be reallocated to meet civilian needs. The process has been slower than many expected because of fear of job losses among employees of military industries. However, if the same funds that were previously

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spent for military purposes were spent for such purposes as education, healthcare, saving the environment, and the development of renewable energy sources, even more jobs could be created with the same funds. For example, former US Defense Secretary Weinberger advocated higher defense spending, saying that every $1 billion spent by the Pentagon created 30 000 jobs. He failed to mention that the same $1 billion spent for education would have created 70 000 jobs so that spending it instead for defense in fact provided 40 000 fewer jobs. The conversion of defense-related jobs to civilian jobs requires systematic planning. Weida has estimated that the cleanup of nuclear weapons facilities would create even more jobs than their current operation. The United Nations Institute of Disarmament Research has sponsored a study that emphasized that disarmament can be compared to a process of investment: there may be initial costs of conversion, but future benefits accrue in the form of higher outputs for the civilian economy. If political will is present, the challenge of conversion poses no obstacle to disarmament. For example, as Kenneth Boulding pointed out, from 1945 to 1946, fully one-third of the US economy was converted from military to civilian use, and unemployment never exceeded 3%. By demonstrating that this is possible, economists can help generate public support for conversion. Even a small fraction of military spending could have vastly beneficial effects if spent on the solution of global problems. For example, the World Health Organization’s campaign to eradicate smallpox cost $80 million or less than one hour’s worth of world military spending. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has estimated that inoculating every child against the six most common fatal childhood diseases, from which nearly 3 million children under age 5 die each year, would cost $1.50 per child, or about $200 million per year – less than 10% of the $2.1 billion cost of a single US stealth bomber.

Inequity as Violence Violence is present not only if people are shot or maimed, but also if children die from hunger or preventable diseases. Galtung has coined the term ‘structural violence’ for unjust social structures that lead to loss of life or human suffering, even if there is no particular individual committing the violence. Zimmerman and Leitenberg have estimated that if per capita incomes were about equally distributed among countries (even if not within countries), life expectancy in the richer countries would not decline measurably, but the better nutrition and health care available in the poorer countries could save about 14 million lives per year. This is about 100 times the average annual death toll from all

civil and international wars and is equivalent to 236 Hiroshima bombs being dropped each year on the poor of the world. But because these avoidable deaths are not concentrated in one moment at one place, they are largely ignored by the news media. If incomes were more equally distributed also within countries, the number of lives saved would be even greater. Tinbergen has appealed for more development assistance, if not out of compassion, at least out of self-interest, because otherwise the advanced industrial countries will inevitably become inundated with streams of economic refugees. One of the most underutilized resources for sustainable development is knowledge. Unlike material or financial resources, it need not be given up by someone in order to be given to someone else. Knowledge, once discovered, can be copied without limit at very low additional costs. If the most efficient production methods known anywhere on the Earth – which are least polluting and use the least amount of energy, natural resources and labor – were available everywhere, everyone could be much better off. Of course, there is a dilemma. If companies that invest in research and development (R&D) of new technologies were required to share their discoveries with everyone else without compensation, the incentive to invest in R&D would greatly diminish, reducing the stream of new inventions. A solution is public funding of research with the results being shared with everyone. The European countries have founded EUREKA in which they pool their resources for research on new technologies, based on each member country’s ability to pay, and share the results among contributing members. If the same principle were extended to the global level, all countries could enjoy higher living standards, and international inequality could gradually be reduced. Such an improvement in living conditions would help eliminate a great deal of unnecessary human suffering and would also reduce sources of conflicts. Conflicts over scarce resources and territory are among the most persistent causes of wars. Would such a general increase in living standards damage our environment beyond repair? Not necessarily. It is quite possible to supply human needs for nutrition, health care, housing, clothing, education, and communication with much less burden on the natural environment than today. To mention just one example, a hair-thin glass fiber can carry as much information as a foot-thick copper cable, at a tiny fraction of the material resources and energy required. If we take care of the environment, people can still gain access to the best available information on health and resource conserving production methods. It is not necessary to consume as much resources and energy as the average citizens of today’s industrially advanced countries do for life expectancy and quality of life to improve considerably.

Economics of War and Peace, Overview

Dynamics of Arms Races and Strategic Stability One decisive factor whether a conflict erupts in war is whether it is preceded by an arms race. Michael Wallace found that among 99 cases of ‘serious disputes or military confrontations’ in the period of 1820 to 1964, 23 of the 28 preceded by an arms race ended in war, whereas 68 of the 71 not preceded by an arms race ended without war. Selling arms is a highly profitable business, and many private companies and governments sell arms to dictatorships and unstable regimes. Arms merchants profit at the expense of other people’s lives. In this respect, the international arms trade resembles the slave trade or drug trade, which have long been declared illegal. Some have proposed a ban on arms exports. A more modest proposal was advanced in 1995 by former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating an end to the war in Nicaragua. He proposed a ban on arms exports to countries involved in armed aggression or internal violent conflict and to countries violating human rights or governed by illegitimate regimes. He also proposed a global demilitarization fund to promote economic development projects, composed of contributions from reduced military spending, to realize the benefits of the peace dividend. He suggested that the rich nations contribute one-fifth of their savings to this fund with the developing countries contributing perhaps one-tenth of their savings from military budget cuts. Those nations that fail to reduce their military budgets would contribute some stipulated percentage of these budgets directly to the fund. Some developing countries now spend much of their hard-earned foreign exchange on the import of expensive weapons systems, more than for education and health care combined. Arias also proposed regional disarmament talks, where countries can agree to simultaneous mutual arms reductions, and he appealed to countries facing no military threat to abolish their armies, as Costa Rica did in 1948, Panama in 1994, and Haiti in 1995, joining about 30 other demilitarized countries. Costa Rica enjoys a per capita income about twice that of its Central American neighbors, probably because it invests in its civilian economy what others spend for their militaries; and while many wars have gripped its neighbors in recent decades, Costa Rica has remained at peace since 1948. Arms races are driven by several factors, partly by the lobbying of military industries for weapons sales, partly by dictatorial governments fearful of popular unrest, and partly by mutual fear. To eliminate the last factor, some have advocated an intermediate transition to nonoffensive (or nonprovocative) defense, which is sufficient to resist aggression but cannot be used to carry out aggression.

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For example, while tanks can be used both for defense and for invading another country, tank barriers in fixed position can be used only for defense. Purely defensive measures improve the security of the country undertaking them without reducing the security of adversaries. Purely offensive measures reduce the security of others, without contributing to a country’s own security. One can also imagine ‘superdefensive’ measures that improve the security of two opponents simultaneously; for example, stationing an international peacekeeping force along a contested border. On the other hand, ‘superoffensive’ measures reduce the security of both sides simultaneously; for example, a policy of ‘launch-on warning.’ A mistaken ‘retaliatory’ strike based on a false warning would lead to the destruction of both sides. From January 1979 to June 1980, the US early warning system generated 3804 false alarms of a possible Soviet nuclear attack. After 1984, the Pentagon stopped releasing these statistics ‘so as not to frighten the public’. No comparable Soviet or Russian figures are available, but on 25 January 1995, Russia temporarily mistook a research rocket launched from Norway to study the polar light as a possible US nuclear attack and readied its missiles for retaliation against the US. A shift from offensive to purely defensive measures, called ‘transarmament’, has the advantage that it can be undertaken unilaterally, without risk, whereas disarmament requires mutual agreement because unilateral disarmament could make a country vulnerable and a tempting target for aggression. Sweden and Switzerland, which were able to remain at peace during World War II, deliberately avoided the acquisition of any offensive arms, concentrating instead on a strong territorial defense. In an arms race with offensive arms, both sides pose a threat to each other and are under pressure to spend a high portion of their total production for military purposes, resulting in a stagnating civilian economy. If the two sides acquire defensive arms, they reach a saturation point where both sides can defend themselves if necessary, but are unable to attack each other. The arms race then comes to a halt, even without any mutual agreement. Among the most destabilizing weapons systems, which stimulate rapidly escalating arms races and also may lead to the outbreak of hostilities during a crisis, are socalled ‘first-strike weapons’, which are vulnerable and at the same time highly destructive. In an armed confrontation, they give an advantage to the side that strikes first. Examples are unprotected bombers on open airfields. In the 1960s President Nasser believed that acquiring an air force matching that of Israel would make Egypt militarily stronger and therefore safer. He spent vast sums on building a bomber fleet, but it actually made Egypt less secure. Both sides knew that in case of a war, whoever struck first could destroy the bombers of the opponent on the ground

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before they could take off. When Egypt blocked Israeli ships’ access to the port of Aqaba in 1967, which Israel had warned it would consider an act of aggression, Israel was so afraid of an Egyptian air attack that it felt compelled to destroy the Egyptian bomber fleet before it might attack Israel. Other first-strike weapons are missiles with multiple warheads, such as the American MX missile or the Russian SS-18. If one warhead can destroy a missile on the ground that can carry several warheads, situations can arise where the side that strikes first can disarm the other side in a surprise attack. Instead of giving an opponent the message, ‘‘Don’t attack us or you face the prospect of retaliation,’’ such weapons implicitly give an opponent the signal, ‘‘If you do nothing, you face the danger of being disarmed in a first strike, but if you destroy our weapons, which is easy to accomplish, you face no threat.’’ Instead of deterring an attack, such first-strike weapons may in fact invite an attack, according to the principle ‘use them or lose them’. This instability would be aggravated if weapons were deployed in outer space, as proposed under the Strategic Defense Initiative (‘star wars’). Even though these systems have been portrayed as defensive, they in fact create instability because space stations are extremely vulnerable, but would be capable of emitting hundreds or thousands of lethal beams or projectiles. In a tense situation, where a war is feared imminent, both sides would know that whoever strikes first can disable the space stations of the opponent and gain a strategic advantage.

The Risks of Nuclear War With the end of the Cold War, the fear of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia has greatly diminished. But India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars with each other since 1947, have tested nuclear weapons, and Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons as well. There is also the danger that terrorists may one day gain access to a nuclear device and not shrink from using it. Suicide bombers cannot be deterred by the threat of retaliation. Another danger is that a failure of command and control could lead to the accidental launch of nuclear missiles, provoking retaliation. Since 1945, there have been dozens of accidents involving nuclear weapons. Ike Jeanes has calculated the average time until a future nuclear catastrophe under various assumptions. If there are 10 nations possessing nuclear weapons and each one is as peaceful and technically competent that, on average, it will be able to prevent an intentional or accidental use of nuclear weapons for 500 years (more than twice the time since the American declaration of independence), a nuclear use is still frighteningly close: the probability that nuclear weapons will be used within 50 years is 63%, within 100

years 87%, within 200 years 98%, and within 500 years 99.99% a virtual certainty. Unless we eliminate nuclear weapons, it is only a question of time before they will be used. The development of nuclear weapons has been justified by arguing that they are cheaper than equivalent conventional weapons. In terms of destructive power, this is true (they yield ‘more bang for the buck’ or ‘more rubble for the ruble’), but not in terms of buying security: all of the nuclear powers spend a higher fraction of their income for defense than the world average. Some have argued that nuclear weapons have helped prevent war. But in fact since 1945 the eight countries possessing nuclear weapons have been involved in over eight times as many wars, on average, as all the nonnuclear countries. Some credit nuclear weapons with having prevented nuclear war, which is preposterous: without nuclear weapons, there could be no nuclear war. The losses in the case of a nuclear war would be so enormous that even if the probability is low, it is an issue that economists cannot ignore. The astronomer Carl Sagan and collaborators discovered in 1983, with the help of a model of the earth’s atmosphere, that destruction from a nuclear war would go beyond the impact of heat, blast, and radiation disease. Dust and smoke rising into the stratosphere would linger for months, blocking out sunlight and cooling the earth surface in a ‘nuclear winter’. Harvests would fail, and those who survived the immediate impact could die from hunger and cold. It might well bring an end to civilization and endanger human survival itself. Avoiding nuclear war is a precondition for all other human endeavors. On 8 July 1996, the World Court declared the threat or use of nuclear weapons contrary to international law under almost any conceivable circumstances and unanimously stated that the nuclear nations have the obligation to conduct negotiations leading to complete nuclear disarmament. Other weapons of mass destruction – chemical and biological weapons – have already been banned by treaties. An immediate first step should be the adoption of a policy of no first use. If nobody were to use nuclear weapons first, they would never be used. But since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the United States has asserted the right to use nuclear weapons preemptively against nations that do not possess nuclear weapons. Ironically, this gives a strong incentive for such nations to acquire nuclear weapons to deter a US attack.

United Nations Reform According to the principle of subsidiarity, every issue should be decided at the lowest level that involves all those who are affected. Some problems are of a global nature and cannot be solved effectively at any level lower

Economics of War and Peace, Overview

than the world as a whole. One example is preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. If only a single country sells nuclear weapons technology to anyone willing to pay for it, the whole world is in grave danger. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, one of the many branch organizations of UN, was created to help implement the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty that seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Currently, it can inspect suspected nuclear weapons plants only with the permission of the host governments. If a suspected drug smuggler could tell a border guard, ‘‘You may check my glove compartment, but don’t open my trunk,’’ such an ‘inspection’ would be meaningless. The mandate of the IAEA should include the right to make unannounced random inspections without the right of a veto from the host government. Today, many governments oppose such random inspections as a violation of their national sovereignty. Similarly, when airlines began to search passengers’ luggage for guns and explosives after a series of fatal hijackings, many opposed this as a violation of their right to privacy. But today most passengers welcome such precautions, knowing they can be safe only if everybody’s luggage is inspected, including their own. Will governments reach the same conclusion before or only after the first terrorist nuclear bomb explodes? The principal purpose for which the UN was founded in 1945 was to prevent another world war by preventing aggression across borders. The UN has been remarkably successful in that endeavor, even though this is rarely acknowledged in the news media, which are quick to focus on any failures but find ‘good news is no news’. According to SIPRI, the number of wars in the world has declined from 31 in 1991 to 17 in 2005, most of them civil wars. The UN has been severely limited in preventing civil wars by the provision in its charter that it is not to interfere in the internal affairs of any member state. If we want to reduce the occurrence of intrastate as well as inter-state wars, it may be necessary to review that provision. Under Roman law the head of a household, the pater familias, had absolute sovereignty over his family. He could sell his children into slavery or beat them to death, and the state had no right to intervene in this internal family affair. Today we consider this concept absurd, but we still cling to the notion of absolute state sovereignty. It is unrealistic to expect that citizens can always find justice within their own country, particularly if they are persecuted by their own government and the government controls the courts. For this reason, an important recent addition to the UN family of organizations has been the International Criminal Court, founded on 17 July 1998 in Rome, to which citizens or ethnic minorities who are oppressed by their own government can appeal if necessary. The older International Court of Justice in the

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Hague (also called the World Court), successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice established in 1921, can only hear cases brought by one government against another, not by individual citizens. Many of the international organizations affiliated with the UN provide loans (such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) or give technical advice of various kinds (such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the WHO, the ILO, the UN Industrial Development Organization, and many others). These functions play a valuable role in promoting development and helping reduce economic inequality as a source of conflict. But sometimes problems have deeper roots than merely a lack of knowledge or resources. They can be traced to inadequate legal systems and a lack of accountability. A well-functioning, dependable legal system is one of the most important conditions for peace and development. If people cannot find justice through legal means, they are often tempted to resort to violence. Also, if business profits can be seized with impunity by corrupt officials, this discourages investment and economic growth. If it is easier to get rich by controlling the army or the police than by producing goods that people wish to buy, the most ambitious individuals will plot to seize power by force rather than plan to build business enterprises. This suggests a new UN agency: a Center for Legal Education and Research (CLEAR). Leading legal scholars and legislators from around the world could work together to exchange insights and study what constitutions and legal codes have worked well, under what conditions, what problems and pitfalls have been encountered, and why. They could make these insights available worldwide and train some of the best law students from around the world. In this way, countries could learn from one another’s successes and failures and need not repeat all the mistakes and suffering that others have already gone through. Another agency that can help promote democratic accountability is the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) founded in 1995 in Stockholm with 14 initial member countries. It assists countries who request help in monitoring elections and printing ballots. It deserves to be strengthened and expanded. Former US President Jimmy Carter, who has participated in many efforts to mediate an end to wars and to observe elections, pointed out that in a civil war, both sides are usually convinced that the vast majority of the people are on their side. If they can be assured of free and fair elections, which they expect to win, both sides are often willing to lay down their arms and settle their dispute through ballots instead of bullets. It is important to make sure that there is no election fraud and that all parties have fair access to the voters via the media before elections. Equally important is to guarantee that the election results will be honored by all parties. If groups who overthrow an elected government by force or prevent it from taking office

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would automatically face strong sanctions by the international community, there would be fewer military coups. Such an institution can play an important role in helping prevent or end civil wars. Amartya Sen has observed that serious famines have not occurred in democracies because a government that would allow a famine would not be reelected. Also, some of the worst pollution has been found in the former centrally planned economies, where any criticism of official policy was punished. A free press, which constantly exposes bad conditions so that they can be corrected, is an essential aspect of democracy. It plays a role similar to that of white blood cells in the human body, which constantly search for germs and eliminate them before they can multiply and spread throughout the body. Immanuel Kant predicted in 1795 that if the people who have to fight and die in case of war could vote, they would choose governments that would not go to war. This has not been true. Even democracies have engaged in many wars. But it is remarkable that so far there has been no war between two democracies. This leaves open the hope that with the spread of democracy around the world, wars will greatly diminish, if not disappear. If war erupts despite the best efforts to prevent it, a UN peacekeeping force can intervene to stop the fighting. During the Cold War, few peacekeeping operations took place because the UN Security Council, which needs to authorize such operations, was usually paralyzed by the veto of one of the two superpowers. Since 1989, more peacekeeping operations have been launched than during the previous 44 years. Peacekeeping forces have generally been introduced only to observe cease-fires after the conclusion of a ceasefire agreement at the invitation of both sides of a conflict. This is a useful but limited role. If the police could stop a criminal from beating a victim only if ‘both sides’ agreed, it would be powerless. There is a need also for UN peace enforcement, at the request of one side alone, on its own territory, in case of aggression or a perceived threat of aggression.

Financing the United Nations System Tinbergen observed that to almost any ministry at the national level, there exists a corresponding international organization, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) corresponding to a ministry of agriculture, the WHO corresponding to ministry of health, The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization corresponding to a ministry of education, and so on. Most well-run governments also have three major financial institutions: an investment bank, a reserve bank, and a treasury. To the investment bank corresponds the World Bank, to the reserve bank, in a limited sense, the International Monetary Fund, but there

is nothing corresponding to a treasury. Yet the treasury, which collects revenue to finance all the other operations of a national government, is its most essential branch. Without a treasury, any government would soon collapse. Tinbergen therefore called for the creation of a World Treasury. Today’s arrangement, where countries are assessed on a quota basis for contributions to the UN but there are no sanctions for late payment or nonpayment, functions poorly. Even though the UN budget is modest ($1.8 billion in 2006, about half the $3.3 billion annual budget of New York City’s police department), the world organization is near bankruptcy. Many countries are late with their payments, particularly the United States, which in 2007 owed $785 million in past dues to the UN, or 58% of all unpaid dues. The combined budgets of the UN and all of its specialized agencies, including peacekeeping operations, amounts to $20 billion per year, less than 2% of world military spending. Some have criticized the UN as a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy. Others point out that, for example, in 2007 the Pentagon had a budget of US$532.8 billion. With a relatively small staff, the UN serves 192 member nations, not only a single country, and it does much to promote peace, development, education, human rights, and environmental protection. James Tobin proposed a small tax on foreign exchange transactions to calm the highly volatile foreign exchange markets and to give governments more autonomy to pursue socially desirable policies – such as lowering interest rates to overcome a recession or a tight monetary policy to fight inflation – without confronting impeding reactions from the world financial markets. If foreign exchange rates were less erratic and more predictable, this would encourage more international trade and foreign investment and would greatly benefit the whole world economy. As a side benefit, such a tax, collected by national governments on their own territory, could be partly used to help finance the UN family of organizations. About $500 trillion are exchanged from one currency into another each year, more than 10 times the estimated value of the world’s annual economic product of $46.6 trillion in 2006. A 0.1% exchange tax, for example, even if it would cut foreign exchange transactions in half, would still yield approximately $250 billion per year. Even if national governments kept 90% of that amount and contributed only 10% to a World Treasury, that would be more than sufficient to finance the UN and all of its specialized agencies, and would allow a substantial expansion of funding for sustainable development and peacekeeping. This tax has never been tried, but would be an excellent idea, given that it would help stabilize exchange rates, thus facilitating international trade, and as a side benefit it could replace national contributions to the UN family of organizations, and give governments additional revenue.

Economics of War and Peace, Overview

A similar small tax on stock trades could help stabilize the wildly fluctuating stock markets, without preventing the adjustment of stock prices to market realities, and help raise revenues or reduce other taxes. Another potential source of revenue are emission charges, for example, a carbon tax. It would help discourage the burning of fossil fuels and save the earth from global warming that may melt the polar icecaps and flood coastal areas, including some of the largest cities. A tax on ozone-depleting gases could help reduce their use, saving the ozone layer that protects us from cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation. Paradoxically, charging a tax on pollutants would not increase overall taxes, but help reduce them. This is easy to see with the following thought experiment: If gasoline were free at the pump, we would end up paying more for gasoline, not less, because many people would begin to waste it, and in the end the taxpayers would have to cover the costs anyway, regardless of how much gasoline they had used. This is the way in which we generally have dealt with clean air and clean water: by pretending they are free, we have encouraged people to waste them and have paid far too high a price for them – if not always financially, then certainly with our health. Another potential source of revenue for a World Treasury are auctions of global resources. A 1995 auction by the US Treasury of a small portion of the domestic airwaves spectrum to companies offering mobile telephone services raised nearly $8 billion. Similarly, the limited number of 180 positions for geostationary satellites could be auctioned to the highest bidders. Other resources are mining rights on the deep seabed outside of any country’s jurisdiction. Such auctions can also help prevent conflicts. When oil was first discovered in the nineteenth century in Texas, there were no rules. As soon as anyone had discovered some oil, other companies rushed to the scene and drilled to get a portion of that oil. Soon they realized that they could never make any profit that way. Today they appreciate that the US government grants exclusive drilling rights to the highest bidder for a parcel of territory. They pay something, but in return they enjoy the security and peace of mind that they can explore without fear that if they strike oil, someone else may take it from them. A similar service is needed also at the global level to prevent future wars over global resources. No national government can claim the right to auction these global resources to other countries. Only the UN, or a World Treasury on its behalf, would be accepted by all countries as a legitimate and impartial auctioneer. Such auctions would also help raise some badly needed funds to address global problems. Of course, an international board of respected personalities, or ultimately an elected world parliament, should oversee the proper use of the funds raised in this way to ensure accountability.

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Developing countries that cannot yet compete on an equal basis in such auctions can be given a fair share, for example, by allocating 50% of global resources according to current population while auctioning the rest. Developing countries would further benefit from such auctions since greater resources would become available to finance development projects. Such a method to help finance global development, protection of the environment, and peacekeeping has a number of advantages: first, it frees governments from paying contributions. Second, it gives the UN and its family of international organizations a more reliable source of funds to meet urgent global needs. Third, it avoids divisive and difficult negotiations over how much each country should contribute, since companies in the richer countries will naturally be able to pay more. Fourth, it uses market principles to improve the efficiency of allocating scarce resources. Fifth, it encourages resource conservation. Finally, it helps prevent possible future wars over those resources. Another approach to fund international peacekeeping, proposed by Hazel Henderson and Alan F. Kay, is to offer insurance against aggression. The countries most interested would probably initially be small countries, which are hardly able to maintain military forces that can match potential adversaries. This idea exploits the concept of scale economies: for every country to maintain its own defensive forces is as wasteful as if every house in a community maintained its own fire engine. Countries that take extra precautions to avoid war, such as agreeing to resolve disputes through mediation or arbitration, could get insurance at a reduced rate, in the same way as homes built with fireproof materials and having a fire extinguisher can obtain lower fire insurance rates. A great advantage of a UN Security Insurance Agency over the current situation where the UN Secretary General has to appeal to reluctant member nations to contribute troops for peacekeeping operations is that it would be entirely optional. No country would be required to pay this insurance, but those who did would gain the benefit that anyone who threatened them would face a standing international peacekeeping force that would automatically be committed to the country’s defense and would be ready at a moment’s notice. Such a swift and certain response should strongly dissuade would-be aggressors and the force might therefore rarely have to be deployed. A standing UN peacekeeping force consisting of individually recruited volunteers would have a number of other advantages over military contingents supplied by UN members: the response would be swift, which could save many lives in case of emergencies such as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Their primary loyalty would be to the UN rather than to their national command structure, and they would train together and work well together. They would be trained to stop fighting and help avoid war

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rather than winning battles as traditional armies are now trained. In addition to helping protect countries against aggression and maintaining cease-fires in civil wars, such a standing force could also be deployed on short notice to assist refugees and help protect lives in case of natural or industrial disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, accidents at nuclear power plants, poisonous chemical leaks, or other emergencies anywhere on earth. All of these methods of helping finance the UN system would provide a useful service to the world community and as an added benefit help raise funds.

sanctions that affect the poor. Sanctions should be carefully designed to hurt only the decision-making elites, for example, by freezing their foreign bank accounts and refusing their national airline landing rights abroad. In the past, sanctions have often hit innocent people, like democratic opposition forces and children and caused heavy loss of life. To punish an entire nation indiscriminately is comparable to blowing up an aircraft with all its passengers to kill a hijacker.

Economic Sanctions

In 1988, the organization Economists for Peace and Security (formerly Economists against the Arms Race) was founded by Robert J. Schwartz. Today it has branch organizations with a total of well over 1000 members in countries on all five continents. Among its trustees are many Nobel laureates in economics. Its goal is to enlist the special contributions economists can make in the search for peace. Members of every profession have a role and responsibility to do what they can to help assure human survival, even if they have not caused the problems we face. Economics is perhaps the most developed of the social sciences, insofar as it uses empirical data, quantification, mathematical models, scientific reasoning, and optimization methods. The concept of human welfare, which is central to economics, needs to include security, to be complete. Economists should be less concerned with economic growth rates and stock market values, which disproportionately benefit a small superrich minority, and more with the satisfaction of basic human needs, especially of those most in need. When a nature so generous as ours and a humankind working so hard share a world with so much environmental degradation, denial of basic human needs, inequality, and economic crises, something fundamental is wrong. Economists can apply their analytical tools to an inquiry into the causes of war and the exploration of nonmilitary strategies to maintain peace. Economists are familiar with the concept of large systems in which many variables interact and may mutually reinforce or weaken one another. We currently live in what could be called a ‘war system’, where a series of interlocking trends, such as poverty, ecological disasters, dictatorships, absence of enforceable international law, and the profitability of the arms trade, have led to a long series of wars in vicious cycles. In parts of the world, there are also elements of a ‘peace system’ emerging, such as expanding economic cooperation among nations and ways to settle disputes through negotiations and binding legal procedures. Examples include the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Given the great destructiveness of modern weapons and, at the same time, the growing economic interdependence of all countries, there has been renewed interest in exploring economic sanctions as an alternative to the use of military force to put pressure on governments to desist from aggression or gross human rights violations. The success has been mixed. Of 103 cases of sanctions examined by Hufbauer and Schott, only about 30% were successful. Sanctions imposed by a single government were rarely successful. However, of the 10 cases of international sanctions approved by the UN Security Council, all 10 have been successful, including the sanctions against South Africa, which persuaded its business community to join the forces opposing apartheid. To make sanctions effective, a number of conditions must be fulfilled. Predictability. If sanctions are imposed at will, without clearly known conditions under which they apply, responsibility for the sanctions will be placed by the population on the foreign powers imposing the sanctions, not on their own government that provoked the sanctions with its policies. Galtung warned that arbitrary sanctions can provoke nationalist sentiments and rally people behind their beleaguered government. Broad support. To be effective, sanctions must be tight. Even a few countries that refuse to participate and take advantage of high black market prices can undermine the effect of sanctions. It may be necessary to impose sanctions also on countries that violate sanctions to enforce universal participation. At the same time, neighbor countries that suffer disproportionately from an interruption of trade may need to be compensated to some degree for their losses by the international community. Low costs. If sanctions impose a high domestic price, such as a substantial loss of jobs, they are hard to sustain politically. Compassion. A regime that does not care about the welfare of its people is hardly influenced by economic

New Aspects of International Security: Searching for Peace

Economics of War and Peace, Overview

Development. The UN also plays an important role in this emerging global peace system. What are the conditions necessary to guarantee peace, prosperity, and a livable environment for future generations? Few people advocate war, poverty, pollution, or human rights violations. Why do we observe so much of all of these? Is it due to human selfishness, shortsightedness, ignorance, or inadequate legal systems? All of these factors and several more play a role. All of them can be seen as various breakdowns of regulatory feedback systems. Any viable system, whether in nature or human society, needs a series of feedback mechanisms to maintain it in a healthy state or restore that state if the system has deviated. A regulatory feedback system has three main components: agreement on a desirable goal, methods to detect deviations from the goal, and mechanisms to move the system closer to the goal state if it has deviated. An example is the legal system in which laws define acceptable behavior, courts determine whether someone has violated a law, and the police and prisons serve the function of enforcing the laws. Such a feedback system can break down in six possible ways: (1) there may be no agreement on the goal (a question of conflict resolution); (2) even if the goal is clear, deviations from it may not be noticed (a question of observation); (3) even if a problem is clear, those who can correct it may have no interest in doing so because others are affected (a question of incentives and also of ethics: whether we care about one another or only about ourselves); (4) even if those who cause a problem ultimately suffer the consequences by themselves, they may fail to prevent it, if the consequences are delayed (a question of future planning); (5) even if the consequences of a mistake are felt immediately, people sometimes act irrationally, against their own best interests, out of hatred or prejudice (a question of psychology and culture); and (6) perhaps the most frequent cause of problems is that even though people are fully aware of them and wish to correct them, they may not know how or lack the necessary resources (a question of science, technology, education, and economics). Let us consider these six defects in turn and see what economic reasoning can contribute to overcome them. Achieving agreement. Economists’ methods to reach agreement consist of negotiations to find mutually beneficial trades and treaties. The use of armed force is usually not an instrument of economic behavior. A good example of an economic approach to solving international disputes is the Marshall Plan. During the Versailles peace negotiations after World War I, Lord Keynes, as a member of the British delegation, warned that the imposition of huge reparations payments on Germany would create resentment and plant the seeds for another war. He resigned in protest when his advice was ignored. The Versailles

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treaty did indeed help Hitler rise to power with the promise of abrogating it. After World War II, the United States learned that lesson. By giving economic assistance to the war-ravaged countries, including its former enemies, Germany and Japan, it turned them into allies. Observations. Economists are keenly aware that a precondition for formulating and executing good policies is to have reliable data. If we are not aware of a problem, nothing will be done to correct it. Most governments collect extensive economic statistics to detect any deviations from a desired state, such as a rise in unemployment or inflation, so as to be able to take countermeasures. The same type of watchful eye is needed to preserve peace. At the First Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Disarmament in 1978, France proposed the creation of an International Satellite Monitoring Agency that could detect violations of arms control agreements or preparations for aggression. It was supported by 123 of the 125 participating countries, but opposed by the two superpowers. With the Cold War ended, it should be revived. Such an agency could also provide early warnings of droughts and other natural disasters. Another inexpensive way to detect threats to peace early could be to have crisis control centers where volunteer citizens could report signs of danger or suspected violations of human rights or international agreements, which could then be investigated and dealt with, if necessary, in the same way as cities have emergency numbers to report fires or crimes. Incentives. A central notion of economics is that people act in their own self-interest. Oskar Morgenstern said that if the politicians and generals who make decisions about war or peace would have to fight themselves at the front in case of war instead of sending young men and increasingly also women to their deaths, we would have fewer wars. Economics also suggests a nonmilitary approach to defense: searching for common security by making peace more attractive. If others see us as a threat, they will naturally seek to counter that threat, which in turn makes us less secure. If we want to be secure, we should play a useful, preferably indispensable role for other countries so that it is in their own interest to maintain good relations with us. Future planning. Economists stress the need for investment. A small payment now may yield big benefits in the future. Two examples may illustrate that the same applies to security policy. Alexander Yakovlev, who later became a close advisor to Gorbachev and a key architect of perestroika, which brought an end to the Cold War, was among the first group of 30 Soviet students who came to the United States with a Fulbright Fellowship in 1958. The few thousand dollars for that fellowship may have contributed more to helping end the nuclear confrontation between the superpowers than billions of dollars in military spending, which only aggravated tensions.

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Economics of War and Peace, Overview

Another example shows the benefits of early intervention. In 1992–93, three members of a nongovernmental organization, the Project on Ethnic Relations based in Princeton, were able to mediate an accord between the Rumanian government and representatives of the Hungarian minority in Romania, which ended their conflict by giving the ethnic Hungarians the right to use their own language again in local schools and newspapers in return for a promise not to seek secession. That agreement, reached in two meetings of 3 days each, may well have prevented a war like that in former Yugoslavia. It is much easier to prevent fighting before it begins than to stop it after it has started. It took nearly 4 years and finally 60 000 foreign troops to end the fighting in Bosnia. This is over 10 000 times as many people for a period more than 100 times longer at a cost far exceeding 1 million times the expense of the Rumanian mediation sessions. Most importantly, preventing war before it erupts saves lives. Governments are generally so overburdened that they tend to react to problems only after they have reached crisis proportions, instead of anticipating and preventing them. This is as if we were to drive with closed eyes, waiting until we hit an obstacle and then calling an ambulance instead of anticipating and avoiding dangers. Gorbachev proposed the creation of an international commission of former heads of state and eminent scientists and thinkers who could study potential dangers to human survival and ways to overcome them, free from the pressure to respond daily to the latest crisis. Rational behavior. Economists advise to weigh carefully costs and benefits of various courses of action, not to act impulsively guided by emotions. A company that practices racism or sexism will fail to hire the most qualified people for a given job. Similarly, nationalism and racism can lead a country to pursue disastrous policies, with Nazi Germany being a prime example. Global education, where children learn to understand and respect other cultures, may be one of the best ways to overcome prejudice and irrational thinking. Resources. Among the most valuable of all resources, as economists have long realized, are human resources. Robert Muller, Chancellor of the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica, has proposed the creation of a Global Peace Service to enlist the talent and dedication of people willing to help solve global problems. Volunteers of all ages from different countries could work together to assist various UN agencies, such as the High Commissioner for Refugees, the FAO, the WHO, the UN Environment Program, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or a proposed future UN Agency for Mediation and Arbitration. They could also work for the thousands of nongovernmental organizations active in promoting peace, development, human rights, and a clean environment. Muller proposed that young people could participate in this Global Peace

Service instead of military service, with funding from their own governments. Friendships forged between young people from different countries tend to last a lifetime and may later provide valuable links of communication in helping resolve international crises. Modern science and technology have given humanity unprecedented powers. We can communicate instantly across the globe, and automation has greatly increased the potential for production. Those powers can be used to overcome misery and scarcity – some of the oldest causes of war. They have also enabled us to develop weapons with which we can destroy ourselves. The choice is up to all of us. See also: Economic Causes of War and Peace; Nuclear Warfare

Further Reading Benoit, E. (1973). Defense and economic growth in developing countries. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath. Brauer, J. and Gissy, W. G. (eds.) (1997). Economics of conflict and peace. Aldershot: Avebury Press. Dumas, L. J. (1995). The socio-economics of conversion: From war to peace. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Fischer, D. (1984). Preventing war in the nuclear age. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld. Fischer, D. (1993). Nonmilitary aspects of security: A systems approach. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Co. Fisher, R. and Ury, W. (1981). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin. Galtung, J. (1975–1988). Collected essays in peace research and methodology (9 volumes). Copenhagen: Ejlers. Galtung, J. (2004). Transcend and transform: An introduction to conflict work. London: Pluto Press. Hufbauer, G. C. and Schott, J. J. (1985). Economic sanctions reconsidered: History and current policy. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics. Jeanes, I. (1996). Forecast and solution: Grappling with the nuclear. Blacksburg, VA: Pocahontas Press. Klein, L. R., Lo, F. C., and McKibbin, W. J. (eds.) (1995). Arms reduction Economic implications in the post-Cold War era. New York: United Nations University Press. Leontief, W. and Duchin, F. (1983). Military spending: Facts and figures, worldwide implications and future outlook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Ruce, R. D. and Raiffa, H. (1957). Games and decisions: Introduction and critical survey. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Sen, A. K. (1981). Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2006). SIPRI yearbook 2006: Armaments, disarmament and international security. Stockholm: SIPRI. Tinbergen, J. and Fischer, D. (1987). Warfare and welfare: Integrating security policy into socio-economic policy. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Tobin, J. (1978). A proposal for international monetary reform. Eastern Economic Journal 4, 153–159. United Nations Development Program (2007). Human development report 2007: Human development and climate change. New York, NY: UNDP. Wallace, M. D. (1979). Arms races and escalation: Some new evidence. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 23(3): 3–16. Weida, W. (1997). Atomic audit. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

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On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race Aamer S Abu-Qarn and Suleiman Abu-Bader, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel ã 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction The Israeli–Arab Conflict: A Timeline Previous Studies Econometric Methodologies

Data Description and Sources Results Summary and Conclusions Further Reading

Introduction

bodies may restrict the use of their funds to growthenhancing civilian uses, require compliance to arms control agreements, and exercise political and economic pressures to try to cease the hostile operations instead of fueling conflict.1 Third, providing a prescription to achieve certain goals such as reducing the costs and dangers of arms races by pursuing cooperative efforts. These benefits apply in general to any arms race and in particular to the Israeli–Arab conflict that constitutes one of the major international conflicts. A typical examination of the existence of arms race is based on the action-reaction framework of Richardson (1960) in which the military expenditure, arsenal of weapons, and military personnel of one country change in response to those of the rival country. Such a framework performs better in describing and summarizing arms races than models that focus on gross behavior and strategic considerations, although it has a disadvantage in prediction and prescription.2 Arms races are often examined using Granger causality tests that have been shown to have non-standard asymptotic properties if the variables are integrated or cointegrated.3 Moreover, the need for pretests for unit roots and cointegration and the inapplicability when the variables have different orders of integration further add to the distortions associated with Granger causality from within VAR or vector error correction (VEC) settings. Examples of using the traditional Granger causality to assess the existence of arms races include, but not limited to, Kollias and Makrydakis (1997), Dunne, Nikolaidou, and Smith (2005), and Yildirim and Ocal (2006). Only few studies have addressed the existence and the dynamics of the Israeli–Arab arms race. These include Linden (1991), Chen, Feng, and Masroori (1996), Seiglie and Liu (2002), and Sprecher and DeRouen (2002). A brief review of their findings follows in Section 3.

The Israeli–Arab conflict has been one of the longest conflicts that involved either directly or indirectly not only Israel and its neighboring Arab countries but also the major super powers who acted to maintain their presence and influence in the oil-rich region. The intensity of this international battle field is reflected, at least partially, in the huge portions of the limited resources of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria that were devoted to military expenditures and accumulation of weapons. Graph 1 demonstrates the exceptionally high military burdens, measured as the shares of military expenditures in GDP, of these countries over the period 1960–2004. For example, Egypt’s military burden exceeded 50% in the mid-1970s while Israel’s topped 20%. Although the 1990s, following the initiation of peace talks, have witnessed a drastic decline to levels below 10% for all countries, these levels of military burden remained very high in international standards. In light of the frequent confrontations and the hefty military budgets, many studies have indicated that Israel and its Arab neighbors are engaged in an arms race. Anderton (1989) divides the benefits from modeling arms races into three categories: summarizing and describing arms races, understanding and predicting the complex reality of arms races, and prescribing some actions to achieve certain goals. First, modeling enables us to summarize and describe the various factors that play a role in arms races. Second, modeling would help us understand such issues as the reaction of the rivals to a one-sided action of one of the adversaries, the credibility of retaliatory threats, and the impact of foreign aid to rivals. A country or an international institution that provides foreign aid to a country that is involved in arms race may fuel conflicts by leading to higher military expenditures not only of that country but also of its adversaries. Realizing that the grantee country is involved in an arms race, the granting

1

Kinsella (1994) and others found that American aid to Israel has contributed to its economy and decreased the likelihood of military intervention in the region. No such evidence was found for the Soviet aid to Arab countries. Moreover, the U.S. provided foreign aid to Egypt after signing the peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

2

Anderton (1989). Earlier studies examined arms races in the context of the determinants of military expenditures by including the military expenditures of the adversaries as exogenous explanatory variables. Simultaneous equations were used in more recent studies to allow for simultaneous actionreaction patterns. A game theory approach of the sort recommended by intriligator and Brito (2000) was used by Smith, Solla, and Spagnolo (2000). They adopted a simple repeated two-by-two game to study the Greek-Turkish arms race.

3

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On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

Graph 1 Military burden, 1960–2004.

In this paper we reassess the dynamics of the Israeli– Arab conflict focusing mainly on whether an arms race exists between Israel and its major adversaries, namely, Egypt, Jordan and Syria.4 Our results can serve the policy makers of the rivals, as well as donors and international organizations, in understanding the nature of the conflict and in assessing the consequences of their actions not only on the region but also internationally. Unlike other studies that have used the traditional Granger causality test or causality from within a VEC, we utilize a causality procedure suggested by Toda and Yamamoto (1995). Their procedure requires the estimation of an augmented VAR that guarantees the asymptotic distribution of the Wald statistic. Also, the procedure does not require pre-testing for integration or cointegration properties of the VAR system, and thus avoids the potential biases of pre-testing that undermine the traditional causality tests. We conduct our causality analysis using two specifications; first, causality in a bivariate VAR system in which we examine causality between Israel’s military measures and each of the Arab countries measures separately; second, causality in a quadvariate VAR system in which the military measures of the four countries are present in the system. This specification allows for possible complementary relationships as well as ‘‘free riding’’ among the military measures of the Arab countries that face a common Israeli threat. Additionally, we construct an aggregate measure for the Arab military expenditure and military burden for the case that Israel reacts to the Arab bloc as a group rather than individually.5

To gauge the sensitivity of our results we incorporate the likely structural break dates of military measures as reported by Abu-Qarn and Abu-Bader (2008) in our causality analysis. Most of the previous studies failed to account for structural breaks when testing for arms races. Furthermore, we examine whether the dynamics of the Israeli–Arab conflict changed following the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1979. In addition to using the Toda and Yamamoto (1995), we examine the out-of-sample causality using the generalized forecast error variance decomposition method of Pesaran and Shin (1998). Unlike the traditional orthogonalized Cholesky method that has been shown to produce ordering-dependent varied results, this method does not require arbitrary ordering of the variables in the VAR system. The remaining of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly describes the major events that shaped the Israeli–Arab conflict and their impact on accumulation of arms. A concise review of the few studies that addressed the existence and the dynamics of the conflict is provided in Section 3. Section 4 lays out the econometric foundations of our empirical investigation. Description of our data and its sources are presented in Section 5, followed by a discussion of the causality tests and FEVD results in Section 6. Section 7 concludes.

The Israeli–Arab Conflict: A Timeline6 Several wars and military actions took place in the region since the UN proposed its ‘‘Partition Plan’’ in 1947. The plan called for the establishment of two independent states

4

Due to lack of data we do not examine Iran, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia as well as Hamas and Hezbollah. 5 See Lebovic (2004) for evidence on Arab ‘‘unity in action’’ against Israel.

6

Extracted from Abu-Qarn and Abu-Bader (2008).

On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

for Arabs and Jews in Palestine. However, the Arabs rejected this plan and shortly after the withdrawal of the British mandate forces and the declaration of Israel they declared war on Israel. By the end of the ‘‘Independence War’’ or ‘‘Al-Nakba’’ (Arabic for the disaster), hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes and Israel ended up controlling most of Palestine’s land. Following the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt’s president Nasser and the blockade of the Tiran Straits to Israeli shipping in 1956, Israel, backed by Britain and France, invaded and subsequently occupied Sinai and Gaza Strip. Soviet warnings of intervention on behalf of Egypt and American economic pressures forced the three parties to withdraw from the occupied lands by early March 1957. The hostile operations reached a peak in 1967 when in a massive and quick assault that lasted for six days, Israel succeeded in seizing Sinai and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. On October 6, 1973 Israel was caught by surprise as the Egyptian and Syrian forces coordinated a joint attack and advanced beyond the cease-fire lines into Sinai and the Golan Heights and inflicted heavy casualties on the Israeli Army. Israel counter-attacked and drove the Egyptian and Syrian armies back and advanced deep into Egypt and Syria. A cease-fire ended the war and paved the way for peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel that culminated in a peace treaty in 1979. According to this agreement, the state of war between the two countries was terminated; Israel pulled out its armed forces and civilians from Sinai; and normal diplomatic relations were established. This dramatic Egyptian move was confronted by a unified Arab front that objected to a separate peace treaty that neglected the Palestinian issue. Moreover, Egypt was suspended from the Arab League, and most Arab countries cut their diplomatic ties with Egypt. Once the Israel-Egypt peace treaty was finalized, the focus shifted to the Palestinian issue. The articles in the treaty that called for the establishment of an autonomous self-governing authority in the West Bank and Gaza were never materialized. Palestinian forces were stationed in Southern Lebanon under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and initiated attacks on Northern Israel. On June 1982, Israel attacked Palestinian targets in Southern Lebanon with the stated objective of driving PLO forces to the north. However, Israel extended its operations and bombed many Lebanese cities, including Beirut, as well as some Syrian military targets. After a long siege of Beirut, PLO forces were forced out of Lebanon and Israel withdrew from most of the Lebanese territories, however, maintained a ‘‘security zone’’ of approximately 10 miles north of the border that was eventually evacuated in 2000. The growing frustration among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories over the status quo, their suffering under the occupation, and the lack of progress towards a

649

permanent solution to their nationalistic claims led to many violent incidents and confrontations with the Israeli Army in late 1987. The Intifada (Arabic for popular uprising) that began in Gaza and spread to other cities and villages involved hundreds of thousands including children, teenagers and women. This popular resistance included not only stone throwing, burning tires, Molotov cocktails and the erection of barricades but also massive demonstrations, general strikes, refusal to pay taxes, and boycotts of Israeli products. The Palestinian uprising continued, though to a lower intensity, until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. In the midst of this period Israel suffered a massive missile attack by Iraq when the US backed by a wide international coalition drove Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. The end of the Gulf War paved the way to direct negotiations between Israel and Arab countries (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and a joint Jordanian/Palestinian delegation that excluded the PLO due to Israel’s objection) in Madrid in 1991 under the sponsorship of the US and USSR. After several intensive rounds of negotiations, Israel and PLO signed the ‘‘Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements’’ in Oslo on August 20, 1993. The Oslo Accords called for the withdrawal of Israel from parts of Gaza Strip and the West Bank and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (a self-ruled entity that was extended later on to include more cities and villages in the West Bank) and negotiating for a permanent agreement that would begin no later than August 1996. After some progress was made in the Israeli– Palestinian channel, a peace treaty was signed between Israel and Jordan in 1994. Under the terms of the treaty, all the territorial and water disputes were resolved, and the relations between the two countries were normalized. As the negotiations on a permanent agreement ended in a deadlock, another wave of hostile actions by Palestinians and Israelis erupted in 2000 (Al-Aqsa Intifada). In August 2005, despite fierce resistance of settlers, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza Strip and some settlements in the West Bank. On the Lebanese front, following the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in Southern Lebanon by Hezbollah in July 2006, Israel raided Lebanon in what later called the Second Lebanon War. Following a decisive victory for Hamas in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2007, a unity government headed by Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas was formed, however, Hamas and Fatah reached no agreement on the division of power and responsibilities. The disputes led to Hamas forces violently routing Fatah forces and seizing power in Gaza in June 2007 and consequently he Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the Hamas-controlled government and appointed an emergency government in the West Bank. The Hamas government continued to exercise a de facto authority in the Gaza Strip despite the fact that it received neither Arab nor international recognition.

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On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

Previous Studies The likely Israeli–Arab arms race received negligible attention in the arms race literature, mainly due to lack of reliable data. The few studies, surveyed below, that examined the issue have conducted the analysis in the context of the determinants of military spending or using the traditional causality tests. Although these studies produce mixed results, they usually reveal a one-way arms race from Israeli to Arab military spending. In an attempt to analyze the determinants of the Israeli military spending over the period 1960–1979, McGuire (1982, 1987) estimates a multi-equation model using Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) method. The analysis reveals that the responsiveness of Israel to its Arab adversaries is very modest whereas Arab’s responsiveness to changes in Israeli military spending is relatively high. Thus, there is an evidence of ‘‘causality’’ that runs from Israel’s to Arab’s military spending. Since McGuire’s studies were conducted on a very short period (20 years), their conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. Furthermore, finding that the first order autocorrelations coefficients are close to unity is rather problematic and renders his results questionable. Another study that focused on Israel’s determinants of military spending by Mintz and Ward (1989) shows that Israel’s spending is driven, among other factors, by the Arab military expenditure. However, they estimate a system of equations in which the latter is exogenous and it has no feedback to Israel’s military spending. Despite the impressive fit of Mintz and Ward’s regressions, their results indicate severe autocorrelation.7 Diverting from the common approach of assessing arms races through determinants of military spending, Linden (1991) applies Granger causality for Israel and an Arab block consisting of all the Middle Eastern countries that are reported by SIPRI over the period 1955–1984. He finds that there is a causal equilibrium relationship with an elasticity close to one that runs from Israel’s level of military expenditures to the Arab bloc’s military expenditures. However, he finds that disequilibrium behavior dominates Israel military spending as it reacts only to current changes in Arab bloc’s level of military expenditures. Thus, he concludes that the arms race system between the two adversaries is rather unstable one. Later studies have addressed the long-run properties of the arms race by using cointegration and error correction models. Chen et al. (1996) use cointegration to investigate the existence of collective action among the Arab neighbors of Israel. They show that up to the late 1970s, Egypt was the only Arab country involved in a fierce arms race with Israel and that the long-run equilibrium

7

See Beenstock (1998).

relationship disappeared after signing the Camp David Peace Treaty in 1979. The authors find that a long-run equilibrium with a weak Arab response was established between the defense spending of Israel and the minor front line countries (Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) indicating that these countries did not take the opportunity for complete free riding. Furthermore, they conclude that a collective action among the four Arab countries constituting the front line with Israel may be valid. We incorporate this conclusion into our analysis by constructing an aggregate measure for Arab’s military spending. Using VEC based on both Engle-Granger and Johansen cointegration procedures, Beenstock (1998) assesses causality between Israel’s military expenditures and a set of endogenous variables, including military spending by the Arab confrontation states and American military aid, over the period 1960–1994. He detects causality from Arab military spending to Israel’s when using the EngleGranger VEC but fails to do so when using the Johansenbased VEC. The author does not report tests of causality running from Israel’s to Arab’s military spending. A recent comprehensive study by Seiglie and Liu (2002) uses VEC Granger causality for bivariate, trivariate and quadvariate VARs over the period 1948–1991 for various combinations of Arab countries (Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria) and Iran with Israel. They find that for most cases, causality runs from Israel’s military spending to individual Arab countries and combinations of two or three Arab countries’ military spending. Moreover, evidence of causality running from Israel’s to Arab military spending is rather weak or nonexistent. Focusing on military actions rather than military expenditures, Sprecher and DeRouen (2002) conduct VARbased causality tests over the 1948–1998 period and find that the Israeli military actions are driven by both Arab military actions and domestic political protests while Arab military actions are driven by Israeli military actions and seem to decrease in response to Israeli actions. Thus, they conclude that a bi-directional causality exists between the military actions of the rivals. All the previous studies that addressed the existence and the nature of the conflict have applied traditional causality tests from within VAR or VEC settings. As we stated earlier, the traditional Granger causality tests from within VAR and VEC have non-standard asymptotic properties and are subject to pre-testing biases. Our proposed alternative approaches, exposed in the next section, deal with these shortcomings.

Econometric Methodologies Economists often utilize vector autoregressions (VARs) to make inferences on causal relationships among endogenous variables. However, Sims, Stock, and Watson (1990)

On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

and others have argued that, in general, the traditional Wald test for exact linear restrictions on the parameters in levels VAR does not have the usual asymptotic distributions if the variables are integrated or cointegrated. Proper inferences on VAR levels can be made only if all variables are known to be stationary. Otherwise, one can use VAR in differences if all variables are known to be integrated of order one but not cointegrated, and through the specification of a VEC model if all variables are l(1) and cointegrated. However, in most cases the order of integration and cointegration is not known a priori and pre-testing for unit roots and cointegration is necessary before conducting causality tests. Consequently, the validity of causality tests is conditional on avoiding biases in testing for unit roots and cointegration among the variables. Econometric studies report that the pre-testing biases might be severe because the power of the unit root test is generally very low and tests for Johansen cointegration are not very reliable in finite samples.8 A recent procedure proposed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) bypasses the need for potentially biased pre-tests for unit roots and cointegration, common to other formulations. The procedure utilizes the Wald test statistic for testing linear restrictions on the coefficients in an augmented VAR. The modified WALD (MWALD) causality test has an asymptotic chi-squared distribution with p degrees of freedom in the limit when a VAR (p + dmax) is estimated, where p is the optimal lag order in the unrestricted levels VAR and dmax is the maximal order of integration of the variables in the VAR system. The causality procedure is implemented in two steps. In the first step, the correct order of the unrestricted level VAR (p) is to be determined using one of the information criteria methods, and dmax is to be determined using one of the unit root tests. The selected VAR(p) is then augmented by the maximal order of integration and a VAR of order (p + dmax) is estimated. Testing for causality in a Bivariate system entails estimating the following augmented VAR of order (p + dmax): Y1t ¼ m1 þ Y2t ¼ m2 þ

pþd max X

b11;k Y1t k þ

pþd max X

k¼1

k¼1

pþd max X

pþd max X

k¼1

b21;k Y1t k þ

b12;k Y2t k þ E1t ½1 b22;k Y2t k þ E1t

k¼1

In the above setting, long-run Granger causality from variable Y2 to variable Y1 is evaluated by testing the null hypothesis that b12,1 =  = b12,p = 0, and causality from variable Y1 to Y2 is examined by testing the null hypothesis that b21,1 =  = b21,p = 0. Toda and Yamamoto (1995) showed that the Wald statistic for testing the above null hypothesis converges in distribution to a w2p random

8

See Toda and Yamamoto (1995) and Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001).

651

variable. The application of this procedure ensures that the usual test statistic for Granger causality has the standard asymptotic distribution and valid inference can be carried out.9 FEVD has been used repeatedly by economists to examine the out-of-sample properties of the relationship between the variables in a VAR system. The method enables researchers to shed light not only on the direction but also on the intensity of the causal relationships between variables. Generally speaking, FEVD analysis decomposes the forecast error variance of a variable into proportions attributed to shocks in other variables, as well as its own. Most researchers have used the Cholesky decomposition that requires ordering of the variables. Without a sound theoretical base, ordering is usually arbitrary and the results may vary greatly depending on the ordering. Furthermore, the orthogonalized FEVD and impulse response functions are unlikely to be appropriate for analyzing arms races (Smith, Dunne, & Nikolaidou, 2000). As an alternative, Pesaran and Shin (1998) proposed a generalized FEVD that circumvent the need for ordering the variables and produce unique results by utilizing the contemporaneous correlations of the variables under investigation. Unlike the traditional decomposition the generalized FEVD does not impose the restriction that the underlying shocks to the VAR are orthogonalized prior to decomposing the forecast error variances.

Data Description and Sources Real military expenditures in 2003 constant prices in US dollars as well as the share of military expenditures in GDP for the years 1988–2004 were obtained from the SIPRI online database available at http://www.sipri.org. Real military expenditures in 1993 constant prices in US dollars and the share of military expenditures in GNP for the period 1963–1987 were obtained from a database compiled by Beenstock (1998). For the years 1960–1963 we derived the real GNP series using growth rates from the World Development Indicators (WDI) online database (http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline), with the exception of Jordan for which the growth rates were drawn from the Penn World Tables (PWT) database available at http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu. Military expenditures were converted to real 2000 prices US dollars using the GDP deflator and the GNP/GDP ratio series from the WDI online database. The final product consists of military expenditures in US dollars at 2000 constant prices and the military burden proxied by the share of military expenditures in GDP. We examined the overlapping observations (the period 1988–1993) of Beenstock 9

Zapata and Rambaldi (1997).

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On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

Table 1 ADF unit root test Levels

Real military expenditures Egypt Israel Jordan Syria Arab Military burden Egypt Israel Jordan Syria Arab

First differences

ADF

Lag

ADF

Lag

—2.83 —1.96 —2.38 —1.32 —2.41

3 0 0 0 2

—5.09*** —7.85*** —7.65*** —5.04*** —3.04**

0 0 0 0 1

—2.66 —1.83 —2.33 —1.70 —2.71

2 0 0 0 2

—3.03** —8.30*** —6.07*** —7.96*** —4.40***

1 0 1 0 0

Optimal lag length based on SIC with eight maximum lags allowed. *, **, ***denote significance at the 10%, 5%, 1%, respectively.

(1998) and SIPRI and found no significant differences that could have resulted from different definitions of military expenditures. We also constructed an aggregated series for the three Arab countries to which we refer as ‘‘Arab’’ to allow for possible collective action of Arabs against Israel as advised by Olson (1971). For real military expenditures this series is simply the sum of the military expenditures whereas for military burden, it is defined as this sum divided by the total GDP of these countries. These series are dominated by the figures of Egypt, the largest economy among the front line countries.

Results Our causality analysis is conducted under two specifications. First, causality in a bivariate VAR system in which we examine causality between Israel’s military measures and each of the Arab countries measures separately. Second, causality in a quadvariate VAR system in which the military measures of the four countries are present in the system. This specification allows for possible complementary relationships as well as ‘‘free riding’’ among the military measures of the Arab countries that face a common threat. A necessary step for causality tests based on the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) is to determine the maximal order of integration of the series in the VAR system. The results of the ADF test for the real military expenditures and the military burden for the four countries and the aggregated ‘‘Arab’’ series are reported in Table 1. After determining the optimal lag order based on SIC we find that all series are integrated of order 1. Thus, the maximum order of integration (dmax) in the augmented VAR system is 1 throughout.

Table 2 presents the results of the causality tests for the bivariate specification over the whole 1960–2004 period. The optimal lag order of the VAR system is determined using SIC with maximum four lags allowed. The reported lags represent the lag order under which no serial correlation of order up to 4 was detected. When real military expenditures are considered, the results indicate that causality runs, in general, from Israel’s military expenditures to those of Egypt, Syria, and the aggregated ‘‘Arab’’ measure. While our results show that Egypt reacts to changes in Israel’s military expenditures, a bidirectional causality is detected only between Israel and Syria, and no causality whatsoever is detected in the case of Jordan. It seems that the latter, the smallest economy among the Arab front line countries, does not constitute a factor in the arms race in the region and might have chosen to behave as a free rider as implied by Chen et al. (1996). The causality from Israel’s military expenditures to Egypt and Syria’s expenditures is a weak one since it is valid only at the 10% significance level. This observation is further validated when the military measure is the military burden. Causality is now detected only from Israel’s military burden to Egypt’s. Moreover, we still find that Israel reacts to changes in Syria’s military burden. Once again, no causality is detected between the military measures of Israel and Jordan. Our findings are partially in line with Chen et al. (1996) who find that Egypt was the only country involved in a fierce arms race with Israel prior to 1979 while Jordan was a free rider and Syria was least responsive to changes in Israel’s military spending. To further investigate the possibility of Arab collective action and/or free riding we apply the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) procedure to a quadvariate VAR in which the military spending of each Arab country responds to other Arab countries spending in addition to Israel’s. The results of the causality tests are presented in Table 3.

On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

653

Table 2 Causality test (bivariate) Arabi Real military expenditures Egypt Jordan Syria Arab Military burden Egypt Jordan Syria Arab

Lag

Israel ! Arabi

Arabi ! Israel

1 1 1 1

2.64* 1.03 3.65* 3.12*

0.06 0.15 4.47** 0.01

2 1 1 2

6.12** 0.76 0.04 4.31

0.50 1.14 7.10*** 0.43

Lag

Israel ! Arabi

Arabi ! Israel

1 1 1

0.83 0.42 3.52*

0.00 2.16 6.87***

4 4 4

2.11 2.75 6.06

7.85* 2.62 4.17

! indicates the direction of causality. Lags are based on SIC with maximum four lags allowed. *, **, ***denote significance at the 10%, 5%, 1%, respectively. Table 3 Causality test (quadvariate) Arabi Real military expenditures Egypt Jordan Syria Military burden Egypt Jordan Syria

!indicates the direction of causality. Lags are based on SIC with maximum four lags allowed. *, **, ***denote significance at the 10%, 5%, 1%, respectively.

When real military spending is taken as the military measure we detect bi-directional causality between Israel and Syria with the causality from Israel’s to Syria’s military spending being marginally significant. Turning to causality in military burden, we only find a barely significant causality running from Egypt’s to Israel’s military burden. Since many economic series, including defense spending may experience structural breaks that affect causality analysis we carried out the same tests incorporating two endogenously determined structural breaks that have been reported by Abu-Qarn and Abu-Bader (2008).10 In general, the breakpoints capture the drastic rise in military expenditures prior to the last major war, 1973, and the sharp decline following the initiation of peace talks in the late 1970s. Thus, these breaks take into account the change in the dynamics in the post-1979 era. The results (Tables 4 and 5) of the causality tests are rather similar to those without structural breaks. The bi-directional causality between Israel’s and Syria’s military expenditures still holds true, in addition to causality running from

10

The authors apply the Bai and Perron (1998) multiple structural breaks test.

Israel’s to Egypt’s military spending (in the bivariate setting only). Once again, the causality links when military burden is taken are weaker and almost nonexistent. These findings may indicate that the rivals react to the absolute level of the military spending and not to the relative measure. The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel that was signed in 1979 marked the collapse of the Arab front line bloc when the largest and strongest member ceased to be involved in the confrontation with Israel and left Syria as the major Arab rival. Table 6 provides us with insights into the possible impact of the peace treaty on the dynamics of the conflict. The analysis complements our causality tests that incorporated two structural breaks. Our causality tests on the post-1979 period reveal rather surprising results; with the exception of Jordan, Arab countries, including Egypt, respond to both Israel’s military expenditures and burden. Moreover, Israel responds only to Syrian military burden. One possible explanation might be that despite the ‘‘cold’’ peace, Egypt, the leading Arab country, continues to see in Israel a threat especially since the Palestinians are still under Israeli occupation. Another likely explanation is the short time span (1979–2004) that could undermine the reliability of our analysis.

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On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

Table 4 Causality test (bivariate) with two breaks allowed Arabi Real military expenditures Egypt Jordan Syria Arab Military burden Egypt Jordan Syria Arab

Lag

Israel ! Arabi

Arabi ! Israel

1 1 1 1

5.51** 1.24 3.38* 0.75

0.28 0.43 4.34** 0.86

2 1 1 2

3.70 0.84 0.06 2.38

2.25 1.49 3.36* 2.08

! indicates the direction of causality. Lags are based on SIC with maximum four lags allowed. *, **, ***denote significance at the 10%, 5%, 1%, respectively. Break points based on Abu-Qarn and Abu-Bader (2008). Military expenditures - Egypt: 1969, 1977; Israel: 1972, 1982; Jordan: 1975, 1983; Syria: 1974, 1986; Arab: 1968, 1987. Military burden - Egypt: 1969, 1977; Israel: 1972, 1986; Jordan: 1981, 1989; Syria: 1967, 1986; Arab: 1969, 1977. Table 5 Causality test (quadvariate) with two breaks allowed Arabi Real military expenditures Egypt Jordan Syria Military burden Egypt Jordan Syria

Lag

Israel ! Arabi

Arabi ! Israel

1 1 1

0.93 0.62 3.57*

0.95 0.00 8.21***

4 4 4

9.05* 5.06 5.05

2.02 0.63 1.33

! indicates the direction of causality. Lags are based on SIC with maximum four lags allowed *, **, ***denote significance at the 10%, 5%, 1%, respectively. Break points based on Abu-Qarn and Abu-Bader (2008). Military expenditures - Egypt: 1969, 1977; Israel: 1972, 1982; Jordan: 1975, 1983; Syria: 1974, 1986; Arab: 1968, 1987. Military burden - Egypt: 1969, 1977; Israel: 1972, 1986; Jordan: 1981, 1989; Syria: 1967, 1986; Arab: 1969, 1977. Table 6 Causality test (bivariate) post-1979 Arabi Real military expenditures Egypt Jordan Syria Arab Military burden Egypt Jordan Syria Arab

Lag

Israel ! Arabi

Arabi ! Israel

1 1 1 1

5.79** 1.22 2.58* 5.35**

1.66 1.74 0.56 1.72

1 2 2 1

5.89** 5.52* 0.93 6.64***

0.87 0.48 8.66** 0.05

! indicates the direction of causality. Lags are based on SIC with maximum four lags allowed. *, **, ***denote significance at the 10%, 5%, 1%, respectively.

Our last assessment of the causal relationships between the military expenditures and burden of Israel and its Arab neighbors involves applying the generalized FEVD to gauge the strength of the out-of-sample causal

relationships. By decomposing the variance of the forecast error of, say Israel’s military expenditures, into proportions attributed to shocks in all variables in the system including itself, variance decomposition can indicate

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On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

Granger causality beyond the sample period. The results of the generalized FEVD for up to 10 years ahead are portrayed in Tables 7 and 8. Table 7 conveys a relatively strong causality running from Israel’s to Egypt’s, Syria’s, and Arab’s military measures. For example, a shock to Israel’s military expenditures explains 12.34% of the forecast error variance of Syria’s military expenditures at period zero and the percentage rises to reach 28.52% after 10 years. Our results indicate that Syria responds with higher intensity than the rest to shocks in Israel’s military spending. The other direction of causality emerges from Table 8; Israel responds only to shocks in Syrian military measures. Overall, our FEVD results are in line with our causality findings; causality runs mainly from Israel’s to Arab’s military measures and Israel usually responds to changes in Syrian military expenditures.

7. Summary and Conclusions This article examines the dynamics of the Israeli–Arab conflict over the period 1960–2004 to determine whether an arms race exists between Israel and its Arab adversaries. To do so we apply two methodologies; first, a

causality procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) that avoids the shortcomings that the traditional Granger causality tests suffer from; second, the generalized FEVD proposed by Pesaran and Shin (1998) that overcomes the need for ordering in the VAR system that is necessary in the traditional Cholesky decomposition. Our analysis included both bivariate (Israel with each Arab country separately) and quadvariate (Israel with all Arab countries simultaneously) VARs to accommodate collective action and/or free riding among Arab countries. We find that in most cases, Arabs respond to changes in both the military expenditures and military burden of Israel. A bi-directional causality is often detected between Israel and Syria, countries that are still in a state of enmity. In almost all of our tests, Jordan was not found to be actively involved in an arms race with Israel and might have been acting as a free rider. The results hold intact also when we incorporate the possibility of structural breaks in the defense series and when examining the nature of the conflict after signing the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979. Similar results are also obtained from the generalized FEVD approach. In general, our results are in line with the previous studies that addressed the nature of the Israeli–Arab arms race.

Table 7 Generalized FEVD for Arab countries (%)

Real military expenditures Egypt Jordan Syria Arab Military burden Egypt Jordan Syria Arab

Explained by own shock after . . . years

Explained by a shock to Israel’s military measure after . . . years

0

1

5

10

0

1

5

10

100 100 100 100

92.60 99.32 95.32 90.36

92.60 99.22 85.17 90.35

92.60 99.21 85.09 90.35

4.16 0.15 12.34 7.19

13.51 0.71 21.98 20.19

13.51 0.82 28.48 20.21

13.51 0.82 28.52 20.21

100 100 100 100

91.57 98.56 100 93.73

92.02 98.16 100 94.22

92.03 98.16 100 94.22

2.66 6.68 16.98 5.93

13.46 6.82 17.04 14.61

13.08 7.03 17.05 14.20

13.08 7.03 17.05 14.22

Table 8 Generalized FEVD for Israel (%) Arabi

Real military expenditures Egypt Jordan Syria Arab Military burden Egypt Jordan Syria Arab

Explained by a shock to Arabi military measure after . . . years

Explained by Own shock after . . . years

0

1

5

10

0

1

5

10

4.16 0.15 12.34 7.19

4.32 0.33 13.87 7.02

4.32 0.36 14.33 7.02

4.32 0.36 14.31 7.02

100 100 100 100

99.97 99.87 93.50 99.96

99.97 99.85 92.85 99.96

99.97 99.85 92.83 99.96

2.66 6.68 16.98 5.93

2.50 6.27 18.72 5.43

3.93 6.28 20.55 6.11

3.94 6.28 20.55 6.12

100 100 100 100

99.94 99.34 90.41 99.65

98.14 99.15 87.04 98.52

98.13 99.15 87.03 98.51

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On the Dynamics of the Israeli–Arab Arms Race

As we indicated earlier, arms races analysis, in general, and in the Middle East, in particular, can serve countries (the U.S., for example) and international institutions (potentially the U.N. and the E.U.) in evaluating the effects of their intervention (foreign aid, exercising political and economic pressure, and other measures) not only on one country but also on all the countries that are involved in the conflict. With the new White House administration, the U.S. is eager to act seriously in the region to achieve a just and sustained peace. The U.S. has used very generous economic and military assistance to Israel and Egypt as incentives to accelerate their peace talks in the late 1970s. Promises of foreign aid, accompanied by political pressure, can give a big push to the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian and Israeli–Syrian tracks. Acknowledging the dynamic nature of the conflict, the U.S. and the E.U., being the major super powers, can condition granting (to Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians) or the continuation (to Israel) of foreign aid on compliance with certain requirements needed to achieve the desired end. There is no doubt that resolving the Palestinian refugees issue that is considered as the most problematical obstacle in the peace talks would necessitate large funds and the international commitment would be vital. Other incentives provided by the U.S. and the E.U. to both sides of the conflict could include preferential trade arrangements, and funding of mega regional projects. Furthermore, policy makers in the rival countries might benefit from the analysis of the dynamic properties of the conflict by learning on the possible impact of their actions on the region as a whole. Since we found a mostly unidirectional causality from Israel’s military spending to Arab’s, a possible unilateral cut or freeze of Israel’s expenditures might lead to a similar measure by Arab countries. Given the evidence on the likely dividends of arms cut, this Israeli initiative may be proven beneficial to both rivals.

Acknowledgments We are indebted to participants at the 2008 Eastern Economic Association Conference and the 2008 International Conference of the Middle East Economic Association for their valuable comments and suggestions. All the remaining errors are ours.

Further Reading Abu-Qarn, A. S. and Abu-Bader, S. (2008). Structural breaks in military expenditures: Evidence for Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria. Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 14(3): 1–25. Article 3.

Anderton, C. (1989). Arms race modeling: Problems and prospects. Journal of Conflict Resolution 33, 346–367. Bai, J. and Perron, P. (1998). Estimating and testing linear models with multiple structural changes. Econometrica 66, 47–78. Beenstock, M. (1998). Country survey XI: Defence and the Israeli economy. Defence and Peace Economics 9, 171–222. Chen, B., Feng, Y., and Masroori, C. (1996). Collective action in the Middle East? A study of free-ride in defense spending. Journal of Peace Research 33, 323–339. Dunne, J. P., Nikolaidou, E., and Smith, R. P. (2005). Is there an arms race between Greece and Turkey? Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 11(2): 1–37Article 1. Intriligator, M. and Brito, D. (2000). Arms races. Defence and Peace Economics 11, 45–54. Kinsella, D. (1994). The impact of superpower arms transfers on conflict in the Middle East. Defence and Peace Economics 5, 19–36. Kollias, C. and Makrydakis, S. (1997). Is there a Greek-Turkish arms race?: Evidence from cointegration and causality tests. Defence and Peace Economics 8, 355–379. Lebovic, J. H. (2004). Unity in action: Explaining alignment behavior in the Middle East. Journal of Peace Research 41, 167–189. Linden, M. (1991). The dynamics and the instability of the Middle East military expenditures in years 1955–1984. Defence Economics 2, 199–208. McGuire, M. C. (1982). U. S. assistance, Israeli allocation, and the arms race in the Middle East: An analysis of three interdependent resource allocation processes. Journal of Conflict Resolution 26, 199–235. McGuire, M. C. (1987). Foreign assistance, investment, and defense: A methodological study with an application to Israel, 1960–1979. Economic Development and Cultural Change 35, 847–873. Mintz, A. and Ward, M. D. (1989). The political economy of military spending in Israel. The American Political Science Review 83, 521–533. Olson, M. (1971). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pesaran, M. H. and Shin, Y. (1998). Generalized impulse response analysis in linear multivariate models. Economics Letters 58, 17–29. Pesaran, M. H., Shin, Y., and Smith, R. J. (2001). Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics 16, 289–326. Richardson, L. F. (1960). Arms and insecurity: A mathematical study of causes and origins of war. Pittsburgh: Boxwood Press. Seiglie, C. and Liu, P. C. (2002). Arms races in the developing world: Some policy implications. Journal of Policy Modeling 24, 693–705. Sims, C. A., Stock, J. H., and Watson, M. W. (1990). Inference in linear time series models with some unit roots. Econometrica 58, 113–144. Smith, R. P., Dunne, J. P., and Nikolaidou, E. (2000). The econometrics of arms races. Defence and Peace Economics 11, 31–43. Smith, R., Sola, M., and Spagnolo, F. (2000). The prisoner’s dilemma and regime-switching in the Greek-Turkish arms race. Journal of Peace Research 37, 737–750. Sprecher, C. and DeRouen, K. Jr. (2002). Israeli military actions and internalization-externalization processes. Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, 244–259. Toda, H. Y. and Yamamoto, T. (1995). Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated processes. Journal of Econometrics 66, 225–250. Yildirim, J. and Ocal, N. (2006). Arms race and economic growth: The case of India and Pakistan. Defence and Peace Economics 17, 37–45. Zapata, H. O. and Rambaldi, A. N. (1997). Monte Carlo evidence on cointegration and causation. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 59, 285–298.

XI. COMMUNICATIONS – RELEVANCE FOR WAR

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Communication Studies, Overview Emily Moyer-Guse´, Howard Giles, and Daniel Linz, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Interpersonal Conflict, Culture, and Organizations Developmental and Intergroup Parameters of Interpersonal Conflict Effects of Violence in the Media: Empirical Research

Glossary Bargaining Moves and countermoves, concessions and counterproposals in quest of a zone of reasonable outcomes for both parties. Communication Studies Investigations of, and theories about, the exchange of messages in terms of information, ideas, and feelings. Given analyses can attend to the microscopic features of an interaction (e.g., nonverbal reactions) as well as to its more macroscopic associations (e.g., the historical antecedents of an event), researchers’ affiliations are as often outside that of the interdiscipline of

Introduction Aggression and conflict are communicated across and within societies in an alarming number of complex ways. Herein, violence and conflict are examined as they have been studied in two of the major components of communication: the interpersonal and mass media arenas. We examine how everyday conflicts are managed, moving thereafter to how more serious verbal abuses can cause relational stress and ultimately lead to violence. How violence is depicted in the media – and what consequences can arise as a result – are then engaged. Finally, we highlight issues that should inform future research agendas.

Interpersonal Conflict, Culture, and Organizations We all experience conflict as a natural, integral part of our social lives and the ways we manage it can have a great impact on the health of our relationships. Researchers have (variously labeled) three kinds of strategies for engaging in such conflict. First, a competitive (or controlling) style is characterized by high engagement and low positive affect, manifest in a range of communicative behaviors, including

Theoretical Models of Violence and the Media Interventions to Mitigate the Effects of Media Violence Mass Media and International Conflict Epilog Further Reading

communication (e.g., psychology, sociology, political science) as within it. Conflict From a communication perspective, the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatible goals and interference from each other in achieving these goals. Media Literacy Program An umbrella term to describe a variety of educational interventions designed to increase awareness of the roles, functions, and conventions of the mass media. Verbal Aggression Overt, negative, and attacking comments to another person in order to cause them psychological pain.

personal criticism, hostile, presumptive remarks and so forth. Second, a cooperative (or solution-oriented) style is characterized by high engagement but also by positive affect, manifest in descriptive, nonevaluative statements, concessions, acceptance of responsibility, and so forth. This style is construed to demonstrate a desire for mutual resolution. Third, a nonconfrontational (or avoidance) strategy is characterized by implicit or direct denial of conflict, evasive remarks, topics, and shifts. The selection of one particular style over another has been the subject of a great deal of research in the interpersonal, organizational, and intercultural areas. In general, people from collectivistic East Asian and Middle Eastern cultures prefer to resolve conflicts by avoidance than by direct confrontation whereas those in individualistic societies (e.g., Australia, The Netherlands) incline the opposite way. An analysis of the 1950s Suez Crisis attributed the cause of that traumatic international conflict to the fact that the US Secretary of State directly informed the Egyptian ambassador, after protracted negotiations, that financial aid to build the Aswan Dam was not forthcoming after all. Such interpersonal and immediate directness (rather than an indirect, long-term unfolding of events) was an anathema to Arabic cultural expression leading the ambassador to communicate back that not

659

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Communication Studies, Overview

only had he been insulted but that Egypt’s integrity had been cast asunder. Intercultural differences in conflict norms and rules as well as emotional expression and conflict styles abound. Individualistic cultures tend to emphasize the norm of equity – and a ‘what’s in it for me mentality’ – which leads to a focus on short-term outcomes for self. This leads to self-protection, expressions of pride, vulnerabilities, and hurt. Conflict among collectivists, however, is driven by a communal orientation, a concern for the other, and relational harmony (at least within their ingroup, be that family, neighborhood, or work organization). There is also a different notion of time span in such cultures such that conflict is seen in a continuous spiral and lifelong context involving complex patterns of facework and compromise; an honorable individual should be self-disciplined, restrained, and composed. However, even in individualistic communities, a variety of factors determine strategic choices including dialectical tensions such as a pull between underlying dimensions of cooperation and assertiveness. In general, people choose their strategies dependent on attributions about the partner’s intent to cooperate, the perceived locus of responsibility, and the stability of the conflict. For example, people who believe that they may be responsible for the conflict are more likely to cooperate whereas when time constraints are intense or when a work partner has more expertise than another, competition might well ensue. As the last factor implies, relational conflict can evolve longitudinally and along a variety of dimensions. One of these, for example, is ‘variety’ and refers to the possibility that negative behavioral routines can be established as a result of unresolved dissatisfaction leading to a spiral of further dissatisfaction; these are hard to break. Another dimension, ‘symmetry’, occurs when partners reciprocate each other’s conflict strategy (the quid pro quo principle). Dissatisfied couples have often been found to engage in such quid pro quos and research has shown important gender differences here. Many females are more able or willing than males to de-escalate conflictual affect once it has emerged from their partner, and the latter in distressed relationships often appear unable to decode their partner’s communication. Not surprisingly, communication satisfaction attends cooperative tactics of conflict resolution and least satisfaction is associated with tactics involving personal threat, blame, and criticism. There is also evidence that relational happiness is associated more with those who believe conflicts should not be avoided and that brooding upon it in silence can actually exacerbate the problem. Interestingly, having the flexibility and spontaneity to mix styles can ultimately engender collaboration and the diversion of destructive patterns. Such adeptness at employing different forms of conflict management, however, appears to feature in younger married couples’ conflict than those who are

older. Recent studies suggest that while retired couples evince more confrontation when issues were salient to them, in general, they were more avoidant and noncommittal, although this could simply mean that they have learned to ‘choose their battles’. Midlife couples have been found to be somewhere between the passivity of retired couples and the intensity of the young. The gender issue often surfaces in organizational communication research, particularly when one has to manage a supposed ‘difficult subordinate’. For instance, when the supervisor is female and the difficult subordinate male, the latter was reported by the former as often using confrontational tactics in ways he would not when the supervisor was male. However, when the supervisor is male and the difficult subordinate female, she would tend to be more evasive than when the superior was female too. Females often find themselves skilled in a particular workplace role as ‘peacekeepers’, and usually played out in the wings. When successful – and hence valuable to the company – this can be a very satisfying activity, albeit not always recognized nor rewarded by management. One important element of peacemaking – stereotypically, associated with females – is the ability to accommodate the positions and feelings of others. Being correct in understanding your opponent’s view – referred to as ‘co-orientational accuracy’ – can be an ingredient of successful conflict exchanges. A number of theories (e.g., principled negotiation, and the 5A model) point to the importance of this capacity in the workplace advocating a refocusing of any dispute away from the invested parties themselves onto the conflictual issue per se. All too often parties rigidly take the moral high ground in their rhetorical stances – a process (called ‘positional bargaining’) that is not often persuasive in its appeal to the other party. Moreover, bargainers in disputes often rely on stories, fantasies, and rituals in order to promote the ‘good-guy’– ‘bad-guy’ dichotomy. In contrast, negotiators need to understand the validity of the other’s perceptions and needs and work towards mutually beneficial outcomes. Linda Putnam has been a prime theorist here investigating the need for, and value of, reframing a conflict in innovative ways than either party originally brought to the table; such a process would seek to unite the disparate viewpoints and goals while also underscoring common values. This is obviously a difficult process when the interests of conflicting parties are networked out and embedded in other interest groups. Communication is, therefore, at the heart of conflict management. Recent scholars – in both the marital and organizational spheres – have begun to focus on how the family and the workplace can be political arenas with conflict being caused by, a resource for, and outcome of maintaining or acquiring social power. Indeed, communication scholars have pointed to the ideological need for all parties to understand the macrocontext in which an immediate small-scale dispute occurs. Disputes cannot be adequately

Communication Studies, Overview

resolved if the management of them merely centers on the superficial bones of contention rather than on the sometimes long-standing, power asymmetries between the individuals or the groups which they represent. From Conflict to Aggression In the foregoing passages, we have painted conflict in decidedly negative terms. Furthermore, negotiations can be undertaken in order to strategically hinder and stymie the other. In the organizational communication sphere, however, conflict can often be construed in more positive terms, such as the catalyst for producing improved ideas. Yet there is, of course, a difference between conflict in everyday work and family relationships that can be considered culturally normative and even healthy, and relational conflict that is physically or psychologically damaging. Clearly, verbal and physical aggression is frequently used as an attempt to control the relationship and/or the partner. According to Roloff, data has emerged showing that 53% of victims of physical aggression report that verbal aggression was a precursor to the latter whereas 33% of the protagonists cited verbal aggression as the cause. Given a supposed aggressor and the apparent victim often have different perceptions of the situation, less argumentation (expressing one’s emotions giving vent to powerful feeling without striking out) and more verbal aggression is typical of violent relationships. As Vissing and Baily described in their 1996 work, verbal aggression has been linked to a number of negative, longterm health outcomes such as suicidal thoughts, depression, and poor physical health. There have been an array of attempts to define, conceptualize, and operationalize verbal aggression and yet it still seems to be a ‘catch all’ of negative relational communication. Typologies, such as Vissing and Baily’s, include saying unfavorable things about a person’s character, animosity, accusations, ridiculing, swearing as well as certain nonverbal behaviors such as rolling eyes, various obscene gestures, and even failing to respond. Nonetheless, insults have been considered the most frequent form of verbal aggression. A link between verbal and physical violence in relational disputes is proposed in the ‘catalyst model’. This claims that people who are unskilled at arguing may resort to the use of verbal aggression that, in turn, leads to retaliatory aggression including physical violence. For example, and taking a dyadic approach, Sabourin, Infante, and Rudd studied verbal aggression and argumentativeness in violent–distressed, nonviolent–distressed, and nonviolent–nondistressed couples. The strongest discriminator between violent and nonviolent couples was ‘inferred reciprocity’ (when the husband said the wife used a message and the wife said that the husband used that message) and it is suggested that this leads to an escalation of verbal aggression in violent relationships. Nonviolent couples’ perceptions of each

661

other’s aggression and argument strategies tended to be in agreement and they reported using less verbal aggression and more argumentation in their disputes. Husbands’ reports in nonviolent/nondistressed and distressed but nonviolent relationships were considerably more in agreement with wife’s self-reported aggression, indicating that they were better at decoding these messages than were violent husbands. These findings suggest that skill-deficient husbands might interpret argumentativeness as aggressiveness and may not be able to distinguish between the two – akin to what has been termed a ‘hostile attribution bias’. The combination of lack of skill in argumentation and reciprocity of aggression is a key determinant of whether marital disputes turn violent, although other causative factors such as individual psychopathology, disdain for the other, and social learning are acknowledged. Relatedly, scholars have recently documented aggression in marriages that were self-reported as satisfying. This was manifest in negative reciprocity where the two partners strove for relational control. In an associated matter, Robertson and Murachver exploring abusive relationships in 2006, interviewed victims and perpetrators, some of whom had been incarcerated. They found that those who instigated psychological abuse with their partner were much more likely to accommodate an interviewer who adopted negative language forms such as disagreeing and swearing, but less likely to respond to an interviewer who assumed more facilitative language forms (e.g., expressed empathy and compliments). Hence, it has been suggested that such patterns may identify potentially troubled relationships in the early stages and, therefore, may be useful for intervention that can head off violence before it begins.

Developmental and Intergroup Parameters of Interpersonal Conflict Family aggression is of course not confined to spouses. United States national survey data has shown that verbal aggression has been found so prevalent in child abuse that occasional instances of verbal assault (even up to 10 incidents) are not considered abusive. This study also suggested that two out of three American children are victims of verbal aggression from their parents. Yet there are dangers here in that the lack of an adequate working definition can lead to classifying any negative communication directed at children (e.g., verbal discipline) as abusive. Research suggests that parental verbal aggression produces a number of short-term effects (e.g., poor selfimage, introversion etc.) as well as long-term effects (e.g., drug abuse, delinquency etc.) in children. While both physical and verbal aggression can cause physical and psychological traumas, researchers believe that the latter can be severely detrimental to children’s developing social and interpersonal skills.

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A recent study analyzed interactive play tasks within family groups. Fathers who were aggressive to their wives were found to be more authoritarian, less authoritative, and used more negative affect in dyad tasks (i.e., father and son) and were more controlling in triadic tasks (i.e., father, mother, and son). This pattern did not hold for fathers and daughters, but fathers did seek alliances with their daughters against their wives. Although mothers’ physical aggression was not associated with any hostile or controlling behavior toward the child by the mother, mothers’ emotional aggression was linked to fathers’ negative affect with their sons. Fathers’ marital aggression was linked to mothers’ negative affect toward daughters and attempts to establish alliances with daughters. Thus, one parent’s physical or emotional aggression in the marital dyad was linked to the other’s parent’s communication with their children in a series of feedback loops that seem to reinforce coercion and aggression within the familial network. Such abusive effects can be quite far-reaching. People who report high levels of parental verbal aggression may seek out relationships that are lacking in support and solidarity leading to a transmission of negative relational patterns. Yet still further, those who have been past recipients of parental abuse can become abusers and neglectors when they themselves become parents. Verbal aggression and violence can also be levied, of course, outside the family context to out-group strangers and acquaintances (e.g., homosexuals, mentally handicapped, political interest groups). Verbal aggression is increasingly being studied now in the domain of sexual harassment, as in sexist remarks, taunts, and jokes, inappropriate but sanctionfree sexual advances, coercion of sexual activity, and so forth. Many ethnic groups have received negative stereotypical images in the media – both in terms of out-group labels (e.g., faggots, bitches, etc.) and visual depictions (e.g., in advertising). Inescapably, the history of intercultural relations has been all too tragic and complex. While the workplace has allowed the cataloging of numerous ethnic epithets and slurs that can be used to derogate ethnic groups, civil rights laws in many cultures now legally prohibit their expression. This does not mean that racism has dissipated because of its less frequent verbal and nonverbal invocation. In fact, some scholars argue that because any expression of prejudice is frowned upon, people now favor disguised, ambiguous, and indirect ways to express their bigotry. Ethnic minorities often argue that indirect expressions of racism are more common and more problematic as they can be dismissed as an overreaction by the recipient and can be easily misattributed. Indeed, our own work with Laura Leets suggests that minority recipients of verbal abuse (sometimes called ‘dignatory harm’ when it communicates inferiority to the recipient) can find indirect forms of abuse more deeply wounding than overt messages. Moreover, individuals concede that ethnic (and other) slurs can be as psychologically damaging as forms of

physical harm. Teun van Dijk, in his editorial to a special issue of Discourse and Society on the ‘‘discourse of violence’’ argues that ‘‘the increasingly overt but ‘merely verbal’ aggression against immigrants, refugees and minorities in political and media discourse may effectively curb immigration, encourage discrimination, legitimize inequality and generally violate the human rights of millions of people.’’ A particular interest of research at the interface between communication and the law is concerned with if and how harmful speech can be legislated against. The courts will not prohibit nor punish speech merely because it can be lewd, profane, or otherwise vulgar and offensive. Nonetheless, scholars have argued that the core of hate speech is a desire to subordinate another group. On these grounds, some have argued that hate speech (and pornography) should not receive First Amendment protection in the United States. A Cognitive-Communication Model Overall, it is suggested that verbal aggression is a necessary yet not sufficient cause of physical aggression. At least four factors have been proposed to mediate this relationship such as face loss, a desire to control, violence potential, and the loss of control (i.e., anger). Some of these factors are echoed in Daphne Bugental’s cognitivecommunication model of child abuse, which is relevant for placing verbal aggression in the context of ongoing familial processes. Paradoxically, parents who exercise dominance, power, and control over their children see themselves as relatively powerless in the relationship. In a series of studies using experimental, computersimulation, and field methods, Bugental and associates have shown that high-risk adults matched with high-risk children constitute a problematic combination. What makes adults high-risk is their perception of their own relative lack of power that, in turn, provides them with a schema making them hyperalert and vigilant to threat. A threat orientation here is where the adults assign high importance to factors that they perceive as controlled by the child and uncontrollable by adults; even low-level danger signals may be overestimated. Additionally, there is a tendency to rely on stereotypical categorizations (e.g., a ‘troublesome child’) rather than to individuate the child. At-risk children, on the other hand, tend to be less responsive than those who are not at risk. According to Bugental, the child’s unresponsive behavior results in the threat-oriented parent or other adult initiating a series of strategies that almost invariably begin with what is termed ‘opening diplomacy’. This is a stage of impression management whereby the adult uses placating or ingratiating behavior such as insincere smiling. This rapidly gives way to increasing levels of anxiety as measured by acoustic analysis of verbal patterns. This, in turn, stimulates increases in child unresponsiveness, most

Communication Studies, Overview

probably because the child, at varying levels of awareness has noticed the insincerity of the adult’s advances and the subsequent rising levels of anxiety and defensiveness. As this sequence unfolds, the child remains unresponsive and the adult mobilizes his/her defense systems cognitively as well as physiologically. As a result of decreased cognitive processing, adults experience decreases in attention and information processing which can induce impulsive acts. (Note, in relation to the point mentioned earlier, this suggests that argumentation ‘skill’ may decline as arousal increases.) In line with this, threat-oriented adults begin to withdraw positive reinforcement, together these factors form a feedback loop, reinforcing the original threat and lower power orientation (e.g., ‘‘my attempts at being positive didn’t work’’), and increasing the possibility of coercion. In a recent article, we have invoked this model to elaborate on the potential communication pathways that seem to undergird various forms of elder abuse and neglect. The various manifestations of this crime paint a disquieting picture in that more often than not it is family members who are the physical abusers of elderly people, with the latter finding it very difficult to self-disclose such mistreatment to others, including law enforcement and relevant social services. Accounting for Aggressive Acts One of the major contributions that communication scholars can make to this area of inquiry is through analyses of the ways that people account for aggressive and violent acts. As might be expected, perpetrators’ accounts of violent episodes include a variety of self-serving attributions. A number of different studies have shown that men tend to attribute violence to external factors (i.e., the wife’s behavior or personality), jealousy (rivalry with others who took the wife’s attention, previous partners, etc.), her verbal and/or physical abuse, and control issues. In 1995, Stamp and Sabourin investigated the linguistic resources used to accomplish this including excuses (admission of guilt, but a denial of responsibility), justifications (acceptance of responsibility, yet denial of the pejorative nature of their behavior), and minimization or even denial that violence occurred. Even a casual observer reading the transcripts of such accounts can notice that they are very vague, abstract, and nonspecific, seemingly indicating highly managed (avoidant and censored) accounts. By studying the devices that people use to shift responsibility away from themselves and avoid and attribute blame, researchers hope to educate therapists to identify ways in which such people can accept responsibility, come to terms with abuse, and effect change. It is also suggested that such devices perpetuate violence perhaps by allowing the perpetrators to create distance between themselves and the event. Relatedly, research

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has shown that the language used by the news media to report violent acts against women, mainly in the passive voice, can lead (especially among men) to acceptance of such actions.

Effects of Violence in the Media: Empirical Research The last 40 years have seen in excess of 3000 studies on the relationship between viewing media violence and subsequent aggressive behavior. A number of position papers reviewing findings across different methodological approaches (i.e., the 1972 Surgeon General’s Report and the 1982 National Institute of Mental Health Report) endorsed a direct causal link between them. Later position papers by the American Psychological Association (APA) called upon parents to monitor and restrict their children’s viewing of violence. In addition, the broadcast industry was urged to curb violent programming within children’s television, produce more prosocial offerings, and develop a rating system and corresponding technology to assist parents in shielding their children from violent content. A comprehensive review of the literature by the APA’s Commission on Youth and Violence (1993) also concluded that there was ‘‘no doubt’’ that viewing media violence was, cross-nationally, related to increases in subsequent aggression and fear about becoming a victim of violence. Recent reviews of research on media violence, for instance, Bushman and Huesmann in 2000 and Sparks and Sparks in 2002 point to a variety of well-established effects of exposure to such content. Most of this research has examined four main outcomes, including aggressive behavior, tolerance for aggression in others, desensitization to violence, and perceptions about the prevalence of violence in the real world and corresponding emotional distress. Aggression A recent review concluded across an overwhelming number of studies that viewing media violence leads to increases in subsequent aggression. However, the context in which violence is presented is important. Some contextual features inhibit aggression, while others facilitate it. Violence that is punished or leads to overt pain or suffering is not likely to promote aggression. Violence that is perceived as justified, rewarded, or perpetrated by an attractive character is, however, likely to lead to aggression among viewers. This link between exposure to violence in the media and aggressive behavior has been found in controlled laboratory experiments, allowing for strong causal conclusions to be made. However, in order to overcome some

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of the accusations of artificiality leveled at laboratory experiments, researchers have also conducted field studies in more naturalistic settings. For instance, preschool children exposed to violent television fare for 10–20 minutes per day for four weeks were more aggressive during free play sessions than those who had been exposed to neutral or prosocial programs. This media violence– aggression link has also been established in longitudinal research, studies following groups of children over time to assess how initial levels of violence viewing relate to aggressive behavior later in life. This methodology allows researchers to examine the cumulative effects of exposure to violence over time. Evidence from longitudinal studies has generally been consistent with that from laboratory and field experiments, demonstrating that violent television exposure as a child predicts violent behavior in adulthood. The most comprehensive longitudinal work to date was the set of studies carried out by Leonard Eron and his colleagues over a 22-year period. The work began in 1960 and involved third-grade students (aged 8), many of whom were re-interviewed at ages 18 and 30. In the initial study, it was found that the aggressiveness of eight-yearold boys, was significantly correlated with the violence level of the TV show they most frequently viewed. Ten years later, no relationship was found between current violence viewing and aggressive behavior, but there was a significant relationship between violence viewing at age 8 and seriousness of aggression at age 18. In the final stage when the subjects were, on average, 30 years old, no relationship was again found between current level of violence viewing and current aggression. There was however a longitudinal effect spanning 22 years. For boys, early exposure to TV violence was predictive of selfreported aggression at age 30, and added a significant increment to the prediction of seriousness of criminal arrests accumulated by age 30. These effects occurred independent of class, intellectual functioning, and parenting variables, and analyses suggest that approximately 10% of the variability in later criminal behavior can be attributed to the early violence viewing. Beyond the USA, Huesmann and Eron found that viewing violent television at age 6-to 8-years old was a significant predictor of aggressive behavior two years later in Finland, Poland, and Israel. Other researchers have examined natural trends in aggressive behavior before and after the introduction of television. For example, in 1986 Williams studied the effects of the introduction of television into a Canadian town that had been unable, due to geographical location, to receive television until 1974. Over a two-year period after the introduction of TV, they compared any changes that occurred in aggressive behavior of 45 children with that of children in two nearby comparable towns, which had had TV for many years. It was found that children in

the town newly receiving television showed significant increases in both physical and verbal aggression while there were no changes in the comparison towns. As another means of demonstrating this relationship between TV violence and aggressive behavior, some researchers have used meta-analysis to quantitatively synthesize the results of many empirical studies. These studies also find a significant and positive relationship between exposure to violence in the media and aggressive behavior. One of the most often cited of these metaanalyses by Paik and Comstock examined 217 studies conducted between 1957 and 1990 and found that the overall strength of the correlation between exposure to media violence and aggression is r ¼ 0.31. This correlation can be described as moderate using Cohen’s standard rule of thumb. While the research described thus far has focused on media effects on aggressive behavior, research has also shown that exposure to television violence can increase tolerance for others’ aggressive behavior. For example, experimental studies have shown that exposure to a film containing violence caused eight-year-olds to wait longer to report a fight between two children than did children who had not seen the violent film. This effect has been replicated and effects extended to children of up to 14 years of age.

Desensitization Research has also produced evidence that media violence desensitizes viewers to real-life violence. Desensitization refers to the process whereby the repeated exposure to violence in the media results in less and less emotional and physiological response on the part of viewers. Lab experiments have shown that exposure to violent media depictions actually leads to physiological desensitization. Research by Dan Linz, Ed Donnerstein, and Steve Penrod measured college-age men’s reactions to films portraying violence against women, often in a sexual context, viewed over a five-day period. Comparisons of first and last day reactions to the films showed that with repeated exposure, initial levels of self-reported anxiety decreased substantially. Furthermore, material that was previously viewed as offensive and degrading was considered significantly less so by the end and subjects also felt less depressed and enjoyed the material more. Disturbingly, these effects generalized to the victim of a sexual assault presented after the above exercise in a videotaped re-enactment of a rape trial. The exposure group rated the victim as significantly less injured compared to the no-exposure control group. A further study by these authors also found that after exposure to the violence, participants were less sympathetic to the rape victim and less able to empathize with rape victims in general, compared to control groups.

Communication Studies, Overview

Fear There is also evidence that exposure to mass media can lead to distorted and inaccurate perceptions about the nature, prevalence, and causes of violence within society. Along with this goes fear of becoming the victim of violence oneself. George Gerbner’s cultivation theory argues that television demonstrates how society works by dramatizing its norms and values. Due to the fact that violence is massively overrepresented in the television environment as compared to its occurrence in the real world, heavy viewing of television will lead to an overestimation of the level of violence within society and an increased fear of becoming a victim of violence. The theory also hypothesizes that heavy television viewing will lead to increased interpersonal mistrust and the perception that the world is a mean and dangerous place, a condition dubbed the ‘mean world syndrome’. Research in this area has examined how perceptions of crime and victimization differ between light and heavy television viewers and has generally shown that indeed, those who watch a lot of television do perceive the world to be more violent and are more fearful of activities like walking alone at night. Beyond this, heavy viewers also give higher estimates of the number of people involved in violence in a given week. However, studies conducted in other countries reveal that in places where the TV does not portray such a consistent type of violence, cultivation effects are less predictable and consistent; studies conducted in Great Britain, Holland, and Sweden have provided qualified support on only a small number of cultivation indices. Cultivation theory has received substantial academic criticism on both conceptual and methodological grounds. Critics argue that the theory’s use of total television viewing, rather than particular genres, makes the mistaken assumption that television viewers are television violence viewers per se. Additionally, because most of this research is correlational in nature, critics have questioned whether the research adequately controls for other extraneous variables that may be responsible for the relationships proposed. The current consensus is that, although there is evidence that some cultivation effects do exist, the model fails to take account of moderating factors such as differential individual perceptions of the reality of television, or the effects of living in areas with different crime rates. Furthermore, it is likely that heavy viewing of television and personal distrust is bidirectional, with highly fearful individuals choosing to seek out certain television shows (e.g., crime dramas) where there is usually ‘a triumph for the forces of good’. While this cultivation research focuses on the cumulative effects of violence over time, studies focusing on children’s reactions to violent media have noted fear, anxiety, and behavioral effects such as sleep disturbance immediately following exposure, as presented in a review

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by Cantor in 2002. In some cases, children experience lasting fear and behavioral upset in response to these media depictions. Violence contained in fictional programming as well as that found in the news media have both been shown to lead to fright among young viewers. These fear reactions are particularly strong in response to news coverage of devastating events such as the 9/11 terror attacks or international conflicts. Other Media While much of the research thus far has focused on violence in television and film, research has also examined other media. For example, recent research by Anderson and his colleagues has examined the effects of demeaning and/or violent music lyrics. They found that exposure to violent music lyrics increased aggressive thoughts and affect. Much recent research has also focused on violence in video games, an area of much concern as this form of media continues to gain popularity among youth. Recent reviews of video game research such as the one by Dill and Dill in 1998 report that most experimental studies find that playing violent video games increases aggression, much like violence in other forms of media. Both experimental and correlational research in this area reveal that playing violent video games leads to more physical aggression toward peers, a tendency to deliver more severe electric shock punishment to another individual, and more aggressive thoughts. Finally, a recent meta-analysis reveals a positive relationship between video game playing and aggression that is comparable in magnitude to that found for other media (r ¼ 0.19).

Theoretical Models of Violence and the Media One of the earliest explanations for media violence effects was the idea of symbolic catharsis. This explanation contends that watching media violence would allow people to purge themselves of their aggressive feelings and desires thus resulting in less aggressive behavior than if they had not been exposed. The rationale for catharsis is that exposure to media violence allows a viewer to get rid of stored-up aggression. Despite several attempts, there has been no evidence to support this catharsis hypothesis. Social Learning Theory Albert Bandura demonstrated that children would spontaneously imitate the behavior of an aggressive model they had witnessed on television. The adult model was shown punching and kicking an inflatable clown known as a bobo doll, and when subsequently left alone with a

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similar toy the children would indulge in identical behaviors. This was used as evidence for social learning theory, which contends that children learn behavioral repertoires from experiences and interactions with culture, subculture, family, and peers. The theory places great emphasis on the role of models in shaping the acquisition of socially sanctioned behavior patterns. With regard to the effects of exposure to violent models, Bandura made an important differentiation between acquisition of aggressive repertoires and performance of those repertoires. If the model was rewarded for its violence, this increased the likelihood of a child imitating it. However, if the model’s behavior was met with disapproval, children were highly unlikely to imitate it. Social learning theory then suggests that it is the nature of the portrayals of violence on television that may be influential in stimulating aggression. The theory also notes that violent models may lead to a more general disinhibitory effect, with the viewing of specific behavioral acts (e.g., a ‘shoot-out’ in a Western) leading to the increased likelihood of other responses that belong to the same class (e.g., rough play or hostile verbalizations). A Social Scripts Model Rowell Huesmann has proposed a model that explains how cumulative exposure to media violence in childhood may lead to the acquisition of aggressive behavioral patterns that, once established, may be highly resistant to change. He proposes that aggressive behavior, like other social behavior, is governed by ‘scripts’ that are learned during early development. These scripts are used as guides for behavior and problem-solving in social situations. They are learned by observing the behavior of others, and encoding a representation of that behavior into memory. Realistic violence by highly attractive or similar (to the child) perpetrators is likely to be highly salient, and this may lead to aggressive fantasizing by the child, which involves the rehearsal of social scripts stored in memory. This is likely to strengthen those scripts and increase the likelihood that they will be retrieved and employed as problem-solving strategies in social situations. Contextual factors, such as the punishments or rewards for violent behavior are likely to affect whether children encode violent behavior into their social scripts. The theory also suggests that the relationship between viewing violence and aggressive behavior may be reciprocal. Heavy viewers of television violence regularly view characters who use violence as a social problem-solving strategy. This cumulative viewing may lead to the encoding and rehearsal of such social scripts in memory, as general problem-solving solutions, which may lead the child to become habitually aggressive. However, habitual aggressiveness is likely to lead to the child becoming less socially popular and a poorer academic achiever. Such academic and social failures may frustrate the child and

lead to further aggressiveness. In addition, it may also lead to further television viewing as the child attempts to vicariously obtain the satisfactions denied in his/her social life and at school. This further violence-viewing may then provide the child with justification for his or her own aggression, thus leading to more aggression. In this manner, the relationship between violence-viewing and aggressive behavior may be reciprocal and mutually reinforcing. Cognitive Priming Theory The theory is based on the notion of cognitive neoassociationism, the idea that people tend to group concepts together into clusters of related ideas for storage and retrieval. In his priming theory, Leonard Berkowitz combined this idea with the concept of spreading activation. Spreading activation suggests that when one concept is brought to mind, this activation ‘‘radiates out from this particular node along the associative pathways to other nodes.’’ Because concepts are linked in the brain with other semantically related concepts, this spreading activation process then leads to a priming effect where any aggressive ideas stimulated by viewing media violence can prime the activation of other semantically related thoughts. Not only are related thoughts about violence activated, but connected emotional reactions and behavioral tendencies can also be primed. In essence, Berkowitz proposes that exposure to mass media messages can prime viewers such that related ideas, feelings, and behaviors are more likely to occur in the short term. Specifically, regarding exposure to violence on television, the theory posits that exposure to violent depictions will activate other ideas related to the aggression depicted on television. Moreover, this priming will increase the likelihood that the viewer will experience aggressive feelings and/or behave in aggressive ways for a limited period of time. However, Berkowitz notes that there are important intervening variables, the most significant being the perceived meaning of the depiction for the audience. Aggressionrelated thoughts will not be activated unless the viewer considers the depiction aggressive. For example, if two individuals witness a football match, the one who perceives the players as deliberately trying to hurt or injure each other is likely to become aggressively primed, while the other who considers the players as athletes involved in a game of skill and determination, will not be. Excitation Transfer Excitation transfer theory is based upon the fact that violence in the media typically causes arousal among viewers. Further, this arousal often continues for a period of time even after exposure to the media violence has ceased. The main idea is that the arousal associated with

Communication Studies, Overview

exposure to media violence will be transferred to a more intensified version of any emotion that is experienced shortly after exposure. Therefore, if something occurs to provoke anger shortly following exposure, the anger would be intensified. This intensified anger may increase the likelihood of reacting with aggression.

Interventions to Mitigate the Effects of Media Violence One strategy used to reduce the harmful effects of violence in the media has been the introduction of a television ratings system and corresponding V-chip. The V-chip is a required device installed in all television sets that allows parents to screen programs rated as having violent content. While this can be a useful tool, research on the presence of warning labels and advisories (e.g., ‘parental discretion advised’) or restrictive ratings (e.g., ‘PG-13’) suggests these labels can actually increase young people’s desire to see a movie or television show, a phenomenon known as the ‘forbidden fruit effect’. However, labels that are informational only (e.g., ‘this program contains violence’) do not lead to the forbidden fruit effect. Another strategy for reducing harmful effects of media violence is known as parental mediation. Such adult commentary during exposure can mitigate the effects of media violence on aggressive behavior and attitudes. However, merely co-viewing with children is not enough to reduce these effects. In a 2003 review of strategies to reduce mediainduced aggression, Joanne Cantor and Barbara Wilson point out that simply co-viewing with a child or making neutral comments about violent media content has been shown to have nearly the same effect as endorsing media violence. Instead, a more active form of mediation, characterized by discussion and commentary, is necessary to reduce effects. Research by Amy Nathanson and others has demonstrated that the specific content of such critical viewing strategies, such as promoting empathy with the victim of violence, has important implications for effects. Finally, formal media education curricula are another option for reducing harmful effects of media violence. These curricula often take place in school and have had somewhat mixed effects. It is critical that these programs be age-appropriate and that they encourage critical thinking and personal involvement rather than relying on simple lectures. For example, a two-year intervention designed by Huesmann and his colleagues used demonstrations, discussions, and critical observations of television segments shown to be implausible. In the second year, a variety of methods used in counterattitudinal advocacy research were adopted, such as stressing the consequences to the children of their own actions on others, and praising the children for possessing attitudes that the researchers wanted them to hold. The children also participated in making a film designed

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to teach other children about the dangers of imitating media violence. They were filmed making a small presentation on why doing so was foolish, and had the opportunity to see themselves and their peers advocating such a position. This intervention was successful in reducing children’s aggressive behavior. This occurred despite the fact that the children’s level of violence-viewing did not decrease over the course of the intervention, suggesting that the intervention served to ‘‘inoculate’’ the children against the harmful effects of viewing media violence.

Mass Media and International Conflict Communication studies also assess the role of the mass media during international conflict. News has become increasingly available and immediate in recent years given the growth of additional news sources such as 24hour cable news channels and the internet. According to a recent Pew News survey (2004), 38% of Americans regularly get their news from cable news channels and nearly a third go online for news. Moreover, as Thussu pointed out in 2002, cable news channels such as CNN and BBC have enormous international reach, available to 800 million and 167 million people respectively. As a result of such continuous and far-reaching coverage, some speculate about the effects of news coverage of real world violence. Indeed, the way the conflict is framed in the news may shape how viewers perceive the conflict. Some look to the Gulf War as a turning point in news coverage of international conflict in that it was depicted heavily on television news, bringing the war to life on screen. Commentators argue that the Gulf War solidified three important relationships between global politics and television. First, television has become the crisis communication channel of international relations. Due to technological advances in news-gathering capabilities as well as the availability of direct broadcast satellite links, international borders have become increasingly porous with regard to the flow of media messages. Second, television allows private organizations (e.g., Amnesty International) to influence foreign policy, by speeding up decisionmaking times for protagonists and diluting the secrecy in diplomacy by allowing governments to frame the enemy’s offers. Third, television has become a tool of government as a means to further foreign policy objectives. In the Gulf War conflict, the United States and, to a large extent, global media presented a pro-American, prowar slant by interviewing almost exclusively (prowar) military or administration personnel, and providing uncritical and frequently jingoistic coverage of US operations and policy. On the home front, the Gulf War was conducted as a slickly produced public relations exercise. One of President Bush’s closest advisers told The Washington Post that during the war they used the same basic principles as

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used in presidential campaigns. Indeed, the government and military were able to control media output very strictly. Security guidelines emerged over what aspects of the conflict could be reported, and many aspects of news coverage were off-limits – not due to military security, but political policy (e.g., pictures of coffins arriving in the US were banned). Only a few (compliant) reporters were allowed and the military had a public relations person accompany any official who was giving a press interview. Arguably, the function of the mass media during the War was to act primarily as a mouthpiece for American foreign policy, by limiting the level of critical media discourse. Although a few dissenting voices were initially raised, these quickly vanished in the months leading up to the conflict. Approximately 1% of the coverage of the crisis dealt with popular opposition to possible US military intervention, despite mass demonstrations by peace activists across the United States. Much like entertainment media, news media are driven by advertising revenue, thus news content and story selection are in part influenced by ratings. Historically, news coverage of wars is good for TV news ratings. Perhaps as a result, wars tend to be heavily covered by the news media, a trend reflected recently in coverage of the Iraq War. The Center for Media and Public Affairs conducts an annual content analysis of every news story broadcast on the national evening news on the three major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). Results of this content analysis reveal that in 2003 and 2004, Iraq was the most frequently reported news topic. The Center for Media and Public Affairs in its review of the year 2003 noted that during the months leading up to the war (March and April of 2003), coverage of Iraq was even more dominant (83% of all stories) and was often graphic in nature, often featuring images of bombs, explosions, and combat. Perhaps adding to the graphic coverage, the War in Iraq marked the first time that an innovative new reporting feature, embedded reporters, were used. These journalists provided live-action coverage of the front lines, allowing viewers to witness fighting and conflict first hand via television. This new reporting tactic changed the nature of the coverage in that embedded reporters produced more stories about specific battles than did traditional reporters.

Epilog Communication scholars have explored interpersonal conflict strategies, attributions, evolution, and relational outcomes in the family and in the workplace. Of the three main conflict strategies identified, confrontational strategies are thought to be highly related to physical aggression. However, the exact pathways from verbal to physical violence are still under study.

We have also seen that there has been much work on the effects of viewing media violence suggesting that there is considerable cause for concern. Note we are not claiming that the media are wholly or even largely responsible for violence in society. Rather, the media are a potent force that accounts for a small yet significant proportion of the variance. However, censoring or legislating the media may not be the answer. Solutions such as the V-chip could be a technical fix for a rather larger-scale social problem. For instance, it censors violence without differentiating between what social science research suggests is harmful and what is not (e.g., Schindler’s List vs. Terminator). Also the parents of those most at risk of being influenced, such as so-called ‘latchkey’ children, may not be interested or able to afford the new technology on new television sets. Sociolinguistic scholars have recently been looking at the ways in which some social groups are subordinated in society given they are silenced in the media and do not have an appropriate voice. Lack of attention to groups and individuals is as pernicious and as strategic as biased attention on occasion. This is clearly the case when it comes to elderly neglect. Future theory might also look more comprehensively to the positive aspects of violence and conflict: under what conditions is conflict unavoidable and socially necessary? When are depictions of violence useful and supportable? When do community standards about, thresholds of, and tolerance for violence and aggression change? Indeed, there needs to be far more attention paid to how people can use different conflict strategies with varying success rates in different contexts. We also need to rethink our disciplinary boundaries wherein ‘conflict studies’ assume the status of the core curriculum, such as in elementary school where it could be an interdisciplinary subject. Rather than relegating it to the attention of later remediation, therapy, and counseling, we should engage it and its various, changing, and evolving forms as we develop. Moreover, we should begin to investigate and theorize about the ways in which interpersonal, organizational, intercultural, and media conflict and violence studies intersect. At the moment, they are largely segregated from synthesis and mutual understanding. Certainly there is a dire need for more meshing of communication with sociolegal studies. For instance, some commentators argue that hate speech is more effectively battled through persuasion and education on the values of tolerance, civility, and social respect than through punishment and coercion. What is deemed a successful, defensive outcome here is also multidimensional and contentious and communication scholars have a compelling challenge to face here theoretically as well as pragmatically. Finally, we might seek to dissuade ourselves from conveniently dichotomizing ‘communication’ from ‘conflict’, and vice versa. Virtually all forms of conflict are communication – and many forms of the latter are conflictual, an appreciation of

Communication Studies, Overview

which (positive and negative) may yield important payoffs. Of promise in laying the foundations for understanding intractable conflicts is Ellis’ theoretical position. He incisively outlines the many ways in which communicative practices have to move to a new level, including negotiating and, thereafter, rewriting the shared histories of the conflicting parties. Emerging from this overview are two main conclusions. First, that the meaning of violence – be it face-toface or portrayed in the media – is often a function of the context in which it occurs. For instance, although the movies The Killing Fields and Terminator 2 were both highly violent, most would agree that their messages about violence were very different. Second, while the communicative effects of violence are enhanced or reduced by various situational factors (e.g., prior anger is much more likely to lead to aggression after viewing violence), the effects can be very long-term. For instance, the best predictor of adult aggressiveness is childhood aggressiveness and this is correlated with early childhood exposure to media violence as we have noted. In sum, violence is a contemporary problem in part by the ways in which some people have problems resolving it via appropriate communicative means and also in part by the ways in which it is depicted in the media. See also: Linguistic Constructions of Violence, Peace, and Conflict; Mass Media, General View; Television Programming and Violence, International

Further Reading Aday, S., Livingston, S., and Hebert, M. (2005). Embedding the truth: A cross-cultural analysis of objectivity and television coverage of the Iraq war. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 10(1), 3–21. American Psychological Association (1993). Violence and youth: Psychology’s Response, Vol. I: Summary report of the American Psychological Association commission on violence and youth. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Anderson, J. R. and Bower, G. H. (1974). Human associative memory. Washington, DC: Hemisphere Publishing. Anderson, C. A. and Bushman, B. J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science 12, 353–359. Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N. L., and Eubanks, J. (2003). Exposure to violent media: The effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84, 960–971. Anderson, C. A. and Dill, K. E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78, 772–790. Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bartholow, B. D. and Anderson, C. A. (2002). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior: Potential sex differences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38, 283–290.

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Berkowitz, L. (1984). Some effects of thoughts on anti- and prosocial influences of media events: A cognitive-neoassociation analysis. Psychological Bulletin 95, 410–427. Bugental, D. (1993). Communication in abusive relationships: Cognitive constructions of interpersonal power. American Behavioral Scientists 36, 88–308. Bushman, B. J. (2006). Effects of warning and information labels on attraction to television violence in viewers of different ages. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 36, 2073–2078. Bushman, B. J. and Anderson, C. A. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: A test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, 1679–1686. Bushman, B. J. and Cantor, J. (2003). Media ratings for violence and sex: Implications for policymakers and parents. American Psychologist 58, 130–141. Bushman, B. J. and Huesmann, L. R. (2000). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In Singer, D. G. and Singer, J. L. (eds.) Handbook of children and the media, pp. 223–254. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Bushman, B. J. and Stack, A. D. (1996). Forbidden fruit versus tainted fruit: Effects of warning labels on attraction to television violence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 2, 207–226. Calvert, S. L. and Tan, S. (1994). Impact of virtual reality on young adults’ physiological arousal and aggressive thoughts: Interaction versus observation. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 15, 125–139. Center for Media and Public Affairs (2004). 2003 year in review: TV’s leading news topics, reporters, and political jokes. Media Monitor 18(1), 1–6. Center for Media and Public Affairs (2005). 2004 year in review: TV’s leading news topics, reporters, and political jokes. Media Monitor 19(1), 1–7. Collins, A. M. and Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review 82, 407–428. Cantor, J. (2002). Fright reactions to mass media. In Bryant, J. and Zillmann, D. (eds.) Media effects: Advances in theory and research, pp. 287–306. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cantor, J. and Wilson, B. J. (2003). Media and violence: Intervention strategies for reducing aggression. Media Psychology 5, 363–403. Dill, K. E. and Dill, J. C. (1998). Video game violence: A review of the empirical literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior 3, 407–428. Ellis, D. G. (2006). Transforming conflict: Communication and ethnopolitical conflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Eron, L. D., Huesmann, L. R., Lefkowitz, M. M., and Walder, L. O. (1972). Does television violence cause aggression? American Psychologist 27, 253–263. Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., Signorielli, N., and Shanahan, J. (2002). Growing up with television: Cultivation processes. In Jennings, B. and Zillmann, D. (eds.) Media effects: Advances in theory and research, pp. 43–67. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Giles, H. and Helmle, J. (in press). Elder abuse: A communicative framework. In Duszak, A. and Okulska, U. (eds.) Communication across age groups. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Greenberg, B. S. and Gantz, W. (eds.) (1993). Desert storm and the mass media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Huesmann, L. R. (1988). An information processing model for the development of aggression. Aggressive Behavior 14, 13–24. Huesmann, L. R. and Eron, L. D. (eds.) (1986). Television and the aggressive child: A cross-national comparison. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Huesmann, R. L., Eron, L. D., Lefkowitz, M. M., and Walder, L. O. (1984). Stability of aggression over time and generations. Developmental Psychology 20, 1120–1134. Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C. L., and Eron, L. (2003). Longitudinal relations between children’s exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977–1992. Developmental Psychology 39, 201–221. Irwin, A. R. and Gross, A. M. (1995). Cognitive tempo, violent video games, and aggressive behavior in young boys. Journal of Family Violence 10, 337–350. Iyengar, S. (1991). Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Lefkowitz, M. M., Eron, L. D., Walder, L. O., and Huesmann, L. R. (1977). Growing up to be violent: A longitudinal study of the development of aggression. New York: Pergamon Press. Linz, D., Donnerstein, E., and Penrod, S. (1984). The effects of multiple exposures to filmed violence against women. Journal of Communication 34, 130–147. McManus, J. H. (1992). What kind of commodity is news? Communication Research 19(6), 787–805. Linz, D., Donnerstein, E., and Penrod, S. (1988). Effects of long-term exposure to violent and sexually degrading depictions of women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 55, 758–768. Nathanson, A. I. (2001). Mediation of children’s television viewing: Working toward conceptual clarity and common understanding. In Gudykunst, W. B. (ed.) Communication yearbook 25, pp. 115–151. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Paik, H. and Comstock, G. (1994). The effects of television violence on antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis. Communication Research 21, 516–546. Putnam, L. L. and Roloff, M. E. (eds.) (1992). Communication and negotiation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Robertson, K. and Murachver, T. (2006). Intimate partner violence, linguistic features and accommodation behavior of perpetrators and victims. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 26, 402–422. Roloff, M. E. (1996). The catalyst hypothesis: Conditions under which communication leads to physical aggression. In Cahn, D. D. and Lloyd, S. A. (eds.) Family violence from a communication perspective, pp. 20–36. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Sabourin, T. C., Infante, D. A., and Rudd, J. I. (1993). Verbal aggression in marriages: A comparison of violent, distressed but nonviolent, and nondistressed couples. Human Communication Research 20, 245–267. Sillars, A. L., Wilmot, W. W., and Hocker, J. L. (1993). Communication strategies in conflict and mediation. In Wiemann, J. M. and Daly, J. (eds.) Communicating strategically, pp. 163–190. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Sparks, G. G. and Sparks, C. W. (2002). Effects of media violence. In Jennings, B. and Zillmann, D. (eds.) Media effects: Advances in theory and research, pp. 269–285. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Stamp, G. H. and Sabourin, T. C. (1995). Accounting for violence: An analysis of male spousal abuse narratives. Journal of Applied Communication Research 23, 284–307. Ting-Toomey, S. (1994). Managing conflict in intimate intercultural relationships. In Cahn, D. D. (ed.) Conflict in personal relationships, pp. 47–77. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Thussu, D. K. (2002). Managing the media in an era of round-the-clock news: Notes from India’s first tele-war. Journalism Studies 3(2), 203–212. Vissing, Y. and Baily, W. (1996). Parent-to-child verbal aggression. In Cahn, D. D. and Lloyd, S. A. (eds.) Family violence from a communication perspective, pp. 85–107. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Whillock, R. and Slayden, D. (eds.) (1995). Hate speech. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Williams, T. M. (ed.) (1986). The impact of television: A natural experiment in three communities. New York: Praeger.

Language of War and Peace, The William C Gay, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Language, Perception, and Behavior Language, Violence, and Nonviolence

Glossary Linguistic Alienation A situation in which individuals cannot understand a discourse in their own language because of the use of highly technical vocabularies. Linguistic Violence A situation in which individuals are hurt or harmed by words.

Introduction Language plays an important role in relation to war and peace. Language, which is rarely neutral, shapes perception and behavior. Language can be used to demean differences and inflict violence or to affirm diversity and achieve recognition. The language of war usually functions to mask the reality of the violence that is occurring. Official

The Language of War The Language of Peace Further Reading

Negative Peace The temporary absence of active war or the lull between wars. Positive Peace The negation of war and the presence of justice. Warist Discourse Language that takes for granted that wars are inevitable, justifiable, and winnable.

discourse about war makes extensive use of euphemisms and misrepresentation. By imposing itself as legitimate, it coops efforts by critics of war. The language of peace, like the condition of peace, can be negative or positive. A language of negative peace perpetuates injustice by only establishing a verbal declaration of an end to war and hostilities. A language of positive peace fosters open and inclusive communication that affirms diversity.

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Language, Perception, and Behavior Various uses of language precede and support the pursuit of war and the quest for peace. Military preparations for war and political negotiations for peace involve fairly obvious institutional structures. Discourse about war and peace also involves institutional structures, since language itself is a social institution. Whether we know the official language of the nation in which we live or a dialect relegated to low social esteem, whether we know only one or many languages, in whatever language we speak and write, we are faced with its lexicon and grammatical structure which have embedded within them a wide range of terms that express not only arbitrary systems of classification but also actual relations of power. If knowledge is power, language too is power; those who control the language of war and peace exercise an enormous influence on how we perceive war and peace and what behaviors we accept in relation to war and peace. The Institutional Character of War and Discourse about War Individuals who serve as warriors and soldiers have social roles that are structured by the military institutions of societies. The overt violent acts committed by these individuals when they act as a social group following official orders are sanctioned by the state as legitimate even though the acts committed by these individuals are similar to types of physical violence that are prohibited by the state and for which individuals who commit them are subject to punishment. In order to mark the institutional character of military behavior, most societies use distinctive words to designate the violent acts of warriors and soldiers. The act that is designated as ‘murder’ when performed by an individual may be redesignated ‘justified use of force’ when carried out by law enforcement or military personnel. This power of redesignation, which allows for legitimation or condemnation of various actions, manifests how political uses of language precede and support the pursuit of war; the same is true for the political uses of language in the quest for peace. From primitive war among archaic societies to the world wars of the twentieth century, political and military leaders have introduced and reinforced linguistic usages that give legitimacy to the social roles and military actions of warriors and soldiers. Since the rise of the modern nation-state, almost all societies have coupled the aim of maintaining national sovereignty with the capacity to wage war. Not surprisingly, then, discourse about war is much more deeply ensconced in the languages of the world than is discourse about peace. ‘Warist discourse’ refers to the resulting language that takes for granted that wars are inevitable, justifiable, and winnable. One of the most elaborate justifications for war arose during the

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medieval period and continues to this day, namely, the theory of just war that was given classic articulation by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. How the Institution of Language Shapes Perception and Behavior In order to better understand the effects of the ways we talk and write about war and peace, one needs to recognize that language, as Ferdinand de Saussure established, is one of the most conservative social institutions. As such, language shapes both perception and behavior, influencing our thought and action in three important ways. First, at any given time the words in the lexicon of a language limit one another. Every lexicon is finite and changes over time. Linguists have shown that the meaning of individual words is a function of the differences among them during each phase in the history of the lexicon. Terms designating ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation are especially revealing in this regard. Consider the difference in the meaning within the United States of using the term ‘Negro’ in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s to designate the race of one component of the population. After Martin Luther King, Jr. and others succeeded in having ‘Negro’ accepted as the polite form of address, the term took on a different meaning in the 1970s, by which time the addition of ‘black’ was firmly established in the lexicon as the preferred designation and use of ‘Negro’ became a signal of conformity to an earlier social norm. The term ‘Negro’ took on an even more telling connotation once ‘African-American’ came into general usage in the 1990s and now one of the few remaining socially acceptable uses of the term ‘Negro’ is its satirical employment by African-American comedians such as Eddie Murphy. Languages vary in the number of terms available to communicate about a specific topic, and the available terms vary in how positively and negatively charged they are. While the English language currently includes ‘fag’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘gay’ as terms which designate the sexual orientation of some men, these terms are on a continuum of rather negative, to more neutral, to fairly positive. For this reason, when analyzing discourse about war and peace, the words selected and the words not selected from the lexicon are rather important. Think, for example, of the difference between referring to armed troops as ‘freedom fighters’ and as ‘guerrilla terrorists’. Second, because the vocabulary of a language provides charged terms, it serves as a means of interpretation. Individuals think about their world in the terms provided by their language. As a result of socialization individuals have a predisposition to select those terms which coincide with the existing values in their societies. For example, throughout the Cold War, many Americans regarded their government as the ‘champion of freedom’ and the Soviet

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government as ‘an evil empire’. Since the lexicon of a language also makes available further terminological options, individuals are also able to intentionally select words that are relatively more or less offensive. Hence, while the lexicon of a people has built into it a perspective on the world, it facilitates not only the official perspective but also alternative ones. These alternatives can include the potential for the positive renaming of a disenfranchised social group and the negative redescription of governmental accounts of military campaigns. Although many people refer to individuals who use a wheelchair as ‘handicapped’, these individuals may prefer to refer to themselves and to have others refer to them also as ‘physically challenged’. While the government may refer to a military campaign as a ‘just war’, citizens can counter that it is ‘just another war’. Third, the linguistic perspective of an individual’s thought shapes behavior. In other words, language gives structure to consciousness, which guides action. Since changed behavior is so closely connected with the way language shapes consciousness, the ‘‘right of bestowing names,’’ as Friedrich Nietzsche saw, is a fundamental expression of political power. In the twentieth century, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has elaborated theoretically and empirically on the extent of the symbolic power that language can provide. Some social groups accrue enormous linguistic capital which they generally use to advance their interests to the detriment of the social masses. Almost all of us are familiar with physicians and lawyers who rely on their technical vocabularies and seek to have their patients and clients simply defer to their authority. Similarly, many governmental and military officials use forms of strategic discourse that most citizens do not understand and to which they acquiesce, thereby enabling those with a monopoly of the instruments of force to go unchallenged in their explanations for their actions.

Language, Violence, and Nonviolence Debate continues about whether all terms in a language are ideologically charged or whether some terms avoid bias. Even if some uses of language are neutral, many are charged. Whenever more than one term is available, a difference in connotation is generally present even when the denotation is the same. Is the individual working in a field a ‘wetback’, an ‘illegal immigrant’, or a ‘migratory laborer’? In principle, individuals can select any among the available terms. However, linguistic freedom and linguistic creativity can be used to impose restrictions on social groups and distort their perceptions, just as much as it can be used to empower social groups and enrich their understanding. In practice, word choices are largely shaped by customary social usage. Beyond establishing an official language, most nations reinforce politically

preferred choices through institutions of socialization such as schools and the media. What makes some nations ‘rogue states’ and some leaders ‘dangerous villains’? At this point, the prospect for linguistic violence arises and takes on a clearly institutional character. ‘Linguistic violence’ is the situation in which individuals are hurt or harmed by words. Linguistic Violence Negatively, language can be used to demean differences among social groups and to inflict violence against them. Frequently, we think more about the ways one individual insults another than about how the lexicon itself reflects institutional structuring of social roles. As noted earlier, a distinction is made between personal overt violence, such as murder, and institutional overt violence, such as war. Likewise, as Newton Garver has noted, a distinction can be made between personal covert violence, such as a verbal insult, and institutional covert violence, such as the socially sanctioned use of demeaning terms to refer to specific social groups. Personal covert violence occurs when we try to dismiss opponents by calling them ‘morons’. Institutional covert violence is practiced when members of the middle or upper class dismiss the poor by calling them ‘lazy’. Not only do governments refer to their adversaries as a ‘peril’, they also demean the politically less powerful within the society. (Those less powerful in society are not always less numerous, as is typically the case with women.) Within moral philosophy Joel Feinberg has distinguished hurt and harm, and Stephanie Ross and others have applied this distinction to language. Sometimes, when we are conscious of the negative effects of terms, words hurt us. Such hurt is equally real in individual verbal insults and institutionally sanctioned demeaning terminology. It usually hurts a child when someone yells, ‘You’re ugly!’ And it often hurts women when they are called ‘chicks’, ‘babes’, or ‘foxes’. Language that hurts us is termed ‘offensive’. On other occasions, when we are not conscious of the negative effects, words can still harm us. Such harm also occurs on both individual and institutional levels. We may not see the harm when someone calls adult females ‘girls’, rather than ‘women’ unless we hear them refer to adult males of the same age as ‘men’ and not ‘boys’. Inhabitants of Africa may accept their nations as ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘less civilized’ until they learn about the imposition of colonial rule and Eurocentric values. Language that harms us is termed ‘oppressive’. This distinction between offensive and oppressive language is found on all levels of the continuum of linguistic violence that includes subtle, abusive, and grievous forms. Subtle forms range from children’s jokes to official languages. Even in the innocent manifestations of a child’s

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attempt to make fun of adult authority figures, children’s jokes involve issues of power. At other times, the linguistic violence of children’s jokes is hardly subtle and contributes to prejudicial attitudes that subsequently can be directed against an ‘enemy’. Various questions and answers can be altered in order to make fun of almost any racial, ethnic, religious, or national group. For example, a child may ask, ‘‘How do you break a _ _ _ _ ‘s neck?’’ The answer, regardless of the group cited (such as Pole or Turk), is, ‘‘Shut the toilet seat.’’ Such humor contributes to later acceptance of physical violence against these types of persons. Within a particular country, the linguistic violence of an official language is generally more subtle to those who have mastered it than to those who have not. Internationally, official languages are another unfortunate legacy of colonialism, namely, alien languages along with alien governments were imposed onto indigenous peoples. The pains of colonization and the subsequent strife associated with independence are reflected in such classic works as Tunisian Albert Memmi’s The colonizer and the colonized and Algerian Frantz Fanon’s The wretched of the Earth and in numerous lesser-known literary works such as Nigerian Kole Omotoso’s Just before dawn. Abusive forms are especially conspicuous in racist, sexist, heterosexist, and classist discourse. Abusive forms rely on offensive terms and frequently aim to hurt the individuals at whom they are directed. Both the practitioners and victims are more likely to be aware of the degrading intent of these forms of communication. Generally, when a heterosexual man calls a lesbian a ‘dyke’ both individuals know that the man aims to hurt the woman’s feelings. Moreover, many of these abusive terms recur within warist discourse in demeaning references to the enemy or even members of one’s own military who are judged negatively. Vietnamese have been referred to as ‘gooks’. Soldiers exhibiting fear are often called ‘sissies’ or ‘girls’. Of course, just as many speakers of an official language do not see how it is oppressive, many individuals who employ and some who hear and read racist, sexist, and heterosexist language are unaware of its oppressive nature. With the distinction between oppressive and offensive, one can demonstrate how a form of discourse may be oppressive even though not all individuals experience it as offensive. Grievous forms are found in many expressions of warist discourse, including nuclear discourse, totalitarian language, and genocidal language. In nuclear discourse, ‘collateral damage’ refers to the thousands or even millions of civilians who would be the victims of nuclear strikes against military targets. Nazis used ‘special treatment’ instead of ‘execution’, while in Bosnia ‘ethnic cleansing’ referred to genocidal practices. Grievous forms often have the intent to silence or even eliminate an entire social group. Unfortunately, warist discourse represents one of the most globally intractable practices of linguistic violence. Warist discourse in its

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multifarious and nefarious manifestations leads to the killing of large numbers of people by organized groups, such as the state, subnational political organizations, and religious, racial, and ethnic groups. Linguistic Nonviolence Alternatively, whether we are conscious of their effects, terms can comfort and advantage us. Positively, language can comfort us when used to affirm diversity and achieve recognition. During the civil rights struggle, the phrase ‘black is beautiful’ expressed a growing sense of pride and self-affirmation among African-Americans. Some feminists responded to the infrequent citation of the accomplishments of women in our history textbooks by seeking to write ‘herstory’. Positive terms can advantage a social group even if its members do not always recognize that such terms function in this manner. As should be obvious, ‘linguistic nonviolence’ is the antonym to ‘linguistic violence’ as ‘peace’ is the antonym to ‘war’. Many times the first step in reducing linguistic violence is to simply refrain from the use of offensive and oppressive terms. However, linguistic nonviolence requires the availability of terms that affirm diversity. Moreover, these terms need to be ones that are understood by most citizens. A nuclear war could kill millions or even billions of people. However, critics of nuclear war can make their message rather obscure when they refer to ‘omnicide’ (the killing of all sentient life). ‘Linguistic alienation’, as Ferruccio Rossi-Landi has shown, refers to the situation in which individuals cannot understand a discourse in their own language because of the use of highly technical terms. Those seeking to change official designations run up against the danger that they will establish themselves as a specially trained elite who can lead the people. Vanguard parties can create linguistic alienation between themselves and the movements they seek to direct. For this reason, the practice of linguistic nonviolence requires the development of a broadly understood language of inclusion.

The Language of War The language of war, which frequently has truth as its first casualty, is an example of linguistic violence that functions to mask the reality of the violence that is occurring. Whenever truth is masked or distorted, communication is being used for manipulation. Such linguistic manipulation is episodic in many areas of social life, but it is constitutive of warist discourse. In The art of war, written in China over 2000 years ago and perhaps the oldest strategic text on war, Sun Tzu says: ‘‘All warfare is based on deception.’’ In History of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), Thucydides

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wrote the first extensive historical account of war. He may also be the first to observe how war negatively affects language and degrades human behavior. He states: ‘‘Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter.’’ Likewise, ‘‘moderation’’ became a ‘‘cloak for unmanliness,’’ ‘‘plotting’’ became ‘‘justifiable means of self-defense,’’ and ‘‘blood became a weaker tie than party.’’ In the twentieth century, the title of Phillip Knightley’s book on war correspondents, The first casualty, is based on US Senator Hiram Johnson’s 1917 statement, ‘‘the first casualty when war comes is truth.’’ The Use of Euphemisms for War Linguistic manipulation, like physical coercion, does violence. Nevertheless, most people who are subjected to physical coercion are conscious of the violence being done to them. In the case of linguistic manipulation, the harm done can escape those subjected to it unless they can find an independent basis for exposing the distortions to which they have been subjected. Often, persons who learn that they have been the victims of linguistic manipulation feel a sense of violation. They feel that someone has deceived them into adopting false beliefs. On the basis of these false beliefs, these victims typically have communicated and acted in ways that they subsequently regret. Some linguistic manipulation in warist discourse is unintentional and involves self-deception on the part of governmental and military officials. As occurs in many fields where individuals have to order or perform very unpleasant tasks, the use of euphemisms is prevalent. Official discourse about war makes extensive use of euphemisms. A linguistic alternative to the horrors of war is created in order to think, speak, and write about these events in an abstract or indirect way since it would otherwise be difficult to visualize graphically or justify logically what is actually taking place. Likewise, when the public hears and reads these euphemisms, they often do not realize what is really occurring. Warist discourse, in an important dimension of its linguistic manipulation, actually presents itself as a language of peace. ‘Pax Romano’ (Peace of Rome) stood for the military suppression of armed conflict throughout the Roman Empire. The medieval Truce of God (1041) limited warfare to specific times. The term ‘Peacekeeper’ refers to the MX missile, a nuclear weapon designed to contribute to a first-strike capability. The phrase ‘peace through strength’ really promotes a military buildup. While the totalitarian government in 1984 uses the slogan ‘Peace is War’, modern nations prefer to omit reference to war whenever possible. Then, when war occurs, the claim is sometimes made that it is ‘the war to end all wars’. So far, each such claim has turned out to be false. Not surprisingly, the rhetoric about war is divided between not only the former East–West Cold War but

also the continuing North–South conflict. While the North defended its ‘right’ to ‘protect’ its colonies, the colonized responded with arguments for the legitimacy of ‘wars of liberation’. Whether wars of liberation bring about an end to war, and there is scant evidence that they do, they are still wars and involve small-scale to largescale violence. Nevertheless, some supporters of wars of liberation prefer to forge an alternative language that refuses to designate their movements as violent since they are in response to practices of oppression. In his classic Pedagogy of the oppressed, Brazilian Paulo Freire contends violence has never been initiated by the oppressed and designates as ‘‘a gesture of love’’ the admittedly violent response of rebellion by the oppressed against the initial violence of oppressors. Such reversals in language are not confined to the distinction between colonial oppression and wars of liberation; it occurs within both types. Even within the latter, as Norwegian feminist Birgit Brock-Utne has shown, the language used to recruit women into wars of liberation is different from the reality of the roles assigned to these women as is illustrated in studies on such conflicts in Lebanon, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines. Scholars who have analyzed discourse about war, such as Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Haig Bosmajian, contend that language is corrupted in ways that make the cruelty, inhumanity, and horror of war seem justifiable. Language becomes a tool employed by political and military officials to make people accept what they would ordinarily repudiate if the true character were known. The language of war hinders civilians from recognizing that human beings are being mutilated, tortured, forcibly removed from their villages and hamlets, wounded, and killed. An aggressive attack by a squadron of airplanes that ordinarily would be called an ‘air raid’ is euphemistically referred to as a ‘routine limited duration protective reaction’. Defoliation of an entire forest is spoken of as a ‘resource control program’. ‘Pacification’ is used to label actions that involve entering a village, machine-gunning domesticated animals, setting huts on fire, rounding up all the men and shooting those who resist, and prodding and otherwise harming the elderly, women, and children. The human face of war is thus replaced by benign abstractions. At other times, the level of abstraction is so high that citizens do not even understand what officials are saying. In these cases, they suffer a type of linguistic alienation. What do officials mean when they refer to ‘the counterforce first-strike capability of a MIRVed ICBM facilitated by its low CEP’? Just as many people simply accept the advice of medical and legal professionals when they do not understand the technical jargon employed, even so many citizens are unable to challenge the military policies of leaders who rely on the technical vocabulary of modern warfare with its high incidence of acronyms and euphemisms.

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Wars are complex phenomena but they are often presented in very simplistic – even sloganistic – terms. One reason for conveying war by means of caricatures relates to the need by government officials to communicate with the masses in a manner that is succinct and persuasive. During the first Persian Gulf War, as George Lakoff and others have observed, the use of the ‘fairy tale’ motif was especially common. (This type of description is used for many wars.) At the time of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, the public was served up with a variety of metaphors that wove a classic fairy tale. In a land far, far away there lived an evil villain (Saddam Hussein) who had violated (invaded) an innocent victim (Kuwait) but a hero (the United States, along with its allies) would save the day by rescuing the victim and vanquishing the villain and restoring peace, justice, and tranquility. In terms of the metaphors used, the story is straightforward. A villain is vicious and lacks morality and rationality, while a hero is courageous and possesses both morality and rationality. Given this antithetical characterization, the public transfers to its leaders the view that heroes are not able to negotiate with villains; instead, they must defeat the ‘evil ones’. The public was familiar with the fairy-tale components of the alarm that was sounded; so, not much inclination was present to check the details. Of course, Kuwait was hardly an innocent victim given its practice at the time of lateral drilling into Iraqi oil fields and its long-standing oppression of women, and after the first Persian Gulf War the government of Kuwait did not exactly become a model democracy but continued as an oppressive monarchy. Metaphors dispense with such details in the way they limit and simplify our perceptions. We recognize that in wars large numbers of people are killed. The research of scholars like Lakoff also brings to our attention the ways in which metaphors kill or, more precisely, when backed up by the weapons of war, metaphors kill and often on a very large scale. Without critical analyses, many people do not realize that they are relying on an unconscious system of metaphors in thinking about international affairs. In addition to the fairy-tale metaphor, many more metaphors are used to describe war, such as the state-as-house metaphor and the state-as-person metaphor. The state-as-house metaphor leads to further metaphors connected with protecting our home. After 9/ 11, to protect the ‘home’ that is the United States, the US government declared the necessity of establishing an Office of Homeland Security. A house is also a container. During the Cold War, the US government tried to prevent harm to the US homeland by developing a strategic doctrine of Containment of the Soviet Union and its allies. This metaphor of state-as-house was used differently in the 1980s when some strategists feared newer Soviet weapons capabilities. They declared that a ‘window of vulnerability’ existed. What do you do in a house when

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you have an open window that makes the residents of the house vulnerable? You close the window. These metaphors simultaneously obscure our noticing some features of the situation while exaggerating other aspects. Such features are well illustrated in the state-asperson metaphor. The citizens of any nation live in the same ‘house’, and the ‘head of the household’ runs this ‘house’. While such metaphors provide a way of seeing how authority and rule are structured in a society, they obscure the ways in which citizens of most countries are far more diverse than members of most households and the ways in which the head of state is assisted by a vast set of offices and personnel and the ways in which the head of state possesses far more power and capacity to exercise force than the head of a household. Beyond the need to expose how current metaphors distort our language and communication is the need to provide new and more enlightening metaphors designed to reduce the distortions of the language of war. For example, when governmental officials declare that we should be alarmed about a ‘window of vulnerability’, one can counter with another metaphor that reveals what the official metaphor obscures, namely, we are deceiving ourselves in being concerned about an ‘open window’ when we live a in ‘roofless house’. No nation has yet been able to develop a defensive system that adequately undercuts the reality of mutual assured destruction (MAD); all nations are vulnerable. Belief in ‘invulnerability’ is a myth. No ‘house’ can be made completely safe. While many nations are capable of inflicting great harm on their adversaries, they cannot fully prevent harm, even great harm, from being inflicted on their own ‘household’. The Use of Propaganda in War Linguistic misrepresentation is not always unintentional. Propaganda and brainwashing seek to manipulate the minds and behaviors of the citizenry. In times of war, each of the nations involved presents its adversary as an evil enemy and itself as the embodiment of good. All parties employ linguistic misrepresentations of themselves and their adversaries. Nevertheless, an ally in one war may be the enemy in the next, while the enemy in one war may become an economic partner in the postwar global market. For this reason, in The republic, Plato cautioned over 2000 years ago that we should be careful about calling another people an ‘enemy’, since wars do not last forever and eventually they may again become our friends. Failure to recognize that the designation of a nation as one’s ‘enemy’ is transitory leads to the need for a kind of Orwellian ‘doublethink’ that allows one to ‘forget’ that current allies were former enemies and vice versa. Orwell has observed that political speech and writing often intentionally defend the indefensible. He gives several examples. In order to defend British rule in India,

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Soviet purges, and the United States’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, officials resorted to bizarre arguments that contradicted the purported aims and values of their governments. These intentional uses of euphemisms, question-begging terminology, vagueness, and outright falsity demonstrate that when Orwell presented Newspeak in his novel 1984, he was not referring to a merely fictive possibility. More recent efforts in the treatment of the language of war and peace that make useful contributions include works by Paul Chilton and George Lakoff, Noam Chomsky, Jean Baudrillard, J. Fisher Solomon, Christopher Norris, Haig Bosmajian, Carol Cohn, Robert Holmes, Trudy Govier, William Gay, John Wesley Young, Slavoj Zizek, Christina Scha¨ffner and Anita Wender, Teun Van Dijk, Philip Tayler, and Steven Pooler. Chilton, Lakoff, and Chomsky have provided widely disseminated and discussed critiques of the language of war. Baudrillard, on the other hand, has used his version of postmodernism to deny that the first Gulf War took place (in the sense conveyed by the media), while Norris has pointed out the dangers of such excesses in postmodernism for attaining a needed level of critical assessment of military operations that did in fact take place. In a similar vein, J. Fisher Solomon has criticized Jacques Derrida’s argument that current weapons of mass destruction undercut viewing the arms race in real-world, practical terms. Solomon rejects Derrida’s characterization of nuclear war as ‘‘fabulous’’ and ‘‘fictive’’ in ways similar to Norris’s critique of Baudrilliard’s claim that the Gulf War did not take place. Norris, in fact, sees as related and equally suspect various aspects of the postmodernism and neopragmatism of Stanley Fish, Richard Rorty, and Francis Fukuyma. In this regard, he sees Fukuyma’s characterization of the first Gulf War as a ‘‘wretched anachronism’’ as an unwillingness to let facts get in the way of his thesis of the end of history. Bosmajian provided one of the early, broad surveys of the language of oppression, showing similarities in racist language (against Native Americans, African-Americans, and Jews) and sexist language to the language of war. Holmes and Govier have analyzed the use of the term ‘terrorism’ and related terms; while the work of Holmes precedes the events of 9/11 and the work of Govier follows these events, their careful reflections on the language used in discussing terrorism are remarkably similar. Cohn and Gay have given particular attention to nuclear discourse, while Young and Zizek have focused more generally on totalitarian discourse. Scha¨ffner and Wender have looked broadly at the relation between language and peace, while Van Dijk has given much focused consideration to elitist discourse and Taylor has done likewise with media communication. Steven Pooler clears some of the clutter when he explains how phrases such as ‘the war on terror’ sneak into a highly charged political position. He uses ‘Unspeak’ for discourse that tries to say something without saying it thereby avoiding getting into an argument and needing to

justify this position. In so doing, Unspeak silences opposing points of view by presenting itself at the outset as the only way of looking at a problem. Poole dismantles propaganda that has been used to support the ‘war on terror’ and the war in Iraq. He aims to expose how politicians manipulate language to justify their actions and to urge the media to reject such discourse by refusing to parrot the loaded talking points of politicians. In some cases, linguistic misrepresentation stretches all the way to the ‘figurative lie’. This term, coined by Berel Lang, refers to descriptions of war that actually contradict the realities of war, as occurs in the extremes of genocidal and nuclear discourse. The Nazis used syntax, grammar, and literary figures of speech as instruments for political ends, namely, genocide. This instrumental approach to language detaches language from history and moral judgment, converting it into a mere technique in the assertion of political power. Endlosung (Final Solution) both disguises and reveals (at least to the people in the know) the plan of murder. The term reveals that there is a problem that must be solved and in a conclusive manner. Endlosung conceals that the action denoted will be the annihilation of all Jews and other ‘culture destroyers’, including homosexuals and Gypsies, rather than actions like their deportation or resettlement. While it is possible to speak of a concrete event as the ‘final solution’ to a problem, it is contradictory and duplicitous to designate the concrete action of murdering millions of individuals abstractly as a ‘final solution’. The language of genocide simultaneously promulgates and hides the intentional willing of evil. Thus, the language of genocide functions as an instrument of domination and as a mechanism of deceit: the language of genocide facilitates large-scale killing, yet denies the social reality of its intent and consequence. Nuclear discourse, by personifying weapons while dehumanizing people, provides another illustration of the figurative lie. The names given to the first nuclear bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, convey that these vehicles of destruction are living persons and males. In fact, before the first atomic device was detonated in the Trinity test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, its inventors said they hoped the ‘baby’ would be a boy. By implication, as Carol Cohn has observed, if the bomb had been a dud it would have been termed a ‘girl’. Later, the expression ‘losing her virginity’ was used to refer to India’s entry into the nuclear club, while ‘being deflowered’ is used to refer to any country that enters this elite club. Such warist discourse banters in public a figurative lie that simultaneously substitutes birth for death and degrades women. Imposition of Warist Discourse as Legitimate Finally, governmental and military officials are able to impose their form of discourse as the legitimate one and, thereby, co-opt efforts by critics of war. Nations

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typically cultivate among citizens a belief in their legitimacy. In times of ‘national emergency’, open opposition to the ‘official version’ of events is often forbidden and may be severely punished. Citizens who question the ‘official version’ are labeled ‘traitors’ and ‘fellow travelers’ with the enemy of the state. One common fallacy is termed ‘special pleading’. This fallacy occurs when similar objects or actions are categorized in negative terms when describing one’s opponent and in positive terms when one provides self-descriptions. At the time of the first Persian Gulf War, the United States employed terms like ‘murder’, ‘theft’, and ‘rape’ to portray Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but did not use words like ‘murder’, ‘assault’, and ‘arson’ to characterize the US military intervention. Government officials accuse terrorist groups of developing and even using weapons of mass destruction, and some regard the attacks of 11 September as ones involving such weapons. In this context, what may need examination is not so much what is said as what is not said. In this regard, one needs to consider past, current, and future military actions by the United States and other countries in relation to the same definition of what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction. Fundamentally, weapons of mass destruction are instruments of terror. As moral philosophers have noted (Robert Holmes, in particular), both subnational groups and governments can resort to the use of weapons of terror. Clearly, wars generally kill far more people than do what are generally termed terrorist attacks. Principles of just war forbid the intentional killing of noncombatants. Nevertheless, especially since the obliteration bombing (strategic bombing) in Europe and against Japan at the close of World War II, cities and their civilian populations have become targets. So, one of the important ethical lessons about weapons of mass destruction is that they can be (and have been) used by individuals and by governments. In this regard, the difference is not so much of kind as it is of degree. The end is the same in the terrorist acts of individuals and governments; the goal is to cause fear among civilians by doing violence to them or threatening them with violence. Given the range of linguistic use, the term ‘weapons of mass destruction’ needs some special analysis. When we refer to weapons of mass destruction, we are drawing on a condemnatory connotation. Moreover, the prospect for and reality of special pleading in using this term needs to be highlighted. For example, the United States presented its use of nuclear weapons in World War II as a means to end the war and save lives, yet the United States condemns as weapons of mass destruction ones with far less destructive capability when they are being developed by ‘rogue’ states or terrorist groups that are perceived as a military threat. While searching in Iraq for what the US government proclaimed as ‘the most dangerous weapons’, namely, weapons of mass destruction, the United States regarded its own vast nuclear arsenal as a ‘deterrent force’.

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In another of his examples of lexicalization as a common form of ideological expression, Van Dijk has noted how the weapons of the enemy are typically described as ‘catastrophic and cruel’, while one’s own weapons are viewed as having a ‘peaceful’ nature. Perhaps, the time has come to realize that most violence, terrorism, and war needs to be condemned regardless of whether we term the instruments of violence, terrorism, and war as weapons of mass destruction. Even when people think about terrorism, they generally fail to recognize that this term has two major forms. ‘Enforcement terror’ is a reign of terror committed by an incumbent power (e.g., the balance of terror during the Cold War), while ‘agitational terror’ is a siege of terror committed by an insurgent power (e.g., purportedly al Qaida in relation to the attacks of 11 September). Most citizens and political analysts focus on insurgent over incumbent terrorism. In part, institutionalized forms have less news value and are more dangerous and difficult to report. Moreover, states seem more predictable and rational, while members of insurgent groups appear to be more irrational and to act in a more random manner. All this fits nicely with a villain view of evil. Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, most Americans now support increased surveillance of individuals who are Arab or Muslim already in or trying to enter the United States. The media aided government in fostering this reaction by quickly simplifying the attacks onto an individual villain – Osama bin Laden. The United States, which used to charge the Soviets with the cult of personality, has long tended to have a villain of the decade. Previous villains include Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Min, Qaddafi, and Khomeini. Such a villain view of threats to security forgets that evil is far too extensive to be personified in one person, let alone the fact that discourse about ‘good versus evil’ is more characteristic of Manichaeanism than the Judeo–Christian–Islamic traditions. Manichaeanism makes an individual or group all good or all evil, whereas the Judeo–Christian–Islamic traditions view all persons as at least occasionally falling short or sinning as well as being able to act righteously. The fallaciousness of the popular response should be obvious to anyone who has studied Critical Thinking. Stereotyping Arabs and Muslims as terrorists is an unfortunate, but far too common, ‘hasty generalization’. Worse still is the willingness to subject such individuals to a type of ‘ethnic profiling’ that makes ‘racial profiling’, by comparison, almost seem less unacceptable than it is. To those too quick to point a finger of blame, Robert Holmes observes that any people who are sufficiently desperate are capable of engaging in terrorism, and, likewise, any government that is sufficiently unscrupulous is also capable of engaging in terrorism. Not so surprisingly, the fairly-tale approach to justifying military intervention was used again for the second Persian Gulf War, and also not so surprisingly, at least

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initially, its use largely worked in the United States despite shifting contentions on the danger and minimal international support for a largely US invasion. Nevertheless, almost immediately, several scholars undertook critical discourse analyses. Consider the following examples. The ‘coalition of the willing’ referred almost exclusively to US and British military forces. The ‘shock and awe’ campaign referred to large-scale bombing of densely populated cities. The claims by US governmental officials that ‘the ground war is over’ and ‘hostilities have come to an end’ reveal that the official ‘announcing’ of the end of a war and the terminating of lethal battles are quite distinct. In what is supposedly postwar Iraq, the meaning of Operation Enduring Freedom seems rather far removed from typical associations of freedom with at least tranquility if not also justice. At the extreme, officials use warist discourse as an authoritarian instrument. When Quincy Wright referred to the totalitarianization of war in the twentieth century, he was thinking more about how most sectors of civil society, along with military units, are recruited into supporting military efforts. The twentieth century made equally clear how governments and subnational groups have turned to ‘totalitarian language’ as well in their efforts to ‘win’ the hearts and minds of the masses in support of their political agendas. In these endeavors they have relied extensively on the instruments of mass communication as well as research in psychology to significantly increase the degree of control that can be exercised over the mind by verbal means. Nevertheless, as John Wesley Young has shown, the language of totalitarianism practiced in the twentieth century has had only limited success in achieving the goal of thought control. This failure of the attempt at linguistic control by totalitarian regimes provides significant evidence that the quest for linguistic emancipation, including a language of peace that gives expression to the deepest desires of humanity, is not quixotic. Endeavors to establish a legitimate discourse about war, to propound an acceptable theory of war, have been ongoing in global civilizations. From Sun Tzu’s The art of war in ancient China to Carl von Klausewitz’s On war in nineteenth-century Europe, the policy debate has not been on whether war is moral or whether it should be waged, but on how to wage war effectively. Since the advent of nuclear weapons strategists have pulled back from the concept of ‘total war’ in favor of the concept of ‘limited war’, but they have not yet called for an ‘end to war’. The Hague Conferences, the Geneva Conventions, the League of Nations, and now the United Nations put forth principles that seek, though often ineffectively, to limit war and to put moral constraints on the conduct of war. However, official attempts at the abolition of war, such as the Kellog–Briand Pact, have allowed for some exceptions, such as in response to ‘wars of aggression’ or to

intervene in ‘certain regions of the world, the welfare and integrity of which constitute a special and vital interest for our peace and safety’.

The Language of Peace The language of peace is an important component in the pursuit of peace and justice. The language of peace can be an example of linguistic nonviolence and can contribute to forging an understood language of inclusion. However, just because the language of war is not being used, a genuine language of peace is not necessarily present. The language of peace, like the condition of peace, can be negative or positive. ‘Negative peace’ refers to the temporary absence of actual war or the lull between wars, while ‘positive peace’ refers to the negation of war and the presence of justice. The Language of Negative Peace The language of negative peace can actually perpetuate injustice. A government and its media may cease referring to a particular nation as ‘the enemy’ or ‘the devil’, but public and private attitudes may continue to foster the same, though now unspoken, prejudice. When prejudices remain unspoken, at least in public forums, their detection and eradication are made even more difficult. Of course, just as legal or social sanctions against hate speech may be needed to stop linguistic attacks in the public arena, even so, in order to stop current armed conflict, there may be a need not only for an official peace treaty but also a cessation in hostile name-calling directed against an adversary of the state. However, even if a language of negative peace is necessary, it is not sufficient. Arms may have been laid down, but they can readily be taken up again when the next military stage in a struggle begins. Likewise, those who bite their tongues to comply with the demands of political correctness are often ready to lash out vitriolic epithets when these constraints are removed. Thus, in the language of negative peace, the absence of verbal assaults about ‘the enemy’ merely marks a lull in reliance on warist discourse. Even when the language of peace is used it is usually the language of negative peace. Anita Wenden has illustrated this point in her analysis of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. Between 1901 and 1993, 63 of 90 of the prizes (70%) went to endeavors for negative peace. Consider just a few of the recipients of Nobel Peace Prize who, at times, advanced at most negative peace. In 1973 the prize went to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. In 1978 the prize went to Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin. In 1994 the prize went to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin. While each of these individuals in their later years did seek to advance peace processes

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that sought an end to armed conflict (the lull between wars of negative peace), several, at least earlier in their careers, were involved with planning and waging wars and supporting and even conducting terrorist acts. Wenden notes that only with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Amnesty International in 1977 did the Nobel committee recognize efforts for peace that aimed at more than the mere absence of war. Immanuel Kant had a similar distinction in mind when he contrasted a ‘treaty of peace’ with a ‘league of peace’. Kant was concerned with the conditions that make peace possible. He did not want genuine peace to be confused with a mere ‘suspension of hostilities’. The latter is the pseudo-peace of a ‘treaty of peace’ (pactum pacis) which merely ends a particular war and not the state of war. Genuine peace, for Kant, must be founded and is impossible if war can be waged without the consent of citizens. Kant presumed that, for this end, republican states are preferred. He termed a genuine peace, one that negates war, a ‘league of peace’ (foedus pacificwn). Even if genuine peace is unlikely, Kant stresses the importance of its possibility; otherwise, if we knew we absolutely could not achieve it, any duty to try to advance genuine peace would be eliminated. From the perspective of Mohandas Gandhi, much discourse about peace, as well as the rhetoric supporting wars of liberation, places a primacy on ends over means. When the end is primary, nonviolence may be practiced only so long as it is effective. For Gandhi and the satyagrahi (someone committed to the pursuit of truth and the practice of nonviolence) the primary commitment is to the means. The commitment to nonviolence requires that the achievement of political goals be secondary. These goals must be foregone or at least postponed when they cannot be achieved nonviolently. The nature of the language of negative peace becomes especially clear when, within social movements facing frustration in the pursuit of their political goals, a division occurs between those ready to abandon nonviolence and those resolute in their commitment to it. The resolute commitment to nonviolence was clear in the teachings and practices of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers and in the recent courageous behavior of other practitioners of nonviolent civil disobedience, including Vaclav Havel in Eastern Europe, Mubarak Awad in the Middle East, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and thousands of ordinary citizens in the Baltic republics, China, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the West Bank, and the Ukraine. The Language of Positive Peace The language of positive peace facilitates and reflects the move from a lull in the occurrence of violence to its negation. The establishment of a language of positive peace requires a transformation of cultures oriented to

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war. The discourse of positive peace, to be successful, must include a genuine affirmation of diversity both domestically and internationally. The effort to establish the language of positive peace requires the creation of a critical vernacular, a language of empowerment that is inclusive of and understood by the vast array of citizens. The effort to eliminate linguistic alienation and linguistic violence is part of a larger struggle to reduce what Norwegian Johan Galtung calls ‘‘cultural violence.’’ For Galtung, ‘cultural violence’ occurs when aspects of culture such as religion, ideology, language, art, and science are used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence. The critique of the language of war and the promotion of the language of positive peace are simultaneous contributions to the quest for societies in which human emancipation, dignity, and respect are not restricted on the basis of irrelevant factors like gender, race, or sexual orientation. Why is it that in some regional newspapers in which we still sometimes find references to a ‘black gunman’ or a ‘black rapist’ we do not find references to a ‘Caucasian gunman’ or a ‘white rapist’? Why do we, however, sometimes hear about a ‘lady doctor’ or a ‘female pilot’? And why is the union of same-sex partners often termed a ‘gay marriage’ or a ‘lesbian commitment ceremony’? We can begin to see the harm being done when we reflect on the fact that, in relation to use of adjectives, reference to a person being ‘white’ is sometimes omitted, while reference to a person being ‘female’ or ‘gay’ is sometimes included. Regardless of race, a rapist is a rapist; regardless of gender, a physician is a physician. Despite continuing legal and official restrictions based on orientation, a marriage is a marriage. Similarly, as long as nationstates persist in legitimating some forms of military combat, we will continue, in these cases, to hear a military campaign referred to as a ‘just war’, but regardless of any rationales, a war is a war. Legally and officially, social discrimination based on race and gender is prohibited, and a similar shift is beginning to occur in relation to sexual orientation. But a ban on the use of military force is a long way off. Regardless of the stage of social progress on these issues, there is an ongoing need to expose all forms of discriminatory language that legitimates harm. Among recent works, Trudy Govier has written an especially important book analyzing discourse connected to terrorism in the post-9/11 environment. Each chapter of her book, A delicate balance: What philosophy can tell us about terrorism, provides critical discourse analysis on a central term. She covers topics such as ‘vulnerability’, ‘victims’, ‘evil’, ‘revenge’, ‘courage’, ‘vindication’, and ‘hope’. Consider a few examples of the type of critical discourse analysis that she provides. In treating ‘victims’, she is careful to distinguish the sympathy victims deserve from presuming that victims have special moral insight. In analyzing ‘hope’, she is careful to note that, rather than being based on certainty or even confidence, ‘hope’ is

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based on positive possibilities. She ends by noting, ‘‘Living as political beings requires the hope that better things may come.’’ Various activities promote the pursuit of respect, cooperation, and understanding needed for positive peace. These activities go beyond the mere removal from discourse of adjectives that convey biases based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. Beyond meetings among political leaders of various nations, these activities include cultural and educational exchanges, trade agreements, and travel exchanges. We can come to regard races, sexes, and cultures as making up the harmonies and melodies that together create the song of humanity. Just as creative and appreciated cooks use a wide variety of herbs and spices to keep their dishes from being bland, so too can we move from an image of a culture with diverse components as a melting pot to one of a stew which is well seasoned with a variety of herbs and spices. Or, to employ another nonviolent metaphor, the garden of humanity will best flourish when composed of multiple plots with the varieties of life co-mingling and co-inhabiting. Despite the primacy of the history of warfare in textbook histories of civilizations, the desire for peace and even elaborate discourses on plans for peace have been made persistently and eloquently throughout human history. In his study of primitive war, Harry Turney-High found that from a psychological perspective peace is the normal situation even among warlike peoples. In his study of the idea of peace in classical antiquity, Gerardo Zampaglione found that from the Pre-Socratic philosophers through Roman and Hellenistic writers to medieval Christian theologians, the quest for peace has been at the center of many artistic and literary movements. Of course, this influence had very little ‘policy sway’ in the decision making of those who exercise political power. Some interesting recent developments in peace activism, including contributions to the language of positive peace, have occurred in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. Since 1963 the ‘engaged Buddhism’ of Thich Quang Due has spawned socially and politically engaged versions of Buddhism in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Japan. Central figures and movements include Thich Nhat Hanh in Vietnam, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Sulak Sivaraksa in Thailand, A. T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka, and Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai Movement in Japan. These movements also include two Nobel Peace laureates, Tenzin Gyatso in 1989 (the fourteenth Dalai Lama) and Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 (the Burmese opposition leader). As Christopher Queen and Sallie King have noted, these movements have reinterpreted or augmented traditional Buddhist discourse in order to emphasize their common practice of nonviolence and quest for global peace. Likewise, though not as nonviolent in principle or in practice, liberation theology has had a major impact in Latin America, spawning socially and politically engaged

movements among Roman Catholics. Beginning in 1973 with Gustavo Gutierrea, a Peruvian Roman Catholic priest, the leading exponents of this Movement include Leonardo Boff in Brazil and Juan Luis Segundo in Uruguay. More recently, Emmanuel Martey has applied some of these principles to African theology. Further examples can be found in the ways other religious and philosophical traditions in many parts of the world have also reinterpreted or augmented their traditional forms of discourse in order to emphasize pursuing, in this world, goals of peace and justice. Several attempts have even been made to spread the use of nonviolent discourse throughout the culture. The Quakers’ Alternatives to Violence project teaches linguistic tactics that facilitate the nonviolent resolution of conflict. Following initial endeavors at teaching these skills to prisoners, this project has been extended to other areas. Related practices are found in peer mediation and approaches to therapy that instruct participants in nonviolent conflict strategies. Within educational institutions, increased attention is being given to Gandhism in order to convey nonviolent tactics as alternatives to reliance on the language and techniques of the military and to multiculturalism as a means of promoting an appreciation of diversity that diminishes the language and practice of bigotry and ethnocentrism. At the international level, UNESCO’s Culture of Peace project seeks to compile information on peaceful cultures. Even though most of these cultures are preindustrial, their practices illustrate conditions that promote peaceful conflict resolution. This project, which initially assisted war-torn countries in the effort to rebuild (or build) a civic culture, can now be applied even more broadly. The diversity of movements for positive peace that have forged new styles of nonviolent communication and sociopolitical engagement is so great in fact that some system of classification is needed. Zampaglione divides the movements he surveys in the ancient world into four forms of pacifism: mystical (Leo Tolstoy, Romain Rolland), philosophical (St. Augustine, Abbe de Saint-Pierre, Kant, Bertrand Russell, and John Dewey), sociological (Auguste Comte, Henri Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier), and political (Bohemian King George of Podebrad, Maximilien de Bethume due de Sully). Duane Cady distinguishes deontological pacifism that is based on a commitment to principles, such as the rejection of violence, from consequentialist pacifism that is based on an assessment of the results of actions, such as the destruction of war. Deontological pacifism ranges from the absolute form, in which individuals refuse to resort to any use of violence, to cases in which nonlethal force and even lethal violence may be used by individuals who accept personal responsibility for their actions. Consequentialist pacifism ranges from cases in which our knowledge is simply too limited to judge whether resorting to arms is justified to cases based on our knowledge that the technology of war make the results too grim

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and on the simple pragmatic conclusion that wars generally do more harm than good. On some occasions, those seeking a language of positive peace fall silent at least briefly, especially after the occurrence of war. Kant suggests that after any war a day of atonement is appropriate in which the ‘victors’ ask for forgiveness for the ‘great sin’ of the human race, namely, the failure to establish a genuine and lasting peace. Immediately following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Albert Camus advised that this event called for much reflection and ‘‘a good deal of silence.’’ At other times, advocates of positive peace are compelled to break the silence in order to respond to injustice. Often silence is violence; frequently, unless we break the silence, we are being complicitous to the violence of the situation, whether of physical or linguistic violence. The silence surrounding child abuse, partner abuse, social discrimination, prisoner torture, and international injustice is all too pervasive. However, in breaking the silence, our aim should be to avoid counter-violence, in its physical forms and in its verbal forms. Genuine peacemaking and efforts to forge an understood language of inclusion occur between silence and violence. The challenge is finding effective, nonviolent means of breaking the silence and giving voice to the interests of the oppressed. In this regard, while adhering to principles of nonviolence, as Gene Sharp has noted, various levels of protest, noncooperation, and even intervention can be pursued. In these ways, the language of positive peace has a variety of correlative nonviolent actions by means of which to continue politics by the same means – by more intensive means of diplomacy rather than turning to war, which von Klausewitz defined as the pursuit of ‘‘politics by other means.’’ A couple of recent works advance the language of positive peace in important ways. Ellen Gorsevski contends that nonviolent rhetoric has been largely overlooked but can support conflict transformation of contemporary political communication. She analyzes, for example, the pragmatic nonviolence of Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov and the visual rhetoric of Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Gorsevski also addresses how conflicts can be understood, prevented, managed, or reduced through the use of peace-minded rhetorical techniques. In another recent work, Marshall Rosenberg, an American psychologist, introduced the distinction between the Giraf-language and its opposite the Wolf-language. This distinction has some parallels to what Carol Gilligan calls an ethics of care that is oriented to relations and an ethics of justice that is oriented to procedures. The Giraf-language is used when one wishes to listen to feelings and values that the other is trying to express. The goal is to make contact with the other and reach a solution on a common basis. The language of peace is similar to the Giraf-language, while the language of war is similar to the Wolf-language. Because those who use the Wolflanguage criticize, blame, and scold the other and insist

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on proving their position to be right the outcome may be conflict resolution through violence or war rather than through mediation and diplomacy. Rosenberg also has established the Center for Nonviolent Communication in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His book of the same title explores the fundamental aspects of human needs, desires, judgment, and empathy and explains why techniques of nonviolent communication work. He argues that the key technique is the use of empathy, because when those in conflict with you feel that you understand them and are trying to feel what they feel, they are more likely to speak honestly with you to resolve conflict. These techniques are important contributions to the language of positive peace. Another way to begin forging a language of positive peace is through the use of peace poetry. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has a website with a variety of peace poems that begin the articulation of a language of positive peace. They also have the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award. This annual award encourages poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace. In addition, the World Peace Society maintains a database on peace poetry. The language of positive peace is democratic rather than authoritarian, analogical rather than monological, receptive rather than aggressive, meditative rather than calculative. The language of positive peace is not passive in the sense of avoiding engagement; it is pacific in the sense of seeking to actively build lasting peace and justice. The language of positive peace, a genuinely pacific discourse, provides a way of perceiving and communicating that frees us to the diversity and open-endedness of life rather than the sameness and finality of death. The language of positive peace can provide the communicative means to overcome linguistic violence and linguistic alienation. Pacific discourse, in providing an alternative to the language of war and even to the language of negative peace, is a voice of hope and empowerment. See also: Peace Culture

Further Reading Baudrillard, J. (1995). The Gulf War did not take place (trans. Patton, P.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Baudrillard, J. (2002). The spirit of terrorism. London: Verso. Bolinger, D. (1980). Language – The loaded weapon: The use and abuse of language today. New York: Longman. Bosmajian, H. A. (1983). The language of oppression. Lanham, MD: University Press of American. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. (Thompson J. B. ed. trans. Raymond, G. and Adamson, M.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cady, D. L. (1989). From warism to pacifism: A moral continuum. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Chilton, P. (ed.) (1985). Language and the nuclear arms race: Nukespeak today. Dover, NH: Francis Pinter. Cohn, C. (1989). Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. In Russell, D. (ed.) Exposing nuclear phallacies, pp. 127–159. New York: Pergamon. Eriksen, T. H. (1992). Linguistic hegemony and minority resistance. Journal of Peace Research 3(3), 313–332.

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Gates, H. L. (1994). Speaking of race, speaking of sex: Hate speech, civil rights, and civil liberties. New York: University Press. Gay, W. C. (1987). Nuclear discourse and linguistic alienation. Journal of Social Philosophy 18(2), 42–49. Gay, W. C. (1991). Star wars and the language of defense. In Cady, D. L. and Werner, R. (eds.) Just war, nonviolence and nuclear deterrence: Philosophers on war and peace, pp. 245–264. Wakefield, NH: Longwood Academic. Gay, W. C. (1997). Nonsexist public discourse and negative peace: The injustice of merely formal transformation. The Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-King Society 9(1), 45–53. Gay, W. C. (1998). Exposing and overcoming linguistic alienation and linguistic violence. Philosophy and Social Criticism 24(2–3), 137–156. Gay, W. C. (1999). Linguistic violence. In Curtin, D. and Litke, R. (eds.) Institutional violence, pp. 13–34. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Gay, W. C. (1999). The practice of linguistic nonviolence. Peace Review 10(4), 545–547. Gay, W. C. (2004). Public policy discourse on peace. In Potter, N. N. (ed.) Putting peace into practice: Evaluating policy on local and global levels, pp. 5–17. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Gay, W. C. (2007). Supplanting linguistic violence. In O’Toole, L. L., Schiffman, J. R., and Kiter Edwards, M. L. (eds.) Gender violence: Interdisciplinary perspectives, pp. 435–442. New York: New York University Press. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gorsevski, E. W. (2004). Peaceful persuasion: The geopolitics of nonviolent rhetoric. New York: SUNY. Govier, T. (2002). A delicate balance: What philosophy can tell us about terrorism. Boulder, CO: Westview. Holmes, R. (1989). Terrorism and violence. In Kunkel, J. C. and Klein, K. H. (eds.) Issues in war and peace: Philosophical inquiries, pp. 115–127. Wolfeboro, NH: Longwood Academic.

Kant, I. (1983). Perpetual peace and other essays (trans. Humphrey, T.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Lakoff, G. (1991). Metaphor and war: The metaphor system used to justify war in the gulf. Peace Research 23, 25–32. Lang, B. (1988). Language and genocide. In Rosenberg, A. and Myers, G. E. (eds.) Echoes from the holocaust: Philosophical reflections on a dark time, pp. 341–361. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Poole, S. (2006). Unspeak: How words become weapons, how weapons become a message, and how that message becomes reality. New York: Grove Press. Queen, C. S. and King, S. B. (eds.) (1996). Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist liberation movements in Asia. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Rosenberg, M. B. (2003). Nonviolent communication: A language of life. Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press. Scha¨ffner, C. and Wenden, L. (eds.) (1995). Language and peace. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Tzu, S. (1963). The art of war (trans. Samuel, B. G.). London: Oxford University Press. Young, J. W. (1991). Totalitarian language: Orwell’s newspeak and its Nazi and communist antecedents. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Zampaglione, G. (1973). The idea of peace in antiquity (trans. Dunn, R.). University of Notre Dame Press.

Relevance Websites http://www.wagingpeace.org – Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award and Peace Poems, at Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. http://worldpeace.org.au – World Peace Society.

Linguistic Constructions of Violence, Peace, and Conflict C D Mortensen, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Linguistic Inheritance Selective Advantages of Complex Language Communication as Sense-Making Practice Miscommunication Symbolic Violence

Glossary Communication A process in which people interact with symbols and signs as mechanisms of mutual influence. Successful communication occurs insofar as one person is able to interpret the intended meanings of another person’s actions. Complex Language A system of communication, gestural, vocal, or written, based on an open and generative lexicon of several hundred signs amenable to meaningful combination and substitution. Human Interaction Reality-testing activities where elaborated forms of language use are subject to an

Ethnic Conflict Third-Party Intervention Alternatives to Violence Further Reading

uneven mix of facilitative and subversive influences. Face-to-face interactions have the greatest impact when the vocabulary of one person can be readily translated into the vocabulary of any other person. Public Conflict Struggle and strife over the distribution of scarce resources – material, economic, and symbol – in the human world. Symbolic Violence The symbolic anticipation or reconstruction of violent acts are intrinsic features of the violent actions themselves. Acts of physical violence emerge from acts of symbolic violence and vice versa.

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Human interactions are constructed out of the real-world conditions that surround them. The use of complex language enables human beings to transform the cultural inheritance and fulfill basic tasks associated with the need for individual security and collective well-being. Tension, strife, and strain are decisive factors in shaping the larger potential for violence, peace, or conflict to be altered or changed at various levels of social and cultural organization. At issue is the dynamic interplay between violent acts and the linguistic or communicative atmosphere that surround them. In effect, the routine misuse or abuse of language contributes greatly to the question of how well or badly human beings treat one another on a larger scale. Consequently, conditions of violence, peace, and conflict are fully manifest both as distinctive social achievements and as abstract objectives or universal aims. One implication is clear. If we want to make the world a better place, we must be prepared to ‘construct’ less violent means of cohabitation and communication. A central task is to trace shared effort and collective movement away from the radical disaffection implicit in acts of physical violence and toward their most plausible symbolic counterpart.

The Linguistic Inheritance On a small scale, human interactions have unintended consequences and social influences with global implications. On a larger scale, humans, unlike other animals, have well-developed capacities and abilities to transmit information, not just laterally, within generations, but vertically across generations. Intergenerational conflict is widespread and pervasive throughout the animal kingdom. Human conflict, it turns out, is simply the most complicated, obdurate, and potentially liberating source of conflict in the entire ecosystem. What stands out about so much small-scale human conflict is the sheer magnitude of what is possible. Struggle and strife permeate human interactions in distinctive ways that are quite peculiar to the species. It is apparent, therefore, that human beings are fully capable of anticipating, maintaining, and resolving a wider range of conflicts than is any other species on the Earth. In terms of the sheer magnitude of what is possible, human beings have an enormous competitive edge that gathers momentum over time. Evolution, after all, is a process in time in which possibility and potentiality are important factors in establishing the conditions necessary for future elaboration. What acquires momentum are the unique effects and outcomes that make the greatest difference as a consequence of their total individual and collective use. Ironically, the notion of humans having a ‘competitive edge’ over other species linguistically points to the very problem that all humans share. We have the power to preserve or destroy one another, and other living creatures, in large part because of the enormous power of language

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that, historically speaking, is quite a recent arrival on the human scene. Such a sweeping capacity to solve problems on a global scale cannot be separated from an equally great potential to wreak havoc and (re)produce some of the most horrendous problems on the Earth. Against a global backdrop of threat and insecurity, the power of ordinary language can be seen as both curse and cure. Questions of sustenance, security, and well-being go together, after all, because the human world is a material world and human beings are physical beings who have devised complex modes of language use, in some measure, as an expressive and communicative mechanism to facilitate individual reproduction and to enhance the perpetuation of the human race. As a consequence, public conflicts may be viewed as linguistic struggle and strife over the distribution of scarce resources – material, economic, and symbolic – in the human world. Personal conflicts are designed to facilitate the redistribution or reapportionment of whatever it is that humans may lack but nonetheless value. From a global standpoint, human knowledge is envisioned as transmitted largely through local and regional languages that remain somewhat obscure or incomprehensible to proximate neighbors or across cultural boundaries. Historical, regional, local, contextual, and situational differences are obviously significant, therefore, in shaping the selective and strategic nature of the speaking environment. Shared activities are observed for the effects they produce on others and are repeated thereafter for the sake of those effects. By these standards, human interactions are sustained in a global network of reality-testing ceremonies where elaborated forms of language use are subject to an uneven mix of ‘facilitative’ and ‘subversive’ influences. All acts of observation are taken to be intrinsic aspects of the definition of the total situation. Individual actions are subject to a wide range of (re)interpretation from a constantly changing or shifting array of reference points. The question of ‘what’ gets presented by one party is relative to ‘how’ it is to be represented by any other. In effect, language and culture act as twin filters to regulate and monitor emergent conceptions of individuality, separation, and the degree of relatedness of individuals to each other.

Selective Advantages of Complex Language Complex language gives prior and implicit conditions an explicit form of mutual expression. Matters of definition, classification, and explanation involve a dynamic and systemic process where each expressive action is embedded within a larger sequence that tends to establish new possibilities for further explication. Evolutionary change thereby promotes the use of activities outside the body for functions previously performed by the body itself. The larger process

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favors the gradual transformation of individually sustained activities into those shared with many others. In critical situations the selection of those who speak is largely at the expense of nonspeakers. What matters most is not simply the long-term survival of the most articulate but the slow disappearance of the most inarticulate members of society. Moreover, those who speak well acquire or derive a host of secondary advantages over those who speak less well. At stake is the total magnitude of what is lost or gained at each step of the way. Skillful use of complex language is highly advantageous. Differential sensitivity to slight variations in ordinary language use constitutes a basic human resource in matters to facilitate (1) constructive thinking; (2) adaptation to changing, unforeseen, adverse, or unwelcome circumstances; (3) cognitive growth; (4) the quality of life; and (5) the odds of survival. Conversely, the systemic misuse, abuse, or neglect of something at once so powerful and mysterious can be quite hazardous to one’s health and well-being. Complex language allows the highly skilled to sustain day-to-day interactions in ways that affect considerations of individual well-being in the short run and collective survival in the long run. This is the case not only for matters of nourishment and sustenance but also for those affecting questions of social status and mate selection, two major determinants of the ability of a speaker to reproduce at relational and collective levels of existence. In general, the wider the latitude of linguistic conditions that individuals are able to bring under a greater measure of volitional control, the more each party is placed in an enhanced position to maintain close and enduring ties with other people. Burling notes that when dealing with people, not material objects, we call upon our deepest and richest expressive and communicative resources. In matters involving personal cooperation, negotiation, competition, manipulation, and scheming to get our own way, subtle and intricate aspects of language become quite involving and highly salient. When disputes grow dangerous, we need language as an alternative to violent forms of retribution and reprisal. Burling concludes that language is both a ‘collective’ resource to enrich the quality of life and a widely acknowledged ‘personal’ resource to facilitate increasingly refined relations and vastly more complex organization of human society. By implication, anything that can be a resource for one person may be viewed as a liability by any other. The potential for language use to prevail over violent actions is largely mediated through the preservation and cultivation of life-affirming rituals. In this equation, humans realize the greater potential for physical violence to erupt and strive, therefore, to civilize, appease, or tame the larger destructive threat through the daily (re)invocation of a litany of life-affirming customs, practices, and projects. Rituals of conversation, in particular, provide a margin of open-ended and low-risk opportunity to reveal

or explore a rapid succession of aggressive urges and affectionate needs simultaneously. In this way, gradual and evolutionary change greatly expands the human capacity to love or hate in relation to who is identified as friend or foe or seen as located close or far away. Under favorable conditions, the threat of murder and sacrifice may be slowly displaced or otherwise deflected by a greater measure of collective participation in shared actions designed to transform high-risk violent urges into low-risk symbolic substitutes. In this way, the progressively refined use of language and communication is able to take some of the sting out of the greater potential for outbreaks of violence. Conversely, daily rituals, projects, and routines may reverse, sometimes in a regressive way, the slant or tone of the larger enterprise. The misuse and abuse of abstract concepts and categories, for example, may transgress and violate human sensibilities to the point of great injury and harm.

Communication as Sense-Making Practice Human beings are ordinarily quite sensitive to the larger issue of what transpires when things go quite well or turn out badly. Each individual has well-developed and deeply ingrained cognitive mechanisms to identify and categorize what sorts of things fit well together and what types do not. A succession of high-order achievements generally facilitates a greater measure of appreciation of the distinctive communicative value of what takes place. Favorable conditions are known to confer a broad range of secondary benefits. These include, among other things, greater personal sensitivity in the expenditure of scarce resources, willingness to contribute good ideas, faith in the pursuit of personal goals as worth the cost, and especially enhanced communication skills. By these standards, unfavorable conditions include any harsh, unsafe, degraded, unhealthy, or otherwise unsuitable environments for human language to multiply and flourish. Discursive practices, after all, do not spring out of thin air. A rich confluence of behavioral and environmental factors must surely come together in order to secure a state of harmony and accord for all who are concerned. Diminished resolve to tolerate a given tradition of dispute or discord may weaken the wider search for common ground. Moreover, severe distortions in thought and feeling may become deeply ingrained in protracted episodes of badly misinterpreted or misaligned forms of social action. An upsurge of unwanted internal interference and external distraction add further to the overall level of bias, static, and noise in the larger system. Favorable circumstances are shown to benefit core matters affecting the critical evaluation of personal performance in various public contexts. The distinction between

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‘effective’ and ‘faulty’ interaction is quite decisive. An effective way of life is associated with the all-inclusive ability to adapt to changing or unforeseen circumstance. Matters of efficacy in self-expression require the ability to construct reasonably clear definitions of what transpires and an inclusive sense of direction from one moment to the next. In sharp contrast are those shared actions with unclear definition (aimlessness, lack of focus) or direction (indecision). In comparative terms, a refined sense of personal clarity is useful in maintaining close ties with others. Likewise, the absence of these same qualities is conducive to the formation of weaker ties with others. Personal fluency registers in the ability to (1) express oneself clearly and (2) interpret others accurately. Faulty or ineffective courses of action imply a marked discrepancy between an individual’s capacity for selfexpression and subsequent evaluations of the performance in question by observers. A poor quality or low-level performance may be taken as weak, inarticulate, or misaligned or misapplied by one observer or another. In contrast, a good or efficacious performance may be viewed as strong, explicit, articulate, well aligned, or closely in synch (by some standard). At issue is what diverse types of personal actions are to be construed by others as well functioning, whole, and integrated, or else dismissed as fragmented, divided, and split. In sharp contrast, acts of successful communication occur whenever one person is able to understand the intended meanings of another person’s actions. In effect, the force of face-toface interactions has the greatest value when the vocabulary of any one person can be readily translated into that of any other person in the surrounding community. In the wider search for alternatives to violence, it is a matter of great consequence to be able to communicate effectively.

Miscommunication Nonetheless, there is a growing recognition that language use and communicative practice is pervasively and even intrinsically flawed, partial, and problematic. In human matters, no one is infallible. The margin of difference between success and failure is a matter of ‘more or less’ rather than ‘all or nothing’. In the moment-by-moment sequences of translation and interpretation, Grace shows why it becomes virtually impossible to discuss subject matter with anyone who has not previously been aware of the existence of that subject (qua subject). Since the rules of conventional language use are not identical from one speaker to another, each language has a unique potential for reality construction – each subtends a different set of potential realities. Skilled speakers are best prepared to engage in acts of mutual influence where the ground rules of situated

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knowledge are clearly specified or well known in advance. Routine interactions take place insofar as the parties in question are able to rely on a stable tradition of prior interactions for tacit guidance and direction in deciding what to do now or next. However, when dealing with highly unusual or uncertain circumstances, there may be a greater measure of difficulty in coping with rapidly increased levels of complexity, complication, and loss of control (long-term). Specific problems may pile up, one after another, without an equal number of solutions in sight. Problematic interactions produce complicated or unsettled questions. A problematic issue registers as an arch riding concern that does not lend itself to any apparent or self-evident means of articulation, course of action, or mode of resolution. The specific value of a problematic issue corresponds roughly with the total magnitude of what is at issue or construed as outstanding, unresolved, unsettled, or unknown. It is, in other words, a matter of the collective capacity to attend to the accumulation of unfinished discursive business. At no point is there any assurance that communication will be certain or relatively trouble free. By comparison, critical or urgent situations can be quite vexing to figure out when they operate at the outer limits of personal volition and conscious awareness. Invasive actions such as rape, natural disaster, death of family member, or serious illness threaten prior beliefs and entrenched behavioral patterns. In addition, severe trauma causes people to reconstruct belief systems and design alternative explanations for life-altering events that are not easy to comprehend, much less explain to anyone else. Chronic exposure to densely crowded living conditions is also likely to foster problematic circumstance, disrupt support networks, and cause residents to cope, in part, by withdrawing from one another. Exposure to longterm chronic stress has insidious effects on basic levels of accessible social support. Terminal physical illness, recurring mental illness, and personal bereavement are chronic stressors that often lead to the withdrawal of affection and support from ailing individuals – due simply to the sheer magnitude of debt and threat of overwhelming obligation. Likewise, outbreaks of conflict and violence, by nature, cause intense forms of cognitive disorientation in how the respective victims view themselves in the context of the emotional aftermath. Social networks of violent offenders may be disorganized and chaotic, sometimes almost as a way of life. Those who observe violent actions may react from a stance of emotional distance that does not permit full appreciation of the magnitude of the total burden. It can be extremely difficult for victims of misuse and abuse to make clear and coherent sense of terrifying events in ordinary terms that others can readily grasp and comprehend. Disturbances in social and personal relations affect the well-being of individuals and disrupt the preservation and conservation of communal ties. Coping skills function best when there is a clear sense

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that stressful or extreme events are somewhat controllable when dealt with directly as against those viewed as mainly uncontrollable and avoided. Problematic actions provide a rough measure of what goes wrong or may be valued but sorely lacking or missing. Sources of misinformation multiply where multiple efforts to communicate in a public sphere are left unfulfilled in more than one sense or another. A succession of poor-quality encounters accounts for an enormous amount of public discontent and ill will. Insofar as human conflict is linguistically constructed, repetitive acts of misinterpretation and misunderstanding figure heavily in matters of conflict escalation at all levels of social and cultural organization. Basic linguistic miscalculations may interfere with the possibility of achieving a working consensus among the respective parties. In times of confusion and commotion, there is a tendency to repeat the same types of ‘interactive mistakes’ over and over again. Matters of confused argument construction further distort the meanings of personal viewpoints and shifting frames of reference. People get stuck in a litany of poor performances with no way out and no better way to alter the larger parameters of the failing system. A tradition of faulty or ineffectual performances may be slowly transformed but only at the deepest levels of personal skill and collective resource. Nothing is set in stone. Some measure of risk necessarily blends in with an unspecified margin of opportunity.

Symbolic Violence What qualifies as violent activity (praxis) is a matter of description (what transpires), classification (cause, condition, consequence), and explanation (rationale, polemic) for critical public scrutiny. In a broad sense, a violent act is one that violates the sensibilities of someone else. Misattribution, misinterpretation, and misunderstanding may register in discordant or devalued terms. Divisive modes of mutual construction may be imposed or inflicted in a disruptive, turbulent, or disquieting manner. Severe personal sentiments may be revealed (uncovered) and concealed (covered up) simultaneously, and subject, therefore, to added scrutiny, upon reflection and in anticipation of, their (probable) short-term effects and longer (improbable) long-term consequences. Unintended inferences and tacit implications must be factored into the larger equation. Intractable issues of resistance and accommodation may interact in subtle ways with multiple signs of discontent, disturbance, unrest, upheaval, or discord in daily life. Words and gestures may be used as aggressive weapons or basic means of self-defense. Notions of ‘sheer physical violence’ are a misnomer here. Personal injuries are never merely physical in definition or consequence. Acts of

physical brutality reveal a deeper, hidden truth, namely that acts of physical violence emerge from acts of symbolic violence and vice versa. In this way, acts of murder and suicide draw tacit inspiration from the surrounding communicative milieu. Unlike the overt outcomes associated with acts of physical violence, the hurtful and injurious effects of symbolic violence are often hidden from sight – as invisible damage or invisible wounds. Cultural violence occurs when exchange relations, whether in the sphere of religion, ideology, language, or empirical science, are used to justify acts of physical violence. In effect, the symbolic constructions of violent acts are intrinsic features of the violent actions themselves. Likewise, violence destroys the symbolic burdens that come with it. Violent actions are permeated with symbolic implications and ritualistic overtones. The main themes are quite striking. Girard contends that violence is primordial. It is intrinsic to the larger scheme of things. The contaminating power of violence gives rise to the need for purifying ceremonies. Hence, there is hardly any form of violence that cannot be described in terms of sacrifice. All social rituals involve elements of mystery and sacrifice. A certain degree of mythos and mystery is required to cover up or hide the horrific nature of violence. In this way, the threat of physical force can be covered up, and slowly replaced, with substitutional or deflective actions where more of the weight can be born vicariously or symbolically. All concepts of impurity stem from communal fears of a perpetual cycle of violence arising in its midst. Likewise, sacrifice is primarily an act of violence without risk of vengeance; vengeance professes to be an act of reprisal, and every reprisal calls for another reprisal. While the possibility of violence is not to be denied, the larger threat may be diverted to another object. Hence, the sacrificial process fosters a certain degree of mutual misunderstanding. People can dispense with violence easier somehow if they view the process as a sheer necessity, an utter imposition from the outside world. In this way acts of sacrificial violence can serve as agents of purification – a single victim can be substituted for all potential victims. Everyone is intent on diagnosing the illness in order to find a cure; but in fact the illness is the other – the false diagnoses and poisonous prescriptions. The problem is always the same. Violence is both the disease (inside) and the cure (outside). Symbolic violence may be viewed in terms of sacrifice and scapegoating. Burke describes the human condition as one of imperfect and muddled communication. We must solve our problems in society as best we can through recalcitrant and mystifying symbols that cause the problems we must yet solve if we are to act together at all. Thus, symbols are both a blessing and a cure – a blessing if we turn our study of their use into a method for acquiring better knowledge about the mechanisms of social control,

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a curse if we let their power overwhelm us until we accept symbolic mystification as reality. The fundamental temptation, cast in the manner of a misguided search for a false cure, arises with the ability to hand over one’s ills to a scapegoat, thereby getting purification from dissociation. Burke describes scapegoating as symptomatic of overwhelming, powerful, and unrelenting stress that is collectively directed toward and projected upon an object, person, or institution that is consensually deemed worthy of sacrifice. The key tactics are seen as a means of expiating collective guilt and acquiring purification by disassociation with the medium in order to restore or promote social cohesion. In scapegoating one may expect to find some variation of killing in the work. In other words, we who victimize and are victimized by one another may disown or repudiate unwanted features of our self-images by projecting our personal weaknesses and inadequacies onto another and with the resultant discharge of collective hostility and antagonism, enhance our internal sense of integrity. Acts of symbolic violence are not randomly distributed but are rather strategically located in the social fabric. Sagan claims that all societies assert, implicitly or explicitly, that certain groups of human beings are not human and are, therefore, legitimate objects of aggression – such societies divide the human world into those who are human (we) and those who are subhuman – the list of ‘them’ is a catalog of the oppressed, dominated, and exploited peoples of the history of the world. Mutual displays of affection and aggression sometimes become so intermixed in sacrifice that it is hard even to distinguish the two strands. Only if a means is found to satisfy aggressive needs symbolically is it possible to give up aggressive practices – all satisfaction of aggression outward is an act of self-destruction. To kill another human being, one must first recast the other into the status as an object. To continue to kill that person, even after the other is dead, is to continue to deny his reality, to prolong his status as object. Because war is inevitable only in the psyches of those who make it so, one must not dare talk of courage or nerve separated from love, because without eros courage ends up the power to kill. Bourdieu equates symbolic violence with the power to impose meanings and also insist on their legitimacy while effectively concealing the underlying dynamic of power relations at work. Those who are subjected to symbolicladen implications of inferiority are placed in a difficult position. They must struggle against the massive imposition of arbitrary cultural forces by arbitrary agents of power in heavily weighted situations where talk and conversation all too quickly become instruments of instruction and incubation. Symbolic violence registers in all instructions to treat a given system of assigned meanings as ‘exclusively’ worthy of inclusion. All other possibilities are ruled out in advance. Assigned meanings reproduce

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and thereby legitimate dominant and subordinate relations into a domain of inflated but unspoken quest for privilege, status, and rank. Communication regulated by heavily imposed instruction reproduces a system of arbitrary subject matter that can never be seen in its full truth. The historical combination of the instruments of symbolic violence cannot be isolated from the instruments of concealment. Mythos and mystery regulate oppressive systems where there are few viable alternatives and no easy way out. One-sided claims of legitimacy reflect the relative strength of the relations between those whose material, economic, and symbolic interests they express. Misrecognition adds further to the legitimacy of the imposition. There is, in other words, considerable room for distortion and misrecognition of the truth on all sides. Acts of physical violence acquire a great deal of communicative significance in the emotional aftermath. The public atmosphere that surrounds highly publicized acts of political violence is quite striking as a case in point. Mass media coverage of political violence strains the social fabric by disrupting traditional assumptions about what it means to be a member of a society. Public deliberations lead to a rapid succession of short-term changes in how ordinary citizens view themselves, their relations with others, and society at large. The clash of divergent sentiment has been found to produce an initial sense of public crisis followed by the emergence of a series of creative and innovative social mechanisms to represent and redistribute elements of threat and danger throughout the fabric of society. Basic structures of conflicting public sentiment, therefore, resemble, mimic, or imitate salient features of the act of political violence itself. Attacks on public officials reveal prevailing public/cultural biases toward displays of hostility, aggression, conflict, violence, and murder, and thereby bring to the surface explicit acknowledgment of whatever undercurrent of murderous urges already exist in public opinion of governmental authority. Political displays of hostility and animus invoke the use of ritualized, agonistic codes involving considerable cognitive anticipation and reenactment of death wishes (‘symbolic killing’) directed toward and displaced upon another or others viewed as one would a rival, obstacle, or enemy. The possibility of killing or the thought of murder is not to be outstripped. In the work of Ibsen the notion of ‘soul murder’ is defined in terms of the making use of, or exploitation, another person. The killing does not have to be actual. It can occur symbolically, as for example in the withdrawal of love or in the desertion of a person. It can also be partial instead of total – a slow murder, as it were, through constant tormenting. The incremental destruction of human spirit qualifies for what Otto Rank terms ‘slow murder’ between intimates, lovers, and kin. Death wishes crystallize in symbols of killing – a curious effort in symbolizing for the purpose of destroying someone else’s method of symbolizing. One may

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envision the murder of a person or the more limited destruction of what the presence of the person in question may evoke, express, or make manifest. Symbolic killing may assume any number of forms ranging anywhere from active annihilation to passive indifference. The urge to kill off what other people express or reveal constitutes a form of linguistically mediated violence that replaces a tangible physical force with an intangible symbolic force. The urgency of the death wish is sustained and nurtured through cognitive reenactment and anticipation of the murder itself. A mood or atmosphere of linguistic militancy occurs where words and gestures function as ‘weapons’ in ritualized clashes of conflicting public opinion that signify a communal desire for purification, atonement, and psychic protection of the observers from threatening aspects of societal events that unfold beyond their own personal control. Public dialog may be viewed, then, as a vast reality-testing ceremony, one that measures the cumulative strength of human loyalties and the bond of political affiliations. Political controversy produces massive, redressive societal mechanisms that reaffirm, test, challenge, alter, or replace traditional values through expressive activity that provides a muted symbolic display with dramatic responses that change attitudes and values without major and unlimited conflict, and without the necessity for total involvement on the part of all members of society. The notion of symbolic killing calls attention to the destructive consequences of abusive, neglectful, or misapplied forms of shared action. A collective representation of central tendencies is as follows: (1) early developmental damage and prolonged separation from love objects and caretakers; (2) generational poverty, deprivation, and collective devaluation; (3) unresolved hatred over atrocities against one’s own kin; (4) abuse or neglect with no end in sight; (5) lack of access to scarce resources; and (6) legacy of largely unfulfilled possibilities – a sense of worthlessness and despair.

Ethnic Conflict Ethnicity provides a strategic measure of personal identity and strength of communal affiliation. In severe ethnic conflicts, a host of self-serving devices may be used to diminish greater appreciation for the standards, values, beliefs, and customs of what takes place with other people, as in the use of foreign currency or exposure to alien territory. Linguistic tensions tend to cluster around periods of undue or prolonged exposure to information or situations that have been very troubling or unsettling in the past. When the language systems of competing ethnic groups are pitted against one another, three broad types of cognitive distortion are at issue. Ideological bias occurs whenever a particular way of looking at the world is closed to further inspection from the outside world. A personal ideology can be used to

create public justification for the privileges and perks of certain groups or institutions in prevailing social arrangements. Inflated or justificational use of language, whether designed to expand the scope of privilege and preogrative, or to strengthen collective resolve to obtain a greater share of resources, protects the vested interest and hidden agenda of those in charge of established norms and rules. Moreover, personal ideology can be used as a vision to be imposed on others as a matter of whim. The massive imposition is coercive and defensive in aspiration. It fosters a heavily slanted and stylized version that tolerates existing inequities and remains indifferent to the deprivation and suffering of others. Ethnocentric bias arises with the inclination to see one’s own group, kin, or tribe to be the center of everything in relation to the wider scheme of things. At issue is a wider tendency to be unaware of the biases due to one’s own makeup and to judge and interact with others on the basis of those unspoken premises. The matter may be viewed in terms of the sheer magnitude of exaggeration in matters of deference (praise) toward insiders and suspicion (blame) toward outsiders. Double standards abound. Therefore, the fine line between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is subject to the force of self-monitored bias up and down the line. Distortion results from biased forms of misclassification and false or mythical categorization of competing reference groups. Egocentric bias becomes a factor when one person makes assumptions, or forms expectations, associated with selfenhancing estimates of the degree to which others think, feel, or act as oneself. Alternative possibilities are easier to discount or rule out. Those who are threatened by difficult life conditions are particularly susceptible to exposure to abusive language based on concerted efforts at devaluation. It is difficult to account for all the harm and damage that occurs from the massive imposition of diverse and divergent ways of thinking about the world. Ethnic conflict registers in the labels, categories, classifications, and stereotypes used to establish or deny access across social and cultural boundaries. Abusive language figures prominently in collective efforts to express, reinforce, undermine, or redress rank orders along prevailing ethnic lines. Nicknames used as epithets constrain those who use them. Name calling provides a blank check for characterizing out-groups as worthy or deserving of a constant outpouring of verbal abuse as a means to neutralize their efforts to gain status or acquire influence. For those in control, name calling justifies inequality and prejudice and tolerates invidious ethnic comparisons in public settings. Minority protests against oppressive labels become stylized and highly rhetorical whenever counterlabels are used to neutralize or subvert the prevailing vocabulary of a local community. Ethnic slurs, particularly in jokes and humor, have one main goal – to neutralize and thwart outsiders. As language contact between competing groups becomes more prominent, multifaceted, sustained,

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or troubled, the magnitude of verbal abuse intensifies and more varied derogatory terminology is coined and used. Interethnic disturbances are subject to collective (reality) test based on a discordant class of personal standards regarding who is deemed worthy of inclusion (close by) or exclusion (far away) from common participation in some wider cause. An inclusive membership in a bonded kinship relation invites credible, affirmative participation. Conversely, exclusion from fellow kinship members invokes signs of discredited modes of disqualification, devaluation, and disaffirmation of those dismissed as expendable commodities or mere objects of collective manipulation, calculation, or exploitation. Individuals who occupy (elevated) positions and places of (ascendant) rank in a highly stratified social hierarchy (inner circle) may remain partially oblivious of the inferior welfare of displaced or disadvantaged individuals who are segregated and subordinated as mere occupiers of the outer fringe, the border, the periphery of civil affiliation. Human inequality is reproduced in pervasive social structures and massive institutional affiliations that are (rule/resource) governed by a widely disproportionate distribution of all available communal resources, favoring some, while diminishing others. Majority attitudes provide a litmus test of minority rights. Common insistence may be used, enforced, or sanctioned, to further misconstrue, misrepresent, understate, or minimize the sheer magnitude of adversity, deprivation, crisis, or needless pain and suffering that occurs. Multiple markers of (questionable) individuality and (unsettled) conceptions of social and personal identity provide rough estimates and leading indicators of separation, banishment, or ex-communication from some revered or honored cite, ritual, or place of habitation. Linguistic factors figure heavily in the problems and the promises derived from active engagement in all manner of personal, relational, institutional, and collective violence, whether directed at another human being, other living creatures, or the ecological landscape. Ethnic conflict does not necessarily lead to greater ethnic violence, unless a critical ethnic claim (of grievance) is shown to cross over (violate) some devoutly honored cultural boundary or sacred cultural value. Hostile interactions among identity groups may become chronic or protracted, based on deep-seated hatred, long-standing grievance, or denial of basic needs. As Fisher indicates, standard or routine approaches deal with surface issues but are quite powerless to address nonnegotiable issues ‘‘in part because of a host of socialpsychological processes, including cognitive rigidities and distortions, self-fulfilling prophecies, and irrational commitment mechanisms’’ with interlocking conditions where no one issue can be resolved in itself but is part of a larger sequence where ‘‘the process itself becomes a major source of contriving conflict’’. One objective is to marshal small-scale support and large-scale resources to enable especially disadvantaged groups to preserve and solidify

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the necessary linguistic skills to revitalize local cultural identities and neutralize political oppression. Here peace is measured as collective tolerance of small-scale disorder.

Third-Party Intervention Faulty interaction is not always self-correcting. Severe linguistic difficulties may become intractable or impenetrable over time. The sheer perpetuation of poor-quality performance raises the possibility or need for third-party intervention. The initial goal of mediation or arbitration is to improve the quality of interaction by reducing the severity of discord or dispute. This is not always possible, particularly if the adversaries have reached a hurting stalemate. The use of tough tactics – an unwillingness to compromise – may sabotage the possibility for ‘any’ type of resolution. If each party insists on holding out, an impasse can be expected. Mediators may attempt to strike a power balance, expand the agenda, explore agreements that yield high benefits to both sides, determine what points are negotiable, reframe the dispute, exert pressure on second and third parties, and fine-tune strategies and tactics that work out well. On a larger scale, international mediators are required to facilitate communication, formulate strategies, and manipulate the course of decision making. Flexibility is crucial. Rigid and tough bargaining strategies operate in hostile climates with a wide convergence of different interests and distinct personal concerns. Individual flexibility requires the willingness to forfeit gains in order to avoid further losses or a deadlock. Coercive tactics may be used to move one party off a position, onto a new position, or help to save face. However, successful settlements are difficult to broker when one or both parties have few resources or weak linguistic skills. Resource scarcity and power imbalance tend to reduce the total range of options. Also resistant to change is discord and dispute over principles and nondivisible issues. Low levels of verbal interaction generally make matters worse. The ability to compromise is also decisive. In an analysis of bargaining experiments reported over a 25-year period, Druckman found that the strongest effect sizes were obtained for the mediator’s own orientation, prior experience, time pressures, and initial distance between positions. Most resistant to change are social conditions where (1) the participants do not expect future interaction; (2) few issues are contested and a deadline exists; (3) competitive orientations are long-standing or where face-saving pressures are strong; (4) ‘differences between positions’ on important issues are derived from long-held attitudes or linked to ‘contrasting ideologies’; and (5) when faced with ‘tough’ or ‘explotive’ opponents whose intentions are easy to discern. In effect, the entire sweep of conflict and dispute must be taken into account during the initial review of what is possible or ruled out.

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Conflict and criticism are closely associated. Destructive forms of verbal criticism are known to promote anger, tension, and further resolve to handle future disputes with methods of resistance and avoidance rather than collaboration and compromise. Harsh or recriminating forms of verbal criticism gradually lower expectations of performance and self-efficacy. Poor criticism, in effect, promotes an atmosphere of conflict and confusion on all sides. Main targets are severely deficient or frequently misused aspects of personality with disproportionate blame and guilt induction over what goes wrong. The clash of discordant verbal sentiment – a heavy stockpile of claim weighted against counterclaim – may exhibit a constant recycling of stress and strain with heavy reliance on the same kinds of moves and tactics in successive turns of spirited talk during heated conversation. Mutual regulation of escalative tendencies by recycled maneuvers helps to even out, dilute, and attenuate the duration or severity of the verbal conflict at hand. It is useful to think of the intensity of personal disputes in relation to the magnitude of what is at stake. Potential issues cluster around whatever humans value but find lacking, scarce, or uneven in matters of production, access, or supply. Grimshaw organizes personal issues around several basic considerations. Attention is focused on substantive ‘issues’ seen as ‘causes’ for participants’ motivations. Conflict talk involves (restricted or elaborated) negotiation over personal identities, that is, what kinds of persons and what states of relations should come into play. At issue is the precise alignment of argumentative skills, complex negotiation of multiple identities, and muted instruction about the normative properties of talk. Much depends on the total stakes at work in an evolving context of mixed motives. What is crucial is whether the respective parties see themselves as speaking for themselves or for others. Verbal controversy has the potential to ‘expand’ in focus, or ‘spread’ along preexisting boundaries of classes, categories, groups, friendships, and institutional affiliation.

Alternatives to Violence Acts of nonviolence provide plausible linguistic substitutes for the threat of violent actions themselves. The symbolic resources that humans employ to threaten, injure, or thwart others may be altered, either by design or application, to neutralize, deflect, or dissipate the risk of violent action. Peace-making efforts involve a double substitution. At one level is the shared effort to find alternatives to the use of physical coercion or force. At another is the common struggle to devise the means and the methods of improved communication as a goal without inflicting further harm and injury. An underlying presumption is the possibility of mutual engagement in constructive change. Fatalism is the enemy of constructive

change. Static or faulty conditions may be reproduced in the manner of a bad habit or poorly executed routine. In matters of acquired deficiency or trained incompetence, the focal points of subject matter may change rapidly while the basic misconstructive processes remain much the same. Fatalism implies bargaining in bad faith, as when people get stuck in a long succession of poor performances with no way out and no (better) way to alter (the failing system). As a corrective, there must be some measure of faith in the larger possibility of changing the patterns of interaction that interfere with the gradual acquisition of more favorable or productive aspirations. The measure of required change may involve an incremental or stepwise gain or else it may assume a more sweeping and inclusive form – affecting the character, conditions, and context of interaction. What qualifies as questionable or problematic does not have to be taken as absolute or inherent in the greater scheme of things but is dependent rather on the particular mix of circumstance and behavior. It is useful to think of the requirements for movement away from the threat of violence or intractable conflict in terms of a series of small-scale changes in personal outlook and responsiveness to others. A measure of persistence refers to smallscale change (one state to another) within the same basic level or type of shared activity. Transformation, in contrast, refers to a far more dramatic or sudden shift, a jump, out of a faulty system (all-or-nothing). Tolerance of change acquires definition from the point of greatest resistance. The lower threshold is a state of sheer intolerance toward any type of change in the trajectory of a course of action. One may decide to cling to a set of ‘static conditions’, whether taken as mainly harmonious, contentious, or volatile. A point of small departure is manifest in the willingness to tolerate an ‘incremental’ or momentary change (one thing or another) but only for a specified period of time. Willingness to settle for a succession of slight or modest improvements may well leave the larger picture in tact. Slight change may be only begrudgingly accepted. ‘Episodic’ change is due to a series of minor adjustments and accommodations to the forces of risk and change at work. ‘Generalized’ change registers as a major shift in the definition or state of human relations during (1) some critical, urgent, or decisive period or else in (2) one’s way of dealing with other people in general. More highly visible is a state of extensive change where the total impact of events is so dramatic and elaborated, a total break from the past. It may be even possible to envision a ‘radical’ change in some salient mode of public conduct. A vision of ‘transformational’ change enables someone to behave in a whole new way, as in a quest for a new way of life. Mutual resolution of unfinished business opens up a larger array of possibilities. After all, a litany of global, regional, and local conceptions of peace, conflict, and

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violence are manifest as quite visible and highly distinctive conditions in the human world. We may speak of a peaceful, conflicted, or violent way of life almost any place on the Earth. Therefore, each major type of human activity fully qualifies as a linguistic construction of significant achievement. At issue are basic relations between language users, specific instances of language use, and matters affecting issues of individual security and collective well-being. Of greatest concern is whether the unforeseen consequences of all the stress and strain serve to undermine the prospect of future interaction. What hangs in the balance is a legacy of threat and support with only limited potential for movement on all sides. Short-term effects and long-term outcomes are subject to (micro) management and (macro) maintenance of shared circumstance. Ordinary language is a basic mechanism of repair in human relations. Acts of compensation and appeasement (face-saving) may enable or allow old wounds to heal and prevent new ones from occurring. Certain types of violent action may be deflected or diverted into less intense forms of symbolic struggle. The rhetorical principles of imitation, substitution, conversion, or partial replication may be designed to direct or deflect public attention elsewhere. In this way the efficacious use of complex language invokes a spirit of accommodation, renewal, or rebirth. Repair mechanisms are designed to open up greater insight and promote better understanding of troubled, taxing, contested, or divisive modes of social encounter. Restorative acts involve strategic decisions and tactical maneuvers of overlooking, leveling, averaging, discounting, minimizing, or ignoring adverse effects of multiple slights, complaints, criticisms, and grievances taken together with a corresponding release of anger, resentment, along with dampened or tempered control of retaliatory or vindictive urges. It may well take considerable effort to replace regressive, subversive, antagonistic, or malevolent counter measures with a more realistic and integrative view that transforms, inverts, reinterprets, or (re)calibrates both good (desirable) and bad (undesirable) aspects of severely contested modes of disagreement, misunderstanding, and problematic talk. Negative restoration entails the pent-up release of disaffected thought, feeling, and action. Positive restoration involves deliberate effort to forestall, delay, or prevent the perpetration of offensive violations or major transgressions on unwilling, unwelcome, or resistant subjects. Remedial tactics and compensatory strategies may be hidden underneath a wide away of surface denials and heuristic rationalizations for harmful intent. There may also be subtle indicators of tacit striving and unspoken urge to dilute or diminish the scope, scale, or salience of explicit personal responsibility for adverse outcomes. Personal excuses shift common focus and shared attention away from the actual causes and viable reasons for

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problematic events or bad news to pile up unresolved over extensive time frames. Repeated excuses provide low-risk methods of coping with misguided intention, faulty performance, disappointing outcome, and corrective devices that make the respective parties feel better after the fact. Tactics of exoneration appeal to mitigating circumstances. Blame, criticism, or pointed attack may be deflected to divert attention away from firm acknowledgment of personal accountability by taking the easy way out: pointing fingers, rationalizing, denying, stonewalling, filling the air with empty words, or reliance on other expedient means of distorted reality. The constructive use of reformative counter tactics may require concerted effort and great struggle to promote an integrative spirit of reciprocal adaptation, adjustment, and accommodation, whereby troubling affairs can be brought into sharp focus, made sense of, and then discussed by a plurality of subjects. The ability to reframe critical, pressing, vexing, or problematic circumstance may open up an added way to diminish the severity of destructive effects and thereby reduce biased or distorted estimates of others’ collective responsibility for alleged infractions. Restoration of damaged relations requires abstinence from the countervailing forces of vengeance and retribution, both of which thrive on jealousy and steadfast refusal to forgive or reconsider prolonged enforcement of punitive verdicts. Likewise, critical aspects of communicative difficulty may also be subject to selective recasting, whereby extreme interpretations, based on absolute thinking and polarized social labels, are revised to appear somewhat more normal, mundane, or ordinary. Harsh assessments may be diluted, downgraded, or distanced as a means to deny or disavow previously held contentions. Compensatory effort may be designed to calm things down, ease tensions, or make the best of a bad situation. Constructive acts of reframing, reformulating, and reconstructing divisive events are likely to occur each time a victim ceases being resentment and stops making negative judgments toward a transgressor. Acts of reconciliation take opposing valuations, and reform or reconstitute them (collectively) into something new and more worthy of emulation. The credibility of a formal apology coincides with the magnitude of sympathy for the offender. Rituals of apology or pardon may serve to validate the injured parties’ feelings, intuitions, perceptions, and sensibilities. Acts of forgiveness entail valued decisions to forego retribution for injurious conduct and relinquish claims of restitution. Unspoken restoration is commonplace in restorative efforts to overcome the impact of hurt and harm. From a third-party perspective, the restoration or renewal of optimum conditions for speaking subjects represents a distinctive high-order linguistic achievement. Constructive change involves at minimum the courage to resist whatever would hold a person back from shared participation in communal efforts to fulfill the potentiality

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of shared moments rather than let them be misused, abused, or merely wasted. Successful communication is shown to be an individual and collective achievement, accomplished through compromise and mutual accommodation, rather than merely taken for granted as an entitlement of possibility. In such an intricate and fragile domain, favorable conditions revolve around the compatibility of individual interests with communal involvements in sustained and systematic sequences of interaction in which the effective use of personal resources leads to the maximum fulfillment of mutual possibilities. Obtainable standards are reached each time that human beings are shown to be capable and willing to deal with intractable or problematic concerns in a manner that takes into account (1) the safety and security of each member; (2) the intrinsic worth of mutual exploration; (3) the stance of receptivity toward future interaction; (4) the courage to say and do whatever is required while there is still a margin of opportunity; and (5) a willingness to promote a more inclusive spirit of world openness. Most decisive is whether the activity in question is sufficiently open to inspection to enable each party to call into question the physical and material well-being of one another. At issue is any sense of deprivation that leaves certain individuals feeling unsafe and insecure in their respective dealings with one another. Perhaps there should be greater provision in the communal landscape for skilled and well-trained linguists who act mainly on behalf of those who cannot or are not in a good position to speak out on their own behalf. Favorable conditions provide alternative methods to translate the implicit, unspoken urges of self and others into a salient and contemporary idiom. In other words, those who are most fluent and articulate give expression to the issues and concerns of those who lack the ability or resolve to represent their own strivings and concerns in the best possible light. A secure sense of collective achievement implies that no one is solely at the mercy of his or her own linguistic devices. Individual members are in a position to speak to, with, against, and through unfinished, urgent, or compelling business. Such displays of supportive communication have the potential to become a vital human resource. Hence, individuals must be able to maintain direct access to a wide circle of second and third parties for care and assistance in dealing with stressful demands and difficult or questionable behaviors. Routine exchange is predicated on the presumption of mutual helpfulness to sustain someone in a goal or cause in the context of personal appraisals of the use (or misuse) of collective resources. Support is on the side of a greater measure of human resources to be reproduced on a regular basis. A central goal is to preserve and protect the material, economic, and symbolic resources that people already value. Linguistic support can be a major source of social stability through changing times. Affordable circumstance include: benefits derived from secure connections,

satisfaction that is moderately stable, ability to maintain cross-situational consistency in the average level of success during daily contacts with others, and mutual tolerance of difficulties when those close connections are lacking, ambiguous, or insecure. Complex forms of social comfort are associated with (1) a greater degree of involvement with distressed others and their difficulties; (2) neutral forms of personal evaluation; (3) awareness and sensitivity to stressful feelings; (4) acceptance and validation of the other’s distress; and (5) explanations for the urgency of another’s condition. Supportive persons provide valuable but intangible resources – warmth, reassurance, help, assistance, and aid for troubled times. The degree of success increases the willingness to deal with signs of distress in more complexity and greater detail. Global conceptions of support help shape one’s sense of being worthy of help and assistance from others. Availability of support includes a general sense of nourishment plus specific orientations about significant others as caregivers. There is growing recognition that supportive actions are powerful forces in solving problems, forming amicable and productive work relations, sustaining close and enduring relations, promoting a healthy form of family life, and serving as global measures of competence. At stake is the willingness to understand the full range of adaptations and methods for circumventing limits. Progressive movement involves a journey to reawaken individual vision and collective resolve. See also: Communication Studies, Overview; Language of War and Peace, The; Mass Media, General View; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior

Further Reading Allen, I. L. (1983). The language of ethnic conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. (Nice, R., trans.) Beverely Hills, CA: Sage. Burleson, B. R., Albrecht, T. J., and Sarason, L. G. (1994). Communication of social support: Messages, interactions, relationships, and community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Burling, R. (1986). The selective advantage of complex language. Ethology and Sociobiology 7, 1–16. Druckman, D. (1994). Determinants of compromising behavior in negotiation. Journal of Conflict Resolution 37, 236–276. Fisher, R. J. (1993). The potential for peacebuilding: Forging a bridge from peacekeeping to peacemaking. Peace and Change 18, 247–266. Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural violence. Journal of Peace Research 27, 291–305. Girard, R. (1977). Violence and the sacred. Gregory, P. (trans.). Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Grace, G. W. (1987). The linguistic construction of reality. London: Croom Helms. Grimshaw, A. D. (1990). Research on conflict talk: Antecedents, resources, findings, directions. In Graimshaw, A. D. (ed.) Conflict talk: Sociolinguistic investigations of arguments in conversations, pp. 280–324. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mediation and Negotiation Techniques 693 Mortensen, C. D. (1987). Violence and communication: Public reactions to an attempted presidential assassination. Landover, MD: University Press of America. Mortensen, C. D. (1991). Communication, conflict, and culture. Communication Theory 1, 273–291. Mortensen, C. D. (1994). Problematic communication: The construction of invisible walls. Westport, CN: Praeger. Mortensen, C. D. (1997). Miscommunication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mortensen, C. D. (2006). Human conflict: Disagreement, misunderstanding, and problematic talk. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield. Parks, C. D. and Vu, A. D. (1994). Social dilemma behavior of individuals from highly individualist and collectivist cultures. Journal of Conflict Resolution 38, 708–718. Sagan, E. (1979). The lust to annihilate. New York: The Psychohistory Press. Wenden, A. L. (2003). Achieving a comprehensive peace: The linguistic factor. Peace and Change 28, 169–201.

Mediation and Negotiation Techniques Jacob Bercovitch, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Mediation The Mediation Process Mediation Strategies and Tactics

Glossary Conflict The presence of divergent interests or incompatible perceptions between people or groups, and the desire to pursue behavior commensurate with these perceptions. Conflict Management Methods and activities designed to influence the course or outcome of a conflict. These may range from verbal retorts to coercive measures. Mediation A type of conflict management whereby an outsider or third party intervenes in a conflict, in a

Mediation and negotiation have for many years been the most important methods for dealing with conflict between individuals, groups, organizations, and nations. The main advantage of mediation and negotiation is that they are both voluntary and noncoercive methods in which ultimate decision-making power with the parties is in conflict. An outcome is not imposed on the parties by the courts or a powerful outsider. Mediation and negotiation comprise a complex system of relationships, activities, moves, and resources. Students of mediation and negotiation seek to study how this complex system works, understand the various moves and phases involved, and in particular, identify strategies and techniques that may assist the parties in conflict to achieve a satisfactory outcome. As conflicts become more pervasive and brutal, the search for more effective mediation and negotiation figures very prominently in our research agenda.

Negotiation Conclusion Further Reading

voluntary, noncoercive manner, in order to arrest its destructive tendencies. Negotiation A process of conflict management in which only the parties involved attempt to discuss, directly or indirectly, the issues that separate them, and how best to reach a joint decision on these issues. Strategy An overall plan or a broad conception parties in conflict have in order to deal with or manage their conflict.

Introduction Conflicts and disputes are found everywhere. They are present in all societies and all human relationships regardless of their geographical location or time. Conflicts exist between individuals, groups, organizations, and even states. Some of these conflicts manifest themselves as contests, challenges, debates, or lawsuits; others escalate from mere controversies to violent combat, violence, and even war. Conflicts can be productive and creative; they can also have high costs and harmful consequences. It is precisely because conflicts can be so unproductive and destructive that we need to search for better ways of dealing with, or managing, conflict. Conflict management is learning about how to make conflicts more productive and less costly. It is not about removing or eliminating conflicts. The proper concern of

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conflict management is with increasing values and benefits for all those in conflict, and decreasing costs and violence. Conflict management is an attempt to learn the factors and processes that affect the course of a conflict so as to create the conditions that would permit peaceful and productive interactions between any two parties in conflict. Traditionally, conflict has been seen as an overt struggle (the term itself is derived from Latin words that mean ‘to strike together’), and the best means of dealing with it was that of fighting or coercion. This, with its connotation of victor and vanquished, is only one, and by no means the most desired, approach to conflict. Conflict may be avoided (flight rather than fight), or it may be ignored. It may be resolved by a third party empowered to make a binding decision on the basis of the legal systems. Or, as is more commonly the case, conflict may be resolved through direct negotiations between the parties involved, or by having an impartial mediator to assist with the parties’ own conflict management and negotiation. In mediation, the parties do not relinquish responsibility for their conflict, nor are they likely to experience high levels of coercion (on the relationship between approaches to conflict, degree of coercion, and party control, see Figure 1). Our concern here is with the procedures of mediation and negotiation as the most important voluntary approaches to conflict between individuals, groups, or nations.

Mediation For a long time the study of mediation has been characterized by a startling lack of information. Practitioners of

mediation, whether formal or informal, whether in the interpersonal or international context, were keen to sustain its perception as a mysterious practice taking place behind closed doors. Scholars of mediation, for their part, did not think that such behavior was susceptible to systematic analysis. Neither did they seem to believe that broad patterns could be discerned, or that any valid generalizations about the process could be made. The dominant agnosticism toward systematic approaches and the desire to maintain the intuitive mystique or mediation resulted in a proliferation of descriptive cases of mediation in which the techniques used and the outcome achieved were invariably the product of a unique set of personal attributes of the mediator. Over the past two decades, it has become widely accepted that mediation, like other serial phenomena, is a process that can be analyzed systematically, and that theoretical insights can be blended with practical experience to produce a general understanding of the process, and an awareness of what the process is like and how it might be improved. This is the road the author proposes to take here. Definition As there is rarely any consistency in the usage of the term ‘mediation’, confusion inevitably abounds. This is unsatisfactory and should be remedied. And yet mediation is not easy to define. Many of the difficulties stem from the very flexibility of mediation, its voluntary and ad hoc character, and the fact that it is practiced in a wide diversity of settings. The term is also used in different ways by different people, some of whom may work as ‘private mediators’, while others may operate within an institutionalized framework.

Degree of coercion

Violence

Higher-quality outcomes

Avoidance

Adjudication

Arbitration

Party control Non-violent actions Figure 1 Approaches to conflict management.

Violent action

Mediation

Negotiation

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Definitions of mediation can be either prescriptive – that is, define the process as it ideally should be like (e.g., expect parties to identify all issues, create new options, consider full range of alternatives, etc.), or descriptive – that is, define the process very much in terms of what actually happens in practice (e.g., deadlines, power imbalances, influence attempts, etc.). Whether prescriptive or descriptive, definitions of mediation purport to capture the gist of what mediators do or hope to achieve, distinguish between mediation and related processes of conflict management, and emphasize mediators’ attributes. Most definitions of the first category emphasize the mediators’ primary objective of facilitating a termination of a conflict and helping the parties reach a mutually acceptable agreement. Definitions of the second category highlight the voluntary and nonbinding nature of mediation as compared, for instance, with arbitration. Finally, there are definitions that stress the importance of mediators’ attributes such as impartiality, neutrality, and lack of bias. To quibble over definitions may seem to some as a futile exercise in semantics. It is most decidedly not so. Definitions are significant in that they may limit the concept, justify what mediators may or may not do, and take us beyond the exclusive claims and definitions of different professional groups. The reality of mediation is that of a complex, changing, and dynamic interaction between an outsider or third party, with an interest in the conflict or its outcome, and the protagonists or their representatives. Mediation is a decision-making process in which mediators may change their role or identity, issues may alter, and even those involved may change. A comprehensive definition is a primary requisite for understanding the reality of mediation. Mediation has been defined by Bercovitch as ‘‘a process of conflict management, related to but distinct from the parties’ own efforts, where the disputing parties or their representatives seek the assistance, or accept an offer of help, from an individual, group, state or organization to change, affect or influence the parties’ perceptions or behavior, without resorting to physical force or invoking the authority of the law.’’ This is a broad definition indeed, but one that can be widely accepted. What, then, are the features and characteristics of mediation? These are derived from the definition of mediation and include the following: 1. Mediation is a decision-making and conflict management process. 2. It is activated when a conflict cannot be resolved by the parties themselves, and involves an extension and continuation of the parties’ own conflict management efforts. 3. Mediation involves the intervention in a conflict of an acceptable third party – the mediator – who is there to assist the disputants with their decision making.

4.

5. 6. 7.

Mediation is essentially negotiations with the involvement of an additional actor. Mediation is a noncoercive, nonviolent, and ultimately nonbinding form of reaching decisions. Mediators have no authority to force the parties to resolve their differences. Mediators enter a conflict in order to resolve it, affect, change, modify, or influence it. Mediators bring with them, consciously or otherwise, ideas, knowledge, resources, and interests of their own. Mediators operate on a temporary basis only. There is no permanent machinery for mediation; it is activated and terminated when required.

The Mediation Process How does the mediation process unfold? Mediators can have many different types of relationships with conflict parties. The United States has one set of relationships with the parties in the Middle East when it tries to mediate a conflict; the Norwegians, for their part, have a different relationship when they attempt to mediate between the very same parties. This means that the goals and tasks of mediation, as well as its stages or phases, are sometimes difficult to identify, and often vary from context to context. Notwithstanding such difficulties, the relationship between a mediator and the parties in conflict does not unfold as one undifferentiated continuum, but rather as a series of fairly distinct phases. These phases, and the behavior associated with each, constitute the mediation process. It may be useful to think of a mediation process in terms of three sequential phases: (1) preparation for mediation, (2) mediation meetings, and (3) postmediation activities. Let us examine each of these stages in turn. Preparation for Mediation Mediation is initiated as a result of an offer by a mediator or a request by the parties themselves. At times it is initiated by a referral from other parties (e.g., a judge, a board, a council, or an organization). The way mediation is initiated and prepared is frequently a determining factor in the outcome and effectiveness of the mediation. A joint request by both parties for mediation represents a commitment to the process that may well be important in securing a subsequent agreement. A request for mediation by a single party, on the other hand, may be indicative of some reluctance to engage in mediation, a reluctance which may well produce an impasse. Once mediation is introduced as the option for conflict management, and the parties agree on one (often a highly contentious issue in itself), a mediator may then be

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formally appointed whose first task is that of gathering information on all matters relating to the conflict. At this stage the mediator may study carefully each party’s position and bottom lines, determine if there is room for compromise, assess what data and information are needed, what can be disclosed, and which documents should be exchanged. When President Carter initiated his mediation efforts at Camp David in 1978, he spent weeks studying all aspects relating to the conflict, talking to many regional and conflict-resolution experts, and digesting numerous personality profile papers on Begin and Sadat submitted to him. On many occasions, and regardless of how mediation was initiated, a mediator may wish to meet separately with one or both parties. Among other things such preparatory meetings may help mediators (1) assess the parameters of the conflict, (2) build their personal and institutional credibility, (3) educate participants about the mediation process, (4) gain a commitment for the mediation process, and (5) make the necessary organizational arrangements. By now a mediator has a fairly clear idea of what the conflict is all about, and what strategies should be adopted. The Mediation Meeting This phase generally involves four distinct interactions, the first of which is the formal opening of negotiation, in which the parties will greet each other and begin to exchange information. After a short preparatory statement from the mediator (introduction, description of mediation process, and logistics), the parties are invited to make a formal and uninterrupted presentation. From here on the parties become an active part of the communication and mediation process. Following these presentations mediators may ask questions and seek clarifications. Often mediators may summarize each party’s presentation. Opening statements and mediators’ summaries are designed to outline the substantive issues in conflict, establish conflict-management procedures, and build a rapport with the other side. The most critical feature of this stage is the attempt to establish an accurate exchange of information. The second major stage consists of mediators’ attempts to identify areas of agreement (on substantive or procedural matters) and provide a productive basis for the subsequent efforts. This stage concludes with the mediator and the parties focusing on issues for discussions and the setting of an agenda. An agenda that can contribute to a productive dialog is one that frames values in conflict into interest conflicts, where issues on which the parties are likely to reach an agreement are dealt with early in the negotiation, and may be combined, traded, or packaged. A mediator may circumvent many of the problems associated with ineffective conflict management by facilitating or structuring a productive agenda. A productive

agenda is one that deals with minor issues first and only then goes on to deal with the more difficult and intractable issues. It is the task of a mediator to ensure that the agenda is so structured. Once an agenda is agreed upon, negotiations between the parties begin in earnest. Information and feelings are exchanged about the issues themselves, or past events leading up to the conflict. A mediator will, at this stage, encourage the parties to explore a wide range of options. A mediator can be instrumental in developing new options by establishing a climate of trust and confidence within which brainstorming and open discussion sessions may take place. In the third stage of mediation, the parties assess their interests, review their options, and determine the best option or alternative they can live with. Here a mediator invites the parties to think in terms of the consequences and feasibility of each option. The parties may now assess options in separate meetings (caucus) that give parties the opportunity to express their own emotions, as well as test how realistic the options on offer are. During this stage a mediator intervenes quite often to keep the process going and ensure that each party understands the other’s perspective. Final details may now be settled, so that a decision-making on an agreement may be precipitated. The fourth and final stage of the mediation proper is taken with producing a formal agreement or settlement. This is usually embodied in a document that outlines the parties’ intentions, decisions, and future behavior. The mediator will now ensure that the document drafted reflects accurately what has transpired in the negotiations. With the signing of the document, and the mediator’s closing words, the formal process of mediation is brought to an end. The whole process is depicted diagrammatically in Figure 2. Postmediation Activities Once an agreement between the parties is formalized, the parties will try and put into practice what they agreed to verbally. Mediated agreements are rarely clear and totally unequivocal, as numerous problems regarding the agreement may arise. At this stage a mediator may be required to help with the criteria used to measure successful compliance with and implementation of the agreement. This stage takes place outside the mediation setting, and may require a mediator to work out specific operational details, or identify people or organizations that can help to implement the agreement. Mediators must make themselves available to review problems during the immediate implementation phase. In some instances mediators may also assume the responsibility of monitoring or helping to implement the agreement (e.g., UN mediation is often followed by UN peacekeeping missions). Mediator monitoring is intended

Pre-mediation

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Conflict situation

Initiate mediation Information

Initial presentation Communication

Mediation

Structure an agenda Communication

Identify issues Decision-making

Generate and assess options Problem solving

Post-mediation

Reach an agreement Outcome

Implementation

Figure 2 The mediation process.

to prevent noncompliance with the agreement and encourage the participants to stick with their plan as time goes on. Follow-up activities by a mediator at monthly or other regular intervals may ensure that the agreement is executed faithfully and loyally.

Mediation Strategies and Tactics How do mediators, without the power to make formally binding decisions, move the process of mediation forward and create the conditions for more effective decisionmaking? What kinds of behaviors made President Carter, Senator George Mitchell, and Richard Holbrook successful mediators? Which strategies and tactics may be used by a mediator? With so many actors capable of initiating and conducting mediation, it is not easy to make sense of the bewildering range of mediation behavior. This is why we often think of the broad categories of mediation roles, mediation strategies, and mediation tactics. Mediators’ roles refer to a generalized and predictable pattern of behavior in mediation. Mediators’ roles may be characterized in a number of ways. We may talk of formal versus informal roles, advisory versus directive roles, or

invited versus noninvited roles. Mediators’ roles may be listed more specifically as catalyst, educator, agent of reality, and scapegoat. Each of these categories is useful in drawing attention to aspects of mediation behavior. Unfortunately it is unwise to assume that mediators carry out only one role throughout their mediation. The reality of mediation is that of a dynamic situation where they may enact a number of roles in the course of their mediation. Mediators may have one assigned role, yet in the course of mediation change to another role. This is why the notion of strategy offers a more useful approach to question of identifying mediator behavior and tactics. A strategy is a broad or overall approach to conflict. A strategy may entail one or more roles and various types of behavior. There are various ways of thinking about mediation strategies. Mediators may adopt incremental (i.e., segmenting a conflict into smaller issues) or comprehensive (i.e., dealing with all aspects of a conflict) strategies. They may use strategies of integration (i.e., searching for common grounds), pressing (i.e., getting parties to focus on one alternative), or compensation (i.e., increasing the attractiveness of a particular alternative). Another approach to describing mediator strategies distinguishes between reflexive strategies (i.e., facilitating better interactions), nondirective strategies (i.e., producing a favorite climate for mediation), and directive strategies (i.e., promoting a specific outcome). Touval and Zartman’s threefold classification of strategies is the most apposite for the scholar or practitioner of mediation. They identify three basic strategies that mediators use to induce the parties to reach a peaceful and satisfactory outcome. These are communicationfacilitation, formulation, and directive strategies. The use of any of these strategies is designed to change, affect, or modify aspects of a conflict, or the nature of interaction between the parties. Different mediators may use different strategies. These will depend on mediator’s identity, attributes, and resources. Clearly, some individual mediators may not use directive strategies extensively; a major superpower, on the other hand, will not rely on communication-facilitation strategies only. Mediators pursue their objective of conflict resolution by entering a conflict and adopting a particular strategy (which may change later). Each strategy is effected through a series of specific tactics. It is worth noting the tactics associated with each strategy. 1. Communication-facilitation strategies . make contact with parties, . gain the trust and confidence of the parties, . arrange for interactions between the parties, . identify issues and interests, . help to reframe issues, . clarify situation and define issues, . provide confidence and reassurance,

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. avoid taking sides, . guide communications, . develop a rapport with parties, . supply missing information, . facilitate disclosure of information, . develop a framework for understanding, . listen actively, . encourage meaningful communication, . offer positive evaluations, . summarize positions and interests, and . allow the interests of all parties to be discussed. 2. Formulation strategies . choose site for meetings; . decide which parties should be involved; . control pace and formality of meetings; . control physical environment including seating; . establish protocol; . suggest procedures for speaking, intermissions, and caucusing; . highlight common interests; . reduce tensions; . control timing; . deal with simple issues first; . structure agenda; . keep parties at the table; . help parties ‘save face’; and . keep process focused on issues. 3. Directive strategies . . . . . . . . .

change parties’ expectations, take responsibility for concessions, identify settlement range, make substantive suggestions and proposals, make parties aware of the costs of nonagreement, impose deadlines, supply and filter information, suggest concessions parties can make, help negotiators to undo a commitment or ‘save face’, . help to construct settlement formulae, . reward party concessions, . help devise a framework for acceptable outcome, . change expectations, . press the parties to show flexibility, and . promise resources or threaten withdrawal. This is what mediators do when they actually mediate a conflict, and these are the tactics they use in the course of their mediation. In some conflicts (e.g., Carter and the Middle East) they rely on more directive strategies, in others (George Mitchell in Northern Ireland) they rely on communication-facilitation strategies. A good mediator is one who knows which set of strategies and specific tactics to enact in which conflicts. The choice of an appropriate strategy and its related tactics can be effective in achieving one of the central

objectives of mediation, namely (1) changing the physical environment of the conflict (e.g., by maintaining secrecy, or imposing time limits, as President Carter did at Camp David); (2) changing the perception of what is at stake (e.g., by structuring an agenda, identifying, and packaging new issues); and (3) changing the parties’ motivation to reach a peaceful outcome (e.g., using subtle pressure). To be effective, however, mediation strategies must reflect the reality of the conflict, the nature of the parties involved, and the resources of the mediator. To that extent mediation is a truly reciprocal activity. The strategies and tactics of numerous mediators are so very different, not merely because mediators are different, but because the nature and context of a conflict and the characteristics of the parties involved are different too. To be effective, mediation strategy and behavior must match and reflect these conditions. The process of mediation and the context of a conflict are closely interrelated.

Negotiation Negotiation is by far the most common process of resolving conflict. It shares many characteristics with mediation. In many aspects negotiation may be seen as ‘unassisted mediation’. Negotiation is a joint decision-making process that involves two parties (rather than three) who have a conflict over one or more issues. Like mediation, negotiation is a voluntary, dynamic, and evolving relationship, where the parties involved have not only a strong incentive to cooperate, but also a strong desire to achieve their own interests. The tension between cooperative and competitive tendencies defines the nature of negotiation. When this tension becomes too disruptive, a mediator may be called in to help put the negotiations back on track. Broadly speaking, we can identify two types of negotiating situations and the strategies associated with them: distributive (or competitive) negotiations that usually take place in tough, complex, or intractable conflicts of any kind, and integrative (or cooperative) negotiations, that take place where parties have many common links, and are prepared to work seriously to expand the pie, rather than divide it. Generally speaking distributive negotiations are all about parties ‘claiming values’, while integrative negotiations are about ‘creating values’. In distributive negotiations (often referred to as ‘zerosum negotiations’) the issues to be negotiated, or total payoff, are fixed, and each party attempts to secure a larger slice of a fixed resource. The basic structure of distributive negotiations consists of: 1. the party’s target point (what one hopes to achieve); 2. the party’s resistance point (the point at which one will rather break off negotiations); and

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3. the bargaining range (all possible outcomes between target point and resistance point). Integrative negotiations are often described as ‘win–win’ negotiations. Such negotiations emphasize joint efforts directed at maximizing options and finding solutions that can increase the total value or payoff for both parties. Integrative negotiations are about recognizing common interests and creating mutually beneficial solutions. The basic structure of integrative negotiations consists of: 1. identifying both parties’ needs and interests (rather than public positions); 2. generating alternative solutions; and 3. choosing a solution that provides maximum joint benefit. Integrative negotiations are obviously very different from distributive negotiations. Distributive negotiations involve tactics such as use of threats, rewards, misinformation, and other attempts to define the shape of the zone of agreement between the parties. Integrative negotiations take place where the parties have common goals, trust one another, respect each other’s needs and interests, share a commitment to working together, and a desire to expand their fixed notion of resources. The tactics used in integrative negotiations is more like a problem-solving exercise where the parties define the issues that separate them, evaluate all options, and jointly decide to choose the best option for both. This may happen in some, but not all, conflict situations. Distributive and integrative negotiations are very different forms of joint decision-making and conflict resolution. The form negotiation takes is dependent, just like mediation, on the nature of the issues, the characteristics of the parties, and the context of the conflict. Each negotiation entails different strategies and different tactical tasks. In distributive negotiations the bargaining is usually over a single issue, and the fundamental strategy each party uses is that of social influence. Each party attempts to influence the other to change his or her subjective utilities and to accept terms that are more favorable to oneself. Distributive negotiation is thus usually accompanied by threats, commitments, bluffs, and other expressions of power. The main strategy used by parties who find themselves in a distributive negotiation is a tough or aggressive strategy. The following tactical moves exemplify an aggressive strategy: . . . . . . . . .

issue mild threats, ignore opponent’s interests, set deadlines, express readiness to escalate, begin negotiations with an extreme offer, do not reciprocate concessions, use commitments extensively, indulge in personal attacks, refuse to disclose intentions or goals,

. . . . . .

withhold information, demand opponents make first offers, break communications, mislead the other party about your intentions, hint at use of coercion, or boycott negotiation sessions.

Tactical moves in distributive negotiations are used to learn as much as possible about the other party, and to influence its position, particularly in regard to its own resistance (or bottom-line) position. The outcome of such negotiations is usually a short-term win for one party at the expense of their long-term relationship. Distributive negotiations can be quite competitive and adversarial. The goals appear to be irreconcilable, and each party is anxious to have more of what it believes is only a ‘fixed pie’. Integrative negotiations, on the other hand, while acknowledging the different interests of the parties, attempt to go beyond compromise and promote a genuine problem-solving approach. The salient features of integrative negotiations are that they are predicated on the attempt to go beyond initial positions, understand each other’s real needs and interests, emphasize commonalities between the parties, and help to create the conditions for a free flow of information and an open dialog. Integrative negotiation is, for most people, a more desirable and efficient form of dealing with a conflict, but it does require a number of preconditions. Among these are the parties’ willingness to share information and to do so honestly and reliably, a belief in the validity of the other party’s interests and needs, and a commitment and motivation to collaborate rather than compete. There are three major strategies in integrative negotiations: problem identification, generating solutions and creative options, and choosing the best alternative. The specific tactics that implement these strategies are as follows: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

define issues in conflict in a mutually acceptable way; separate the people from the issues involved; do not blame or judge the other party; display trust in the other party; acknowledge the other party’s feelings; focus on real interests, not expressed positions; build friendships with the other party; make goals, interests, and tactics plain to the other party; consider a wide range of options; use brainstorming or outsiders to generate new options; use role-reversal and question-and-answer sessions; maintain open communication channels; evaluate options in terms of objective criteria; choose the option around which there is a clear consensus; take time out to cool off when negotiations become emotional; . minimize formality and record-keeping; and . avoid threats or any coercive tactics.

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Dimensions

Distributive negotiation

Integrative negotiations

1. Objective

Increase one’s gain

Increase joint gain

2. Information

Restricted, unreliable

Open, reliable

3. Focus of negotiations

Winning at all costs

Future relationship

4. Relationship

Formal, adversarial

Informal trusting

5. Trust

Low

High

6. Process

Focus on positions, demands and influence

Focus on interests and areas of agreement

7. Tactics

Contentious

Collaborative

8. Outcome

Short-term compromise

Long-term resolution of conflict

9. Openness and creativity

Minimal

Maximal

Decreased conflict

Longer lasting solutions, improved conflict resolution skills

10. Wider benefits

Figure 3 Patterns of distributive vs. integrative negotiations.

The essential differences between the two kinds of negotiations are depicted in Figure 3. Choosing between distributive and integrative negotiations for the purpose of managing a conflict requires each party to assess the issues in conflict, the nature of the parties involved, and the context in which negotiations occur. If the issues in conflict involve the distribution of a scarce resource, the parties are unfamiliar with each other and not likely to have a relationship beyond the present negotiations, and the conflict occurs within a structure that lacks effective norms or traditions, we will expect distributive negotiations to be used. Negotiating successfully means matching strategies to conflict situations.

step toward affecting the quality of outcomes associated with each process. If we could offer some definitions of quality that emphasize party satisfaction and autonomy, legitimacy, and empowerment, we would find a close correspondence between mediation, negotiations, and these outcome qualities. Mediations and negotiations may not be ideal for all conflict situations, but in most cases they represent the most effective way to manage conflicts. An understanding of mediation and negotiations may contribute, in a small way, to a better future.

Conclusion

Further Reading

Coping with conflict remains one of the most important tasks that individuals, groups, and nations face in the 1990s and beyond. The problem of how to cope with conflict resolves itself into the question of how much control the parties in conflict wish to have over the outcome. At one end of the spectrum we have procedures for dealing with conflict that place severe constraints on the parties’ behavior (e.g., adjudication). At the other end, we have procedures such as mediation and negotiation that leave most, if not all, major decisions in the hands of the parties. From this perspective alone the incentives to engage in mediation or negotiation are quite overwhelming. Distinguishing between conflict management processes, and gaining an understanding of the essential features of each process and how it unfolds in the real world is the first

Bercovitch, J. (1992). The structure and diversity of mediation in international relations. In Bercovitch, J. and Rubin, J. Z. (eds.) Mediation in international relations, pp. 1–29. London and New York: Macmillan and Martin’s Press. Bercovitch, J. (ed.) (1996). Resolving international conflicts. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Bercovitch, J. (ed.) (2002). Studies in international mediation: Essays in honor of Jeffrey Z. Rubin. London and New York: Palgrave and Macmillan. Bercovitch, J. and Rubin, J. Z. (eds.) (1992). Mediation in international relations. London and New York: Macmilllan and St. Martin’s Press. Bowl, L. (1996). Mediation: Principles, process, practice. Sydney: Butterworth. Goldman, A. and Rojot, J. (2003). Negotiation: Theory and practice. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Hall, L. (ed.) (1993). Negotiation: Strategies for mutual gain. Newbury Park: Sage. Halpern, A. (1992). Negotiating skills. London: Blackstone Press. Hermann, M. S. (ed.) (2006). Handbook of mediation: Bridging theory, research and practice. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

See also: Conflict Management and Resolution; Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

Mass Media, General View

Kleiboer, M. (1997). Success and failure of international mediation. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Kovach, K. K. (1995). Mediation: Principles and practice. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. Lebow, R. N. (1996). The art of bargaining. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M., and Minton, J. W. (2001). Essentials of negotiation, 2nd edn. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill/Irwin. Menkel-Meadow, C., Love, L. P., and Schneider, A. K. (eds.) (2006). Mediation: Practice, policy and ethics. New York: Aspen Publishers. Moore, C. W. (1996). The mediation process: Practical strategies for resolving conflicts, 2nd edn. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Princen, T. (1992). Intermediaries in international conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pruitt, D. G. and Carnevale, P. (1993). Negotiation in social conflict. Pacific Groves, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing. Rubin, J. Z., Pruitt, D. G., and Kim, S. H. (1994). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate and settlement. New York: McGraw Hill. Rupesinghe, K. (ed.) (1995). Conflict transformation. London: Macmillan.

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Slaikeau, K. A. (1996). When push comes to shove: A practical guide to mediating disputes. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Thompson, L. (2004). The mind and heart of the negotiator, 2nd edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Touval, S. and Zartman, I. W. (eds.) (1985). International mediation in theory and practice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Zartman, I. W. (ed.) (1995). Elusive peace: Negotiating and end to civil wars. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Relevant Websites http://www.beyondintractability.org http://www.crinfo.org/ http://www.crinfo.org/ http://www.globalsecurity.org/index.html http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/ http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/ http://www.conflictsensitivity.org/resource_pack/ http://cpr.web.cern.ch/cpr/compendium/

Mass Media, General View Edward Donnerstein, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What We Think about the Mass Media What Is Mass Communication? How Are We Influenced by the Mass Media? Issues to Consider About Media Effects Violence: The Major Concern of Exposure to the Mass Media

Glossary Arousal Effects Emotional reactions, often accompanied by a measurable physiological responses. Critical Viewing Skills Curricula designed to teach individuals to recognize certain types of negative portrayals of social behavior in the media and to provide them with alternative ways of interpreting these portrayals. Context The context in which the message is received is important. For example, do we view alone or with others. Desensitization Effects Reductions in physiological and emotional arousal in the face of violence. Fear Effects Learning about violence in the news and in fictional programming may lead to the belief that the world is generally a scary and dangerous place. Mass Communication A process in which professional communicators use media to disseminate messages widely, rapidly, and continuously to arouse intended

What Type of Violence Exists in the Mass Media? Current Social Scientific Views on Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior Mitigating the Impact of Violent Mass Media Conclusions Further Reading

meanings in large and diverse audiences in attempts to influence them in a variety of way. Media Effect How an audience is changed or influenced by the mass media. Media Violence Any overt depiction of a credible threat of physical force or the actual use of such force intended to physically harm an animate being or group of beings. Violence also includes certain depictions of physically harmful consequences against an animate being or group that occur as a result of unseen violent means. Misrepresentation Effects certain minority groups are often portrayed as perpetrators of violence, reinforcing negative stereotypes among viewers. Intended Media Effects Deliberate attempts on the part of the communicator to influence the recipient in some way. Unintended Media Effects Media presentations which were designed for purposes other than to exert social influence, usually to entertain.

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The major social function of mass media is to influence the cognitions, attitudes, or behaviors of viewers or listeners in some desired direction. Our world most often comprises these intended effects – deliberate attempts on the part of the communicator to influence the recipient in some way. The most obvious of these attempts at exerting social influence through the mass media is commercial advertising and adjunct activities such as political campaign messages, and public service announcements (PSAs). Other media presentations are designed not to persuade or convince but for other purposes, usually to entertain. Often, however, there are unintended effects from this entertainment. The one which has received the most attention is the media’s influence on violent behavior. This article will present a general overview of the mass media and its effects, with a particular emphasis on violence.

What We Think about the Mass Media American culture, particularly its mass media, is a useful and powerful resource. Although certain aspects are unattractive to some, American popular culture, embodied in products and communication, has widespread appeal. This is especially true in the field of mass media. As satellite, the Internet, and other forms of new technology, bring films and programs into the homes of millions around the world, there will continue to be the concern noted many years ago, but still true today, by James Ferman, Director of the British Board of Film Classification: There will always be some who feel that the values of their own regional culture are under threat from works which represent not the best but the worst which other culture have to offer. (James Ferman, 1995: 2)

The concern raised by many in these countries is violence (the topic of this article), its predominance in American mass media, and its potential impact on viewers. Recent surveys of American parents found that most parents were very concerned with the amount of sex or violence in the media. About two-thirds indicate that they are very concerned with media violence and believe that it is a major contributor to violent behavior in our society. These types of findings also exist in other countries. For example, a recent survey in Sweden asked adults what they perceive to be the factors that lead to violence in their society. While alcohol and drugs were the highest (90%) it is interesting to note that both television and the Internet were listed by 60% of respondents as having a strong and significant influence. This was the first time the Internet was used in this ongoing 10-year survey. Further, when respondents were asked their views on the extent of sexual scenes in the media having a negative impact on children, Internet websites were considered more harmful then television or music videos.

This debate about the impact of mass media on viewers is not new. For decades, there has been a genuine concern about the antisocial effects that can occur from exposure to mass media, in particular violence. In the next section we will examine what we mean by mass communication and the general view of what types of effects are possible from exposure.

What Is Mass Communication? DeFleur and Dennis offer a useful definition: Mass communication is a process in which professional communicators use media to disseminate messages widely, rapidly, and continuously to arouse intended meanings in large and diverse audiences in attempts to influence them in a variety of ways. (Melvin DeFleur and Everette Dennis, 2001)

DeFleur and Dennis consider mass communication to be an ongoing process with five distinct stages. In the first stage, professional communicators create various types of ‘messages’ for presentation to assorted individuals for diverse purposes. These messages are disseminated in the second stage in a ‘quick and continuous’ manner through some form of mechanical media (e.g., film, television). In the third stage, this message eventually reaches a ‘vast’ and diverse (i.e., mass) audience. In the fourth stage the audience somehow ‘interprets’ these messages and gives them a meaning. This response from the audience is considered to be the ‘communication’ part of the definition, since it implies some form of reciprocity between sender and receiver. Lastly, as a result of all of the above, the audience is influenced or changed in some manner. In other words, there is a mass media effect. How the audience is changed or influenced by the mass media, the fifth of the above stages, has been the focus of research for decades and is the major interest of this article. In fact, most research on mass communication has been the study of effects. This is not to say that researchers and others have not been interested in other aspects of mass media, such as studying the characteristics of the vast and diverse audiences attracted to mass media, or the cognitive and emotional processes that may influence how we interpret mass media messages and give them a meaning. It is the process giving rise to effects, however, that will be central to our current discussion.

How Are We Influenced by the Mass Media? In thinking of mass media effects, we should be cognizant of what have been termed ‘intended and unintended influences’. According to McGuire, the major social

Mass Media, General View

function of mass media is to influence the receiver’s cognitions, attitudes, or behaviors in some desired direction. Most often the world of mass media comprises intended effects, deliberate attempts on the part of the communicator to influence the recipient in some way. While there are many potential types of intended effects, six have been most frequently studied by mass communication scholars. The two most widely acknowledged are commercial advertising and political campaigns. In addition, there are PSAs and multimedia campaigns to change lifestyles, such as in the areas of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) awareness, smoking, drug use, and other socially relevant issues. A fifth intended effect has been termed massive, monolithic, indoctrination effects on ideology. It is possible for some totalitarian governments to control nearly all aspects of the mass media. Government officials believe that by controlling the media the government can ensure loyalty of its people to the government ideology. Lastly, there has been the study of mass mediated rituals in social control. Such mass media events as the World Series, the Super Bowl, and Wimbledon are said to have particular affects on a region because of the community’s symbolic participation in a ritualistic event. The large street demonstrations, parades, friendly drinking with strangers, and other festivities accompanying these sports media extravaganzas would imply some form of media influence. Likewise, media events like the showing of the film Schindlers List has been considered by media scholars as a means of unified viewing of certain mass media presentations which can affect viewers’ attitudes and perceptions. There are often media events which are not planned by broadcasters, like an assassination of a major governmental official, or natural disasters which result in mass viewer reactions. These unexpected viewer reactions represent the second kind of media effect discussed by McGuire. When we consider unintended media effects, we are referring to what McGuire defines as media presentations which were designed for purposes other than to exert social influence, usually to entertain. While the eventual reaction from the audience may be one approaching antisocial behavior, the original creator of the media presentation never intended viewers to react in that fashion. There are a number of research areas which are central to our current discussion which are part to these ‘unintended’ media influences. The first is televised violence and viewers’ aggression. Perhaps no other area has received as much research attention as the effects of televised violence. As we noted earlier, media scholars, concerned citizens, congressional panels, and others have debated whether exposure to violence in the media leads viewers to later aggressive behavior. A second major area has been misrepresentation effects on viewer stereotypes. Certain minority groups are often

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portrayed as perpetrators of violence, reinforcing negative stereotypes among viewers. Likewise, consistently showing women as being victimized by strangers outside the home leaves one with a false impression of the true realities of violence against women. Another area of considerable research has been the effects of erotica and pornography on sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Can the viewing of sexually explicit movies and magazines, particularly those fused with violence, lead to rape and other forms of sexual violence? As with the subject of televised violence and its possible effects, researchers and policy makers have been concerned with the potential effects of viewing sexually explicit materials for many years, particularly today with the increasing access to Internet images. Finally there is the effect of new forms of mass media on thought processes and behaviors. For some of us, it might be hard to visualize a community without television. However, such communities do exist. Tannis Williams, along with other researchers in Canada, found such a community and they were able to examine what changes occurred to individuals and their community as a whole ‘after’ the introduction of television. To what degree did the introduction of television change behaviors, cognitive development, and leisure activities in the community? Two years after the introduction of television, children who previously had no access to this type of mass media showed reductions in cognitive skills like reading and creativity, as well as reduced leisure activities with the family. Furthermore, there was evidence for an increase in aggressive behaviors. While in years past the concerns were with television and film, today they are with newer technologies like video games, virtual reality, and the Internet. Nevertheless, intended or unintended, there is a general agreement among media researchers that the media do have an influence on its viewers. However, these effects undoubtedly differ from person to person. Just as importantly, effects can differ within each individual. For some reason when we think about how the media influence people, we tend to do so most often in terms of observable behavior. For many, and in particular policy makers, behavioral markers are thought of as the most powerful of media effects. After all, if we are concerned about televised violence shouldn’t our concern be with changes in actual aggressive behavior? However, there are other avenues by which the media can impart its influence. The changing or reinforcing of one’s attitude to violence is also a mass media influence. Likewise, we can think of cognitive effects. Learning a fact from the mass media is the most straightforward type of cognitive effect. Obviously, television programs devoted to informing and educating viewers to the harmful effects of violence, such as a PSA, provide us with new facts we never would have known had we not tuned in. And of course, there are emotional

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reactions, often accompanied by some physiological reactions, which are also media effects. Some effects (like crying during a sad scene) we are readily aware of but others (like an increase in blood pressure) might not be accessible at a conscious level. For some mass media theorists, excitement and its accompanying physiological arousal is an indispensable component in explaining the relationship between media exposure and behavior.

Issues to Consider About Media Effects There remain several important questions that we need to raise in order to refine our understanding of mass media effects. These are questions that have often puzzled policy makers, academics, and students of mass media effects for decades. First, how long does it take for the mass media to have an effect? For some effects, like physiological or emotional changes in a viewer or listener after exposure to a mass media depiction, we might expect almost immediate results. For other media influences the time interval will increase from minutes, to days, to months, and even years. Are we concerned about a particular violent film or is cumulative viewing over many years the issue? Another temporal question that arises frequently concerns the duration of the effect. How long does physiological arousal last after exposure to a frightening or sexual film? Do most effects wax and wane over time and in constant need of a new infusion of new media exposure? For physiological arousal, the answer would be that the effect may last for only a few minutes and additional media exposure would be required to keep arousal high. For behaviors like aggression, however, the effect can last a lifetime. We should keep in mind that although it might appear that a particular media effect has vanished, or is short lived, it can appear sometime in the future. Media messages can be stored in memory for long periods of time and are reactivated later when conditions are suitable. A second issue often raised is what type of content, shown in what context produces effects. The content of most mass media messages is complex. All types of violent materials do not facilitate aggressive behavior. Violent content which is gratuitous, arousing, or sexual in nature is more likely to affect the viewer than other types of violent content. The context in which the message is received is important also. There are several contextual variables that may alter mass media exposure outcomes. One such context variable concerns the number of times people are exposed to a given message. For example, we may ask of many study outcomes: Does the effect occur after a single exposure or does the effect depend on multiple exposures? Third, there is the issue of exactly ‘who’ is affected by the mass media. We can conceive of influences ranging

from individuals to whole societies. Just as individuals will react differently to the mass media, as noted above, various subgroups within the population will also vary (e.g., children, elderly, the well educated). There has been a tradition in mass media research to emphasize ‘microlevel’ or an individual unit of analysis. Yet, as students of mass media we are well aware of the more ‘macrolevel’ in which the media can have its influence on various groups in our society. This might entail not only the study of how small groups of people are influenced by the mass media but how entire communities and societies are affected. Finally, we need to note that mass media may facilitate two types of changes in attitudes and behaviors and feelings – ‘small changes in a large number of individuals’ (such as a slight inclination for many viewers to be more accepting of violence against women after exposure to violent pornography) or ‘larger, more profound changes in a very small group of people’ (actually raping a woman after exposure to a sexually violent film). In the latter example, only a small subgroup of the population is actually affected by the mass media but in a powerful way. In the former, many people are affected and in this sense the effect is powerful because many people are involved but most people are affected in a small, limited, subtle way. Changing people is not an easy thing to do. For example, it is unlikely that most people who have been socialized to have nonviolent values will be altered by exposure to violent pornography which portrays the myth that women enjoy sexual assault. However, for a small number of people the effect may be dramatic. It must be kept in mind that even if 1% or 2% of the people who view, listen, or read a certain message are affected by it in a strong way, this could translate into a very large effect for society. Any one message may have millions of viewers and listeners. A fraction of 1% of the viewing audience may include thousands of people. Thousands of children behaving more aggressively on the school playground because of exposure to a violent program on television the night before may have a dramatically negative effect on our society. Policy makers and government officials are concerned about both types of effects although they are most often alarmed by a dramatic effect limited to a few individuals. The effects that occur from viewing violence in the mass media are powerful but limited. The research shows that mass media is but one of many causes of aggression and that not everyone is affected in the same manner. Rather than a ‘magic bullet’ we must realize that under appropriate conditions televised violence could be a powerful contributor to violent behavior but if conditions were not right, few effects would occur. For complex behaviors such as crime to occur message factors, situational factors, characteristics of the individual must all interact to produce an effect. The probability that all of these factors will come together is relatively small. However, even if the

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probability of such message, situation, and person combinations is one in a thousand, the outcome may be startling. Millions of people are exposed to mass media violence; as a result we might expect literally hundreds of additional violent crimes including rape and murder as a result of exposure to violence.

Violence: The Major Concern of Exposure to the Mass Media As we have noted a number of times, the influence of mass media on aggressive behavior has been the predominate concern of individuals for decades. In this section we will briefly examine this influence. However, first we need to define what we mean by aggression. Defining Violence in the Media Nearly 30 years ago a leading researcher in the field of interpersonal aggression, Robert Baron, offered a relatively simple definition of that activity that is still acceptable to most social scientists and implicit in most research on the effects of media violence which we will discuss. Baron defines aggression as any form of behavior directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment. This definition includes the notion that to be objectively defined, aggression, in the media or in any form of social interaction, must be some sort of goal-directed or purposeful behavior. It assumes that people are motivated to avoid it on the individual level or to devise sanctions at the group level to prohibit it. Intentionality is critical in order to exclude many harmful behaviors that are not reasonably considered violent. Without the vital concept of intention to harm, all accidental harms would be included as violence as would actions of surgeons or dentists. Accepting Baron’s definition with its emphasis on intention to harm as a core feature and incorporating other features offered by mass media scholars, a recent definition of media violence has been suggested which is as follows: Any overt depiction of a credible threat of physical force or the actual use of such force intended to physically harm an animate being or group of beings. Violence also includes certain depictions of physically harmful consequences against an animate being or group that occur as a result of unseen violent means. Thus, there are three primary types of violent depictions: credible threats, behavioral acts, and harmful consequences. There are several features of this definition that merit attention. First, it takes account of the fact that potential perpetrators of violence often try to harm but are unsuccessful. It is important not to exclude acts that attempt to cause harm but that prove unsuccessful. Such acts are clearly aggressive. Second, the definition recognizes that

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the consequences of violence are often present without the perpetrator or behavior actually being shown and this should be considered as violence. This would include violent actions that are not portrayed overtly but can be inferred clearly from the depiction of the harmful consequences (e.g., the police respond to the scene of a shooting and find a victim bleeding to death). Third, this definition specifies that animate beings must be the perpetrators or targets of violence. Harm can be caused to individuals by many forces other than those of living beings, such as acts of nature like a tornado or lightning bolt. Consistent with the previous point that intention to harm is a fundamental aspect of the definition of violence, these authors have emphasized that at least one animate being capable of possessing intentions must be involved as a perpetrator in order to have an instance of violence. Similarly, an animate being must be a target in order to meet this definition of violence. Fourth, the definition takes note of the fact that the television world is inhabited by a wide range of creatures not all of whom occur naturally on Earth. These include everything from ‘Smurfs’ to ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ to ‘Biker Mice from Mars’ to name a few children’s program characters; beings from other planets such as Superman or Alf. All are anthropomorphized beings which may perpetrate violence although these types of characters’ influence on the audience is not always equivalent to a more traditional human form. Most of the effects of exposure to media violence are accounted for in this definition. These effects can be broken down to increased aggressive behaviors, fearfulness, or desensitization to violence. Each of the components of the definition make sense in light of these effects. For example, it is important not to exclude acts that attempt to cause harm but that prove unsuccessful because these credible threats of physical harm must be considered violent because, just as with a harmful act, they too will generally contribute to a fear response in the audience, as well as increased priming of aggressive thoughts which contribute to violent behavior. Violent actions that are not portrayed overtly but can be clearly inferred from harmful consequences should also be considered because of their likelihood of contributing to antisocial effects such as fear and desensitization. Even the definition’s specification that animate beings must be the perpetrators or targets of violence is both logically consistent with the focus on intentions and with the research literature on the effects of exposure to violence. Harm can be caused to individuals by many forces other than those of living beings, such as acts of nature like a tornado or lightning bolt. Although these actions might contribute to fear on the part of some viewers, in particular young children, they would not raise concerns in terms of socialization or modeling of aggression. Similarly, an animate being must be a target

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in order to meet this definition of violence. Individuals often hit or kick inanimate objects in an aggressive fashion, sometimes this reflects spontaneous anger and other times a premeditated intention to damage a target’s possession. The research evidence documenting antisocial effects of violence against living beings is compelling, while no comparable evidence exists regarding the impacts of violence against inanimate objects. The definition does limit violence to physical acts. This is because physical harm or the threat thereof is at the root of all conceptions of violence and most of the operationalizations of the concept in past research. One might reasonably assert that verbal assaults that intimidate or physical acts that are meant to cause psychological or emotional harm should be considered as violence. Certainly such actions are aggressive and may in some cases be associated with antisocial impacts on the audience. However, the research is much less clear on this matter.

What Type of Violence Exists in the Mass Media? Surveys indicate that nearly 98% of American households have a television and many have more than one set. It is now widely known that television viewing occupies more time than any other nonschool activity. Furthermore, among children, it accounts for more than half of all their leisure activities. While the time spent with the Internet has shown major increases, it is still television type programming (no matter where it is viewed) that is of major concern. If children watch an average of 2–4 hours of television per day, how much violence are they being exposed to? Research indicates that by the time a child leaves elementary school, he/she will have seen approximately 8000 murders and more than 100 000 other acts of violence. Near the end of their teenage years, they will have witnessed over 200 000 violent acts on television. Numerous content analyses have assessed the amount and types of violent portrayals that are featured on television programming. A recent study by the Parents Television Council found that overall violence increased almost 50% during the last 8 years during the 8 p.m. prime time and 92% at 9 p.m. While these figures indicate that violent programming is extensive, the real question is the context in which this violence exists. Few analyses of this kind have been conducted. When they have, the results are interesting. The largest of these was the National Television Violence Study. In this study, violence was defined as an overt depiction of physical force, or the credible threat of such force, intended to physically harm an animate being or group of beings. Violence also included certain depictions of physically harmful consequences against an animate being or group of beings that occur as a result of

unseen violent means. This was the definition provided earlier in this article. The study analyzed content at three distinct levels: a violent interaction, a violent scene, and the overall program. At each level, specific contextual measures were assessed. The results from this study found that over a 3-year period an average of 58% of programs on television contain some violence, with 66% of those interactions including behavioral acts of violence, 29% involving credible threats of violence, and 3% involving harmful consequences of unseen violence. Only 4% of all violent programs on television feature an ‘antiviolence’ theme. Put in another way, 96% of all violent television programs use aggression as a narrative, cinematic device for simply entertaining the audience. These prevalence findings are incredibly consistent across three randomly sampled composite weeks of television from three different years. While the aforementioned results are interesting, they only inform us about the prevalence of violence on television. What should be of greater concern is the context or way in which violence is portrayed on television. When we look more closely at the context of violence, the results reveal that most aggression on television is glamorized. Nearly one-half (44%) of the violent interactions on television involve perpetrators who have some attractive qualities worthy of emulation. Nearly 40% of the scenes involve humor either directed at the violence or used by characters involved with violence. Furthermore, a full 74% of all violent scenes on television feature no immediate punishment or condemnation for violence. In addition, almost 40% of the programs feature ‘bad’ characters who are never or rarely punished for their aggressive actions. These findings are also consistent across the 3-year period. Much of the violence on television is also sanitized. For example, over half of the violent behavioral interactions on television feature no pain (55%), and 47% feature no harm. A full 40% of the violent behavioral interactions depict harm in an unrealistic fashion with the greatest prevalence of unrealistic harm appearing in children’s programming, presumably due to cartoons. Of all violent scenes on television, 86% feature ‘no’ blood or gore. This is surprising given that nearly 40% of all interactions involve conventional weapons such as guns, knives, bombs, or other heavy weaponry! Finally, only 16% of violent programs featured the long-term, realistic consequences of violence.

Current Social Scientific Views on Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior In a report on youth violence, the Surgeon General of the United States identified a series of risk factors which were

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considered to: (1) increase the probability that a young person will become violent, and (2) predict the onset, continuity, or escalation of violence. In considering these varying factors, the Surgeon General’s report noted that more important than any individual risk factor is the accumulation of factors. When considering those factors most important in youth violence being a male had the highest effect size. Among other major factors and their effect sizes were the following: Substance abuse Antisocial parents Weak social ties Media violence Low IQ Broken home Abusive parents Antisocial peers

.30 .23 .15 .13 .12 .09 .07 .04

While not being the major contributor, media violence is considered, especially when other factors are present, a significant force in the development and onset of aggressive behavior in youth. Any critical examination of the literature would indicate that exposure to media violence can have major effects. The first is that exposure to television violence contributes to a range of antisocial effects on viewers. The conclusion that violence on television contributes to negative effects on viewers is hardly novel. The effects that seem to be most pronounced are the learning of aggressive attitudes and behaviors, desensitization to violence, and increased fear of being victimized by violence. Over the last 40 years, several governmental and professional organizations have conducted exhaustive reviews of the scientific literature to ascertain the relationship between exposure to media violence and aggression. These investigations have documented consistently that exposure to media violence contributes to aggressive behaviors in viewers and may influence their perceptions and attitudes about violence in the real world. First, heavy viewing of media violence is correlated with aggressive behavior and increased aggressive attitudes. The correlation between viewing violence in the media and exhibiting aggressive behavior is fairly stable over time, place, and demographics. Experimental and longitudinal studies also supported the position that viewing television violence is related causally to aggressive behavior. Even more important, naturalistic field studies and cross-national investigations reveal that viewing televised aggression leads to increases in subsequent aggression and that such behavior can become part of a lasting behavioral pattern. These studies have been consistent in research conducted in a number of different countries. It was also concluded that exposure to television violence may alter individuals’ attitudes and behaviors

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toward violence in two particular ways. First, prolonged viewing of media violence may emotionally desensitize viewers toward real-world violence. As a result, individuals may develop calloused attitudes toward aggression directed at others and a decreased likelihood to take action on behalf of a victim when violence occurs. Second, exposure to media violence can contribute to increased fear in viewers about becoming a victim of real-world violence. As a result, individuals may become increasingly untrusting or suspicious of others and engage in a variety of self-protective behaviors. Research on the effects of cumulative exposure to television reveals that heavy viewers may develop attitudes and beliefs about the world that ‘match’ or are very similar to the world presented on television. Because television is filled with stories about crime and violence, heavy viewing can contribute to developing exaggerated perceptions of how much violence occurs in this world or unrealistic fears and beliefs about becoming a victim of violence. Another major assumption is that not all violent portrayals pose the same risk of harm to viewers. Research indicates that some depictions of violence increase the risk of antisocial effects whereas others decrease such a risk. Simply put, the context or way in which violence is presented influences its impact on the audience. One question which is always raised is about the effects on ‘real’ criminal behavior and the generalization of effects to countries other than the United States. Research by Centerwall has given us some answers to these questions. He notes that South Africans have lived in a fully modern state for decades with one exception – they had no television until 1975. Tensions between Africaner- and English-speaking communities concerning programming content stalled the introduction of television for years. In fact, for 25 years approximately 2 million white South Africans were excluded from exposure to television. The medium was introduced in the United States 25 years earlier. Television was introduced to Canada a few years after the US. In order to test whether exposure to television is a cause of violence Centerwall compared homicide rates in South Africa, Canada, and the United States. Since blacks in South Africa live under different conditions than blacks in the United States he limited his comparisons to white homicide rates in both these countries and the total homicide rate in Canada (which was 97% white in 1951). The homicide rate was chosen as a measure of violence because homicide statistics are extremely accurate. From 1945 to 1974, the white homicide rate in the United States increased 93%. In Canada, the homicide rate increased 92%. In South Africa, where television was banned, the white homicide rate declined by 7%. Centerwall examined several other factors that could possibly explain the fact that violence increased in the US

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and Canada but not in South Africa. Many of the more obvious explanations could be ruled out. He argues that economic growth cannot account for the murder rate growth. All three countries experienced significant economic growth between 1946 and 1974 (Canada, 124%; US, 75%; and South Africa, 86%). Civil unrest such as antiwar and civil-rights activity cannot be an explanation because the homicide rate in Canada also doubled without similar civil unrest. Other possible explanations include changes in age distribution, urbanization, alcohol consumption, capital punishment, and the availability of fire arms. None of these provides a viable explanation for the observed homicide trends. The only appreciable difference among the three countries was the absence of television in South Africa. Centerwall found a 10–15 year lag between the introduction of television and the subsequent increase in homicide rate in the United States and Canada. He attributes this time lag to the fact that television exerts its behaviormodifying effects primarily on children. Since homicide is primarily an adult activity, the lag represents the time needed for the ‘television generation’ to come of age. The relationship between television and the homicide rate holds within the United States as well. Different regions of the US acquired television at different times. The regions that acquired television first were also first to see higher homicide rates. Urban areas acquired television before rural areas. As expected urban areas saw increased homicide rates several years before the occurrence of a parallel increase in rural areas. White households in the US acquired television sets approximately 5 years before minority households. The white homicide rate began increasing in 1958, 4 years before a parallel increase in the minority homicide rate.

Mitigating the Impact of Violent Mass Media Is there any way to potentially mediate the harmful impact of exposure to media violence? We take the position that the effects of viewing violence in the mass media can be mitigated. In an examination of the psychological research we find that educational efforts in terms of media literacy/critical viewing, and programming designed with antiviolent messages can be effective. Critical Viewing Children can be taught ‘critical viewing skills’ by parents and in schools so that they learn to better interpret what they see on television. For example, children can learn to distinguish between fictional portrayals and factual presentations. In addition, children can be taught to recognize ways in which violence is portrayed unrealistically

(e.g., when it is portrayed without any negative consequences). Children can also learn to think about alternatives to the violence portrayed, a strategy that is particularly effective when an adult viewing the violence with the child expresses disapproval of violence as a means of solving problems and then offers alternatives. For example, Huesmann attempted to motivate children not to encode and later enact aggressive behaviors they observed on television. They designed their intervention to take advantage of ideas from counter-attitudinal advocacy research found effective in producing enduring behavioral changes in other domains. Specifically, the intervention was predicated on a notion contained in both dissonance and attribution theory – when a person finds himself or herself advocating a point of view that is either unfamiliar or even counter to an original belief he or she is motivated to shift attitudes into line with what is being advocated. Children in the Huesmann et al. experimental group were first credited with the antiviolence attitudes that the experimenters wished them to adopt and then were asked to make videotapes for other children who had been ‘fooled’ by television and ‘got into trouble by imitating it’ even though they themselves knew better. The children composed persuasive essays explaining how television is not like real life and why it would be harmful for other children to watch too much television and imitate the violent characters. Each child was videotaped reading his/her essay. Then, each child’s taped presentation was played before the entire group. This gave the child an opportunity to see himself advocate an antiviolence position and also made the child’s position public. The intervention was successful both in changing children’s attitudes about television violence and in modifying aggressive behavior. Four months after the intervention there was a significant decline in peer-nominated aggression and attitudes about the acceptability of television violence for the experimental group. In addition, a large number of professional organizations concerned with the well-being of children and families have recommended that professionals take a more active role in reducing the impact of violent media (American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, National Parent Teachers Association). Research on intervention programs has indicated that we can reduce some of the impact of media violence by ‘empowering’ parents in their roles as monitors of children’s television viewing. These studies indicate that parents who view programs with their children and discuss the realities of violence, as well as alternatives to aggressive behaviors in conflict situations, can actually reduce the negative impact (increased aggressiveness) of media violence. There are currently a number of programs being developed by researchers which can be used by parents in their interactions with children during the viewing of television.

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Media Initiatives Another educational resource is the mass media itself. Educational movies about violence, professionally produced that are also designed to be entertaining have great potential for informing the public and, under some conditions, might even change antisocial attitudes about violence. An example in this area is provided by a National Broadcasting Company (NBC) made-for-television movie. This program, entitled She Said No, was featured during prime-time hours and attracted a large audience. She Said No also received critical acclaim, winning an award from American Women in Radio and Television for its realistic portrayal of the plight of a rape victim. An evaluation of the effectiveness of this movie measured whether exposure to this movie would decrease acceptance of rape myths and/or increase awareness of date rape as a serious social problem. The study employed a total of 1038 adults, randomly selected from four locations in the United States who were assigned to view or not to view She Said No over a closed-circuit channel, prior to the network broadcast of the film. Individuals from this representative sample were randomly assigned to view or not view the made-for-TV movie in their own home – a more naturalistic viewing environment than is achieved in most media experiments. The viewers and nonviewers were contacted the next day and asked about acceptance of rape myths and perceptions of rape as a social problem. The results of this study indicated that the television movie was a useful tool in educating and altering perceptions about date rape. Specifically, exposure to the movie increased awareness of date rape as a social problem across all viewers, independent of gender or age. The movie also had a prosocial effect on older females who were less likely to attribute blame to women in date rape situations after exposure, as compared to older women who did not view the movie.

Conclusions In this article, we asked ‘‘what are mass media and its effects?’’ The mass media can be thought of as a process that includes program conception, production, transmission, and reception by the audience. It is this last step, mass media effects, that we are most interested in. Mass media messages may be divided into those intended to influence viewers and listeners, as in the case of commercial advertising, or they may be unintentional, such as increases in aggression following the broadcast of a violent television program. The mass media may influence our behaviors, attitudes, cognitions, or our physiological arousal. It is possible for the mass media to form new

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attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors, reinforce already existing ones, or change those attitudes and behaviors which we already possess. It would be safe to conclude from our review that the mass media is a contributor to a number of antisocial behaviors and problems, particularly violence in adolescents. We must keep in mind, however, that the mass media is but one of a multitude of factors which contribute, and in many cases not the most significant. Other agents of socialization, like parents, schools, and peers, interact with the mass media to produce effects. Nevertheless, it is one of those factors in which proper interventions can mitigate its impact, and further one factor which can be controlled with reasonable insight. In this article we have discussed a number of these techniques. See also: Communication Studies, Overview

Further Reading Anderson, C. A. (2003). Video games and aggressive behavior. In Ravitch, D. and Viteritti, J. P. (eds.) Kid stuff: Marketing sex and violence to America’s children, pp. 143–167. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Anderson, C., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., et al. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4, 81–110. Anderson, C. A. and Bushman, B. J. (2002). The effects of media violence on society. Science 295, 2377–2378. Bushman, B. and Anderson, C. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: A test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, 1679–1686. Carlsson, U. (2006). Violence and pornography in the media. Public views on the influence media violence and pornography exert on young people. In Carlsson, U. and von Feilitzen, C. (eds.) In the service of young people? Studies and reflections on media in the digital age, pp. 135–154. Goteborg, Sweden: UNESCO. Centerwall, B. S. (1989). Exposure to television as a risk factor for violence. American Journal of Epidemiology 129(4), 643–652. Comstock, G. and Scharrer, E. (2003). Meta-analyzing the controversy over television violence and aggression. In Gentile, D. (ed.) Media violence and children, pp. 205–226. Westport, CT: Praeger. Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C. L., and Eron, L. D. (2003). Longtiudinal relations between children’s exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977–1992. Developmental Psychology 39(2), 201–221. Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Smailes, E. M., Kasen, S., and Brook, J. S. (2002). Television viewing and aggressive behavior during adolescence and adulthood. Science 295, 2468–2471. National Television Violence Study (1998). National television violence study, vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Savage, J. (2004). Does viewing violent media really cause criminal violence? A methodological review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 10, 99–128. Strasburger, V. and Wilson, B. (eds.) (2007). Children, adolescents and the media, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Surgeon General of the United States (2001). Youth violence: A report of the surgeon general. Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services, US Government Printing Office.

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Television Programming and Violence, International

Television Programming and Violence, International Barrie Gunter, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Violence on Television: Key Issues Measuring Violence on Television Perceptions of Television Violence Effects of Television Violence

Glossary Arousal Physiological excitation within the nervous system caused by on-screen action and events, associated with the release of chemical substances in the body and brain and experienced psychologically by the individual as an emotional reaction. Content Analysis A research technique which involves objectively and systematically counting and cataloging predefined objects, incidents, or occurrences depicted on television. Correlational Analysis A statistical technique for examining and quantifying the degree of association between two or more variables, whereby as the probability of occurrence of one increases the probability of occurrence of another either increases

Violence on Television: Key Issues Background Concern about violence on television can be traced back to the earliest days of the medium. The roots of this concern can be found in the unease that has typically been expressed whenever a popular new entertainment medium emerges. Critical reactions occurred in response to the appearance of popular romantic and adventure novels in the nineteenth century and the growing popularity of motion pictures during the first half of the twentieth century. The 1950s witnessed a redirection of public anxieties onto the rapidly spreading medium of television. With the rapid growth in television channels from the early 1990s, with the continued penetration of cable television, the emergence of satellite, and the switch from analog to digital transmissions, attention switched toward provision of enhanced advance information about the content of programs to guide viewers in their choices and to help parents protect their children. Key Concerns There are several major issues on which debate about televised violence has centered. These typically relate to accusations leveled against television about its alleged

Public Opinion and Television Violence Research, Regulation, and Control Further Reading

(positive correlation) or decreases (negative correlation). Cultivation Effects The tendency of media audiences to have their beliefs about the real world shaped by patterns of behavior and object or incident occurrences in the media. Desensitization Progressive reduction of psychological reactivity to an exciting media stimulus following repeated exposure to it. Disinhibition The weakening of socially conditioned inhibitions against behaving violently as a function of exposure to violence in the media, especially when depicted as justified. Imitation Behavioral copying by the media consumer of an action or incident portrayed in the media.

enthusiasm for featuring violence in programs as an apparently essential ingredient of entertainment, and the impact that such material can have on viewers, especially upon children. A number of common assumptions are made in the recurrent debate about violence on television. First, it is frequently argued that television contains a great deal of violence. Second, there is a common belief that regular viewers are therefore exposed to large quantities of violence during the course of their everyday television viewing. Third, it is assumed that constant exposure to violent content in programs must have a deleterious effect upon viewers and contributes, as a causal factor, to the enactment of antisocial behavior in society. Fourth, evidence from public opinion polls is regularly cited to support the contention that viewers generally are concerned about the amount and nature of violence on television. Finally, there is much dispute internationally about how effectively television violence is regulated or could be better controlled. This debate has been conducted all around the world and similar concerns have been expressed across Europe, Asia, and Australasia. While a great proportion of the empirical research studies on this subject have emanated from the United States, the current article reviews evidence from the rest of the world on each of the key issues of on-screen representation, audience impact, and public opinion concerning violence on television.

Television Programming and Violence, International

Measuring Violence on Television Methodology Traditionally, the most commonly used method for assessing how much violence television programs contain is known as ‘content analysis’. When measuring violence on television, researchers begin by setting up an ‘objective’ statement of what they mean by violence. Violence is defined in broad terms. Accompanying this definition is a frame of reference which specifies how and where that definition should be applied in the assessment of programs. This instructional frame of reference is given to teams of trained coders who watch video-recorded samples of programs and count incidents which match the a priori definition of violence. From this, a quantitative assessment of the ‘amount’ of violence on television is produced in terms of the numbers of violent incidents or events cataloged by coders. Such analysis does not invariably involve counting every single punch that is thrown, shot that is fired, or dead body in the battlefield. In some scenes, violence is cataloged at the level of continuous sequences where the flow of the action is uninterrupted. This approach aims to yield an objective measure, of the extent and location of particular classes of incident or event in television programs, devoid of any element of subjective judgment about violent television portrayals. All violence tends to be treated in the same way by a content analysis, regardless of the type of program or dramatic context or setting in which it occurs. Thus, cartoon violence, for example, is treated no differently than violence occurring in a contemporary drama series. Violence in the news would be weighted no differently from violence in a situation comedy. International Comparisons The on-screen representation of violence has been studied in Canada, Europe, the Far East, and Australasia. This work has generally adopted a standard content analysis approach similar to that of George Gerbner and his coworkers in the United States. Canada

With the rapid expansion of television worldwide during the 1980s and 1990s, the US government has been pressured to bring violence on television under control not only by its own citizenry but also by those of foreign countries, especially where the latter are importers of substantial amounts of American productions. This point applies with particular acuity in the case of the United States’ closest neighbor, Canada, where so many American programs are routinely broadcast. Comparative analyses of violence in newspapers, radio, and television in Canada and the United States conducted for the 1977 Royal Commission on Violence in the

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Communication Industry analyzed 8000 news items and found that 45% related to conflict and violence. Of 2400 news items broadcast on 15 Canadian and American television stations, 48% were related to conflict and violence. The American stations were found to place greater emphasis on homicide and other physical violence than the Canadian stations while the latter showed more of other types of conflict and property damage. Direct, physical violence (including natural and man-made disasters) was about 10% more common in television news than in newspapers. Television was more likely to personalize violence in terms of private gain or deviance. Another major content analysis study conducted under the auspices of the Royal Commission on Violence in the Communication Industry cataloged an average of 18.5 acts of aggression per program hour on Canadian television. A total of 594 acts of physical aggression involving the body (assault or battery) or a weapon (typically a gun or object not intended for aggression) were observed in a sample of over 100 programs. These comprised mainly violence that involved the use of a body part (which occurred at a rate of 3.1 per program hour) or the use of a weapon (4.2 per program hour). In addition, there were acts involving physical threat (1.7 acts per program hour) and those involving the use of verbally threatening behavior (3.4 per program hour). Europe

A study of prime-time television programs was carried out during the late 1970s in the Netherlands and revealed less violence on Dutch television than on American television. Crime drama series, however, were found to be just as violent as American counterparts. These programs were mainly imported from Britain and Germany. In Germany, another analysis revealed almost 500 murder scenes during 1 week on the two major public and four most-watched private television channels. Research in Finland emphasized the need to take on board the nature and context of violence when analyzing televised violence. This is because viewers make perceptual distinctions between different forms of violence and react differently to violence displayed in different dramatic contexts. This study showed that television, in contrast to the real world, displayed more physical violence than verbal or psychological violence. Israel

A small-scale study of violence on Israeli television was carried out as part of the US Surgeon General’s 1970 investigation of television and social behavior cataloged 52 violent incidents in 1 week. Most of these incidents occurred in fictional drama programs. Adults’ programs were more likely to contain violence than children’s programs. Nearly half of all adult-oriented programs in Hebrew and nearly one in three in Arabic contained at least one violent incident. Just over one in five children’s programs contained violence. Television

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series dealing with such themes as crime, detective stories, or espionage were the most violent programs while longrunning serials, especially historical dramas, were the least violent programs. The majority of violent incidents were judged to have been presented in a fairly realistic style and were more likely to occur in serious than in humorous contexts. Over half the violence was physical and intentional while around one in five incidents comprised verbal violence. One in seven incidents comprised threatened physical violence. The majority of violent incidents resulted in no observable harm to victims or targets, and most of the remainder produced only minor pain or suffering. Just two incidents resulted in death and two further incidents caused significant pain and suffering. For the most part, violence produced no blood or wounds. Just two incidents produced a large amount of blood. Japan and the Far East

Research into violence on television in Japan found that Japanese-made programs were as likely to contain violence as American-made programs, and the rate at which violent incidents occurred was identical. Japanese violence differed markedly from that in American-made programs with a much greater emphasis on suffering. On Japanese television the ‘good guys’ were as likely to be violent as were the ‘bad guys’, which distinguished them from American programs in which villains tended to use violence more liberally than anyone else. Research has been carried out in a number of Far Eastern countries comparing levels of violence on television in different national markets. In 1988, the Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Centre launched a study of violence on television in Asia which covered eight countries: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand. The monitoring work was carried out in 1989. The main objectives of the study were as follows: . Determine the frequency and the level of violence on TV in Asia. . Identify the types of violent programs. . Determine the countries of origin of violent programs. . Explore the sources of locally produced violent programs. . Describe the dramatic contexts and the nature of violence. . Analyze the trends in the depiction of violence in order to assess if levels of violence on television are increasing or decreasing. . Examine the cross-cultural similarities and differences in the depiction of violence on television. Four main categories of programming were selected for analysis: social dramas, action-adventures, cartoons, and comedies. Violence was defined as ‘‘the use of physical

force or verbal abuse which is psychologically or physically injurious to a person or persons, including the destruction of property and animals.’’ A total of 256 programs was analyzed ranging from 15 in Indonesia to 65 in Malaysia. The average number per country was 32. More than half the programs were local in origin. The biggest foreign supplier of programs was the United States, with Japan as the next most popular source of material. Nearly 6 in 10 of the programs monitored were classified as violent. The percentages ranged from around 18% in Bangladesh and 20% in Malaysia to 94% in Thailand and 100% in the Philippines. In India, which screened only locally produced programs, 72% of the programs were violent. In the Philippines, around one in four programs were local. Foreign programs were reported to contain more violent incidents per hour than locally produced programs, reaching a high of 23 per hour in the Philippines and a low of 3.2 per hour in Indonesia. While foreign programs had more violent incidents, little or no blood was generally shown. In these programs the villains were drawn from upper and lower classes and violence usually related to social and institutional conflicts. Local productions featured fewer violent incidents, but these tended to be bloodier. Villains were mainly drawn from the upper classes and violence was chiefly due to personal vendettas and interfamilial conflicts. Australasia

In Australia and New Zealand, much emphasis has been placed on comparing violence on domestic television channels with that occurring on television in other countries. One study found that just over half the programs (51%) and program hours (53%) monitored on major Australian channels contained any violence. The first measure was lower than other countries with which comparisons were made which included the United States (80%), Japan (81%), New Zealand (66%), and the United Kingdom (56%). Much of the violence contained in programs on mainstream Australian television occurred in fictional output with very little being found in nonfiction programming. Crime drama shows were found to be almost uniformly violent (96.7%) and a clear majority of cartoons (85.7%) and action-adventure series (73.7%) also contained violence. Nonfiction programs represented 27.5% of the programs analyzed but only 2.4% of the programs with violence fell into this general category. The intensity of violence was measured in terms of the rate at which violent episodes occurred in programs. There was an overall rate of four violent episodes per program and 5.4 per broadcast hour. When nonfiction programs were excluded, however, the average rate per hour increased to 7.4. Compared with other countries for which data were available at that time, this result placed

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Australian television within the midrange. The rates per hour elsewhere were just over 4.0 in the UK, 5.7 in New Zealand, 7.0 in Japan, and 8.1 in the United States. In the same corner of the world, several studies of televised violence in New Zealand over a period spanning almost 20 years from the mid-1970s have indicated that levels of televised violence have remained fairly stable. New Zealand compares favorably with other countries in respect to the amount of violence contained in homeproduced programs. However, much of what is now shown consists of imported programs from overseas where program violence levels tend to be higher. United Kingdom

The amount of violence on British television has been monitored in periodic studies since 1970. Much of this work has been funded by the broadcasting industry. Initial research was modeled on American work and was designed to enable comparisons to be drawn between the two countries. Early findings showed that, although a common feature of programming, violence was not as prevalent on British television as it was on American television. In fictional drama, the only category of programming in which direct comparisons between American and British findings were possible, it emerged that around 6 in 10 programs contained violence – compared with a reported 8 in 10 fictional programs on American television. There was somewhat less violence on British television in terms of the rate at which violent incidents occurred; average numbers of just under two violent incidents per program or just over two per hour were recorded. In the mid-1980s further research found that the overall rate for dramatic fiction had increased by more than one violent act per hour compared with that in 1971. Over the same period, the two major channels, BBC1 and ITV, showed decreases from 49% to 28% and from 51% to 32%, respectively, while the minority channel, BBC2, showed a decline from 55% to 26%. During the early 1990s, a series of monitoring studies was published by the Broadcasting Standards Council in Britain. These studies monitored not only how much violence was there on television, but also how much sex and bad language. These studies also incorporated an analysis of violence on the new satellite television channels. A little over half of the small samples of programs monitored on the four main public-service channels contained violence. Violence levels on these channels increased steadily between 1992 and 1994. Levels of violence on the satellite movie channels were generally much higher than those found on the public-service channels. Nearly three-quarters of movies on the satellite channels contained violence. The most substantive research on TV program violence in Britain comprised two content analysis studies. The first of these covered 4 weeks of television broadcast

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output on eight channels (the four main terrestrial channels and four satellite broadcast channels) which covered more than 2000 programs and over 4700 hours of broadcast material. A complete week of output was taken during each of four waves of off-air recordings running from Monday to Sunday. All broadcast output was recorded around the clock. The second covered 28 days of broadcast output on 10 TV channels sampled over 28 weeks running across 1995–96 and coded over 3000 programs and over 6000 hours of broadcast material. Of the programs analyzed, 37% were found to contain violence in year one rising to 47% in year two. A total of 21 170 violent acts were coded in the first study and 33 161 in the second study. Overall each violence-containing program contained around 10 violent acts. This violence occupied over 51 hours or 1.07% of program running time in study one and over 87 hours or 1.39% of program running time in study two. On the terrestrial channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, and Channel 4), just 0.61% of program output time in study one and 0.72% in study two was occupied by violence, representing a drop on the mid-1980s figure of 1.1%. The general level of violence on television was disproportionately inflated by a small number of programs that contained exceptionally large quantities of violence. Just 1% of programs across the eight channels in study one were found to contain 19% of all violent acts coded. In study two, 1% of programs monitored contained nearly 23% of all violent acts coded. Across the two studies, most violent acts (70%) occurred in drama programs, with cinema films being the largest single drama genre contributor (containing 53–54% of all violent acts). The most commonly occurring form of violence involved the use of a body part (42% in study one and 38% in study two) or a hand-held weapon (31% in study one and 29% in study two). More than a third of violent acts (36%) depicted no injuries to victims in study one, rising to nearly half of all acts (47%) in study two and a few acts were found to be extremely graphic in terms of their portrayal of pain, blood, and horrific suffering.

Perceptions of Television Violence The Meaning of Violence The quantitative measurement of violence on television via content analysis has been largely a process of defining the concept of violence clearly and applying the definition in an accurate and consistent manner to television programs. What the commonly applied definitions overlook is that there are many forms of violence other than that which involve purely physical injury and harm. There is emotional and psychological violence, verbal violence, institutional violence, and symbolic violence. Of course, these can be as difficult to define and record as a general concept of ‘violence’ as physical force.

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Research from several different countries has shown that audiences regard violence as a multifaceted concept which does not represent a unitary process or a single set of events. Violence can vary in its severity, justification, consequences, and in the intentions of the perpetrator. While physical violence may be the most commonly perceived form of violence on television, a more complete measuring procedure also might be to include other expressions of violence such as verbal violence and violent images. Whether the use of force or infliction of harm or injury is perceived as violent clearly depends on a number of considerations associated with the particular circumstances surrounding the action. The total context in which the action takes place can exert a significant influence upon how the viewer will interpret the episode or image. Violence on television cannot be taken simply at face value. How violent actions are perceived is related to social norms, personal values, and the particular form and context of violence itself. Insights from Viewers’ Perceptions International research has revealed that viewers can be highly discriminating when it comes to portrayals of violence. They do not invariably read into television content the same meanings as do researchers. One method of analyzing viewers’ perceptions is to obtain ratings and opinions from them about which programs are violent and how seriously so. In Britain, this has been done by asking individuals to indicate from a list of program titles which ones are violent and which are not. One problem with this kind of measure is that it cannot indicate how much violence is there in specific program episodes. Are respondents basing their opinions on one particular episode, several episodes, or the whole series? Subjective ratings of television can also be made for actual program materials. Viewers can be invited to make personal judgments about the violence contained in program excerpts or in entire episodes. This technique allows the researcher to investigate the degree of variation in viewers’ opinions about television violence and the specific ingredients of violent portrayals which affect those judgments. Research by the BBC in Britain showed that when viewers were asked to fill out a questionnaire, about specific programs shortly after they had been broadcast, in which reactions to violence and other aspects of the programs were probed, whether a particular program was perceived as violent did not depend on how many ‘violent’ incidents it contained. Research has indicated that adults and children alike are capable of highly refined judgments about television violence. Studies in Britain and in the Netherlands have shown that viewers have their own scales for deciding

the seriousness of incidents and their opinions do not always concur with researchers’ categorizations of violence. Researchers who have allowed viewers to decide for themselves about the seriousness of different portrayals of violence have found that viewers’ perceptions can vary widely and are influenced by a number of attributes of the portrayals themselves. Purely quantitative counts of violence may be less valuable on their own than those qualified by knowledge of how particular portrayals are evaluated by or impact upon audiences. Familiarity of surroundings, for example, is one of the most powerful factors influencing viewers’ perceptions of television violence. The closer to home the violence is portrayed in terms of place and time, the more serious it is judged to be. Viewers in the United Kingdom generally rated violence in British crime series as more violent than similar portrayals on American-made series of the same type. Portrayals of ‘violent’ behavior in cartoons or science fiction programs, however, were seen as essentially nonviolent. Some audience perceptions, however, exhibit more complex patterns. One illustration of this was a set of paradoxical opinions about violence perpetrated by law enforcers and by criminals, or by men and by women, which varied with the origin of the program. With extracts from British crime series, for instance, viewers were most concerned about violence inflicted by men upon women; while in scenes from American series, they were concerned more by women being violent to men. In the American context, violence performed by criminals was perceived in more serious terms than that used by law enforcers (usually the police); while in British settings, it was law enforcer violence that viewers were more troubled by. Localized social, cultural, and moral values may influence the way audiences judge different styles of television violence. Children, too, can make distinctions between different forms of violence on television. Dutch research has shown that while young viewers may not have the maturity of adults, they readily learn to distinguish broad program genres and the conventions to which they adhere in the kinds of portrayals they contain. Distinctions are made between violence depicted in cartoons and in action-adventure programs in terms of perceived realism, level of identification with characters, and degree and nature of emotional involvement with the action. Depth interviews with groups of British pre-teenage and teenage children have indicated that young viewers make refined judgments about scenes of TV violence and determine the seriousness of the depicted violence in terms of the genre of the program, dramatic setting in which it occurs, the nature of its consequences, and how justified it was. Production techniques such as changes in music, sound effects, and the nature of visual images can affect the on-screen impact of televised violence. Screen

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violence is not taken at face value, it is deconstructed and interpreted within the broader context of children’s own lives and experiences. On the basis of the above findings with adults and children, it is clear that viewers classify program content differently from the descriptive analysis of research frameworks that employ narrow definitions of violence. Although objective cataloging of incidents in programs has the useful function of providing reliable counts of how often certain categories of items occur, the relevance or meaning of those items for the audience can be properly ascertained only through obtaining the perceptions of viewers themselves. There would be some merit in recommending a subjective approach rather than a purely objective one in the analysis of televised violence because this perspective enables one to identify the programs that viewers themselves take most seriously. A subjective audience input to a content analysis could therefore render a useful embellishment to an otherwise dry approach to analyzing the appearance of violence on television.

Effects of Television Violence A major bone of contention in the ongoing debate about television violence has focused on whether it causes aggressive behavior among viewers or could be considered to represent a significant contributor to crime and violence in society. In examining the effects of television violence, there are two principal questions that need to be considered. First, what kinds of effects are being referred to? Second, how are the effects measured and to what extent can the evidence deriving from these measures be unquestionably accepted? Research on television violence effects from around the world is reviewed in this section. Types of Evidence Television violence may have an impact on viewers at a number of psychological levels, allegedly being able to shape social attitudes and behavior and to color perceptions and feelings about the world. Behavioral effects have received the greatest attention, although sometimes these are operationalized simply as measures of attitudes toward particular forms of behavior as might be deployed in different situations. While concern about behavioral effects has tended to focus upon the influence of aggressors as role models on-screen, a further body of evidence has indicated that patterns of victimization on television can transmit important messages to the audience about risks and dangers from violence in the real world. The extensive empirical research published about the effects of television violence, where the focus has been upon aggressor role portrayals, can be divided up according to the main research methodologies employed. Most

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of the work done so far can be broken down into six major categories: (1) laboratory experiments; (2) field experiments; (3) correlational surveys; (4) longitudinal panel surveys; (5) natural experiments; and (6) intervention studies. Victim-focused research is considered under the single heading of cultivation effects. Laboratory studies

These have been designed to demonstrate a causal relationship between watching a violent event on television and increased viewer aggressiveness. The findings to emerge from this form of investigation have often been taken as evidence of a causal connection between watching television violence and increased viewer aggressiveness. Typically, however, these studies have tested only small, unrepresentative groups of people under highly contrived or unnatural viewing conditions. Their measures of television viewing and aggressive behavior tend to be far removed from normal everyday behavior. Thus, whether laboratory findings provide any meaningful indications of how people behave in the outside world has been strongly debated. Using laboratory research during the 1960s and 1970s, behavioral psychologists in the United States investigated the propensity of children to model their behavior on examples seen on-screen and through the aggression-eliciting properties of violent film portrayals among young males. Outside the United States, a handful of studies investigated similar media violence effects during the early 1970s. Some evidence emerged from Britain that children would imitate a film model when placed in a similar play situation after viewing. However, this effect did not occur for all children and also appeared to be weakened for some children by prior experience in the play setting, especially among middleclass children. If children played beforehand with the same toys as a film model they subsequently watched, their own play patterns submerged any new behaviors being modeled on film. Just as American research had shown differences in the degree of aggression simulation as a function of the realism of filmed violence, so too did evidence emerge from Britain that children exhibit different degrees of sensitivity to real and fantasy violence. Children were found to play significantly more with war toys after watching a war film as compared with a puppet film and tended to play less constructively following exposure to the war film. This last effect was much more pronounced among working-class than middle-class children. American research has indicated that a key factor in whether children are likely to copy behaviors they see on screen is the extent to which they identify with the central characters. British research has shown, however, that such identification is not always forthcoming and that even when it is, young viewers do not automatically endorse a character’s conduct. No indication emerged,

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for instance, that delinquent boys, who demonstrated a propensity toward violent conduct anyway, identified anymore than did nondelinquent boys with television action heroes. More recent research revealed little difference between 1990s delinquent adolescents with a criminal record and nondelinquent teenagers in Britain in their media usage habits or movie or television program preferences. Even when a character is liked and identified with, children will not necessarily accept violent behavior from that character. However, aggressive children may display more sympathy for the antisocial behavior of a lesser known character when his behavior matches the way they would tend to behave. The aggression-eliciting effects of aggressive images found to occur in the United States were also found among Belgian French-speaking military recruits mostly in their late teens and early twenties. Exposure to images displayed on slides that depicted weapons was associated with a greater subsequent propensity to display aggression in a contrived laboratory setting. The effect was weakened, however, if viewers were instructed beforehand to focus on and evaluate the esthetic qualities of the images they were shown. These results illustrated the significance of paying attention to the mediating effects of social contexts of viewing and the different ways in which media violence could be interpreted by viewers. Field experiments

To avoid some of the problems associated with laboratory research, while retaining a few of its advantages, some researchers have conducted field experiments. In these studies, children or adolescents are generally the object of investigation and are randomly assigned to view either violent or nonviolent television material for a period of a few days to a few weeks. Measures of aggressive behavior, fantasies, or attitudes are taken before, during, and after the period of controlled viewing. In order to ensure control over actual viewing, young people have usually been studied in group or institutional settings. The two most common settings have been nursery schools and residential schools or institutions or summer camps for adolescent boys. In most cases, these studies have indicated a link between viewing a diet of mainly violent programs and increased levels of aggressiveness among those individuals observed. One comparison between adolescent boys in the US and a similar group in Belgium found an increase in aggression on some measures for boys in both countries who watched mainly violent films over a several-week period, particularly among those boys initially high in aggression anyway. Exposure to a diet of mainly nonviolent material, much of which contained comedy material, was associated with a drop in violence levels among boys who had initially scored quite high in terms of their inherent aggressiveness.

Another international study that took place in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Italy reported relationships between the type of movie seen and the punitiveness of moviegoers who were interviewed either as they entered or came out of the movie theater. Respondents were asked to state what they felt the maximum penalties should be for persons convicted of assault and battery, rape, robbery, and murder in terms of years of imprisonment. In all four countries, those who had just seen a violent movie exhibited greater punitiveness for the perpetrators of violent crimes. Correlational surveys

The basic approach in correlational research is to obtain a measure of viewing violent programs and to relate this to a measure or battery of measures of aggressiveness. The ultimate goal is to demonstrate a causal relation, with the first step being to find out whether the possibility of a relation exists in the first place between two variables which appear to be correlated. Viewers often have to identify or recall from lists of program titles which ones they like best or watch most often. Occasionally, more effective diary measures are used, but even then assumptions are made about the probable violent content of programs viewers say they have seen, which are not backed up by any better evidence. If some doubt exists about amounts of violence watched on television, there must also be doubts about the evidence offered on the supposed effects of this conduct. In any case, correlational surveys are unable to demonstrate causal relations. They can simply show where degrees of statistical association exist between certain reported sets of behaviors and attitudes. Even then the small size of most of the correlations reported to date indicates only very weak associations. Early work in Britain following the introduction of television for the first time in certain parts of the country used fairly superficial measures of aggression based on teachers’ reports about pupils’ behavior and found no evidence of a link with television. Later studies have shown how correlational analyses can yield spurious links between television and antisocial conduct. One study of the relationship between television viewing and delinquency among adolescents in Britain indicated that the differences between a group of delinquents and nondelinquents in antisocial behavior levels had more to do with their social class and family upbringing than their television watching. Research among children ages 11–16 in Northern Ireland examined relationships between children’s aggression, television viewing, and enjoyment of televised violence, while also obtaining detailed information about family background and personality characteristics. The sample comprised 386 sibling pairs who therefore shared genetic stock and the same early development environment. No evidence emerged that general television

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viewing was associated with manifest aggressive tendencies. However, children who scored high on a measure of psychoticism were both more aggressive and enjoyed watching television violence. Reported levels of enjoyment of television violence within sibling pairs were unrelated even though they did exhibit similar television viewing patterns. The more aggressive siblings did not tend to watch more television violence, but did enjoy it more if they had a high-scoring psychoticism personality profile. The results were interpreted as showing that family background and largely inherited personality characteristics underpin aggressiveness and enjoyment of watching violence on television. Longitudinal panel studies

These studies can test causal hypotheses and they usually employ sound sampling methods. The aim of this type of investigation is to discover relationships which may exist or develop over time between television viewing and social attitudes and behavior. In this respect, such research addresses the notions of the cumulative influence of television violence. This view posits that links between watching television and personal levels of aggressiveness should increase with age and repeated exposure to televised violence. In the United Kingdom, a major investigation of the impact of television violence on the behavior of adolescent boys used a simulated panel survey in which the respondents were not actually studied across separate points in time, but were questioned retrospectively at a single point about their habits over previous years. Detailed and lengthy interviews with these teenage boys revealed a relationship between certain aspects of their claimed viewing behavior and self-reported attitudes and dispositions toward the use of violence in their lives. In particular, the more the boys claimed to watch particular types of dramatic television content – pre-classified as containing violence – the more likely they were to report having used aggression themselves under different circumstances. Critics have challenged these results, focusing in particular on the validity of the biographical information obtained from the young respondents about not only their current viewing habits and behavior, but also those they tried to recall from 10 years earlier. Some of the programs listed had been taken off the air when the respondents were just 3 years old. Further analysis revealed that the correlations between reported exposure to television violence and personal aggressiveness were not as clear-cut as originally reported. A major American longitudinal study of the impact of televised violence on people during their early years of development reported that exposure to televised violence at age 8 was correlated with reported aggressiveness at age 18 among a cohort of young people interviewed on two separate occasions 10 years apart. A further follow-up

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with the same respondents at age 30 continued to find a role for television in the development of aggressive tendencies, but acknowledged the impact of other genetic and environmental factors. This study was extended internationally, with further surveys being launched in Finland, Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, and Australia. Fewer data emerged from either Australia or from among children studied in Israel who lived in a rural location to support a link between television viewing and aggression. Weak links were suggested by the studies among children who lived in an urban location in Israel and among children in Poland. The Finnish work corroborated the American findings. The Dutch study moved off in a different direction when its researchers decided to develop their own measures of television viewing and aggression rather than adopt what were seen as inferior measures from the original American study. The Dutch results failed to support the view that television violence is a likely long-term factor of any significance in the development of personal aggressiveness. Natural experiments

Some researchers have attempted to assess relationships between the presence of television and shifts in social conduct over time in natural environments. These studies fall largely into two categories. The first involves a longitudinal assessment of occurrences of certain forms of conduct, often as documented by authorities, before and after television was available. A different version of this type of study has attempted to find out if media depictions of certain kinds of behavior can spark subsequent similar behaviors in the real world. The first type of study has taken place in communities in which television had been introduced for the first time. Thus, the effects of television on previously unexposed populations could be examined. In measuring the impact of the introduction of television to a society for the first time, some researchers have simply examined degrees of association between the growth in numbers of television set owning households in the population over time and official crime trend statistics. One such investigation which compared statistics for the United States, Canada, and South Africa reported that white homicide rates doubled in North American societies after the introduction of television, but the same result did not appear in South Africa where television was introduced only in 1976. Although controlling for a variety of other factors known to affect crime rates such as urbanization, economic conditions, alcohol consumption, firearms availability, and so on the weakness of this study was that it did not measure actual levels of exposure to television programs among members of the public. Television can only influence viewers if they watch it, and statistics showing extent of television set ownership say nothing about how much people actually use their sets or about what kinds of things they watch.

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The study of the impact of television on previously unexposed communities has been a fairly rare occurrence partly because of the resources needed to mount such a study and partly because it is increasingly difficult to find populations in the world with no prior experience of television. In one investigation with small communities in Canada, many measures were taken of children’s behavior. The research occurred in three towns which at the outset either had no television reception (NOTEL), only one channel available (UNITEL), or several channels available (MULTITEL). By the end of the research, NOTEL had one channel, UNITEL had two channels, and MULTITEL still had four channels. The three towns were compared at the outset and then again 2 years later in order to find out what impact television had had on other activities. The major finding of the study was that the aggressive behavior observed in the school playground of children ages 6–11 increased in NOTEL over the 2-year period, while similar behavior in the other two towns exhibited no such increase. This pattern of increased aggression was true for both physical and verbal aggression; among boys and girls, for younger (6–7 years) and older children (8–9 years), for children who were initially high or low in aggressiveness, and among light and heavy television viewers. Another similar Canadian study compared a Cree Indian community into which television was introduced with a control Indian community and a control EuroCanadian community. No before-and-after television differences in levels of aggression occurred between the experimental and control communities, taken as a whole. When children were classified by the amount of daily exposure to television, however, significant differences in aggressive attitudes emerged. The introduction of television into the community increased the aggressiveness of those children who watched a lot of television. The impact of the introduction of television to the remote island community of St. Helena in the south Atlantic was tracked among the island’s children aged 4–12 years of the 1992–2000 period. TV transmissions began in March 1995 and behavioral measures were obtained through direct observations, teacher reports, and questionnaires together with time-use diaries that logged TV viewing. Content analysis of TV output measured the representation of violence in programs. The findings revealed little evidence for any significant links between viewing of violence on TV and increased antisocial behavioral tendencies after the introduction of TV broadcasts. There was some indication that children who exhibited stronger antisocial tendencies before TV was introduced exhibited greater consumption of cartoons with violence. One interpretation of these findings was that the worst-behaved children were the most strongly attracted to cartoon entertainment.

Other real-world phenomena have been explained in terms of television effects. There have been cases noted in different parts of the world where extremely violent events depicted or reported on television, such as airplane hijacks, civil disturbances, and acts of murder and suicide, have apparently led to similar copycat incidents. One such case was investigated in Britain. A central character in a major UK soap opera was depicted attempting to commit suicide through taking a drug overdose. The program was followed by an alleged increase in overdose-related suicide attempts among members of the public. A study of individual cases and general patterns of suicide rates yielded insufficient evidence to prove a link between the television portrayal and real-life incidents. Intervention studies

In the sphere of violent portrayals, the worst is usually assumed of television. Exposure to televised violence is generally hypothesized as exerting potential harms on unsuspecting viewers, especially upon vulnerable young children. A number of studies have started from the assumption that harmful impact is contingent upon watching television violence, but have then asked if this is so, what, if anything, can be done to alleviate this undesirable effect? Intervention projects have explored ways of inoculating viewers against television’s influences. Such exercises have normally been conducted among children with the aim of improving young viewers’ television literacy, that is, their critical appraisal and understanding of television content. Intervention studies in Europe have yielded some evidence that increased awareness of television techniques can reduce harmful reactions to television violence. One UK study was designed to modify 8- to 9-year-old children’s comprehension and awareness of violence on television. The intervention included television show visits, witnessing two male actors demonstrate a fight sequence which was seen on video as well as live, watching educational films about the making of action movies, and discussions of violent television excerpts. Results showed that even a short-duration intervention program can bring about substantial changes in children’s comprehension and awareness of violence on television and in their daily lives. In the Netherlands, Dutch researchers have reported educational effects of a six-part school television series designed to encourage children ages 10–12 to become more discriminating consumers of violent television crime series. Children were taught to deconstruct tele vision dramas, recognize their fictional nature, and critically appraise their use of violence as a storytelling device. Interviews were filmed with real police officers talking about their work and offering their opinions about the veracity of fictional police depicted on television. In particular, contrasts were drawn between the extents to which the police, on television and in real life, use violence to subdue criminals. This course produced a

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significant lowering in children’s perceptions of the realism of violent crime dramas and increased recognition of the risks and harms associated with real violence. Cultivation Effects Cultivation effects of television are those which are envisaged to influence and shape individuals’ beliefs and opinions about the world around them. In this context, television is envisaged to represent one among a number of sources of information about the world which people take into account when developing their opinions and impressions of social reality. While direct experience and conversations with other people remain important, increasingly information about conditions and events near and far are conveyed by the mass media. In the more specific context of discussions about public perceptions of crime and violence, the role of the media has achieved prominence. There has been an assumption that television, in particular, with its apparently regular portrayal of crime and violence, can have a major impact on public beliefs and concerns about crime. American research has indicated that people who are heavier viewers of television exhibit greater perception of personal risk from crime and greater fear of victimization. Research outside the United States has not universally supported this relationship. A Canadian study among residents of Toronto found that when the actual incidence of crime in the respondent’s neighborhood was controlled, no overall relationship emerged between television viewing and fear of being a victim of crime. Enhanced fear was most closely associated with overall amount of viewing only among people who lived within high-crime neighborhoods. British researchers have also failed to replicate American findings on the relationship between total television viewing and public fear of crime. Perceptions about crime and violence were related more with viewing particular categories of programs than to total amount of viewing. Furthermore, public perceptions of dangers from real-life violence were influenced by television programs only insofar as these programs represented the main source of information about the locations being asked about. Thus British viewers’ perceptions of the potential risk from violent crime in American cities was related to how often they watched US-produced crime dramas, while their viewing of UKproduced crime programs appeared to exert little impact upon their perceptions of the potential risks of attack in British locations.

Public Opinion and Television Violence In addition to the significance of viewers’ perceptions of television violence to identify the salience of violence

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on-screen and to supplement content analysis in providing audience-based distinctions between violent portrayals in terms of their inherent seriousness, in many countries wider public attitudes about television content are regarded as an important area of feedback in establishing the status of public tastes and values in relation to television output. Public opinion about violence on television, however, can easily be misrepresented. Viewers’ opinions about televised violence can give rise to apparent contradictions and may depend crucially on how questions about televised violence are asked. Violence in Drama When asked about violence on television in the context of things that have caused them offence, only a minority of viewers (30% or fewer) claim to have been offended at all by television violence. When the question is reframed by asking viewers to indicate the kinds of things which should never be shown on television, an even smaller number (16%) reject violence, brutality, and cruelty as wholly inappropriate for television. Concerns about violence on television can vary with the nature of the violence. Thus, more than half of British viewers (55%) said they would not want to see a scene depicting a woman being raped, while far fewer (14%) said they would not wish to see television depict a scene of the killing of a criminal. The context of violence can make a significant difference to viewers’ opinions about it. In Britain, clear majorities of viewers agreed that: ‘‘people are justified in being concerned about the impact of TV violence on children today’’; ‘‘there are too many programs on television that contain violence’’ (60%), and that ‘‘we would be better off without violence on television.’’ When the same viewers were asked for their opinions about the violence in a number of popular American and British-made crime drama series, more than 8 or 9 of 10 took a tolerant view about the violence in these programs, and fewer than 1 in 10 generally regarded the violence in these shows as too extreme. Violence in Factual Programs Much of the news featured on television revolves around issues of conflict. Frequently this takes the form of political conflicts, industrial disputes, or arguments about the economy. From time to time, the news may be dominated by crime, violent civil disturbances, terrorism, or war. Viewers in Britain have been found to state a preference for less news about violent incidents, but this is often associated with long-running conflicts for which no clear resolution can be envisaged. Even with short-term conflicts, such as the Falklands dispute and the Gulf War, in both of which British forces were involved, an initial

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public appetite for information from television about these events quickly waned, especially when nothing really new or dramatic was happening. As with public opinion about violence in fictional drama, opinions about violence in factual programs are mediated by contextual and stylistic factors relating to the way violent incidents are treated. Public anxieties about violence in the news are especially likely to be aroused in connection with stories which involve ordinary people and in relation to the depiction of certain graphic images of real-life violence which may be distressing to people in general or more especially to the victims or their families. Violent events involving private individuals, such as the victims of murder, rape, or other crimes or the cases of individuals involved in violent disasters, can cause deep concern among many people in Britain. Although the public may show a degree of sympathy for news editors and reporters who wish to include violent incidents among their reports, sympathy for the needs of victims and their families tends to be greater. Reporting of violence involving ordinary citizens may be regarded as acceptable if it can be justified in terms, for example, of being for the greater good of people in general. Where such a justification does not exist, most people express a natural sympathy for the victims and a concern about the trauma which further reminders of critical incidents might cause to them. Women may be especially sensitive to certain kinds of violence, such as rape, particularly where it is covered on regional news, thus bringing it closer to home. Such stories may, of course, perform a constructive function in informing women that there is a rapist at large and may also, on some occasions, play a part in aiding the apprehension of the assailant. Tolerance for potentially distressing images involving private citizens can vary with the purpose of showing them in the news as well as by the time when they are included in bulletins. An overwhelming proportion of viewers (78%) surveyed across Britain felt that it was unacceptable for television news broadcasts to include scenes from a major incident which showed the dead or seriously injured in such a way that they were recognizable. However, pictures from the same scene after the bodies had been removed or where the camera was placed at such a distance that the bodies or injured were not recognizable were both generally regarded as acceptable (by 87% and 76% respectively). Respondents to a large national British survey generally felt that reconstructions of violent crimes in the news were either completely (59%) or fairly (29%) acceptable. People who had themselves been victims of violent crime were even more emphatic with two out of three (66%) finding such reconstructions ‘completely’ acceptable. By comparison, nearly two out of three viewers in general (64%) felt that dramatic reconstructions of natural disasters were either completely or fairly unacceptable, while

nearly one in five (18%) felt they were not acceptable at all. The lower level of endorsement of the latter scenes stemmed from a concern that they served no useful purpose. Reconstructions of violent crimes, to which there may have been witnesses, could at least function to solicit the help of those witnesses in coming forward and sharing whatever they know with the police. News editors often face difficult choices when deciding whether to use televised reconstructions of potentially distressing events. They not only have to consider the range of possible reactions of the general audience to such scenes but also the degree of distress they might cause to the survivors of such events or their families. Among the latter group, reactions can in turn vary with oppositional points of view taken up by different individuals. British research again found that some rape victims endorsed the use of reconstruction techniques, while others could not tolerate them. There was general recognition of the rights of the individual to decide whether such techniques should be used. For some the need to obtain help in apprehending their assailant outweighed the pain of living through the event again, while for others that pain was just too great to experience once more. Conflict in the News Research carried out in Britain during the Gulf War in 1991 found that viewers were prepared to tolerate certain images of war and not others. When viewers nationwide were asked to get their views about four specific events from the war which were shown on the television news coverage – (1) the bombing of a bunker/shelter in Baghdad that resulted in heavy civilian casualties; (2) coalition pilots captured by Iraq and displayed on Iraqi television broadcasts; (3) the filming of Iraqi troops surrendering; and (4) the aftermath of coalition air attacks on Iraqi forces as they were withdrawing from Kuwait in the final days of the conflict – most thought it had been right to show pictures of these incidents on television. The exception was the transmission of Iraqi film showing captured coalition pilots including two Britons. Here, viewers questioned the decision to show this because of the potential upset such images might have caused to viewers in general and most especially to the families of war victims. Despite a certain degree of tolerance among many members of the public for scenes showing the outcomes of war, few people were willing to accept close-up shots of the dead or dying, whether featuring British or Iraqi casualties. Apart from wars and military conflicts, civil disturbances and attacks on private citizens provide other sources of real-life violent injury and death which may be covered in the news. The 1980s, for example, witnessed a number of urban riots in Britain’s inner-city areas which were vividly reported by television news bulletins.

Television Programming and Violence, International

Through this reporting, fire and fighting became familiar sights leading some commentators to allege that this coverage may have led sections of the disaffected population to become more ready to take part in such incidents. A debate thus was fueled about television’s role on such occasions. One body of opinion held that television had a duty to report the facts and to do so by showing what really happened. This responsibility needed, however, to be weighed against the possibility that reports of civil disturbances could produce imitation elsewhere or alternatively might serve to limit any further spreading of such events by causing an informed public to prompt its politicians to take remedial action. There are clearly many different considerations which must be borne in mind by news editors when deciding how to cover violent events in the news. Many similar considerations are relevant also to the producers of other types of factual programming. Television audiences comprise a variety of types of people whose personalities, values, and opinions vary widely. In turn, these psychological aspects of their make up play an important part in determining what kinds of factual violence they will find acceptable or unacceptable and how strongly they will react to different types of violence in the news or other factual programs. Liking of Violence on Television Some commentators have argued that violence on television is an internationally marketable commodity. Violence is a key ingredient underpinning a program’s popularity and helps to sell programs to audiences worldwide. Programmakers are therefore under pressure to inject a dose of violence into their productions in the belief that this is what audiences both want and enjoy. This intuition is not supported by audience research. In Britain, where much research has been conducted into the antecedents of program appreciation, repeated studies with nationally representative viewing panels have found little evidence to support the contention that violence enhances program popularity. Instead, there are some sections of the audience, most notably women, for whom violence reduces their enjoyment of programs. There is some suggestive evidence, however, that not all violence should be regarded in the same way in this context. Retributive violence, in which the ends justify the means and villains are severely punished for their wrongdoing, may enhance program appreciation.

Research, Regulation, and Control The debate about television violence has given rise to many conflicting points of view. These stem not simply from contradictory research findings in which one study fails to

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corroborate the findings of another, but from a deep-seated academic divide between social scientific and media researchers who exhibit allegiances to fundamentally different theoretical and methodological approaches to the subject. The United States was the home of Behaviorism and its perspective on measuring and explaining human behavior influenced approaches to media research. In Europe, a different approach has placed greater emphasis on cognitive factors and their central role in mediating the way audiences interpret and respond to media messages. The ideological biases of these two schools of thought have shaped the dominant methodological perspectives. American researchers have tended to place greater emphasis upon experimental methodologies in which externally observable behavior is assessed and effects are precisely quantified in numerical terms. The aim is to find consistencies across viewers in patterns of response to television portrayals. Outside the United States, the more cognitive approach of European critical media studies places more emphasis upon the analysis of meanings conveyed by media ‘texts’, the mental ‘scripts’ which audiences develop as ‘readers’ to anticipate plot developments and contextualize events on-screen, and different kinds of judgments which may be placed on the same text by different viewers. This approach tends to use qualitative research methods to measure audience reactions to television content and eschews the methodological straitjacket of quantitative methods which attempt to measure viewers’ involvement with television in purely numerical terms. The general view is that quantitative approaches fail to represent the rich and varied nature of audiences’ understanding of television programs. Even social science researchers outside the US have criticized the validity of many of the conclusions that have been drawn from American media effects research. Among the major problems identified are: a failure to report nonsignificant results in correlational surveys which contradict a television violence effects conclusion; a failure to represent the true nature of television viewing in laboratory-based experiments accompanied by measuring aggressive behavior in a fairly narrow, unrealistic fashion; and a failure to represent sufficiently the various psychological processes that can mediate viewers’ responses to television. This kind of effects research has so far given insufficient attention to the concept of identification with characters on-screen which qualitative research has revealed to be a prominent factor that cannot be properly represented through simplistic experimental manipulations in the laboratory. There have been calls for a rethink the most appropriate paradigm to adopt to achieve any real progress in establishing the significance of television violence in the lives of viewers and the nature and extent of its impact upon them. While the possibility that television can influence audiences on a number of psychological levels is not

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doubted, a big question mark is drawn over the contribution that has so far been made by behaviorism-oriented research to the general understanding of this relationship. Outside the United States, therefore, while caution is generally exhibited over the depiction of violent portrayals where there is some suspicion that adverse audience effects may follow, more immediate weight is attached to adverse public opinion about programs. Thus, broadcast regulations often stress that television broadcasts should not offend common standards of public taste and decency in addition to ensuring that material is not transmitted which would be likely to incite people to commit violence themselves. While being mindful of not wishing to incite viewers to commit crimes or take part in civil disturbances through things shown on television, broadcasters and their regulators in many parts of the world beyond the United States are more immediately responsive to breaches of public codes of good taste and social and moral values than they are to accusations of causing increased social violence or individual acts of interpersonal aggression. See also: Aggression, Psychology of; Mass Media, General View

Further Reading Belson, W. (1978). Television violence and the adolescent boy. Aldershot: Saxon House. Berkowitz, L. and LePage, A. (1967). Weapons as aggression-eliciting stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 7, 202–207. Berkowitz, L., Parke, R. D., Leyens, J. P., and West, S. G. (1974). The effects of justified and unjustified movie violence on aggression in juvenile delinquents. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 11, 16–24. Bouwman, H. and Stappers, J. (1984). The Dutch violence profile: A replication of Gerbner’s message system analysis. In Melischek, G., Rosengren, K. E., and Stappers, J. (eds.) Cultural indicators: An international symposium, pp. 113–128. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Broadcasting Standards Council (1994). Monitoring report II. London: Broadcasting Standards Council. Broadcasting Standards Council (1995). Monitoring report III. London: Broadcasting Standards Council. Centerwall, B. S. (1989). Exposure to television as a cause of violence. Public Communication and Behavior 2, 1–58. Charlton, T., Gunter, B., and Hannan, A. (eds.) (2002). Broadcast television effects in a remote community. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cumberbatch, G. and Howitt, D. (1989). A measure of uncertainty: The effects of the mass media. London: John Libbey. Cumberbatch, G., Jones, I., and Lee, M. (1988). Measuring violence on television. Current Psychology: Research and Reviews 7(1), 10–25. Doob, A. N. and Macdonald, C. E. (1979). Television viewing and fear of victimization: Is the relationship causal? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37, 170–179. Freedman, J. L. (1984). Effect of television violence on aggressiveness. Psychological Bulletin 96(2), 227–246. Gauntlett, D. (1995). Moving experiences: Understanding television’s influences and effects. London: John Libbey. Ginpil, S. (1976). Violent and dangerous acts on New Zealand television. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies 11, 152–157. Gordon, D. R. and Ibson, T. L. (1977). Content analysis of the news media: Radio. In Report of the Royal Commission on Violence in the

Communications Industry: Violence in Television, Films and News vol. 3, pp. 677–703. Toronto, ON: The Royal Commission. Gordon, D. R. and Singer, P. D. (1977). Content analysis of the news media: Newspapers and television. Report of the Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry: Violence in Television, Films and News vol. 3. Toronto, ON: The Royal Commission. Granzberg, G. and Steinbring, J. (1980). Television and the Canadian Indian. Technical Report. University of Winnipeg, Department of Anthropology. Gunter, B. (1985). Dimensions of television violence. Aldershot: Gower. Gunter, B. (1987). Television and the fear of crime. London: John Libbey. Gunter, B. and Harrison, J. (1997). Violence on television: A content analysis of British programs. London: Routledge. Gunter, B. and Wober, M. (1988). Violence on television: What the viewers think. London: John Libbey. Gunter, B. and Wober, M. (1993). The Gulf crisis and television: The public’s response in Britain. In Greenberg, B. and Gantz, W. (eds.) Desert storm and the mass media, pp. 281–298. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Gunter, B., Harrison, J., and Wykes, M. (2003). Violence on television: Distribution, form, context and themes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gurevitch, M. (1972). The structure and content of television broadcasting in four countries: An overview. In Comstock, G. A. and Rubinstein, E. A. (eds.) Television and social behaviour: Media content and control vol. 1, pp. 374–385. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Haines, H. (1983). Violence on television: A report on the mental health foundation’s media watch survey. Auckland: Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand. Halloran, J. D. and Croll, P. (1972). Television programmes in Great Britain: Content and control. In Comstock, G. A. and Rubinstein, E. A. (eds.) Television and social behaviour: Media content and control vol. 1, pp. 415–492. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Himmelweit, H. T., Oppenheim, A. N., and Vince, P. (1958). Television and the child: An empirical study of the effect of television on the young. London: Oxford University Press. Hodge, B. and Tripp, D. (1985). Children and television. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Huesmann, L. R. and Eron, L. D. (eds.) (1986). Television and the aggressive child: A cross national comparison. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Iwao, S., de Sola Pool, I., and Hagiwara, S. (1981). Japanese and US media: Some cross-cultural insights into TV violence. Journal of Communication 31(2), 28–36. Kniveton, B. H. and Stephenson, G. M. (1970). The effect of preexperience on imitation of an aggressive film model. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 9, 31–36. Leyens, J. P. and Parke, R. D. (1975). Aggressive slides can induce a weapons effect. European Journal of Social Psychology 5, 229–236. Linton, J. M. and Jowitt, G. S. (1977). A content analysis of feature films. In Report to the Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry: Violence in Television, Films and News, vol. 3, pp. 574–580. Toronto, ON: The Royal Commission. Lynn, R., Hampson, S., and Agahi, E. (1989). Television violence and aggression: A genotype-environment, correlation and interaction theory. Social Behavior and Personality 17(2), 143–164. McCann, T. E. and Sheehan, P. W. (1985). Violence content in Australian television. Australian Psychologist 20(1), 33–42. Menon, V. (1993). Violence on television: Asian data for an Asian standard. Intermedia 21(6), 40–41. Millward-Hargrave, A. (2003). How children interpret screen violence. London: Broadcasting Standards Commission and Independent Television Commission. Morrison, D. (1992). Television and the Gulf War. London: John Libbey. Morrison, D. (1993). The viewer’s view of violence: Attitudes to violence in relation to television guidelines. Leeds: Leeds University Institute of Communication Studies, Report to the British Broadcasting Corporation.

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Murdock, G. (1973). Political deviance: The press presentation of a militant mass demonstration. In Cohen, S. and Young, J. (eds.) The manufacture of news, pp. 156–175. London: Constable. Mustonen, A. and Pulkkinen, L. (1993). Aggression in television programmes in Finland. Aggressive Behaviour 19, 175–183. Mustonen, A. and Pulkkinen, L. (1997). Television violence: A development of a coding scheme. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 41, 168–189. Noble, G. (1975). Children in front of the small screen. London: Constable. Platt, S. (1987). The aftermath of Angie’s overdose: Is soap (opera) damaging to your health? British Medical Journal 294, 954–957. Shaw, I. and Newell, D. (1972). Violence on television: Programme content and viewer perception. London: British Broadcasting Corporation. Shearer, A. (1991). Broadcasting standards council research monograph series, 2: Survivors and the media. London: John Libbey. Sheppard, A., Sheehy, N. P., and Young, B. (1989). Violence on television: An intervention. Report to the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Leeds: University of Leeds, Department of Psychology. Shinar, D., Parnes, P., and Caspi, D. (1972). Structure and content of television broadcasting in Israel. In Comstock, G. A. and Rubinstein, E. A. (eds.) Television and social behaviour: Media content and control, vol. 1, pp. 415–492. Rockwell, MD: National Institute of Mental Health. Stewart, D. E. (1983). The television family – A content analysis of the portrayal of family life in prime time television. Melbourne: Institute of Family Studies.

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Van der Voort, T. H. A. (1986). Television violence: A child’s eye view. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Vooijs, M. W. and van der Voort, T. H. A. (1993). Teaching children to evaluate television violence critically: The impact of a Dutch schools television project. Journal of Educational Television 19(3), 139–152. Watson, C., Bassett, G., Lambourne, R., and Shuker, R. (1991). Television violence: An analysis of the portrayal of ‘violent acts’ on the three New Zealand broadcast television channels during the week of 11th–17th February 1991. Research project for the Broadcasting Standards Authority by the Educational Research and Development Centre, Massey University. Wiegman, O., Kuttschreuter, M., and Baarda, B. (1992). A longitudinal study of the effects of television viewing on aggressive and pro-social behaviors. British Journal of Social Psychology 31, 147–164. Williams, T. M. (ed.) (1986). The impact of television: A natural experiment in three communities. London: Academic Press. Williams, T. M., Zabrack, M. L., and Joy, L. A. (1982). The portrayal of aggression on North American television. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 12(5), 360–380. Wober, J. M. (1992). Violence and appreciation: The broken chain. Medien Psychologie 4(1), 15–24. Wober, J. M. (1997). Violence or other routes to appreciation: TV program-makers’ options. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 41, 190–202. Wober, M. and Gunter, B. (1988). Television and social control. Aldershot: Avebury.

Much Ado About Nothing: The Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Violent Video Game Effects in Eastern and Western Nations: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010) Christopher J Ferguson and John Kilburn, Texas A&M International University USA ã 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Points of Agreement and Disagreement With Anderson et al. Building the Perfect Meta-Analytic Beast Publication Bias Exists in VVG Studies

Best Practices or Best of the Worst? Is Psychology Inventing a Phantom Youth Violence Crisis? Further Reading

Over the last two decades, society has expressed concern that violent video games (VVGs) may play some role in youth violence. To answer some of these questions, we engaged in a series of precise meta-analyses of VVG studies that most closely related to violent outcomes (e.g., Ferguson, 2007; Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009). Indeed, we were well aware that less precise measures tend to overestimate effects (Paik & Comstock, 1994). We also had questions regarding whether journals had been selectively publishing significant studies and potentially ignoring nonsignificant studies. Our results were clear: The influence of VVGs on serious acts of aggression or violence is minimal, and publication bias is a problem in this research field. We also noted (as did Paik & Comstock, 1994) that the best measures of aggression and violence

produced the weakest effects and that problematic unstandardized use of some aggression measures, particularly in experimental studies, tended to inflate effects.

Points of Agreement and Disagreement With Anderson et al. Anderson et al. (2010) critiqued our analyses and offered an alternative of their own. Our analyses agree that the uncorrected estimate for VVG effects is quite small (r = .15 in both analyses). We also agree that meta-analytic researchers must take careful steps to minimize the influence of publication bias. But our research groups disagree on many points: whether

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to include unpublished studies, how best to analyze and correct for publication bias, whether bivariate correlations are a proper estimate of VVG effects, how precise standardized and valid aggression measures need to be to adequately answer research questions, and how effect size estimates should be interpreted. We have concerns that Anderson et al. have made several misstatements about our meta-analyses and meta-analyses more generally and have also made significant errors in their own analyses that render their results difficult to interpret.

Building the Perfect Meta-Analytic Beast We are honored that Anderson et al. (2010) selected our analyses to contrast with their own. However, readers should be aware that other recent meta-analyses on VVGs and media violence more broadly have been no more supportive of Anderson et al.’s position than our own (Savage & Yancey, 2008; Sherry, 2001, 2007). Anderson et al. surprisingly cite Sherry (2001) as if supportive of their position, but in fact he is quite clear that he does not find the results of his analyses persuasive for the causal position. Indeed, he is specifically critical of the Anderson et al. research group, stating, ‘‘Further, why do some researchers (e.g., Gentile & Anderson, 2003) continue to argue that video games are dangerous despite evidence to the contrary?’’ (Sherry, 2007, p. 244). Anderson et al. (2010) suggested that we should have included unpublished studies in our analyses and that the best way to negate publication bias issues is to ‘‘conduct a search for relevant studies that is thorough, systematic, unbiased, transparent, and clearly documented’’ (p. 152). We note that, given that one of our questions specifically regarded the amount of bias in the published literature, including unpublished studies would be counterintuitive. Although including unpublished studies in meta-analyses is certainly common, is it really as ‘‘widely accepted’’ as they claim? Further, does their meta-analysis live up to their own rhetoric? First, Anderson et al. (2010) failed to note that many scholars have been critical of the inclusion of unpublished studies in meta-analyses. Baumeister, DeWall, and Vohs (2009) noted that one weakness of meta-analysis is that the inclusion of dubious unpublished works can ‘‘muddy the waters’’ (p. 490). Smith and Egger (1998), echoing our own concerns, noted that including unpublished studies increases bias, particularly when located studies are not representative of the broader array of studies. Others have noted that inclusion of unpublished studies remains controversial, although certainly common, and it is not uncommon for meta-analyses to avoid unpublished studies (Cook et al., 1993). Thus, Anderson et al.’s implication that we essentially invented the notion of avoiding unpublished studies is fanciful, much as we would like to take credit.

Despite the comments of Anderson et al. (2010) supporting a search for unpublished studies that is ‘‘thorough, systematic, unbiased, transparent, and clearly documented,’’ they actually provide little information about how they located unpublished studies. However, one common procedure, although certainly not sufficient in and of itself, is to request unpublished studies from known researchers in the field (Egger & Smith, 1998). It is surprising then that, although the Anderson et al. researchers were in contact with us (i.e., C. J. Ferguson), they neither mentioned their meta-analysis nor requested in-press or unpublished studies. As such, they missed several in-press studies (e.g., Ferguson & Rueda, in press; Ferguson, San Miguel, & Hartley, 2009) as well as a larger number of ‘‘on review’’ papers and papers for which data had been collected but not yet written up. We express the concern that other research groups that, arguably, have presented research not in line with Anderson et al.’s hypotheses have also not have been contacted (e.g., Barnett, Coulson, & Foreman, 2008; Colwell & Kato, 2003; Kutner & Olson, 2008; Ryan, Rigby, & Przybylski, 2006; Unsworth, Devilly, & Ward, 2007; Williams & Skoric, 2005). For example, we note that several published reports (e.g., Barnett et al., 2008; Olson et al., 2009; Przybylski, Weinstein, Ryan, & Rigby, 2009) from this group of authors have been missed. Thus, from only a small group of researchers, albeit those who differ from Anderson et al. in perspective, a considerable number of published, in-press, and unpublished studies were missed. One can only speculate at the number of other missed studies from unknown authors. On the other hand, when examining the appendix of included studies, one finds that unpublished studies from Anderson et al.’s research group and colleagues are well represented. For example, of two unpublished studies, both are from Anderson et al.’s broader research group. Of three in-press manuscripts included, two (67%) are from the Anderson et al. group. Of conference presentations included, 9 of 12 (75%) are from the Anderson et al. group and colleagues. Whatever techniques used by Anderson et al. to garner unpublished studies, these techniques worked very well for their own unpublished studies but poorly for those from other groups. We do not conclude that this was purposeful on the part of Anderson et al.; rather, this matter highlights our concerns about including unpublished studies.

Publication Bias Exists in VVG Studies Our original meta-analyses indicated that published studies of VVGs are products of publication bias. Anderson et al. (2010) does not appear to have disputed this but suggested we should have included unpublished studies instead of our publication bias analyses. Anderson et al. focused on our use of the ‘‘trim and fill’’ procedure.

Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Violent Video Game Effects

As Anderson et al. indicated, the trim and fill is not without imperfections. However, they failed to mention that we actually used a wide range of publication bias analyses and looked for concordance between these analyses. Indeed, we found a general agreement between publication bias tests for studies of aggressive behavior and VVGs. The trim and fill procedure can function as an estimate for the degree of publication bias, particularly when there are sound theoretical reasons to expect publication bias. As Egger and Smith (1998) indicated, publication bias is quite common. Ioannidis (2005) observed that bias is particularly prevalent in new or ‘‘hot’’ research fields, as that on VVGs certainly is. Other scholars have expressed concern that VVG studies have become politicized, which increases the risk for bias (e.g., Grimes, Anderson, & Bergen, 2008; Kutner & Olson, 2008; Sherry, 2007). We find suggestions that VVG studies are immune to publication bias effects to be naive. However, the reader need not take our word for it. Publication bias appears evident in a previous meta-analysis by this research team (Anderson, 2004). Of the published studies (n = 32) in this analysis, 19 were supportive of the causal view, nine were inconclusive, and four were nonsupportive. Of the unpublished studies (n = 11), one was supportive, one was inconclusive, and nine were nonsupportive. The difference between published and unpublished studies is obvious.

Best Practices or Best of the Worst? Some of the suggestions offered by Anderson et al. (2010) concerning ‘‘best practices’’ appear reasonable, but we express concern that they did not raise the issue of unstandardized aggression measures used in many VVG studies. A measure of aggression (or any other construct) is unstandardized when the method for calculating outcomes scores is not clearly set; this allows different scholars to calculate outcomes in very different ways (or the same author may calculate outcomes differently between studies). By contrast, a measure may be considered standardized when measurements taken from it (as well as its administration) are ‘‘set in stone’’ and do not vary across studies or across researchers (the aggression score developed from the Child Behavior Checklist is an example of a standardized aggression measure). The benefit of standardized measures is that researchers must accept the outcomes from these measures whether or not the outcomes are favorable to their hypothesis. Unstandardized assessments potentially allow researchers to select from among multiple outcomes those which best fit their a priori hypotheses. For instance, the Anderson et al. research group has assessed the ‘‘noise blast’’ aggression measure differently across multiple studies, with little explanation as to why (for a discussion, see Ferguson, 2007). Our previous

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analyses have suggested that unstandardized measures tend to inflate effect size estimates, as noted, potentially because researchers may ignore the ‘‘worst’’ outcomes and select the ‘‘best’’ outcomes to interpret (we argue that this is human nature and do not mean to imply any purposeful unethical behavior). Standardization is a basic tenet of psychometrics; thus, it is unfortunate that it has been so ignored in this research field. Unfortunately, the best practices-nominated studies are populated with manuscripts in which unstandardized assessments were used. This fact, rather than the quality of those reports, probably explains why the effect sizes seen for this group or paper were higher than those for other papers. We also find that Anderson et al. (2010) did not rigidly apply their own standards. For instance, they nominated at least one paper (Konijn, Nije Bijvank, & Bushman, 2007) as best practices, although it included several games with violent content descriptors (The Sims 2, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, Final Fantasy) in its nonviolent game condition, thus making its results uninterpretable. Panee and Ballard (2002) were nominated as best practices even though all participants played the same game. Similarly, Anderson et al. seem particularly disinclined toward Williams and Skoric (2005), despite the fact that this study does indeed (contrary to Anderson et al.’s assertions) include a measure of verbal aggression at least as ecologically valid, if not more so, than that of many of those studies nominated as best practices. Anderson et al. (2010) included several studies from which it is unclear how effect size estimates meaningful to the basic hypotheses were calculated. For example (and this is a partial list), Hagell and Newburn (1994) provided only descriptive percentiles and no analyses from which a meaningful effect size estimate could be calculated. Hind (1995) reported only the degree to which offender and nonoffender youths liked different kinds of games, not their reaction to playing these games or any correlation between play and behavior. Kestenbaum and Weinstein (1985) reported p values, but no other statistics, and these for some outcomes but not all. In the Panee and Ballard (2002) study, all participants played the same violent game without any variation in game violence content. Silvern and Williamson (1987) reported only a pretest/posttest design in which all children played the same video game (Space Invaders). We do not believe that these studies (or many others included in Anderson et al.) provide meaningful information related to VVGs and youth violence.

Is Psychology Inventing a Phantom Youth Violence Crisis? Anderson et al. (2010) neglected to report on one very basic piece of information. Namely, as VVGs have become more popular in the United States and elsewhere, violent

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Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Violent Video Game Effects

crime rates among youths and adults in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, and most other industrialized nations have plummeted to lows not seen since the 1960s. Figure 1 (adapted from Ferguson, 2008) presents this information for youth violence rates in the United States. Similar patterns are seen for other nations. Even the Anderson et al. group appears to have acknowledged that this kind of data is important to consider: ‘‘Nonetheless, dramatic reductions in media violence exposure of children should, over a several year period, lead to detectible reductions in real world aggression by those children. This would further provide evidence for a strong media violence link to aggression’’ (Barlett & Anderson, 2009, p. 10). In fact, we are seeing the opposite relationship, in which dramatic increases in VVGs are correlated with dramatic decreases in youth violence. The correlation coefficient for this data is r ¼ .95, a near-perfect correlation in the wrong direction. We agree with Barlett and Anderson (2009) that this kind of evidence is strong. Barlett and Anderson, of course, cannot have it both ways, with crime data important only so long as they are consistent with Barlett and Anderson’s beliefs. Last, Anderson et al. (2010) suggested that the r ¼ .15 relationship is too conservative and, nonetheless, as strong as that seen in other areas of criminology. The r ¼ .15 estimate includes only basic controls; therefore, this estimate is probably too liberal. Our own research suggests that when other risk factors (e.g., depression, peers, family) are controlled, video game effects drop to near zero (Ferguson et al., 2009). Indeed, focusing on bivariate correlations is problematic, as they overestimate relationships due to third variables. Males both play more VVGs and are more aggressive than females. Thus, aggression will

tend to correlate with VVGs and with any other maledominated activity, such as growing beards, dating women, and wearing pants rather than dresses. Anderson et al. noticed this themselves. It is obvious that controlling other important risk factors related to personality, family, and even genes (if one could) would further reduce the unique predictive value of VVGs. Anderson et al. ignored this third variable effect, although it has been well known for some time. It is also not true that the r ¼ .15 estimateeven if we were to believe that it is accurate-is on par with other criminological effect size estimates. Table 1 compiles a list of effect size estimates from criminology (Ferguson, 2009). As can be seen, compared to other criminological effects, the VVG connection is rather weak. Furthermore, Anderson et al. claimed that small effects may accumulate over time yet found the weakest effects from longitudinal studies, in contradiction to this claim. It should be noted that this 2.25% coefficient of determination reflects a change of nonpatho-logical aggression to the tune of 2.25% within individuals; it does not mean that 2.25% of normal children became antisocial or any other such alarmist interpretation of this effect. We observe that Anderson et al. themselves acknowledged that this effect is for nonserious aggression (Footnote 12) due to the limitations of many of the measures included in this analysis. In conclusion, we believe that Anderson et al. (2010) are sincere in their concerns for children and beliefs about VVGs. However, their current meta-analysis contains numerous flaws, all of which converge on overestimating and overinterpreting the influence of VVGs on aggression. Nonetheless, they find only weak effects. Given that discussions of VVGs tend to inform public policy, both

Figure 1 Trends in youth violence and video game sales in the United States. Video game data were obtained from the NPD Group, Inc./Retail Tracking Service. Youth violence data were obtained from Childstats.gov

Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Violent Video Game Effects

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Table 1 Effect Sizes, Criminal Justice Research Relationship

Effect size (r)

Video game sales and youth violence rates in the United States Genetic influences on antisocial behavior Self-control and perceptions of criminal opportunity on crime Protective effect of community institutions on neighborhood crime VVG playing on visuospatial cognitive ability Firearms ownership on crime Incarceration use as a deterrent on crime Aggressive personality and violent crime Poverty on crime Childhood physical abuse and adult violent crime Child witnessing domestic violence on future aggression Video game violence and nonserious aggressiona Television violence on violent crime VVG playing on serious aggressive behaviorb

.95 .75 .58 .39 .36 .35 .33 .25 .25 .22 .18 .15 .10 .04

Indicates calculated by Anderson et al. (2010). All other effects compiled by Ferguson (2009), where original sources are reported. Estimate corrected for publication bias in published studies. Note. VVG = violent video game.

a

b

scientists and policymakers need to consider whether these results will get the ‘‘bang for their buck’’ out of any forthcoming policy recommendations. There are real risks that the exaggerated focus on VVGs, fueled by some scientists, distracts society from much more important causes of aggression, including poverty, peer influences, depression, family violence, and Gene X Environment interactions. Although it is certainly true that few researchers suggest that VVGs are the sole cause of violence, this does not mean they cannot be wrong about VVGs having any meaningful effect at all. Psychology, too often, has lost its ability to put the weak (if any) effects found for VVGs on aggression into a proper perspective. In doing so, it does more to misinform than inform public debates on this issue.

Further Reading Anderson, C. (2004). An update on the effects of playing violent video games. Journal of Adolescence 27, 113–122. Anderson, C. A., Shibuya, A., Ihori, N., Swing, E. L., Bushman, B. J., Sakamoto, A., and Saleem, M. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries. Psychological Bulletin 136, 151–173. Barlett, C. P. and Anderson, C. A. (2009). Violent video games and public policy. Retrieved from http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/ faculty/caa/abstracts/2005-2009/09BA2english.pdf Barnett, J., Coulson, M., and Foreman, N. (2008). The WoW! factor: Reduced levels of anger after violent on-line play. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the British Psychological Society, Dublin, Ireland. Baumeister, R., DeWall, C., and Vohs, K. (2009). Social rejection, control, numbness and emotion: How not to be fooled by Gerber and Wheeler. Perspectives on Psychological Science 4, 489–493. Colwell, J. and Kato, M. (2003). Investigation of the relationship between social isolation, self-esteem, aggression and computer game play in Japanese adolescents. Asian Journal of Social Psychology 6, 149–158.

Cook, D., Guyatt, G., Ryan, G., Clifton, J., Buckingham, L., Willan, A., and Oxman, A. (1993). Should unpublished data be included in meta-analyses? Current convictions and controversies. JAMA 269, 2749–2753. Egger, M. and Smith, G. (1998). Meta-analysis: Bias in location and selection of studies. British Medical Journal 315, 61–66. Retrieved from. http:// www.British Medical Journal.com/archive/7124/7124ed2.htm Ferguson, C. J. (2007). Evidence for publication bias in video game violence effects literature: A meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 12, 470–482. Ferguson, C. J. (2008). The school shooting/violent video game link: Causal link or moral panic? Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 5, 25–37. Ferguson, C. J. (ed.) (2009). Violent crime: Clinical and social implications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ferguson, C. J. and Kilburn, J. (2009). The public health risks of media violence: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Pediatrics 154, 759–763. Ferguson, C. J., & Rueda, S. M. (in press). The Hitman study: Violent video game exposure effects on aggressive behavior, hostile feelings and depression. European Psychologist. Ferguson, C. J., San Miguel, C., and Hartley, R. D. (2009). A multivariate analysis of youth violence and aggression: The influence of family, peers, depression and media violence. Journal of Pediatrics 155, 904–908. Grimes, T., Anderson, J., and Bergen, L. (2008). Media violence and aggression: Science and ideology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hagell, A. and Newburn, T. (1994). Young offenders and the media: Viewing habits and preferences. London, England: Policy Studies Institute. Hind, P. A. (1995). A study of reported satisfaction with differentially aggressive computer games amongst incarcerated young offenders. Issues in Criminological and Legal Psychology 22, 28–36. Ioannidis, J. P. (2005). Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Medicine, 2, e124. Retrieved from http://www.plosmedicine. org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 Kestenbaum, G. I. and Weinstein, L. (1985). Personality, psychopathology and developmental issues in male adolescent video game use. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 24, 329–333. Konijn, E. A., Nije Bijvank, M., and Bushman, B. J. (2007). I wish I were a warrior: The role of wishful identification in effects of violent video games on aggression in adolescent boys. Developmental Psychology 43, 1038–1044. Kutner, L. and Olson, C. (2008). Grand theft childhood: The surprising truth about violent video games and what parents can do. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

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Olson, C., Kutner, L., Baer, L., Beresin, E., Warner, D., and Nicholi, A. (2009). M-rated video games and aggressive or problem behavior among young adolescents. Applied Developmental Science 13, 188–198. Paik, H. and Comstock, G. (1994). The effects of television violence on antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis. Communication Research 21, 516–539. Panee, C. D. and Ballard, M. E. (2002). High versus low aggressive priming during video game training: Effects on violent action during game play, hostility, heart rate, and blood pressure. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 32, 2458–2474. Przybylski, A., Weinstein, N., Ryan, R., and Rigby, C. S. (2009). Having to versus wanting to play: Background and consequences of harmonious versus obsessive engagement in video games. CyberPsychology & Behavior 12, 485–492. Ryan, R., Rigby, C. S., and Przybylski, A. (2006). The motivational pull of video games: A self-determination theory approach. Motivation and Emotion 30, 344–360. Savage, J. and Yancey, C. (2008). The effects of media violence exposure on criminal aggression: A meta-analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior 35, 1123–1136.

Sherry, J. (2001). The effects of violent video games on aggression: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research 27, 409–431. Sherry, J. (2007). Violent video games and aggression: Why can’t we find links? In Preiss, R., Gayle, B., Burrell, N., Allen, M., and Bryant, J. (eds.) Mass media effects research: Advances through metaanalysis, pp. 231–248. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Silvern, S. B. and Williamson, P. A. (1987). The effects of video game play on young children’s aggression, fantasy and prosocial behavior. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 8, 453–462. Smith, G. and Egger, M. (1998). Meta-analysis: Unresolved issues and future developments. British Medical Journal 316, 221–225. Retrieved from http://www.BritishMedicalJournal.com/archive/ 7126/7126ed8.htm Unsworth, G., Devilly, G., and Ward, T. (2007). The effect of playing violent videogames on adolescents: Should parents be quaking in their boots? Psychology, Crime & Law 13, 383–394. Williams, D. and Skoric, M. (2005). Internet fantasy violence: A test of aggression in an online game. Communication Monographs 72, 217–233.

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DISASTERS

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Airline Accidents G Li, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Accident Rates Stress Model Pilot Error

Glossary Accident An occurrence related to the operation of an aircraft that causes fatal or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the aircraft. Air Carriers Commercial air transportation companies that transport people and/or goods; include both major airlines and commuter airlines.

Aviation is a complex system. It includes aircraft, airport facilities, regulations, and operation procedures as well as personnel, such as flight crew, air traffic controllers, aircraft dispatchers, and maintenance workers. Civil aviation can be divided into two groups: commercial flights that transport people and goods to generate revenues and noncommercial flights that are operated by private pilots for pleasure or personal business. Commercial flights are operated by air carriers. Noncommercial flights are usually called general aviation. Air carriers may include major airlines, commuter airlines, and air taxis. These subgroups of commercial aviation are classified according to aircraft capacities and other variables, and they operate under different regulations. Unless specified otherwise, the term airline in this article refers to major airlines, that is, aircraft operations with 10 or more passenger seats or 7500 payload-pounds of capacity. There are approximately 8200 airline aircraft in the United States, transporting approximately 600 million passengers and 14 million tons of goods each year. An aviation accident is defined as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft that results in fatal or serious injury to any person or aircraft damage requiring major repair or replacement. A serious injury is operationally defined as any injury that requires hospitalization for more than 48 h, that involves a fracture, or that causes severe hemorrhage. Aviation incidents refer to adverse events causing only minor personal injury or minor aircraft damage.

Accident Rates Aviation is the safest mode of transportation. The rate of deaths per 100 million passenger miles is approximately

Risk Factors Policy Interventions Further Reading

Incident An adverse event with less serious consequences than an accident. Human Factors A scientific discipline aimed at optimizing the human–machine interface. Pilot Error An act by the pilot that is deemed inappropriate and detrimental to flight safety.

0.03 for airlines, compared with 0.9 for motor vehicles and 0.06 for trains. In 2004, air carriers in the United States made a total of 10.8 million departures and flew a total of 1.8 million hours, with 28 accidents and 14 fatalities. The rate of fatal accidents was 0.19 per 100 000 aircraft departures and 0.011 per 100 000 flight hours. Accident rates for airlines have decreased by 94% in the past four decades and have remained fairly stable since 1980 (Figure 1). General aviation and air taxis have much higher accident rates than airlines; approximately 94% of aviation accidents recorded in the United States involve noncommercial flights. In 2004, the rate of fatal accidents per 100 000 flight hours was 1.20 for general aviation and 0.78 for air taxis, which are 108 times and 71 times, respectively, the rate for airlines.

Stress Model Aviation safety has been studied from various perspectives. Human factors, which aim to optimize the relationship between people and their activities through engineering, technology, training, and resource management, has played a critical role in aviation safety. Human factor researchers consider aviation to be a system consisting of four elements: hardware, software, liveware, and environment. To maintain aviation safety is to keep the aviation system intact and functioning. The aviation system includes many subsystems. Human factors researchers are especially interested in liveware and its interface with other components of the aviation system. The information processing model that elucidates the psychological mechanisms of decision making has been used by human factors researchers to understand and enhance pilot performance. For instance,

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Airline Accidents

2.00

0.25

Total accidents Fatal accidents

1.60

0.20

1.40 1.20

0.15

1.00 0.80

0.10

0.60 0.40

0.05

Fatal accidents per 100 000 flight hours

Total accidents per 100 000 flight hours

1.80

0.20 0.00 1965

0.00 1970

1975

1980

1985 Year

1990

1995

2000

Figure 1 Rates of total accidents and fatal accidents per 100 000 flight hours for air carriers, United States, 1965–2004. Data from U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

studies of pilot error in operating instruments and interpreting instrument readings led to the improved design and display of flight instruments. Selye considered stress to be a normal phenomenon and the reaction to stressors to be a process of adaptation. Based on Selye’s seminal work, Haakonson proposed a simple stress model to explain aviation accident causation, in which safety is the state in which performance ability matches performance demand and accidents result from the imbalance between performance ability and performance demand, particularly when performance demand exceeds performance ability. It is assumed that every pilot has a certain level of performance ability that is susceptible to gradual decline during the course of a flight and that every flight operation involves a certain level of performance demand. Pilots face four types of stressors during flight: environmental (e.g., noise, vibration, and turbulence), physiological (e.g., sleep deprivation and fatigue), emergency (e.g., fuel shortage and engine malfunction), and life events (e.g., financial strain and marital problems). Some of these stressors can be detrimental to performance ability and others can increase the performance demand. The stress model posits that pilot-error accidents are in essence the consequences of inadequate coping or maladaptation to stressors. The stress model culminated a great deal of research in the field of aviation safety during the 1980s, especially in military aviation. Questionnaires measuring pilot personality

and life experience were used in various pilot population groups in order to determine the role of personal life stress in aviation accidents. Studies conducted in pilots who were involved in aviation accidents found that the prevalence of adverse life events, such as financial and interpersonal difficulties, was significantly higher in those culpable than those not culpable for their accidents. The implications of these findings, however, are ambiguous. The retrospectively reported data and quasi-experimental design make it difficult to infer causality between personal life stress and aviation accident. The general consensus is that even if there is a causal relationship between personal life stress and aviation accident, pilot personality and recent life experience contribute only to a small fraction of all aviation accidents. Furthermore, these studies are of limited practical significance because personal attributes such as personality and life events are hardly modifiable. Consequently, researchers have shifted their focus from personal life events to the environmental and occupational stressors pilots must confront while flying, such as adverse weather, mechanical malfunction, medical emergency, fatigue, aging, and alcohol abuse.

Pilot Error Pilot error is regarded as the last frontier in aviation safety. Overall, approximately 80% of aviation accidents

Airline Accidents

and 50% of aviation incidents are attributed to pilot error. The role of pilot error in aviation accidents, however, varies greatly with the type of flight operation. Pilot error is a probable cause in approximately 35% of airline accidents, 74% of commuter/air taxi accidents, and 85% of general aviation accidents. The most common pilot error identified in airline accidents is inattentiveness (e.g., failing to see and avoid, and improper preflight planning), which constitutes 26% of all pilot errors. Other major categories of pilot error are flawed decision (e.g., misjudging visibility and weather conditions, and flying aircraft with known defect) and mishandled aircraft kinetics (e.g., failure to recover from a stall or improper response to bounce), each accounting for 22% of all pilot errors. The remaining pilot errors in airline accidents are poor crew interaction (11%), mishandled wind/runway conditions (7%), improper instrument flight rules approach (3%), and other (9%). Although the pattern of pilot error is similar between airline accidents and commuter/air taxi accidents, there is a notable difference between accidents of commercial aviation and general aviation (Table 1). Specifically, mishandled aircraft kinetics is more common in general aviation accidents than in airline and commuter/air taxi accidents. The overrepresentation of mishandled aircraft kinetics in general aviation accidents is probably due to the fact that general aviation pilots on average are far less trained than commercial pilots. It is noteworthy that the prevalence of pilot error has decreased markedly in airline accidents, from 46% in the 1980s to 26% in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The use of advanced technologies (e.g., ground proximity warning

Table 1 Type of pilot error in aviation accidents by aviation category (%) Type of pilot error Inattentiveness Flawed decision Mishandled aircraft kinetics Mishandled wind/ runway conditions Poor crew interaction Other Total

Airlines

Commuters/ air taxis

General aviation

26 22 22

23 20 18

25 22 38

7

18

11

11 12 100

10 11 100

0 4 100

Data from Baker, S. P., Lamb, M. W., Grabowski, J. G., et al. (2001). Characteristics of general aviation crashes involving mature male and female pilots, Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 72, 447–452; Li, G., Baker, S. P., Lamb, M. W., et al. (2002). Human factors in aviation crashes involving older pilots, Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 73, 134–138; Li, G., Grabowski, J. G., Baker, S. P., et al. (2006). Pilot error in air carrier accidents: does age matter? Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 77, 737–741.

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systems) and implementation of intervention programs (e.g., cockpit resource management) might have contributed to the decline of pilot error in airline accidents. A similar downward trend has not been observed in commuter/air taxi and general aviation accidents.

Risk Factors Risk factors are personal or environmental characteristics that are associated with an increased probability of accident occurrence. Over the years, researchers have identified several risk factors for aviation accidents. The pilot’s health status is one of the characteristics most scrutinized. Early in the 1930s, studies of student pilots indicated that flight performance, measured by certification tests and accident involvement, was inversely associated with the severity of physical defects. Subsequent research linked selected visual problems and cardiovascular disease to increased accident propensity. Alcohol use is another risk factor that has been studied extensively. Studies in the early 1960s revealed that over one-third of the pilots who were fatally injured in general aviation accidents had positive blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) at the time of death; and among those tested positive, 57% had BACs
100 mg dl1. Following intensive educational intervention and restrictive regulations, alcohol involvement in fatal general aviation accidents decreased to approximately 8%. Since 1985, the United States Federal Aviation Administration has adopted a zero-tolerance policy regarding alcohol-impaired flying. Pilots are prohibited from flying for 8 h after consuming any alcoholic beverage or with a BAC of 40 mg dl1 or greater. Mandatory alcohol testing programs for airline pilots started in 1995. Each year, at least 10% of airline pilots in the United States are randomly selected for alcohol testing. Those who are involved in an accident are required to submit to alcohol testing within 2 h of the accident. Data from the random testing program suggest that the prevalence of alcohol-impaired flying among airline pilots is approximately 0.06%. The odds of accident involvement for airline pilots under the influence of alcohol (i.e., with a BAC
40 mg dl1) is estimated to be 2.6 times the odds for their sober counterparts. In addition to acute alcohol use, chronic drinking problems, such as a driving-while-intoxicated history, are also found to be associated with a significantly increased risk of aviation accident in both airline pilots and general aviation pilots. The relationship between pilot age and flight safety has been the subject of intense research and continuing controversy, mainly because of the federal regulation that requires mandatory retirement by their sixtieth birthday for all airline pilots. This policy, commonly known as the Age-60 Rule, was promulgated in 1960 out of concerns about the potential detrimental effects on safety

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performance of age-related declines in health status and cognitive functions. Experimental studies using flight simulators suggest that age-related declines are mostly limited to domain-independent cognitive functions; among the few domain-dependent measures that are found to decline with advancing age are time-sharing efficiency and the ability to respond to fast-spoken air traffic control commands. These age-related deficits are due to a decreased working memory capacity in older pilots and can be compensated for to a certain degree by flight experience. The fundamental question concerning the controversy of the Age-60 Rule is whether pilots’ risk of accident involvement increases as age rises. The results from epidemiological studies aimed at answering this question are contradictory and inconclusive. To determine the effect of aging on accident risk, researchers must confront both conceptual and practical challenges. Theoretically, aging has two divergent effects on safety performance: the risk due to declines in health and cognitive functions and the benefit from increased flight experience and enhanced safety behavior. Because the adverse and beneficial effects take place simultaneously during the process of aging, it is hard to separate one from the other. Research efforts are further compounded by several practical issues, including the lack of a widely accepted measurement of accident risk, the rarity of airline accidents, the healthy-worker effect induced by the rigorous medical certification process, and the truncated work-life span of airline pilots caused by the Age-60 Rule. Past safety performance is predictive of future performance. Epidemiological studies indicate that pilots who were involved in an aviation accident or incident in the past 3 years were 70% more likely than those without such a history to be involved in an aviation accident within 3 years. Deviant behavior, such as violating aviation regulations, has a greater effect on accident risk than past experience of accident involvement. The risk of accident involvement for pilots with a prior violation record is more than twice that for their counterparts without a violation history. Fatigue remains to be a safety concern for airline pilots because they often work extended schedules, night shifts, and across multiple time zones. It is evident that accident risk increases with duty hours. Airline accidents appear to occur disproportionately when pilots are on flight duty for 10 hours or longer. Current regulations in the United States limit flight time for each airline pilot to 30 h week1 and 1000 h year1. Environmental factors, which play a dominant role in airline accidents, can be easily identified. Of all airline accidents, 25% are directly caused by turbulence and 21% by mechanical failure. Bad weather is also strongly associated with pilot error. In fact, instrument meteorological conditions are recognized as the most important risk factor for pilot error.

Policy Interventions Airline pilots confront a variety of stressors in their work environment. Although aviation safety has improved remarkably in the past 4 decades, airline pilots have much higher job-related mortality than most other occupational groups. The stress model provides a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the causation and prevention of aviation accidents. Pilot error, which is a contributing factor in 35% of airline accidents and 85% of general aviation accidents, can be regarded as the result of inadequate coping with endogenous and exogenous stressors. Factors, such as alcohol use, prior violation history, fatigue, and bad weather, influence accident risk either by impairing pilot’s performance ability or by increasing performance demand. Policy interventions, including medical standards, zero-tolerance toward alcohol and drug use, flight proficiency requirements, and work-hour rules, have definitely helped to reduce pilot error and aviation accidents. Programs aimed at enhancing pilot performance ability, however, have their limits. Airline accidents are not merely a function of pilot error or individual risk factors. Rather, they are the results of complex interactions of personal factors, aircraft, and the environment in the context of the aviation system. Advances in technology, which have substantially increased the reliability of the aviation system and decreased pilot performance demand, are largely responsible for the remarkable achievement in aviation safety and will further reduce pilot error and airline accidents.

Acknowledgments The author’s work on aviation safety was funded by Grants R01AG13642 and R01AA09963 from the National Institutes of Health and Grant CCR302486 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by a fellowship grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The author thanks Dr. Yandong Qiang for technical assistance and Profs. Susan P. Baker and George W. Rebok for helpful comment.

Further Reading Alkov, R. A., Gaynor, J. A., and Borowsky, M. S. (1985). Pilot error as a symptom of inadequate stress coping. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 56, 244–247. Baker, S. P., Lamb, M. W., Grabowski, J. G., et al. (2001). Characteristics of general aviation crashes involving mature male and female pilots. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 72, 447–452. Goode, J. H. (2003). Are pilots at risk of accidents due to fatigue? Journal of Safety Research 34, 309–313.

Chernobyl, Stress Effects of 735 Haakonson, N. H. (1980). Investigation of life change as a contributing factor in aircraft accidents: a prospectus. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 51, 981–988. Li, G. (1994). Pilot-related factors in aircraft crashes: a review of epidemiologic studies. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 65, 944–952. Li, G., Baker, S. P., Grabowski, J. G., et al. (2001). Factors associated with pilot error in aviation crashes. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 72, 52–58. Li, G., Baker, S. P., Grabowski, J. G., et al. (2003). Age, flight experience, and risk of crash involvement in a cohort of professional pilots. American Journal of Epidemiology 157, 874–880. Li, G., Baker, S. P., Lamb, M. W., et al. (2002). Human factors in aviation crashes involving older pilots. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 73, 134–138.

Li, G., Grabowski, J. G., Baker, S. P., et al. (2006). Pilot error in air carrier accidents: does age matter? Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine 77, 737–741. Morrow, D. G., Menard, W. E., Stine-Morrow, E. A., et al. (2001). The influence of expertise and task factors on age differences in pilot communication. Psychology and Aging 16, 31–46. Selye, H. (1975). Stress without distress. New York: Lippincott. Tsang, P. S. (2002). Assessing cognitive aging in piloting. In Tsang, P. S. and Vidulich, M. A. (eds.) Principles and practices of psychology, pp. 507–546. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wiener, E. L. and Nagel, D. C. (1988). Human factors in aviation. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Chernobyl, Stress Effects of A Tønnessen and L Weisæth, National Competence Centre on Traumatic Stress, Oslo, Norway ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Chernobyl Accident: Health Consequences Short-Term Stress Effects Long-Term Stress Effects

Glossary Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) ARS is the collective term for the hematopoietic, gastrointestinal, and central nervous system/cardiovascular systems response to whole-body acute or subacute exposure to penetrating ionizing radiation (e.g. x-ray or gamma radiation) above a certain threshold (roughly 1–2 Gy). Etiology The study of the causes of disease. Pathogenesis The origin and development of disease. Shock Trauma A severe psychological experience, usually involving a threat to life, for which the individual was totally unprepared.

The Chernobyl Accident: Health Consequences The nuclear reactor accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, on April 26, 1986, created acute, short-term, and long-term effects both locally and farther away. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) is located in the Kiev region of Ukraine, 15 km from the southern border of the Gomel

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by L Weisaeth, volume 1, pp 435–437, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Short- and Long-Term Stress Effects in Far-Off Areas Further Reading

Thyroid Gland An endocrine gland, which is located in the base of the neck and produces thyroxine. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) UNSCEAR mandate in the United Nations system is to assess and report levels and effects of exposure to ionizing radiation and the Committee was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1955. Governments all over the world rely on the Committee’s estimates as the scientific basis for evaluating radiation risk and for establishing protective measures.

region of Belarus and 150 km from the western part of the Bryansk region in Russia. In contrast to the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, in which the safety containment held the release, at Chernobyl there were extremely large releases of radioactivity to the environment because the design of the reactor did not provide for the additional safety containment. Furthermore, it is unlikely that containment could have withstood the kind of pressure that the Chernobyl accident created. The graphite used for moderating the RBMK reactor kept a fire and the releases going for approximately 10 days, and it led to substantial cross-border radioactive fallout. The radioactive

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fallout resulted in three main spots of contamination within the former Soviet Union; they have been termed the Central, the Bryansk-Belarus, and the Kaluga-Tula-Orel spot. The far-field fallout was chiefly dependent on the meteorological conditions; these affected the direction taken by the atmospheric releases and whether precipitation occurred while the release passed a particular area. The radioactive clouds first spread to Scandinavia and then turned toward the Balkans, affecting various other parts of Europe. It is important to note that the washout from the Chernobyl fallout plume resulted in very heterogeneous fallout, especially compared to previous experiences with atomic bomb test fallout. Although, the levels of bomb fallout had also been associated with washout and precipitation levels, they were not associated with such extreme local variations as observed with the Chernobyl fallout. The previous experiences with more homogenous bomb fallout made quite a few experts believe that the early measurements from a few areas were valid indications for larger areas. However, with such a patchy fallout pattern, this was not the case. For instance, in Norway when the central Oslo area was not affected with fallout, experts made conclusions about the rest of the country that later turned out to be premature. UNSCEAR has estimated that 57% of the collective effective dose was received in Europe, outside the former USSR. To avoid deterministic health effects from exposure to ionizing radiation, the city of Pripyat (49 000 inhabitants) located 3 km from the Chernobyl NPP was evacuated by Soviet authorities on Sunday, April 27. However, until the evacuation was ordered, the inhabitants of the town were given no official information about the accident and, for instance, the amusement park was open on Saturday evening. In fact, the official news report in the mass media of the Chernobyl accident started on Monday, April 28 as a local incident at the Swedish NPP Forsmark; as an employee entered the NPP, he triggered the alarm system because of Chernobyl fallout on his foot. The Forsmark NPP dispatched emergency measurement crews, which found increased radiation levels everywhere; hence, the Forsmark NPP was evacuated. On Monday, Swedish and Finnish authorities exchanged measurement data and pressed the Soviet authorities in the evening to communicate to the world that there had been an accident. Because of the information blockage by Soviet authorities, the trust – and lack of trust – in the available information was a central issue. Also, within the same power structure held by the Soviet state, gigantic clean-up and intervention measures were conducted, some of which might have a quite limited dose-reduction effect compared to their rather large negative psychosocial effects. On May 2 and 3, an additional 11 000 inhabitants in 14 villages in the 10-km zone were evacuated, and 42 000 inhabitants of 83 villages within the 30-km zone were evacuated between May 4 and 7. Furthermore from June

to September, an additional 57 villages in Belarus, one village in Ukraine, and four villages in Russia (Bryansk region) were resettled, resulting in a total of 116 000 evacuated individuals. There is an ongoing discussion about whether the health gains from reducing the exposure to ionizing radiation by the ordered evacuations of all these people outweighed the psychosocial and stress impacts of being evacuated. Extensive research on the health effects of the two major civilian nuclear reactor accidents (Three Mile Island and Chernobyl) has pointed to one particular finding that is considered to be of major importance, namely the impact of the psychological fallout. Psychological impacts are important not only after the event of a nuclear accident itself but also with regard to the threat of a nuclear accident, the threat of nuclear material gone astray, or, with the war on terror, the threat of a terrorist event involving radioactive material. Before we return to these psychological effects, a description of the more immediate and somatic effects is given. On-Site Consequences During the night of April 25–26, 1986, 176 staff members were working the night shift on Units 1–4 of the Chernobyl NPP while 268 staff members were working night shift on constructing two new additional reactors some 1.5 km to the southeast of the other reactors. A plant employee working immediately above the exploding reactor was killed instantly. His body could not be recovered. Another employee was crushed by debris and badly burned, and he died from his injuries within hours. Those participating in the heroic immediate firefighting efforts were the most heavily affected by exposure to ionizing radiation immediately after the accident. More than 100 firefighters from the plant and from the nearby city of Pripyat participated in the vital task of limiting the raging fires and saving the other reactors also from exploding; around 5:00 a.m., all fires except the graphite fire in the core were extinguished. The heroic efforts of the firefighters, emergency workers, and plant personnel were vital in limiting the consequences. These efforts caused these workers to experience many injuries and exposure to much ionizing radiation, but saved reactor Unit 3 of the NPP (without their efforts a hydrogen fire or explosion and fire in the oil of the turbines might have had even larger consequences). An explosion in the core of the reactor had not been thought to be possible. In harmony with human behavior in other crisis situations, hours passed until the operating crew of Unit 4 accepted and realized the consequences of the reports from the rescue workers that the core had been destroyed. The denial of these observations led to a delay in their realizing that highly dangerous graphite and other debris from the core were causing the fires on the roofs

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(including the roof of Unit 3). Radiation levels were so high in the damaged part of the plant and outside that the monitoring equipment could not measure it – the readings went completely off scale. The firemen and the plant personnel had no personal dosimeters and were very severely exposed. Within 1 h, the first of many cases of acute radiation syndrome (ARS) appeared, during the first 12 h 132 emergency workers were hospitalized in Pripyat, suspected to be suffering from ARS. On Saturday, a specialized emergency team was established and examined some 350 people within the first 3 days, identifying 299 suspected cases of ARS. Those with indications of ARS were sent mainly for specialized treatment to Moscow and to hospitals in Kiev. During the subsequent days, some 200 people were admitted for examination. The specialized treatment center in Moscow admitted the more severe cases, and after screening, it treated 115 patients for ARS. These patients were categorized into four categories according to the severity of the ARS. All the 20 patients with fourth-degree ARS (bone marrow dose range 6.1–16 Gy) died ; 14 of the 21 patients with third-degree ARS (bone marrow dose range 4.2–6.4 Gy) survived; 42 out of the 43 with second-degree ARS survived; and all 31 with first-degree ARS survived. After extensive effort, the Moscow center managed to establish that the two most significant dose factors were that of a general relatively uniform whole-body gamma irradiation and extensive beta irradiation of extensive body surfaces. The beta-radiation burns caused extensive skin lesions that proved to be a significant problem, and 16 out of the 28 deaths have skin injuries listed along with other causes of death. All in all, there were a total of 32 deaths during the initial period. There is an ongoing controversy regarding the number of deaths among the 600 000 liquidators, with many heterogeneous subgroups including the early-involved firefighters and the soldiers who removed debris and built the sarcophagus over the wrecked reactor.

Far-Field Effects One of the somatic health impacts of Chernobyl that is currently demonstrated is the large increase in the prevalence of thyroid diseases, including cancer, in children in the affected areas in the former Soviet Union, mainly in Belarus and Ukraine. In Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, 5 million people were exposed to low levels of ionizing radiation over an extended period of time. It has been important, but difficult, to make a clear distinction between the immediate and deferred direct effects arising from exposure to radiation and the possible indirect psychosomatic effects. Complex psychosomatic or somatopsychological processes may be at work. People in the

affected areas naturally feared that they had been exposed to radiation that might cause future health damage. The political strategy of the Soviet experts and authorities in the management of the postaccident situation involved, first, the withholding of information from the population by creating a total information blockade and, second, the psychiatrization (blaming the victim) of the health consequences of the accident. For example, the term radiophobia was widely used starting in 1986 to explain the population’s reactions, despite the objective evidence of there being valid reasons for a certain degree of fear.

Short-Term Stress Effects The explosion in the NPP contained stressful stimuli typical of shock trauma. This is likely to produce acute stress reactions and later posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD, a psychiatric disorder characterized by intrusive recollections and the reliving of the trauma, along with symptoms of avoidance and hyperarousal. Unlike the stimuli carrying a high risk of PTSD, which were time-limited dangers, additional stressors inherent in the radioactive contamination were ongoing, future oriented, somatically based, and not confined to a single past event that could be processed by the senses. The Chernobyl NPP accident started a sequence of events that has continued to unfold over several years, thereby creating a situation of chronic stress. For the people exposed, the Chernobyl nuclear accident had no clearly defined low point from which things would gradually get better. Exposures to a high-risk environment, even when the feared consequences, such as cancer, may never materialize, elicit stress reactions that are influences by individual perceptions of the danger. The fear was aggravated by the lack of adequate information immediately after the accident. Human contamination of the biosphere is a comparatively new type of crisis. Rather than merely an ecological and medical emergency, this was also a social and political crisis. In the affected regions, covering thousands of square kilometers, a culture of uncertainty developed. The environmental contamination was not possible to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. In a silent disaster, it is impossible for humans to determine if and when they are being exposed because they are totally dependent on experts for information. Because of the secretiveness of the Soviet authorities, news about the accident was released several days after the accident. Only then did the populations in nearby towns become aware of the radiation to which they had been exposed and the consequent threat of long-term illness. These people were struck by fear and the distrust of political authorities. When people were evacuated from their homes, they suffered considerable stress because they were kept

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ignorant about what was going on. They underwent disruption in community infrastructure and social interaction and faced uncertainty about future housing and employment. Many evacuees who moved to new settlements were particularly depressed in their new homes because of financial difficulties, fear of isolation, and concern for the health of their children. The tense situation caused considerable stress, which, combined with the constant fear of health damage from the radioactive fallout, led to a rising number of health disorders being reported to local outpatient clinics. People received late and reluctant information, leading to widespread rumors. Only 30 months after the accident did Soviet authorities admit the contamination of some villages. This obvious disinformation resulted in widespread indifference, denial of danger, and public distrust in the government. People suffered from various symptoms frequently called chronic radiation sickness, the exact definition of which varied; fatigue, loss of memory, loss of appetite, and psychosomatic symptoms were among the most frequently documented symptoms in the clinics. The findings of increased somatic complaints, with large discrepancies between the findings of thorough clinical examinations and the self-reports is reminiscent of Lifton’s psychosomatic bind, found among Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors. Thus, substantial proportions of the populations in the former Soviet Union, severely affected with Chernobyl fallout, live with an intense focus turned inward, listening for all kinds of physical health complaints that might possibly be the first signals confirming their expectations of becoming ill consequent to the impact of Chernobyl. Similarly, in recent years, several authors have suggested that psychological factors may be involved in the etiology and pathogenesis of the health problems occurring after toxic exposure. A number of terms have been proposed to describe this syndrome: chronic environmental stress syndrome, informed of radioactive contamination syndrome, and toxic stress syndrome.

Long-Term Stress Effects The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989 increased the level of stress in the affected populations dramatically. Added to the ecological crisis, the chronic political, economic, military, social, and psychological crisis introduced a cluster of stressors for ordinary men and women. Insecurity, unpredictability, and shortages in goods and other life necessities caused severe hardships. Within this total situation of need, the relative importance of the Chernobyl problem was reduced. The numerous health problems reported by the local population of all ages are, however, attributed to the radioactivity. Even the fall of the Soviet Union has been attributed to the Chernobyl accident. However, problems in everyday life are

so demanding that many people cannot muster the necessary energy to maintain adequate precautions concerning radioactive contamination. Thus, attribution and indifference appear to be common stress reactions. Studies by Johan Havenaar and colleagues, in particular, in the affected regions have shown that the psychological impact of exposure to noxious agent has induced a wide range of health effects, including symptoms of anxiety; depression; nonspecific somatic complaints, especially fatigue and headaches; loss of concentration; subclinical physiological changes; increased illness awareness; lowered threshold for illness roles; and increased help-seeking behaviors. Evelyn Bromet and colleagues have shown how mothers with small children are a vulnerable group both after the Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl accident, and seemingly their immediate coping is important also for the long-term impacts.

Short- and Long-Term Stress Effects in Far-Off Areas Paradoxically, people in remote areas – as far away as Norway and Sweden – were alarmed at a fairly early stage due to nuclear monitoring and Western news media. These countries received heavy fallout due to the unfortunate wind direction and rain. Reactions varied among public awareness, alarm, and shock. Studies have shown that an information crisis developed in the first weeks following the Chernobyl disaster. The information crisis resulted from a combination of factors: (1) the shortcomings of previous public education on the matter; (2) the shortage of reliable data on the location and concentration of radioactive material, including the premature, too optimistic expert conclusions erroneously taking the central-location measurements to be indicative of the whole country; (3) the diffuse threat, ambiguous risk, and theoretical complexity of the subject; (4) the seeming contradiction between the health authorities’ assurances that, on the one hand, the radiation level was not dangerously high and, on the other hand, some precautions had to be taken; (5) the experts’ obvious difficulties in conveying simple information on complicated matters and statistical risks; and (6) the media’s focusing on conflicts, particularly between experts. In Scandinavia, it was found that, although the majority of the population was psychologically affected by the crisis in that all but few had some reactions to it, only a small proportion (1–3%) seemed to have developed posttraumatic stress reactions of such a severity that they needed or sought help. Data analysis showed that the degree of exposure, sex, age, educational level, general threat perception, and previous mental health were associated both with information and with the reaction variables. Women were significantly more alarmed than men.

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The Southern Saamis was the group that was worst affected in Scandinavia because radiocesium from Chernobyl fallout went into the Lichen (reindeer) Saami food chain. The Southern Saami reported that repeated whole-body measurements aided them in turning to a more active coping style in which they believe there indeed is something they might do – the application of countermeasures to influence possible adverse health effects. This is in stark contrast to some of the more fatalistic coping patterns found among the populations in many contaminated places in the territories of the former Soviet Union. Providing the public with immediate, simple, and reliable information is of crucial importance in the management of such silent disasters. In fact, in such disasters, information can itself be a threat. It is not realistic for the relevant authorities to start producing information materials or to start educating the public during the height of a crisis; thus, it is important that preparatory efforts be made. A key issue for the public is what people themselves might do to influence the possible health impacts on themselves and their family in case of an accident, and this perspective should be center stage for authorities charged with the challenging task of providing information.

Further Reading Baum, A. (1986). Toxins, technology, disaster. In Vanden Bios, G. R. and Bryants, B. K. (eds.) Cataclysm, crisis and catastrophes: psychology in actions, pp. 9–53. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Bromet, E. J. (1998). Psychological effects of radiation catastrophes. In Peterson, L. E. and Abrahamson, S. (eds.) Effects of ionizing radiation: atomic bomb survivors and their children (1945–1995). Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. Collins, D. L. and de Carvalho, A. B. (1993). Chronic stress from the Goiania 137Cs radiation accident. Behavioral Medicine 18(4): 149–157. Green, B. L., Lindy, J. D., and Grace, M. (1994). Psychological effects of toxic contamination. In Ursano, R. J., McGaughey, B. G., and Fulerton, C. S. (eds.) Individual and community response to trauma and disaster: the structure of human chaos, pp. 154–176. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Guskova, A. K., Barbanova, A. V., Baranov, A. Y., et al. (1988). Acute radiation effects in victims of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. In United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (ed.) UNSCEAR (1988) sources and effects of ionizing radiation. 1988 Report to the General Assembly, with annexes, pp. 613–631. New York: United Nations. Havenaar, J. M. (1996). After Chernobyl: psychological factors affecting health after a nuclear disaster. PhD thesis, Universiteit Utrecht. Lee, T. R. (1996). Environmental stress reactions following the Chernobyl accident. In International Atomic Energy Association (ed.) One decade after Chernobyl: summing up the consequences of the accident, pp. 283–310. Vienna: IAEA. Shigematsu, I. (ed.) (1991). The international Chernobyl project technical report: assessment of radiological consequences and evaluation of protective measures. Report by an international advisory committee. Vienna: IAEA. Tønnessen, A. (2002). Psychological reactions to nuclear threats – information, coping and the uncertainties of outcome at the individual level. PhD thesis, University of Oslo. Vyner, H. M. (1988). Invisible trauma: the psychological effects of invisible environmental contaminants. Lexington MA: Lexington Books. Weisæth, L. (1991). Psychosocial reactions in Norway to nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. In Couch, S. R. and Kroll-Smith, J. S. (eds.) Communities at risk: collective responses to technological hazards, pp. 53–80. New York: Peter Lang. World Health Organisation (1996). Health consequences of the Chernobyl accident: results of the IPHECA pilot projects and related national programmes, scientific report. Geneva: WHO.

Earthquakes, Stress Effects of M Livanou, King’s College London, London, UK and Hellenic Institute of Psychotraumatology, Athens, Greece M Bas¸og˘lu, King’s College London, London, UK and Istanbul Center for Behavior Research and Therapy, Istanbul, Turkey ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Psychological Consequences Factors Associated with Earthquake-Related Traumatic Stress

Glossary Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment A psychological treatment involving the modification of maladaptive

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by V J Carr, volume 2, pp 1–3, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Treatment of Earthquake Survivors Prevention Further Reading

thinking patterns and systematic exposure to anxiogenic stimuli until the associated anxiety subsides. Earthquake Epicenter The point on Earth’s surface directly above the focus of an earthquake.

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Earthquakes Natural phenomena that involve abrupt shaking and vibration of the Earth’s crust caused by the release of stress accumulated along geologic faults or by volcanic activity. Longitudinal Study A study that involves observations of the same items over a period of time. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) An anxiety disorder that develops after exposure to a traumatic stressor and involves symptoms of persistent reexperiencing of the traumatic stressor, avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic stressor, numbing of emotional responsiveness, and increased arousal.

Prospective Cohort Study A study in which the subjects are identified and then followed forward in time. Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial A clinical trial in which investigators randomly assign eligible subjects to groups to receive or not receive one or more interventions that are being tested or compared. It is a design widely considered reliable because it eliminates a variety of biases that compromise the validity of medical research. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) A class of antidepressants that increase serotonin levels by inhibiting serotonin reuptake.

Earthquakes are common natural disasters that can cause widespread devastation and casualties and expose large numbers of people to bereavement, injury, loss of property, homelessness, and displacement. Considering only the earthquakes that killed more than 1000 people, approximately 1.8 million people died in 108 earthquakes in the twentieth century. Earthquakes often cause greater devastation and casualties in developing countries because of the generally low quality of buildings, lack of disaster preparedness, and inadequate rescue and relief efforts. Indeed, 91 of the 108 major earthquakes (with a death toll over 1000) in the twentieth century occurred in developing countries, accounting for 83% of 1.8 million deaths worldwide. Exposure to earthquakes is associated with psychological distress, PTSD, and depression. Although the extent of devastation and casualties caused by a disaster is thought to relate to the severity of the subsequent psychological distress, recent studies suggest that even earthquakes of relatively low magnitude or those that cause limited devastation can lead to extensive posttraumatic stress reactions. Consequently, earthquakes pose a mental health hazard not only in developing countries but also in industrialized countries, even when people suffer relatively less damage and fewer casualties.

Fear and helplessness are among the most common emotional reactions that people experience during an earthquake. Intense fear during earthquakes has also been linked to deaths from cardiac arrests and extreme behaviors that reflect panic (e.g., jumping from the window of a tall building).

Psychological Consequences The Earthquake Experience The violent tremors of a major earthquake can cause serious damage to solid structures. People may be killed, injured, trapped under rubble or may witness the injury or death of others and the loss of their property. The impact of the earthquake experience is associated with many factors, including earthquake characteristics (magnitude, duration, etc.), proximity to the epicenter of the earthquake, strength of the buildings, and the nature of the ground that supports the buildings.

Acute Phase In the first few days and weeks after a major earthquake, the affected communities focus on rescuing those who have been trapped under rubble, caring for the injured, assessing the extent of the damage, and planning the management of the problems caused by the earthquake. Bereaved survivors face the task of burying their loved ones, and homeless survivors seek temporary accommodation. Ongoing aftershocks may cause further damage and casualties. In the acute phase, the regular activities of the affected communities may be disrupted. Some survivors avoid entering their relatively undamaged or mildly damaged homes either because they are uncertain about their safety or because of fear of further earthquakes. Governments and relief organizations often set up tent camps and prefabricated housing sites to accommodate homeless survivors. In addition, the fearful anticipation of further earthquakes is prevalent. Relatively little is known about the psychological status of survivors in the acute-phase aftermath of a major earthquake. The few existing studies that involved assessments 1–4 weeks postearthquake were based on convenience or clinical samples and reported increased rates of symptoms of acute stress disorder (dissociative symptoms, reexperiencing, avoidance of trauma reminders, and anxiety or increased arousal) and depression. In cases in which the earthquake caused casualties, the acute phase may also involve bereavement reactions. Medium-Term Effects In the year that follows a major disaster, many survivors face the difficult task of coming to terms with

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bereavement, injury, material loss, homelessness, disruption of activities, relocation, and other earthquake-related stressors. Those living in shelters (tents, makeshift barracks, and prefabricated houses) may be deprived of basic needs and face disruption in their daily routine. Ongoing aftershocks may cause additional traumatic stress. Studies examining the psychological status of adult and child survivors 1–18 months postearthquake show considerable variation in methodology (e.g., sampling, severity of earthquake exposure and related devastation, assessment instruments, and time between the earthquake and assessment) and, consequently, in the reported rates of psychiatric problems. Most studies (Table 1) reported high rates of PTSD and depression among the survivors. In addition, although little is known about the incidence of other psychiatric disorders in earthquake survivors, there is evidence that earthquakes may lead to increased rates of generalized anxiety disorder and alcohol abuse/ dependence. The psychological effects of earthquakes may be less severe in professional rescuers, possibly because they tend to be more psychologically prepared for disasters and their consequences. Long-Term Effects Relatively few studies have examined the psychological status of survivors beyond 18 months postearthquake. In a prospective cohort study based on survivors with high exposure to the 1989 earthquake in Armenia, the rates of PTSD 18 and 54 months after the disaster were 87% and 73%, respectively. Although symptoms of depression tended to subside over time, the severity of PTSD in Table 1 Range of estimated rates of PTSD and major depressiona Type of sample Probability or consecutive Convenience Clinical

b

c

PTSD (%)

Major depression c (%)

2–43

7–52

9–95 63–74

13–42 22–42

PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder. In probability sampling there is random selection of study subjects, thus ensuring that each member of the population has equal probabilities of being chosen. In consecutive sampling, each household is targeted for assessment within a particular temporary housing site (tent-camp or prefabricated housing site) in the disaster region. In convenience sampling, the selection of subjects is based on easy availability and/or accessibility. In clinical sampling, the participants are drawn from among patients or treatment-seekers. c The wide range of estimated reported rates mainly reflects differences in methodology (sampling, assessment instruments, time lapse between earthquake and assessment, etc.) and in the severity of the earthquake that the subjects of each study experienced. a

b

survivors with high earthquake exposure did not show a significant reduction. In another study following the 1989 Newcastle earthquake, 48% of the survivors who had PTSD at 6 months postearthquake still had PTSD 2 years later. Earthquake-related morbidity showed a decline in the months after the earthquake, but stabilized at approximately 18 months postdisaster. Finally, in a longitudinal study based on survivors of the 1998 earthquake in northern China, the rates of lifetime PTSD at 3 and 9 months postearthquake were 19% and 24%, respectively. The long-term consequences of earthquakes were also reflected in a cross-sectional survey of survivors of the 1999 earthquake in Turkey. This study showed that 39% of the survivors living in shelters had PTSD and 19% had depression 20 months after the disaster. Similarly, other cross-sectional studies that involved assessments more than 3 years after an earthquake reported increased incidence of psychological distress and traumatic stress reactions in the survivors.

Factors Associated with EarthquakeRelated Traumatic Stress The lowest rates of psychiatric morbidity tend to be reported by survivors of earthquakes that caused relatively less devastation and fewer casualties, whereas survivors of more devastating earthquakes often show substantially higher rates of psychopathology. In general, existing studies suggest a strong positive association (dose–response relationship) between the degree of earthquake exposure and subsequent traumatic stress responses. Therefore, high exposure to earthquakes tends to relate to greater postearthquake psychological distress. High exposure to earthquakes involves exposure not only to more intense tremors but also to various other related traumatic stressors, such as damage to or collapse of the house, being trapped under rubble, physical injury, participation in rescue work, witnessing grotesque scenes, loss of close ones, loss of property, and being relocated. On the other hand, low earthquake exposure involves experiencing relatively low-intensity tremors, with less exposure to additional stressors. Recent studies suggested that the intensity of fear during an earthquake is a much stronger predictor of earthquake-related PTSD than other traumatic events, such as the extent of damage to house, being trapped under rubble, participation in rescue efforts, and being inside a building at the time of the earthquake. In addition, in most of these studies PTSD related to fear during the earthquake and other traumatic events, whereas depression related to loss (bereavement and material loss) and personal characteristics (e.g., history of psychiatric illness, marital status, and age). Other predictors of PTSD included female gender, personal or family history of psychiatric problems, and lower educational level.

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Treatment of Earthquake Survivors The interventions that have been used in the treatment of earthquake survivors include play or art therapy for children, family therapy, a didactic experiential group instruction program, debriefing, and brief crisis-oriented psychotherapy. Because most of these treatments were not tested by randomized controlled studies, their effectiveness has not yet been established. In a randomized controlled study involving child survivors, 10 sessions of group play therapy reduced anxiety, but had no significant effect on depression and overall life adjustment. In another randomized controlled trial, six sessions of a combination of various interventions (trauma reconstruction and reprocessing, problem solving, relaxation techniques, and grief counseling) led to only a partial improvement in PTSD and had no effect on depression. The usefulness of pharmacological agents in earthquake-related PTSD has not yet been adequately examined. In general, the PTSD literature contains relatively few randomized placebo-controlled trials of psychotropic drugs. The treatment effect sizes obtained in these studies were fairly small. Although there are some studies suggesting that SSRIs may be useful in reducing PTSD, most of them have not included a treatment-free follow-up period. Thus, we do not know whether the treatment gains were maintained in the long term in these studies. Furthermore, considering that relapse on discontinuation of medication is fairly common in anxiety disorders, the use of psychotropic medications in earthquake-related PTSD appears to be of dubious value. Brief Modified Behavioral Interventions The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral treatment for PTSD is well established, and there is consensus among experts that it is the psychological treatment of choice for PTSD. Although cognitive-behavior therapy is considered a brief treatment (usually delivered in about 10 sessions), it is still too long in postdisaster circumstances in which thousands of people may require help. Furthermore, other factors, such as postdisaster hardships and demographic mobility, often interfere with the survivors’ ability to attend treatment sessions regularly. Such circumstances require much briefer interventions, preferably involving no more than one or two sessions. A series of studies in Turkey examined whether cognitive-behavioral treatment could be shortened without compromising its effectiveness. In an open clinical trial, 231 survivors with chronic PTSD symptoms received a modified version of behavioral treatment and were assessed weekly to determine the minimum number of sessions required for significant clinical improvement. The treatment involved no systematic cognitive restructuring and

focused only on reducing behavioral avoidance by giving instructions for systematic self-exposure to feared and avoided situations. The rationale of the treatment was not based on habituation that emphasizes reduction in distress during exposure (e.g., ‘‘Stay in the situation until your anxiety subsides’’) but on enhancement of sense of control over fear and distressing trauma reminders (e.g., ‘‘Stay in the situation until you gain control over your anxiety/distress’’). The survivors were given a mean of 4.3 sessions and a survival analysis showed that 76% of them improved after one session and 88% after two sessions. The mean number of sessions required for significant improvement was 1.7. The results revealed a patholytic treatment effect, with significant improvement in PTSD, depression, and overall adjustment. Improvement was maintained at the 3- and 9month follow-ups; of the 75 survivors who had a 9-month follow-up assessment, only one showed relapse. This study suggested that modified behavioral treatment may be effectively delivered in one session. To examine this hypothesis, a randomized waitlist controlled trial was conducted, involving 59 earthquake survivors who were given only one session of modified behavioral treatment. Blind assessment at week 6 showed significant treatment effects on all study measures, including PTSD, depression, fear of earthquakes, and overall adjustment. The overall improvement rate was 49% at week 6, 80% at week 12, 85% at week 24, and 83% at 1–2 years posttreatment. In another clinical study, 10 survivors with chronic PTSD symptoms received a single session of exposure treatment in an earthquake simulator (a small furnished house resting on a shake table that simulates tremors on nine intensity levels). A control switch inside the simulator allowed survivors to stop and start the tremors and increase their intensity whenever they felt ready for it. The treatment was aimed at enhancing the survivors’ sense of control over simulated tremors and anxietyevoking memories of trauma. Assessments at pre- and postsession and at 2, 4, 8, and 12 weeks posttreatment revealed significant improvement in all measures of psychopathology. Eight patients were markedly and two slightly improved at follow-up. The effectiveness of this treatment was further ascertained in a randomized controlled treatment that involved 30 subjects. These studies also provided some evidence that fear reduction through modified behavioral treatment may have protective effects against the traumatic effects of future earthquakes. Many of the survivors were treated during the first year after the disaster when the aftershocks were continuing. Despite the additional traumatic effects of these aftershocks, relapse after recovery was rare, suggesting that the treatment had a protective effect. The survivors often reported that they no longer panicked during real

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earthquakes as they used to in similar occasions before treatment. Behavioral treatment involving exposure to simulated tremors in an earthquake simulator was particularly effective in reducing fear and enhancing a sense of control over future earthquakes, suggesting that this intervention might have a potential use in increasing psychological preparedness for earthquakes. Dissemination of treatment to large numbers of survivors after natural disasters is a critical issue, particularly in developing countries with limited mental health-care resources. A pilot study in Turkey examined the usefulness of a highly structured self-help manual in delivering modified behavioral treatment to survivors. When the manual was delivered to 89 survivors with PTSD in the community, one in four survivors read the manual, complied with the treatment instructions, and reported significant improvement in their problems. These studies show that brief and modified versions of behavioral treatment are both practical and effective in postearthquake settings. These interventions lead to significant and sustainable improvement while reducing therapist time to a minimum. In addition, the dissemination of the treatment through self-help manuals to large numbers of survivors may be a cost-effective way of dealing with the widespread posttraumatic stress responses in the community. Further research is needed to examine whether the development of PTSD can be prevented by brief modified behavioral treatment delivered in the early aftermath of an earthquake. In addition, randomized controlled studies are needed to confirm the effectiveness of various methods of treatment dissemination (e.g., through manuals, computers, videocassettes, and television).

Prevention Given the inevitability of earthquakes, preparedness for future earthquakes is of utmost importance. Undoubtedly, the first preventive measure against the mental health hazard posed by earthquakes involves measures designed to reduce the extent of devastation and casualties caused by earthquakes, such as stricter building regulations, effective emergency response policies, and training of the public in self-protection. Accordingly, much of the effort has concentrated on this aspect of earthquake preparedness. What is less clear, however, is how people can be prepared psychologically against earthquakes. Recent work in Turkey provided some insight into effective methods of enhancing psychological preparedness in people at risk of earthquakes. Considering that fear plays an important role in the development of PTSD in earthquake survivors, interventions designed to enhance a sense of control over fear might be expected to increase psychological

resilience against the traumatic effects of earthquakes. Evidence suggests that this could be effectively achieved by behavioral interventions, particularly by those involving the use of an earthquake simulator. Further research in this area appears to be worthwhile.

Further Reading Armenian, H. K., Morikawa, M., Melkonian, A. K., et al. (2000). Loss as a determinant of PTSD in a cohort of adult survivors of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia: implications for policy. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 102, 58–64. Bas¸og˘lu, M., Kilic¸, C., S¸alciog˘lu, E., et al. (2004). Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder and comorbid depression in earthquake survivors in Turkey: an epidemiological study. Journal of Traumatic Stress 17, 133–141. Bas¸og˘lu, M., Livanou, M., S¸alciog˘lu, E., et al. (2003). A brief behavioral treatment of chronic PTSD in earthquake survivors: results from an open clinical trial. Psychological Medicine 33, 647–654. Bas¸og˘lu, M., Livanou, M., and S¸alciog˘lu, E. (2003). A single-session with an earthquake simulator for traumatic stress in earthquake survivors. American Journal of Psychiatry 160, 788–790. Bas¸og˘lu, M., S¸alciog˘lu, E., and Livanou, M. (2002). Traumatic stress responses in earthquake survivors in Turkey. Journal of Traumatic Stress 15, 269–276. Bas¸og˘lu, M., S¸alciog˘lu, E., Livanou, M., et al. (2005). Single-session behavioral treatment of earthquake related posttraumatic stress disorder: a randomized waitlist controlled trial. Journal of Traumatic Stress 18, 1–11. Carr, V. J., Lewin, T. J., Webster, R. A., et al. (1995). Psychosocial sequelae of the 1989 Newcastle earthquake. I: Community disaster experiences and psychological morbidity 6 months post-disaster. Psychological Medicine 25, 539–555. Carr, V. J., Lewin, T. J., Webster, R. A., et al. (1997). Psychosocial sequelae of the 1989 Newcastle earthquake. II: Exposure and morbidity profiles during the first 2 years post-disaster. Psychological Medicine 27, 167–178. Goenjian, A. K., Najarian, L. M., Pynoos, R. S., et al. (1994). Posttraumatic stress disorder in elderly and younger adults after the 1988 earthquake in Armenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 151, 895–901. Goenjian, A. K., Steinberg, A. M., Najarian, L. M., et al. (2000). Prospective study of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depressive reactions after earthquake and political violence. American Journal of Psychiatry 157, 911–916. Livanou, M., Bas¸og˘lu, M., S¸alciog˘lu, E., et al. (2002). Traumatic stress responses in treatment-seeking earthquake survivors in Turkey. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 190, 816–823. Livanou, M., Kasvikis, Y., Bas¸og˘lu, M., et al. (2005). Earthquakerelated psychological distress and associated factors four years after the Parnitha earthquake in Greece. European Psychiatry 20, 137–144. McMillen, J. C., North, C. S., and Smith, E. M. (2000). What parts of PTSD are normal: intrusion, avoidance, or arousal? data from the Northridge, California, earthquake. Journal of Traumatic Stress 13, 57–75. Noji, E. K. (1997). Earthquakes. In Noji, E. K. (ed.) The public health consequences of disasters, pp. 135–178. New York: Oxford University Press.

Relevant Website National Earthquake Information Center (2000). Earthquakes with 1,000 or more deaths from 1900. www.neic.cr.usgs.gov.

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Floods, Stress Effects of J O Brende, Mercer University School of Medicine, Macon, GA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction and Background Postdisaster Coping Postdisaster Effects on Children Postdisaster Physical Symptoms

Postdisaster Effects on Emergency and Medical Personnel Assessing Traumatic Exposure Severity and Symptoms Further Reading

Introduction and Background

. Most flood-related deaths are due to flash floods, . 50% of all flash-flood fatalities are vehicle related. Individuals should not drive through floodwaters, . 90% of those who die in hurricanes drown. People should heed the warnings and evacuate areas where flooding from storm surges has been predicted, . Most homeowners’ insurance policies do not cover floodwater damage. Flood insurance can be purchased through FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.

Flooding remains the most common catastrophe worldwide and accounts for an estimated 40% of all natural disasters and 26% of disaster-related deaths. Flash flooding kills more people in the United States than any other natural disaster, accounting for approximately 200 fatalities per year. Flash floods can occur within several seconds to several hours, with little warning and are deadly because they produce rapid rises in water levels and have devastating flow velocities. Several factors can contribute to flash flooding including rainfall intensity, rainfall duration, surface conditions, topography, and slope of the receiving basin. Urban areas are susceptible to flash floods because a high percentage of the surface area is composed of impervious streets, roofs, and parking lots where runoff occurs very rapidly. Mountainous areas also are susceptible to flash floods, as steep topography may funnel runoff into a narrow canyon. Floodwaters accelerated by steep stream slopes can cause the floodwave to move downstream too fast to allow escape, resulting in many deaths. One example of a deadly flash flood occurred after 37.5 cm of rain in 5 h from slow-moving thunderstorms killed 237 people in Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1972. Floods can occur unexpectedly after excessive rainfall, tropical storms, hurricanes, or failing dams or levees. Deluges of heavy rains can quickly fill narrow ravines, mountain canyons, dry stream beds, or streets in a downriver community. Powerful torrents of water can roll bolders, tear out trees, destroy buildings and bridges, scour out new channels, trigger catastrophic mud slides, sweep away vehicles and houses, drown unsuspecting campers or residents, destroy property, kill or injure friends or family members, cause homelessness, spread disease, deplete financial resources, and cause emotional and psychological symptoms. Indeed, floods are major disasters and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has warned people to consider these facts:

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by J O Brende, volume 2, pp 153–157, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Flooding can also take place from storm surges caused by major hurricanes and are unquestionably the most dangerous parts of hurricanes. Pounding waves create very hazardous flood currents and depths of water that can be greater than 60 m, depending upon the distance of water and the velocity of the wind. Nine out of 10 hurricane fatalities are caused by storm surges. Worst-case scenarios occur when storm surges occur concurrently with high tides. Stream flooding is also much worse inland during storm surges because of backwater effects. In September 1900, the hurricane and storm surge at Galveston, Texas, killed nearly 8000 people, making it the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history. Floods seem to have become more severe and commonplace in recent years. Within the boundaries of the United States, there have been many severe floods. One of the most significant of these was the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Rains began in the summer of 1926 and by May of 1927 the Mississippi River had flooded and was 97 km wide below Memphis, Tennessee, and flooded 109 km2 in six states: Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. There were 246 people killed in seven states and damages exceeded $650 million. The floods of 1993 were also one of the greatest natural disasters ever to hit the United States. Major flooding primarily affected the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and extended into 150 major rivers and tributaries across nine states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Hundreds of levees failed and 600 river points were above flood stage at the same time. Fifty people were killed and damages approached $15 billion. When tropical storm Alberto lingered over the Florida Panhandle on 3 July 3 1994, the ensuing rains continued

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until Georgia’s flood of the century eventually devastated its central and southwest portions, killed 32 people, displaced 70 000 people, flooded 1214 km2 of croplands, caused crop damage of $100 million, and a total monetary damage exceeding $500 million. Two devastating floods inundated much of northern California in January 1995. Three different hurricanes struck the Caribbean and the United States Atlantic Coast in late summer and fall of 1996; Bertha struck in July, Fran in September, and then Hortense washed away southwestern Puerto Rico. From the early months of 1997, unprecedented floods affected eastern, mid-western, and northern United States, particularly devastating communities bordering the Red River which flooded the Minnesota and North Dakota border and continued into Canada in April 1997. With the onset of El Nin˜o, 1998 became an unusually severe year for flooding. The Pacific Coast was devastated by rain, rising rivers, ocean swells, and killer mud slides in January and February followed by significant flooding in the southeast and Midwest from February until June. Downpours, high ocean swells, and flooding rivers struck the West Coast and the Southeast Coast of the United States with a fury in early February 1998. Southern California was inflicted with the worst wind and rain storms in 5 years. Rain soaked hills and dikes began giving way, causing more flooding and destruction of homes and property. While blizzards in the Upper Midwest paralyzed highways, roads, and air traffic, rain brought 30–50 cm of rainfall across the south during early March, 1998. The community of Elba, Alabama evacuated 2000 of its 4000 residents when a levee broke and killed two children from torrents of water roaring through the town without warning. Fierce thunderstorms swamped parts of seven states in the northeast. Flooding was so extensive that it required helicopter rescues. Vermont’s Mad river, usually docile in summertime, lived up to its name when it jumped the banks to wash out roads and destroy homes, and drove campers in Vermont to higher ground. On 24 August 1998, flash floods from tropical storm Charlie struck Del Rio, Texas on the Mexico–Texas border. Within the first few days, it was known that 15 people lost their lives although rescuers were continuing to look for missing persons during the following week. South Texas continued to be a target during mid-October as 37–45 cm of rain over a period of several days flooded the Guadalupe and Colorado Rivers, causing the deaths of 24 people. The Gulf Coast was also stricken by flooding from hurricane Georges which first struck Puerto Rico on 21 September 1998, and devastated the Dominican Republic. It swept across the Caribbean, the eastern coast of Cuba, the Florida Keys, and continued northward through the Gulf of Mexico until its center crossed the coast at Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, 8 days later. Storm surges and flooding caused extensive damage and drove

1.5 million Gulf Coast residents from their homes. In Mobile, Alabama, a 2.7 m storm surge from Mobile Bay sent chest-deep water into many neighborhoods so that more than 300 people had to be evacuated. In 1998, the worst flooding to hit Central America began on 27 October when hurricane Mitch stalled over the isthmus of Central America. Its 180 mph winds, accompanied by 62 cm of rain over a 6-hour period, first devastated the Island of Guanaja near the coast of Honduras. In 2 days, torrential rain immobilized the Honduran Capital of Tegucigalpa, then moved inland where rainfall estimated to be 63–125 cm caused flooding and mud slides that wiped out complete villages in the mountains of Honduras and Nicaragua. On 30 October 1998, the rim of the Nicaraguan Volcano Casitas burst, releasing a deadly torrent of water and mud which destroyed the villages of Rolando Rodriguez and Posoltega as most of its residents and several thousand others in Nicaragua, were killed. Virtually all of Honduras, from the lowland marshes on the Atlantic coast to the mountains, hills, and plateaus of the interior, along with most of the highways, tens of bridges, and 70% of the national agriculture in Honduras, was destroyed. President, Carlos Flores Facusse, announced: ‘‘There are corpses everywhere from victims of landslides or floodwaters. The floods and landslides erased from the map many villages and households as well as whole neighborhoods of cities. We have before us a panorama of death, desolation, and ruin throughout the national territory.’’ The number of dead in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Belize, and Mexico was estimated at 10 000 with 13 225 people missing, four million people homeless, and very little clean water, food, and medicine. When hurricane Stan struck Central America on 5 October 2005 it brought several days of rain and caused major flooding which impacted 1000 Central American communities which were covered partially or completely by water and mud. Along the Southern Coast and western highlands of Guatemala flooding and landslides caused loss of life, injury, and displaced persons as well as damage to housing and infrastructure in 251 of 331 municipalities in 15 of the country’s 22 departments. There were over 900 landslides and considerable damage to a high proportion of roads and bridges. In the highland and southwestern departments of Solola and San Marcos, entire villages were swept away by landslides, with significant loss of life. One village was completely buried under tons of dirt and declared a Mayan mass grave site. When category 3 hurricane Katrina struck the gulf states of Louisiana and Mississippi on 28 August 2005 there was flooding both from storm surges and heavy rains. The storm surge surpassed 6 m and caused major property destruction. The subsequent flooding of the City of New Orleans was unexpected and particularly devastating. Although hundreds of thousands of residents had

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left the danger zone prior to 29 August, there were yet thousands more who either refused to evacuate or were unable to leave. As Lake Pontchartrain rose to unprecedented heights, water began pouring into the city through broken levees. Over the next 2 days, the gradual rising water levels drowned the unfortunate who could not escape or forced them to their attics and rooftops. On 4 September 2005, the Mayor of New Orleans speculated to reporters that the death toll might rise into the thousands after the clean-up was completed. By early November the number of confirmed fatalities in Louisiana reached a toll of 1056, a lower figure than previously estimated. Some fatalities were caused by self-destructive behaviors or violence, including one death at the Superdome evacuation site from a drug overdose and another from suicide. At least seven homicide victims were found in the city according to the medical examiner. In early October 2005, heavy rain struck the eastern seaboard due to tropical storm Tammy and heavy rains and flooding which impacted five states and created enormous stress, according to the following time-table: . Sunday, 9 October – Prolonged, heavy rain and flooding from North Carolina to New Hampshire. Hundreds of people evacuated, power lost, dams weakened and roads impassable. At least four people died, including two killed in New Hampshire when a car drove off a washed-out bridge into floodwaters. New Hampshire’s Governor John Lynch declared a state of emergency and called in 500 National Guard for assistance. . Monday, 10 October – At least 10 people dead and about six unaccounted for, including a couple whose house was washed away by a surge of water over Warren Lake dam in Alstead, New Hampshire. . Tuesday, 11 October – Rescue crews and police dogs searched rivers and woods for people missing in New Hampshire after the weekend flooding. John Lynch said the floods are the worst the state had experienced in a quarter of a century. . Thursday, 13 October – Steady rain fell around the saturated northeast, swamping roads, stalling airline passengers, and sending streams and rivers over their banks. Flood warnings covered parts of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. . Friday, 14 October – Toilets backed up with sewage, military trucks plowed through headlight-high water to rescue people, and swans glided down the streets as rain fell for an eighth straight day around the waterlogged northeast. Overflowing lakes and streams forced hundreds of people from their homes, tens of thousands of sandbags were handed out in New Hampshire and flood warnings covered parts of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

. Saturday, 15 October – The death toll from a week of driving rain and swelling floods across the Northeast rose to 11 after a 75-year-old Connecticut man was swept away by rushing water at a campground. Flooding also shut down major highways and forced hundreds to evacuate their homes. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney declared a state of emergency, following the lead of New Jersey. Flood warnings were in effect for New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and southern New York. . Sunday, 16 October – In Connecticut, the body of a woman who fell into the rapids of the Natchaug River in Chaplin was found. . Tuesday–Saturday, 18–22 October – Taunton, Massachusetts. Population 50 000. Residents prepared for the worst after the 173-year-old, 3.6 m high Whittenton pond dam on the rain-swollen Mill river deteriorated, threatening a wall of water up to 1.8 m deep. Schools and businesses closed and thousands of residents were unable to return home as a weakened timber dam threatened to give way and spill a surge of water into downtown Taunton, Massachusetts. Over the next 4 days there was continuing heavy rain. About 2000 residents were evacuated and workers pumped millions of liters of water from the rainswollen lake above the dam and begin shoring up the battered structure ahead of the new round of heavy rain that was forecast. Working in the rain, crews finished building a new rock dam and tore down the old wooden one that had buckled after a week of heavy downpours.

Postdisaster Coping How do survivors cope with impending disasters related to rapidly rising water or flash floods? They have been observed to traverse through five psychological and emotional stress-related phases as follows. Immediate Coping – Alarm and Outcry In some cases victims become confused and overwhelmed by fear. However, most survivors respond to the danger with little or no expectation of personal risk, often with heroic efforts, clear thinking, and physical endurance. There are also those who refuse to believe the seriousness of the danger. Early Adaptation – the Disbelief and Denial Response Incredulity in the face of an extraordinary event should be perceived as normal, even potentially life-saving. But

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those who refuse to believe they will ever be overcome by life threatening circumstances can be at risk. In some cases disbelief or denial can be a fatal response when individuals go too far and will not acknowledge they are in mortal danger. This attitude of omnipotence has been called the delusion of personal invulnerability. There are many examples throughout history. When the dikes broke, and 1835 people were drowned in The Netherlands in the early 1900s, many perished because they did not listen to those who warned of the danger. In somewhat similar circumstances, as the Rio Grande began to flood near Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Mexico in June 1954, warnings were issued for 36 h that a record crest was sweeping down the river. Nevertheless people refused to comprehend the danger and 130 persons were needlessly drowned. Ideally, individuals will respond during this phase in a dramatic way to save lives. A very recent example occurred in Taunton, Massachusetts on 18 October 2005 when residents feared for the worst after the wooden Whittenton pond dam on the rain-swollen Mill River deteriorated and threatened to collapse (see earlier). The fact that most survivors in the middle of a disaster are somewhat numb to the reality that they could be killed helps them contend with incredible circumstances as they organize themselves and other survivors in adaptive and innovative ways. Even after the disaster’s force diminishes, survivors are likely to maintain an attitude of disbelief for a time until they begin to resume normal activities. In some cases, the demands on rescue workers and other helpers are exceedingly great during this time and the risk of developing significant physical and emotional symptoms is high. Reports from New Orleans’ Methodist Hospital after hurricane Katrina had flooded New Orleans indicated that the medical staff worked unendingly in horrendous conditions and some succumbed to dehydration and exhaustion. Patients requiring ventilators were kept alive with hand-powered resuscitation bags. When the first floor of the hospital flooded the dead were stacked in a second floor operating room. Other hospitals reported even more dire conditions and in some cases the hospital staff were unable to evacuate the severely ill and they did not survive. Mid-Phase Adaptation – Intrusions The middle phase is marked by intrusive recollections alternating with periods of denial and numbing as survivors begin to remember and relive their experiences in the form of intrusive thoughts, emotions, and dreams several days or weeks later. Their intrusive symptoms may be intensified when survivors finally realize they may have lost lives, health, or property. This phase may be prolonged or delayed when the work of recovery, reconstruction, or self-preservation becomes all consuming and

there may also be delayed resolution by the use of alcohol or drugs. Survivors often contend with a variety of other stresses at this time including possible injuries, losses, role changes, displacement, cleaning up, repairing property damage, moving into temporary or even new housing, and preparing lengthy health, recovery assistance, and insurance claims. Thus, posttrauma symptoms are related not only to the disaster itself but other related difficulties, which has been called the dripping faucet syndrome. Taken individually, many small stresses seem minor but when taken collectively they can push a person to the edge and cause irritability, withdrawal from relationships, or loss of pleasure in activities. Disaster workers subjected to prolonged or highly intensive exposure to the disaster tend to remain emotionally numb until the enormity of the disaster finally sinks in. Not until then do they develop sleep disturbances and nightmares but these are frequently resolved within 4–6 weeks. Late Phase Adaptation – Anger and Physical Symptoms After a period of time (from 1 to 3 months) survivors are more prone to experience negative and hostile reactions. There is a marked decrease in tolerance, an increase in complaining, a loss of humor, and mistrust of others. This becomes a problem for those trying to help victims of trauma and for the victims themselves, who keep others at a distance. Couples may become more easily aggressive and prone to violent outbursts. During this phase there is also a marked increase in physical complaints including headaches, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, muscle aches, chest pain, restlessness, tremors, sweating, and general fatigue. These symptoms may also be associated with secondary victimization befalling those who are exploited by shysters, neglected by thoughtless people, and mistreated by dehumanizing agencies. Resolution or Symptom Development Finally, survivors either resolve their posttraumatic symptoms, develop recurring difficulties related to unresolved past stresses, or become victims of prolonged or worsening disorders associated with unresolved guilt, preexisting anxiety or depression, prior traumatization, drug or alcohol addiction, and organic syndromes. New symptoms may develop or prior difficulties may worsen including flashbacks, depression, obsessive–compulsive symptoms, panic attacks, nightmares, sleeplessness, interpersonal alienation, and emotional outbursts alternating with detachment. For some victims, these symptoms may extend indefinitely in the form of a chronic emotional or physical disorder requiring treatment.

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Postdisaster Effects on Children Children are vulnerable to all of the typical responses and symptoms following disasters and need special attention in order to prevent longstanding difficulties. Unfortunately, adults are not always aware of the full impact of traumatic stress on children nor do they always help them resolve their frightening dreams and memories. Most children, especially younger ones, become very fearful of being alone, overdependent, and sometimes clinging. They may also develop strong phobias, nightmares, night terrors, and regression to a previous level of function, including thumb sucking or bed wetting in younger children. Additional symptoms include clinging to parents, reluctance to go to bed, nightmares, fantasies that the disaster never happened, crying and screaming, withdrawal and immobility, refusal to attend school, school problems, inability to concentrate, and being poorly understood by parents and teachers. Early intervention is particularly important for children. Parents need to recognize that withdrawal, fear, and overdependency will improve with time. Special care should be paid to helping the children resume normal daily routines within a safe and secure environment. Watching television programs about the flood can be helpful if parents are there to talk about what happened and reassure that being afraid is normal. Supervised trauma-related play can help children resolve their fears. They should be reassured with explanations like: ‘‘That hurricane is not a monster who took away children’s toys and hurt people. The ‘eye’ will not seek children out or return again.’’

Postdisaster Physical Symptoms Disaster survivors not uncommonly have physical complaints which often bring them to their doctor’s offices. Following sudden disasters, many of the symptoms are associated with prolonged autonomic nervous system over-reactivity. Palpitations, tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, and feelings of dread may accompany intrusive memories. Headaches and gastrointestinal complaints are not uncommon. While survivors may have physical problems they often do not seek medical help. Researchers have found that only 40% of those reporting physical symptoms after a disaster consulted their doctors while 34% sought help from family members or friends. Most of them, 66%, sought medical help within 4 months while the remaining 33% waited until after 4 months to visit their physicians. Survivors may also suffer from health problems indirectly linked to the disaster. For example, following the Iowa floods in the early summer of 1993, the national Centers for Disease Control (CDC) conducted a public

health investigation. The CDC researchers discovered that survivors in seven Iowan counties had been hospitalized for flood-related illnesses or injuries, including carbon monoxide poisoning, hypothermia, electrocution, wound infections, and exacerbations of chronic illnesses. Sometimes there are reports of unusual and long-term health problems. Investigators from the New York State Department of Health discovered some unusual health problems following a flood disaster in western New York in 1974. Within a population of 100 000 people exposed to flooding in three river valleys, scientists found a regional rise in spontaneous abortions as well as an increased incidence of leukemias and lymphomas of 4 years’ duration, resulting in an excess of 30–35 malignancies. The reasons are not yet entirely clear. After the flooding of New Orleans began on 29 August 2005, there was concern about a potential outbreak of serious health problems. Flood waters remained at high levels, over some roof tops, for a number of weeks and became toxic and a breeding area for bacteria. In addition to dehydration and food poisoning, New Orleans flood survivors were also at risk to contact hepatitis A, cholera, and typhoid fever, because of contaminated food and drinking water. Survivors also faced longer-term health risks due to prolonged exposure to the petrochemical tainted flood waters and mosquito-borne diseases such as yellow fever, malaria and West Nile Virus. Escherichia coli was detected in the water supply within a few days and at least five people died from bacterial infections caused by Vibrio vulnificus bacteria in the toxic waters. Other sources of contaminations included dead bodies lying in city streets and floating in still-flooded sections, causing an advanced state of decomposition of many corpses, some of which were left in the water or sun for days before being collected. Medical assistance began in earnest within 3 days when an emergency triage center was set up at the regional airport at New Orleans. Helicopters and ambulances brought in the weak, elderly, sick, and injured and makeshift gurneys were used to transport persons from the flight line to a temporary hospital set up in the terminal. The captain in charge described the site as organized chaos but the emergency medical staff assembled from around the country kept pace and were able to handle anything from bruises to critical cases requiring ventilators. They triaged the seriously ill and injured to medical centers in the surrounding states and within 72 h had triaged up to 5000 people. The potential health problems from flooding affected the residents of the city who had been evacuated. They were unable to return to their homes because of the length of time necessary for the Army Corps of Engineers to drain the flood waters. They managed to accomplish the task within 1 month but parts of the city re-flooded when

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hurricane Rita struck on 24 September. Many buildings that had withstood the initial storm and the direct force of the flooding were damaged beyond repair by the deleterious effect of long immersion and the rapid propagation of mold. Hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents that were displaced by the flooding lost their homes completely and the subsequent emotional effects will not be known for some time.

Postdisaster Effects on Emergency and Medical Personnel Emergency medical technicians, law enforcement personnel, military medics or corpsmen, fire fighters, emergency room workers, physicians, intensive care nurses, and other crisis workers are exposed routinely to persons who are severely injured, killed, deathly ill, or have expired unexpectedly. These helpers usually adapt to their stress by becoming emotionally numb and detached from their feelings. As a result they can develop a pattern of maintaining emotional distance from people while preferring to throw themselves into their work. This accumulated exposure to traumatic events eventually causes posttraumatic symptoms: emotional detachment, sleep disturbance, irritability, marital problems, alcohol abuse, physiological symptoms, and an addiction to repetitive stress. Helpers (health professionals, mental health workers, ministers, and even business executives) can feel used up. They eventually find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet the emotional and communication needs of their wives and children. They even ignore their own personal needs for rest and recreation as they often turn to work for gratification rather than their families. Eventually this leads to burnout. Helpers may find it emotionally stressful and experience intense feelings in response to listening to victims’ stories about disasters, assault, sexual abuse, and violent trauma. Those with little experience may even feel confused and even ashamed while empathically taking on the victim’s emotional distress. The listener’s experience may lead to symptoms of depression, bad dreams, irritability, excessive drinking, and other distressing difficulties caused by a process called vicarious traumatization (VT).

Assessing Traumatic Exposure Severity and Symptoms The severity of symptoms, should they persist, often are frequently directly correlated with the enormity of the

traumatic experience/loss or accumulation of prior unresolved traumatic experiences. Survivors may have experienced a seemingly unending series of stressors. For example, they may have suffered damage or destruction to their homes or personal belongings. They may have witnessed violence, injury, deaths of other victims, and they may have lost loved ones and pets. When survivors fail to talk openly about the event(s); if they have been separated from family members; if they lack emotional support from friends or family members, the emotional aftermath is more severe. They are at risk to experience many or all of the following symptoms: flashbacks, sleep disorder, anxiety attacks, recurring nightmares or dreams, problems with concentration and memory, intrusive recollections, irritability, emotional outbursts alternating with periods of emotional numbing, misusing drugs or alcohol, and interpersonal conflicts. Clearly, individuals who are experiencing these symptoms should seek the help of an experienced trauma therapist. A successful resolution is possible when survivors find relief from their symptoms and discover new or broadened meaning in their lives. See also: Hurricane Katrina Disaster, Stress Effects of

Further Reading Brende, J. O. (1998). Coping with floods, assessment, intervention, and recovery processes for survivors and helpers. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 28, 107–140. Brende, J. O. (1995). Coping with floods and other disasters: a workbook for physicians, helpers, and survivors. Columbus, GA: Trauma Recovery Publications. Clayer, J. R., Bookless-Pratz, C., and Harris, R. L. (1985). Some health consequences of a natural disaster. Medical Journal of Australia 143, 182–184. Figley, C. R. (ed.) (1985). Trauma and its wake, volume 2: traumatic stress: theory, research, and intervention. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Forster, P. (1992). Nature and treatment of acute stress reactions. In Austin, L. S. (ed.) Responding to disaster, a guide for mental health professionals, pp. 2–51. Washington DC: PA Press. Kalayjian, A. S. (1995). Disaster and mass trauma: Global perspectives on post disaster mental health management. Long Branch, NJ: Vista Publishing. McCann, I. L. and Pearlman, L. A. (1990). Vicarious traumatization: a contextual model for understanding the effects of trauma on helpers. Journal of Traumatic Stress 3, 131–149. Murphy, S. A. (1986). Perceptions of stress, coping, and recovery one and three years after a natural disaster. Issues in Mental Health Nursing 8, 63–77. Olson, L. (1993). After the flood: the dripping faucet syndrome. Iowa Medicine 83, 324–327. Pearlman, L. A. and Saakvitne, K. S. (1995). Trauma and the therapist. New York: WW Norton. Robinson, D. (1959). The face of disaster. New York: Doubleday. Tierney, K. J. (1986). The social and community contexts of disaster. In Gist, R. and Lubin, B. (eds.) Psychosocial aspects of disaster, pp. 11–39. New York: Wiley.

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Hurricane Katrina Disaster, Stress Effects of C Piotrowski, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Calamity Hurricane Katrina Methodological Issues

Glossary Chaos Theory A scientific paradigm that suggests that chaos and complexity are inherent to explaining phenomena; it aids in the understanding of how organizations respond, adapt, change, function, and renew. Direct-Contact Victims Emergency and rescue workers who searched for survivors and dead bodies, as well as morgue personnel. Disaster Mental Health A competency-bases intervention model, based on disaster-related psychopathology, that addresses a community’s mental health needs. First-Responders All emergency personnel that aid in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, such as police, firefighters, rescue workers, medical staff, and special response units.

Calamity Without a doubt, Hurricane Katrina (August 29, 2005) was the most destructive and costly natural disaster in U.S. history. Months after the storm, the total destruction, including the human toll, is still being calculated. Perhaps as a key indicator of the enormity of the devastation, 6 months after the disaster news accounts on every aspect of the tragedy still appear each night on the national news networks, the number of deaths are provided as an estimate, and over 100 of the deceased victims have not yet been identified. The numbers, to date, allow an appreciation of the impact: . Deaths: 1500, either during or immediately after the storm. . Homeless residents: 800,000. . Victims left unemployed: 550,000. . Displaced people: 2 million. . Homes destroyed: 350,000. . Penetration of the storm surge along the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coast was measured in miles not feet.

Impact on Human Populations Further Reading

Hurricane Andrew The costliest hurricane to hit the United States prior to Hurricane Katrina; it caused $44 billion in damage in 1992. Mass-Casualty Event An event that involves multidimensional stressors that may result in differential patterns of posttraumatic reactions, both short and long term. Northeast Quadrant The storm quadrant with the strongest winds and rain (because hurricanes circulate counterclockwise). In Hurricane Katrina, this meant that the areas east of New Orleans, for 160 miles, received the brunt of the storm’s wrath. Self-Efficacy An individual’s belief that his or her actions and behavior will produce the desired outcomes; coined by personality theorist Albert Bandura.

. Property losses: $35 billion. . Estimates for reclamation: 2 years to clear 22 million tons of waste and debris. . Small businesses not in operation: 50%. . Cars submerged under water: 200,000. . Residents of the greater New Orleans area who may have to relocate permanently: 75%. . Area of the city of New Orleans that was flooded: 70%. . Evacuees separated from their pets: 80%. . Estimate of total economic costs and damage: varies widely, but will probably reach $200 billion.

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was both an immensely powerful and a large storm. Initial forecasts estimated winds of 145 mph at landfall, but revised figures from the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported maximum sustained winds of approximately 125 mph; officially, the storm was a high category 3 hurricane. Hurricane-force winds

Hurricane Katrina Disaster, Stress Effects of

(>74 mph) extended 160 miles out from the eye of the storm. Unbelievably, the city of Waveland, Mississippi, was struck by a 28-ft storm surge. Several hours after the eye of the storm passed New Orleans, the levee system that protected the city was either breached or undermined in three strategic areas; within hours, approximately two-thirds of the city was submerged under up to 12 ft of water. Many residents drowned, and thousands sought higher ground. The initial governmental response, particularly that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), can be regarded as a complete debacle; however, many regular citizens, volunteers, and health-care personnel extended themselves to save lives. Unfortunately, most residents were left to fend for themselves for almost a week before basic necessities arrived. The result was untold human suffering. Small coastal cities along the gulf coast from Port Sulphur, Louisiana, to Mobile, Alabama, were hard hit by high winds, torrential rain, and a destructive storm surge; some small towns on the Mississippi and Alabama coast were literally wiped off the map. Outside of the impact area, the country felt the residual impact of the calamity: anger over government malaise, a sense of national shame, and high energy prices. Undoubtedly, the social consciousness of the public was severely tested, particularly with regard to the racial issues and poverty that were brought to the forefront in the aftermath of the storm. In this regard, Hurricane Katrina will always be considered both a natural and human-made disaster.

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experienced the same level or type of disaster. For example, New Orleans basically experienced a flood event and was not greatly impacted by hurricane winds (the city lay west of the eye of the storm). However, smaller coastal communities to the east of the eye (coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) felt the full brunt of hurricaneforce winds and devastating storm surge. Some residents had recoverable property damage, whereas others were completely wiped out. Some residents evacuated to safety, whereas others rode out the storm. Many victims evacuated temporarily, whereas others were displaced to cities throughout the United States and many in this latter group will probably not return to their home areas. Moreover, there was a great disparity in the amount of governmental support and financial assistance that individuals received, commensurate with the amount of damage, need for shelter, and sustenance needs. Therefore, researchers need to be cognizant of these factors when studying select populations and be aware that not everyone experienced Hurricane Katrina in the same way. Green reviewed some of the difficulties encountered in designing sound disaster research studies, and several investigators have considered the heterogeneous nature of studying the effects of hurricanes on different cohort groups. Furthermore, due to the overwhelming nature of the disaster and its aftermath, Hurricane Katrina, for many victims, was a multiple traumatic loss: that is, a loss of loved ones, pets, residence, job, security, and the future.

Impact on Human Populations Methodological Issues Although the United States suffered several devastating natural disasters in its history (e.g., the San Francisco earthquake, the Galveston hurricane, and Mississippi River floods), the calamity of Hurricane Katrina has no precedent with regard to human suffering, social displacement, structural damage, and financial cost. Summarily, a continuous stretch of 200 miles of the U.S. coast was adversely impacted, including a population of approximately 3.6 million residents. At the time of this writing (6 months postdisaster), there is limited empirical research on the storm, although many articles have appeared in general media publications. Because I am a disaster researcher, I can attest to the fact that there are a plethora of research studies underway, particularly at universities in the New Orleans area. Researchers should be cautioned about several unique features of investigating this disaster. First and foremost, Hurricane Katrina was not a unitary impact event; that is, from a methodological perspective, not all regions (and populations) were impacted in the same manner or

Flooding Much of New Orleans was severely flooded due to the failure of levee structures. Both natural and human-made disasters can result in flooding, for example, the Buffalo Creek dam collapse in 1972 and the Great Midwest Mississippi floods in 1993. The effects of extensive flooding were studied in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, which struck North Carolina in 1999. Emotional exhaustion, grief reactions and depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomotology, and somatic complaints were identified as the major sequela in several studies. The aged seemed to be the most affected. Health Issues The health consequences of natural disasters have been a major research area. For example, in the 1983 South Australian bush fires, Japan’s 1995 Hanshin–Awaji earthquake, and California’s 1994 Northridge earthquake, impacted populations were found to be vulnerable to a host of medical maladies, particularly stress-related conditions such as hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders,

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diabetes, and mental illness. Non-stress-related conditions were typically not affected. Most conditions were found to improve within 15 months postdisaster. Investigators have reported on the impact of immunological changes after natural disasters and found that adaptive coping to stress effects mediated immunological responses in affected populations. Mental Health Symptoms Psychiatric morbidity, particularly stress-related conditions, have been extensively studied in both natural and human-made disasters. Specifically, PTSD, depression, and substance abuse disorders have been reported to significantly increase following large-scale disasters. Researchers caution that acute stress disorder is prognostically important as a marker for the development of moderate or full PTSD symptoms in the long term. One study on mental health symptomotology following Hurricane Andrew reported that 36% of the sample had PTSD, 30% experienced major depression, and 20% showed signs of anxiety disorders. In fact, 56% had significant symptoms persisting beyond 6 months posthurricane. Due to the high prevalence of mental health problems experienced in the wake of hurricanes, researchers point to the critical importance of coping self-efficacy perceptions as a mediator between acute stress response and long-term distress following natural disasters. Because geographical relocation was a major aspect of the Katrina disaster, it should be an area of particular research focus. Prior studies in this area concluded that displaced individuals in natural disasters exhibit more intense levels of psychopathology, particularly depression. Perhaps, this is the result of unresolved grief on the part of victims who were not only relocated but also lost their homes and needed to start over elsewhere. Moreover, in a study of family life following Hurricane Hugo in 1989, researchers found the divorce rate increased. In this regard, there have been recent media ad campaigns across the impacted Gulf Coast areas that address postHurricane Katrina family stress issues such as child and wife abuse. Recovery Issues There are a number of governmental recovery plans in place across the Gulf Coast, although their implementation seems to be progressing slowly. Research following Hurricane Andrew in 1992 indicated that disruption during rebuilding phases contributed to the exacerbation of mental health symptoms. In recent years, social scientists have advocated disaster mental health-planning initiatives via national organizations such the American Psychological Association to address preparedness planning, mitigation, agency coordination, and community resource development.

Particularly in the context of the complexity of disasters, interagency cooperation and coordination are crucial to meeting the social and psychological needs of victims posthurricane. By all accounts, the governmental response in the immediate aftermath of Katrina and the subsequent lethargic recovery efforts can only be described as appalling. This unfortunate state of affairs can only impede individual and collective efforts at achieving some sense of normality among the affected population. Instead, much of the goodwill and recovery assistance to the affected population came from local church groups and organizations such as the Red Cross. Indeed, this is also what occurred after the double hit of Hurricanes Erin and Opal in Pensacola, Florida. Special Populations It is incumbent that researchers pay particular attention to population groups such as the aged, health-delivery workers, children, the disabled, first-responders, and impoverished citizens. Unique populations cope with stressors in diverse ways, and stress reactions tend to be heterogeneous. This was the finding of a study on children following the Oklahoma City bombing. Furthermore, the critical function of denial in both child and adult populations has received theoretical support in prior research studies. Last, there has been much media attention given to race and poverty issues in the aftermath of Katrina; this will be an important factor in ongoing research, although recent research findings on this issue are equivocal. See also: Earthquakes, Stress Effects of; Floods, Stress Effects of

Further Reading Benight, C. and Harper, M. (2002). Coping self-efficacy perceptions as a mediator between acute stress response and long-term distress following natural disasters. Journal of Traumatic Stress 15, 177–186. David, D., Mellman, T. A., Mendoza, L. M., et al. (1996). Psychiatric morbidity following Hurricane Andrew. Journal of Traumatic Stress 9, 607–612. Elliot, J.R. and Pais, J. (2006). Race, class, and Hurricane Katrina: social differences in human responses to disaster. Social Science Research 35, 295–321. Green, B. L. (1991). Evaluating the effects of disasters. Psychological Assessment 3, 538–546. Jones, R. T., Frary, R., Cunningham, P., et al. (2001). Psychological effects of Hurricane Andrew on ethnic minority and Caucasian children and adolescents: a case study. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology 7, 103–108. McMillen, C., North, C., Mosley, M., et al. (2002). Untangling the psychiatric comorbidity of posttraumatic stress disorder in a sample of flood survivors. Comprehensive Psychiatry 43, 478–485. Myers, D. and Wee, D. F. (2005). Disaster mental health services. New York: Brunner-Routledge. Najarian, L. M., Goenjian, A., Pelcovitz, D., et al. (2001). The effect of relocation after a natural disaster. Journal of Traumatic Stress 14, 511–526.

Motor Vehicle Accidents, Stress Effects of 753 Norris, F., Friedman, M. J., and Watson, P. J. (2002). 60,000 disaster victims speak. II: Summary and implications of the disaster mental health research. Psychiatry 65, 240–260. Norris, F., Perilla, J. L., and Murphy, A. D. (2001). Postdisaster stress in the United States and Mexico: a cross-cultural test of the conceptual model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 110, 553–563. Piotrowski, C. (2006). Hurricane Katrina and organization development: part 1, implications of chaos theory. Organization Development Journal 24(3), 10–19. Piotrowski, C. and Armstrong, T. (1998). Satisfaction with relief agencies during Hurricanes Erin and Opal. Psychological Reports 82, 413–414.

Piotrowski, C., Armstrong, T., and Stopp, H. (1997). Stress factors in the aftermath of Hurricanes Erin and Opal: data from small business owners. Psychological Reports 80, 1387–1391. Piotrowski, C. and Dunham, F. (1983). Locus of control orientation and perception of ‘‘Hurricane’’ in fifth graders. Journal of General Psychology 109, 119–127. Rotton, J., Dubitsky, S., Milov, A., et al. (1997). Distress, elevated cortisol, cognitive deficits, and illness following a natural disaster. Journal of Environmental Psychology 17, 85–98. Solomon, G. F., Segerstrom, S., Grohr, P., et al. (1997). Shaking up immunity: psychological and immunologic changes after a natural disaster. Psychosomatic Medicine 59, 142–143.

Motor Vehicle Accidents, Stress Effects of T C Buckley, Boston VA Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA E B Blanchard, University at Albany–State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Psychological Disorder Following MVAs What Predicts Psychopathology Following MVAs?

Glossary Comorbidity The simultaneous presence of two disorders in the same individual. Longitudinal Studies Studies that assess individuals at multiple points in time in a prospective manner. Prevalence Total number of cases of a particular disorder over a given period of time.

Introduction The negative impact that motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) have on society is staggering. Total property damage, health-care expenditure, and hours lost from employment have a cost to the U.S. economy of over 150 billion dollars each year. Moreover, the individual psychosocial consequences of MVAs can be very debilitating. Motor vehicle accident survivors often deal with complicated issues for the rest of their lifetime subsequent to an accident that may have lasted a total of 3 s. It is not uncommon for MVA survivors to face such complicated issues as bereavement, chronic pain, permanent disability, financial problems, loss of employment, depression, a variety of anxiety problems,

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 2, pp 777–780, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

What Predicts Remission of Psychological Disorder? Conclusion Further Reading

Psychopathology Difficulty with psychological functioning (e.g., depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse). Spontaneous Remission The alleviation of signs and symptoms of a particular disorder in the absence of formal treatment.

and legal difficulties. Space limitations prevent us from covering all of these topics in detail. This article does not cover such interesting topics as the role that litigation plays in posttrauma recovery, the experimental investigation of posttrauma psychiatric symptoms, and the role of psychosocial treatments for MVA survivors. This article summarizes the literature on the chief behavioral problems that follow MVAs: specific phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and major depression.

Psychological Disorder Following MVAs Specific Phobia A specific phobia is a behavioral disorder in which individuals manifest an excessive and unrealistic fear of a situation or object. Exposure to the feared situation will invariably provoke an anxiety response (e.g., situationally

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bound panic attack) from the phobic individual. Phobic individuals will deliberately avoid their feared situation or else endure the situation with great distress. Phobic fears can be seen in individuals with seemingly no traumatic history with the feared object or situation. Phobic fears can also develop via classical conditioning when aversive conditions are paired with the phobic object (which would not have been the target of phobic behavior at the time of conditioning). MVAs can serve as a strong, single-trial conditioning event that leads to a phobic fear of drivingrelated situations in some individuals. The experience of a MVA can be very frightening. Quite often, individuals will report that they experienced an extreme sense of life threat during the course of their accident. Thus, MVAs can serve as a single-trial conditioning event that will come to elicit anxiety responses (e.g., panic attacks) in future driving-related situations. For some individuals, the conditioned response is so severe that driving becomes exceedingly difficult. A small set of MVA survivors will discontinue driving following their MVAs, whereas others restrict their driving behavior relative to pre-MVA driving behavior. The prevalence of a specific phobia of driving-related situations following MVAs is difficult to estimate. Some investigators have adopted a strict definition of driving phobia, wherein a complete elimination of driving or severe restriction of driving (i.e., only drives to work) defines phobic driving behavior. Others have adopted less restrictive criteria, defining driving phobias (sometimes termed driving reluctance) as a change in postaccident driving behavior characterized by increased anxiety related to some or all aspects of travel and a reduction in total number of miles traveled. Estimates of severe driving phobia (i.e., elimination or near-elimination of driving) are about 10–15% of MVA survivors. Estimates of less severe driving phobia or driving reluctance are between 38 and 77%. Despite the general lack of diagnostic and prevalence data, one thing is clear: MVAs change the driving behavior of MVA survivors greatly. In countries where dependence on a private automobile is great, this can be a costly issue. Fortunately, exposure-based behavioral treatments can be very efficacious ways to treat driving phobia and reluctance to drive. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder PTSD is currently classified as an anxiety disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. It is a condition that follows exposure to an event that involves severe threat to one’s life or physical integrity (e.g., wartime trauma, rape, MVAs). Following such life-threatening events, some individuals meeting the diagnostic criteria for PTSD will continue to reexperience their traumatic event in one of the following ways: psychological distress upon exposure to trauma-reminiscent cues, physiological arousal upon exposure to trauma-reminiscent cues, intrusive recollections

of the trauma, trauma-related dreams that disrupt sleep, and flashbacks of the event. They also will evidence behavioral avoidance of trauma-related stimuli in much the same way that phobic individuals will, as well as cognitive avoidance (trying not to think about the MVA). Depressive-type symptoms such as a restricted range of emotional experience and a loss of interest in pleasurable activities are also part of the symptomatic criteria. Finally, individuals meeting the diagnostic criteria for PTSD may have chronic hyperarousal, evincing such symptoms as sleep disturbance, exaggerated startle response, and difficulty concentrating. Given the fear, sense of life threat, and extent of physical injury associated with severe MVAs, it is not surprising that a certain number of MVA survivors will develop PTSD. Prevalence estimates of PTSD among MVA survivors range from 1 to 46%. These discrepancies are due in large part to sample recruiting methods and diagnostic procedures. Self-referred clinical populations yield prevalence estimates of 40% or higher. However, more representative samples of consecutive accident admissions in hospital settings (i.e., emergency rooms) consistently yield prevalence rates near 20%. After reviewing the literature during the course of our work with MVA survivors, it is our impression that the most accurate prevalence estimate of PTSD following accidents is about 20%. Studies that have examined this prevalence issue have varied in terms of time post-MVA that the patients were assessed. It is clear from longitudinal research that prevalence rates can vary greatly as a function of time postaccident. While many individuals will meet the criteria for PTSD in the first 1–4 months post-MVA, approximately 50% of those cases will spontaneously remit without formal intervention over the course of 6–12 months posttrauma. Thus, for MVA survivors who meet symptomatic criteria for PTSD shortly following trauma, many will experience a remission of symptoms without formal intervention. This spontaneous remission phenomenon is similar to that seen in PTSD populations subsequent to other traumas such as rape and wartime atrocity. What distinguishes those who remit vs. those who do not is covered in a later section of this article. Major Depressive Disorder Unipolar major depression is the most common mood disorder. Major depressive episodes are discrete periods of time (usually months to years) when individuals experience a variety of cognitive, affective, and physiological symptoms such as depressed mood, anhedonia, difficulty with concentration, feelings of worthlessness, sleep disturbance, appetite disturbance, psychomotor agitation/retardation, fatigue, and suicidal ideation or attempts. Individuals often experience major depressive episodes in the months following their MVA. One empirical question is whether the depression is a consequence of the

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MVA or whether the presenting individuals had problems with major depression prior to their MVA. Longitudinal studies suggest that a large number of individuals who experience major depressive episodes following MVAs are experiencing depression for the first time in their life. The incidence of depression during the time periods of these studies is greater than one would expect in non-MVA representative population samples during the same period of time. In addition, the onset of episodes is quite often close in time to the occurrence of the MVA. Considering these two findings, it is tempting to attribute causal status to MVAs for inducing major depressive episodes in some individuals. In addition, individuals who have had difficulties with major depression prior to their accident quite often experience another episode of depression following their MVA. Thus, a large portion of the cases of major depression noted are a direct consequence of the MVA itself. Not surprisingly, major depression is a common comorbid condition with PTSD. The limited amount of research on the impact of comorbid depression with PTSD indicates poorer outcomes in major role functioning in individuals with comorbidity relative to individuals with one condition or the other.

What Predicts Psychopathology Following MVAs? Phobic avoidance, PTSD, and major depression are more likely to occur post-MVA in individuals who are in more severe accidents. The severity of MVAs has generally been judged in two ways. First, subjective ratings of perceived life threat have been used as an index of severity of accident. Individuals who report a greater fear of death at the time of the MVA generally have more post-MVA psychopathology than those with a lower sense of life threat. Second, the severity of MVAs has been assessed via more objective methods by quantifying the extent of physical injury incurred during the accident. Some studies have found this variable to have predictive power, in that the more severe the physical injuries, the more likely the individuals were to have behavioral problems. Other studies have failed to find such a relationship. Measurement differences may account for a large part of this variation. Some studies simply dichotomize the presence or absence of injury to predict psychological outcome in their data analyses, whereas other studies have quantified physical injury in a dimensional manner, assessing the range and severity of injuries through the use of instruments with good psychometric properties. Studies that use these more reliable and valid physical assessment instruments are those that demonstrate the predictive utility of assessing physical injury. It is our impression that the degree of physical injury is a valid predictor of post-MVA psychopathology.

Consistent with research in other areas of trauma (i.e., rape trauma, wartime trauma), a history of previous trauma seems to be predictive of who will develop post-MVA psychopathology and who will not. Those with histories of previous trauma are more likely to have post-MVA psychopathology than those without previous trauma histories. The mechanisms that drive this cumulative trauma phenomenon are not known. Suffice it to say that previous trauma indicates a poor prognosis for survivors of serious MVAs. Also consistent with the non-MVA trauma literature is the fact that previous psychopathology (preexisting depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, etc.) indicates a poor prognosis for survivors of MVAs. Preexisting axis I disorders increase the likelihood of trauma-related diagnoses such as PTSD, specific phobia with traumatic onset, and major depression. This could be due to similar predispositions such as biological vulnerability, poor coping skills, and/or a lack of social support systems. It does appear that high levels of perceived social support are protective against the development of post-MVA psychopathology. These findings are entirely consistent with the literature that has assessed the relationship between social support and a variety of stress-related difficulties ranging from behavioral problems to immune functioning. Gender has consistently been found to be predictive of psychopathology following MVAs. Women develop PTSD, major depression, and specific phobia at greater rates than men following MVAs. It may be that men are likely to cope with their problems by self-medicating with alcohol or drugs and thus present with different psychiatric diagnoses. The epidemiological literature as a whole would suggest that men are more likely to use alcohol and drugs as coping mechanisms.

What Predicts Remission of Psychological Disorder? At a time when health-care resources are at a premium, a question of great interest to clinical researchers is, among MVA survivors with psychopathology shortly following an MVA, what variables will identify those individuals whose psychiatric symptoms will remit without intervention? Because treatment resources may not be available to all MVAvictims (especially with accidents involving large numbers of individuals, i.e., bus accidents), the identification of predictors of recovery is a very important applied question. Not surprisingly, the degree of psychiatric symptomology present shortly after the occurrence of MVA is predictive of remission of symptoms. Individuals with greater numbers of symptoms and more severe symptoms are less likely to show remission of diagnostic status than those who meet diagnostic criteria for disorder in the months post-MVA but have lower levels of symptomatology. The level of initial physical injury is also predictive of the

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remission of psychiatric symptoms. Those who are injured more severely at the time of MVA are less likely to show remission of psychiatric symptoms over time. The rate of physical recovery, as assessed by self-report measures, is also predictive of psychiatric symptom remission. Those whose physical injuries recover at a slower rate also show a slower remission of psychiatric symptoms. The causal relationship between these variables is unknown. Some investigators have speculated that physical injury status, especially pain, exacerbates and maintains psychiatric symptoms, whereas others have argued that the presence of psychiatric symptoms makes people more sensitive to pain and thus more likely to inflate self-report scores of pain. This is a particularly vexing dilemma when trying to assess the rate of physical and emotional recovery in MVA survivors because many of their injuries are soft tissue injuries (e.g., cervical and lumbar spine strains), which do not lend themselves to quantifiable measurement other than by self-report methods. Finally, the presence of behavioral avoidance shortly after trauma signifies a poor prognosis. Individuals who show a high degree of driving reluctance or avoidance shortly after their MVA are less likely to show a remission of psychiatric problems such as PTSD than those who force themselves to drive. It may be the case that selfadministered exposure helps break the cycle of anxious responding in the presence of trauma-reminiscent cues that characterize PTSD.

Conclusion Empirical investigation of the psychosocial consequences of MVAs is a growing field of research. Unfortunately, MVAs are a ubiquitous phenomenon in industrialized countries. The psychosocial consequences of MVAs are severe and many. Blanchard and Hickling is a valuable reference for clinicians who seek information about the psychosocial treatment of MVA survivors.

Further Reading Blanchard, E. B. and Hickling, E. J. (1997). After the crash: assessment and treatment of motor vehicle accident survivors. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. Buckley, T. C., Blanchard, E. B., and Hickling, E. J. (1996). A prospective examination of delayed onset PTSD secondary to motor vehicle accidents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 105, 617–625. Ehlers, A., Mayou, R. A., and Bryant, B. (1998). Psychological predictors of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder after motor vehicle accidents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 107, 508–519. Kessler, R. C., Sonnega, A., Bromet, E., Hughes, M., and Nelson, C. B. (1995). Posttraumatic stress disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey. Archives of General Psychiatry 151, 888–894. Kuch, K., Cox, B. J., and Evans, R. J. (1996). Posttraumatic stress disorder and motor vehicle accidents: a multidisciplinary overview. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 41, 429–434. Taylor, S. and Koch, W. J. (1995). Anxiety disorders due to motor vehicle accidents: Nature and treatment. Clinical Psychology Review 15, 721–738.

Three Mile Island, Stress Effects of A L Dougall and A Baum, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Stressors at Three Mile Island Short-term Consequences The Effects of Venting Unit 2

Glossary Anticipatory Stress Stress experienced as one waits and/or prepares for a stressful event. In some studies, this stress is similar to that experienced once a stressor is experienced. Disaster An unusual event of large scope that overwhelms the social system. Disasters can be of

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by A L Dougall and A Baum, volume 3, pp 595–597, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Long-term Consequences and Issues Summary Further Reading

natural origin (e.g., earthquake, tornado) or of technological origin (e.g., Three Mile Island, war). Stress A psychobiological process initiated by events that threaten, harm, or challenge an organism or that exceed available coping resources. Stress is characterized by psychological, behavioral, and physiological responses that are directed toward

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adaptation, but can become pathological if they persist or are inappropriate. Technological Disaster A powerful stressor that disrupts and overwhelms the social system and has a human origin, by either direct action (e.g., sabotage) or failure of technology (e.g., air disasters, industrial accidents). The human causes of these events introduce

issues related to blame and control and may cause longer-lasting distress than natural disasters. Uncertainty A state characterized by ambiguity or lack of information pertinent to a particular situation or outcome. It is hypothesized that uncertainty is often experienced as stressful and unpleasant. Uncertainty about the extent of exposure to radiation at Three Mile Island contributed to area residents’ distress.

One of the most prominent industrial disasters in United States history occurred on March 28, 1979. Failure in the core of Three Mile Island (TMI) Unit 2 resulted in the release of radioactivity into the surrounding community. For days, residents of the surrounding area, as well as people all over the nation, watched as this unprecedented nuclear accident and emergency unfolded. The accident itself was relatively brief, but uncertainty and fear about explosions and radiation release persisted for several days afterward. Authorities were unable to determine whether and to what extent residents were exposed to radiation. Poor management of the situation and conflicting reports made by authorities led to loss of trust and credibility, contributing further to uncertainty and fear among area residents. An evacuation advisory was issued for pregnant women and young children residing within 5 miles of TMI, resulting in a substantial evacuation of nearly 150 000 residents. After the initial accident and 2-week acute emergency period, the residents of the TMI area continued to deal with potentially stressful issues, such as disposal of the radioactive gas, water, and solid waste inside the reactor complex and the possible restart of the undamaged reactor at TMI (TMI Unit 1 had been shut down for routine maintenance when the accident occurred in Unit 2).

the accident, whether they were personally exposed to radiation, whether their exposure was sufficient to cause negative health outcomes, and whether they would develop cancer or pass on genetic defects. This occurred in the context of the loss of control suggested by analyses of human-caused disasters. The resultant stress experienced by many area residents appeared to be unusually persistent because of the continued presence of sources of new exposure and the intractability of the residents’ worries about harm already done by previous exposures. The primary stressors in the TMI environment were related to uncertainty and the life threat associated with possible consequences of radiation exposure.

Stressors at Three Mile Island The circumstances surrounding the disaster at TMI set it apart from other disasters such as tornados, earthquakes, and floods. Natural disasters typically cause widespread destruction of property and often involve injury or fatalities. Following the accident at TMI, however, there were no tangible negative effects, only the invisible threat of radiation and worries about its possible long-term consequences. While exposure to low-level radiation has a range of suspected effects, scientific knowledge of its effects is not well characterized. Nonetheless, many people believe that exposure to radiation causes cancers or genetic abnormalities. Area residents were uncertain about how much radiation was released during and after

Short-term Consequences State and federal government initiatives after the accident at TMI resulted in several studies of the accident’s impact on surrounding communities. In the first month after the accident, most residents reported stress and distrust of authorities, especially those residents who lived closest to the reactors, who were younger, or who were women, particularly women with preschool-aged children. Although levels of stress decreased as time passed, significant amounts of stress were still reported 9 and 12 months later, especially among residents who lived close to TMI, mothers of young children, and people who had evacuated. Residents living close to the TMI plant also reported more stress than residents living near an undamaged nuclear power plant, suggesting that it was not just the fear or distrust of nuclear power that resulted in high stress levels, but also the possible exposure to radiation following the damage at TMI.

The Effects of Venting Unit 2 While a year is usually sufficient for most people to recover from natural disasters, the events at TMI made adaptation difficult during the ensuing 12 months. Radioactive krypton gas had been trapped in the TMI

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Unit 2 containment building during the accident, and, beginning 16 months after the accident, officials started venting the radioactive gas directly into the environment. While the residents were assured that the amounts of radiation vented were low and safe, the venting occurred nearly every day for weeks and carried with it the threat of new contamination. Before, during, and after the venting, TMI area residents exhibited more symptoms of stress than residents living in a comparison community 80 miles away. Although there was no change in stress levels in the control sample over time, stress levels in the TMI residents decreased during and after the venting. It is possible that TMI residents were exhibiting anticipatory stress before the venting began and, once it occurred, returned to lower levels of responding. Whether this was due to an anticipatory stress response or a possible remedial effect of venting could not be addressed by available data. Regardless, TMI residents continued to experience significant stress following the venting, and by 2 years after the accident many area residents exhibited chronically elevated symptoms of stress.

appeared to decrease for some residents after the restart occurred, there was continued evidence for higher stress levels in area residents when compared to groups of people living in other communities. Additionally, evidence of chronic stress responding was still apparent in TMI residents up to 10 years after the Unit 2 disaster. In addition to the factors described earlier (e.g., distance from TMI, having small children), psychosocial variables played a prominent role in the selective vulnerability of TMI residents to stress. People who reported higher perceived threat and worry over possible radiation exposure and its consequences, as well as loss of trust in officials and loss of perceived control, were also more likely to report higher levels of stress. In addition, those who felt they had fewer people to turn to for support and who tried to deny the situation or use active, problem-focused efforts to try to control an uncontrollable situation were more vulnerable to the effects of stress. In contrast, people who tried to control their own negative emotions instead of the environment fared much better.

Long-term Consequences and Issues

Summary

Researchers continued to follow TMI area residents during the 6-year period between the accident and restart of the undamaged TMI Unit 1 reactor. Those residents who remained in the area continued to exhibit elevated stress levels as compared to groups of people living in other communities. Negative effects were not limited to measures of self-reported distress. Heightened indicators of physiological arousal (urinary catecholamines and systolic and diastolic blood pressure), more health complaints, greater use of prescription drugs, and poorer task performance were also evident as compared to control groups. Additionally, the incident was not isolated to central Pennsylvania; people all over the country responded to the media attention given to TMI and the fears associated with use of nuclear energy and radiation exposure. During this time, the issues surrounding the restart of the undamaged TMI Unit 1 resulted in intense legal battles that culminated in a unanimous decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the TMI Unit 1 to be restarted. In October 1985, more than 6 years after the incident at Unit 2, Unit 1 was brought back online, despite protests from residents and serious concerns from community groups about the stress it would cause and the damage it would do to the healing TMI communities. Because there were no tangible environmental effects of the TMI Unit 2 accident, the possibility of psychological distress was not considered by the courts to be sufficient grounds for curtailing national efforts for nuclear energy use. However, data indicated that stress levels increased as the restart of Unit 1 approached, and, while stress levels

Although the residents of TMI suffered long-term stress and worry from the incident at TMI Unit 2, their experiences have taught stress researchers and government officials important lessons about the consequences of technological disasters. There is now greater awareness of the significant psychological and physical health effects that can occur following technological catastrophes, even when there is no tangible evidence of destruction. Perceived threat and other psychosocial mediators, such as loss of control and loss of trust in authorities, are sufficient by themselves to promote stress responding and its negative consequences. Additionally, the long-term follow-up of TMI residents has provided insight into the possible determinants of chronic stress responding. Factors such as the experience of unwanted, distressing thoughts about TMI and continued reminders of the possible danger are important determinants of vulnerability to long-term negative consequences. This information has prompted further research into these vulnerability factors as well as aided the development of interventions aimed at helping victims of other disasters. See also: Disasters and Mass Violence, Public, Effects of; Nuclear Warfare, Thread of

Further Reading Baum, A. (1990). Stress, intrusive imagery, and chronic distress. Health Psychology 9, 653–675.

Disaster Syndrome

Baum, A. and Fleming, I. (1993). Implications of psychological research on stress and technological accidents. American Psychologist 48, 665–672. Bromet, E. J. and Litcher-Kelly, L. (2002). Psychological response of mothers of young children to the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear plant accidents one decade later. In Havenaar, J. M., Cwikel, J. G., and Bromet, E. J. (eds.) Toxic turmoil: psychological and societal consequences of ecological disasters, pp. 69–84. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Bromet, E. J., Parkinson, D. K., and Dunn, L. O. (1990). Long-term mental health consequences of the accident at Three Mile Island. International Journal of Mental Health 19, 48–60. Davidson, L. M., Baum, A., and Collins, D. L. (1982). Stress and controlrelated problems at Three Mile Island. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 12, 349–359. Davidson, L. M., Weiss, L., O’Keefe, M. K., and Baum, A. (1991). Acute stressors and chronic stress at Three Mile Island. Journal of Traumatic Stress 4, 481–493. Dew, M. A. and Bromet, E. J. (1993). Predictors of temporal patterns of psychiatric distress during 10 years following the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 28, 49–55.

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Dew, M. A., Bromet, E. J., Schulberg, H. C., Dunn, L. O., and Parkinson, D. K. (1987). Mental health effects of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor restart. American Journal of Psychiatry 144, 1074–1077. Dohrenwend, B. P., Dohrenwend, S. N., and Warheit, G. J. et al. (1985). A psychophysiological field study of stress at Three Mile Island. Psychophysiology 22, 175–181. Goldsteen, K. and Martin, J. L. (1981). Stress in the community: A report to the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 365, 159–174. Hartsough, D. M. and Savitsky, J. C. (1984). Three Mile Island: psychology and environmental policy at a crossroads. American Psychologist 39, 1113–1122. Houts, P. S., Cleary, P. D., and Hu, T. (1988). The Three Mile Island crisis: psychological, social, and economic impacts on the surrounding population. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. MacGregor, D. (1991). Worry over technological activities and life concerns. Risk Analysis 11, 315–324. Prince-Embury, S. and Rooney, J. F. (1988). Psychological symptoms of residents in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and restart. Journal of Social Psychology 128, 779–790.

Disaster Syndrome P Valent, Melbourne, Australia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Features of Disaster Syndrome The Place of Disaster Syndrome in Disasters and among Similar Syndromes Sense and Purpose of Disaster and Associated Syndromes

Glossary Disaster Natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes, and fires; also human-made calamities and other traumatic situations. Disaster Phases Time periods around disasters. These are (1) preimpact, the period before the disaster; (2) impact, when the disaster occurs; (3) recoil, the period immediately after impact; (4) postimpact, the period days to weeks after impact; and (5) recovery and reconstruction, the period months or years after impact.

Features of Disaster Syndrome Wallace described the responses of Petun warriors who in 1649 returned to their village to find their kin had all been

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by P Valent, volume 1, pp 706–708, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Unfolding of Disaster Phases and of Disaster Syndromes Treatment Further Reading

Survival Strategies Biopsychosocial templates that evolved to enhance survival in specific circumstances. Examples are fight, flight, adaptation, and attachment. Trauma An experience in which a person’s life is grossly threatened and from which a variety biological, psychological, and social wounds and scars result. Traumatic Situations External situations in which trauma occurs.

slain or captured. They sat down in the snow, mute, and no one stirred or spoke for half a day. Wallace noted that such responses are ubiquitously found in disasters and are variably described as shock, stupor, and being dazed, stunned, and numbed. He added that, as well as sitting, victims may stand motionless or wander aimlessly. Emotion such as pain, grief, fear, and anger are missing, and people are docile. The state may last up to hours or even days, injured people

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remaining dazed longer. The features of disaster syndrome are opposite to the anger and fear (fight and flight) sympathetic nervous system-associated arousal in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and some other anxiety disorders. This suggests that there may be a variety of emotional and biochemical survival responses in trauma that can develop into a variety of later symptoms.

The Place of Disaster Syndrome in Disasters and among Similar Syndromes The behavioral features of disaster syndrome described by Wallace are still valid in descriptions today and are called by the original name. However, various psychological, behavioral, and physiological lines of research emphasize different aspects of what is behaviorally disaster syndrome and call them by different names. The psychological equivalent has been called psychic shock and the physiological equivalent general adaptation syndrome; conservation–withdrawal syndrome spans the all biopsychosocial aspects. Psychic Shock Psychic shock is the subjective view of being stunned. It has been most studied in bereavement and dying and is seen there as the first stage of the grieving process. Subjective feelings of psychic shock as a response to being told the news of someone’s death use physical metaphors such as an assault, a blow on the face, head or the guts, being knocked out, or winded. Psychological terms include being overwhelmed, not being able to take it, the world shattering around one, and sinking into a black hole. Defenses against such sensations include denial voiced as disbelief and dissociation, described variably as feeling numb or as experiencing a sense of unreality of the world or of oneself. A common description is looking at oneself and the events as if they were a film. General Adaptation Syndrome Selye described general adaptation syndrome as a ubiquitous triad of physiological stress responses that were associated with psychic shock. The stress responses are the enlargement of the adrenal cortex and increased levels of cortisol; shrinking of the thymus gland, spleen, and lymphatic structures (along with compromising immunocompetence); and deep ulcers in the stomach. Selye noted that these responses help organisms to adapt to overwhelming situations. Conservation–Withdrawal Syndrome Conservation–withdrawal syndrome, described by Engel and Schmale, enlarges on the features of disaster syndrome by emphasizing immobility, quiescence, and unresponsiveness, accompanied by sagging muscles, feelings of extreme fatigue, constricted attention, and detachment.

Adding to general adaptation syndrome, conservation– withdrawal is associated with parasympathetic, trophotrophic activity, which may manifest in diminished heart rate to the point of arrhythmia and possibly asystole and even death. Gastric secretions have been noted to diminish, possibly because food intake does not occur in this state. The syndrome has been observed at all ages, ranging from neonates to adults, and in various situations in which no definite course of action was possible.

Sense and Purpose of Disaster and Associated Syndromes Initially it may be difficult to see these responses of being overwhelmed as adaptive. However, just as physical shock helps survival, so may psychosocial shock. For instance, Darwin noted that immobility made animals less likely to be seen and be attacked and that the deathlike state could stimulate predators to release their grip. Immobility could also help others to scoop the unresisting person to safety and help members of the group to find its previously abandoned members. Further, the associated psychosocial limpness or docility may facilitate cooperation with helpers and their directions. Last, a type of psychological encystment and conservation of energy could provide a buffer space for the replenishment of reserves. Selye and Engel and Schmale also saw their respective syndromes as primary regulatory organismic templates that enhanced the survival of the species. They were at the opposite end of the spectrum to fight and flight, and they occurred in situations in which fight and resistance could be fatal but in which rolling with the punches and surrendering old goals and finding new ones was advisable. Valent integrated the biopsychosocial features and purposes of these syndromes into a survival strategy that he called adaptation. The strategy adapts the organism to situations requiring initial surrender, but through processes such as grieving it facilitates the organism’s turning to new hopeful situations and bonds. If this does not occur, physiological symptoms, depression, and other illnesses can occur.

Unfolding of Disaster Phases and of Disaster Syndromes The features of later disaster phases and the unfolding of the disaster syndromes (or the adaptation survival strategy) follow. Ensuing Disaster Phases In the postimpact phase (Wallace’s stages 2 and 3) of disasters, survivors emerge from their cocoons. They are grateful to be alive, help others, and reconnect with family and friends. Survivors drop their usual reserves to become a

Disasters and Mass Violence, Public, Effects of

cohesive altruistic community. The accompanying optimism has been called the postdisaster euphoria. At the same time, anger is often directed at outsiders whose help is seen as unempathic. In addition to Wallace’s original stages are the recovery and reconstruction phases, hard prolonged times of rebuilding the physical environment and internal lives. The names, timing, and contents of the phases are flexible, indicating fluctuating progression. Similar phases occur in other traumatic situations, although different contents are emphasized in the literature. For instance, in bereavement psychological features are emphasized. After shock come the phases of searching, then anger, guilt, and working through, followed by acceptance and turning to new bonds.

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Treatment The treatment of psychic shock, like physical shock, includes physical and psychological warmth, comfort, and support. Physical contact with another human, a reassuring voice, explanations of what is happening, hope, and connection with loved ones are helpful. Later treatment depends on the nature of the evolving symptoms and illnesses. The best treatment is prevention or mitigation of circumstances in which people are overwhelmed.

Further Reading Unfolding of Disaster Syndrome Physiological stress response derivatives of disaster syndrome (or adaptation survival strategy) may manifest clinically as hypotension, dizziness, tiredness, fatigue, and the sense of being ill. Prolonged compromised immunocompetence may help to account for the increased rates of infections, autoimmune diseases, and cancers following disasters, bereavements, and other traumas. Thus, this specific response may be significantly involved in the frequent stress-induced maladies. Maladaptive psychological unfolding includes hopelessness, despair, giving in, unresolved and chronic grief, and clinical depression.

American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Engel, G. L. and Schmale, A. H. (1972). Conservation-withdrawal: a primary regulatory process for organismic homeostasis. Ciba Foundation symposium: physiology of emotion and psychosomatic illness, pp. 57–85. New York: Elsevier. Raphael, B. (1984). The anatomy of bereavement. London: Hutchinson. Raphael, B. (1986). When disaster strikes. London: Hutchinson. Selye, H. (1946). The general adaptation syndrome and the diseases of adaptation. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology 6, 117–196. Valent, P. (1998). From survival to fulfillment: a framework for the lifetrauma dialectic. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis. Wallace, A. F. C. (1957). Mazeway disintegration: the individual’s perception of socio-cultural disorganization. Human Organization 16, 23–27.

Disasters and Mass Violence, Public, Effects of G Stevens, B Raphael, and M Dobson, Centre for Mental Health, New South Wales, Australia ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Disaster Stressors Stressor Elements and Psychosocial Effects Vulnerabilities and Special Populations

Glossary Disasters A class of events that can overwhelm individuals and their communities. Disasters elicit biological, psychological, and social stress reactions in individuals and affect the functioning of a community’s social systems.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by G Stevens, B Raphael and M Dobson, volume 1, pp 699–705, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Determining Who Is Affected Recovery Environment Further Reading

Disaster Stressors A range of events experienced by individuals in the course of their exposure to a disastrous situation. Disaster stressors may occur prior to, during, and in the aftermath of the disaster. The impact of these stressors is mediated by factors such as individuals’ perceptions of their role

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in the disaster and the community’s awareness of its scope. Mass Violence A range of actions intended to injure, kill, or terrorize groups or communities. These may

Disasters, by definition, are overwhelming events both for the communities they affect and for the individuals involved. The stress associated with disasters affects the functioning of social systems as well as creating biological, psychological, and social reactions in the people affected. As an event, a disaster may be brief or long lasting, anticipated or unexpected, humanmade or the result of natural forces, or any combination of these. Such elements, as well as background strengths and vulnerabilities, may contribute to how the events are resolved and to the outcomes: positive or adverse. A range of models have been considered in describing disaster response. These include those based on linear, systemwide reactive processes. A phase model, for example, may include warning, threat, impact, inventory, rescue, and recovery. This is one relatively simple model for a single-incident disaster. Both individual and social system reactions may be relevant in each phase. There is also a range of person–environment interactive models, which conceptualize the way that individuals and groups process the features of the event and their own capacities in their response to disaster events. There is recognition that disaster scenarios are increasingly complicated by political, cultural, and military factors. A number of authors have outlined ways of conceptualizing and planning responses to these complex emergencies. Modern disaster planning, it is argued, must encompass the multiple and compounding disasters of famine, conflict, social disintegration, and the degradation of the environment. These scenarios more often reflect experiences within developing countries and cannot be easily conceptualized within the usual frameworks.

Disaster Stressors The stresses experienced by individuals depend not only on the objective nature of the disaster event itself but also on the previous experience, perceived coping, available resources, and response readiness of those affected. For instance, a hurricane or flood may have been anticipated through recent warnings. Similar previous events may have prompted the creation of effective early warning and response systems. Alternatively, these natural occurrences may be totally unexpected, affecting particularly vulnerable human habitats with few counter-disaster systems in place. This latter scenario was seen in several

range from individual impulsive acts to group or community-based actions calculated to promote fear, civil disruption, or cultural-political change.

regions, with devastating consequences, following the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in December 2004. This interplay of factors means that those involved may experience effects ranging from the destruction of their homes, families, or communities to involvement in an exciting and unique challenge that has been successfully overcome. The type of disaster, its intensity, and the availability of response resources may all be significant mediators of the psychosocial response. It has been generally observed that, as the level of exposure to disaster-related stressors increases, the mental health symptoms of those exposed similarly increase. This increase in impact associated with proximity, duration, or frequency of exposure is commonly referred to as the dose–response effect and has been observed across different types of disasters and other traumatizing events. Adverse impacts on mental health are possibly the most prevalent consequence of disasters. In a broad review of 121 studies examining disaster mental health, Norris found that adverse disaster effects included, in order of frequency, specific psychological problems (notably posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD; major depression; and generalized anxiety disorder), nonspecific distress, physical health problems, chronic problems of living, resource loss, and problems specific to youth. The most common specific disaster stressors include bereavement, life threat and injury to self or family members, horror, property damage, and financial loss. Disasters involving mass violence are found to consistently produce higher levels of distress and psychological impairment. Terrorism with conventional weapons typically produces immediate health effects in the form of injuries and deaths. For the perpetrators, these effects may be incidental to the wider aim of creating cultural or political change through civil disruption. In this sense, the intended effects of terrorism, as the term implies, are primarily psychological – to foster pervasive insecurity through specific acts of violence, create behavior changes disruptive to public infrastructure, and engender a loss of confidence in public institutions. Terrorism involving biological, chemical, or radiological (BCR) agents represents a particularly insidious, ongoing form of assault. Biological agents, for example, are typically invisible and odorless, produce delayed illness (and uncertainty), and may be associated with grotesque forms of death.

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In one of the broadest reviews of the disaster literature to date (225 studies), Norris observed that when other variables are controlled, those exposed to mass violence and terrorism experience severe impairment at almost twice the rate of those subjected to natural or technological disasters. Acts defined as mass violence range from incidents such as the Colombine High School shootings to the September 11 attacks and the London underground bombings of 2005. Technological disasters are associated with human failure or negligence and may include pilot error or the industrial accident and chemical release at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India. In general, the review findings indicated that those who experience technological disasters do not experience greater distress or morbidity than those exposed to natural disasters. Disasters that are the direct result of human malevolence may be particularly difficult for survivors to comprehend and assimilate and may increase the likelihood of intrusion symptoms. In contrast, the perceived absence of malevolent intent associated with natural disasters and technological accidents may allow the resolution of these events to occur more readily. An exception to this may be those humanmade disasters associated with chronic and invisible threats, such as nuclear radiation and toxic waste. Distress may be further heightened by supposed mismanagement or neglect, which allowed the exposure to occur. Cycles of blame may ensue. The actual and perceived risks may include damage to health, children, genetic/reproductive health, and otherwise unknown effects. These events often generate a different pattern of response characterized by chronic stress and associated physical health problems rather than discrete mental health conditions. Location and the availability of economic resources may also be significant predictors of stress and other mental health effects. Natural disasters in developing countries have more severe consequences than either natural or technological disasters in developed countries. This is largely due to a combination of more severe natural events and a limited resource base, including poor housing and warning/recovery systems. It has been observed that following a disaster, individuals from developing countries experience severe mental health outcomes at more than twice the rate of those from developed countries. Although multiple classifications of disaster have been attempted, they do not provide an easy guide to their consequences or to the appropriate actions to deal with the stress or mental health effects they may generate.

Stressor Elements and Psychosocial Effects Life Threat and Traumatic Injury Methodological inconsistencies make it difficult to determine, in comparative terms, which elements of disaster

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stressors have the greatest psychosocial impacts. Debate has ensued in the literature about which disaster exposures are more pathogenic (i.e., produce greater psychiatric morbidity). Despite these inconsistencies, the more comprehensive studies have generally found that threats to life and injury during disaster have stronger or longerlasting effects on mental health. Individuals who experience threat to their lives, especially when this is associated with shock and helplessness, are at increased risk of a range of reactive processes. These include heightened arousal, numbing of emotions, avoidance behavior, and the reexperiencing of traumatic events. Intense arousal and distress may trigger specific psychological and physiological reactions, including dissociation or heightened arousal with prolonged elevation in heart rate. It has been shown that these reactions are more likely to develop into a pattern of psychiatric morbidity such as acute stress disorder (ASD), PTSD, or other specific conditions such as depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Studies of disasters such as the Mount St. Helen volcanic eruption have shown the specificity of perceived life threat as a stressor associated with the development of PTSD in adults. Pynoos et al. observed a similar relationship with children affected by a sniper shooting at a school. Trauma events occasioning physical injury are also associated with greater mental health impacts. Ten years after the 1988 Piper Alpha oil platform disaster (in Scotland), 21% of workers directly exposed still met stringent criteria for PTSD, with features such as physical injury and survivor guilt associated with significantly higher morbidity. Consistent with other dose–response effects, the extent of the mental health impact also appears to increase with the severity of the injury. This phenomenon has also been observed in adolescents injured during a massive industrial accident in Toulouse, Italy. Injury effects also appeared to be cumulative, with PTSD rates being even higher in those with injury to family members and personal injury. However, the broad findings in relation to injury have been questioned. O’Donnell et al. critically reviewed the traumatic injury literature and suggested that methodological discrepancies and confounds in this field must resolved if mental health associations are to be more accurately determined. When deaths are massive and gruesome, the levels of PTSD-related morbidity may be considerably higher, particularly for those who may have experienced dissociation in relation to this experience. Lifton described the phenomena of death immersion (when the levels of death are massive and horrific), as occurred in Hiroshima. Unfortunately, genocides in modern conflict, war, and mass killings can also provoke such an effect. Massive deaths, or the deaths of key figures, may threaten the functioning of the community and its survival. This was exemplified in the 1966 disaster where a slagheap destroyed the school at Aberfan (in Wales). Although

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some of the effects of this tragedy have been long-lasting, the community did indeed survive and renewed itself. Death counts may provide an indicator of the degree to which a community may be affected by a disaster, but they are not the only stressor effect. It must be remembered that, for the majority of individuals, reactive phenomena of the type noted normally diminish over time. Residents of lower Manhattan, for example, reported significant acute mental health effects immediately after the September 11 attacks (measured as rates of PTSD and depression), followed by a pattern of strong recovery within 4 months. At a population level, there is a consistent trend for most survivors to return to their predisaster mental health status within several months. This occurs across disaster types, but it is rarely a linear decline. Losses Personal losses

Personal losses may range from the intense and personal loss of a primary attachment figure (a parent, child or partner) to the loss of other family members, friends, and neighbors. Losses may extend to the deaths of community members and leaders, affecting the sense of community structure and leadership, key resources on which both an ongoing sense of security and practical recovery management may be based. When personal losses relate to the deaths of others, bereavement represents the normal reactive psychological process for those dealing with these disaster outcomes. Grief and mourning occur for those to whom the individuals were attached or for whom they cared or valued. There is often an initial period of disbelief, which may be more pronounced when the death is unexpected and untimely. This is especially the case in the midst of the chaos and threat frequently observed in a major disaster. This shock, denial, and sense that things are unreal may affect whole communities as well as individuals. Although bereavement represents a normal reaction to traumatic loss, some individuals may be at increased risk of complex grief and other morbidity in the longer term. Risk factors for this may include a belief in survivor responsibility, the nature of the loss (e.g., sudden losses or the death of a child), and anxious personal coping styles. The nature of disasters and some terrorist attacks is such that there may be prolonged periods of uncertainty about the fate of loved ones. The remains of some of the deceased may never be located. Others may be grossly disfigured and identifiable only through forensic examination. In these instances formal disaster victim identification (DVI) procedures are used, such as DNA and dental record analysis. Evidence gathering for criminal investigation may also be required. Although providing certainty and supporting a process of justice, the delay and

apparent complexity of these procedures is often intensely stressful for those who are bereaved. Raphael, Dunsmore and Wooding described the complex DVI and support processes following the terrorist bombing on the Indonesian Island of Bali in 2002. They described key support processes during this period, including viewings of the deceased, which may prevent or reduce negative mental health effects. They argued that it is not always apparent who the affected groups may be and that further research is needed to determine optimal methods of outreach and clinical support at such times. Grief processes may be complicated by co-occurring experiences of personal life threat and traumatic stress reactions that may occur during disasters. Grief and trauma are distinct phenomena, the former characterized by distress, yearning, and an orientation toward the absent person and the latter characterized by heightened fear and arousal, vigilance, and a reactive orientation away from the feared event or its reminders. Galea et al. noted the specificity of responses to the September 11 attacks, stating that ‘‘experiences involving exposure to the attacks [and perceived life threat] predicted current PTSD and that loss as a result of the attack predicted current depression’’ (2002: 346). Similar specificity of response has been observed with natural disaster exposures. Whereas grief, depression, and PTSD do represent distinct processes, losses during disasters or singleincident events (e.g., a motor vehicle accident) may result in co-occurring grief and trauma. These events cut across the ambivalence of everyday life and may particularly impact those in very dependent relationships, leading to patterns of complicated grief. The traumatic circumstances of disaster-related deaths often produces a complex mix of traumatic stress and bereavement phenomenology, which is more properly called a traumatic bereavement or traumatic grief. It remains unclear whether deaths resulting from particularly horrific exposures (e.g., the September 11 attacks) produce unique complications beyond traumatic bereavement or PTSD as they are currently conceptualized. However, the wider literature on complicated grief (traumatic and nontraumatic loss) indicates that certain groups may experience greater vulnerability. For example, the loss of a close family member (e.g., a parent, child, or spouse) is the best predictor of complicated grief. Preloss dependent or ambivalent relationship styles are also associated with enhanced risk. Early life experiences such as abuse or parental loss may similarly increase risk, possibly by promoting insecure attachment styles. Subsequent disaster losses may then exacerbate abandonment fears and affect mood regulation, increasing the risk of complicated grief. The death of a loved one through acts of human malevolence, such as terrorism, has been shown to produce higher levels psychological morbidity than other types disaster. The arbitrary and calculated nature of

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these losses may be difficult for survivors to comprehend and are associated with higher levels of intrusion and avoidance symptoms. There is anecdotal evidence that such events may also act as a significant and complicating stressor for those bereaved. Preoccupation with the reasons for the death (i.e., its meaning), the perpetrators’ motivation, and thoughts of revenge and justice may all act as a defense against the trauma. These preoccupations may ultimately inhibit acceptance of the loss and impede its resolution. Clinicians working with populations so affected increasingly recognize the need to deal separately and specifically with the effects of both sets of stressor reactions to facilitate resolution. Traumatic stress effects (i.e., those related to life threat) must often be dealt with first, before it is possible to grieve. Regehr and Sussman suggested that an integrated evidence-based approach is likely to entail (1) cognitive restructuring and management of the arousal, avoidance, and reexperiencing of symptoms associated with trauma stressors and (2) phased (or parallel) relational therapies that resolve relationship issues and enable a new sense of the relationship and the self. Community and resource losses

In addition to personal losses of life, homes, and treasured possessions (e.g., family photographs), disasters frequently entail the loss of workplaces, neighborhoods, and community networks. Sociologists such as Erickson have studied these community impacts. Erickson described a massive flood affecting a mining valley and showed that there were not only the types of stressful experiences already but also the disruption of neighborhoods and social networks when people were displaced to new locations of safety and shelter. Although community losses may produce modest effects in themselves, their additive effects may be significant. Phifer and Norris observed that flood survivors from the United States who fared most poorly were those who experienced both high personal loss and high community destruction. Community losses may not only produce grief but also lead to ongoing deficits and disruptions. These may include the loss of family and social structure and also the loss of opportunities for income and meaningful work. The Conservation of Resources stress theory predicts that psychological stress occurs when there is a threat of resource loss, an actual resource loss, or the absence of a resource gain following an investment of resources. Resource types identified within this theory include objects (e.g., homes and furniture), energy (e.g., money and insurance coverage), conditions (e.g., marriages and work roles), and personal characteristics (e.g., self-esteem). Several studies have indicated that resource loss is an important predictor of psychological distress following natural disasters. Freedy et. al. found that 4 –7 months after the 1991 Sierra Madre Earthquake (in Los Angeles

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County) resource loss was a more significant predictor of psychological distress than perceived life threat, prior exposure to traumatic events, and other stressful events. In a cross-national study 1 month after Hurricane Georges (Caribbean and U.S. gulf coast, 1998), Sattler et al. found that psychological distress (as measured by ASD symptoms) was most strong predicted by location, resource loss, and the availability of social support. Approximately 25% of respondents in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic reported distress levels consistent with ASD, whereas only 10% of those inthe United States (Alabama) and the U.S. Virgin Islands were affected in this way. Rates of depression were also higher in the first two countries. Although countries differed in reported vulnerabilities, the personal characteristics component of resource loss accounted for the greatest symptom variance overall. Basic object loss (food, water, and money) was greatest in Puerto Rico. Condition loss (family and work relationships) and object loss (sentimental items, furniture, etc.) accounted for the greatest resource distress in the Dominican Republic and the U.S. regions, respectively. The limited resource base, greater exposure, and poor perceived support of developing countries produce significant mental health burdens. However, these resource spirals (continuing and compounding loss of resources) may be arrested through practical actions of the disaster response. For example, recent United Nations programs involving the priority reopening of schools, local markets, and factories have actively countered the prolonged sense of despair that may affect some postdisaster communities. Separation and Dislocation As noted, there are many aspects of disaster that separate family members and dislocate people from their homes and communities. In the aftermath of disasters, intense distress and searching behaviors are common as affected individuals look for their loved ones, even placing their own lives at further risk to do so. Information as to their whereabouts and opportunities for reunion may be the only influences that will lessen these behaviors. It may be, of course, that loved ones have died and grief will supervene; being able to see the body of the loved one may be a very important factor in resolution of the loss. Mutual support of those so affected may be important for resolution, as may be the support of the community in recognition and commemoration, perhaps of the site or in ceremony or memorial. As well as helping to reestablish a supportive community network, these rituals may support the resolution of these experiences by helping to construct a sense of meaning about what has occurred. This psychological process, sometimes referred to as an individual or community narrative, has been shown to be associated with better adjustment to traumatic events.

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Dislocation is a process that relates more specifically to the loss of homes and the move to shelter. It may involve repeated moves to new places of safety or places to live until a new home is found. These may be key stressors for communities affected by natural disasters, but may profoundly impact societies subjected to bombings and warfare. This is also one of the powerful stressors affecting refugees. Unlike losses through death or injury, dislocation stressors appear to affect mental health and well-being at a later stage and often in more chronic ways. This was first observed in studies of the effects of a cyclone that devastated the northern Australian city of Darwin. Parker found that an initial rise of distress measured in a population of evacuees reflected a mortality or life-threat stress. A subsequent rise several months later reflected dislocation/relocation stressor effects. Other studies of those affected by this disaster have shown similar longer-term stress effects related to dislocation. Chronic Stressors Disaster responses in communities often follow predictable cycles. There is typically an initial honeymoon phase, when there is an enormous positive and often altruistic response by surrounding communities, nationally and even internationally. This is driven by a wish to undo, or to make right, what has happened. Usual social boundaries diminish and there are powerful affiliative tendencies at a local level. However, this lasts only for the first few days or weeks. Then the reality of what has happened, what it will take to recover, who will pay, and how long it will take creates a very different environment. Anger and scapegoating, chronic distress, and frustration may occur. Confrontation with bureaucracies that have returned to their predisaster levels of functioning is common. All these factors may mean that there is an environment of disillusionment. This may contribute further to the distress of individuals or may adversely influence the functioning of the community, leading to cynicism and disappointment. Fortunately most communities, like individuals, build on their resources and resilience and recover. The experience of the catastrophe becomes part of a history of mastery and moving on. This is not always the case, however, and tragically, for some communities, the stigma of a particular catastrophe may remain. The community becomes identified with the disaster and the disaster with the community, often in the most negative ways—for instance the Chernobyl nuclear incident or the Port Arthur massacre. Some disaster stresses, by their nature, are chronic and ongoing. Slow disasters include drought and deforestation and may provide the preconditions for starvation and the dislocation of communities. As noted, these environmental effects may coincide with chronic civil or ethnic conflict or the dispossession associated with years spent in

refugee camps. The degradation of the environment through industrial accidents or toxic waste disposal can produce similar chronic effects. Chronic stress may affect physical health via the immune system, neuroendocrine response, altered health behaviors (e.g. alcohol abuse), or changed mood states. Four months after Hurricane Andrew (in the United States) Ironson et al. found evidence that survivors were experiencing altered physiological functioning, suggestive of stress-related immune system suppression. Severe disaster stressors have even been known to lead to sudden death, as has been demonstrated in a number of different studies of earthquakes. Posttraumatic Growth For some individuals, the process of dealing effectively with loss or psychological trauma may ultimately provide a growth experience and enhance their personal maturity and relationships. This is well exemplified in the contributions of Victor Frankel and other Holocaust survivors. More recently, there has been increasing interest and study of the phenomena of posttraumatic growth. Tedeschi and Calhoun reviewed models of these phenomena and suggest that the provision of sensitive support and the opportunity for disclosure following trauma or disaster may allow significant cognitive restructuring in relation to the event. The experience of surviving and overcoming trauma may promote the development of a coherent and reempowered self-identity. In effect, the disaster experience and response may become a vehicle through which powerful changes to personal and group narratives may occur.

Vulnerabilities and Special Populations Previous Exposure Previous exposure to specific disaster stressors is an important factor affecting individual and community response. In some people, this has built their strength, enhancing their capacity to overcome the new threat while also inoculating them against its stress effects. Conversely, exposure may have the effect of sensitizing some individuals, leading to poorer coping with subsequent events. For some, vulnerabilities associated with unresolved trauma or grief may surface again, triggered by the current crisis. Although there may be opportunities to rework those earlier experiences, they are often not recognized. Experiences such as childhood sexual abuse or wartime suffering may not clearly link to a current disaster context but are known to represent significant risk factors for further trauma. Communities that have been exposed in the past may develop a disaster subculture. This may influence how they respond to warnings and to the disaster itself.

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This subculture reflects a belief system about what will happen, what can be done, and what the outcomes may be. This may influence responses in either positive or negative ways, depending on the adaptability of the beliefs and their fit with the particular incident. Displaced Persons Other vulnerable populations may be those who are already dislocated from familiar settings, for instance, refugees, new immigrants, or minority groups. They may lose their papers, documents of identification. Their links to their new community may still be fragile. They may not have the language, knowledge, or understanding needed to respond to the incident. Alternatively, they may have integrated these events in terms of earlier experiences of threat. They may experience intense fears for their safety because the chaos of the disaster is similar to the chaos they have known. Those who have suffered oppression in their home country may be fearful of government or law enforcement officials and emergency service workers. Displaced persons have been identified as vulnerable groups in many disaster responses and may need special attention to facilitate their recovery. People with a history of mental illness are also a group that is vulnerable to the effects of disasters. The stressors associated with disasters are commonly recognized as risk factors that may exacerbate a range of preexisting conditions. Following traumatic events, individuals with prior or ongoing psychiatric conditions are more likely to experience a relapse or an exacerbation of these conditions, as well as the development of other forms of psychopathology, including PTSD. In addition to the stress effects associated with common exposures, specific elements of the event and its aftermath may trigger key vulnerabilities. For example, bereavement or the loss of a support network or job may result in a relapse of major depression. The intense activity and officialdom of the recovery may heighten paranoid ideation in those experiencing psychotic conditions. Indigenous peoples may face particular difficulties. Their backgrounds may have already involved life threat through premature mortality and racist violence. Other losses may involve family disruptions, deaths, and loss of land, culture, identity, and meaning. Such losses may entail both literal and symbolic dislocation from place, tribe, or community. Socioeconomic, educational, and other disadvantages may all contribute further to this background of traumatization. Disaster stressors superimposed on this context further increase the likelihood of adverse outcomes for these individuals and communities. Children Children and young people may be vulnerable through separation or by seeing effects on parents. The stresses of

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life threat, loss, separation, and dislocation can impact not only their present well-being but also their psychological and social development. This has been well demonstrated by Terr’s 1991 in-depth studies showing that the effects may appear in repetitive traumatic play and behavioral disruptions that are both aggressive and withdrawing. Pynoos et al. studied the effects of a school-based sniper attack and were able to show that the mental health effects reflected the nature of the stressor experiences each child faced. For instance, those who experienced life threat showed PTSD phenomena, whereas those who experienced bereavement showed phenomena of grief and later depression. Those who experienced separation from their siblings showed separation distress phenomena. The effects may be delayed. McFarlane reported that disaster-affected children’s pattern of morbidity at first appeared less than that of the broader community and was particularly good. This had the apparent effect of forming a buffer between the children and the effects of what had happened. Their distress appeared later in the first year after a forest fire disaster and was also linked to ongoing symptomatology in their parents. Other studies of children support these findings and emphasize the need to recognize both behavioral responses and developmental impact. The centrality of the family for children, and their affection and security needs, must also be recognized if these stressors are to be dealt with. The school is key environment of care and development for children following disaster. Teachers who have themselves been stressed may not identify the effects on children. Some behavioral reactions may appear only in the school setting. For example, trauma-related cognitive and behavioral effects may become manifest as disruptive behavior or poor learning. Some school-based interventions have been shown to lessen the risk of adverse outcomes. In a study by McDermott, children used a workbook to facilitate the processing of traumatic experiences related to a forest fire. The Elderly Older people have been frequently described as vulnerable to disaster stresses. As with other studies in the mental health field, no specific increase in psychosocial morbidity has been found among the elderly. There may even be a decrease in later years. There is no good evidence that the elderly run a greater risk of mental health morbidity, although the patterns may be different. It has been observed that older people experience higher arousal but lower intrusive (reexperiencing) symptoms than young adults similarly exposed and that maturity and general life experience may buffer the stress of disasters. However, the elderly are also more likely to die during disasters. This may be due to several factors including

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recognition of warnings, the physical attributes necessary for escape, and a greater acceptance of death. As such, there is a need to ensure that individuals who may be vulnerable in this way are encompassed in disasterresponse planning.

Determining Who Is Affected Determining those who are affected by a disaster may be difficult. The registration of victims provides a formal mechanism, and this is often the role of organizations such as the Red Cross or Red Crescent or of formal institutions such as police services. But this really describes only the direct victims. A number of researchers have developed classifications of the different levels of victimhood in disasters. In broad terms, these include those directly experiencing the incident (who are often described as primary victims), those who were not there but are profoundly affected (such as bereaved family members), and those formally involved in rescue and helping efforts. The last group also experiences exposure effects and may be seen as secondary or indirectly affected victims. The distinction between victim and helper and the roles inherent in these terms may present a dichotomy that is a problematic. Victim implies weak and helpless, whereas helper implies strong and powerful. However, there are numerous examples of disasters in which survivors (the authors’ preferred term) were both victims and helpers in the early stages. As such, this distinction does not reflect the practical fluidity of response or the shifting of roles and exposures that often occurs. It is of importance scientifically that a dose–response effect, as previously noted, may be demonstrated for the levels of stressor experience. In a number of studies, this relationship has been observed with both the frequency of exposure and its intensity or closeness to the epicenter of the disaster incident. The excellent 1989 study by Weisaeth of a workforce affected by a paint factory explosion and fire clearly shows such a relationship. The highest levels of morbidity were found in those closest to the explosion, with lesser levels in those further away. Significantly, however, a lesser but significant effect was also observed in workers who were not on shift but who would have been directly impacted had they been. This vicarious traumatization is a compelling indicator that the adverse effects of disaster and trauma need not be limited to direct physical exposure to the event. They may be powerfully linked to its indirect exposures and losses, including appraisals associated with personal risk. Affected individuals and communities may experience any combination of the stressors identified. These may occur against a backdrop of ongoing life difficulties or specific events, but may be attributed to the distress of the disaster experience. They may be affected, or even

secondarily injured, by the failure of others to acknowledge their experience or their suffering. The perception that social support is available and offered may be a central factor in reducing both disaster-related stress and longer-term mental health effects. Studies of Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew found that the deterioration in perceived social support (deterioration path) was associated with adverse mental health effects. Conversely, high levels of received support (actual postdisaster help) in the aftermath (mobilization path) were able to reduce these negative perceptions and offset some of these adverse outcomes. Despite findings that those with the greatest direct losses are often most strongly affected, these findings indicate that tangible support may bolster resilience; both may act as significant mediators of recovery.

Recovery Environment The recovery environment consists of those natural and introduced forces that may influence the adjustment of individuals and communities following their experience of disaster. These include the natural processes of resilience that are vital for survival and the various adaptations that may support these, such as specific coping strategies, personal resources, and social interaction. The more positive recovery environments are those in which the experience is acknowledged and help is offered but in which the strengths of individuals and communities to overcome disaster effects are recognized and supported. This approach, which focuses recovery activities on community resources and participation, is now formally advocated by the World Health Organization (Sphere Project). The response to disaster-affected people and communities is often intense, and there may be a convergence of those wishing to help, including those offering practical and medical aid, debriefing, and subsequently welfare assistance. The altruism driving this wish to help represents the best of human values. Unfortunately, in this convergence there may be an excess of offers by the unskilled or those who may in turn become victims themselves. Debriefing is frequently part of such a response; however there is no evidence that it is beneficial to either emergency workers or the wider population. Some controlled studies have even shown that debriefing (i.e., critical incident stress debriefing) led to slightly but significantly worse outcomes. It was on the basis of findings such as these that the recent U.S. Consensus Conference on Mass Violence recommended against its use with the general population. Cognitive-behavioral interventions have been shown to be effective in the treatment of specific trauma and are likely to benefit those with established PTSD conditions following disasters. Psychological first aid is an important

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helping response that focuses on the provision of immediate safety, reunion with loved ones, shelter, and support and the triaging of mental health and other needs. This approach promotes the recognition of and response to a postevent hierarchy of need and is now internationally recognized. Focused counseling for traumatization or grief may also be of value, but this needs to be based on evidence of effective interventions and delivered by skilled and knowledgeable personnel. The aim of any intervention may be ‘‘first to do no harm.’’ Unfortunately there remains a shortage of systematic investigations of the effectiveness of interventions postdisaster. This is largely due to the chaos of these events and their aftermath, as well as the methodological and ethical constraints on research at such times. As with the direct response, a primary aim of disaster researchers should also be ‘‘to do no harm’’ to affected populations. Some beneficial effects have been found for systematic intervention in environments such as schools or in postdisaster outreach and support programs as part of a disaster mental health response. There is a pressing need for integrated research to ensure that human resources and mobilized personnel contribute to common goals, are effective in enhancing social and health outcomes, and are powerful and positive forces of normal recovery. See also: Hiroshima Bombing, Stress Effects of

Further Reading Alexander, D. (2005). Early mental health intervention after disasters. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 11, 12–18. Bisson, I. J., Jenkins, P. L., Alexander, J., et al. (1997). A randomised controlled trial of psychological debriefing for victims of acute harm. British Journal of Psychiatry 171, 78–81. Brewin, C. R., Andrews, B., and Valentine, J. D. (2000). Meta-analysis of risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in trauma-exposed adults. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68(5): 748–766. Briere, J. and Elliott, D. M. (2000). Prevalence, characteristics, and longterm sequelae of natural disaster exposure in the general population. Journal of Traumatic Stress 13, 661–679. Birmes, P., Brunet, A., Carreras, D., et al. (2003). The predictive power of peritraumatic dissociation and acute stress symptoms for posttraumatic stress symptoms: a three-month prospective study. American Journal of Psychiatry 160(7): 1337–1339. Chung, M., Dennis, I., Easthope, Y., et al. (2005). A multiple-indicator multiple-cause model for posttraumatic stress reactions: personality, coping, and maladjustment. Psychosomatic Medicine 67, 251–259. Dew, M. and Bromet, E. (1993). Predictors of temporal patterns of psychiatric distress during 10 years following the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 28, 49–55. Erikson, K. (1994). A new species of trouble: explorations in disaster, trauma and community. New York: Norton. Foss, O. T. (1994). Mental first aid. Social Science & Medicine 38, 479–482. Frankel, V. (1962). Man’s search for meaning. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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Freedy, J. R., Saladin, M. E., Kilpatrick, D. G., et al. (1994). Understanding acute psychological distress following natural disaster. Journal of Traumatic Stress 7, 257–273. Galea, S., Ahern, J., Resnick, H., et al. (2002). Psychological sequelae of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. New England Journal of Medicine 356, 982–987. Galea, S., Vlahof, D., Resnick, H., et al. (2003). Trends of probable post-traumatic stress disorder in New York City after the September 11 terrorist attacks. American Journal of Epidemiology 158, 514–524. Godeau, E., Vignes, C., Navarro, F., et al. (2005). Effects of a large-scale industrial disaster on rates of symptoms consistent with posttraumatic stress disorders among schoolchildren in Toulouse. Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine 159, 579–584. Gray, M., Prigerson, H., and Litz, B. (2004). Conceptual and definitional issues in complicated grief. In Litz, B. (ed.) Early intervention for trauma and traumatic loss, pp. 65–84. New York: Guilford Press. Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: a new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist 44, 513–524. Hobfoll, S. E. (1998). Stress, culture, and community: the psychology and philosophy of stress. New York: Plenum Press. Hull, A. M., Alexander, D. A., and Klein, S. (2002). Survivors of the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster: long term follow-up study. British Journal of Psychiatry 181, 433–438. Ironson, G., Wynings, C., Schneiderman, N, et al. (1997). Posttraumatic stress symptoms, intrusive thoughts, loss, and immune function after Hurricane Andrew. Psychosomatic Medicine 59(2): 128–124. Leor, J, Poole, W., and Kloner, R. (1996). Sudden cardiac death triggered by an earthquake. New England Journal of Medicine 334 (7): 413–419. Lifton, R. (1979). The broken connection: on death and the continuity of life. New York: Simon and Schuster. Litz, B. and Gray, M. (2004). Early intervention for trauma in adults: a framework for first aid and secondary prevention. In Litz, B. (ed.) Early intervention for trauma and traumatic loss, pp. 87–111. New York: Guilford Press. Litz, B., Gray, M., Bryant, R., et al. (2002). Early interventions for trauma: current status and future directions. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 9, 112–134. Lundin, T. (1984). Morbidity following sudden and unexpected bereavement. British Journal of Psychiatry 144, 84–88. Maes, M., Mylle, J., Delmire, L., et al. (2000). Pediatric morbidity and comorbidity following accidental man-made traumatic events: incidence and risk factors. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 250(3): 156–162. McCarroll, J., Fullerton, C., Ursano, R., et al. (1996). Posttraumatic stress symptoms following forensic dental examination: Mt Carmel, Waco, Texas. American Journal of Psychiatry 153, 778–782. McDermott, B. M., Lee, E., Judd, M., et al. (2005). Post traumatic stress disorder and general psychopathology in children and adolescents following a wildfire disaster. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 50, 137–143. McFarlane, A. C. (1987). Post traumatic phenomena in a longitudinal study of children following a natural disaster. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 26, 764–769. Morgan, L., Scourfield, J., Williams, D., et al. (2003). The Aberfan disaster: 33-year follow-up of survivors. British Journal of Psychiatry 182, 532–536. National Institute of Mental Health (2002). Mental health and mass violence: evidence-based early psychological interventions for victims/survivors of mass violence: a workshop to reach consensus on best practices. NIH Publication No. 02–5138. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. Norris, F., Friedman, M., Watson, P., et al. (2002). 60,000 disaster victims speak. Part 1: An empirical review of the empirical literature, 1981–2001. Psychiatry 65, 207–239. Norris, F. and Kaniasty, K. (1996). Received and perceived social support in times of stress: a test of the social support deterioration deterrence model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71, 498–511. North, C., Nixon, S., Hariat, S., et al. (1999). Psychiatric disorders among survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing. Journal of the American Medical Association 282, 755–762.

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O’Donnell, M. L., Creamer, M., Bryant, R. A., et al. (2003). Posttraumatic disorders following injury: an empirical and methodological review. Clinical Psychology Review 23(4): 587–603. O’Toole, B. I., Marshall, R. P., Schureck, R. J., et al. (1998). Posttraumatic stress disorder and comorbidity in Australian Vietnam veterans: risk factors, chronicity and combat. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 32, 1. Parker, G. (1975). Psychological disturbance in Darwin evacuees following cyclone Tracy. Medical Journal of Australia 21, 650–652. Pfefferbaum, B., North, C. S., Flynn, B. W., et al. (2001). The emotional impact of injury following an international terrorist incident. Public Health Reviews 29(2–4): 271–280. Phifer, J. and Norris, F. (1989). Psychological symptoms in older adults following disaster: nature, timing, duration and course. Journal of Gerontology 44, 201–217. Prigerson, H., Ahmed, I., Silverman, G., et al. (2002). Rates and risks of complicated grief as a risk factor among psychiatric clinic patients in Karachi, Pakistan. Death Studies 26, 781–792. Prigerson, H., Shear, M., Jacobs, S., et al. (1999). Consensus criteria for traumatic grief: a preliminary empirical test. British Journal of Psychiatry 174, 67–73. Pynoos, R., Frederick, C., Nader, K., et al. (1987). Life threat and posttraumatic stress in school age children. Archives of General Psychiatry 44, 1057–1063. Pynoos, R. and Nader, K. (1988). Psychological first aid and treatment approach to children exposed to community violence: research implications. Journal of Traumatic Stress 1, 445–473. Raphael, B. (1977). The Granville train disaster: psychological needs and their management. Medical Journal Australia 1(9): 303–305. Raphael, B. (1986). When disaster strikes: how individuals and communities cope with catastrophe. New York: Basic Books. Raphael, B., Dunsmore, J., and Wooding, S. (2004). Terror and trauma in Bali: Australia’s mental health response. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma 9(2): 245–256. Raphael, B., Martinek, N., and Wooding, S. (2004). Assessing loss, psychological trauma and traumatic bereavement. In Wilson, J. (ed.) Assessing psychological trauma and PTSD, 2nd edn., pp. 492–510. New York: Guilford Press. Raphael, B., Meldrum, L., and McFarlane, A. (1995). Does debriefing after psychological trauma work? British Medical. Journal 310, 1479–1480. Raphael, B. and Wilson, J. P. (1993). Theoretical and intervention considerations in working with victims of disaster. In Wilson, J. P. and Raphael, B. (eds.) International handbook of traumatic stress syndromes, pp. 58–70. New York: Plenum Press. Raphael, B. and Wooding, S. (2004). Early mental health interventions for traumatic loss in adults. In Litz, B. (ed.) Early intervention for trauma and traumatic loss, pp. 147–178. New York: Guilford Press. Regehr, C. and Sussman, T. (2004). Intersections between grief and trauma: toward an empirically based model for treating traumatic grief. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 4, 289–309. Rose, S., Bisson, J., and Wessely, S. (2001). Psychological debriefing for preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Cochrane Library 4 [online].

Sattler, D. N., Preston, A. J., Kaiser, C. F., et al. (2002). Hurricane Georges: a cross-national study examining preparedness, resource loss, and psychological distress in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the United States. Journal of Traumatic Stres 15, 339–350. Salama, P., Spiegel, P., Talley, L, et al. (2004). Lessons learned from complex emergencies over past decade. Lancet 364(9447): 1801–1813. Shalev, A. Y., Sahar, T., Freedman, S., et al. (1998). A prospective study of heart rate responses following trauma and the subsequent development of posttraumatic stress disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 55, 553–559. Shore, J. and Tatum, L. (1986). Psychiatric reactions to disaster: the Mount St. Helens experience. American Journal of Psychiatry 143, 590–595. Silverman, G. K., Johnson, J. G., and Prigerson, H. G. (2001). Preliminary explorations of the effects of prior trauma and loss on risk for psychiatric disorders in recently widowed people. Israeli Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences 38, 202–215. Tedeschi, R. and Calhoun, L. (2004). Post-traumatic growth: conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry 15, 1–18. Terr, L. (1991). Childhood traumas: an outline and overview. American Journal of Psychiatry 148, 10–20. Ursano, R. J., Fullerton, C. S., and McCaughey, B. G. (1994). Trauma and disaster. In Ursano, R. J., McCaughey, B., and Fullerton, C. S. (eds.) Individual and community responses to trauma and disaster: the structure of human chaos, pp. 3–27. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ursano, R. J., Fullerton, C. S., and Norwood, A. E. (eds.) (2004). Bioterrorism: psychological and public health interventions. London: Cambridge University Press. Ursano, R. J., Fullerton, C. S., Tzu-Cheg, K., et al. (1995). Longitudinal assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression after exposure to traumatic death. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 183(1): 36–42. van Doorn, C., Kasl, S. V., Beery, L. C., et al. (1998). The influence of marital quality and attachment styles on traumatic grief and depressive symptoms. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 186, 566–573. Weisaeth, L. (1989). The stressors and the post-traumatic stress syndrome after an industrial disaster. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 80(supplement): 25–37.

Relevant Websites Norris, F. (2005). Range, magnitude and duration of the effects of disaster on mental health: review update 2005, Dartmouth College research education review article. www.redmh.org. Sphere Project (2004). Humanitarian charter and minimum standards in disaster response, Geneva, http://www.sphereproject.org.

Emergency Personnel, Stress in D S Weiss, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Recognition of the Problem Predictors Biological Factors This article is a revision of the previous edition article by D S Weiss, volume 2, pp 28–31, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Interventions Further Reading

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Glossary Acute Stress Disorder A mental disorder involving anxiety, dissociation, and reexperiencing that leads to clearly impaired functioning; arises after exposure to a traumatic stressor in a 1-month time frame. Compassion Fatigue The reduction of empathy and presence of burnout in helpers who have been overexposed to the suffering from traumatic stressors of others. Debriefing An intervention conducted soon after exposure to a traumatic stressor, in a group or individually, designed to lessen the psychological impact of the event on future functioning. Hippocampal Volume An index of the size of a brain structure involved in both stress response and memory processes as measured by magnetic resonance imaging. Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis The hormone system in the body, comprising the hypothalamus and the pituitary and adrenal glands, that

Exposure to traumatic stress in emergency personnel follows from the nature of the work, being primarily involved with witnessing or being the potential victim of serious injury, death, or threat to physical integrity and frequently involving danger, sometimes potentially lethal, to oneself. The stress reaction is similar to that of other groups exposed in this way, such as soldiers in combat, and can include the reexperiencing of the traumatic event, avoidance and numbing, and manifestations of hyperarousal such as sleep disturbance, impulsive anger and irritability, trouble concentrating, or hypervigilance. Although the response may be moderated or may habituate after simulations in training or repeated exposures over the course of years on the job, it does not seem to disappear. First-responders typically include police, firefighters, ambulance personnel, searchand-rescue teams, and the like. In addition to the effects of exposure to traumatic stress on emergency services personnel, most groups experience and react to routine stressors such as paperwork, media attention, insufficient equipment, and departmental politics. It is not yet definitively known what the relative impact of these two types of stressors may be on an individual’s functioning on the job, but accumulating evidence suggests that both types of stressors are implicated in deleterious effects on psychological adjustment and biological processes.

Recognition of the Problem The introduction in 1980 of posttraumatic stress disorder (PSTD) into the psychiatric nomenclature via the

regulates many basic functions, including the fight-orflight response. Peritraumatic Dissociation The experience of altered time sense, altered sense of self, or altered sense of place during and immediately following exposure to a traumatic stressor. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) A mental disorder involving the reexperiencing and avoidance of aspects of a traumatic stressor, accompanied by symptoms of increased arousal occurring at least 1 month after traumatic exposure. Routine Occupational Stressors The nontraumatic events that derive from organizational forces or other aspects of emergency work, such as contact with the public or lack of necessary equipment. Traumatic Stressor The occurrence of an event that involves the actual or threatened death or serious injury or the threat to the physical integrity of oneself or a family member as either a victim or as a witness.

American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn.) codified scattered knowledge about the effects of exposure to traumatic stressors from studies of combat veterans from World War I, II, Korea, and Vietnam; women who had been sexually assaulted; victims of the Holocaust; and children who had been sexually molested or physically abused. This codification gave structure to the investigation of the effects of traumatic stress on those who are exposed to such events, either accidentally or by design. Traumatic stress can be defined as an event or series of events that threaten life, injury, safety, or bodily integrity. The event typically results in the experience of fear, horror, or a similar emotional response in those initially exposed. Obviously, one important difference between emergency service personnel and ordinary citizens is that, over the course of their careers, emergency services personnel are exposed repeatedly to such events. Consequently, these groups have become of considerable interest in the attempt to understand the effects of traumatic stressors on functioning. The sequelae of exposure to a traumatic stressor varies enormously, all the way from no discernible effect to severe and disabling psychiatric symptoms. The formal psychiatric diagnoses that can result are acute stress disorder and PSTD. Acute stress disorder is diagnosed after exposure to a traumatic stressor when the individual has, within a month of exposure, a sufficient number of four types of symptoms that cause significant disruption in ongoing daily functioning: (1) dissociative symptoms such as depersonalization or derealization; (2) intrusive or reexperiencing symptoms such as nightmares or

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intrusive mental images of the event; (3) avoidance symptoms such as shunning talking about the event or any reminder of it; and (4) anxiety or arousal symptoms such as poor sleep, irritability, or exaggerated startle response. Acute stress disorder appears to be quite rare in emergency services workers because screening selects out those with obvious vulnerability and training familiarizes and acclimates workers and by so doing is thought to reduce the shocking nature of the events. When there is the presence of a formal psychiatric disorder, it is more commonly PTSD. PTSD is diagnosed only after at least 1 month has passed since the traumatic event and is characterized by symptoms of three types: (1) intrusion or reexperiencing, (2) avoidance and numbing, and (3) increased arousal. The types of symptoms involved are very similar to those of acute stress disorder, with the exception of dissociative symptoms; these do not need to be present to diagnose PTSD. It was only after PTSD appeared in the nomenclature that researchers began to systematically study the effects of their occupation on emergency services personnel from the perspective of traumatic stress. There is now a relative consensus that some percentage of workers in these occupations develop psychological symptoms, sometimes to a disabling degree, as a result of their exposure to some of the horrific and repeated incidents with which they are faced. Disasters and catastrophes since the year 2000 have also helped bring these issues to greater public awareness. Concomitantly, there is a greater recognition that the normal course of reaction to traumatic stressors involves many of the same psychological and biological systems that are implicated in PTSD symptoms. There have now been studies of police and firefighters in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand, to name a few. The results of these studies are in agreement that PTSD symptoms are present in a subset of employees. They are in less agreement about whether the severity of symptoms warrants a diagnosis of full PTSD or whether partial or subclinical PTSD is more common. As well, there is a wide range of results for the percentage of workers who do meet criteria for a diagnosis. These range from rates of approximately 30% to less than 5%. The high end of these rates are higher by tenfold than the findings of the National Comorbidity Study Replication, a national prevalence study in the United States of ordinary citizens. The 12-month prevalence of PTSD was 3.5%. The severity of symptoms was roughly one-third each for serious, moderate, and mild. Part of the heterogeneity of the results may be due to the issue of how much time has elapsed since the traumatic event that serves as the trigger for the diagnosis to be made because the natural course of reactions is for a considerable diminution of symptoms over a period of 6 months to 1 year. Another factor may be that some studies

have assessed symptoms in relation to exposure to critical incidents on the job without requiring the specification of a distinct event, especially when an event is prolonged in time (e.g., rescue workers at the September 11 site). PTSD symptoms, whether at the level of formal diagnosis or only of partial or subclinical proportions, are problematic because they interfere with functioning. Moreover, some attempts to deal with the symptoms can be harmful (e.g., the excessive use of alcohol) and exacerbate the symptoms or cause additional difficulties. In the last 5–10 years, awareness and education have helped reduce the stigma associated with sustaining psychological injuries from exposure to traumatic stress, but the attitude that the symptoms are a sign of weakness continues to be relatively prevalent. Those who are affected are frequently not met with compassion or understanding for incurring these difficulties. Consequently, the minimization or concealment of problems from others, and perhaps even from oneself, can lead to not getting help. This tendency may also partially contribute to the wide range of estimates of the degree of symptoms. Another problem for emergency services personnel is the impact on family members when the worker does not want to burden his or her loved ones with the stories of difficult or horrific outcomes. Although understandable, not doing so can eliminate one of the most powerful antidotes that helps overcome traumatic stress – social support, a result now documented in two recent metaanalytic studies. Better documented has been the effect of nontraumatic stressors on first-responders. Stressors such as relations with the media, bureaucratic or political issues within organizations, interactions with supervisors or superiors, and inadequate equipment or backup do not customarily produce intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal but, instead, have been shown to be related to more general psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and hostility. As well, there are studies that have documented a relationship between hostility and cardiovascular disease, a relationship that has repeatedly been found in ordinary citizens. Unknown at this time is whether there is a synergistic or interactive effect of exposure to both kinds of stressors that is greater than would be expected from the effects of each alone. This area remains ripe for investigation.

Predictors There has been a growing body of recent work on the predictors of whether a person will have difficulty after exposure to traumatic stress. Because many workers are exposed and only a minority ever develop significant problems, research has focused on identifying factors that might explain why some develop problems whereas

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others do not. The bulk of the findings come from retrospective studies, with their inherent weaknesses, and have involved mostly men. Gender has been found in some studies to moderate relationships, but the main effect is the well-known result that women report more symptoms. Longitudinal prospective studies of police and firefighters are currently underway, some large scale, but the results of such work has yet to be reported. From retrospective work, one clear factor that appears to be related to an individual’s developing problems is the level of exposure to a critical incident, although the relationship is not as strong as might be assumed. For example, all other things being equal, a police officer who is shot at several times is more at risk than one who is assaulted by a suspect without a weapon. Similarly a firefighter who narrowly escapes a flash-over is at greater risk than a colleague who is just missed by a falling beam. The level of exposure as a predictor has been found in other groups as well (e.g., combat veterans and rape victims). Across all groups, the two meta-analyses found that life threat produced an average weighted effect of r ¼ 0.26 and r ¼ 0.23. Some studies, however, have shown that the individual’s appraisal of how serious an event was, as opposed to the broad consensus of different levels of threat, is also a factor in determining who develops PTSD symptoms. A more psychological factor that has been identified is peritraumatic dissociation. Peritraumatic dissociation is the experience of altered time sense, altered sense of self, altered sense of place, disorientation, and panic during and/or immediately following exposure to a traumatic stressor. In a number of retrospective studies of emergency services personnel involved in a large natural disaster, those with the highest levels of symptoms were those who also described having dissociative experiences during or immediately after the trauma. In a group of civilians, a prospective study confirmed the importance of peritraumatic dissociation. The meta-analysis that examined it found that peritraumatic dissociation was the strongest identified predictor of PTSD, with an average weighted effect size of r ¼ 0.35. Preexisting psychiatric difficulties or a family history of psychiatric disorder shows some ability to predict symptomatic level, but the degree is less than more proximal factors. The meta-analyses showed an average weighted effect size of r ¼ 0.17 and r ¼ 0.12 for prior trauma, r ¼ 0.17 and r ¼ 0.11 for prior adjustment, and r ¼ 0.17 and r ¼ 0.13 for family history of psychopathology. A recent 2-year prospective study of firefighters identified high hostility and low self-efficacy as predictive of PTSD and general psychiatric symptom development. Other studies have shown that cumulative exposure to critical incidents over a career is not as salient a factor as might have been expected.

Biological Factors In the last 5 years, there has been a marked increase in attention to biological factors in stress response, with a special growth of work in the consequences of traumatic stress on the brain and neuroendocrine systems. Earlier work had established that sleep was disturbed in those exposed to traumatic stressors, but recent findings have differentiated these observations. At least one large-scale study has suggested that in police officers lifetime cumulative exposure to critical incidents was clearly related to the frequency of nightmares but less strongly related to sleep quality. The main factor affecting sleep quality (other than shiftwork issues) was the more common stress from the work-environment problems described previously. Studies in the sleep laboratory have tended to confirm that those with PTSD do have diminished sleep quality, but it remains an open question as to whether general stressors or traumatic stressors exert a larger effect on sleep quality in first-responder groups. The first biological area examined in the study of the effects of exposure to traumatic stress in emergency services personnel, as well as in research in PTSD more broadly, was the response of the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis to stressors. The role of the hormone cortisol has long been known to be involved in the stress response. Advances in the ease of measurement of cortisol and accumulating findings from many groups exposed to traumatic stress, including emergency services personnel, have shown abnormalities. The most well-established finding is a lowered baseline cortisol on awakening and higher PTSD symptoms. Another fairly well-established finding is relatively more suppression of cortisol following the administration of the synthetic hormone dexamethasone, a finding indicating increased feedback sensitivity. At this point, findings involving the HPA axis are rapidly accumulating, and more careful studies are showing more differentiated results. A second area of work has been in the area of brain imaging: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI, and positron emission computed tomography (PET). An initial set of findings in combat veterans and victims of sexual assault began to appear in the last decade and tended to show that the volume of the hippocampus was reduced in those who had developed PTSD compared to those various controls. Because the hippocampus is part of the limbic system and is implicated in the formation, storage, and processing of memory, these initial findings were theoretically interesting (recall that intrusive memories of the traumatic event are a unique symptomatic feature). Subsequent studies tended to find reduced volume, sometimes on both sides and sometimes on only the left or right side of the brain, but several found no volume reduction. These ensuing studies were helpful

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in illuminating the complexity of these brain changes. Currently, it appears that reduction is more common than not and that this is true in police samples as well, but whether smaller volume is a result of traumatic exposure or a risk factor for it is unclear. Newer studies are examining the functioning of the amygdala, which is known to be activated by fear and stress, and the prefrontal cortex, a brain area that plays a role in inhibiting the activity of the amygdala and is involved with complex emotional and cognitive functioning.

Interventions Given the increased recognition of the psychological consequences of exposure to traumatic stress, many agencies have instituted programs for debriefing their personnel soon after traumatic exposure. Debriefing as a term is now used in a variety of ways, although its origin is military and was directed at clarifying actual events and improving operations rather than assisting with psychological reactions. Debriefing is now used to refer to some kind of structured intervention designed to assist in the psychological processing of a traumatic event and/or to serve as a preventive intervention. Consumers of debriefings have been extended from those who respond to an event to individuals who can be described as victims or witnesses of the event. The advent of an evidence base to justify the provision of interventions, most commonly referred to as evidencebased medicine, has had an impact on interventions after traumatic stressors. The practice of evidence-based interventions is predicated on combining clinical judgment with knowledge of external evidence from rigorous systematic research. Several recent summaries of the effects of debriefing for victims have shown equivocal results, with one or two studies concluding that there may even be deleterious effects. These summaries have had a profound impact on the conclusions of the scientific community about the use of debriefing, even though the main summary was based on only nine studies. One fairly recent study of interventions in the workplace after September 11 showed positive effects up to 2 years after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Whether intentionally or due to lack of knowledge, the literature as of this writing has taken the cautions against the efficacy of debriefing based on studies of singlesession individual interventions for victims as applying to single-session group interventions for first-responders. This has led to some confusion and a debate about how to help emergency personnel deal with exposure to traumatic stressors. The most widely used approach in emergency services personnel is critical incident stress debriefing (CISD). This intervention, developed by Mitchell, was developed

specifically for emergency services personnel. It, or variations of it made by individual organizations, is still currently widely used and is typically evaluated as helpful and useful, but studies of its actual efficacy have been sorely lacking. Only a single controlled randomized study could be located, albeit with a positive result. It typically comprises seven stages: introduction, facts, thoughts and impressions, emotional reactions, normalization, planning for the future, and disengagement. Widely overlooked in the debate, however, is that CISD was designed as one element of a larger critical incident stress management (CISM) system that includes precrisis preparation, demobilization and briefings, defusing, CISD, individual crisis intervention, family crisis intervention and organizational consultation, follow-up and referral for assessment, and, if needed, treatment. Evaluating CISM from an evidence-based perspective is daunting, and it is unclear how many first-responder organizations use the whole CISM approach as opposed to the CISD component only. Given the lack of systematic evidence of efficacy, the persistence of CISD or modifications of it need to be explained. One possibility is that debriefing serves a needed function even if eventually it is shown not to reduce psychological symptoms more than not being debriefed. Debriefing acknowledges in an organizational framework that reactions to traumatic stress are part of the hazards of the occupation, in the same way that dosimeters symbolize the hazards of exposure to radiation for those who work in such an environment. Unlike radiation, however, whose effects are understood to be out of the control of the individuals exposed, the effects of traumatic stress are often viewed as being under the control of those exposed. Debriefing explicitly acknowledges that this is only partly so. The goals of psychological debriefing include a decrease of overwhelming emotions and cognitive disorganization and an increase in self-efficacy through the process of giving meaning to the traumatic event and legitimizing emotional reactions. An important component of debriefing is emotional disclosure, something that involves risk for those who see themselves or who think they are seen as people who do not react emotionally. Notwithstanding this view, which is consistent with either avoidance and denial or appropriate positive coping, the very essence of social interaction revolves around telling about what has happened, telling one’s story. A debriefing is a formal opportunity to tell one’s story and to tell it in a way that brings out aspects that might otherwise be overlooked or ignored, such as having been afraid, ashamed, fearful, confused, overwhelmed, distraught, anxious, revolted, enraged, or any one of many other emotions that arise during emergencies. Even for those who do not volunteer much personal information, information about the natural process of responding to

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traumatic stress and adaptive coping strategies is often presented. For the small percentage of first-responders who do develop PTSD and could benefit from professional intervention, the evidence base is more substantial. Antidepressant medications from the broad class of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have established efficacy and in the United States sertraline and paroxetine have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There is less evidence for the efficacy of other agents (e.g., anticonvulsants or tricyclic antidepressants), and the literature suggests their use is more limited. Both U.S. and UK treatment guidelines endorse an SSRI as the medication of choice. There is good evidence that trauma-focused psychotherapeutic approaches are also effective. The largest body of evidence supports cognitive behavioral psychotherapeutic approaches, with or without some explicit prolonged exposure. In the largest study of group therapy for veterans with chronic PTSD, exposure therapy was not found to be distinctly superior to a present-centered group that did not focus on the trauma. There is considerably less work on treatment explicitly for first-responders. Part of the explanation for this is that many individuals seek treatment privately, outside their organization or agency, to avoid the potential stigma or impact on career advancement. Concerted efforts to reconceptualize symptoms that result from exposure to traumatic

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stressors as psychological injuries, akin to symptoms of physical injury, may go a long way toward mitigating the stigma associated with such responses.

Further Reading Brewin, C. R., Andrews, B., and Valentine, J. D. (2000). Meta-analysis of risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder in trauma-exposed adults. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68, 748–766. Keane, T. M., Marshall, A. D., and Taft, C. T. (2006). Posttraumatic stress disorder: etiology, epidemiology, and treatment outcome. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 2, 161–197. Mitchell, J. D. and Everly, G. S. (2001). Critical incident stress debriefing: an operations manual for CISD, defusing and other group crisis intervention services. Ellicott City, MD: Chevron Publishing. National Institute for Clinical Excellence. (2005). Clinical guideline 26 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): the management of PTSD in adults and children in primary and secondary care. London: NICE. Ozer, E. J., Best, S. R., Lipsey, T. L., et al. (2003). Predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis and symptoms in adults: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 129, 52–73. Rose, S., Bisson, J., Churchill, R., et al. (2002). Psychological debriefing for preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2, no. CD000560. Smith, A. and Roberts, K. (2006). Interventions for post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological distress in emergency ambulance personnel: a review of the literature. Emergency Medicine Journal 20, 75–78. Ursano, R. J., Bell, C., Eth, S., et al. (2004). Practice guideline for the treatment of patients with acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 161(supplement): 3–31. Wagner, S. L. (2005). Emergency response service personnel and the critical incident stress debriefing debate. International Journal of Emergency Mental Health 7, 33–41.

Firefighters, Stress in T L Guidotti, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA ã 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Firefighting as an Occupation Physical Stress

Glossary 17-Ketosteroids The metabolites of endogenous steroid hormones produced under sustained stress. Aerial Ladder A very high extension ladder on a hook and ladder truck, used for rescue and to reach the fire with water from above. Catecholamines Endogenous hormones produced acutely under stress.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by T L Guidotti, volume 2, pp 146–148, ã 2000, Elsevier Inc.

Psychological Stress Further Reading

Ischemia A condition of insufficient blood supply; in the heart, coronary artery ischemia may lead to angina (chest pain), arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), or a heart attack. Knockdown Measures Measures to suppress a fire, such as laying on water from a hose carried up a ladder. Moonlighting Holding a job or doing work in addition to one’s regular employment, usually without the

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knowledge or approval of the principal employer; firefighters may have several days off between long shifts and often work other jobs to earn extra money. Myocardial Infarction A heart attack, in which some of the heart muscle dies from lack of oxygen due to ischemia.

Firefighting as an Occupation Firefighting is an intrinsically stressful occupation that attracts an unusual type of person. It is a commonplace saying that firefighters are unique people because they run into burning buildings when other people are fleeing them. The sad human toll of the World Trade Center attack, in which 121 firefighters died, trapped in the North Tower because their radios did not deliver warning messages due to lack of interoperability, demonstrates the risk that firefighters face in their work and their dependence on equipment and organization. Firefighting, like most occupations involving emergency response, is characterized by prolonged periods of preparation for episodes of intensely stressful activity. Episodically, performance demands require exertion near the limits of human factors and cardiopulmonary conditioning. The risk of injuries is high in firefighting, as indicated by an increased hospitalization rate compared to other occupations for soft tissue injuries, burns, and overexertion. However, much of a firefighter’s time is routine, spent in training and maintenance. The psychological stresses of firefighting include long periods of relative inactivity punctuated by highly stressful alarms and extremely stressful situations, such as rescues, as reflected in physiological and biochemical indicators. The literature on the health risks associated with firefighting is large and has been extensively reviewed with particular reference to human factors and ergonomics, chemical hazards, and work-related health outcomes. The hazards associated with firefighting are changing in nature and magnitude. In the mid-twentieth century, the new composition of interior furnishings introduced new chemical hazards for firefighting, including combustion products from polyvinyl chloride (including phosgene, vinyl chloride) and acrylonitrile (including cyanide). In modern times, commercial and manufacturing facility fires may produce combustion products that are not well characterized and may not even be known. Although firefighting is generally becoming safer due to better and more available equipment and improved procedures, the terrible toll at the World Trade Center illustrates the growing potential for multiple fatalities and serious injuries when things go seriously wrong in ever-larger modern skyscrapers and large facilities.

Personal Protective Equipment The equipment used by firefighters during work to protect the individual workers from a hazard, as distinct from measures used to control the hazard itself; examples include self-contained breathing apparatus, gloves, helmet, and turnout gear (heavy coat and boots).

Firefighters tend to take care of their own but on an informal basis. Firefighting is a close-in activity requiring teamwork under very threatening conditions, and firefighters tend to be very aware of the problems that their fellow firefighters might have in handling difficult situations. Individual firefighters who show early signs of illness are often selectively transferred out of active firefighting positions.

Physical Stress Energy Requirements Firefighting is a physically strenuous occupation that is sometimes performed under extreme environmental conditions. There are several components to the physiological demands of firefighting; these include the energy cost of performing firefighting activities, heat stress associated with heat from the fire, encumbrance by personal protection equipment, and psychological stress related to personal safety, protection of property, and protection of lives. The ergonomic demands of firefighting are extreme at peak activity because of high energy costs of activities such as climbing aerial ladders, the positive heat balance from endogenous and absorbed environmental heat, and encumbrance by bulky but necessary protective equipment. The use of personal protection equipment has imposed new physiological demands on firefighters despite the increased level of personal protection. Physiological Stress Firefighting is intrinsically stressful. Firefighters increase their urinary excretion of catecholamines (endogenous hormones produced acutely under stress) following workdays compared to days off. Paramedics, for whom job satisfaction was much less, had even higher levels of stress than firefighters. The urinary excretion of 17-ketosteroids (metabolites of endogenous steroid hormones produced under sustained stress) and catecholamines reflects perceived patterns of psychological stress and activity levels at the station. Cardiovascular Stress At the sound of an alarm, firefighters experience a degree of immediate anxiety because of the inherent

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unpredictability of the situation that they are about to encounter. Some investigators believe that the psychological stress experienced at this moment is as great and perhaps greater than any of the stresses that follow during the course of responding to an alarm. Studies of the cardiovascular response to the alarm itself show a marked and highly variable increase in heart rate during the response to a fire alarm, well before physical exertion begins at levels associated with maximal exertion or anxiety. Urinary catecholamine levels are particularly elevated among male firefighters during and after work in the alarm center, an assignment that is highly unpopular. There is also a gender-associated difference in the response, which is less pronounced in women. En route, hazardous traffic maneuvers and high noise levels from the sirens contribute to stress.

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manifestations of coronary artery disease to firefighting at this time, given the available evidence. Because of the high level of physical and psychological stress and the presence of chemical hazards known to injure the cardiovascular system, heart disease is a major occupational health concern in firefighting. Most studies of firefighters show no elevation in mortality from cardiovascular causes or, at most, a small excess risk. ‘‘The healthy worker effect expected in such a highly selected group may be offset by greater than expeceted mortality. A healthy worker effect is more readily visible when comparisons are made to similarly selected occupational groups such as police. Although the findings of individual studies may differ, the pattern that emerges after careful examination is that mortality from cardiovascular causes is not obviously increased in association with firefighting activity (either in terms of years of service or exposure opportunity).

Fitness Numerous studies have evaluated the fitness of firefighters and have shown fairly consistently that most firefighters are as fit or somewhat more fit than the general adult male population. They are not, however, fit to an athletically trained level. Recent studies of job performance requirements suggest that exercise programs for firefighters should be more comprehensive rather than emphasizing cardiovascular fitness and muscle strength, as is now the case. An increasing number of female applicants are now competing for firefighting jobs. This has forced a reevaluation of performance tests. As a group, women appeared to demonstrate lower scores on average than men in all performance items, but a subgroup of women performed nearly as well in some tasks. The overall difference in performance was attributed primarily to lower absolute lean body weight, which correlated most strongly and consistently with performance difference. There is evidence that some firefighters may be stressed to the limit during the exertions of their work. Barnard et al. described an ischemic response in healthy young men, including firefighters, who engaged in sudden vigorous exercise without warm-up. They suggested a transient mismatch in oxygen supply and demand. Although this mechanism is probably not a cause of persistent or cumulative myocardial injury, it may play a role in unusual and emergent situations requiring sudden maximal exertion. On this basis, it may be concluded that acute myocardial infarction occurring under these circumstances or shortly after maximal exertion in an emergency response may be directly associated with working as a firefighter. It could also be that such an event may happen at work to a firefighter with existing coronary artery disease, in which case it is reasonable to assume an association with firefighting activity. However, it is difficult to attribute myocardial infarction when off-service, hypertension, or chronic

Psychological Stress There are many extraordinary sources of psychological stress in the life of a firefighter. The expectations for performance placed on firefighters are well beyond that of other civilian occupations, with the possible exception of police. Firefighters accept a level of personal risk beyond the range of normal human experience. Although this risk is controlled to the extent possible with fire equipment and personal protection, the reality of firefighting is that there is much that can go wrong at any fire and the course of a serious fire is often unpredictable. In addition to personal security, the firefighter must be concerned with the safety of others. A failed rescue or the death of a victim is so stressful that some firefighters who have experienced this cannot cope. Studies of firefighters have shown high levels of job satisfaction and motivation compared to the general population, despite job-related anxiety and adjustment issues related to sleep deprivation, heavy workload or pace of work, constantly being on guard, unsatisfactory public interactions, rigid working conditions, personal risk, inconsistent instructions, and unforeseen situations. On the other hand, firefighters exert a great deal of control over their work in the selection of approaches to knocking down the fire and the use of protective equipment. They are continually faced with new challenges because every alarm presents a different story or situation. However, firefighters who have experienced particularly threatening situations have demonstrated adverse emotional effects. Chief among these is loss of a life during a rescue attempt or the death or serious injury on the job of a fellow firefighter. Firefighters have been intensively studied as a model population at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder. Posttraumatic stress disorder can significantly impair in their ability to maintain social and family relationships.

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Firefighters who do not show the full-blown posttraumatic stress disorder may still be affected by intrusive memories and anxiety. Incident debriefing sessions have been shown to be valuable and effective in assisting firefighters who would otherwise have difficulty coping and in reducing the short-term anxiety of those who would have been able to cope without assistance. Firefighters are enmeshed in conflicting expectations and numerous technicalities related to the insurance industry, the legal profession, the fire service administration and politics, labor–management relations, and building codes and inspection. Firefighters may be highly trained in the technicalities of fire suppression, but may become so enmeshed unwillingly in the nontechnical aspects of the occupation that they may experience great frustration. When inevitable mistakes happen or their judgment is questioned, firefighters may feel psychologically threatened because of the pressure to accommodate all these expectations and still manage during an evolving emergency. On the other hand, firefighters enjoy many positive aspects of their work and social status. Firefighters have a high social standing and are considered to belong to the most highly skilled blue-collar occupation. The work itself is interesting, although highly routine between alarms. There is a high degree of autonomy and a heavy emphasis on teamwork and mutual support. Between shifts many firefighters moonlight (have second jobs). Firefighters enjoy the high esteem of the community, the admiration of other citizens, the aspirations of children as role models, and widespread support as unequivocally positive defenders of the public good. See also: 9/11, Religion and Stress

Further Reading Barnard, R. J. (1975). Fire fighters – a fit population with ischemic heart disease. Sports Medicine Bulletin 10, 7–9. Barnard, R. J. and Duncan, H. W. (1975). Heart rate and ECG responses of fire fighters. Journal of Occupational Medicine 17, 247–250. Barnard, R. J., Gardner, G. W., and Diaco, N. V. (1976). ‘‘Ischemic’’ heart disease in firefighters with normal coronary arteries. Journal of Occupational Medicine 18, 818–820. Barnard, R. J., Gardner, G. W., Diaco, N. V., et al. (1978). Near-maximal ECG stress testing and coronary artery disease risk factor analysis in Los Angeles City fire fighters. Journal of Occupational Medicine 17, 693–695.

Bos, J., Mol, E., Visser, B., et al. (2004). Risk of health complaints and disabilities among Dutch firefighters. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 77, 373–382. Byrd, R. and Collins, M. (1980). Physiologic characteristics of fire fighters. American Corrective Therapy Journal 34, 106–109. Dutton, L. M., Smolensky, M. H., Leach, C. S., et al. (1978). Stress levels of ambulance paramedics and firefighters. Journal of Occupational Medicine 20, 111–115. Guidotti, T. L. (1992). Human factors in firefighting: ergonomic-, cardiopulmonary- and stress-related issues. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 64, 1–12. Guidotti, T. L. (1993). Mortality of urban firefighters in Alberta, 1927–1987. American Journal of Industrial Medicine 23, 921–940. Guidotti, T. L. (1995). Occupational mortality among firefighters: assessing the association. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 37, 1348–1356. Guidotti, T. L. (1998). Emergency and security services. In Stellman, J. M., McCann, M., Warshaw, L., Brabant, C., and Dufresne, C. (eds.) The ILO encyclopaedia of occupational health (4th edn. vol. 3, pp. 95.1–95.22. Geneva: International Labor Organization. Guidotti, T. L. and Clough, V. (1992). Occupational health concerns of firefighting. Annual Review of Public Health 13, 151–171. Hytten, K. and Hasle, A. (1989). Fire fighters: a study of stress and coping. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 80(supplement 355): 50–55. Kalimo, R., Lehtonen, A., Daleva, M., et al. (1980). Psychological and biochemical strain in firemen’s work. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health 6, 179–187. Kuorinka, I. and Korhonen, O. (1981). Firefighters’ reaction to alarm, an ECG and heart rate study. Journal of Occupational Medicine 23, 762–766. Lee, D. J., Fleming, L. E., Gomez-Marin, O., et al. (2004). Risk of hospitalization among firefighters: the National Health Interview Survey, 1986–1994. American Journal of Public Health 94(11): 1938–1939. Markowitz, J. S., Gutterman, A. M., Link, B., et al. (1987). Psychological response of firefighters to a chemical fire. Journal of Human Stress 13, 84–93. Reischl, U. W. E., Bair, H. S., and Reischl, P. (1979). Firefighter noise exposure. American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal 40, 482–489. Rhea, M. R., Alvar, B. A., and Gray, R. (2004). Physical fitness and job performance of firefighters. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 18, 348–352. Romet, T. T. and Frim, J. (1987). Physiological responses to fire fighting activities. European Journal of Applied Physiology 56, 633–638. Rosenstock, L., Demers, P., Heyer, N. J., et al. (1990). Respiratory mortality among firefighters. British Journal of Industrial Medicine 47, 462–465. Selkirk, G. A. and McLellan, T. M. (2004). Physical work limits for Toronto firefighters in warm environments. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene 1, 199–212. Smith, D. (1988). Firefighters: their lives in their own words. New York: Doubleday. Sothmann, M. S., Gebhardt, D. L., Baker, T. A., et al. (2004). Performance requrierments of phsycially strenuous occupations: validating minimum standards for muscular strength and endurance. Ergonomics 22, 864–875. von Hallmeyer, A., Lingbeil, M., Kohn-Seyer, G., et al. (1981). Physische und psychische Belastungskomponenten in der Tatigkeit des Feuerwehrmannes. Zeitschrift fu¨r die Gesamte Hygiene und Ihre Grenzgebiete 27, 191–194.

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ALTRUISM – COOPERATION

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Aggression and Altruism Douglas P Fry, A˚bo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Definitional Complexities Cultural Variation in Aggression and Altruism Aggression and Altruism in Relation to Social Distance Socialization and Enculturation Influences

Glossary Aggression Acts that inflict physical, psychological, and/ or social harm (pain/injury) on an individual or individuals. Altruism In terms of an evolutionary definition, altruism refers to any act that increases the fitness of others while simultaneously decreasing the fitness of the actor, whereas in terms of a nonevolutionary definition, it refers to an act involving some self-sacrifice from the actor that benefits another or others. Emics Interpretations of behavior and cultural meanings as expressed by the members of a culture themselves (see also etics). Enculturation The processes through which culture is transmitted to new generations. Etics Observer-based interpretations of behavior and meanings, usually offered by a cultural outsider (see also emics). Fitness (or genetic fitness) The average number of offspring contributed to the next generation of a population by individuals with a particular genetic constitution, or

Aggression and altruism can be seen as resting on the opposite poles of a social-interaction continuum; aggressive acts cause harm to others, whereas altruistic acts benefit others. Neither aggression nor altruism is without definitional complexities. One definitional issue, for example, involves assessing emic (actor-conceptualized) and etic (observer-operationalized) considerations when defining aggression. Clearly, aggression and altruism are greatly affected by cultural processes. Cross-cultural examples and comparisons illustrate the range of possible aggressive and altruistic behaviors engaged in by humans. For instance, some cultures have extremely low levels of physical aggression, while others have very high levels of physical aggression. Levels and manifestations of altruism also vary among cultures as well as among individuals within a culture. The impact of socialization and psychocultural This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 1, pp 17–34, ã 1999, Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

Sex and Gender Conclusions: Human Flexibility and Violence Reduction Further Reading

genotype, relative to the contributions of individuals with other genotypes (see also inclusive fitness). Inclusive Fitness The fitness of an individual when the degree of genetic relationship with other individuals is also taken into consideration (see also fitness and kin selection). Indirect (Covert) Aggression When an individual uses social networks, third parties, elements of the social organization, and/or other covert means to inflict harm on another individual or individuals. Kin Selection Groups of relatives form the evolutionary units of selection that are acted upon by natural selection (see also fitness and inclusive fitness). Reciprocal Altruism ‘‘The trading of altruistic acts in which benefit is larger than cost so that over a period of time both enjoy a net gain’’ (Trivers, 1985, 361). Reciprocity Transactions wherein goods and services (here defined not only in economic terms, but rather in the broadest possible sense) are exchanged. Hence, reciprocity includes phenomena such as dinner invitations, exchange of favors, gifts, and so on.

processes on altruism and aggression is illustrated as peaceful Semai culture and violent Waorani culture are compared (in section ‘Cultural variation in aggression and altruism’) and also as a peaceful Zapotec community is compared with a more aggressive Zapotec community. Among the cultural variation, underlying patterns also can be detected. The greatest degrees of altruism, helping, sharing, and caring tend to occur among close relatives, and these behaviors decrease in intensity as social distance between individuals increases. Also, with greater social distance, restraints against aggression seem to decrease. These general tendencies are not without exceptions, of course, but the patterns are detectable across numerous social circumstances. Sex differences in aggression also show cross-cultural regularity. While women do engage in physical aggression in many cultures, the cross-cultural pattern is that men are more frequently and more severely physically aggressive than women. However, it should be held in mind that, in some cultures, both women and men

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are nonaggressive. Additionally, in some societies, women appear to use more indirect aggression than men, where indirect aggression entails use of social networks, third parties, and/or elements of the social organization to inflict harm covertly on another individual. In the concluding section of this article, the flexibility of human behavior and cultural systems is considered. Culture change wherein aggressive practices are supplanted by more peaceful alternatives does occur. Conflicts may be part and parcel of social life, but physical aggression is not. Cultural alternatives to violence exist.

Definitional Complexities Multiple Meanings of Aggression In general usage, the word aggression is employed in a multitude of ways. The same term is used, for example, to describe a schoolyard fight, serial murder, warfare, or the ‘pushiness’ of over-the-telephone solicitors. Furthermore, the concept at times is used to refer to behavior (e.g., killings) and at other times to personality or cultural attributes of persons or groups (e.g., ‘an aggressive culture’). Sometimes aggression implies physical contact (which might range in severity from a slap to a stabbing), sometimes verbal behavior (again with great variation of expression), and sometimes social actions (such as ostracism). A distinction also can be made between direct aggression, wherein the identity of the actor typically is known, and indirect or covert aggression, wherein the identity of the perpetrator of the aggressive deed (and sometimes occurrence of the deed itself) may never be known by the recipient (e.g., malicious gossip). Another manifestation of the multifaceted usage of the term aggression involves the range of social levels across which it is applied, from individuals, sports teams, cultures, countries, and so on. Emic and Etic Definitions of Aggression Another definitional issue particularly relevant in anthropological investigations involves whether to favor emic (actor-conceptualized) or etic (observer-operationalized) approaches to defining aggression. Paul Heelas stresses emics and notes the role of culture in determining the meaning of particular actions. Heelas points out that actions that may be considered aggression in one culture may not be considered aggression in others, and he stresses that human aggression always occurs within a cultural context. Heelas sees no value in etic, observer-based definitions of aggression: ‘‘we must resist asserting that Ilongot youths are aggressive simply because they lop off heads; that Samoan fathers are aggressive simply because they beat their children; or, for that matter, that the British were aggressive when they lined up to exterminate the indigenous people of Tasmania.’’ To illustrate his argument, Heelas cites

Napoleon Chagnon’s work among the Yanomamo¨ of South America and suggests that Yanomamo¨ wife-beating should not be considered aggression because inflicting physical injuries is how a husband shows that he ‘cares’ for his wife. James Silverberg and Patrick Gray find Heelas’ interpretation unconvincing and see value in both emic and etic perspectives: ‘‘Just because beatings may signify ‘caring’ to some Yanomamo¨ women (‘how many?’ is unclear) does not negate the etic reality of the beatings as violent acts.’’ Chagnon’s ethnographic observations indicate that the wives attempt to avoid beatings by their husbands; in other words, they are not eager recipients of this type of husbandly ‘care’, a point that Silverberg and Gray note in their critique of Heelas’ interpretation. The cultural context of Yanomamo¨ wife-beating also suggests that this so-called ‘caring’ occurs when a husband is angry at his wife, and that much of it results from a husband’s sexual jealousy. Chagnon writes, for instance: ‘‘Some men are given to punishing their wives by holding the glowing end of a piece of firewood against them, producing painful and serious burns . . . It is not uncommon for a man to injure his sexually errant wife seriously and some men have even killed wives for infidelity by shooting them with arrows.’’ An assessment of this emic–etic issue suggests there is utility in both perspectives, and that it is futile to argue the ‘correctness’ of one approach to the exclusion of the other. When the research goals are culturally comparative, then an etic perspective on aggression is critical, but when the goals are culturally interpretive, oriented toward understanding the belief system within a particular culture, focusing on emic ‘participant understandings’ obviously is of central importance. It can also be noted that these approaches need not be polarized to the point of mutual exclusivity. Choice of an emic, etic, or combined perspective for defining aggression relates in part to whether the research goals are culturally, comparative or ethnographically focused. A Tentative Consensus for Defining Aggression In the social and biological sciences, various definitions of aggression have been proposed, but in the recent literature some consensus can be noted that aggression generally refers to acts that inflict physical, psychological, and/or social harm (pain/injury) on an individual or individuals. This definition is considerably more narrow than the range of conceptions about aggression in society generally, yet it is still broad enough to include physical and verbal, and direct and indirect, actions. It is also broad enough to encompass diverse forms of ‘harm’ to the recipient, including various social harms. The definition also focuses on behavior and its consequences, rather than on attributes of the actor(s), whether they be long term (e.g., personality, cultural) or short term (e.g., intentions, emotions). Also, this conceptual definition of aggression can

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branch in both emic and etic directions. On the one hand, this definition can provide a general point of departure for subsequent emic specification. That is, a researcher can pursue an emic understanding of what types of acts cause physical, psychological, and/or social harm within a particular cultural belief system. Or heading in an etic direction, this same conceptual definition of aggression can also be operationalized in specific ways for either culturally internal or culturally comparative purposes. As discussed above, the gathering of emic information on aggression does not preclude the undertaking of culturally comparative etic analyses also, and vice versa. Difficulties in Defining Altruism While the idea of acting for the social good or for the benefit of others is a concept that has been considered for centuries, Charles Batson notes that Auguste Comte (1798–1857) coined the term altruism only about 150 years ago to refer to an unselfish desire to live for others, a term he juxtaposed to egoism, or, the desire for selfgratification and self-benefit. More recently, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines Comte’s term as ‘‘uncalculated consideration of, regard for, or devotion to others’ interests sometimes in accordance with an ethical principle.’’ In recent decades, the concept of altruism has taken two definitional directions, with the development of a relatively standard evolutionary definition, on the one hand, and a more diverse set of ethical and motivational definitions, on the other. In evolutionary terms, altruism can be defined as any act that increases the fitness of others while simultaneously decreasing the fitness of the actor. For example, a noted biological theorist, Robert Trivers, proposes that ‘‘altruistic behavior can be defined as behavior that benefits another organism, not closely related, while being apparently detrimental to the organism performing the behavior, benefit and detriment being defined in terms of contribution to inclusive fitness.’’ The reason that evolutionists have paid a great deal of attention to altruism in recent decades is because behaviors that are genuinely altruistic in an evolutionary sense pose a problem for the neo-Darwinian theory of natural selection. Namely, if altruistic behaviors are detrimental to the fitness of the individual engaging in them, while simultaneously increasing the fitness of others, then how could such behaviors have evolved? True altruism should be selected against by natural selection, since, by definition, it lowers the fitness of the individual performing the act. Jeffery Kurland, Robert Trivers, and others have independently noted that, upon careful examination, many behaviors that at first seemed to be altruistic in nature, actually may benefit the individuals engaging in the behaviors. For example, the helping behavior of older offspring towards their parents in rearing younger

siblings, the giving of warning calls when a predator approaches, or the sharing of food – actions previously suspected or assumed to be examples of evolutionary altruism – have been shown also to accrue certain fitness benefits to the performers of the behaviors. Two primary mechanisms, (1) kin selection/inclusive fitness and (2) reciprocal altruism, have been used to reinterpret many actions once assumed to be strictly altruistic and will be discussed further in section ‘Aggression and altruism in relation to social distance’. Generally, definitions of altruism used in the social sciences and humanities tend to focus on ethics and/or motivations, not evolutionary fitness. For example, Charles Batson proposes that altruism be defined as ‘‘a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare.’’ Miller et al. also focus on motivations: ‘‘altruistic behaviors are defined as those prosocial behaviors that are motivated by other-oriented concern (e.g., sympathy) and internalized values. Additionally, altruistic behaviors are defined as not being motivated primarily by the desires to obtain concrete or social rewards or to reduce aversive internal states (e.g., anxiety, guilt) due to being exposed to another’s distress or knowing that one has not behaved appropriately.’’ Finally, Walter Swap offers a definition of altruism as ‘‘behavior intended to, and resulting in, benefit to a needy recipient unrelated to the actor; that does not intentionally benefit the actor or, especially, that involves some sacrifice by the actor; and which occurs outside a normal helping role, or despite a help-inhibiting role.’’ The variation in the nonevolutionary definitions of altruism is an indication that multiple theoretical and conceptual questions are involved, some of which are discussed by Batson, Kurland, Miller and his co-authors, Swap, and others. A mere sampling of the questions that have been considered include: How can a person’s true motivations be determined? If motivation involves a mixture of altruistic and self-interested considerations, should the behavior be considered altruism? Does true altruism, untainted by some self-interest, really exist? What about cases when actions do not appear to be based on conscious motivations or conscious calculations (such as spur of the moment rescue attempts)? Is it necessary to consider motivations at all in defining altruism or can altruism be assessed based on a consideration of the effects of behaviors? What are the ‘currencies’ of altruism (evolutionary fitness, money, resources, risks, etc.)? Should behavior directed toward relatives be included or excluded from a definition of altruism? Why or why not? Several observations can be offered. First, given the number of unresolved issues pertaining to the definition of altruism, perhaps it is not surprising that the only feature that all of the above-quoted evolutionary and nonevolutionary definitions of altruism have in common

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is that an actor is benefiting other(s). Evolutionary definitions (e.g., that of Trivers) specify that fitness is the currency relevant for assessing the costs and benefits of behaviors both to the actor and recipients, while other definitions more vaguely and more diversely refer to satisfying ‘needs’ of the recipient (as in Swap’s definition), the ‘welfare’ of another or the group (as in Batson’s definition), and so on. Because evolutionary definitions of altruism share a focus on fitness, it is not surprising that they are fairly uniform, differing more in terms of phrasing and style than regarding the central concept itself. A second feature – which almost all of the definitions include – is the idea that altruism involves self-sacrifice, or ‘costs’ to the actor. For evolutionary definitions, ‘costs’, like ‘benefits’, are assessed in terms of fitness. In other definitions, selfsacrifice implies various ‘currencies’ such as giving up or sharing resources, spending time helping, or taking risks for the recipient. Only one of the definitions, Batson’s, does not include the condition of self-sacrifice. Third, most of the definitions (such as that of Miller et al. or Swap, and Webster’s) hold that the actor is ‘uncalculating’, or not consciously motivated by potential self-gains or self-interest. Finally, at least when viewed from the point of view of the recipient, altruism and aggression have opposite effects: aggression inflicts harm while altruism bestows benefits on others.

Cultural Variation in Aggression and Altruism Introduction The main purpose of this section is to illustrate the tremendous cultural variation that exists regarding how aggression and altruism are manifested. Cultural examples will be presented, including a comparison of aggression and altruism among the peaceful Semai and the violent Waorani. Additionally, several analytical points emerge from a consideration of cultural variation. First, aggression is merely one of many ways that people deal with conflict. Second, culture provides a set of ‘rules’ regarding appropriate expressions of aggression and altruism. Third, a continuum exists ranging from peaceful cultures to violent ones; not all human cultures are violent. Fourth, aggression and altruism are expressed in a multitude of ways, and therefore, different manifestations of each concept may not intercorrelate exactly. Cultural Variation in Conflict Strategies Since divergent interests among individuals and groups of individuals occur in any society, conflict can be considered a natural aspect of social life. Conflict, however, does not always find expression in aggression, but rather can be dealt with in a variety of ways, for example, by denying its

very existence, negotiating a mutually acceptable solution to a problem, appealing to a third party such as a judge, avoiding another person, and so on, In their book, Jeffrey Rubin, Dean Pruitt, and Sung Hee Kim propose that conflict – which they define as perceived divergence of interests – can be viewed in terms of three coping strategies (each with various more specific tactics) and a couple of avoidance strategies. The strategies vary both in terms of outcomes and the perceived feasibility for the parties involved in the conflict. The three coping strategies include contending (high concern for one’s own outcomes and low concern for other’s outcomes), problem solving (high concern for both one’s own and other’s outcomes), and yielding (low concern for one’s own outcomes and high concern for other’s outcomes). The two avoidance strategies – inaction and withdrawal – entail low concern for both one’s own and other’s outcomes. Cross-cultural examples illustrate these conflict strategies (as well as culturally specific tactics). In the Middle East, two Bedouins disputing the ownership of a particular camel have the culturally available option of taking their case to an arbitrator within their tribe, and in this system, their own kinfolk guarantee the disputants will follow the ruling of the arbitrator. This is an example of the contending strategy, in this case, without tactics, involving physical aggression. Instead, a set of tactics based on Bedouin cultural values, social institutions, and kinship organization involve relying on an arbitrating third party and the Bedouin kinship system. Other examples of the contending strategy abound among the Yanomamo¨ people of Amazonia, although recent findings suggest that not all Yanomamo¨ are as violent as those described by Napoleon Chagnon. Culturally specific Yanomamo¨ contending tactics that involve aggression include verbal and physical threatening, exchange of insults, shifting alliance formation for defense and offense, ambushing and raiding, abduction of women, chestpounding duels, club fights, ax fights, and spear fights. Among native Hawaiian families and among Semai Senoi bands of Malaysia, conflict-resolving events called ho’oponopono and becharaa’, respectively, provide examples of the problem-solving strategy for dealing with conflict. The Hawaiian ho’oponopono involves discussion, prayer, apology, and forgiveness with the goal of restoring harmonious relations among family members. The Semai becharaa’ is a formal dispute-resolving assembly. Clayton Robarchek describes how the disputants, their kin, and any other interested parties convene at the headman’s house. The headman serves as a mediator-arbitrator in the dispute. The headman and others repeatedly emphasize the interdependence of the band and may recall specific incidences of assistance given and received, in order to remind the disputants of the need to maintain harmony within the band. The becharaa’ may continue for several hours, or more typically, for several days and

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nights, continuously, until the conflict is resolved. ‘‘All the events leading up to the conflict are examined and reexamined from every conceivable perspective in a kind of marathon encounter group. Every possible explanation is offered, every imaginable motive introduced, every conceivable mitigating circumstance examined,’’ observes Robarchek. The overall emphasis is not to determine which disputant is ‘right’ and which is ‘wrong’, but rather to restore harmonious relations within the band. In the process, an emotional catharsis, or abreaction, seems to take place. Additionally, the value of social harmony and the mutual interdependence of the band are reiterated and reinforced. Examples of avoidance and yielding strategies are also apparent in a variety of ethnographic contexts. For instance, the avoidance strategy is widely employed among Finns, when faced with conflict, and also is described for the Toraja of Indonesia, the Fore of New Guinea, the !Kung of southern Africa, the Zapotec of southern Mexico, the Buid of the Philippines, and the Chewong of Malaysia, among others (readers are referred to edited volumes by Douglas Fry and Kaj Bjo¨rk-qvist, Ashley Montagu, and Leslie Sponsel and Thomas Gregor for more information). An interesting example of the yielding strategy is provided in Colin Turnbull’s book, The Forest People, when he describes ‘‘the crime of Cephu,’’ an African Mbuti hunter who ignored group obligations, reciprocal exchanges, and attempted to ‘cheat’ others during a cooperative hunt. The band members first responded to these serious social transgressions by employing a series of nonviolent contending tactics: They ridiculed, insulted, criticized, lectured, and laughed at Cephu before finally suggesting that he and his family could leave the band, an outcome that would have been disastrous for Cephu and his kin, since a small group cannot hunt effectively. When faced with group ridicule and the threat of ostracism, Cephu yielded by apologizing profusely and giving up to the rest of the band all of his illacquired meat. He was then allowed to remain a member of the band. Cultures with Low Levels of Aggression While there are numerous cross-cultural examples of aggression – the wife-beating of the Yanomamo¨, the scalp-taking and horse-raiding exploits of the North American Plains cultures such as the Blackfoot, the killing and head-shrinking practices of the Jı´varo of South America – anthropologists such as Montagu and Sponsel and Gregor have compiled descriptions of cultures with very low levels of physical aggression, for example, the Buid of the Philippines, the Chewong of Malaysia, the Copper Eskimo of Canada, the Hutterites of Canada and the United States, the Mbuti of central Africa, the Piaroa of Amazonia, the Semai of Malaysia, the Siriono of Bolivia, the Tikopia of the western Pacific, the Toraja of

Indonesia, the Veddahs of Sri Lanka, the Yames of Orchid Island near Taiwan, and certain Zapotec communities of Mexico, among others. Physical aggression is just one of a number of ways in which conflict can be dealt with, and every culture has a set of rules regarding to what degree, if any, physical aggression is acceptable, under what circumstances it might be appropriate, and in what manner it can be used. A cross-cultural perspective shows that besides physical aggression, nonphysical contending tactics (e.g., use of arbitrators, judges, or persuasive arguments) as well as numerous yielding, avoiding, and problem-solving tactics are also employed. The selection of particular conflict strategies and tactics is in large part culturally influenced. The following examples, from Zapotec and Toraja cultures, illustrate how physical aggression can be kept at low levels. Various mechanisms reduce aggression in a Mexican Zapotec community that Douglas Fry refers to as La Paz. First, the members of this tranquil community share – and regularly express – an image of themselves and others in their village as peaceful, respectful, cooperative, and nonjealous. People from La Paz express nonviolent sentiments such as ‘we are all one family’, ‘we are peaceful’, and ‘we don’t fight’. It is noteworthy that values and beliefs which discourage aggression also have been reported in other peaceful cultures such as the Buid, Chewong, Mbuti, Semai, and Toraja. Second, children socialized within the La Paz cultural environment learn that acting aggressively is unacceptable. In section ‘Socialization and enculturation influences’, socialization practices will be contrasted between La Paz and a neighboring Zapotec village that is markedly more aggressive. Third, members of this peaceful community act in accordance with their internalized attitudes that favor conflict avoidance, denial of anger, and the prevention of dispute escalation. La Paz Zapotec are likely to respond to another’s anger or potential aggression by withdrawing. Such community attitudes also are reflected in the opinion of one La Paz citizen that it is better to drop a grievance against another person than to ‘‘prolong a dispute and make someone angry at you for a long time.’’ While the village mayor and other local authorities are available to mediate and adjudicate disputes in the formal setting of the municipal building – a fourth peace-maintaining mechanism – many, if not most, conflicts in fact never make it to the ‘courtroom’ due to the self-restraint and the peace-ensuring beliefs held by the citizens of the community. As can be seen in Table 1, which summarizes some of the psychocultural factors that minimize aggression in La Paz, many mechanisms that inhibit physical aggression are internalized, or intra-individual processes. The Toraja of Indonesia also devalue anger and aggression, and their maintenance of a peaceful lifestyle is discussed by Douglas Hollan in a book edited by Fry and Bjo¨rkqvist. The Toraja place a high value on cooperation and community interdependence. They manage to avoid

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Table 1 Zapotec psycho-cultural conflict management mechanisms Level 1: Internal (intra-individual)

Level 2: External-informal

Level 3: External-formal

Denial of anger. Denial that a conflict exits. Avoidance of conflict situations and/ or disputants.

Gossip. Witchcraft. Intervention by nonauthoritarian other(s), such as a family member.

Internalization of values incompatible with the expression of aggression (e.g., respect, equality). Positive image of others in the community. Fear of witchcraft. Beliefs that anger, hostility, and/or aggression are associated with illness. Fear of gossip.

Ostracism.

Local authority structure for mediation and adjudication of disputes; allows for the airing of grievances, apologies, reconciliation, and punishments, such as fines and overnight jailtime. District and state authorities; hearings, legal fees, fines, prison sentences.

Note: Level 1 is largely self-imposed, although culturally constructed. Levels 2 and 3 are both largely imposed by others. Adapted from Fry, D. P. (1994). Maintaining social tranquility: Internal and external loci of aggression control. In Sponsel, L. E. and Gregor, T. (eds.) The anthropology of peace and nonviolence, pp. 133–154. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

and defuse many conflicts, keeping them from ever becoming aggressive. Part of the Toraja’s success at maintaining social tranquility is due to mutually reinforcing psychocultural checks on conflict and aggression. For instance, when someone has a conflict with another person, avoidance of that individual is a typical response. The Toraja also believe that feeling anger can be harmful to one’s health, so for this and other reasons, they avoid discussing distressing events – including conflict situations – that might evoke or prolong feelings of distress, anger, or envy in themselves or others. If a person feels wronged in some way by another, the cultural belief that supernatural forces eventually give each person what he or she deserves can have a calming, peace-maintaining effect by helping to remove any thoughts of pressing a grievance or seeking some form of personal revenge. In conclusion, among the La Paz Zapotec and the Toraja, as well as among various other peaceful cultures, belief systems, attitudes, and norms that discourage aggression while promoting alternative, nonaggressive responses to conflict, coupled with redundant, mutually reinforcing psychocultural mechanisms – including both formal and informal means of dealing with conflict – appear to contribute significantly to the maintenance of a peaceful social life. Variation in Altruism Interestingly, explicit use of the term altruism is rare within cultural anthropology. This is reflected in the observation that probably the most widely used introductory text in anthropology (now in its eighth edition) has no index or glossary entries for altruism; additionally, a library computer search for altruism in the anthropology

database produced only 36 sources (most of them related to the evolutionary considerations of altruism), while a comparable search of the psychology database produced 959 entries. Perhaps this difference in part can be accounted for by the greater usage within anthropology of terms such as cooperation, mutual assistance, helping, care giving, sharing, exchange, and the like, to refer to behavior that sometimes would meet the definition of altruism. For instance, although Douglas Oliver does not use the term altruism, he writes pertaining to a Solomon Island culture that, ‘‘although the Siuai have separate terms for ‘generosity’, ‘cooperativeness’, ‘morality’ (i.e., rule abiding), and ‘geniality’, I believe that they consider all these to be closely interrelated aspects of the same attribute of goodness.’’ Paralleling the cross-cultural variation in conflict and aggression, altruistic and helping behaviors also show cultural influence and cross-cultural diversity. At one extreme, the Ik, an African culture under extreme ecological and social stress, illustrates the egotistic, nonaltruistic capacities of human beings. The prime focus of the Ik is on maintaining a selfish personal autonomy. Providing another example of a culture with minimal sharing, Marshall Sahlins explains how the Dobu, who are extremely suspicious of others, share food only with a small circle of relatives and no one else. On the other end of the continuum, behaviors such as sharing, generosity, and helping – that is, approximate anthropological synonyms for altruism – are valued in cultures such as the Yukaghir, who voice the belief that a person ‘‘who possesses provisions must share them with those who do not possess them,’’ and among the Nuer of Africa, ‘‘it is the scarcity and not sufficiency that makes

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people generous, since everybody is thereby ensured against hunger. He who is in need today receives help from him who may be in like need tomorrow’’ Jochelson and Evans-Pritchard, quoted by Sahlins. A clear example of self-sacrifice can be drawn from the cultural ideology and behavior of Sikh separatists in India who were fighting for the establishment of their own independent state. Mahmood discusses the beliefs and actions that sometimes lead to the loss of one’s life: ‘‘A Sikh on the path of Guru has what is called charhdi kala, the ever-rising spirits associated with total liberation from the restrictions of ego. . . . The Sikh denial of fear in the face of danger, which some take as a kind of military bravado, has its roots in the theology of selflessness in which ego’s attachment to its own life has been extinguished in favor of identification with a greater spirit.’’ Another example of supreme self-sacrifice engaged in for the benefit of the larger social group, occurred in 1981 when Bobby Sands and nine other IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland engaged in a hunger strike to the death. The striking men volunteered from a group of 60 IRA prisoners, and they thought that their sacrifice would benefit the other prisoners and their cause in general. The majority of the strikers died as a result of their actions. Thus a range of behavior extending from the ultimate altruistic sacrifice of one’s own life for the good of one’s companions, at one end, to the selfish disregard for others, at the other, can be found among humans. Additional examples of these contrasting sides of humanity are apparent as the Semai and Waorani cultures are now compared. Case Study: The Peaceful Semai and the Aggressive Waorani Anthropologists Clayton and Carole Robarchek have conducted comparative fieldwork among the Semai of Malaysia, who they describe as one of ‘‘the world’s most peaceful people,’’ and the Waorani of Ecuador, a culture that until recently was ‘‘the most violent society known.’’ Among the peaceful Semai, ‘‘husbands and wives do not assault one another, parents do not physically punish their children, neighbors do not fight with one another, and homicide is so rare as to be virtually nonexistent.’’ Among the Waorani, at the other extreme, 60% of the deaths over the last five or six generations have been homicides, largely resulting from raiding and feuding. And the Waorani traditionally killed all foreigners on sight. The Semai and the Waorani are remarkably similar in many ways, including their ecological adaptions and many facets of social organization. Both groups, for example, live at similar altitudes in equatorial rainforests and are swidden gardeners, hunters, and foragers. Their technologies are almost identical. Both the Semai and Waorani are band-level societies. The bands are generally fewer

than 100 persons and are autonomous and acephalous. The basic economic unit is the household. Robarchek and Robarchek account for the extreme differences in aggressiveness between the Semai and the Waorani in terms of differing cultural–social–psychological complexes. Important differences exist between the otherwise similar Semai and Waorani cultures regarding ‘‘their assumptions about human beings and the worlds they inhabit, in the cultural values that come to constitute central components of their constructions of self, and in their differing conceptions of the relationships of the individual to a wider community.’’ During socialization and enculturation, each Semai acquires a group-dependent self-conception and an image of a dangerous and hostile world external to the band, with security and nurturance only stemming from kin and other band members. In marked contrast, Waorani socialization results in both women and men who see themselves as independent from others and self-reliant. Waorani culture values and emphasizes individualism and autonomy; Semai culture stresses the interdependence of the band members and promotes sharing, generosity, and helping behavior. Robarchek and Robarchek quote the commonly reiterated Semai ideal pertaining to all the relationships within the band: ‘‘We are all siblings here and we take care of one another.’’ Among the Waorani, values of autonomy, independence, and self-reliance are reflected in the examples of women giving birth alone, men regularly hunting alone for days at a time, the elderly being neglected by their families when they become a burden or at times being speared to death by their relatives, snakebite victims being left in the rainforest to recover or perish on their own and, in the event of a raid, individuals generally running for their lives without assisting others, even their close family members, to escape. In short, among the Waorani, ‘‘some assistance can be expected from close kin, but a person’s survival and well-being are primarily his or her own responsibility,’’ while among the Semai, by contrast, ‘‘any person in need has a legitimate claim on the resources of anyone else in the community.’’ Occasional altruism and helping behavior can be found among close relatives in Waorani society, while by contrast sharing and generosity are common occurrences within the entire Semai band: ‘‘They inform a self-image that has generosity and nonviolence as its central components. Since most people do, in fact, approximate this ideal, the image is actualized in day-today behavior.’’ In essence, the central cultural values, worldviews, and conceptions of self differ dramatically between these two cultures. Regarding both aggression and altruism, it is hard to image two cultures that are more different. The Semai stress generosity, sharing, cooperation, unity, and dependence, while the Waorani emphasize individual independence, autonomy, and self-reliance. The Semai

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see the peace and harmony of the band as paramount and conceptualize themselves as critically dependent on others in the band; the Waorani lack a sense of community and disputes are primarily the concern of the actual participants. The Semai value nonviolence, while this obviously is not true of the Waorani. As discussed earlier in this section, the Semai have a special conflict resolution mechanism, the be-charaa’, which serves primarily to restore harmony and reinforce Semai values following a dispute. In terms of daily life, dominant cultural values, self-conceptualizations, the virtual absence of homicides, and other indicators, the Semai are one of the most peaceful cultures known. Until recent cultural changes (which will be discussed in section ‘Conclusions: human flexibility and violence reduction’), the Waorani were the polar opposite of the Semai in this regard, for example, with probably the highest homicide rates of any human culture. Robarchek and Robarchek say, ‘‘Among the Waorani, neither a commitment to peacefulness in the abstract nor a concern with the group well-being prevailed. Absent a sense of community, conflict is primarily the concern of the individuals involved and their immediate kin. No formal mechanisms exist for dispute

settlement, and when serious conflicts arise, the only options are to surrender, retreat, threaten, or attack.’’ The cross-cultural variation in aggression and altruism, of which the Semai and Waorani represent contrasting extremes (see Table 2), shows that humans are not always or inevitably aggressive. Human beings have capacities that range between the extremes of Semai peacefulness and cooperativeness to Waorani violence and autonomy. Thus the human species exhibits a great deal of flexibility regarding selfishness and helping behaviors, aggression and peacefulness, and the manifestation of these behaviors depends on interacting psychocultural processes. Consequently violence is not an inevitable human characteristic seen in all cultures.

Aggression and Altruism in Relation to Social Distance Evolutionary and Cultural Considerations of Kin Selection and Reciprocal Altruism In 1964, theoretical biologist William Hamilton suggested that the degree of biological relatedness between socially

Table 2 Comparison of Semai and Waorani cultures Semai (peaceful)

Waorani (aggressive)

Location: Malaysia. Live in equatorial rainforests. Swidden gardeners; also hunt and gather. Main crops: Manioc, bananas, plantains. Technologies: axes, machetes, blowpipes, spears, etc. Social organization: Band level. Highly egalitarian. Bilateral decent. Socialization: Indulgent and nonpunitive. Resolve disputes through the Becharaa’. Homicide is virtually nonexistent. View the world as a dangerous, hostile place with numerous malevolent supernatural beings and forces. Believe that human beings are helpless and dependent.

Location: Ecuador. Live in equatorial rainforests. Swidden gardeners; also hunt and gather. Main crops: Manioc, bananas, plantains. Technologies: axes, machetes, blowpipes, spears, etc. Social organization: Band level. Highly egalitarian. Bilateral decent. Socialization: Indulgent and nonpunitive. No formal mechanism for resolving disputes. Over the last 5 or 6 generations, 60% of deaths due to homicide. View the world as nonthreatening and nondangerous except for dangers posed by human violence. Believe that human beings are capable, autonomous, and selfreliant. The world exists for human purposes and humans can control it. Humans are emotional and act impulsively; anger is a common explanation for aggression. Social obligations are limited to the closest kin; all other Waorani are potential enemies; non-Waorani traditionally were killed on sight. There are few taboos, no protective spirits, and little use of magic.

The world is beyond human control. Impulsive action, emotions, and affect are dangerous and must be controlled. Kin and other band members provide security and nurturance; outsiders are dangerous. Religious rituals are focused toward gaining assistance of protective spirits to cure and prevent the illness caused by malevolent spirits. Living in a dangerous world, humans are dependent on their kin and other band members for security, nurturance, and support. Sharing, helping, cooperating are common, on a bandwide basis.

Human skills and knowledge are seen as adequate for satisfying human needs; each individual is largely self-reliant. Sharing, helping, cooperating are uncommon and limited to close kin.

Note: Information in this table is compiled from Robarchek, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1996). Waging peace: The psychological and sociocultural dynamics of positive peace. In Wolfe, A. W. and Yang, H. (eds.) Anthropological contributions to conflict resolution, pp. 64–80. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

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interacting individuals affects the manner in which they interact with each other. The more closely individuals are related, the more examples of helping, sharing, and caring should be expected, while harmful behaviors such as aggression, should be minimized in accordance with the closeness of the genetic relationship. Hamilton reasoned that since relatives share a certain percentage of genes in common, helping relatives is an indirect way to enhance one’s own genetic fitness. Hamilton called this idea inclusive fitness, reasoning that ‘‘the social behaviour of a species evolves in such a way that in each behaviourevoking situation the individual will seem to value his neighbours’ fitness against his own according to the coefficients of relationship appropriate to that situation.’’ Hamilton was not suggesting that individuals consciously calculate the degree to which they are related to others before behaving either altruistically or selfishly, but rather that natural selection performs this fitness ‘cost–benefit’ analysis on individuals over many generations. The concept of inclusive fitness, also sometimes called kin selection, provides one answer to the evolutionary problem, mentioned in section ‘Definitional complexities’, regarding how altruism could have evolved if it is detrimental to the fitness of the actor. That is, Hamilton’s concept of inclusive fitness extends the evaluation of an individual’s fitness beyond the individual to include also the individual’s relatives, those who carry some of the same genes. For example, when an individual protects and cares for close relatives, thereby increasing the relatives’ chance of survival and their fitness, the actor is simultaneously enhancing his or her own inclusive fitness. When this is the case, such sacrifices cannot truly be called altruism in an evolutionary meaning. Over the last decades, as discussed separately by Jeffery Kurland and Robert Trivers, biologists investigating animal behavior in relation to the inclusive-fitness, kin-selection concept have found a great deal of evidence to support the model. For example, alarm calls previously assumed to be altruistic have been determined to be given by mothers and directed at their own offspring and other relatives, and helping behavior of an older sibling in avian species has been found to be beneficial to the helper’s own fitness, and hence not an example of altruism at all. Turning to humans, helping relatives is thought to be such normal and natural human behavior that it is at least partially taken for granted. In 1965, social–cultural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins reviewed the cross-cultural patterns of exchange relationships in what has become a classic paper. Sahlins reminds the reader of nineteenth-century anthropologist Edward Tyler’s dictum that one of the primary principles of social life is that kindness goes with kindred, a point reflected in the common derivation of these two English words. Sahlins employs three terms to classify reciprocity in social relationships: generalized, balanced, and negative. Sahlins sees these types of reciprocity

as forming a continuum from ‘‘assistance freely given’’ in generalized reciprocity to ‘‘self-interested seizure, appropriation by chicanery or force’’ in negative reciprocity. Sahlins uses copious cross-cultural examples to illustrate how these forms of reciprocity correlate with kinship distance: ‘‘Reciprocity is inclined toward the generalized pole by close kinship, toward the negative extreme in proportion to kinship distance.’’ Generalized reciprocity ‘‘refers to transactions that are putatively altruistic, transactions on the line of assistance given and, if possible and necessary, assistance returned. . . . ‘sharing’, ‘hospitality’, ‘free gift’, ‘help’, and ‘generosity’.’’ Sahlins notes that generalized reciprocity – for example, the suckling of an infant by its mother or the sharing of food among close relatives – lacks any expectation of direct repayment. Lorna Marshall’s observation pertaining to the !Kung also corresponds with this assessment: ‘‘Altruism, kindness, sympathy, or genuine generosity were not qualities which I observed often in their behaviour. However, these qualities were not entirely lacking, especially between parents and offspring, between siblings and between spouses.’’ Balanced reciprocity involves a direct and equal exchange, as seen in trade or gift exchange, while negative reciprocity is an attempt to get something for nothing through haggling, theft, seizure, and so on. Negative reciprocity can involve aggression, and again, the cross-cultural data indicate that negative reciprocity tends to occur at the greatest social distances. Sahlins’ comment that ‘‘it is a long way from suckling a child to a Plains Indians’ horse-raid,’’ reflects the arrangement of altruistic-to-aggressive behaviors along the social distance continuum. The cross-cultural pattern of reciprocity type and social distance is directly in accordance with Hamilton’s inclusive-fitness concept. This cross-cultural pattern suggests that relatives generally are less likely to behave so as to harm one another, while to the contrary, relatives are most likely to engage in altruistic acts for one another. Pertaining to both aggression and prosocial behavior, R. Dunbar, Amanda Clark, and Nicola Hurst provide additional evidence that behavioral decisions do in fact relate to inclusive-fitness, kin-selection considerations. These researchers analyze historical data on Viking populations and find that kinship is involved in decisions regarding both alliance formation and revenge murder. Viking alliances were more likely to be made among relatives than among unrelated families, and the kin-based alliances also proved to be longer in duration and involved less preconditions than alliances among nonrelatives. Dunbar, Clark, and Hurst also conclude that decisions related to homicides reflect both inclusive-fitness theory and cost– benefit ratios. Nonrelatives were murdered at times for no economic gain – such as during drunken brawls – whereas relatives were infrequently killed to begin with, but when a relative was killed, there always existed some substantial benefit for the killer. Much evidence presented by Martin

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Daly and Margo Wilson on homicides in different settings also is in accordance with inclusive-fitness theory. For instance, they demonstrate that when murders occur within a household, biological relatives are much less likely to be the victims than are nonbiological relatives. The concept of reciprocal altruism, like inclusive fitness, is relevant for reinterpreting behaviors that sometimes were assumed to be examples of genuine altruism. Reciprocal altruism can be seen as an example of what Sahlins calls balanced reciprocity, or equal exchange. The originator of the reciprocal altruism concept, Robert Trivers, explains the concept as ‘‘the trading of altruistic acts in which benefit is larger than cost so that over a period of time both enjoy a net gain.’’ The balanced exchange of goods and obligations is nearly ubiquitous across cultures. Lorna Marshall, for example, notes that a meat sharing rule among the !Kung is that ‘‘the person who receives a gift of meat must give a reciprocal gift some time in the future.’’ This rule closely reflects the reciprocal altruism concept. Divergent theoretical perspectives within anthropology have proposed different interpretations of reciprocal exchange. On the one hand, exchange has been interpreted by functionalists and economic substantivists as representing altruistic and integrative behaviors serving the social group overall. This perspective speaks of the integrative value of reciprocity and the community intent of protecting social group solidarity. On the other hand, formal economic anthropologists and others view reciprocal exchanges as permitting the participants to be better off than they would have been had they not conducted the exchange transaction. For example, John Bennett analyzes exchange among Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers from this perspective. Bennett reports that nearly all ranchers and farmers lend and borrow agricultural machinery on a regular basis, cooperatively assist each other in rounding-up and branding their livestock, and engage in dyadic partnerships and/or labor exchange networks. Bennett notes that while the participants in exchanges represent their activities as spontaneous and altruistic, in actuality, the exchanges are very important economically and each party benefits. While inclusive fitness can account for some types of human altruism, humans often aid nonrelatives. As Trivers suggests, the concept of reciprocal altruism accounts for such actions, because he explains, reciprocal altruism is a kind of symbiosis, ‘‘each partner helping the other while he helps himself. The symbiosis has a time lag; one partner helps the other and must wait a period of ’time before he is helped in turn.’’ This type of arrangement is exactly what Bennett documents for Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers, and also matches Lorna Marshall’s description of meat sharing among the !Kung, wherein ‘‘the person one shares with will share in turn when he gets meat and people are sustained by a web of mutual obligation.’’

Trivers also notes that inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism are compatible concepts. Both mechanisms can operate simultaneously within an exchange relationship, and each can also operate simultaneously in different exchange relationships. Data from a recent study on information exchange among lobster fishermen not only support both these evolutionary concepts, but also suggest that information sharing may result in the participating individuals maintaining advantageous membership within a web of community social relationships. Beyond Nature versus Nurture The study of aggression and altruism is multidisciplinary, and even within anthropology, there are various perspectives on altruism and aggression. For example, psychological anthropologists in approaching altruism and selfishness, aggression or peacefulness, may highlight socialization, enculturation, and/or other social–psychological–cultural processes such as conceptions of self or internalization of values, while evolutionary anthropologists are apt to focus on altruism and aggression using inclusive fitness, sexual selection, reciprocal altruism, and other evolutionary concepts. As mentioned above, the diverse interpretations of reciprocal exchange offered by functionalists, formal economists, and other anthropologists also illustrate the diversity of theoretical interpretations within anthropology. An anthropological rendition of the nature–nurture fallacy entails juxtaposing evolutionary and more proximate cultural analysis as mutually exclusive perspectives. However, such polarization of explanations is unfortunate, because aggression, altruism, and other multifaceted behaviors are too complex to be accounted for exclusively through any single perspective. Both biological and cultural perspectives can contribute to an understanding of aggression and altruism, and to acknowledge a contribution from biology does not automatically imply ‘determinism’ or ‘reductionism’, nor does it diminish the obviously important influences of culture and learning. Furthermore, evolutionary and proximate interpretations are at times quite complementary. A model developed by psychologist Kevin MacDonald illustrates an integrated biocultural model of human altruism. MacDonald emphasizes the behavioral flexibility of human beings, and suggests that cognitive, affective, and perceptual processes are based on fundamental biologically based predispositions to respond during individual development to certain social inputs, especially from parents, related to the social learning of altruistic behavior. MacDonald clearly attempts to integrate evolutionary and a variety of more proximate psychocultural mechanisms in his discussion of altruism: ‘‘The proposal here is that by understanding altruism as a behavioral system involving a variety of cognitive and affective subsystems and genetic predispositions we will be better able to

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account for these cross-cultural data.’’ Furthermore, MacDonald’s perspective is in accordance with the wide cultural variation from altruistic to egoistic cultural systems, represented in extreme form, for example, through the comparison of the interdependent Semai and the selfreliant Waorani.

Socialization and Enculturation Influences Introductory Considerations Socialization and social learning processes are crucial in shaping behaviors, including aggression and altruism. Through socialization within a particular culture, individuals acquire views as to what the world is like and the nature of ‘human nature’, adopt particular attitudes and values, and gain an understanding of the cultural meaning of events and behaviors. In any culture, socialization involves modeling and imitation, reinforcement and punishment, cognition and reflection, and such processes have direct influences on the development of aggressive, peaceful, altruistic, and egocentric attitudes and behaviors. Psychologists note that conditions which have been shown to be particularly relevant to the learning and continuance of aggressive behavior patterns, for example, are those in which aggression is reinforced, there are many opportunities to witness aggression in others, there are few opportunities for developing affective social ties with others, and the individual personally is a recipient of aggression. Longitudinal psychological studies show that both aggressive and prosocial behaviors tend to persist into adulthood once they are learned in childhood; in one study, individuals who behaved aggressively when they were 8 years old also tended to behave aggressively when they were 30 years old. The same intraindividual consistency also was found for prosocial behaviors such as sharing. An Example: The Learning of Peacefulness or Aggressiveness among Zapotec Children A comparison of two Zapotec communities illustrates the impact of socialization and enculturation influences on the development of conflict styles. San Andre´s and La Paz are pseudonyms for two endogamous Zapotec communities, studied by Douglas Fry, that are similar in many respects and lie about 6 km apart in the Valley of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. La Paz is considerably more peaceful than San Andre´s. The murder and physical assault rates are higher in San Andre´s, fistfights and wife-beatings are more common in San Andre´s, and children are struck more often. Additionally, the community images and ideologies related to conflict differ in the two communities. The people of La

Paz hold a consistent image of themselves as peaceful and respectful people, while the citizens of San Andre´s perceive that at least some persons from their community are aggressive and disrespectful. In other words, these communities present the growing child with different social and ideological learning environments, conducive to learning and adopting differing modes of interaction with other persons. Youngsters in La Paz see adults avoiding physical aggression and overt expressions of conflict, while simultaneously cooperating and treating others with respect. These children from La Paz hardly ever witness physical aggression, nor are they likely to be the objects of aggression themselves, because adults in this community consider words to be appropriate for effective child rearing. Parents emphasize the importance of teaching, explaining, and showing their children appropriate behaviors; one La Paz father expressed a typical sentiment, that ‘‘One must explain to the child with love, with patience, so that little by little the child understands you.’’ By contrast, in San Andre´s, a homicide occurs every 3–5 years, and the growing children of the community hear the details of such murders repeatedly recounted by the adults. The youngsters of San Andre´s also have many opportunities to observe fistfights, wifebeatings, and child-beatings with their own eyes, and they learn in this cultural environment that the use of physical aggression is sometimes acceptable. Systematic behavior observations which Fry conducted on samples of 3- to 8-year-old children in La Paz and San Andre´s revealed that La Paz children participated in significantly less aggression and play aggression than San Andre´s children. The nature and content of the children’s aggression also differed between the two communities. The less frequent aggressive episodes in La Paz were also less severe, consisting of proportionately more noncontact threatening and less actual physical aggression compared with the aggressive episodes engaged in by the San Andre´s children. Additionally, while over the 3–8 year age range play aggression significantly increased in San Andre´s, the same was not the case in La Paz. There also is some indication that nonplay, or serious, aggression increased over this age range in San Andre´s and decreased with age in La Paz, this latter trend being extremely close to statistical significance. Considered together, the behavioral findings suggest that a reluctance to engage in aggression and play aggression already has developed in the 3–8 year age range among La Paz children relative to the San Andre´s children. These differences in children’s behavior correspond with the interpretation that different beliefs and values regarding the expression of aggression and prosocial behaviors such as respect are internalized beginning at an early age in these two communities. Prevalent attitudes regarding what constitutes acceptable behavior, shared expectations about the nature of the citizenry, and overall

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images of the community’s aggressiveness and peacefulness are all elements of a child’s learning environment. Through socialization, even by the 3–8 year age range, La Paz children have begun to develop internal controls against engaging in both aggression and play aggression. While the total picture as to why La Paz and San Andre´s differ regarding conflict and aggression involves various interacting factors, the findings on differences in children’s behavior clearly indicate that the differing socialization environments are contributing to the perpetuation of community differences in peacefulness and aggressiveness.

Sex and Gender Sex Differences Cross-culturally, men are more physically aggressive than women. For example, cross-culturally, with very few exceptions, it is men who fight in wars. Men also tend to commit more homicides than women, as demonstrated, for instance, by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson in their book Homicide. After reviewing the psychological literature, Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin conclude that ‘‘the greater aggressiveness of the male is one of the best established, and most pervasive, of all psychological sex differences.’’ However, Kaj Bjo¨rkqvist and Pirkko Niemelo¨ have suggested that much of the Western psychological literature on gender differences in aggression focuses primarily on physical aggression and also reflect other methodological limitations. Nonetheless, psychological, anthropological, and criminological sources suggest that physical aggression is both more frequent and more severe among males than females, and this species-typical pattern (which also is typical of mammals generally) is understandable through evolutionary models advanced by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, and Robert Trivers in his 1985 book, among others, that consider differential male–female parental investment and sexual selection. Based on the findings of a cross-cultural survey of societies, Victoria Burbank emphasizes that simply because males are physically more aggressive than females does not mean that women are always nonaggressive, Burbank reports that women do engage in physical aggression in 61% of 137 cultures she examined. To consider a specific ethnographic example, Kimberley Cook reports that out of 18 instances of physical aggression she observed on Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela, eight (44%) involved women being physically aggressive. Cook writes, ‘‘In San Fernando, the use of verbal and physical aggression by women is a frequent and expected occurrence . . . Upon several occasions I observed women engaged in ferocious verbal fight among themselves which were accompanied by fist-waving, insults, and the hurling of pebbles at the feet of their opponents.’’ Victoria Burbank, Kimberley Cook, and Nicole Hines and Douglas Fry, among other

researchers, have described physical and verbal aggression among women in cultures ranging from the Argentines and Australian Aborigines to the Zambians and Zapotecs. ‘‘Women in Argentina do engage in physical aggression. They may push and shove each other in lines or hit their husbands or boyfriends. But women’s physical aggression is perceived as less frequent, less severe, and relatively harmless compared to men’s aggression.’’ Hence, women in some cultural settings do engage in physical aggression, although they are generally less physically aggressive than men. Women may well express aggression differently than men. As discussed in section ‘Definitional complexities’, aggression can be verbal as well as physical, and indirect as well as direct. In Argentina, both sexes are verbally aggressive, and this finding corresponds with several reviews, such as Burbank’s, that suggest that both men and women use verbal aggression. However, the subtleties of how men and women employ verbal aggression within various cultural settings have yet to be studied. Indirect Aggression Indirect or covert aggression involves use of social networks, third parties, elements of the social organization, and/or other covert means to inflict harm on another individual. By using indirect aggression, the attacker can inflict physical, psychological, and/or social harm on a victim, perhaps without ever being detected. Indirect aggression, as expressed within the social context of a given cultural meaning system, might entail, for example, the spreading of malicious gossip about someone, arranging for the social exclusion of a rival from group activities, blocking social benefits that an individual would otherwise accrue, arranging for a third party to attack the victim, either verbally or physically, practicing witchcraft or sorcery directed at harming the victim, and so on. Research on conflict behavior in Finland conducted by Douglas Fry provides examples of indirect aggression wherein persons maliciously provide government agencies with ‘tips’ about supposed wrongdoings committed by other persons that range, for instance, from alleged zoning infractions to tax avoidance. The reported persons then suffer various degrees of embarrassment, aggravation, and lost time and resources, necessitated by having to respond to investigations launched by authorities. Research indicates that, at least in several cultural contexts, females may make greater use of indirect aggression than males, although members of both sexes have been found to employ indirect tactics. Examples of women employing indirect aggression, perhaps in greater frequency than men, have been noted for Finland, Argentina, and Mexican Zapotec. For instance, among Argentines of Buenos Aires ‘‘women, more than men, favor indirect aggression . . . respondents tend to agree that women, more than men, judge others, gossip,

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lie about others, exclude persons from social events, and interrupt conversations.’’ In conclusion, cross-culturally men tend to engage in more physical aggression, and more severe physical aggression, such as homicides, than women. However, women also are reported to engage in physical aggression in many cultures, although incidences may be rare. And, as discussed in previous sections, some cultures have very low levels of physical aggression overall, among both sexes. Cultural patterns are clearly very influential regarding the expression of both male and female aggression, as shown, for instance, by Cook’s work in Margaritan˜o society. And, as shown by Burbank, there are numerous cases of both men and women acting verbally aggressive cross-culturally. Finally, there is tentative evidence from several cultural settings that women may make greater use of indirect aggression than men.

Conclusions: Human Flexibility and Violence Reduction Human Flexibility and Social Change History and anthropology provide numerous instances of major social change, including examples of cultures supplanting violent practices or institutions with less violent ones, sometimes on their own and at other times when influenced by outside forces. James Greenberg recounts how a Chatino community in the southern highlands of Mexico, which was once fraught with violent murders and maimings, instituted an agrarian reform and, in a movement initiated by the women and later supported by the majority of villagers, banned alcohol consumption – a major social change – which drastically reduced the bloodshed. Greenberg recounts that ‘‘sick of seeing their men killed in blood feuds, the women of the village had organized and had managed to pass an ordinance prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol and the carrying of knives or guns. These measures were effective and put an end to the blood feuding and factionalism in the village.’’ This ban on alcohol was strictly enforced, for the good of the community, and even when someone from the village was seen drinking in a neighboring town, they were jailed and fined upon their return to the village, even if sober at that time. Another example of social change leading away from violence is the abolition of the army in Costa Rica in 1948, an action that created the world’s first totally disarmed country. Oscar Arias expresses that the spirit of peace lives on ‘‘in a country that has proven the seemingly Utopian hypothesis that a small, poor, demilitarized country can survive amidst mighty and wealthy neighbors. Costa Rica serves as an example of peace and democracy in a region of war and dictatorship.’’

In section ‘Cultural variation in aggression and altruism’ of this article, the Waorani of Ecuador are described as an example of an extremely violent society. Besides demonstrating a cultural extreme regarding aggressiveness and self-reliance, the Waorani also dramatically illustrate the human capacity to enact cultural change, to bring about peace. While not becoming an inherently nonviolent society, the Waorani have managed to reduce their homicide rate by more than 90% in a matter of a few years. Clayton and Robarchek explain: ‘‘The killers are still there – many were our friends and neighbors – but with relatively rare exceptions, they have stopped killing. They were not conquered or incarcerated, nor were they incorporated as equals into the socioeconomic system of Ecuadorian society. Rather, new leaders emerged who possessed new information and offered a new set of alternatives.’’ The catalyst for the astounding reduction in violence among the Waorani, as among the Chatino studied by James Greenberg, involved women. Two Waorani women, who had fled the territory to escape being killed in vendettas, returned in the accompaniment of two Protestant missionary women. The two returnees presented the other members of their culture with a new vision of the world, one where all outsiders did not have to be killed upon contact and one where feuding could cease. The two women missionaries provided the means through airplane gift-drops and radio technology to make initial contacts with a widening circle of hostile Waorani groups. Robarchek and Robarchek describe how newly contacted hostile groups also were presented with the possibility of a new reality, a reality based on peace, ‘‘without constant fear of violent death. As bands became convinced that the feuding could stop, peace became a goal in its own right, even superseding the desire for revenge.’’ The cultural change was not brought about simply through a Christianization process. The decision, though, to end the vendettas and pursue a new, more peaceful reality according to Robarchek and Robarchek was ‘‘reinforced among some, but by no means all, individuals and groups by the acceptance of some of the other Christian values and beliefs stressed by the missionaries. The result was that new cultural knowledge – new information and new perceptions of reality – allowed people to visualize new options and new goals.’’ In essence, the Waorani themselves decided that they wanted to stop the violence and adopt a new manner of existence. Conclusions Aggression and altruism can be seen as opposites: aggressive acts cause harm to others, while altruistic acts benefit others. Clearly, both aggression and altruism are greatly affected by cultural processes. Cross-cultural comparisons show the range of possible aggressive and altruistic

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behaviors engaged in by humans. Some cultures have extremely low levels of physical aggression, while others have very high levels of physical aggression. Levels and manifestations of altruism also vary across cultures. However, among the cultural variation, underlying patterns can also be detected. The greatest degrees of altruism, helping, sharing, and caring tend to occur among close relatives, and these behaviors decrease in intensity as social distance between individuals increases. Furthermore, with greater social distance, restraints against aggression seem to decrease. These general tendencies are not without exceptions, of course, but the patterns are detectable across numerous social circumstances. Sex differences in aggression also show a cross-cultural pattern. While women engage in physical aggression in many cultures, the crosscultural pattern is that men are more frequently and more severely physically aggressive than women. However, it should be held in mind that in some cultures, both women and men are nonaggressive. The bold political decision of Costa Rican leaders to abolish their armed forces and the violence-reduction successes of the Chatino and Waorani peoples clearly show the tremendous potential for human cultural change. These examples considered in conjunction with the other evidence reviewed in this article – such as the comparisons between the peaceful Semai and violent Waorani and between the peaceful Zapotec community of La Paz and more aggressive San Andre´s – demonstrate the extent of human flexibility regarding aggression and altruism. The great cultural variation in human aggression and altruism is possible because of human behavioral flexibility. Behavioral flexibility also makes possible cultural transitions away from violence, cultural transformations that the Chatino, Costa Rican, and Waorani examples demonstrate can be as dramatic in their magnitude as they are rapid in their realization. The evidence considered in this article shows that while conflicts may be part and parcel of social life, physical aggression need not be. Many alternatives to violence exist, and it is possible for societies to become less violent. See also: Aggression, Psychology of; Clan and Tribal Conflict; Gender Studies; Neuropsychology of Motivation for Group Aggression and Mythology; Peaceful Societies

Further Reading Arias, O. (1997). Esquipulas II: The management of a regional crisis. In Fry, D. P. and Bjo¨rkqvist, K. (eds.) Cultural variation in conflict resolution: Alternatives to violence, pp. 147–158. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Baron, R. A. and Richardson, D. R. (2003). Human aggression, 2nd ed. New York: Springer. Batson, C. D. (1991). The altruism question: Toward a socialpsychological answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bennett, J. W. (1968). Reciprocal economic exchanges among North American agricultural operators. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 24, 276–309. Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (2004). The evolution of strong reciprocity: Cooperation in heterogeneous populations. Theoretical Population Biology 65, 17–28. Bjo¨rkqvist, K. and Niemela¨, P. (1992). New trends in the study of female aggression. In Bjo¨rkqvist, K. and Niemela¨, P. (eds.) Of mice and women: Aspects of female aggression, pp. 3–16. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Burbank, V. K. (1987). Female aggression in cross-cultural perspective. Behavior Science Research 21, 70–100. Chagnon, N. A. (1992). Yanomamo¨, 4th ed. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich. Cook, H. B. K. (1993). Small town, big hell: An ethnographic study of aggression in a Margariten˜o community. Caracas, Venezuela: Instituto Caribe de Antropologı´a y Sociologia, Fundacio´n La Salle de Ciencias Naturales. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. De Waal, F. (2006). Primates and philosophers: How morality evolved. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dinstein, Y. (2005). War, aggression and self-defence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dugatkin, L. A. (1999). Cheating monkeys and citizen bees: The nature of cooperation in animals and humans. New York: Free Press. Dugatkin, L. A. (2006). The altruism equation: Seven scientists search for the origins of goodness. Princeton: Princeton University. Dunbar, R. I. M., Clark, A., and Hurst, N. L. (1995). Conflict and cooperation among the Vikings: Contingent behavioral decisions. Ethology and Sociobiology 16, 233–246. Fry, D. P. (1994). Maintaining social tranquility: Internal and external loci of aggression control. In Sponsel, L. E. and Gregor, T. (eds.) The anthropology of peace and nonviolence, pp. 133–154. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Fry, D. P. and Bjo¨rkqvist, K. (eds.) (1997). Cultural variation in conflict resolution. Alternatives to violence. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Greenberg, J. B. (1989). Blood ties: Life and violence in rural Mexico. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour. II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, 17–52. Heelas, P. (1989). Identifying peaceful societies. In Howell, S. and Willis, R. (eds.) Societies at peace: Anthropological perspectives, pp. 225–243. New York: Routledge. Hines, N. J. and Fry, D. P. (1994). Indirect modes of aggression among women of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sex Roles 30, 213–236. Kemp, G. and Douglas, P. F. (eds.) (2004). Keeping the peace: Conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world. New York: Routledge. Kolm, S. -C. (2005). Handbook of the economics of giving, altruism and reciprocity: Foundations. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Kurland, J. A. (1996). Altruism. In Levinson, D. and Ember, M. (eds.) Encyclopedia of cultural anthropology, vol. 1, pp. 50–52. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Lansford, J. E., Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., Crozier, J., and Kaplow, J. (2002). A 12-year prospective study of the long-term effects of early child physical maltreatment on psychological, behavioral, and academic problems in adolescence. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 156, 824–830. Maccoby, E. and Jacklin, C. (1974). The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. MacDonald, K. (1984). An ethological-social learning theory of the development of altruism: Implications for human sociobiology. Ethology and Sociobiology 5, 97–109. Mahmood, C. K. (1996). Why Sikhs fight. In Wolfe, A. W. and Yang, H. (eds.) Anthropological contributions to conflict resolution, pp. 11–30. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Marshall, L. (1961). Sharing, talking, and giving: Relief of social tensions among !Kung bushmen. Africa 31, 231–249. Miller, P. A., Bernzweig, J., Eisenberg, N., and Fabes, R. A. (1991). The development and socialization of prosocial behavior. In Hinde, R. A. and Groebel, J. (eds.) Cooperation and prosocial behaviour, pp. 54–77. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Montagu, A. (ed.) (1978). Learning non-aggression: The experience of non-literate societies. New York: Oxford University Press. Neusner, J. (2005). Altruism in world religions. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Post, S. G. (2003). Research on altruism & love: An annotated bibliography of major studies in psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology, and theology. Chicago: Templeton Foundation Press. Rizzuto, A. -M., William, W. M., and Dan, H. B. (2004). The dynamics of human aggression: Theoretical foundations, clinical applications. Oxford: Routledge. Robarchek, C. A. (1997). A community of interests: Semai conflict resolution. In Fry, D. P. and Bjo¨rkqvist, K. (eds.) Cultural variation in conflict resolution: Alternatives to violence, pp. 51–58. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Robarcheck, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1992). Cultures of war and peace: A comparative study of Waorani and Semai. In Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (eds.) Aggression and peacefulness in humans and other primates, pp. 189–213. New York: Oxford University Press. Robarchek, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1996). Waging peace: The psychological and sociocultural dynamics of positive peace. In Wolfe, A. W. and Yang, H. (eds.) Anthropological contributions to

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conflict resolution, pp. 64–80. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Rubin, J. Z., Pruitt, D. G., and Kim, S. H. (1994). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement, 2nd ed. New York: McGrawHill. Sahlins, M. D. (1965). On the sociology of primitive exchange. In Banton, M. (ed.) The relevance of models for social anthropology, pp. 139–236. New York: Tavistock. Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (1992). Violence and peacefulness as behavioral potentialities of primates. In Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (eds.) Aggression and peacefulness in humans and other primates, pp. 1–36. New York: Oxford University Press. Sponsel, L. E. and Gregor, T. (eds.) (1994). The anthropology of peace and nonviolence. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Swap, W. C. (1991). Perceiving the causes of altruism. In Hinde, R. A. and Groebel, J. (eds.) Cooperation and prosocial behaviour, pp. 147–158. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46, 35–57. Trivers, R. L. (1985). Social evolution. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/ Cummings. United Nations (2004). Historical review of developments relating to aggression. New York: United Nations Publications.

Peaceful Societies Karolina Baszarkiewicz, A˚bo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland Douglas P Fry, A˚bo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Existence and Nature of Peaceful Societies Some Theoretical Issues Related to Peaceful Societies Keeping the Peace: Nonviolent Conflict Management

Glossary Aggression Acts that inflict physical, psychological, and/or social harm (pain/injury) on an individual or individuals. Aggression can stem from emotional arousal (e.g., anger, frustration, fear) and/or be instrumental (i.e., engaged in for a reward or to avoid punishment). Becharaa’ A dispute-resolving assembly used by the Semai people of Malaysia. Belief System/Cosmology Conceptions that are held and shared by the members of a society, both implicitly and explicitly, about the nature of humans, the world, supernatural beings, and spirituality. Conflict A perceived divergence of interests – where interests are broadly conceptualized to include values,

Conclusions Bibliography Further Reading

needs, goals, and wishes – between two or more parties, often accompanied by feelings of anger and hostility. Enculturation The processes through which culture is transmitted to new generations. Peaceful Society A society with an extremely low level of physical aggression among its members as well as shared beliefs that devalue aggression and/or positively value harmonious interpersonal relationships. Consequently, conflicts in peaceful societies tend to be dealt with in ways that do not involve aggression. Violence Severe acts of physical aggression generally resulting in some degree of injury or even death.

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The Existence and Nature of Peaceful Societies Attitudinal research shows that neo-Hobbesian beliefs that human beings are naturally warlike or naturally violent continue to be widespread among Westerners today. For example, 64% of college student respondents viewed ‘‘war as an intrinsic part of human nature’’ and 40% agreed that ‘‘wars are inevitable because human beings are naturally aggressive creatures,’’ according to findings reported by Douglas and Brooks Fry in Fry and Bjo¨rkqvist’s Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution. Lawrence Keeley in War before Civilization argues that warfare is old and widespread. Psychologist David Buss, quoted in Fry’s The Human Potential for Peace, writes that ‘‘human recorded history, including hundreds of ethnographies of tribal cultures around the globe, reveals male coalitional warfare to be pervasive across cultures worldwide.’’ Such statements imply that peaceful societies may not exist. However, the existence of peaceful societies shows that violence and war are not inevitable features of human social life. As Carl O’Nell expresses in his chapter in Signe Howell and Roy Willis’ Societies at Peace, ‘‘we appear not to arrive at birth biologically ‘prepackaged’ for violence.’’ (see Box 1). Leslie Sponsel, writing in the Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, proposes some general tendencies of peaceful societies. They are likely to be small communities with egalitarian social structures – including relatively high gender equality – that emphasize cooperation, generalized sharing, and decision-making through group consensus. Additionally, Sponsel suggests that peaceful societies have world views, values, attitudes, enculturation practices, and conflict-resolution procedures that emphasize nonviolence. Marc Ross also lists some typical features of what he terms ‘‘low-conflict’’ societies in The Management of Conflict. In parallel to Sponsel, Ross notes that norms in such societies emphasize nonviolence and cooperative approaches to dispute resolution among community members. After making the caveat that each society is different, Ross suggests that seven characteristics are important in ‘‘low-conflict’’ societies: (1) psychocultural practices which build security and trust, (2) a strong linkage between individual and community interests and high identification with the community so that individuals and groups in conflict trust that its interests are their own, (3) a preference for joint problem-solving which leaves ultimate control over decisions in the hands of the disputants, (4) available third parties (sometimes in the form of the entire community) to facilitate conflict management, (5) an emphasis on the restoration of social harmony that is often at least as strong as the concern with the substantive issues in a dispute, (6) the possibility of exit as a viable option, and (7) strategies of conflict avoidance. Moreover, some peaceful societies

have been noted for their egalitarian values and forms of social organization, a high degree of gender equality, and nonpunitive types of socialization techniques. A solid body of research on peaceful societies exists within anthropology and related disciplines. In addition to a diverse set of articles and books that provide information on particular nonviolent societies, for example, Robert Dentan’s The Semai or Douglas Hollan’s article on staying emotionally ‘‘cool’’ in Toraja, additional sources provide comparative analyses and descriptions of peaceful societies. David Fabbro briefly summarizes information on seven peaceful societies. In a volume edited by Ashley Montagu, Learning Non-Aggression, the contributors pay special attention to socialization and enculturation processes occurring in low-violence societies such as certain Canadian Inuit groups, the !Kung, the Mbuti, the Semai, Tahitians, and others. Further descriptions of peaceful cultures, such as the Buid, Chewong, Piaroa, and La Paz Zapotec, are found in Societies At Peace, edited by Howell and Willis (see Box 2). Ross briefly reviews published accounts on five ‘‘lowconflict’’ societies, namely, the Papago, Norwegians, Tikopians, Semai, and !Kung. Contributors to Leslie Sponsel and Thomas Gregor’s edited book, The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence, present further data on peaceful Inuit groups, the Semai, the La Paz Zapotec, and several other peaceful cultures. Bruce Bonta’s Peaceful Peoples provides thorough annotations of the literature about over 40 peaceful societies. In a 1996 article, Bonta focuses on conflict resolution and other salient aspects of peacefulness using information from 24 societies with low levels of violence. In 2005, he inaugurated the internet site www.peacefulsocieties.org, which includes an encyclopedia of peaceful societies and a regularly updated ‘‘news and reviews’’ column, among other resources. A Natural History of Peace, edited by Gregor, includes chapters comparing the Mehinaku and the Semai by Gregor and Robarchek, and an anthropological overview of human peacefulness by Sponsel. Keeping the Peace, edited by Graham Kemp and Douglas Fry, focuses on how peaceful people manage conflict without violence. The book includes chapters on the Nubians of Africa, Hopi of North America, Mardu of Australia, Paliyan of South Asia, Sama Dilaut sea nomads of South East Asia, Rotuman Islanders of Oceania, and Norwegians of Europe, among others. In The Human Potential for Peace and Beyond War, Fry shows how anthropology can provide unique insights into the nature of war and the potential for peace. Both books provide references related to dozens of nonwarring societies. Additionally, The Human Potential for Peace documents 86 societies that are internally peaceful, provides several case studies of peaceable societies, and explores methods of conflict management used in these societies.

Peaceful Societies

Box 1

797

Nonwarring, nonviolent societies.

The following societies are nonwarring and have very low levels of internal violence. These peaceful societies are geographically diverse and range in size from small communities (e.g., the La Paz Zapotec) to populations in the thousands or tens of thousands (e.g., the Semai or the Fipa). For detailed citation information, see The Human Potential for Peace by Fry and ‘‘Lessons for the Rest of Us: Learning from Peaceful Societies,’’ by Bonta and Fry.

Society

Region

Amish Batek Birhor Buid Canadian Inuit Cayapa Chewong Fipa Greenland Inuit G/wi Hanuno´o Agta Hill Pandaram (see Malapandaram) Hutterites Ifaluk Inuit (see Canadian Inuit, Greenland Inuit, and Polar Eskimo) Irula Jahai Ju/’hoansi/ Ju/wasi (!Kung) Kadar !Kung (see Ju/’hoansi) Ladakhi/Ladaki Lapps (see Saami) Lepchas Malapandaram Mbuti Nubians Paliyans Panare Pemon Piaroa Polar Eskimo (Inughuit)

North America Southeast Asia South Asia Philippines North America South America Southeast Asia Africa Greenland Africa Philippines

Punan/Penan Rural Thai Saami Sanpoil Saulteaux Semai Semang Sherpa Siriono Tahitians Thai (see Rural Thai) Toda Tristan Islanders Ufipa (see Fipa) Veddahs/Vedda Wauja (Waura) Yanadi Zapotec of ‘‘La Paz’’

North America Micronesia South Asia Southeast Asia Africa South Asia South Asia South Asia South Asia Africa Africa South Asia South America South America South America Greenland (Polar Eskimos are culturally distinct from other Greenland Eskimos) Southeast Asia Southeast Asia Europe North America North America Southeast Asia Southeast Asia South Asia South America Polynesia South Asia South Atlantic South Asia South America South Asia North America

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Peaceful Societies

Box 2

Anthropological quotations on peaceful societies

‘‘Anger is ignored as much as possible, as with angry children, but when it becomes too manifest, people physically remove themselves, just as they flee from outsiders. . ..Their mythology has no instances of human physical violence. I asked about murder. They insisted it never happened.’’ – Signe Howell on the Chewong of Malaysia (in Howell and Willis, 1989). ‘‘Available statistics on crime and suicide, impressions of administrators, and my own observations during a period of more than two years in a rural village and a small enclave in urban Papeete indicate in comparison with Western experience and in comparison with reports of many other non-Western societies an extreme lack of angry, hostile, destructive behavior.’’ – Robert Levy on the Tahitians (in Montagu, 1978). ‘‘In my view, the Buid may be fairly described as a society ‘at peace’ because of the extremely low value they attach to ‘aggression’ and the extremely high value they attach to ‘tranquility’.’’ – Thomas Gibson on the Buid of the Philippines (in Howell and Willis, 1989). ‘‘A number of factors keep disputes from escalating into violent confrontations, including: a pattern of socialization that minimizes aggressive dispositions; a set of culturally sanctioned beliefs that promises immanent justice for wrongdoing; the social provision for mediation when impasses occur; and perhaps most importantly, the custom of faksoro – a ritual of apology that, under most circumstances, must be accepted by the aggrieved party. . . . Rotuma is a good example of a society that is disputatious but nonviolent.’’ – Alan Howard on the Rotuma Islanders of the Pacific (in Kemp and Fry, 2004). ‘‘The concept of good is tied to peacefulness. A villager’s reputation and moral worth depend on being circumspect in behavior, avoiding confrontations, and rarely showing anger. These behaviors are regarded as ‘harmonious’ and aesthetically pleasing.’’ – Thomas Gregor on the Mehinaku of Brazil (in Sponsel and Gregor, 1994). ‘‘I have been describing ways of avoiding conflictful confrontations by respecting the autonomy and privacy of others: being indirect, discreet, not putting oneself forward, not making claims on others, or attempting to influence them. Another way of avoiding confrontations was to deny that one was unhappy, angry, dissatisfied, resentful. . .. A very frequently used technique was to turn the situation into a joke; to laugh at it.’’ – Jean Briggs on the Utkuhikhalingmiut and Qipisamiut Inuit of Canada (in Sponsel and Gregor, 1994). ‘‘It is conspicuous that no murders were known to have occurred within Paliyan society. . . I can report a complete absence of feuding within Paliyan society and a corresponding total lack of warfare.’’ – Peter Gardner on the Paliyan of India (in Kemp and Fry, 2004). ‘‘Piaroaland is almost free of all forms of physical violence, a place where children, teenagers, and adults alike never express anger through physical means. . .. Since the Piaroa totally disallow physical violence, and children are never physically punished, the children have no model of such action.’’ – Joanna Overing on the Piaroa of Venezuela (in Howell and Willis, 1989). The Toraja devalue ‘‘. . . anger and hostility and successfully control overtly aggressive behavior through a number of cultural practices. . . . Anger (sengke) is one of the ‘hot’ emotional states most feared and avoided by the Toraja. . . . The conscious awareness of angry, ‘hot’ feelings is upsetting to people, even is such feelings are not openly expressed.’’ – Douglas Hollan on the Toraja of Indonesia (Hollan, 1988).

Some Theoretical Issues Related to Peaceful Societies The Peacefulness–Aggressiveness Continuum A consideration of peaceful societies raises several theoretical and conceptual issues. The first issue involves how to move beyond dichotomizing between ‘peaceful societies’ and ‘aggressive societies’. In The Human Potential for Peace, Fry suggests that the amount of physical aggression manifested across cultures is highly variable and does not lend itself to a simple two-system classification of peaceful or aggressive. Instead, each society can be viewed as occupying a position on a continuum that ranges between the virtual absence of physical aggression on one end and

notable aggression on the other, with most societies falling between these extremes. One way to illustrate this peacefulness–aggressiveness continuum is to place societies along the crosscultural spectrum based on conflict scores. Ross provides one ranking of internal conflict for 90 societies from around the world that can be used to illustrate the crosscultural continuum model (see Figure ). With some rises and dips, the 90 societies are rather evenly distributed across the spectrum for internal conflict. At one end of the continuum societies are very peaceful, and at the other end they have much higher levels of aggression. However, even the societies near the most aggressive end of the continuum are not violent all of the time.

Aztec Basseri Buganda Burusho Balinese Carib Cayapa Chiricahua Huron Havasupi Gond Fon Lepcha Gros Ventre !Kung Papago Mbuti Lamet Semang Mundurucú Pawnee Timbira Santal Tikiopia –5

–4

–3

Cuna Korean Bambara Miskito Rural Irish Yokuts Yahgan Lapp Saulteaux Vietnamese

Lozi Hausa Warrau Ingalik Toradja Eyak

Azande Comanche Gilyak Kazak Kikuyu Nambicuara

–2

–1

0

Amhara Aweikoma Andamanese Gheg Albanians Aymara Goajiro Copper Inuit Iban Negri Kurds Maori Lakher Marshalese Ainu Nyakusa Mende Belacoola Samoans Slave Manus Tiv Trobriand Suku Tiwi Yurok Tallensi Yapese

Low internal conflict

+1

+2

+3

Otoro Shilluk Maasai Somali Egyptian Rwala Orokaiva Kapauku Fijian Klamath Mapuche +4

Abipon Ifugao Riffian Jívaro Shavante Teda +5

+6

High internal conflict Internal conflict score

Figure 1 A crosscultural peacefulness–aggressiveness continuum. (Source: Internal Conflict Scores are from Ross (Appendix A), rounded to the nearest whole number. The societal names used by Ross are retained in this figure (e.g., !Kung instead of Ju/’hoansi) to avoid any confusion that might result from changing names or their spellings.)

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Peaceful Societies

Visualizing such a peacefulness–aggressiveness continuum is useful for it shows how dichotomizing between ‘peaceful’ and ‘aggressive’ cultures is a distortion of reality. Where should one make such a split between peaceful and aggressive anyhow? Any decision would be an arbitrary one. The peacefulness–aggressiveness continuum draws attention to the fact that a wide range of societal possibilities exists, extending from extremely peaceful to highly aggressive. Intracultural Variation A second theoretical issue involves intracultural variation. There has long been a tendency within anthropology to generalize about the characteristics of a culture based on fieldwork in only one or several villages, communities, bands, and so on. When considerable variation exists among intracultural entities, generalizations may lead to misrepresentations about the level of aggressiveness, peacefulness, or other features of a culture. For example, it would be incorrect to generalize that Zapotec culture overall has a low level of aggression based solely on data from one peaceful community, or conversely, to generalize that Zapotec culture overall is violent based on fieldwork in one aggressive community. Jean Briggs voices a similar caution that not all Inuit bands are as peaceful as the groups she describes in her chapter in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence (see Figure 2). In-Group versus Out-Group Aggression A third issue to consider in assessing peacefulness is whether to focus on the degree of tranquility within the

Figure 2 Photograph of a Zapotec procession in San Andres. A religious procession passes through the streets of San Andres in Oaxaca, Mexico. A comparison of San Andres with neighboring La Paz, which is also a Zapotec community, illustrates intracultural variation. Levels of aggression are much lower in La Paz than in San Andres, even though the communities are only an hour’s walk from each other (D. P. Fry photo collection).

group, between neighboring groups, or both. Some cultures have very low levels of both in-group and out-group aggression, such as the Buid and the Semai. The Buid response to conflict, both within the group or from the outside, is to attempt to escape from the situation. Thomas Gibson, in a chapter in Societies At Peace, explains that ‘‘. . . simple withdrawal is the preferred solution to conflict. The socially approved response to aggression is avoidance or even flight. The Buid language is rich in words for fear, fleeing, and escape from danger, none of which carries negative moral overtones.’’ On the other hand, some societies with very low levels of physical aggression within the group may be willing to engage in externally directed aggression. As noted by Ross, the internally peaceful Papago of southern Arizona and northern Mexico defended themselves against raiding Apaches, although they themselves did not glorify warfare. Cultural changes in aggressiveness/ peacefulness over time A fourth issue to consider in assessing the peacefulness of a culture is that the degree of internal and external aggression can change over time. Keeley writes, ‘‘With bewildering rapidity, hated enemies can become respected allies, devout pacifists can become tigers on the battlefield, peaceable societies can become belligerent, and vice versa.’’ For instance, in a chapter in James Silverberg and Patrick Gray’s Aggression and Peacefulness in Humans and Other Primates, Dentan notes apparent shifts in levels of aggression among the! Kung over several decades. The !Kung seem to have experienced a two-decade period of relative peacefulness, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, which was interspersed between more aggressive periods. Sponsel, in a chapter in A Natural History of Peace, notes that change can occur in the opposite direction as well, asserting that ‘‘the transformation of warlike societies into peaceful ones has occurred repeatedly in human history.’’ As discussed by Fry in more detail elsewhere in this volume, Sponsel’s point is contemporaneously illustrated with the Waorani of Ecuador and the Chatino villagers of southern Mexico, who dramatically reduced aggression in their communities. The Waorani, for instance, while not completely transforming themselves into a nonviolent society, remarkably managed to decrease their homicide rate by more than 90% over several years. Thus the degree of peacefulness in a society clearly can change over time. Implications of this observation are that cultural comparisons regarding peacefulness should include a specification of the time frames involved. Also, culture change may at times account for discrepancies in descriptions of aggression and peacefulness given by different fieldworkers for the same culture at different time periods, a point also noted by Patricia Draper in her article in Learning Nonaggression. A conclusion, relevant for reducing violence in society, is that cultural transitions toward lower levels of aggression can be both dramatic

Peaceful Societies

and rapid as shown by the Chatino and Waorani transformations toward more peaceful lifestyles. Aggression as a Multidimensional Construct A fifth conceptual issue related both to assessing the peacefulness of a particular society and to determining where a particular society might fall along a cross-cultural peacefulness–aggressiveness continuum is that aggression, and more generally conflict, are multidimensional concepts. For example, possibly relevant dimensions of physical aggression might include spousal aggression, physical punishment of children, infanticide, homicide, capital punishment, interpersonal fighting with fists, clubs, sticks, or spears, group raids, and ambushes. By some such indicators a society could appear to be extremely tranquil while by other indicators the same society could appear to be more violent. This observation about multidimensionality is relevant, of course, to any attempts to scale societies along a peacefulness–aggressiveness continuum. Some of the challenges posed by the multidimensionality of aggression are illustrated by Fabbro’s comparison of seven societies. While his characterization of all seven societies as peaceful based on a set of criteria (e.g., no wars, no collective internal violence, little or no structural violence, little or no interpersonal physical violence) makes sense in comparison to other societies that do not meet these criteria, nonetheless the complications posed by the multidimensionality issue come into play as Fabbro notes, for instance, (1) infanticide in two cultures, but not in the other five; (2) physical punishment of children in three cultures, but not in the other four; and (3) spousal aggression in three societies, but not in one, and no explicit information on its occurrence for the remaining three societies. Furthermore, in a summary table, Fabbro classifies four societies as having ‘‘little physical violence’’ and for two of those four he notes the presence of ‘‘lethal physical violence.’’ Fabbro classifies the remaining three societies as having ‘‘some physical violence’’ and one of these three is noted to have ‘‘lethal physical violence.’’ Thus while all these societies are relatively more peaceful than many other cultures because they do not practice warfare, lack internal collective violence, have minimal structural violence, have low levels of interpersonal violence, and so on, it is nonetheless clear that some aggressive acts may occur in societies that are near the tranquil end of a cross-cultural peacefulness–aggressiveness continuum.

Keeping the Peace: Nonviolent Conflict Management Introductory Comments How do the members of peaceful societies keep the peace? At the onset, several points should be made explicit.

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Recall that a peaceful society is defined as having an extremely low level of physical aggression among its members as well as having shared beliefs that devalue aggression and/or positively value harmonious interpersonal relationships. It is apparent from the information in the literature on peaceful societies and the above discussion of aggression as a multidimensional construct that peaceful societies differ among themselves regarding exactly what constitutes ‘‘an extremely low level of physical aggression.’’ In other words, variation exists within peaceful societies: All have extremely low levels of physical aggression, but some have lower levels than others. Thus the Semai and Chewong are virtually violence-free, whereas the Tahitians, !Kung, and Mbuti have rare but periodic instances of physical aggression. However, the relevant points here are that (1) acts of physical aggression are very rare and markedly less frequent than in other societies and (2) members of peaceful societies have belief systems that explicitly place a negative value on aggression. Another point to keep in mind is that although it is possible to discuss certain features often found in peaceful societies, each culture is unique. Thus there are as many different ‘cultural formulas’ through which peaceful societies keep the peace as there are unique peaceful societies, since no two societies have identical belief systems, psychocultural mechanisms, social institutions, and so on through which the peace is maintained. The Semai ‘formula’ for peace is different from the La Paz Zapotec ‘formula’, for example. The Importance of Belief Systems Howell and Willis suggest that peacefulness ‘‘is cosmologically constructed and morally embedded in a cosmological universe of meaning.’’ In peaceful societies, the aspects of belief systems that devalue physical aggression and/or promote harmonious relations are parts of the larger cultural cosmologies, and such world views are critical to the maintenance of peace. This point is emphasized by Bonta in his 1996 article when he concludes that a nonviolent belief system is the single most important variable for keeping the peace: ‘‘One fundamental fact emerges: The peacefulness of their conflict resolution is based, primarily, on their world-views of peacefulness—a complete rejection of violence.’’ The Semai belief system illustrates the point. Clayton Robarchek, in a chapter in Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution, characterizes the Semai as ‘‘one of the least violent societies known to anthropology.’’ Robert Dentan, in The Semai, writes that ‘‘they seem to have worked out ways of handling human violence which technologically more ‘advanced’ people might envy.’’ The Semai live in small bands, seldom consisting of more than 100 persons, and sustain themselves through a

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combination of swidden gardening, hunting, fishing, and gathering. Semai society is extremely egalitarian. A headman (occasionally a headwoman) has some moral authority over the members of the band, but this leader lacks any institutionalized power. Robarchek explains that the Semai view the world as filled with dangers, most of which are beyond any human control. The Semai conceptualize human aspects of the world as split dichotomously between members of the band and all outsiders. The Semai also believe in both good and bad spirits. Security and nurturance are found within the band, while danger and death are found outside it. The good, protective spirits are called gunik and help to protect people from the malevolent spirits, called mara’, which attack band members causing injuries, illnesses, and deaths. However, Dentan notes that ‘‘Gunik and mara’ are not merely opposites; mara’ become gunik without ceasing to be mara’ ’’ (personal communication, May 5, 1998). Robarchek emphasizes that the community and its gunik are the only defense against the mara’. In a hostile world filled with malevolence and danger, a person’s security and nurturance can be derived only from others in the community. Thus nurturance (expressed through both emotional and material support) and affiliation (maintaining harmonious interpersonal relationships within the band) are two primary values among the Semai. Robarchek explains in his chapter in Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution that ‘‘good and bad are defined primarily in terms of behaviors associated with these values, with goodness defined positively in terms of nurturance (helping, giving, sharing, feeding, and so on) and badness in terms of behaviors disruptive of affiliation (getting angry, quarreling, and fighting).’’ Thus in this Semai belief system, aggression runs directly counter to community values and the images persons hold of themselves as cooperative and nonviolent. The belief systems of other peaceful peoples also contribute to nonviolent social life. Socialization for Peace Through socialization, children come to internalize their culture’s core values, beliefs, and behavioral norms. Anthropological descriptions of socialization processes suggest that children growing up in peaceful social contexts seldom witness acts of physical aggression. They also learn the social values and beliefs that are more conducive to nonviolent behavior than to acts of physical aggression. Ross found that warm and affectionate socialization techniques correlate with low levels of conflict within societies, whereas harsh treatment of children correlates with high level of conflict. Data from peaceful societies correspond with this overall crosscultural pattern. For example, Fry reports in The Human Potential for Peace that among La Paz Zapotec of Mexico, parent–child relations are warm and affectionate and child-beating is very rare. The most favored reaction to child’s disobedience is to

talk, tell, show, correct, and educate the children. La Paz parents choose positive verbal approach to child’s misbehavior over physical punishment. In addition, children are not rewarded for engaging in aggression but for respectful and nonviolent behavior. During their socialization process they internalize beliefs, values, and attitudes that contribute to peacefulness of La Paz. Data gathered by Fry in La Paz and a neighboring Zapotec community referred to as San Andres, reviewed in Keeping the Peace, illustrate how socialization and enculturation patterns perpetuate peaceful social life. A comparison of child discipline and children’s behavior between peaceful La Paz and more aggressive San Andres highlights certain socialization patterns in La Paz that appear to contribute to the social tranquility in that community. Observing that physical punishment of children is absent or very rare in some cultures with low levels of aggression, Fry predicted in a 1993 article that parents in La Paz would employ less physical punishment than parents from San Andres and furthermore that La Paz parents would favor verbal means of disciplining their children. Both attitudinal and behavioral data were gathered. The assessment of attitudes toward disciplining and raising children was addressed during structured interviews with samples of fathers from La Paz and San Andres. One interview question asked what a father should do if his son let the farm animals under his care eat alfalfa belonging to another farmer. In San Andres, 65% of the fathers included punishment in their responses, while only 20% of the sample from La Paz suggested punishment, statistically a very significant difference. Answers to other interview questions also showed that parents from San Andres advocate the use of physical punishment very significantly more often than do respondents from La Paz. Typical San Andres responses were: ‘‘hit him then so that he grows up with some discipline’’ and ‘‘hit her so she will have a little respect.’’ By contrast, the most favored reaction to children’s misbehavior among the La Paz parents was to talk, tell, show, correct, and educate the children – in other words, positive verbal responses. One La Paz father told how he would talk to a disobedient son, and in his speech, the core value of respect and proper father and son roles are emphasized: ‘‘Listen son, if you do not obey, I am not able to assist you. You, as my son, ought to (have) respect. I am your father. You ought to respect my words, because you know that your father and your mother are the ones that raise you.’’ Other La Paz respondents also regularly mentioned respect, for example: ‘‘Teach them so that they have respect. Educate them.’’ And La Pazian nonviolent thinking regarding child training is expressed by a father who explained that, ‘‘One must explain to the child with love, with patience, so that he is educated more.’’ Some La Paz respondents also mentioned the importance of setting a good example for their children through their own behavior.

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Figure 3 graphically portrays the major differences in approaches to child discipline between parents in San Andres and La Paz. In neither community do respondents advocate much use of negative verbal approaches, such as scolding or threatening children, but San Andres respondents clearly favor physical punishment, whereas La Paz respondents lean strongly toward positive verbal responses. Ethnographic observations correspond with the attitudes and beliefs voiced by the fathers. Fry recounts how during fieldwork in the 1980s he saw 11 child beatings in San Andres as well as other types of aggression directed at children, but never observed in La Paz a child receiving a beating nor any other type of physical aggression from an adult. On two occasions, La Paz parents were observed to threaten children with a beating, but they did not actually punish the children. Correspondingly, O’Nell, who conducted fieldwork in La Paz during the 1960s, writes ‘‘the physical disciplining of a child might be undertaken with a vara (cane), reported to be so by fathers but never observed.’’ Thus, corporal punishment in La Paz is very rare. The parents in San Andres and La Paz also hold markedly different opinions as to the ‘‘nature of children,’’ and this relates to their expectations about children’s behavior. In San Andres, a fair amount of disobedience is tolerated as natural among children. The people of San Andres view children as mischievous and somewhat uncontrollable, and the children live up to these expectations.

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Physical punishment Negative verbal responses

Positive verbal responses

Figure 3 Disciplinary Approaches Advocated in San Andre´s and La Paz. The kinds of disciplinary approaches advocated by parents in San Andre´s (open bars) and in La Paz (gray bars) differ for types of child misconduct such as lying, fighting, stealing, being disobedient, and not doing assigned chores, based on an analysis of the verbs used by respondents. ‘Physical punishment’ verbs include to hit, punish physically, and strike with a stick. ‘Negative verbal responses’ include to scold, compel, or threaten. ‘Positive verbal responses’ include to say or tell, correct with words, educate, teach, show, talk to, and explain. San Andre´s parents favor ‘Physical punishment’, whereas La Paz parents favor ‘Positive verbal responses’. Since the three categories of response are not mutually exclusive, the column percentages for each community sum to over 100%. Additional findings and discussion are presented by Fry, 1993.

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In comparison, the Zapotec of La Paz believe that children will learn naturally how to behave correctly, and La Paz children typically do obey adults. It would seem that the positive verbal approaches as well as the positive expectations that La Paz parents hold may help children develop their own internal controls against acting aggressively. La Paz parents explain the consequences of misdeeds to children and convey both in words and actions the ideals of respect and nonviolence. For example, one father said, ‘‘If my boy sees that I do not have respect for other persons, well, he thus acquires the same sentiment. But if I have respect for others, well, he imitates me. Above all, the father must make himself an example, by showing how to respect.’’ On the other hand, the heavy reliance on physical punishment in San Andres may not be conducive to the internalization of self-restraints against aggression. Physical punishment reflects an external locus of control, and thus San Andres children may come to expect a controlling response from others rather than develop their own selfrestraints. Additionally, as San Andres adults model physical aggression during punishment episodes and at other times, the children are presented with messages that sometimes aggression is acceptable. One line of evidence in support of this interpretation involves the behavior of young children in San Andres and La Paz. As reported in The Human Potential for Peace and The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence, Fry conducted systematic behavior observations on samples of 3- to 8-year-old children from both communities in order to record data on fighting and play fighting behavior (such as beats, slaps, kicks, and so on). The samples of children were similar regarding sex composition, mean age, the age of their parents, number of siblings, and economic standing of their family within the community. Whenever the child who was being observed engaged in aggression or play-aggression, the details of the interaction were recorded, including the identities of the interactants and any facial expressions or gestures. Children from San Andres participated in significantly more play-aggression than the La Paz children (6.9 vs. 3.7 episodes per hour). Likewise, the rate of aggression was significantly higher in San Andres than in La Paz (0.78 vs. 0.39 episodes per hour). Some aggression consisted of physical contacts (e.g., punches and kicks), while other instances blended noncontact threatening (e.g., a raised arm with the intention to beat) with contact aggression. Of course, noncontact threatening is less severe than actually striking blows. In San Andres, only about 10% of aggression simultaneously included threatening. In La Paz, however, 63% of aggression simultaneously included threatening. The mixing of noncontact threatening with physical aggression over half the time in La Paz is another indication – along with the significantly lower rate of aggression among the La Paz sample to begin with – of the La Paz children’s internal restraint against actually engaging in physical aggression.

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These findings suggest an overall reluctance on the part of La Paz children to participate in play-fighting and real fighting relative to the San Andres children, an intercommunity difference that also appears to strengthen with age. These differences in children’s behavior correspond with the interpretation suggested by Fry in a chapter in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence that different beliefs and values regarding the expression of aggression are internalized in these two communities. Prevalent attitudes regarding what constitutes acceptable behavior, shared expectations about the nature of the citizenry, and overall images of the community’s aggressiveness and peacefulness are all elements of a child’s learning environment. It seems that through socialization, even by the 3- to 8-year-old age range, La Paz children have begun to develop internal controls against engaging in both play-fighting and real fighting (see Figure 4). A similar pattern can be found among the Semai of Malaysia. In a chapter in Keeping the Peace, Dentan explains that ‘‘Semai adults do not expect, model or condone violence, for example by beating, hitting, or spanking children. Traditionally, Semai avoided disrespecting or abusing children, thus offering the children no model for committing violence.’’ Both Dentan and Robarchek have discussed the enculturation processes through which Semai children learn and adopt nonviolent attitudes and patterns of behavior in the natural course of growing up. Robarchek emphasizes the importance of the Semai social learning environment as one where children see very few instances of aggression. Children also learn the values, attitudes, and beliefs of their elders. For instance, Semai children, who themselves are not punished corporally, acquire the Semai belief that hitting a child may cause the youth to become ill and die. In an article published in 1980, Robarchek

Figure 4 Photograph of a Zapotec boy eating a tortilla. After helping his elders at work in the fields, a boy from La Paz enjoys snacking on a tortilla. In La Paz children learn that denial and avoidance are favored responses to conflict. They come to imitate the adults of their community who act respectfully toward other persons and rarely engage in aggression (D. P. Fry photo collection).

concludes that, ‘‘for developing children, the learning of aggressive behavior by observation and imitation is almost entirely precluded. The image of the world, of human goals, and of the means of attaining them that is presented to Semai children simply does not include violence as a behavioral alternative.’’ The Rotumans of the Pacific, another peaceful society, are very gentle in their treatment of children. The most effective way for teaching children is ‘‘shaming through ridicule’’ reports Alan Howard in a chapter in Keeping the Peace, but socialization process proceeds more by rewarding proper behavior than by punishing improper conduct. In sum, among the La Paz Zapotec, the Semai, and on Rotuma, children do not receive much physical punishment. This generalization is also true for many other peaceful societies. Egalitarianism Although there are exceptions, many peaceful societies have egalitarian values corresponding with a high degree of gender equality. For example, the Buid, Canadian Inuit, Chewong, Copper Eskimo, !Kung, Mbuti, Piaroa, and Siriono, among others, are foraging band societies, which tend to be highly egalitarian (nonhierarchical) and lack both centralized authority and mechanisms of superordinate social control. Peacefulness also can be found among sedentary cultivators and agriculturalists (such as the Amish, Fipa, Hutterites, Toraja, Tristan da Cunha Islanders, and La Paz Zapotec), but the foraging lifestyle, with its corresponding emphasis on egalitarianism, cooperation, and sharing, may be particularly conducive to peacefulness, a point discussed further by Sponsel in his chapter in A Natural History of Peace. The Zapotec community of La Paz illustrates the pattern of gender egalitarianism often found within peaceful societies, as contrasted, in this case, with the neighboring Zapotec community of San Andres. Women in La Paz are very close in their status to men. Mutual respect is expected within husband–wife relationships and between the sexes generally. By contrast in San Andres the cultural pattern is for men not to trust their wives. The San Andres men exhibit patterns of control over women involving fear, containment, and sometimes force. In San Andres young wives have to ask their husband’s permission to go on an errand and do not leave home very often. They lack the freedom to do so. In La Paz, by contrast, women regularly visit each other and go on errands upon their own discretion. During celebrations in San Andres, the men and women separate: men sit on the benches and chairs; women sit on woven reed mats on the floor. In La Paz, women and men sit together on the chairs and talk with each other. In San Andres women avoid making eye contact with men as even exchanging a quick glance with a man may be considered ‘flirting’. Women act very prudently because if

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a man suspects his wife of infidelity or flirting he may beat her. In La Paz it is courteous and expected to greet members of the opposite sex and perhaps exchange a few words of conversation. The women of La Paz have a long-standing tradition of making and selling pottery. For hundreds of years La Paz women have produced pottery for trade or sale with the result that they have a history of bringing goods and money into their households. La Paz men value and are in awe of the women’s pottery-producing skills, which are passed from mother to daughter. In San Andres the situation has been very different. The women have lacked a way to make regular contributions through trade goods or cash to the household income. Men have brought in wages from their work in the mines. It is possible that these longstanding economic differences underlie or contribute to the divergent systems of belief and behavior related to jealousy, respect, and aggression that are manifested between the sexes. The jealousy in San Andres not only results in more wife-abuse than in La Paz, but many of the San Andres killings and fistfights stem from jealousy (see Figure 5). Avoidance Avoidance entails minimizing interaction with one’s adversary. The members of many peaceful societies utilize avoidance to prevent the escalation of conflict. Relating to the Mbuti, Colin Turnbull poetically expresses in a chapter in Learning Nonaggression that ‘‘in later life the child will find that mobility is one of his primary techniques for avoiding a dispute or for resolving one, for once he moves elsewhere, his sphere moves with him and the dispute is discarded.’’ Avoidance can be temporary or long-term. In the short term, an individual can simply avoid a disputant or in some cases an angry person can remove himself or herself from the proximity of the entire group, as noted by Draper for the !Kung in a chapter in Learning Nonaggression. Hollan’s descriptions of how Toraja remain emotionally ‘‘cool,’’ or under control, also portray a series of short-term avoidance techniques. In a chapter in Societies At Peace, Gibson emphasizes that among the Buid ‘‘the socially approved response to aggression is avoidance or even flight.’’ Additional examples of reliance on avoidance in peaceful societies appear in the ethnographic case studies in Keeping the Peace. Thus short-term avoidance appears to be widely utilized and in some societies is the culturally favored response to conflict. Regarding longer-term avoidance, among the !Kung, for instance, individuals transfer into other bands when social tensions require such a solution. Correspondingly, Bonta, writing in 1996, reports that among the peaceful Malapandaram, Birhor, and Paliyan peoples, communities can split apart in response to a conflict. A final type of avoidance involves movement of the entire group to avoid another group, an approach practiced by the

Figure 5 Photograph of pottery-making in La Paz. In contrast to women in San Andres, the women of La Paz have a longstanding tradition of making and selling pottery, thus contributing substantially to household income. The economic contribution of La Paz women may be one reason why they have a higher status and are treated with greater respect than are the women of San Andres (D. P. Fry photo collection).

Semai and Chewong. Bonta observes that the peaceful Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites have also moved away from conflicts with other societies on numerous historical occasions. Internalization of Self-Restraint Some peaceful societies not only devalue aggression but also inhibit the expression of anger. Supposedly, the suppression of anger also helps to inhibit aggression. Cultural values favoring the denial or nonexpression of anger can be found among the Chewong, some Canadian Inuit groups, !Kung, La Paz Zapotec, Semai, Toraja, and other cultures. Hollan provides a thorough discussion of anger and aggression control mechanisms among the Toraja. He writes: ‘‘Standards of etiquette; fears of ridicule, supernatural retribution, and magical retaliation; and the use of culturally constituted defense mechanisms seem remarkably effective in curtailing overt displays of anger and hostility in Toraja.’’

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The denial of anger also has been noted in both the Semai and the La Paz Zapotec. Among the La Paz Zapotec, by adulthood, persons have internalized attitudes, values, and beliefs that serve as a self-restraining check on physical aggression. O’Nell writes in Societies At Peace that ‘‘one of the most effective and extensively used devices to prevent negative dispositions from erupting into interpersonal violence in La Paz is denial.’’ Correspondingly, Briggs emphasizes in a chapter in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence that in the Inuit camps she studied, ‘‘fear of aggression was also inculcated in various ways during the process of socialization,’’ and that by adulthood emotional selfcontrol was well developed, ‘‘especially denial and nonexpression of hostile and resentful feelings.’’ Draper suggests in Learning Nonaggression that norms which run counter to the expression of anger and aggression are being internalized by individuals in !Kung society. Selfrestraint in conflict situations also occurs in peaceful cultures such as the Ifaluk, Paliyan, Tahitians, Hopi, Rotuma, and Norway, as noted by both, Bonta in his 1996 article and in ethnographic cases from Keeping the Peace. Within the belief systems of some peaceful societies, anger and physical aggression have acquired particular cultural meanings as disgusting, frightening, or even illnessprovoking. It seems likely that such beliefs have an aggression-inhibiting effect once they are internalized by the individuals of a culture. Gregor explains in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence that among most Upper Xingu River basin tribes, ‘‘violence is ugly, dangerous, and inhuman, while peace defines what is human and morally valued.’’ Fabbro notes that Mbuti abhor any violence which produces blood, because in the Mbuti belief system, an entity called pepo can then escape from the body through the bleeding opening, causing the death of the victim. Among the Semai and the Toraja, anger can lead to unpleasant feelings and can cause illness. In fact, the Semai are terrified by violence. Similarly, the Chewong fear violence. Hollan quotes a Toraja mother, who in explaining how she calms herself if she begins to feel anger, alludes to both the connection between anger and illness in the Toraja belief system and the importance of exercising self-restraint: ‘‘If, for example, we are about to get angry, in order to calm/soothe/control, we must remember, ‘If I get angry, what’s the use?’ Our bodies will be bothered. It is better, even if the children are very bad, to just reprimand them well, in order to avoid illness.’’ Such cultural beliefs and reactions, once they are internalized by the members of society, can be seen as having a major inhibiting influence on the expression of both anger and aggression. Informal Social Control In peaceful societies, acts of physical aggression and other behaviors that violate social norms can be met with a variety of sociocultural responses, for instance, criticism, ridicule, gossip, witchcraft, withdrawal of support, and

ostracism. These mechanisms are informal social controls, in contrast to formal social control mechanisms such as courts of law. Both informal and formal types of social control operate in some peaceful societies such as the La Paz Zapotec, where both the formal legal system of courts and a host of informal mechanisms, such as concern about negative gossip or fear of witchcraft, inhibit physical aggression. Similarly, informal controls among the Toraja are exemplified by Hollan’s descriptions of how people are motivated to avoid expressing anger and aggression in part out of fear of social ridicule and also in part because the recipient of one’s anger or aggression might retaliate through magical means. Additionally, externally imposed formal social control appears in the form of government civil servants assigned to Torajan villages. Third-Party Involvement in Conflict Resolution In Keeping the Peace, Fry points out that third parties readily become involved when conflict is brewing between others members of the society. The simplest third party role, that of friendly peacemaker, involves separating or distracting disputants. The responsibility of group members to intervene is stressed by Bonta when he summarizes in 1996 for the Yanadi, Ifaluk, Malapandaram, Nubians, Paliyan and other peaceful cultures that ‘‘it is incumbent on bystanders to become involved in virtually any circumstance where controversies threaten to become serious or where a conflict situation seems to be developing.’’ As noted by Bonta, among the Tristan da Cunha Islanders a clever bystander might defuse a quarrel with jokes. Briggs specifies in The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence that there were no formal leaders in the peaceful Inuit camps she studied and that ‘‘every individual was equally responsible for keeping the peace.’’ Robarchek also emphasizes how every member of the Semai band has the responsibility to immediately bring any conflict to the attention of the headman for settlement. From Briggs’ descriptions of the Inuit camps, it is clear that friendly peacemakers utilized strategies for distracting, calming, and reminding a disputant of proper behavior: ‘‘. . . others laughed and turned the matter into a joke; tried to reassure the angry person that ‘it’s nothing to get angry at, have some tea’; [or] commented disapprovingly: ‘You get angry easily.’ ’’ Instances that amount to friendly peacemaking by others are also described for the Toraja by Hollan, and the !Kung by Draper, who writes, for example, ‘‘Other people will intervene before a person can act in a hot rage with possible serious injury to his enemy.’’ In Keeping the Peace, Peter Gardner provides a description of the friendly peacemaking process among the Paliyan of India: ‘‘Their subtle, self-appointed task is to soothe or distract without violating the rights of the people in conflict.’’ Third-parties who adopt the role of mediator go beyond the activities of friendly peacemakers by delving

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into the substance of a dispute in an attempt to help the disputants find an agreeable solution. Mediators attempt to be impartial, and they lack the authority to enforce the terms of an agreement. A statement of a Torajan villager, quoted by Hollan, suggests that persons in the community adopt mediator roles: ‘‘If we know that A has been angry with B, right away we will visit them and publicly repair (reconcile) them, so that there is peace. Because we feel that if there is a rift in the village, everything is ruined!’’ During the Semai conflict-resolution assembly called becharaa’, the headman (assisted by other community members) adopts a mediator role, although elements of arbitration on the part of the headman, such as making an unenforceable verdict, also may be present. But the headman’s authority is limited, as reflected in Robarchek’s characterization in Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution of the Semai headman as the ‘‘first among equals.’’ Perhaps his role is best characterized as ‘mediator-arbitrator’. With an egalitarian band type of social organization, the Semai lack superordinate mechanisms for resolving disputes. On occasions when a dispute, or hal, cannot be avoided, the headman convenes a becharaa’. The persons who are engaged in a dispute, their relatives, and any other members of the community, who choose to attend, meet at the house of the headman, usually in the late afternoon. At first, they discuss any number of topics, except the dispute that is the reason for the gathering. After some while, several elder members of the band each present lengthy monologs referring to the mutual interdependence of all members of the community. Everyone is reminded of their dependence on the other members of the band and that maintaining harmony and unity is of primary importance. Following these reiterations of community values and cosmology, one of the disputants eventually begins to discuss the hal. Next the other disputant offers a portrayal of the dispute. Others join in, offering opinions and observations, or perhaps asking clarifying questions. The disputants do not confront each other or argue, but rather they calmly address the gathered assembly. The becharaa’ continues for hours or possibly for several days and nights. The headman’s household provides food, and people may nap from time to time on the floor as the discussion continues. Throughout the becharaa’ meeting, anger and other emotions generally are not displayed. Robarchek explains in Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution that during the becharaa’, the events related to the dispute are explored from ‘‘every conceivable perspective in a kind of marathon encounter group. Every possible explanation is offered, every imaginable motive introduced, every conceivable mitigating circumstance examined until finally a point is reached where there is simply nothing left to say.’’ The headman then lectures one or both of the parties, noting their guilt in the hal, instructing them in how they should have acted differently, and directing them not to repeat such behavior.

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The headman and other elders again make speeches reaffirming the paramount necessity of unity and harmony within the band. Robarchek emphasizes how, through the becharaa’, the Semai are able to deal nonviolently with serious conflicts, involving property ownership, infidelity, divorce, land claims, etc., in such a way as to (1) dissipate angry emotions, (2) deal with the substantive issues of the dispute, (3) promote the reconciliation of the antagonists, and (4) reconfirm and reinforce the interdependence of all band members and the need for social harmony. In a process that has some similarities to the becharaa’, members of Buid society may submit a dispute to tultulan, or collective discussion within the band, in which the group decides what compensation might be paid by one party to the other. In this case, the band members at the tultulan function as mediators in helping to settle the dispute. Gibson explains in Societies At Peace that divorce is the most common type of dispute that is submitted to a tultulan, since the favored Buid approach to conflict, avoidance, cannot long be employed by spouses. Gibson writes, ‘‘No one has the authority to enforce a settlement, but through extended discussion and diffuse moral pressure, divorces are normally settled without undue disruption. The emphasis is on preserving communal harmony (uway) through the separation or reconciliation of the disputants.’’

Conclusions While the majority of cultures tolerate, or in some cases augment, physical aggression and violence, the existence of dozens of peaceful societies demonstrates that a nonviolent social life also is within the realm of possibility. In his 1996 article, Bonta suggests that ‘‘the Western world-view boils down to an acceptance of the inevitability of conflict and violence,’’ but this is not the case within the belief systems of peaceful societies. While conflicts certainly exist in peaceful societies, the members of these societies deal with their disputes in ways other than by acting aggressively. The first lesson to learn from the peaceful societies is that the moderate-to-high levels of violence that occur in many cultures are not inevitable. It is possible to create human societies with extremely low levels of physical aggression. The second set of lessons comes from a careful examination of how peaceful societies maintain their social tranquility. A key observation is that the belief systems of peaceful cultures do not accept the inevitability of violence. Additionally, egalitarianism seems especially conducive to keeping the peace. Other peacekeeping approaches include (1) socialization practices that favor nonviolence over aggression and promote the internalization of nonviolent values and behavioral patterns, (2) the regular use of interpersonal avoidance, (3) the development of self-restraint against expressing anger and aggression, (4) the use of diverse social

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control mechanisms to reinforce nonviolence, and (5) active third-party participation in conflict resolution. See also: Aggression and Altruism; Aggression, Psychology of; Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview; Conflict Management and Resolution; Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict; Peace Culture; Ritual and Symbolic Behavior

Bibliography Bonta, B. D. (1993). Peaceful peoples: An annotated bibliography. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Bonta, B. D. (1996). Conflict resolution among peaceful societies: The culture of peacefulness. Journal of Peace Research 33, 403–420. Dentan, R. K. (1968). The Semai: A nonviolent people of Malaya. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Fabbro, D. (1978). Peaceful societies: An introduction. Journal of Peace Research 15, 67–83. Fry, D. P. (1993). The intergenerational transmission of disciplinary practices and approaches to conflict. Human Organization 52, 176–185. Fry, D. P. (2006). The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press. Fry, D. P. and Bjo¨rkqvist, K. (eds.) (1997). Cultural variation in conflict resolution: Alternatives to violence. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gregor and Thomas (eds.) (1996). A natural history of peace. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Hollan, D. (1988). Staying ‘‘cool’’ in Toraja: Informal strategies for the management of anger and hostility in a nonviolent society. Ethos 16, 52–72. Howell, S. and Willis, R. (eds.) (1989). Societies at peace: Anthropological perspectives. New York: Routledge. Keeley, L. H. (1996). War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. New York: Oxford University Press. Kemp, G. and Fry, D. P. (eds.) (2004). Keeping the peace: Conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world. New York: Routledge. Montagu, A. (ed.) (1978). Learning non-aggression: The experience of non-literate societies. New York: Oxford University Press. Robarchek, C. A. (1980). The image of nonviolence: World view of the Semai Senoi. Federated Museums Journal 25, 103–117.

Ross, M. H. (1993). The management of conflict: Interpretations and interests in comparative perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Silverberg, J. and Gray, J. P. (eds.) (1992). Aggression and peacefulness in humans and other primates. New York: Oxford University Press. Sponsel, L. E. (1996). Peace and nonviolence. In Levinson, D. and Ember, M. (eds.) Encyclopedia of cultural anthropology vol. 3. pp. 908–912. New York: Henry Holt. Sponsel, L. E. and Gregor, T. (eds.) (1994). The anthropology of peace and nonviolence. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

Further Reading Black, D. (1993). The social structure of right and wrong. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Bonta, B. D. (1997). Cooperation and competition in peaceful societies. Psychological Bulletin 121, 299–320. Bonta, B. D. and Fry, D. P. (2006). Lessons for the rest of us: Learning from peaceful societies. In Fitzduff, M. and Stout, C. E. (eds.) The psychology of resolving global conflicts: From war to peace vol. 1. pp. 175–210. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. Dennen, J. M. G. van der (1995). The origin of war. (2 vols). Groningen: The Netherlands. Fry, D. P. (1992). ‘‘Respect for the rights of others is peace’’: Learning aggression versus non-aggression among the Zapotec. American Anthropologist 94, 621–639. Fry, D. P. (2007). Beyond war: The human potential for peace. New York: Oxford University Press. Gardner, P. (2000). Bicultural versatility as a frontier adaptation among Paliyan foragers of south India. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Robarchek, C. A. (1979). Conflict, emotion, and abreaction: Resolution of conflict among the Semai Senoi. Ethos 7, 104–123. Robarchek, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1996). Waging peace: The psychological and sociocultural dynamics of positive peace. In Wolfe, A. W. and Yang, H. (eds.) Anthropological contributions to conflict resolution, pp. 64–80. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Robarchek, C. A. and Robarchek, C. J. (1998). Reciprocities and realities: World views, peacefulness, and violence among Semai and Waorani. Aggressive Behavior 24, 123–133.

Relevant Website http://www.peacefulsocieties.org – Peaceful Societies.

Peace Culture Elise Boulding, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Conceptual Dimensions of Peace Culture Cultures of War and Peace in the Historical Record Utopian Thought and Experimentation as Expressions of Peace Culture Peace–War Dualism in Religions Cultures

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 2, pp 653–668, ã [1999], Elsevier Inc., with revisions made by the Editor.

Secular Peace Movements and Peace Cultures Women’s Culture and Peace Culture Peace Culture in Everyday Life A Review of Perspectives Further Reading

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Glossary Ahimsa The principled practice of nonkilling, nondestruction of any living thing. An ideal taught by Gandhi but acknowledged by him as not always possible in practice. Altruism Concern for the welfare of others even at the expense of one’s own well-being. Biophilia A concept developed by Edward Wilson to refer to a postulated biologically based emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms, subject to being mediated by social learning. Civil Society Citizens interacting in community spaces on behalf of shared common interests. In character civil society is nongovernmental, nonmilitary, and – traditionally – also nonecclesiastical. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are often referred to as the backbone of civil society. Conscientious Objectors citizens who refuse military service either because of deeply held views on the sacredness of human life, or because of a secular, humanistic valuing of human life. Such citizens are committed to nonviolent alternatives to war. Culture of Peace A cluster of relational and institutional chacteristics that ennable a society to respond peacefully and creatively to difference and conflict.

Peace culture refers to a cluster of attributes that enables peaceable behavior to take place in a society. This cluster can be thought of as a mosaic of identities, attitudes, values, beliefs, and institutional patterns that lead people to live nurturantly with one another and the Earth itself without the aid of structured power differentials, to deal creatively with their differences, and share their resources. This article reviews (1) conceptual dimensions of peace culture; (2) cultures of war and peace in the historical record; (3) utopianism; (4) peace–war dualism in religious cultures; (5) the role of peace movements in peace culture; (6) women’s culture; and (7) peace culture in everyday life.

Conceptual Dimensions of Peace Culture Peace cultures as separate entities exist but are not common. They can be identified in communities that adhere to religious teachings of nonviolence, and in relatively isolated indigenous communities that handle all conflicts with an easy but practiced nonviolence. More generally, peaceableness and aggression coexist as clusters of attitudes and behaviors present in varying proportions in most societies, reflecting the basic human need for bonding on the one hand, and the equally basic human need for autonomy, for personal space, on the other. Each society

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Nonviolence A practice of doing no harm, physical or mental, to others. When practiced in social change movements, nonviolence calls for a strategy of noncooperation. Nonviolent conflict resolution emphasizes cooperative problem solving that meets the needs of all parties. Peace (1) Negative peace refers to the absence of war. (2) Positive peace refers to a condition in which social and economic justice and well-being are ensured for all. (3) Inner peace refers to a condition of inner harmony in the individual. Power Power ‘over’ is the ability to make others do something they do not want to do. Power with, or empowerment, enables others to carry out actions of social value that they have previously felt unnable to perform. Sarvodaya A concept frequently used by Gandhi to refer to ‘the welfare of all’. Utopia The subject and title of a book by Thomas More (1516) meaning literally ‘no place’ – an imagined place or society that has achieved a perfect social system. lt also refers to intentional communities whose goal is to create an ideal miniature society.

develops its own patterns of balancing these needs, and the pattern may be primarily nonviolent, or one of intermittent violence alternating with relative periods of peace. A peace culture cannot be said to be present simply in the absence of war. Rather, it is a continuous process of nonviolent problem solving and the creation of institutions that meet the needs of all its members. Peace culture is thus stronger in some societies, weaker in others. Many different blends of peaceable and ‘warrior culture’ themes can be found, with the balance between them shifting from society to society and from historical moment to historical moment. Peace culture is not synonomous with civil society, but is closely related to it, only with a stronger emphasis on the skills, processes, and institutions that enable nonviolent solutions in the face of serious differences, and on the attitudes and values that make peaceful behaviors possible. UNESCO’s Culture of Peace Program, initiated in 1995 to assist wartorn societies in the work of reconciliation and rebuilding, has six components that help to elucidate the goals and methods of intentional development of peace culture: 1. Power is redefined not in terms of violence or force, but of active nonviolence. This component builds upon the experience of active nonviolence as a means of social change and its proven success during the

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twentieth century. Using nonviolence as a means and strategy, social movements contribute to the establishment of new institutions consistent with the other components of a culture of peace. People are mobilized not in order to defeat an enemy but in order to build understanding, tolerance, and solidarity. This component (corresponding to the central tenets of nonviolence developed by Gandhi, King, and Mandela) emphasizes the need for liberating the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and places strategies for developing unity at the center of deliberation and action. The hierarchical, vertical authority that characterizes the culture of violence and war is replaced by a culture of peace, characterized by a democratic process, in which people participate on a continuing basis in making decisions that affect their lives. This approach represents both a tactical means and a strategic end, engaging people in decision making at all levels, involving them, and empowering them through the victories achieved. Secrecy and control of information by those in power is replaced by the free flow and sharing of information among everyone involved. The accessibility of information undermines authoritarianism and encourages social change. It is the necessary basis for real, participatory democracy, both in the process of social change and in the new institutions resulting from it. The male-dominated culture of violence and war is replaced by a culture based upon power sharing between men and women, especially the caring and nurturing capabilities traditionally associated with and developed by women. This strategy – and goal – places the engagement and empowerment of women at the center of the process of peace building, as well as in the new institutions emerging from it. Finally, the exploitation that has characterized the culture of violence and war (slavery, colonialism, and economic exploitation) is replaced by cooperation and sustainable development for all. This component distinguishes the culture of peace from static conceptions of peace which perpetuate the violence of the status quo, and links it intrinsically with social justice and the changes necessary to attain and to preserve it.

Cultures of War and Peace in the Historical Record For every society, regardless of how violent, bonding activity is central to the reproduction of that society. Daily life revolves around raising and feeding families and organizing the work of production and of meeting human needs, interspersed with times of feasting and celebration of human creativity in poetry, song, dance,

and art. The historical record, however, is generally written as the story of the rise and fall of empires, a chronicle of reigns, wars, battles, and military and political revolutions. According to this view, well expressed by the historian W. H. McNeil, the story of the ingestion of weaker societies by stronger ones and of rivalries among the strong is the story of humankind. If we want to know why so few historians record the more complex interplay of human activities in various domains of life, we can look to the record explicitly left for posterity for the answer: monuments glorify achievements in battle. From ancient times, written records recount the triumphs of priestkings and their gods in this world and the next. The glorification of the warrior in history has a powerful effect on the human self-image. It leads to viewing the struggle for power as the basic theme of human existence. Current high levels of reported local and national interethnic and intercultural violence and high levels of military preparedness for interstate violence on every continent confirm this view. Yet a closer inspection of the historical record, a new look at the biosphere of the Earth, and a new look at what Native Americans call ‘all our relations’, suggests a different basic model of human relationship with life itself. The possibility of a nonviolent integration of bonding and autonomy needs for humans removes the specter of a continuous precarious balancing of warrior culture and peace culture, and opens the way for more robust conceptions of peace culture for the future. The seeds for this development already exist in many warrior traditions. Note for example the prayer recited on ceremonial occasions by the sailors of the British Navy: ‘‘Go forth into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold fast that which is good; render no man evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak; help the afflicted; honor all men.’’ Looking first at the activity within the scholarly community, it was in the 1920s and continuing through the 1950s, that a small group of interdisciplinary-minded scholars and activists began laying the foundations of a new social science discipline that would develop new perspectives on war, and focus on alternative methods of conflict resolution between states. Quincy Wright’s pathbreaking Study of War Project represented a major conceptual breakthrough in questioning the inevitability of war in human history. During this same period Sorokin analyzed the dynamics of historical change in culture systems from the fifth century BC through the 1920s, and the relationship between culture types (ideational–idealistic or sensate/ materialistic) and the frequency of warfare over time. Was warfare dying out or increasing over time? The answer was, ‘neither’. There were only random fluctuations over the centuries, though war itself was becoming more lethal. The very fact of random fluctuations undermined the concept of war as unavoidable.

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As historians continued to ask sharp new questions of history, in the 1960s a group of American scholars formed the Council on Peace Research in History, which soon linked with the comparable European Working Group on Peace Research in History. These historians have documented peace movements and peace processes through the centuries. Their task has been not only to change the image of human history as the record of war, by documenting the far more ubiquitous activities of everyday problem solving and conflict resolution at every level from local communities to interstate relations, but also to demonstrate how often such behavior created effective alternatives to military action. Timetables of History, a project begun in Germany and subsequently translated into English by Bernard Grun, represents an important step in changing the image of history. Timetables tabulates events year by year from CE 501 (and by half centuries before that starting at 4000 BC). The column entries for the year-by-year records include (1) history and politics, (2) literature, theater, (3) religion, philosophy, learning, (4) visual arts, (5) music, (6) science, technology, growth, and (7) daily life. The (1) column, listing the battles and kingdoms won and lost, is the fullest, but the other columns get fuller over time, recording peaceful human activities in the civil society. Voices from the natural science community have also contributed to this image-changing process. In 1984 Edward Wilson contributed the concept of biophilia, ‘an innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes’, and asks that we ‘‘look to the very roots of (human) motivation and understand why, in what circumstances and on which occasions, we cherish and protect life.’’ Proposing that biophilia is genetically based in humans, Wilson opens up a new way of thinking about the possibilities in human and social development, including a strong emphasis on the sociobiological importance of human altruism and helping behavior, and the role of nature in human emotional bonding. In recent decades primatologists have also been producing studies of social behavior of humankind’s relatives, the apes, that underline their community-oriented behavior and strategies for containing disruptive behavior that would destroy group harmony. Add to this the appearance in 1986 of the UNESCOsponsored Seville Statement on Violence, which states that ‘‘It is scientifically incorrect to say we have inherited a tendency to make war from our animal ancestors;’’ that ‘‘War is biologically possible, but it is not inevitable,’’ and that ‘‘There are cultures which have not engaged in war for centuries, and there are cultures which have engaged in war frequently at some times and not at others.’’ The Statement concludes, ‘‘Just as ‘wars begin in the minds of men’, peace also begins in our minds. The same species who invented war is capable of inventing peace. The responsibility lies with each of us.’’ While not every scientist agrees with this statement, it has been signed by many

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scientific and scholarly associations, and suggests that a wider future development of peace culture is possible.

Utopian Thought and Experimentation as Expressions of Peace Culture Historical Utopianism The fact that all civilizational traditions have recorded imagery of the Other and Better, and that this Other is peaceful, in contrast to the (often) turbulent present, suggests a powerful human longing to live in peace. Not only do we have the classical visions of Elysian Fields, the Isles of the Blessed, Zion, Valhalla, and Paradise, but blessed isles are also part of the dream-world of tribal peoples. Utopian elements are also found in Taoism, Theravada Buddhism, Medieval Islam, and in Chinese, Japanese, and Indian stories about imaginary havens of delight. Under the pressure of social upheaval, the archetypal vision is transformed into concrete imagery answering to specific social problems. Plato’s Republic was a response to the Peloponnesian Wars. The millennialist movements that erupted by the hundreds in the Middle Ages were responses to plague, famine, and the gradual breakdown of the feudal order. Although Utopian thinking is thought of as a flight from reality (Thomas More’s pattern-setting Utopia meant ‘no place’), actually the great Utopians of history tended to be masterful critics of their own time. Two contradictory themes of modern Utopian thought are the passion for order and the longing for what is ‘natural’. The reality of expansionist urban-based industrial states and an accompanying worldwide military forcing system has produced contrasting responses of alienation on the one hand, and of faith that humans are clever enough to design social and physical technologies that could solve all social problems, on the other. One school of Utopians sees science and technology as offering the tools for creating a rational and peaceful order. Robert Boguslaw points out that automation systems are designed to reduce as far as possible the number of responses that humans can make (i.e., reduce human error) while increasing as far as possible the number of responses the (error-immune) machine makes. Behavioral modification is the psychological equivalent. Society as a perfectly functioning mechanism, however, is a concept that readily makes room for authoritarianism. In tension with the passion for order is the longing for the spontaneous untidy abundance of nature. The second, organic approach sees nature as evolving in its own way, accepts that transformation is possible, and calls for a new human consciousness able to recognize and work with that transformation. On the whole, transformationists are peaceful, though the chiliastic uprisings of the Middle Ages could become bloody, and the recent violence of the Aum Cult in Japan and the mass suicide of the Gate of Heaven cult in the

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United States reveal a revisionist concept of spiritual peace. The feminist Utopian tradition, seen in Gilman’s classical Herland, is an example of a grounded Utopianism that takes account of both nature and humanity. Since Utopia is always The Other, the changes implied by Utopia are in effect revolutionary whether based on commitment to gradual evolutionary change or sudden restructuring. Thus, revolutionary violence keeps appearing in many Utopian efforts, even when the goal is equality, justice, and peace, as in the case of the French Revolution. In this century, the macrolevel Utopian experiments in the Soviet Union, Spain, Cuba and China, as well as in Tanzania, Mexico, and Iran, all ran into difficulties because of the problem of scale, quite apart from the issue of the viability of the design itself. Microlevel Utopias do not suffer from that problem, and represent practical efforts to create peaceful and just communities within the larger society. They may be thought of as islands of peace culture. Current Small-Scale Utopian Communities Significant contemporary Utopian community movements have originated in the Two-Thirds World. The sarvodaya movement builds on the panchayat tradition in India and incorporates Gandhi’s concept of nonviolent village communities carrying out local development using local resources, with careful use of other technologies when appropriate. This is now an international movement with linkages to comparable groups on other continents. In Sri Lanka the counterpart institution is the shramadama, involving community work-sharing with a strong spiritual component. The United States has had a strong tradition of Utopian communities since its earliest days. Nordhoff ’s 1875 survey of ‘communistic’ societies found 72 communes, the oldest 80 years old, the youngest 22. All religiously based, with various patterns of communal ownership and similar work ethic, high craft skill level, quality schooling for children, these communes were peaceable, with a high standard of morality, generosity, and sharing with the local poor. Members enjoyed their lives – though Nordhoff found them terribly dull! The religious communes, usually with experienced farmers, had long life spans (some are still functioning in the 1990s). Socialist experiments, secular and humanistic, intended to be working models that could change the world, had the same generosity, peaceableness and high mindedness, but little skill in farming, and tended to be short-lived. The Depression saw a whole new wave of Utopian communities, born of economic necessity combined with strong idealism, demonstrating viable alternative life ways in capitalist society. This was followed by a wave of communities founded by the generation of conscientious objectors from World War II, who came out of alternative service camps and prisons determined not to return to the

same old world, but to translate their visions for the good society into experimental communities. Some were shortlived, but 27 of the communities founded in the Depression, war, and postwar years still exist, and are listed in the 1995 Communities Directory. The 1960s and 1970s generated a new round of Utopian experiments, often lumped together as ‘hippie’ or ‘new age’ communities. Some disintegrated rapidly, but 200 have continued to be operational to the present. Each of these communities has developed a viable work discipline and a critical mass of altruistic members with some vision of society for which they are willing to keep working. This vision includes the abolition not only of militarism, but of war itself, and of substantial changes in the character of the state. It includes a sense of social justice, a strong environmental ethic, and a discerning attitude toward science and technology. Many are rural, all have active rural–urban networks. These Utopian movements to create islands of peace continue. In the 1980s and 1990s, 268 additional communities have been founded, all with a strong ecological and Earth-stewardship orientation, also strongly peaceactivist and family centered, favoring homeschooling for their children. Many, but by no means all, have a spiritual base. The Danish co-housing movement, providing extended-family relationships for families and individuals who build contiguous housing in planned settlements, is now a growing phenomenon in the United States. A partial and incomplete list from the same 1995 Directory of 70 communities in 21 other countries in Europe, Latin America, the Asia Pacific, and Africa, suggests very similar community themes and activity patterns to those already described. While Utopian thought and experimentation has its dark side, a strong case can be made that intentional experimental communities directed toward an increase in human sharing, cooperation, gentleness, justice, and gaia-awareness, do in fact function as elements of peace culture for the larger societies in which they find themselves. They are not simply isolated islands of peace. These Utopias are connected with the larger society through all kinds of people networks leading into the national and transnational world of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and serving as a leaven in the civil society of each country in which they are found.

Peace–War Dualism in Religions Cultures Historical Background While each religious faith has generated Utopian communities as discussed above, it is nevertheless true that religious cultures are not by definition peace cultures. Instead, each religion has two cultures, one based on a vision of a warrior god whose followers wage holy war

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against god’s enemies, the other based on a vision of a loving creator who teaches that there is one family of humankind, that humans are to love and care for one another and for all living things. The male warrior culture headed by a patriarchal warrior god demands the subjection of women, children, and other aliens to men, the protopatriarchs. This image, found in the major world religions, has served as the template for the institution of patriarchy in the social order. The divine legitimation of violence provides a blessing to the household patriarch when he uses violence against the women and children of his household, much as it blesses the soldier who goes forth to war. This institutionalization of violence at the level of the family, where primary socialization takes place, has weakened the peace teachings of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, as well as Buddhism and Hinduism. Yet reminders that the nonviolent way is the higher way are frequent in sacred scripts of all faiths. Military service was a forbidden occupation for early Christians up to the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century. Even after the new Christian aristocracy embraced war, the peace traditions fostered by monasticism continued to generate inventive modifications of imperial warfare, such as the Peace of God – days of the week and times of the year when there would be no fighting, in the ninth and tenth centuries. There were large-scale peace movements all through the years of the Crusades. One group of religious peace cultures has had a very long history. Anabaptists emerged in response to Joachim de Fiore’s teachings about the postbureaucratic Age of the Holy Spirit in twelfth-century Europe. Men and women all over the continent, relating as equals, translated and taught from the Bible in the vernacular, set up communities where goods were held in common, and kept to a nonhierarchical, socially and spiritually open set of lifeways based on total nonviolence. The descendants of that tradition are today known as the historic peace churches: Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren. They are by no means all social activists, but the cultural symbolism of the peace witness they represent has had a public influence out of all proportion to their numbers (see the section entitled ‘Women’s culture and peace culture’). Contemporary Faith-Based Peace Groups While the Anabaptists are the most easily identifiable peace culture today, there are many other faith-based peace groups, and the World Council of Churches has made strengthening the Christian peace witness of member churches a priority since its founding in 1948. Within the Catholic church, the Orthodox church, and various protestant denominations there are intentional peace communities on every continent. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the Muslim Peace Fellowship, and the Jewish Peace Fellowship are examples of other faith-based peace

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groups active locally and internationally. Many are affiliated with the international interfaith Fellowship of Reconciliation, which was founded in 1919 to work for a world order based on a culture of nonviolence. It provides nonviolence training for members in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Faith-based peace brigades modeled on the Gandhian shanti sena and supported by faith communities are currently working with their local counterparts in many countries to create zones of safety and peace. Efforts to strengthen the peace culture of every faith group gave rise in the 1970s to the NGO, the World Council on Religion and Peace, and more recently to the interfaith World Peace Council. The latter is to meet each year at one of the world’s trouble spots to bring interfaith resources to bear on the task of peacemaking. While the holy war culture is still alive and well today, noteworthy energies are going into a process of recovering and rebuilding a peace culture that has never ceased to be part of the core spirituality of every community of faith.

Secular Peace Movements and Peace Cultures Historical Background The gradual secularization of Western cultures in recent centuries has meant the rise of secular peace movements. Their contribution to peace culture lies less in building models of peaceful community, and more in confronting and seeking to change the structures that foster violence and war. In the broader sense, both secular and religious peace movements are peace-building movements. Peace building may be thought of as any activity directed toward the replacement of armed violence and physical coercion in situations of conflict by nonviolent justice-seeking behavior. Peace building creates new kinds of social space in society for new behaviors and new social relations, broadly conceived. The systematic work to build peace structures that could enable peace cultures to flourish began with the establishment of the International Peace Bureau in 1892. By 1899 there were several thousand peace activists in more than 100 national peace organizations. Their activities contributed to the political climate in which the first Hague Peace Conference was held, and to the developments that followed it. Peace movement energies and public interest ran so high that states could not afford to ignore the Czar’s invitation to the Hague, disinclined though political leaders were to take Czar Nicholas seriously. Writes historian Sandi Cooper, ‘‘A small army of indefatigable workers—men and women— travelled lecture circuits, published and catalogued libraries of books and brochures, raised money from governments and private donors, confronted politicians, challenged military budgets, criticized history curricula, combatted chauvinist and establishment media, lobbied

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diplomats, questioned candidates for office, telegraphed congress resolutions to foreign ministries, and held congresses nearly every year from 1889 to 1914 to thrash out common positions.’’ The peace education movement in the schools of Europe, and the publication of large numbers of peace education textbooks, was another part of this movement aimed more directly at creating a peace culture for the next generation to grow up into. If World War I saw the temporary collapse of these strategies for building a culture of peace, it also witnessed the birth of a remarkable peace culture in India as Gandhi and his disciples worked tirelessly to train masses of Indians to carry out nonviolent acts of public protest such as fasting, marching, or civil disobedience in an independance movement based on the concepts of satyagraha, truth force, and ahimsa, refusal to do harm. The network of ashrams in which leaders learned self-discipline, strategic analysis of the social settings in which action was to be carried out, and a spirit of deep concern for the well-being of the opposition, provided the institutional base for the movement, and for the emergent peace culture. As postindependence India moved away from Gandhi’s satyagraha, communal violence increased and the peace culture shrank to the modest network of ashrams that still exist. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s teachings continue to inspire peace movements around the world; the ‘seeds’ of that peace culture remain viable. Contemporary Peace Movements The postwar revitalization of peace movements was shadowed by splits between the one-issue antinuclear movements that were more concerned with political effectiveness than with a way of life, and the older organizations working for social transformation. Strikes, demonstrations and vigils, transcontinental peace walks, protest ships sailing in forbidden waters, all helped lead to the declaration of nuclear weapons-free zones in Latin America and the South Pacific, and a partial test-ban treaty, but weapons production, testing, and deployment by the major powers went steadily on. As peace movements became more sophisticated in terms of political effectiveness, they became more specialized, and the links between peace movements and peaceful lifeways are harder to find, although the relevance of movement activities for peace culture continues. For example, the interdisciplinary peace research movement that began in the early 1960s soon expanded its work beyond disarmament studies to economic conversion, alternative development, alternative defense, and ecological security, thus linking alternative security policy with grassroots alternative lifeways movements. Zone of Peace studies helped conceptualize specific social spaces for nonviolent lifeways. Occupationally based peace organizations helped give specific content to general peace movement activity.

The 1988–89 Peace Resource Book listed 22 such organizations in the United States, at least half linked to transnational organizations with sections in a number of countries. The list includes associations for architects, business executives, computer professionals, educators, high-tech professionals, physicians, lawyers, media professionals, veterans, nurses, parliamentarians, performing artists, psychologists, social scientists, writers, and publishers. The fruits for peace culture include architects designing peace parks, educators designing conflict resolution curriculae for schools, physicians and nurses reconceptualizing health and illness, and artists offering drama, music, poetry, and art that express the peacemaking dimension of human experience. Then there are the scientists’ organizations addressing basic issues of the health of the planet and the hazards of nuclear and other weapons developments. They include groups such as the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, founded in 1965 to focus the world scientific community on possibilities of disarmament; the Union of Concerned Scientists founded in 1969, and the Commission established by the International Council of Scientific Unions in the 1970s to investigate nuclear hazards. These communities have helped develop an international consensus on the need for nonviolent dispute settlement and more attention to the natural environment of an endangered planet – key elements for a macrolevel culture of peace. As powerful voices in the international community, listened to by national governments and the United Nations, they are laying the groundwork for current and future shifts in state security behavior. Most, if not all, of the 200 international peace organizations listed in the 1997 Housman’s Peace Diary have consultative status at the United Nations and work with various United Nations bodies including Regional Disarmament Centers – there is one on each continent – and at times with special programs on regional conflicts, with the UN University based in Tokyo. Many of them will be working with UNESCO’s new Culture of Peace Program, helping war victims regain personhood, helping former soldiers and guerillas – many of them children – learn new occupational skills, new habits of caring and cooperation, and community-building skills, as well as skills of rebuilding destroyed soils and forests. Other projects involve creating new school programs for wartraumatized children and new support systems for wartraumatized women, often rape victims. Like all the groups mentioned in this section, they are helping to lay the groundwork for an emerging culture of peace.

Women’s Culture and Peace Culture The Concept of Women’s Culture The theme of women’s family roles and women’s culture as representing the ways of nurturance and peace in

Peace Culture

societies dominated by warmaking is an ancient theme in history. Identifiable women’s cultures can be said to have emerged as a result of a shift from an earlier egalitarian hunting-and-gathering way of life to settled agriculture. A gradual subordination of women came about with the rise of cities, kingdoms, and empires and the patriarchal palace-temple power structures that confined women to the interiors, the dedans, of each society. From those hidden places, women were constantly at work in creative and inventive ways to provide nurture, healing, and the possibilities for growth and development of the men and children in their care. It often fell to women to rebuild what was destroyed in war, from tillable fields and irrigation canals to hospitals and places of refuge for war victims, and to keep alive the arts of music, dance, and poetry. From time to time individual women – queens, courtesans, artists, and philosophers – emerged from obscurity to a place in recorded history, but most of their work has been unrecorded. If the dedans was hidden, it was hardly protected, for the patriarch-head of each household had power of life and death over its members, and women could be victims of violence even as they wove the strands of peace culture that kept their society from extinction. With industrialization and the rise of a new urban poverty class there also emerged the educated middleclass women who found ways to translate their sense of traditional responsibility for the well-being of their family to the community level. By the 1800s, as their concern with multiplying social problems pushed them into public spaces and political arenas, the dehors, they discovered that they had no civic or legal identity, no political rights, and no economic power. Out of the sheer need to ‘act’, the suffrage movement was born, with its claims to equal rights for women and men. Slowly the link was made between the exclusion of women from public life, recurring wars, exploitation in factories, and the suffering of the poor. The new mobility for women made possible a rapid internationalization of the new women’s movement. By 1915 there were 15 international women’s organizations. By 1986 there were 189, 61 of them directly devoted to international understanding and peacebuilding. The remainder, organizations for women professionals, for training and development, and for religious communities, all have relevance to peace building. At first Eurocentric, they have gradually shifted to a broader representation of continental perspectives around the world. With the new critique of patriarchy as the source of the domination systems that lead to violence and war, the old ‘essentialist’ view that women are inherently peaceable – and therefore by nature the guardians of peace culture – came to be questioned in the women’s movement. As women discovered what they could do in public spaces, and entered into the whole range of hitherto male occupations and roles, they came to see differential socialization and occupational segregation as the primary causes of women’s ‘specialization’ in

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peacemaking. Others noted that it was precisely women’s inventiveness in their new roles, their ability to imagine alternatives and to create new and effective organizational patterns and structures in many of the settings in which they worked, that demonstrated that women were ‘different’. The debate continues. (To the extent that some fathers are beginning to share more fully in the nurturant work of parenting, it may be discovered that it is children who socialize adults into the skills of nurturance, and are a key source of basic elements of peace culture.) There are strong arguments for the position that women’s knowledge and experience worlds have equipped them to function creatively as problem solvers and peacemaker in ways that men have not been equipped to function by ‘their’ knowledge and experience worlds. More sharing of experience worlds between women and men would then be an important step in strengthening peace culture. Conceptual Contributions to Peace Culture At the intellectual level, women often mistrust their own capacity for analytic and systems thinking, essential for the kind of social restructuring required for a stronger peace culture. Yet this is precisely where women leaders have made outstanding contributions by linking the analytic and the intuitive; some examples follow. Buddhist feminist general systems theorist and peace development activist Joanna Macy is a leader in the sarvodaya shramadana community self-help movement originating in Asia, with strong links to the international environmental and peace movement. Macy writes, ‘‘. . . interconnectedness with life and all other beings . . . is the living web out of which our individual, separate existences have risen, and in which we are interwoven. Our lives extend beyond our skins, in radical interdependence with the rest of the world . . . every system—be it cell, a tree or a mind—is like a transformer, changing the very stuff that flows through it.’’ Limits to Growth author Donella Meadows concentrates on making the theory and practice of modeling system dynamics more accurately reflect the reality of everyday life so that it can be used to understand what goes wrong with existing policy practice in the real world. Writing on the transformation of modeling she reminds us of how poorly policy makers have performed in relation to high death rates produced by starvation, leveling of forests, species extinctions, and nuclear weapons accumulation. Her transformational modeling ‘‘is a release of possibilities and capabilities already within the system.’’ It is not imported from outside. Meadows, an American, is also a sheep farmer who knows the rhythm of sowing and reaping, the rhythm of birthing and shearing. As a farmer– teacher–scholar–computer modeler who travels the world’s airways and writes her own newspaper column on environmental issues, she practices systems transformation daily.

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In Kenya, Wangari Maathai, professor of biology and political activist, realized that desertification in her country was part of a whole system of land deprivation, poverty, and victimage of women. With other women she launched the Green Belt Movement, a community treeplanting project that is transforming deteriorating ecosysems across the country and revitalizing women’s farming and community life. In India, physicist Vandana Shiva is a practitioner of transformative systems modeling for the deteriorating ecosystems of that vast subcontinent. Responding to the traditional ecological wisdom of local peoples, she works with the Chipko (hug the trees) movement, based on village women’s understanding of the role of forests in protecting the land and water and stability of mountain watersheds. She calls for a redefinition of science and rationality, of technological choice and economic development, and a reconceptualization of what is meant by the good life. Swedish family sociologist and disarmament expert Alva Myrdal understood social systems ‘from the inside’ as she struggled with the demanding triple task of rearing three children while partnering a world-renowned economist and both researching and actually creating the kind of local institutions and services that a society would need to produce peaceful citizens in a humane world. Over time her systems analysis expanded in complexity from child, family, and nation to the international realm of diplomacy, first as Ambassador to India and then as Swedish Minister of Disarmament. She kept finding new entry points for social change even as the world continued to become more dangerous, maintaining that ‘‘Giving up is not worthy of a human being.’’ Clearly, the feminist capacities just illustrated for both analytic and intuitive thinking in terms of highly complex systems, related to a strong sense of the on-the-ground reality, are important for the double task of conceptualizing and developing peace culture. Now we will turn to some examples of actual peace movement inventions, that show the variety and range of approaches to creating a peace culture taken by different women’s groups. The Peace Education Movement Contemporary peace education is to a signficant degree the product of the work of many different women’s groups – teachers, social workers, and peace activists, whose labors from the 1840s on laid the foundation for the establishment of UNESCO 100 years later. Their goal was to develop the kind of education that would be needed for a world in which disputes would be settled peacefully. Their work included the study of child development from the perspective of how children can learn to be peaceful with one another – outstandingly exemplified in the innovative work of Maria Montessori. They also started international

schools, and worked with training teachers and developing social visions of what a peaceful international community could be like. When the new field of peace research developed in the 1960s, it was women peace educators who insisted that the research should not only deal with intergovernmental relations, but should conceptualize the interrelationships of peace, security, economic and social development, environmental issues, human rights, and the participation of women and minorites, as part of the central problematique of peace learning. Peace Journeying Women have walked, sailed, ridden horseback, and otherwise traveled in public spaces for peace since the beginning of the colonial era, but the peace walks and marches of the post-World War II era have had a special flavor and flair. A new level of activity was reached in 1961 with the Women’s Strike for Peace Movement, which began in North America and quickly spread to Europe. The concept of the strike, of noncompliance with the basic duties of homemaking, as a way of protesting nuclear testing and preprations for war, immediately exploded into an active women’s invasion of public spaces from court houses to parliaments. A ‘women’s agenda’, based on women’s understandings of the meanings of security, became a new force in politics. With humor, laughter, and flowers, as well as great seriousness, a new wave of women candidates for public office from local to national appeared in the public arena. In this same decade, inspired by Ambassador Alva Myrdal, women’s groups became visibly present at Disarmament Commission meetings in Geneva, insisting on audiences with ambassadors and heads of state. Women for Meaningful Summits have carried on this tradition, together with the more recently organized WEDO, Women’s Environment and Development Organization. In short, women have become increasingly articulate and experienced in what it takes to affect Summit diplomacy. A World War I generation women’s peace organization, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, added to the drama of women’s presence in places of highlevel decision making when in 1985 its members undertook (with leadership from its Swedish Section) the Great Peace Journey. Over a 3-year period international delegations of women traveled first by bus to 25 countries in Europe, and then to countries of the Pacific, South and East Asia, the Americas, large parts of Africa, and the Middle East for a total of 90 states visited. In each country five questions were put to heads of states and senior officials in foreign ministries regarding national defense policy and willingness to use peaceful means of dispute settlement. The responses they received were reported to the Secretary General of the UN and to representatives of national missions to the UN. The grand finale was a 1988 global popular summit at

Peace Culture

the UN, giving new saliency to the UN as a place where the peoples of the world could face a general assembly of their governments seeking clearer explanations of dispute settlement practices. Peace Colonies In contrast to adventurous journeys across continents, women have also created encampments, guardian sites, and zones of peace at munitions storage and testing sites. Living in tents right up against the barbed wire of a military base, the women of Greenham Common, England, for some years maintained a lively protest community. They lived simply, in harmony with nature and in peace with one another, practising the culture of peace they wished their country to adopt. Similar encampments were maintained at Seneca Falls, New York; Frauenfeld, Switzerland; Comiso, Sicily; Kita Fuji, Japan; Neve Shalom, Israel – and elsewhere. Global Peace Services Another idea that originated with Swedish women was the concept of a women’s global peace service. The original plan was to train all-women teams to do the work that mixed peace teams such as Peace Brigades International do – interpositioning between parties in combat, protective accompaniment for endangered locals in highviolence situations, creating safe spaces for normal activities like farming, education, and care of children, help for refugees, and for humanitarian provision of health and food services in the midst of war. In fact, the group has expanded to include men, but it continues to have strong involvement of women. Networking The rapid expansion from the nineteenth century on of women’s contacts across and between continents and the growth of women’s international nongovernmental organizations through the twentieth century has already been mentioned. A new phase in women’s networking began with the 1975 International Women’s Year world gathering of women in Mexico City. Succeeding world gatherings for women under the auspices of the United Nations in Copenhagen, Nairobi, and most recently in Beijing in 1995, have consistently maintained a triple focus on equality, development, and peace. The development of a new world sisterhood to prepare for global change was greatly assisted by the emergence of new, less formal nonhierarchical women-to-women contacts to supplement more formal nongovernmental organizations. Thirty new international contact groups came into being between 1974 and 1986, each devoted to one or more aspects of the trinity of equality, development, and peace.

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In addition to the proliferation of new transcontinental contact groups, three major networks of networks developed during or after 1975: (1) ISIS, which prepared for the first Mexico City Women’s Conference by holding an International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in Brussels in 1974; (2) the International Women’s Tribune Center, which came into being to facilitate communication among NGOs during the Mexico City Conference; (3) GROOTS, which developed during the Nairobi Women’s Conference, concentrating entirely on grassroots low-income rural and urban women. A strong sense of being involved in a process of social transformation permeates the interaction within and between all these networks. All are involved in creating the conditions for a peaceful and just society. This overview of women and peace culture has considered the ways in which women have approached the challenge of creating significant strands of peace culture within the larger society – and world – in which they live. The fact that the social vision and abilities of women continue to be frustrated by male-dominated social structures, limiting the contributions women can make, accounts for the continuing emphasis in women’s movements on gender equality as a condition for human development and peace.

Peace Culture in Everyday Life Basic Social Bonding What is already present in daily life that contributes to peace culture? There is a general human predisposition to be responsive to other humans. Hans Hass has undertaken a remarkable documentation of the universality of that predisposition. Traveling around the world with his camera, he has photographed a series of expressive human gestures of smiling, greeting with glad surprise (eyebrows raised), comforting another in grief by having the griever’s head resting on the comforter’s shoulder, a reaching-out gesture to protect a child in danger – in settings as far apart as Kenya, Samoa, and France. In cultures that practice disciplined control over such expressive gestures, one finds their fullest expression in children who have not yet learned the discipline. Hass points out that children learn early what a smile can do. Why do humans smile so much? Because they are not, basically, unfriendly creatures. A smile is a means of eliciting contact readiness from others and of conveying accessibility to contact. A smile serves as a social bridge builder. This is only possible because humans have a certain awareness of ‘species identity’, an awareness that exists in warrior societies as well as elsewhere. The wars of ancient China, for example, did not prevent the development of Confucian thought, in which heaven is described as father and Earth as mother, and all

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in between as one body. ‘‘People are our brothers and we are united with all things.’’ This theme of being kin with all peoples is rooted in a basic experience of the social bonds of kinship and intergroup alliances, and the need for mutual aid systems in order to survive, whether in inner cities or on overstressed farmlands. Women’s nurturant role in that mutual aid system is taken for granted. Less well understood is a complex interfacing role, stemming from the widespread practice of women moving to the male partner’s community and being expected to serve as communication channels and mediators when differences between the communities arise. The role of infants and young children in the gentling of the human species is often understated, and it is about more than smiling. Watching small children discover with delight the most ordinary and humdrum items of daily existence literally refreshes adults, as does seeing children at play, creating a wondrous imaginary world that has no purpose but itself. Through most of human history people have lived in rural settings and in small-scale societies. Just as each familial household develops its own problem-solving behavior, so each social group has developed its own strategies of conflict resolution over time, uniquely rooted in local culture and passed on from generation to generation. Similarly, each society has its own fund of adaptability, built on knowledge of local environment and the historical memory of times of crisis and change. Such knowledge and experience are represented in the individual familial households that make up a community. The knowledge is woven into religious teachings, ceremonies and celebrations, in the world of work and the world of play, in environmental lore, in the sagas of times past. These are the hidden peace-building strengths of every society. As societies become more complex, and elites become differentiated from ‘common people’, center-periphery problems based on mutual ignorance develop. Elites not only cease to share locally based knowledge but cease literally to share a common language with locals. Traditional conflict resolution methods then break down, and new ones are slow to develop. This breakdown of communication and lack of common conflict management practices between ethnies and the larger states of which they are a part is a major problem in the contemporary world where ‘10 000 societies’, each with its own signficant historical identity, are spread across 185 states. Current levels of intrastate as well as interstate violence are not surprising when thought of in those terms. Rediscovery of the hidden strengths of local cultures is one important aspect of peace building for this difficult transitional period in human history. Given the diversity of negotiation and conflict-resolving behaviors that go on everyday in every household and every community in those 185 states, illustrating

everyday peace behavior is a challenge. The approach here will be to give one example from that small set of contemporary indigenous societies living in a preindustrial mode yet with some degree of contact with the larger world, societies that maintain a distinctive identity and set a high value on peaceableness. How they manage conflict, and how they train their children to such behaviors, will be examined. The second example will come from the Anabaptist-historic peace church culture, which consists of microsocieties that are more connected to the larger society than indigenous communities, yet remain distinctive. These examples will highlight the strategies and skill-based nature of peaceful behavior, and its dependence on an explicit set of values about nonaggression. That examination will be followed by an overview of how basic processes of socialization for peaceful behavior are at work in different aspects of daily life. Selected Contemporary Societies The Mbuti

The hunter-gatherer, rainforest-dwelling Mbuti in northeastern Zaire find their peacefulness in their relationship to the rainforest – their mother, father, teacher, and metaphoric womb. The family hut is symbolically a womb. Mbuti is a listening culture. Children are taught to listen to the trees, learning to climb them early so they can sit high above the ground, listening and watching the life that unfolds in the treetops and the life that unfolds below. They learn to think of the whole forest as their extended family. Adults and children also sing and dance with the trees. Ekima, quietness, is a central value as opposed to akami, disturbance. While the preference for quietness and harmony is reinforced at every stage of life, it does not preclude children’ rough-and-tumble play, and low-key squabbling among adults, which tends to be controlled by ridicule. Children learn interdependance and the skills of cooperation early. Adults enjoy horseplay and disputation. Semihumorous ‘sex wars’ in which men and women line up for a tug of war between the sexes serve as tension dissipators – as the tugs of war break up with much laughter. Most groups have a ‘clown’ – one person whose antics also help keep conflicts from getting out of hand. The contrast between the forest as womb and the love of the silences of the forest on the one hand, and the frequency of arguing and the use of joking and ridicule to keep arguments under control, suggests an easy social equilibrium of listening quietness, singing, dancing, squabbling, and clowning. By not letting conflicts fester, disagreements do not get out of hand. A modernizing government and current civil war are destroying the Mbutis’ environment, but they are linking with other rain forest peoples in new transnational indigenous peoples’ networks, doing their best to negotiate for the survival of their lifeways.

Peace Culture

Anabaptists

The three major Anabaptist communities include the Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers, plus smaller groups such as the Amish and the Hutterites. They define themselves as living ‘n the world but not of it’, holding to testimonies of simplicity, gender and racial equality, and personal and social nonviolence, but challenged by increasing urbanization of formerly rural communities. Many of the Quaker communities have no ‘hireling shepherds’ (pastors), and practice a special consensus method of decision making based on ‘the sense of the meeting’, as members seek divine guidance on what is to be done in the face of diverse views of participating individuals. This method respects the presence of conflict and allows for full airing of differences. It also demands a disciplined spiritual maturity in seeking collective inward illumination, and skill in intellectual discernment and interpersonal communication. Anabaptist culture is shaped in the home. Parenting is taken very seriously by both men and women; an important part of that parenting is the cultivation of the divine seed in each child. Family worship, reading, discussion, and times of quiet in the home are supplemented by explicit training in nonviolent responses to conflict, and alternative ways of dealing with conflict, so that children may be prepared for their responsiblities to work for peace and justice in the world. Conflict suppression, however, is not encouraged. Rather, children are enjoined to ‘work things out’. Local churches, or Meetings, actively participate in the education of their young, helping prepare them spiritually, intellectually, and in terms of social skills for peacemaking. Traditionally, they have operated their own schools, from kindergarten to college, but today only a few communities maintain their own local schools. Boarding schools and colleges however continue to flourish and attract non-Anabaptist families who want their special type of education for their children. Community history, and the stories of Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren heroes and heroines are an important part of this education. ‘Enemy’ concepts are never used, or the language of fighting. There can be no enemies, only strangers with whom a relationship needs to be developed. Peacemaking is seen as building bridges across differences, finding solutions to the problems of each disputant in ways that injure none, and reframing disputes so that common interests can be discovered. All three communities have developed remarkable service organizations that carry out peace-building projects around the world. Many of their young people are trained to participate in these projects. Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren would be the first to say that they have difficulty living up to their own ideals as peacemakers. ‘The world’ presses all around, with many distractions. A high value is placed on humor and the ability to laugh at shortcomings.

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Everyday Peace Behavior The family

Today much of humanity lives in societies marked by various kinds of violence, yet underneath the layers of violence the peace behaviors survive – and one of the places it survives is in the familial household. This is the most adaptive of human institutions, expanding and contracting though history according to changing social conditions, from single-person or couple units to 200person multifamily communes, the frereche or zadruga common in parts of medieval Europe, or the monastic household of monks or nuns. Patriarchal traditions of actual or potential violence should not obscure the reality that adult humans can become fond of one another – even fall in love – and that infants would not survive if they were not nurtured. Barring pathologial conditions, domestic partnerships achieve a familiar comfort level, and parenting has many rewards as well as challenges. Gentle child-rearing produces gentle adults, and nonviolent practices tend to be reproduced in succeeding generations. (Unfortunately the reverse is also true – violence begets violence from generation to generation.) It is in the protected spaces of the familial household that children’s earliest practice in bargaining and negotiating takes place, and in the household that adult skills in conflict resolution are developed and refined. Here is where sharing is learned, and a worldview developed as experiences in the outside world are brought home and processed. Also, it is the family that mediates the contact of individuals with the more impersonal institutions of the civil society.

Celebration and ritual

Celebrations are the play life of a society. Feasting and gift giving emphasize sharing and reciprocity, a sense of the community as one family. The spontaneity and exuberance of gifting, singing, and dancing is a powerful reenforcement of peaceful community relations. These are times for letting go of grudges, times of reconciliation. Since celebration is usually patterned in ritual, it becomes a reconnection with creation itself, a reminder of the oneness of all living things. Celebrations mark the rites of passage from birthing to childhood to puberty to adulthood and marriage. They mark wounding and healing, and they mark dying, as well as great historical moments of the remembered past (and great traumas). Religious rituals, when they give primacy to a loving and forgiving creator, can be especially and deeply joyful. When celebrations lose their playfulness, when performances become competitive, then they lose their character of replenishing the human spirit, and are a poor resource for general peaceableness.

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Trade and exchange, and the civil society

Play of the imagination

More than 300 years ago Adam Smith set out to inquire how it was possible for humans to engage in just and orderly economic transactions, and what institutions would be required to sustain such transactions. He came to see that it is our own experience that enables us to imagine what goes on in the minds of others. This capacity for recognizing what others might be feeling lies at the heart not only of economic exchange, but also the many transactions involved when citizens come together to make decisions about community affairs. Civil, like civic, derives from the Latin civitas, or city. Each city is a company of strangers who are able to develop some level of workable strategies for communicating across the barriers of language and custom. The development of civil society can be thought of as part of the process of developing peace culture. The institutional infrastructure that ennables the civil society to flourish – as for example the courts of law that ensure the protection of human rights, legislative bodies freely elected by the people and the electoral process itself, and a free press, can also be thought of as part of peace culture. That infrastructure represents basic mechanisms of nonviolent conflict resolution, peaceable management of difference. When it is absent, difference is managed by the authoritarian exercise of force and violence. The establishment of trade relations with neighboring and more distant social groups can also be thought of as part of peace development. Trade relations contribute to the mutual well-being of participants when each has something the other wants, even in the absence of other elaborating behaviors (as in the famous anthropological examples of silent trade). What is necessary is that each party see the exchange as fair and reasonable. The practice of trade is a desireable substitute for simply raiding one’s neighbors – a habit that can easily lead to more or less continual warfare. The line between the more impersonal behaviors of trading and voting, and a more spontaneous responsiveness to the other, is difficult to draw. Marketplaces often have an air of festivity about them even when all transactions are apparently commercial, and so do town meetings, and polling booths at election time (unless voting represents a bitter contest of opposing parties). What actually happens in many situations involving human exchanges whether of services, goods, or ideas, is that a reciprocity multiplier effect is at work. Each person throws in a little extra for ‘good measure’, whether it is the extra quarter-ounce of meat on the butcher’s scales, or a warm smile to the clerk at the checkout counter. The reciprocity multiplier effect ensures that economic, social, and political exchanges will further continuing good will among the parties involved, and helps people deal resourcefully with conflicts when they do arise.

Celebrations and games can be thought of as society at play. But play by its very nature also performs a serious creative function for each community. Although taking place outside the realm of everyday life, play nevertheless creates rules and roles (‘‘let’s play house—you be the daddy and I’ll be the mommy’’). For children, play structures spaces within which they can create their own realities in fantasy. At a more sophisticated level, it does the same for adults. Play also involves learning. The lessons of nonviolence and self-control may be absorbed when play leads to injuries. However, as the historian Johan Huizinga points out, play is basically ‘for its own sake’, ‘for fun’. This makes playing important for adults, who tend to get too serious about their other activities. Even in competitive sports the rudiments of the spontaneity of play survive. Many forms of play are not thought of as such: the mind at play in solving tricky problems, the ‘muse’ at play in creating poetry, music, painting, sculpture; the body at play in song, dance, and drama. While it takes different forms in terms of style, language, and content in folk cultures as compared to elite culture, play is ubiqitous. It has to be noted that some art, and some sports, have become so violent that they have lost the spontaneity of play. The rediscovery of all the different forms of play, including artistic and scientific play, and releasing the dynamics of that play into shared celebrations in public spaces, will also be a recovery of peace culture.

Sanctuaries and zones of peace

The designation of certain spaces as sanctuaries, or safe spaces for anyone under threat, is an ancient human practice that survives into the present. Temples and holy places have traditionally served as sanctuaries, and marketplaces have usually been treated as zones of peace, where violent behavior is unacceptable. Since the beginning of the nuclear age, successful grassroots efforts to get the states of various regions to declare their regions as nuclear-weapon-free zones have had local counterparts in citizen initiatives to declare individual towns and cities as zones of peace. Currently, there are well over 5000 such peace zones and they can be thought of as zones of peace culture. Communities often begin with economic conversion of military plants, cleaning up toxic waste dumps and creating local-to-local international trade with a strong emphasis on human and social development. Projects include developing peace education and conflict resolution programs in schools, and in particularly embattled inner-city areas. Schools declare themselves as violencefree zones where no one is to fight (or to carry guns or knives) and so do the neighborhoods around them. Other projects include special peace collections in museums and libraries, creating peace parks and public peace sites, and

Peace Culture

generally creating a strong local awareness of the town or city as a peacemaking community. The Zone of Peace Foundation and the Global Land Authority for the Development of Peace Zones work at the grassroots level to expand these zones of peace. In some countries the peace zone strategy is used to help local groups caught in areas of civil war and guerilla violence negotiate with local fighters to honor designated areas as weapon-free zones of peace where processes of peace building can take place unhindered.

A Review of Perspectives Peace culture has been examined from the perspectives of the Utopian longing to live in peace, and through actual efforts to create micro-utopias. It has been considered in the context of religious faith, where holy war teachings coexist in tension with teachings of holy peaceableness. It has been suggested that peace movements function as seedbeds for peace culture, with particular attention to the special characteristics of women’s culture and the movements arising from it. In all these cases we have been looking at elements, fragments, strands, and islands of peace culture in societies that accept violence and war. It has been noted that there is a scarcity of coherent social entities beyond the commune level that handle conflict peaceably and that have systematic patterns for maintaining that peace-ableness from generation to generation. Yet many examples of peaceful conflict management and violence avoidance are easily discovered in everyday social life, stemming from the twin human needs for bonding and autonomy. Proportions of violence-proneness and peace-proneness vary, and the activities of the Utopians, and of religious and secular peace movements, are aimed at increasing the overall proportion of peace behavior, and the enabling structures for that behavior. These activities are carried on in the conviction that war is a cultural invention, one that can be replaced by another set of cultural inventions that will make it possible for humans to live in a condition of dynamic and adventurous peace with other humans and the Earth. See also: Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, Overview; Civil Society; Conflict Management and Resolution; Warriors, Anthropology of

Further Reading Adams, D. and True, M. (1997). UNESCO’s culture of peace program: An introduction. International Peace Research Newsletter 35(1), 15–18.

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Arbour, L. (2002). War crimes and the culture of peace. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Bernstein, E., Elias, R., Forsberg, R., et al. (1986). Peace resource book. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company. Bok, S. (1991). Aha Myrdal: A daughter’s memoir. Reading, PA: Addison Wesley. Bonta, B. (1993). Peaceful peoples: An annotated bibliography. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Bondurant, J. (1971). Conquest of violence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Boulding, E. (1988). Building a global civic culture. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Boulding, E. (1992). The underside of history: A view of women through time (rev. edn., 2 vols.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Boulding, E. (2000). Cultures of peace: The hidden side of history. Foreword by Federico Mayor. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Chatfield, C. and Van Den Dungen, P. (eds.) (1988). Peace movements and political cultures. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press. Fellowship for Intentional Community (1995). Communities Directory, 2nd edn. Langley, VA: Fellowship for Intentional Community. Cooper, S. (1991). Patriotic pacifism: Waging war on war in Europe 1815–1914. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. De Waal, F. (1996). Good natured: The origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Douglas, P. F. (2007). Beyond war: The human potential for peace. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Eisler, R. and Miller, R. (2004). Educating for a Culture of Peace. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman. Grun, B. (1975). The timetables of history (based on W. Stein’s Kulturfahrplan). New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc. Hass, H. (1970). The human animal: The mystery of man’s behavior. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Huizinga, J. (1955). Homo ludens. A study of the play element in culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Jegen, M. E. (1993). Global peace service. Cincinnati, OH: Sisters of Notre Dame. Kellert, S. and Wilson, E. (1993). Thebiophilia hypothesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Lederach, J. P. (1997). Building peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Macy, J. (1983). Dharma and development. Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Marx, L. (1964). The machine in the garden. New York, NY: Oxford Press. Meadows, D. and Robinson, J. M. (1985). The electronic oracle. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons. Nordhoff, C. (1966). Communistic societies of the United States (reprint from 1875 edn.). New York, NY: Dover Publications. Shiva, V. (1990). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. London: Zed Books. UNESCO In David Adams (ed.) (1991). Seville Statement on violence. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (1996). From a culture of violence to a culture of peace. Paris: UNESCO.

Relevant Websites http://www.culture-of-peace.info – David Adams Culture of Peace: Scientific Approach. http://www.peacefulsocieties.org – Peaceful Societies Information and Bibliographies. http://www.unac.org – United Nations International Decade for a Culture of Peace, UNA-Canada: ACNU. http://www3.unesco.org/iycp – United Nations UNESCO Culture of Peace.

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Conflict Management and Resolution

Conflict Management and Resolution Ho-Won Jeong, Centreville, VA, USA Charles Lerche, Norwich University Silvia Susnjic, George Mason University ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Conceptualization Approaches to Conflict

Glossary Alternative Dispute Resolution Disputants settle their differences by negotiation and compromise out of a court system. Basic Needs Fundamental needs for human survival, both physical and psychological, are inherent drives for conflict. Deterrence Punishment and threats of coercion are the main means for maintaining social control when an

Introduction As societies grow more complex, managing conflict has become increasingly important for maintaining social order. In traditional societies, the issues facing elders and religious leaders were relatively less complicated, and decisions were based on communal participation and group consensus. In the contemporary world, conflict over control of wealth and resources has increased between individuals, organizations, peoples, and states with the expansion of economies and the increased exchange of goods and services. Differences in values and belief systems may lead a husband and wife to argue about the education of their children. Law suits result from challenges to rules and regulations, and disagreements over responsibility and liability. States frequently contest economic, security, and environmental regulations. Though such disagreements are part of day-to-day social life, if not properly managed, they can generate violence and lead to the destruction of a community. Protracted conflicts have proven unproductive and costly in terms of human life and economic losses. When conflict arises, there are different possibilities to control, manage, settle, and eventually resolve it. Conflict may be brought to an end by the application of coercion, authoritative decisions, bargaining power, or mediation. Dispute settlement requires interactive processes between disputants, often with the assistance of third parties. Successful conflict resolution requires analysis of causes

Methods for Dealing with Conflict Conclusion Further Reading

individual defies social norms and enforcement authorities. Ombudsman Ombudsmen protect individuals’ rights from abuse by authorities, sometimes through the threat of large-scale publicity about an institution’s failures. Negotiated Rule Making Reaching consensus among multiple parties requires a collaborative decisionmaking process facilitated by a third party.

and exploration of acceptable options. Whereas some conflicts can be managed within the constraints of the prevailing system, traditional models of conflict management are not effective in overcoming struggles derived from oppressive social structures and differences in human values. The resolution of protracted conflict demands an innovative approach to understanding the motives of the parties involved. It is important to understand the relationship between conflict and structural inadequacies in social institutions. Bitter disputes over wages may develop into emotionally tense relations when combined with interpersonal issues and authoritarian organizational decision-making processes. As we have observed in labor movements, civil rights movements, and anti colonial struggles in the Third World, conflict often escalates because those in power refuse to respond to the grievances of the exploited or disadvantaged. Long-term grievances over economic and social inequities can derive from a failure to enhance quality of life; and compromise is most difficult, if not impossible, in situations where peoples’ fundamental rights are not recognized. Military and police interventions are often designed to crack down on protests against social injustice and economic inequality, thereby merely serving the interests of the dominant elite. Under these circumstances the absence of overt conflict can be explained in terms of the ability of state elites to impose their own will on society. A lack of civil strife in authoritarian regimes results from fear.

Conflict Management and Resolution

Social order in China, Zimbabwe, and Burma, for example, is based on repression of the rights of individuals and groups to express their sentiments from below. The coercive method of controlling society does not focus on the main source of popular grievances, ignores the demand for inevitable changes, and does not bring an end to conflict – rather, it sows the seed of future violence. However, if properly handled, conflict, understood as a problem to be solved, may offer opportunities for communication between adversaries and facilitate positive changes in the relationship. An effective response to conflict helps reduce a sense of isolation and a fear of abandonment as well as generating a strong belief in others. Disagreements and arguments can be managed in such a way as to avoid extreme polarization, physical violence, and rancor. Efforts to limit escalation of disputes may lead to building interpersonal trust, which could prevent the interpretation of the situation in extreme terms. This article examines how to manage and resolve conflicts that arise from dissatisfied needs and incompatible interests. After discussing conceptual issues, the article examines three different models of interpreting conflict and then goes on to explain diverse ways of dealing with a broad range of conflict-related problems such as negotiation, adjudication, mediation, arbitration, problem-solving workshops, and consensus building. The final section looks at issues relevant to the application of these methods.

Conceptualization There are diverse approaches to conflict management and resolution. Some argue that resolution of conflict is not possible given its intrinsic nature in society, and they prefer the term management in explaining any effort to control conflict. Others maintain that even a protracted conflict can be resolved if changes in behavior, policies, and institutions are made to satisfy the interests and needs of parties. If a dispute in an ordinary relationship is not properly managed, it may deteriorate into a situation in which the existence of anger and hatred requires a deeper level of analysis and intensive efforts to overcome misperceptions, estrangement, and hostility. In general, it can be argued that understanding the root causes of adversarial relationships is essential if conflict in a given system cannot be managed without changes in social norms and institutions. Conflict Management It is not difficult to find arguments and disputes in day-today life: people may disagree, for example, on room temperature, schedules, or salaries. Interest disputes are readily provoked by broken agreements, unobserved norms, and competition in the use of resources. Problems in commercial relations may be caused by the pursuit of incompatible

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monetary and other material interests, breach of contract, dissatisfaction with quality of goods and services, and the ignorance of consumer rights. This type of conflict does not necessarily challenge the legitimacy of dominant norms, values, and institutions. Disputes within an existing system are amenable to settlement through reference to established rules and institutional processes. The provocations that give rise to such problems are part of the system, and the arguments emerge from ordinary social and organizational relationships. Management issues may be related to inadequate knowledge, misperceptions, and differences in preferences. At the workplace, some form of organized discussion and leadership direction can handle misunderstanding and arguments. Communication assisted by someone with the requisite skills to facilitate it may be adequate to reduce tension within a factory or a family. In other cases, the remedies are sought through sanctions, punishment, and arbitration. In cultures that emphasize collectivist values, avoidance of and withdrawal from conflict are encouraged as a means of nonconfrontational management of social relations. For some tribes in the South Pacific islands, group survival traditionally depends on close cooperation among family and community members, making the overt expression of hostile feelings to others a threat to the group. An avoidance strategy can also be adopted under other circumstances. If the matter is not worth fighting over, conflict tends to be ignored. When faced with a stronger opponent or a potentially hostile environment, people are more reluctant to raise an issue. In this situation, the costs of action are perceived to be greater than any possible returns, while the disputants do not have much hope for positive changes. The suppression of emotions such as anger, frustration, and hatred is sometimes necessary to the control of an adversarial relationship. In general, however, avoidance is not a healthy way of managing strained relationships; the longer the grievance remains ignored, the more tensions build up between the parties in a conflict. Cooperative and confrontational behaviors are mixed together even in intense conflicts. Escalation of hostile actions can more easily occur in polarized communities where leaders pursue contentious goals. Not infrequently, the inappropriate management of relationships turns functional disagreements into more serious conflicts: substantive issues are transformed into differences of principle, making any concession look like a defeat. When conflict escalates, it is more difficult to address the concerns of each party and conflict management would require initiating and maintaining communication between the parties as well as controlling violence. Violent confrontations can be avoided through appropriate forms of third-party intervention. For instance, well-conceived and implemented community policing in urban areas can reduce youth violence and bloodshed

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among gang members. In international conflict, peacekeeping operations have increasingly been used to maintain fragile cease-fire agreements between/among belligerent parties. Humanitarian assistance contains and controls explosive situations with urgent relief work. Messages can be delivered through an intermediary who is willing to serve as a communication channel between parties not willing to sit at the same table. To build a satisfactory relationship, however, more direct contacts need to be restored. Tension reduction measures may make the conflict more bearable in the short term, but they do not necessarily deal with the sources of the problems. Though management of hostile relationships is necessary to create an enabling environment for future resolution, it may, at the same time, prolong conflict by removing an urgent need to take immediate action. Conflict Resolution Conflict resolution is a more complex process than conflict management. As conflict unfolds, old identities change and new collectivities are formed. Compromises between parties may not last long if the parties do not feel their concerns have been dealt with satisfactorily. Settling specific cases and issues may not involve changes in the relationship that caused the main source of contention. Conflict resolution requires not only changes in the psychological environment but also transformation of social relationships. Descriptions that focus only on an individual’s motives miss the fundamental nature of social conflict. Conflict cannot be managed within a given system if social norms and political processes are questioned. The activities of conflict resolution entail analyzing the causes of the conflict and exploring strategies for changes in the system that generates adversarial relationships. One of the criteria for successful conflict resolution includes the satisfaction of nonnegotiable needs and cultural values. Changes in perceptions result from the recognition of the other side’s legitimate needs. Shared interests should be redefined by a participatory, nonjudgmental process. Instead of power bargaining, collaborative processes are needed to discover accommodations that bring net advantages to all concerned. Dealing with a particular conflict situation does nothing to prevent the occurrence of another incident of the same kind if the causes of conflictual behavior are not eliminated. For instance, the resolution of conflict between oil companies and indigenous populations in the Amazon rain forests would not be possible without the proper protection of the forest dwellers’ social and economic well-being. Successful conflict resolution has a preventive effect on future confrontation by eliminating the causes of injustice without using threats. Generally, any given conflict’s susceptibility to a winwin solution depends on the nature of the issues, the

constellation of interests, and the availability of alternative options as well as the commitment of parties to problem solving. Conflict over economic interests can, generally speaking, be more easily negotiated than conflict over values and basic needs. Options can be invented to find win-win solutions for labor–management disagreement or the division of resources in international seas. Disputes over material goods and role occupancy are transitory, since they do not threaten deep-seated human needs and values. If competing interests are the prime motivator of the conflict, a compromise can be easily bridged. However, conflicts affecting the security of personal identity, the autonomy of an ethnic group, or a nation cannot be resolved by conflict management techniques. The resolution of deep-rooted conflicts, especially those reflecting long-term hostilities and frustration, requires more intensive efforts to understand the perceptions, emotions, values, and needs of the parties. Parties should be helped with assessing the costs of conflict and exploring conditions for its resolution. In contrast with differences over material interests, issues over values and basic needs often resist compromised solutions, and tend to create deep divisions among partisans to conflict. Highly emotional and value-related issues do not disappear following the imposition of third-party decisions. Group identity, autonomy, and freedom cannot be bargained away, and conditions for realization of human dignity and self-fulfillment should be understood and recognized. Elimination of discrimination and other sources of social inequality require changes in political institutions and social norms. In general, conflict settlement has a limited goal of reaching an agreement between the parties, which enables them to end the violent phase of a conflict. The creation of an atmosphere for coexistence, empathy, and interdependence between parties is essential to the replacement of maligned conflict relationships. At a psychological level, changes in perceptions promote changes in stereotypes along with the removal of enemy images and violence. Reduction in structural inequalities would help to change the social conditions that trigger violent responses. The adoption of nonviolent methods and collaborative patterns of sociopolitical interaction is necessary to allow irreconcilable values and beliefs to coexist. In contrast with management strategies, resolution efforts are directed toward the core underlying causes of conflicts beyond attitudinal changes. The ultimate goal of conflict resolution is the eradication of violent behavior and hostile attitudes through structural changes in conflict dynamics.

Approaches to Conflict Depending on the interpretations of human nature and the goals of society, there are different ways to look at

Conflict Management and Resolution

conflict. Diverse interpretations of relations between individuals and authorities present three different conflict management and resolution models, including deterrence, alternative dispute resolution, and basic needs.

Deterrence Model A deterrence model suggests a hierarchical way of responding to social tension and group conflict. Deterrence theory provides the conceptual foundation for domestic enforcement and international strategic policies. From this perspective, the goal of society is to maintain order and to punish those who do not conform to its values. Many governments use coercive mechanisms to prevent challenges to dominant political and economic interests. The construct of evil human nature justifies the conventional wisdom that an authoritative way of exercising power at all social levels, from parents to the state, is the foundation of peace, since only power can control inherently antisocial human behavior. Punishment and constraints of deviant persons and groups are intended to deter others from nonconformist behavior in the future as well as a means of dealing with the present situation. There is ample evidence that dissident behavior is derived from alienation and other consequences of frustration of certain ontological human needs. In the framework of social control and containment policies, however, more police measures are believed to offer solutions to gang violence with little consideration of economic conditions in poor urban areas. For instance, in efforts to reduce drug trafficking and consumption, there is little understanding of deeper causes of the issues such as a lack of opportunities for development. According to this approach, the death penalty and long-term sentences replace rehabilitation. Little emphasis is put on education and training, and no real attention is paid to the social and economic well-being of those concerned. In dealing with international conflict, this model suggests a status quo oriented approach to control and domination. As exemplified by many contemporary international crises (such as the Israeli war in Lebanon and the US occupation of Iraq) international order is enforced by military operations rather than negotiated solutions. The conventional response to terrorism is another example of deterrence strategies. Israeli bombing in Lebanon caused suffering to the civilian populations while failing to deter Hezbollah guerrilla attacks. Powerful states seek to impose their institutions and values on other peoples in the name of democracy and freedom, but little analysis has been done to understand the oppressive circumstances that have led to both organized and unorganized violence. The US government condemned Iran and Syria as terrorist states and was reluctant to talk with them, while considering their behavior irrational. However, the long-term domination of the

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West in the region has often been ignored as one of the main causes of dissident states’ challenges to Western hegemony. On balance, deterrence strategies do not appear to be an effective means to prevent conflict. First of all, a continuing level of violence in protracted conflicts often derives from repressive measures. Deterrent and coercive approaches do not lead to the discovery or removal of causes of conflict and fail to stop the occurrence of similar events. In the superpower conflict during the Cold War period, the uncertainty of nuclear deterrence policies increased insecurity, and the threat of nuclear annihilation was not eliminated by increasing stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Second, the cost of deterrence policy is too high given the level of destructiveness of weapons technology and financial burdens associated with development and production of destructive military capabilities. Also, the complex nature of modern society makes the prevention of terrorist attacks by extreme religious and nationalist groups very difficult without building a police state. In the aftermath of terrorist attacks in New York, London, and other European cities since 11 September 2001, suppression and containment have proven more costly but less effective than a change in Western policies towards the Islamic region. Conflict in modern society emerges from various forms of social control. Threats of punishment and adversarial institutions are major characteristics of an elite-controlled society. Collaborated problem-solving approaches are not implemented because power holders are fearful of losing their positions of domination and control. In a deterrence model, a forced imposition of the existing hierarchy can generate more violent resistance and rejection of government authority. In fact, it could be argued that conflict at all societal levels – family, community, industrial, and international – reflects the failure of traditional powerelite, deterrence strategies. Power-politics thinking still dominates the policies of many governments. State-centric and unitary decisionmaking models do not easily explain such questions as whose interests matter in society. Conflicts are built in a framework that attaches significance to the socialization of individuals into dominant social norms, to the preservation of institutions, and to a hierarchical decision-making process. Coercion and containment policies do not easily accommodate the social and political adjustments needed for peaceful relations. Rather, those in authority seek to preserve existing structures, institutions, and policies despite the fact that these are a source of conflict. They are traditionally reluctant to admit that coercive power does not work, and insist that there cannot be a dialog with ‘enemies’. The hint of a willingness to negotiate can be perceived as an admission of defeat or, at the very least, as a sign of weakness. When negotiation is seen as part of the power process, the willingness to accommodate the other side’s demands is considered as surrender.

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Alternative Dispute Resolution Model Based on the observation that the costs of war and litigation are too high, the proponents of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) argue that rational individuals should be able to resolve their differences without depending on coercive means. In congruence with the notion of social contract interpreted in terms of the Enlightenment philosophy, this model proposes a more voluntary form of cooperation under conditions of free speech and rationality. Neighborhood disputes can be more easily handled by a participatory mode of decision-making with a strong emphasis on training and education. With goodwill, parties to a dispute can settle their differences by negotiation and compromise. In difficult cases, some skilled third-party intervention may be needed to assist dialog, and to move toward an informed consensus. Instead of threat, consensus is emphasized to promote a nonconfrontational and nonadversarial process approach to stopping violence and promoting social change. The origin of ADR movements goes back to the early 1970s with the establishment of community dispute resolution centers. However, before the emergence of community projects, the federal government of the United States took initiatives in the early twentieth century. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service was founded in 1917 under the aegis of the Department of Labor and was reorganized as an independent federal agency in 1947. In the midst of racial conflict in the South, the Community Relations Service of the Department of Justice was created in 1964 with a mandate to intervene in disputes related to discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. They focus on issues such as school desegregation, issues of fair housing, education, and communications. In response to the growing violence and conflict in schools, there have been efforts to introduce peer mediation in various educational facilities. All these efforts were made to maintain an orderly society without relying too much on law enforcement forces. The recent expansion of mediation to commercial disputes represents a growing trend to look for alternatives to lengthy, expensive judicial processes. Mediation is recognized as cost-effective, and many mediation businesses have emerged to profit from the demand of a corporate world. Specialists on organizational development advise big corporations in setting up conflict management systems to avoid expensive sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits. However, there are some significant differences between the community-based and professional mediation services. In general, community-based dispute resolution programs promote empowerment of individuals through their traditional roles of advocacy. Their original focus was to provide service for the poor seeking justice in a malfunctioning legal system, with an emphasis on building a harmonious community and sharing decision-making

power. The community-based models not only utilize nonprofessional mediators but also involve their volunteers in staff work, outreach, and training activities. Most community-based mediation services select and train their mediators exclusively from the local community. This reduces the gap and distinction between ‘disputants’ and ‘third’ parties, and fosters a sense of the community learning to help and heal itself. Though one might think first of such issues as tenant–landlord disagreements or parent–teen communication problems, just about any problem that arises in the community can be amenable to this type of mediation. In recent years, as the legal system in the USA and elsewhere has become congested, mediation has become more popular in achieving out-of-court settlements. In some states of the US, it is mandatory to try mediation on such issues as divorce and child custody before court hearings. Court officials utilize the system of ADR to reduce their backlogs and speed processes through court referrals. Compared with the original goal of empowerment, its function has turned out to be supplementary to and supportive of the existing legal system. In other countries such as Australia and South Africa, ADR has also been developed at more or less the same pace and in the same areas as the United States. ADR has been criticized for several reasons. Given its emphasis on how to settle disputes without regard to power disparities, it can be seen as conservative in orientation and as another mechanism of social control. The supposed neutrality of a third party favors compromise and conceals the biased impact of power imbalance on the outcome. Since ADR is embedded in individualism, it does not focus on structural inequalities in the society as a source of conflict. The underlying assumption is that the parties themselves have a sufficient insight into the nature of their conflict, and can reach an agreed outcome that will be lasting. All that is required is a process which facilitates discussion and points out misunderstandings in communication between/among the disputants. These techniques are not adequate for reconciling sharply contrasting views about fundamental public values such as abortion or environmental protection. Since the basic social structure is rarely questioned, serious grievances may be trivialized and personalized. The model basically ignores the fact that the roots of many social conflicts lie in the alienating decision-making process through which key social and economic issues are handled. Unfortunately, ADR has lost sight of important aspects of its original ethos, such as a concern for the poor who do not have access to the law. Recent development in ADR can be seen as the privatization of dispute settlement along with the professionalization of mediation services – in other words, the creation of a mediation ‘industry’ of sorts. Today, this industry seems to pay more attention to training corporate managers and government officials in

Conflict Management and Resolution

order to help companies protect commercial interests and to help governments reduce public opposition to unpopular policies. Again, while undoubtedly useful, this type of dispute solution has little to offer in situations where issues are deeply rooted and, in many respects, nonnegotiable. Basic Needs Model As opposed to the traditional view of the deterrence model that conflict is inherent in human nature, the basic needs model of conflict resolution stresses that unfulfilled needs are the main causes of violence. It is assumed that a normal human being is not typically aggressive when his or her basic human needs are met. Conflict between groups is the consequence of a lack of institutionalized means that guarantee identity and security. Needs, in particular, are inherent drives for survival, identity, recognition, and development. These elements cannot be suppressed by socialization, threats, or coercion. Although authorities may try to control and suppress undesired behaviors in order to adhere to the established social norms, many times such control causes opposite results. Contrary to values acquired through education and socialization, ontological and genetic needs – comprised of the desire for development and biological necessities of food and shelter – are universal and primordial. The preservation of personal security and identity is far more important under conditions of oppression, discrimination, and underprivilege. This sense of security emerges from the absence of discrimination, and from having adequate opportunities for personal development. Human needs, values, beliefs, customs, and ideas, which are characteristic of particular cultures and communities, should not be suppressed or denied. The denial of the need for identity can generate a sense of discrimination, which may in turn spawn struggle against the consequences of such discrimination. Wars have been fought to preserve cultural values and identity, and ambitious leaders have emerged to champion and defend them. As we have observed in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere, aspirations for national identity are susceptible to manipulation for political purposes. Furthermore, it was a quest for selfautonomy that divided Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and many other multiethnic societies. History demonstrates that a small Catholic minority community in Northern Ireland could not be controlled by a large British army. The failure to recognize the separate identity of Tamils has sustained ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka. The idea of unqualified majority government turns out to be repressive when applied to societies that are divided by ethnic or some other form of identity. No relative power differences can eliminate these problems as we saw in secessionist movements and colonial struggles. The satisfaction of basic needs is, therefore, essential to nonadversarial problem solving;

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social justice and equity are important elements in contemplating the shared future.

Methods for Dealing with Conflict Depending on its nature and sources, there are different ways to deal with conflict. In negotiation, parties can reach an agreement through compromise. If direct negotiations between two parties are not possible, third parties can be involved to promote communication, make proposals for solutions, or impose decisions. Negotiated rule-making is designed to help multiple interest groups reach consensus. Facilitators in a problem-solving workshop assist adversaries in exploring options that can satisfy their basic human needs. This section discusses major aspects of negotiation and various types of third-party intervention, including adjudication, arbitration, mediation, negotiated rule-making, and a problem-solving workshop. Negotiation Throughout human history, bargaining has existed since people have had to exchange goods to satisfy their material needs. In the modern economic system, negotiation is an inevitable part of daily life, ranging from buying homemade rugs in a Middle Eastern country as a tourist to making decisions on the purchase of a new car or house. Though undoubtedly one of the oldest forms of conflict resolution, not all situations seem amenable to this technique. For instance, negotiations have yet to resolve the dispute between the US and the European Union over farm subsidies, and the issue has strained trans-Atlantic trade relations for some time. Alternatively, international negotiations did not prevent the continued uranium enrichment programs in Iran, which instigated sanctions imposed by the US and its Western allies. Basically, people negotiate because they want something better than they could have obtained without negotiating. In a successful negotiation, both parties must feel that the end result was the best they could accomplish and that they can live with it. In many bargaining situations, interests can be satisfied by the tradeoffs of priorities in different issue areas. Thus, compromise of different positions is encouraged in interest-based negotiation. Sometimes concerns with face saving can be an obstacle to making the concessions needed to reach a final agreement. In the face of one or more parties’ intransigence, more honest discussion about fears and efforts to clear up misperceptions could facilitate constructive discussion. In adversarial bargaining, each side insists on its own positions, and makes concessions unwillingly and often only to avoid being blamed for the collapse of talks. The process is essentially one of dividing up the stakes in the conflict, which are perceived as fixed and limited. Hence,

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interaction often takes the form of a ‘zero-sum’ game. Failure may result from a contest of wills, or from a lack of serious commitment to understanding each other’s interests and objectives. In this regard, US–North Korean negotiation over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs stalled several times since each side had preconditions that could not be met by the other side. In this kind of bargaining environment, each side insists on its own unilateral security needs, and neither side is willing to modify its position. Contesting parties frequently feel that they cannot afford to negotiate from positions of weakness. However, sticking to irreconcilable positions endangers any efforts to build constructive relationships, as each side tries to make the other accept their position without addressing the other party’s concerns. Resentment inevitably arises from one-sided demands of capitulation. Power imbalance between parties leaves fewer options for a weaker party; thus, when negotiators adopt win–lose strategies, the outcome often reflects power differences. In contrast with the process of distributive bargaining based on one party’s unilateral gains, integrated negotiation focuses on efforts to allow each party to achieve their own goals through the pursuit of objectives common to both parties. In order to have a successful integrative negotiation, parties undergo a collaborative process that promotes an understanding of each other’s genuine needs and objectives. Similarities in goals can be discovered through a free flow of information and open exchanges of ideas. The point of departure here is that the proverbial ‘pie’ – the whole of what might be gained by both sides – is not seen as fixed in size, but rather as a variable quantity that can be increased through a collaborative approach to the issues. By working together, participants can achieve greater value satisfaction than they could if they unilaterally pursued their initial narrowly defined conception of their interests. Overall, the goals of both sides are most likely to be met through engagement in a cooperative search for mutual solutions that satisfy all participants. This type of approach has been adopted more easily for trade negotiations between friendly countries, but distributive bargaining has, overall, been more common in international negotiations. Adjudication As a formal legal process, adjudication can handle disputes in the areas of property rights, constitutional interpretation, and criminal offenses. Parties in disputes have little control over the process: they cannot choose the judge or the jury who deliver a verdict on the case. Decisions are formal, and generally enforced. Court arguments are guided by precedents and legal norms and texts rather than an analysis of the values and needs of the disputants. Unless the law is based on equity and justice, a court system cannot truly protect the rights of individuals. An exception in this regard

is The European Court of Human Rights, which protects individual citizens’ civil rights by allowing them to sue their own governments. An older example of adjudication is a tribal council. In many traditional societies councils engage in discussions and adjudications of issues following already preset rules and procedures. Currently, about 15% of cultures still rely on councils as the primary means to settle disputes among individuals or groups in the community. The council is normally composed of men who draw respect because of age, status, or other criteria that are important in their respective culture. To settle disputes, councils hold hearings to ascertain the facts. Disputants are permitted to present their cases through speeches, witnesses, and testimony from supporters. Consensus is needed to make the decision on punishment and compensation. An informal aspect of this process is that often the council has no means of enforcing its decision. It is usually adhered to not only because the disputants respect the status of the council members but also because the community supports the council’s procedure. Theoretically, the modern court system is intended to provide justice for all, but the cost of formal litigation impedes the system’s ability to treat all people equally: those who can afford more skilled and experienced counsel tend to be more successful. An alternative to traditional adjudication is the ‘mini-trial’, where private judges make nonbinding decisions after hearing the evidence and arguments presented by each side. The predicted outcome can help parties reach some form of mutual agreement instead of going to litigation. Litigation is an adversarial process since parties are forced to oppose each other without direct communication. In fact, at the heart of the legal system is the hierarchical relationship between the judge and all other actors in the courtroom drama; and given that their primary purpose is to control, a judicial process is not an effective means of revealing the root causes of disputants’ problems. At the international level, legal settlement is impossible or ineffective without the enforcement power of supranational authority. The lack of support from relevant governments hampered the efforts of the specially constituted international tribunals to indict those responsible for genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda. An authoritative exercise of power by such international courts is opposed by states which do not accept such limitations on their sovereignty. The US withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in 1985 over Nicaraguan action against the US was a dramatic example of this. Since power politics is an international norm, coercion often replaces legal arguments in interstate conflicts. Arbitration Arbitration can be considered as a less formal type of adjudication. In some cases, arbitration exists as a quasi-judicial

Conflict Management and Resolution

process within a legal system. Contrary to a court system, parties can choose arbitrators who determine the outcome – or, at least accept the authority of the system which appoints the arbitrator. The basic principle is that an arbitrator should be acceptable to both parties. Arbitrators are generally concerned with making a fair judgment of the substantive issues as well as with maintaining formal procedures of hearings and fact-finding. Their decisions are based on presented evidence and arguments. At a hearing all parties present arguments, respond to the other side, and answer arbitrators’ questions. Since participants do not make decisions on the outcome, goodwill, trust, and cooperation between parties are not required. With an emphasis on the objectivity of the process, arbitration avoids issues of feelings. The major concerns for arbitrators should be fairness, impartiality, equity, good conscience, the merits of the case, and natural justice. Suitable cases include questions of legal interpretation or technical assessment of problems in such areas as property damage. Arbitration can deal with practical problems, including commercial contracts where objective criteria exist and are required. Expert arbitration focuses on complex questions of facts which are central to the conflict. In international trade disputes, the World Trade Organization has a wideranging authority to hear complaints and make binding decisions. While some decisions have an advisory effect only, parties may sign a formal agreement to accept binding decisions. Though decisions regarding material stakes can be made by arbitration, it does not prevent an irreconcilable breakdown in the relationship between the parties. Stable and long-term personal relations will not emerge from a decision in favor of one party. In addition, arbitration is not effective in resolving value-oriented conflict. Ombudsmanry The bulk of ombudsmen’s work comes from individual citizen complaints about administrative decisions made by public institutions. These complaints can be related to ignorance of the rights of children, college students, employees, prisoners, and healthcare patients. The ombudsmanry system protects individuals against possible government abuse of public trust. It can also work within other organizational settings such as discrimination at the workplace. Functions similar to those of an ombudsman can also be found in some newspaper sections, and television and radio programs that deal with individual complaints. The threats of large-scale publicity about an institution’s failures have a compelling impact on the immediate corrections of problems. The main idea behind ombudsmanry is the notion that all power should be accountable and responsible to the public. Reforms in policy and practice can be generated by the hearings of grievances derived from a pattern of

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neglect, incompetence, or inadequate implementation of policies and procedures. As a result of the investigation, efforts can be made to find remedies within established procedures and systems. Ombudsmen may make legislative recommendations and suggest new policymaking procedures. Since they are not in a position to make changes in laws or policies by themselves, their power is indirect and limited. Their political independence is important in investigating complaints and preparing a report. The procedure is normally objective, informal, inexpensive, and relatively quick. The Swedish experience, tracing back to the early nineteenth century, has offered a modern model of ombudsmanry developed in Western industrialized countries. Traditionally, ombudsmanry focuses on fact-finding and investigating the systematic causes of a complaint. In most cases, problems might be presented, as an initial step, to the head of the department or agency with responsibility and power to respond to the complaint. Ombudsmen can take a public advocacy role in a particular field or a specific geographical area. Mediation The assistance of a neutral third party in a negotiation can help produce a mutually acceptable solution. Consent to a mediation process is voluntary, and the disputants reserve the right to make final decisions on the issue. It is assumed that reasonable compromises can be reached through goodwill and mutual confidence. The third party’s role is to help create that good faith and confidence by assisting communication among the disputants. An impartial third party is not supposed to have authoritative decisionmaking power since the disputants are the major players. Instead, a mediator is concerned with the process rather than the content, making sure that the parties have the ability and opportunity to express their concerns and feelings directly or indirectly. Thus, the main job of mediators is to organize meetings and provide clarity in communication as well as keeping records. The profiles of mediators range from tribal chiefs, world religious leaders, and former politicians to school children. Due to its geopolitical interests and ability to influence the parties in conflict, the US government from time to time mediated negotiations between Israel and its neighbors such as Egypt and Palestine. The United Nations has also been active in ending civil wars in countries such as Mozambique, Guatemala, and El Salvador by successfully conducting mediation between the governments and rebel forces. Since antagonistic parties accept mediation for a variety of reasons, they have different expectations about mediators. The US and the European Union have played a stronger third-party role in bringing about successful outcomes through their promises of economic aid and

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guaranteeing security. As has occurred in BosniaHerzegovina and Kosovo, NATO and powerful international actors may impose mediated solutions on warring parties. In contrast, impartiality has been an important factor for the UN and other actors who are perceived as neutral and objective, and, therefore, as more honest brokers. In commercial or public disputes, mediation has frequently been applied to reduce tensions in labor– management, or consumer–merchant relations as well as to facilitate resolution of divorce and child-custody issues. Schools and prisons have widely adopted mediation programs to prevent inmate uprisings and campus violence by allowing the expression of grievances. Mediation is often advocated as a more amicable way of ending conflict by generating mutually satisfactory outcomes in an efficient manner. Since voluntary agreement is an essential element in any kind of settlement, parties have a great degree of control and freedom and feel more ownership of the settlement. All forms of mediation are supposed to be more democratic in their nature than judicial or arbitration processes. What is truly needed for partisans is to interact in good faith. In some cases, if there is a prior agreement between parties to do so, a failed attempt at mediation is followed by arbitration. A third party acting as a mediator can have power to move into the role of an arbitrator when mediation is not successful. In this case, parties are more willing to reach an agreement through mediation since, if the process fails, they face the risk of arbitration and an imposed settlement. Still, the possibility of arbitration inhibits honest expression of feelings and opinions. Additionally, some mediators are overly concerned with success rates, and tend to limit discussion of larger problems such as social injustice and nonrepresented interests. On balance, when used effectively, mediation can be a tool for not only settling disputes but also for transforming adversarial relationships. Seen in this light, conflict is regarded as an opportunity for spiritual and personal growth with an emphasis on nurturing one’s ability to reach out to others beyond a narrow self. In successful mediation, the parties accept the core principles (such as mutual respect for diverse values and concern for other’s well-being) needed to build transformative relationships. Negotiated Rule Making Decisions made by public authorities often produce policy disputes and challenges from many citizen groups. Even though people share common goals, they may disagree on how to achieve national or community objectives. In public policy, there are many parties contesting different issues, ranging from drug regulations and pollution control to the use of public land. It is often unclear who represents stakeholding interests. In addition, as issues change rapidly, the parties may modify their positions in unexpected directions. This is different from a

classic bargaining situation where two parties negotiate over a single item. While the process of decision-making is more complex due to the existence of multiple parties, tradeoffs for mutual gains can be made across multiple issues. In this context negotiated rule-making has proved useful. This technique is designed to involve multiple parties in collective decisions on complex issues. For example, environmental conflict is a public issue that usually draws attention from a wide range of stakeholders, including manufacturers, community activists, and government regulators. Participants tend to take a strong public position in order to make sure that their voices are heard. In such a situation, political struggle might be involved in resolving important issues over how to prevent irreversible environmental effects (such as a threat to endangered species) and how to minimize consequences of pollution for human health. To reach consensus among multiple parties requires a collaborative decision-making process facilitated by a third party. Consensus would be found when everybody in the group feels that they can accept and actively support the decision. They have to believe that the decision is a win for everyone in the group. Successfully designing a process for consensus decision-making starts with identifying key stakeholders. They can work together step by step, continuously checking back with their constituencies. The participants first work for agreements on the definition of the issues and then move on to solutions. The initial stage of facilitated meetings discusses the nature of issues and collects advice from specialists such as engineers on technical aspects and facts. A third party assists participants in assessing the scope of various concerns and exploring the options available. It is essential that the key stakeholders agree to participate in a collaborative process and that they see it as an integral part of their decisionmaking. Negotiated rule-making was applied to the formulation of the Clean Air Act by the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency which determines penalties on manufacturers of air-polluting truck engines for violating the industry lead standard. Many aspects of consensus decision-making are also reflected in the complex negotiations in the Law of the Sea Conference, which discussed the allocation of mineral resources on the seabed. At the 1992 Rio Environmental Summit, free-trade issues were reconciled with those of protection of endangered species and preservation of resources in the treaty-making process. In US environmental rule-making, the process often consists of hiring the convener, contacting interested parties, and the appointment of an advisory committee. A joint fact-finding phase is generally supported by a technical subcommittee. Then the whole group considers the options for various agenda items invented by the subcommittee. The creation of options for each issue is followed by the development of a single text that covers all the issues with trading and packaging.

Conflict Management and Resolution

It takes several months for each representative to bring the agreement back to their constituents and to come back together for making the final draft of the agreement. Because there is no voting, one of the most important factors in consensus decision-making is that each party should be able to understand their own and the other side’s interests. In addition, creativity in inventing solutions is critical in bridging gaps between different positions. Obstacles to negotiated rule-making include, inter alia, insufficient resources of low-income groups for full participation, different levels of expertise among participants, and costs to hire technical consultants for joint fact-finding. Most importantly, value conflicts cannot be resolved through a consensus decision-making process. It is, therefore, more helpful in dealing with conflicts over interests and questions of how to achieve certain goals. A Problem-Solving Workshop A problem-solving workshop is geared toward enabling the parties to identify and understand each other’s needs that are often root causes of intractable conflict. Representatives of parties are invited, on a confidential basis, to work with a small panel of disinterested consultants in order to analyze the causes of conflict and examine conditions for its resolution. The analysis of root causes of conflict requires sufficient knowledge of the parties’ conflictual relationships. Compared with mediation, which seeks an acceptable compromise between the parties, facilitators in problem-solving workshops help participants identify suppressed and hidden human needs. The main task of the workshop is to restructure the conflict from a win–lose to win–win situation. Given that facilitation is designed to analyze the parties’ needs, the process eliminates the assumptions of power-based bargaining. Ideal participants for the workshop are individuals such as journalists, civil society leaders, and former government officials who are influential within their respective communities. The participants benefit from developing their knowledge about conflict and human behavior by applying it to the particular setting. The analysis of the situation brings about the new understanding of the relationship which is essential to creating a joint frame of reference. Unless participants are able to identify something relevant to their experience and belief systems, it would be difficult to internalize new information and knowledge, and to learn from interaction. Workshops aim at helping participants to develop a common universe of discourse that will serve as a basis of cooperation. Throughout workshops, participants are encouraged to simulate alternative roles between analysts and partners. A panel, composed of half a dozen facilitators, encourages partisans to get to the bottom of those issues which tend to be ignored in power-bargaining situations. In their sponsoring role, the intermediary clarifies and interprets facts

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and events along with offering knowledge about relevant patterns of behavior drawn from other situations. A basis for legitimacy and credibility accepted by the conflicting parties comes from the status of the panelists who tend to be scholar practitioners. The workshop approach has been applied by a number of scholars interested in action-oriented research to ethnic conflict in Southeast Asia and the conflicts between Palestinians and Israelis. These workshops respond to the perceived victimization that stemmed from not only the denial of separate identity but also the denial of effective participation. The main objectives of these workshops would be promotion of interactive decision-making while screening out false assumptions and implications from existing cultural orientations and group prejudices. There is no detailed outcome of this process because the workshop is not intended to promote particular solutions. Enduring solutions must be based on the principles of equity and reciprocity. When each side gets more familiar with the other’s intentions and perception, they will more eagerly cooperate to search for mutually acceptable outcomes. Workshops also help the participants appreciate the cost of confrontational policies and discover the existence of alternative means of attaining their goals. While new knowledge and attitudes are developed out of the workshop, the success of the workshop would ultimately be judged by the eventual transformation of a history of intense hostilities. New understanding and awareness generated by an informal process are expected to feed into an official negotiation process with attitudinal changes. The Context of Application Theories and skills can be applied to various types of issues at different levels of analysis, including personal, communal, and international. Given the absence of an overriding power in the international scene, adjudication is less frequently used than mediation and arbitration in settling disputes between states. In the domestic arena, mediation has become more popular due to deficiencies in the legal system. Peer or voluntary mediators can deal with arguments between people at a workplace as well as ordinary problems within a family. Organizational disputes need to be professionally handled by administrators, managers, or industrial arbitrators who are familiar with the issues at stake. International development agencies have been adapted to bring antagonistic ethnic group leaders together to elicit cooperation in communal development projects. Given their destructive impact on public life, strikes of public employees can be referred to arbitration for quick solution. Emotional problems and personality conflicts may require the expert knowledge of social workers and psychiatrists. There are, however, cases such as sexual harassment and child abuse that need to go to court for justice to be done. In such areas as environmental and

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industrial conflicts where power imbalance is prevalent, advocacy roles may be required before any negotiation or mediation takes place. Given its focus on basic needs, problem-solving workshops have been used to facilitate the resolution of protracted conflict with intense violence. The nature of negotiation and different types of thirdparty intervention affects the conditions for conflict settlement and resolution. The settlement process may involve threats and coercion as well as persuasion. A negotiated solution based on a power-bargaining process may not, as we have argued, last long, since the discontented party will want to change the settlement terms as soon as practicably possible. Approaches to third-party intervention can be assessed in terms of the degrees of their decision-making power, types of their roles, and other attributes. In judicial settlements and arbitration, the imposition of a third-party decision does not help to mend relations since there is no direct communication between protagonists. Third parties can exert more pressure in compulsory mediation ordered by courts than in voluntary settings. In negotiated rule-making, consensus among different issues can be forged through technical analysis of differences in options and tradeoffs of priorities. The merit of problem-solving workshops stems from their unconventional ability to change the sociopsychological environments of participants. Mediation, court procedures, and arbitration have a place in a conventional framework of dispute settlement, as they operate in support of existing laws and norms. Public officials and mediators would not be effective especially in situations where a nonconformist minority group queries or even rejects the dominant values of the court system and legal representation. Given its adversarial process, the outcome of adjudication often reflects a win–lose, zero-sum solution. The preconditions of arbitration include acceptance and trust of existing rules. While mediation enhances communication between parties, the process does not necessarily generate an understanding of the main cause(s) of a struggle. Negotiated rule-making is a better way to deal with policy disputes which have a broad impact on multiple stakeholders. Harmonious social relations need to be embedded in building a broad level of consensus in key public policy areas. The application of specific skills depends not only on the sources of conflict but also on the nature of the existing relationship between/among the parties. Pre-negotiation interventions may focus on developing sustainable relationships. In negotiation, the perception and understanding of the situation are influenced by the degree and quality of communication between negotiators. Disputes over material interests can be managed by clarifying the facts or by expanding the pie. In some cases building communication may be enough to manage conflict. The existence of a contentious relationship hampers an analytical process of clarifying issues. The application of

conflict management techniques to historical animosities produces limited, short-term solutions. Some conflicts will never be resolved unless parties are willing to change the patterns of their interactions and realize the need for structural changes. Getting to the root causes of adversarial relationships requires the examination of perceptions, motives, and basic needs by parties. A nonauthoritarian and nonjudgmental mode of decision-making is more helpful for reaching consensus. Facilitated methods are essential for finding options acceptable to different parties. A facilitator needs a wider knowledge base if the goal of conflict resolution is understood as problem solving. Mutual satisfaction requires innovative and flexible solutions arrived at through the maximum involvement of participants.

Conclusion If it is assumed that human beings are inherently evil and biologically aggressive, conflict management mechanisms based on control are likely to be seen as more appropriate. However, if conflict is considered to arise primarily from societal conditions, then research on conflict resolution should pay more attention to broad social relationships. Appropriate processes need to be designed to tackle human behavior at source. The sources of conflict can be examined in terms of questions of social justice and economic inequality as well as cultural and psychological concerns. For the last three decades, knowledge and practice of conflict analysis and resolution have been developed by educated, verbally skilled, middle-class professionals in Western industrialized societies. As we enter the twentyfirst century, the nature of human diversity is such that a creative approach to conflict transformation is essential. To this end, exposure to a wider range of theories and practices is important to the development of conflict management and resolution mechanisms. See also: Linguistic Constructions of Violence, Peace, and Conflict; Mediation and Negotiation Techniques; Peaceful Societies

Further Reading Burton, J. W. (1990). Conflict: Resolution and prevention. New York: Macmillan. Burton, J. W. (1996). Conflict resolution: Its language and processes. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. Jeong, H. W. (2005). Peacebuilding in postconflict societies. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Jeong, H. W. (2008). Understanding conflict and conflict analysis. London: Sage Publications. Lewicki, J. R., Saunders, M. D., and Minton, W. J. (2001). Essentials of negotiation. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Mitchell, C. (2002). Gestures of conciliation. Houndsmill: Palgrave/ Macmillan. Pruitt, D. and Kim, S. H. (2003). Social conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict Sheldon G Levy, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA ã 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

General Overview of Cooperation and Conflict Framework for Presentation of Research Defining Research Peace Science and the Study of International Conflict – Selected Research and Theory

Glossary Coalition A group of individuals who combine for the purpose of joint effort. A coalition is, therefore, cooperative. Competition A form of conflict in which the parties seek to improve their relative position. Such competition may pertain to the division of goods but it can also occur to increase the overall level of available resources. Conflict Antagonistic or incompatible behavior that defines the opposite end of the cooperation–conflict dimension. The conflict behavior may be verbal or physical. Conflict Resolution Any continuing reduction in antagonistic or incompatible behavior. The reduction does not require overt or mutual agreement and it may be partial or complete. Cooperation Joint action that may be for mutual economic or other benefit, or, in ecology, that has survival value for the parties. Coerced cooperation can exist since the party that is coerced benefits by avoiding penalty.

Cooperation is a continuous but frequently obscure part of social life. All social interaction is based on roles in which behaviors of the participants represent attempts to fulfill the expectations of both the role player, for example, the president of a country, and those in complementary roles such as the citizens. Members in each role have expectations about behavior that is appropriate for their own role as well as for those occupying the complementary role. To the extent that these expectations are fulfilled, social life is cooperative; without such cooperation no social organization could exist. Since mutual dependence does not require conscious awareness, cooperation may occur in lower animals such as insects. Conflict is theoretically not inevitable although it is difficult to imagine any social organization in which the actors do not at times disagree about goals or engage in overt action to achieve incompatible objectives.

Peaceful Societies Current Conflict Domains Future Research and Methodology Further Reading

External Validity (Also Referred to as Ecological Validity) The extent to which a research effort replicates or represents the conditions that exist in the real world. Although the concept most frequently refers to experiments, it may also be applied to other research investigations, for example, questionnaire surveys. Frame of Reference A set of related beliefs that provide a standard for the assessment of information and evaluation of behavior. Mobilization The activation of individuals or groups toward a common goal. Mobilization most frequently arises within a larger social context of conflict, although it may develop to solve a mutual problem. Although analytically mobilization can evolve without cooperation, it is almost always associated with coalitions. Structural Factors Those attributes external to the individual that characterize the physical or social environment. Zero-Sum Linked outcomes that balance each other so that a loss for one party results in a gain in equal amount for the other.

General Overview of Cooperation and Conflict Since groups consist of individuals, psychological processes are important in any discussion of group behavior. Two major sources for behavior are emotion and information. The emotional component leads to activity that is expressive of feelings as well as to goals that are affective states, for example, reduced fear or increased pleasure. Therefore, although awareness and cognition are important, behavioral choices are not solely or in many cases predominantly determined by ‘rational’ decisions in which choices, outcomes, and probabilities are logically assessed. In animals lower than man, decisions are substantially determined by instinct, that is the automatic response to a stimulus environment; those species with members that reacted automatically in a lifesaving fashion

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are those that remain extant. Such biological predispositions exist in humans, but the more elaborate memories and increased ability to process information and to reason allow such responses, even under emotional severity, to be subject to a reduced level of automatic biological control. Group interaction constitutes a set of stimuli that both provides information and also results in emotional consequences. The greater capacity of humans to solve problems allows creative design of both cooperation and conflict. However, even during conflict, cooperation is frequently a means through which the conflictual problem is addressed. A most important arrangement among humans is that of coalitions. Each worker cannot greatly influence the owner of a business, but a labor union agreeing on joint action may. For cooperation through coalitions to occur, there must be recognition of a common problem and/or authority. The problem may be a physical obstacle and lead to joint efforts to build a tower of Babel, or it may be social, such as economic exploitation, in which the common action seeks to challenge the distribution of goods. Effective coalitions require mobilization and both coalitions and their mobilization are integral to the evolution of cooperation and conflict. Almost all social organizations involve hierarchy. Thus, there are distinctive roles for leaders and followers and the influence of each on the level of cooperation or conflict must be explored. Finally, the structural circumstances within which the event itself is embedded must also be investigated. Such structural factors overlap several other categories since they range from environmental conditions to the nature of the society. When conflict exists, the parties may desire to alter the state of affairs but find it difficult to do so. This difficulty can arise from several sources. First, one or more participants may not have sufficient insight to develop alternatives to the intractable problem. Second, there may be so little trust that neither side is willing to initiate cooperation and incur the risk that the other will take advantage of a conciliatory move. Third, views of the two parties about what constitutes a fair process or resolution may be incompatible and the grievances may be so serious that the participants are unable to even agree on a starting point. Within this context, resort to third parties in the form of arbitration, negotiation, and mediation arises. One step in negotiation and mediation is to lower the intensity of the emotions by reducing the immediate provocation. A cease-fire in war, even if short, facilitates resolution. Increasing the contact among the factions may facilitate a reduction in stereotypes and increase understanding of the other point of view. Such changes are often necessary prior to conflict resolution. The Israeli–Hezbollah conflict of July–August 2006 illustrates the complexity of historical events. The Israelis invaded Lebanon after a Hezbollah raid into

Israel killed several Israeli soldiers and captured two who were taken to Lebanon. Israel, with the larger military force, resisted a cease-fire since they feared that it would be used by Hezbollah to reestablish a military threat. Lebanese civilian casualties and destruction of Lebanese infrastructure were major factors in leading the UN Security Council to agree upon a cease-fire statement and to exert pressure primarily upon the more resistant Israelis. Thus, military, political, and humanitarian components existed in this and in most other conflicts and the preference ordering of goals may differ among a multitude of parties. Recourse to conflict management introduces complex cognitive processes but much conflict results from emotional factors. Once these have become amplified, the disruption of the conflict is far more difficult. Therefore, management of conflict is more efficient when it is preventive rather than interventional. Cooperation exists in large part because individuals wish to be part of a group (conformity) or to avoid negative sanctions (obedience). The slaves who built the pyramids cooperated with the pharaohs; the American slaves cooperated with the plantation owners; soldiers cooperate with officers even when it is clear that their lives are being sacrificed through unreasonable decisions. The German military during World War II utilized fear and deception to increase the cooperative behavior of the Jews of Europe, all of whom were marked for extinction. The consequences of deception coupled with fear at the Theresienstadt (Terezin near Prague) concentration camp have been documented by Amy Loewenhaar, who directed the Terezin Project in New York City. The Jewish musicians in the camp included many talented European artists. They believed that if their orchestra and choir provided a superior performance for the German high command, they would be salvaged because of their value as entertainers. After an impeccably accomplished performance for which the group had practiced for months, they were sent to Auschwitz. Egocentrism interferes with conflict resolution by hindering the recognition of the problem. The master may not imagine the discontent of the servant, the comfortable that of the working poor or unemployed, the guard that of the prison inmates. Under these circumstances, if other forms of communication appear ineffective, conflict serves as communication even if its incitement is not for that purpose. Noise from people, as from wheels, elicits awareness. Research efforts are scant that attempt to incorporate both emotion and information and to include multiple levels of the system – individual, group, larger political entity – and the historical experience. William Gamson, a sociologist, is an exception. Data were obtained on the mental representation of the Arab–Israeli conflict for members of different subcultures in the United States.

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

His data included the individual’s definition of the issue, historical events that supported the point of view, and the principles, images, and reasoning that were involved. Thus personal emotional and cognitive factors were integrated, including the perception of history, and combined with the judgments of others to understand the formation of a common definition, or frame of reference, of the social issue. Walter Isard, an economist, has discussed the separate approaches of several of the social sciences to conflict resolution in Understanding conflict and the science of peace. The complexity is illustrated in a discussion of conflict management. A representative list of 60 variables is identified from a larger set that should be considered, particularly by third-party negotiators or mediators. The major categories that encompass the variables include: information requirements, structural and time-related properties, motivational and other psychological properties, and solution properties. The emphasis in this article is on the development, escalation, and de-escalation of conflict and on associated degrees of cooperation. The central concern is of relationships between groups rather than between individuals and on armed conflict. However, much of the research is experimental and, therefore, does not directly investigate the clash between groups. Further, only a portion of the relevant material can be discussed and only some of the disciplinary approaches represented. Much additional information may be obtained by reading the remainder of this encyclopedia.

Framework for Presentation of Research The following selected studies may be classified into experiments, events analysis, and anthropological–historical investigations. Two major forms of experiments may be differentiated. One category involves manipulations within a natural environment represented by the Robbers Cave and the jigsaw classroom studies. More commonly, the research is in the laboratory and many of these consist of simulations that may be characterized as games as will be illustrated in the Deutsch and Krauss trucking problem. An important variation consists of formal games; the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) is one version that has been extensively employed. In addition to experiments, political scientists have utilized actual events data in an attempt to identify causes of conflict and circumstances associated with its resolution. Anthropologists and historians have provided significant contributions through the study of other societies, particularly those that are rather continuously peaceful. Each approach embodies associated concepts that are partially determined by the design of the investigations and also result from the conceptual development within

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that academic discipline. The naturalistic experimental studies have focused on competition as it affects the evolution of in-group–out-group distinctions and conflict, and on the role of superordinate goals as a means of reducing intergroup hostility. The simulations and formal games have frequently examined cooperation, defection, and the role of communication, with the concepts of threat, self-interest, and risk entering the analyses and explanations. The formal methods may also allow some insight into conflicts that involve large amounts of emotion, such as panic. Experimental attempts to study such highly emotional situations are obviously limited because of the physical danger to the participants. Sometimes two approaches are combined. The PD paradigm coupled with Richardson’s formal mathematical model of the arms race led to a creative proposal by Charles Osgood to de-escalate a conflict environment and obtain peace in the absence of ideological agreement. Pilisuk and Skolnick then investigated Osgood’s propositions through a formal game. Quantitative political science frequently reverses the dominant investigative process just described. The data are the events themselves as recorded in history. The patterns of cooperation and conflict among political states, including the escalation and de-escalation of wars and rivalries, are then evaluated based on the historical facts. Both psychological and structural concepts are employed, including grievances, power of the disputants, regime type, threat, and transitions in culture and political organization. Political scientists are more likely than psychologists to test psychological explanations of intergroup conflict against the actual events. The relationship of frustration, relative deprivation, and justice to group conflict, and the effects of stress on the decision-making process are examples. Finally, the anthropological–historical investigations are predominantly structurally oriented with emphasis on environmental circumstances, social organization, and in-group interaction patterns. Their valuable contributions include the identification of societies that are relatively conflict-free. A fascinating irony is that these investigations return full circle to some of the principles derived from the Robbers Cave observations.

Defining Research Competition, Conflict, and Superordinate Goals The robbers cave studies

During the 1950s, Muzafer Sherif conducted a series of investigations at boys camps, one of which was the Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. To the participants, the experience was indistinguishable from any other 3-week summer camp even though it was staffed

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and engineered by social scientists. The camp session was divided into distinct stages, each lasting about a week. The boys were assigned to two groups that were brought separately to the camp. For the first few days, each did not know of the existence of the other. Strong personal ties developed along with identifying group names and emblems. Each cabin became aware of the other’s existence shortly before the second phase, the formal competitive period. The ‘tournament’ consisted of a range of contests among which were sporting events. During this competitive stage, friendship patterns were almost exclusively in-group and overt hostility emerged including fights and dormitory raids. The final phase attempted to resolve the intergroup hostility. Mere integration, that is, bringing the boys together, was not sufficient. However, cooperative efforts to achieve mutually desired (superordinate) goals did result in lessened hostility and changes in friendship patterns. Examples of the superordinate situations included contribution of money from everyone to defray costs of a movie all wanted to see, and joint effort to pull a disabled truck carrying the boys in which the physical effort of one group alone was not sufficient. A number of principles may be derived from this research. First, in-group–out-group distinctions may develop based on relatively minor considerations such as physical proximity. Second, competition not only increases the difference between in-group and outgroup but is also associated with (1) overvaluation of the in-group and derogation of the out-group and (2) an increase in hostility toward the out-group. Third, mere integration, that is, meeting together in a common physical environment, does not appear to be sufficient to reduce hostility. Fourth, cooperative effort toward mutually desired goals may be an important conflict resolving strategy. It may be that such cooperation redefines the unit so that all are now contained in an overarching group. Classroom cooperation to achieve individual grades

Status differences may interfere with positive group relationships. Thus, integration in housing or schools has not automatically resulted in a reduction in intergroup conflict. One community may consider itself superior to the other and this may combine with the other’s perception of its own inferiority. Aronson creatively adapted some of the principles derived from the Robbers Cave studies to develop cooperative efforts among members of different ethnic groups. The investigations were conducted in a large number of classrooms in Texas. Academic projects were designed that could not be completed without cooperation since each individual in a group was only provided with a part of the assignment. The superordinate goal was the grade and, although received by the individual, mastery of the

assignment required that everyone provide the respective pieces to the ‘puzzle’ with each person learning from the others. Thus, each contributed to and was dependent upon the members of the unit. The approach was labeled ‘the jigsaw classroom’. Although some improvement between white and Hispanic views toward each other was observed, the results were not as strong as one might have anticipated. A number of factors may interfere with achieving the desired improvement in intergroup relations. In the Sherif studies, everyone brought approximately equal abilities to the superordinate task – money for the movie and muscles for the remobilization of the truck. In a classroom, there are differential abilities. Even when individuals of approximately equal academic ability are placed together, perceptions and evaluations are not always consistent with reality. There is sufficient research in social psychology to demonstrate that prior judgments of a person or the group to which that person belongs affect the evaluation of that individual’s contributions. Further, if the group as a whole does not do well on the task, there is less likely to be group cohesiveness. A scapegoat may be sought in which the victimization would be of someone toward whom prior negative opinions existed. Research supports a number of these contentions, for example, the dislike of less competent members of a team, the distortion of minority group member contributions, and the lowered cohesiveness of unrewarded groups. Further, under some circumstances, attempts to increase competence of minority group members may increase the conflict. Thus, if a minority group member violates an expectation, for example, through being trained to be more competent in a particular task, resentment may develop. In 1954, prior to the publication of the Robbers Cave studies, Allport in The nature of prejudice concluded that the most effective combination of conditions for reducing prejudice included equal status contact with joint efforts toward superordinate goals aided by institutional support. Stephan has summarized findings from jigsaw classroom studies a number of which are consistent with Allport’s hypotheses. For example, he states that there are practically no findings that suggest intergroup relations deteriorate. Interethnic relations improve, when an effect is observed, in attitudes, mutual helping, lessened conflict, and increased participation and influence of the minority members. There are a number of conditions that facilitate positive results, for example, strong institutional support for the team process conducted in real settings over a fairly long period of time with members of the group who are equal in status. The circumstances conducive to a lessening of conflict also include: minimization of competition, comparability in belief and values as well as status, similar levels of competence, positive outcomes as a result of the group effort, emphasis on each individual

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

as distinct rather than a member of a category, representation in about equal numbers of the various ethnic groups, efforts that occur in a variety of contexts, and participation that is voluntary. Unfortunately, many of the factors that facilitate successful reductions in hostility are just those factors that require amelioration such as unequal status, fewer members in the negatively valued group, dissimilarity in beliefs, and differential competence.

The factor of threat

Deutsch and Krauss developed a simulation game for two players with rewards for rapid delivery of goods by truck: the faster the delivery the greater the payoff. There were two routes, a direct one and an alternate. Three conditions were examined: in the first, neither party possessed a threat (a gate that blocked the main route), in another only one possessed the threat, and in the third they both did. The subjects who answered the research call were females at a telephone company. Because a route could only be traveled by one truck, both always possessed some threat since one could block the main route. There would be no payoff to either unless one backed up to take the alternate route but in that case the other would have unimpeded access to the faster main route. Of course, if both were intransigent, neither would receive a reward. The gate provided explicit threat. A gate-endowed player could, if necessary, travel the longer alternate route while depriving the other player of the main road. In the bilateral threat condition, each player possessed a gate. The game itself was not zero-sum since the speed determined the amount of payment. Although the goal was to beat the clock, there might have been competition by attempting to do better than the opponent (although participants were instructed to maximize their own payoff without regard to that of the other player). Cooperation, represented by alternating access to the main road to reduce trucking time, was greatest when neither had the gate threat and it was least when both did. However, the monetary payoff was only imaginary and direct communication was not allowed although each could identify the position of the other by viewing a display board. Subsequent research has demonstrated that changes in procedure alter observed results. For example, a person’s antagonism can alter the focus to maximizing the loss to the other player independent of one’s own outcomes or to maximizing the difference between the two payoffs. (One such instance might be the Nazis’ efforts, detailed in Lucy Dawidowicz’s War against the Jews, in which, even at the cost of moving necessary war materials away from the German armies, the destruction of the Jews was of such importance that it was their losses that were to be maximized.) Gallo found that when real money was involved, competition lessened and the total amount of the payoffs increased.

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It is clear, however, that experimental findings are often not consistent with real-world experiences. Early labor unionizing occurred when the threat was unilaterally held by management. There was little cooperation between the two sides as evidenced by the high level of conflict during these periods. Only when the workers achieved comparable levels of intimidation, namely a strike coupled with the ability to deter scabs, did management become interested in reaching an accommodation with the workers. The importance of these issues will become evident in the discussion of recent studies of international conflict. Formal Games as Research Devices The complexity of real social interactions has led to the development of tools that allow for a definition of key variables while providing control over them. An extensively investigated paradigm is based on von Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of games and economic behavior and a particular derivative, a seemingly simple game designated the PD. Games and payoffs

The PD may be represented as a two-person game in which each has two choices. The exact outcome is dependent on the combination of decisions. The structure of the payoffs creates the possibility of cooperation or defection and suggests explanations that include trust and/or threat. The most elementary form of the game is one in which both players must make a choice simultaneously. In expanded versions, it is possible to include sequential choices and other factors such as communication. Consider two suspects in a crime who are interrogated separately by the police. The police have limited information and require a confession to obtain a maximum penalty. Each prisoner is offered lenient terms if he confesses. Nevertheless, it is in the interest of both prisoners that neither confesses in which case they will either go free or suffer a light sentence. Not confessing, however, requires some degree of trust because of a risk. If one confesses and the other does not, the confessor will get a light prison term while the other will be sentenced to a long one. However, if both confess, they will receive long prison terms but less than the maximum. The dilemma is created because the outcomes are dependent and because one avenue of reasoning leads both to confess. The PD is easily represented by a matrix in which rows represent choices of prisoner I and columns those of prisoner II. The outcomes are in the cells (Figure 1): A strategy of minimizing one’s maximum penalty is labeled minimax and in the PD each player has a dominating strategy to achieve this. A dominating strategy exists when the decision is the same no matter what the other player chooses.

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Player II Confess

Don’t Confess

Confess

Player I 5 years Player II 5 years

Player I 3 months Player II 10 years

Don’t Confess

Player I 10 years Player II 3 months

Player I 6 months Player II 6 months

Player I

Figure 1 Hypothetical payoffs in a prisoner’s dilemma situation.

Prisoner I might reason that if his colleague confesses (column 1), it would be better to confess and receive a 5-year sentence rather than 10 years. Even if the other does not confess, it would still be better to confess and receive a 3-month rather than a 6-month prison term. The reasoning is identical for prisoner II. Thus, both players have a dominating strategy to confess. Of course, they would be far better served if neither confessed. However, choosing the ‘cooperate’ strategy requires trust. Since gains for one are not necessarily losses for the other, the PD is not zero-sum. Defining rationality – minimax or mutualmax

Rationality, as in PD, is dependent on the goal. If it is to maximize one’s individual gain, precise procedures may be defined that increase the likelihood of achieving that end. However, there are other goals, for example, to maximize the benefit to the other party even at cost to one’s self (altruism), to maximize the joint benefits (community interest) without regard to individual distribution, or to increase the degree to which one dominates even if it means that the outcomes will be negative. Each goal suggests its own ‘rationality’. The altruistic player will not confess and if both are altruistic, neither will. They face no dilemma. If both wish to achieve overall community welfare neither confesses since the only distinguishing outcome is a total of 12 months in prison while the combined penalties in the other cells result in about 10 years. A player motivated to dominate will confess as it is the only route to obtaining a clear advantage over the other. If both seek domination, they both confess. A more sophisticated analysis would also require assessment of the likelihood of particular choices, but the point is to suggest self-interest is not the only objective and each results in its own ‘logic’. The minimax self-interest strategy may itself involve an inconsistency. At the start, each player considers the moves of the other but when a dominating strategy exists, the decision making becomes independent of the other. However, the goal of 3 months in prison is not achievable unless one ignores the self-interest of the other. Therefore, a logic that better serves self-interest might be one of ‘mutualmax’, the selection of the outcome that will maximize ones benefit given that the other party is seeking a

choice to accomplish the same. In this instance that would be 6 months in prison, achievable if each ‘does not confess’. This possibility is supported by experimental results discussed later in the section on Osgood’s proposal and subsequent experiments. However, ‘mutualmax’ is not stable since one party may gain by defecting. The theory of moves

Steve Brams in the Theory of moves has expanded the applicability of the formal game approach. The deductive system is limited to 2
2 games but may be extended to more elaborate versions. First, Brams notes that there are 78 ordinal versions of the 2
2 matrix when only relative payoffs between the players are considered. Of these, 57 may be classified as conflict games. By introducing a starting point, history is included in the decision making. The theory includes additional concepts such as frustration and also provides the game with a dynamic property. Panic: A PD interpretation of an emotional environment

The PD paradigm may be applied even when the decision making is not conscious or cognitively reasoned. A panic may result from a threatening environment in which the fear of being unable to escape results in negative consequences for the parties, whereas ‘cooperation’ might have led to a far better outcome. Roger Brown illustrated such a possibility in his 1965 text, Social psychology. A theater fire may lead one to rush the exits, fearful that if one hesitates while others rush, the hesitator may be trapped. Others, motivated similarly, may also rush the exits. A cooperative orderly exit might be advantageous to all. The essential structural feature is that there are insufficient escape routes if everyone rushes. Panic with limited escape routes represents conflict in which the forces in the environment are so strong that they activate emotional reactions that almost automatically result in incompatible behaviors among the group members. Mintz attempted to capture the elements of panic in a laboratory. Participants held strings that were attached to cone-shaped objects in a bottle with a narrow neck. Individuals were rewarded if they were able to escape the threat – water entering from the bottom. However, if the extraction was not orderly, the cones would jam the ‘exit’ and the water would reach them. A large number of ‘jams’ occurred when communication was prevented and the problem all but disappeared when communication was allowed. Mintz concluded that communication, rather than emotion, was the key variable. As already discussed, experiments do not reach the intensity of real situations and emotional factors do interfere with ‘rational’ thought whether in panic or in interstate conflict. Financial panic in which the fear is of losing one’s assets has many similarities to a theater-fire panic.

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

If everyone rushes the exits (sells at the same time), the price will drop precipitously since there will be insufficient buyers (exits) to accommodate the market. Sellers are better off not to rush the exits. However, if one waits while the others rush, the hesitant party may be left holding the bag of devalued stock certificates. During the US stock market debacle of October 1987, ‘rational’ players (employing computerized trading) combined with ‘irrational’ fear of financial loss to create an instant reduction in wealth of hundreds of billions of dollars. To deter such a combination of circumstances, the New York Exchange instituted procedures for halting the panic spiral. These involved taking away the exits (closing the markets). These ‘collars’ went into effect during the much less severe, but nevertheless important, stock market loss during October 1997. The argument that closing the market risks exacerbating the problem since everyone may be ‘burned’ without any exits is fallacious. Fear interferes with rational decision making and stimulates further fear. Closing the markets, comparable to Roosevelt’s Bank Holiday in the 1930s, provides an opportunity for emotions to dampen and allows time for rational decision making. During the earlier 1987 stock market collapse, the lack of collars still resulted in the loss of exits: the panic led to such a great flood of orders that it was not possible to match buyers with sellers and the market opening was delayed. This is advantageous to the buyers who can lower their offer of purchase, thus further increasing seller fear. The forced closing of the New York Stock Exchange as a result of the attack in 2001 on the World Trade Center did not create disorder in the markets. Even though the market was closed for several days, with a high degree of emotional arousal in the whole of the country, the subsequent opening was orderly. Research on the Conflict Spiral, Coalitions, and Overcoming Impediments to Negotiation Reversing the conflict spiral: The osgood proposal

Charles Osgood proposed a strategy for increasing cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The procedure, ‘‘graduated reciprocated unilateral initiatives for peace,’’ required communication, a sequential set of decisions, and a safeguard so that a country’s safety was not dependent on the goodwill of the other country. The proposal’s acronym was GRIT where T represents tension reduction. Osgood recognized, as did Richardson earlier in his mathematical model of the arms race, that mutual grievances and fear led to escalation that increased the chances of war. Therefore, it was important to induce the opponent to cooperate in arms de-escalation. The proposal assumed that the adversaries preferred the ideological conflict to a physical war in which both were armed with nuclear weapons.

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The initiator was required to assume some risk through a small reduction in military forces. The reduction was to be announced publicly and to contain the promise of future reductions if there were reciprocation. In addition, the arrangement included inspection to confirm the reduction as well as the reciprocation. For parties that would find the proposal to their mutual advantage, the initiator’s reduction could easily be reversed so that the initiator was not placed at undue risk. The process would also be aided if the initiator could incur another small reduction should the first effort not be reciprocated, thereby increasing the credibility of the overture. In the utilization of game procedures, as illustrated by the PD, a matching strategy is frequently referred to as Tit-for-Tat. Axelrod, based on a large number of computer simulations in which various strategies were pitted against each other, argued that this was the most effective one for inducing cooperation. The Osgood plan encouraged Tit-for-Tat and also required one side to initiate the conciliatory process (the Tat), thus indicating the direction of the other player’s Tit. It included the promise to then provide another Tat and to continue doing so as long as the opponent provided matching Tits. If successful, the result would be a spiraling de-escalation of arms. The extent to which such ideas entered international negotiations between the United States and the Soviets is difficult to assess. There may have been some influence but the efficient application of the theory was not evident.

Pilisuk and Skolnick: Converting missiles

Pilisuk and Skolnick incorporated a number of elements of the Osgood strategy in a formal game in which each side had resources that included missiles and factories. The game was conducted as a sequential multiple play PD rather than a simultaneous single play. It included communication since communication had already been shown to be an important influence in increasing cooperation. A player could indicate an intention prior to a move and could also inspect the other’s resources. However, since inspection was not continuous, the possibility of deception existed. Cooperation was signified by the conversion from missiles to factories, the payoffs were identified as economic decisions and were to represent those of a country. The results suggested that early substantial unilateral initiatives provided increased likelihood of cooperation. Further, intentions with honesty tended to be followed by cooperation but deceptive communication, engaged in by some, lessened cooperation. Although these results provide support for the Osgood suggestions, the amount of cooperation was only marginally greater than results from a matching strategy. The results might also have differed if the players had been induced to achieve control, as in empire building.

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In these experiments, the parties possess comparable levels of resources. Only under these conditions does each have a viable threat. It then becomes in the self-interest of both to decrease the conflict. Other research has shown that, under some conditions, unilateral martyrdom, trust, or reliance on power or threat does not lead to cooperation. Martyrdom and trust may at times be ineffective and power and threat may lead to belligerence. The limitations of the matrix approach led to its omission in subsequent research by an international team of investigators. Several studies were conducted in both Europe and the United States. The simulation involved a complex set of negotiations with systematic variation that included the payoffs, sometimes points and other times money, the difficulty level of the problems, and the degree to which subjects were dependent on others in reaching agreement. Consistent with the Gallo variation on the Deutsch and Krauss trucking game, higher stakes resulted in increased importance of negotiation when cooperation yielded clear gain to both parties, provided that exploitation by one party of the other was difficult. Coalition formation – Segal’s exclusion of the top dog

In the 1970s Jonathan Segal examined the major theories of coalition formation and developed a game that employed a monopoly board to both test the theories against each other and overcome some of the limitations of prior experiments. Each of the four players in a session received a power score based on a random drawing. However, full communication was allowed and players could form coalitions in which the power of the group was the sum of the individual powers. An element of chance was introduced so that the power was not totally predictive of the outcome. Segal observed that although the theories emphasized rational decision making, the explanation that best accounted for the results was one that he labeled Exclusion of the Top Dog. Players would frequently join a coalition to prevent the person with the most power from winning. The coalition against the top dog was most pronounced when the most powerful player was unlikely to lose even if everyone joined the opposition. It appeared that feelings rather than purely rational judgment entered the process. The behavior of the players including their communications was frequently expressive. Individuals frequently derive satisfaction from games, such as sporting events, which bring to them a feeling of importance and success even though they are merely observers. This phenomenon is more pronounced when the identification is with a political entity such as the state. Frequently, outcomes in real events are determined by lack of coalition formation – thus the strategy of divide and conquer. The United States 2000 Presidential

election, the German federal election of 2005, and the 2006 elections in Canada and Mexico resulted in a conservative winner because the liberal parties did not form a coalition. (The left–right continuum among the three major parties in Mexico is less clear.) Elections that allow minorities to attain power may be expected to increase the likelihood of societal conflict. Assigning seats in the legislature in proportion to the vote each party receives may partially remedy this difficulty but neither Canada nor the United States employs a proportional formula. One procedure that leads to the winner being preferred by a majority allows voters to rank candidates for an office from their most preferred to their least preferred. A voter whose candidate receives the fewest first place votes is eliminated, but that voter has already expressed a preference among those remaining by ranking someone as the number two choice. The process continues until one candidate receives a majority of the votes cast. The system is referred to as immediate runoff voting (IRV). IRV does have some deficiencies. The mix of candidates may alter a voter’s preference. Thus, a person may vote for a centrist candidate because of a fear that an extremist could win. If the extremist is eliminated, the same voter may wish to change the preferences among those remaining. In addition, the degree of preference for a first choice may be far greater among some voters than others. Further, even a significant minority of 20% of the electorate might not be represented at all with the IRV system although it would likely attain representation in a proportional voting system. Some election manipulations are possible with IRV. For example, there may be an attempt to increase the vote for a minority candidate whose second-place votes are likely to be distributed to another opposition candidate. By preventing elimination, the votes are not distributed. Such manipulations are usually difficult with no guarantee of success and other candidates may also engage in counterbalancing strategies. However, winnertake-all voting systems result in a very high payoff for fraud since a few votes may result in a major change in the election outcome. A process that elects candidates that are preferred by a majority is advantageous for a democracy but opposition would be expected from interest groups that do not represent the majority since they frequently rely upon a divide-and-conquer strategy. Kelman’s Israeli–Palestinian workshops

Conflict, particularly when it involves ethnic or religious differences such as that between Israelis and Palestinians, may be exceedingly difficult to resolve because the parties may be so egocentric that they fail to even recognize the issues which are of concern to the other. Herb Kelman

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

evaluated the social psychological literature and designed workshops that were intended to develop the interactions that lead to an awareness of the grievances of the other party and to also have some impact on the resolution of the actual conflict. A series of workshops that included both Israelis and Palestinians has been conducted since the late 1970s. Participants selected were those who were influential in the community and interacted with others of influence but were not formally a part of the political machinery since the latter were likely to be too constrained by their roles to exhibit the flexibility required. Most of the workshops had been single occurrences in which participants interacted over an approximately 5-day period. During the early 1990s, a sequential series was developed. During these workshops, as reported by Nadim Rouhana and Herb Kelman, the former a Palestinian scholar and colleague of Kelman’s, the group was able to define four critical issues: ‘‘(1) the finality of a negotiated agreement, (2) the settlements in the occupied territories, (3) Palestinian nationhood and self-determination, and (4) the Palestinian right of return. The group achieved agreement on written formulations of the first three issues.’’ There was substantial progress on the fourth but agreement was not achieved primarily due to lack of time. The effectiveness of these workshops is very difficult to assess since the external environment involved intensely held positions and variations in the external conflict levels between Israelis and Palestinians. At a minimum, the approach is valuable because the interactions are embedded in a theoretical framework for which there is prior empirical support and because of the integration of the potential role of individual cognitions in a process frequently dominated by collective behavior. Moyersoen’s local stability

There are conflicts in which one or more parties may feel that some issues are nonnegotiable. An alternate route, pioneered by Walter Isard and now significantly expanded in both theory and measurement by Johan Moyersoen, seeks to examine those issues that are both important to the parties and about which there may be a chance of agreement. The data are collected from the actual participants or those who understand the issues of the conflict. Results of studies in Korea (North and South), Belgium, and Nepal have been reported. The procedures involve (1) determining from the full set of issues those which appear to be negotiable, and (2) identifying those which have ‘local satiation’, that is points of agreement from which neither party has a significant interest in defecting because the possible gain is not of much value. These regions may only exist for a subset of the issues but they represent a starting point for negotiation and resolution. The issues and stable points are determined through quantitative analysis of objective data. Moyersoen employs

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Prospect Theory, developed by Tversky and Kahneman. (Tversky died in 1996 and Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002.) Prospect theory posits, based on generalization from empirical results, that (1) individuals are more averse to losses than comparable gains and (2) they are more sensitive to changes at small levels than at larger levels (i.e., sensitivity is not based on the absolute amount of the change.) Neither of these positions is inconsistent with other predictions about human behavior. Psychologically, losses may do greater harm to one’s selfimage compared to the positive change from comparable gains. An evolutionary argument might be that species that did not take losses very seriously, for example, threat from predators might not survive long enough to enjoy the positive gains from obtaining a succulent meal. The proportional conclusion is consistent with almost two centuries of research in psychology especially on the perception of physical stimuli. Stevens’ power law represents a substitute for an earlier law formulated by Weber and Fechner. The Weber–Fechner research demonstrated that the amount of stimulus change required to consistently identify the change (a JND or just noticeable difference) was a constant proportion of the intensity of the stimulus. The constant differed for different stimuli, such as the brightness of light of loudness of sound. However, the law did not apply to the very low or very high levels of the stimulus. Stevens established that comparisons followed a regular pattern and this pattern, the power law, was accurate for the full range of stimulus intensity. Social judgments have frequently been found to mirror proportionality principles. Moyersoen’s creative approach has the possibility of significant advances in both conflict prevention and resolution. Emotion in Decision Making: Psychologically Closing the Exits Emotion is clearly an interfering factor in resolving conflict since it may decrease the ability to identify less conflictual solutions including cooperation. Psychological research has shown that high levels of stress reduce problem-solving proficiency. Political scientists at Stanford University under the direction of Robert North tested the hypothesis for an historical event. As reported by Ole Holsti, a member of the group, decision maker’s cognitive alternatives were expected to narrow under conditions of increasing stress with a resulting decrease in flexibility in dealing with the crisis that culminated in World War I. Memoranda among key decision makers, heads of state, and cabinet members or equivalents, were examined just prior to World War I. As mobilization of men under arms increased (mobilization was the index of stress and occurred rapidly prior to the outbreak of war), decision makers showed a decrease in the alternatives they considered for dealing with the crisis.

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During a crisis there is also a physical structural factor, namely the shortening of time available for the evaluation of alternatives that further increases the stress. Under these circumstances, biases that normally exist would be expected to increase in importance in decision making, for example, increased suspicion, reduced sensitivity to the relevance of new information, overvaluation of past performance, and overconfidence in a prior preferred strategy. Even without external stress, other essentially emotional factors interfere with conflict resolution. Some were characterized by Janis as ‘groupthink’, in which members of a highly cohesive group seek unanimity. Among the elements that add to dysfunctional decision making are the desire to remain a part of a valued group, assumed unanimity of the members, both imposed and self-censorship of critical ideas, an illusion of invulnerability in decision making, and derogating stereotypes of the adversary. All of these would be expected to narrow the range of available alternatives and reduce the ability to reverse the conflict spiral. Faulty judgments may also occur when the goal of a leader or group is to engage in conflict or to cope with conflict already engendered. Under these circumstances, there is an increased importance of neutral third-party intervention to aid in overcoming the psychological disabilities. The Saxons during the battle of Hastings, 1066, let emotions aroused by the scent of victory to disrupt their discipline while the invading Norman general maintained a greater decision-making ability in spite of the stress of holding a position from which retreat was not a viable alternative. (The Normans won.)

Peace Science and the Study of International Conflict – Selected Research and Theory The study of cooperation and conflict attempts to understand real-world interactions. The investigation of actual behavior among political actors contrasts sharply with the experimental approach. The Effectiveness of Credible Threat Philip Schrodt at Kansas State University has developed a data set of interactions between political states. The interactions vary in the degree to which they represent cooperation or conflict. More than 15 000 events were incorporated for the period from 1992 through 1995. Jon C. Pevehouse and Joshua Goldstein examined interaction patterns represented by these events. Their focus was on three actors in the conflict in Bosnia: the United States (which was actually an aggregation of the world

community), Serbia, and Bosnia. The basic question was whether a credible threat (labeled bullying) was most effective in reducing conflict. It appeared that if the Serbs were threatened, they reduced their aggressive behavior. On the other hand, if the United States lessened its pressure, then the Serbs increased their aggression. The Bosnian Serbs paid little attention to the UN and Europe but did respond to the United States and to NATO. The findings were based on a 1-week delay between the action and the assessed response. The research identifies the complexities of the study of actual compared to simulated environments. In the present case, power was asymmetric. The United States and NATO could mount credible threats that the Serbs were not able to match. In many instances that range from interstate to ethnic conflict, asymmetric power results in the ability of one party to coerce the other into actions that are in the dominant power’s interest. Humanitarian intervention, however, may employ coercive power to aid others, and Bosnia is one such example.

Disappointment of Individual Expectations and the Likelihood of Revolution James Davies hypothesized that disappointed expectations increased the likelihood of internal conflict (civil war). This was most likely to occur when a period of rising expectations of economic well-being was followed by a sudden decrease in actual payoffs. He found support for his hypothesis in the history of three important events – the French Revolution, the US Civil War, and the rise of Hitler. Ivo K. Feierabend and Rosalind L. Feierabend developed a statistical database of the characteristics of the UN member-states for the period 1948–65. They tested Davies’ hypothesis by defining education to be an index of expectation under the reasonable assumption that those who are educated anticipate improved economic wellbeing. In those countries in which there were large annual increases in levels of education without corresponding increases in actual payoffs (measured by per capita income), a large gap between expectations and payoffs was anticipated. It was therefore predicted that these nations would have the highest levels of internal turmoil; analyses supported this proposition. The Feierabends also examined the nature of the regime – coercive (dictatorial), democratic, or in-between – and found that those countries at mid-levels of coerciveness were most likely to experience internal political turmoil as were those societies in transition between traditional and modern cultures. With slight variation and utilizing a different data set, Haavard Hegre, Tanja Ellingsen, and Nils Petter Gleditsch recently reported that those states in political transition (rather than cultural transition) were also more likely to experience civil war.

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

Relative Resources and the Evolution of Interstate Rivalry Among the data sets developed by J. David Singer’s Correlates of War project is one of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). When combined with the project’s set of interstate wars, examination of the evolution of rivalry (defined by military actions) and transition to war is possible. The current vernacular divides interstate relationships into two classes: not enduring or enduring rivalries. Arbitrary decisions about when a rivalry should be considered as enduring might be avoided if instead the degree of rivalry were defined based on a combination of frequency and intensity relative to time. Nevertheless, valuable research on enduring rivalries has been conducted.

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interaction with the institution. It therefore may not be surprising that nations are more prone to evaluate justice by the outcome. Since it is not nations but individuals with roles in them who judge fairness, both role and issue are important for understanding the perception of fairness in the resolution of intergroup conflict. Finally, the perception of justice may depend upon the balance between motives for solidarity and those for status or control. Self-control is a very important motivating factor for individuals. In intergroup relationships as well, a repeated observation is a preference for selfdetermination. Process is less important if the outcome leads to one of perceived domination. The Versailles Treaty is one of innumerable examples.

Peaceful Societies Termination of War The factors that lead to the cessation of conflict and their relationship to the likelihood of its resumption have been studied by Suzanne Werner. She examined the termination of war, specifically, negotiated compared to imposed settlements. Although the results suggest that an imposed settlement reduces the probability of future conflict, there is a likely selection bias in cases since stalemates may lead to greater receptivity to negotiation. However, dealing with the real world requires examining events as they exist. A research question yet to be addressed is the importance of negotiation in conflicts that are not stalemated. Justice and Conflict The perception of injustice is a source of conflict. There are several bases upon which fairness may be evaluated. Comparisons are a primary basis for judgment as illustrated by Davies’ hypothesis about expectations and payoffs. At other times fairness may be judged relative to others. The theories of distributive justice and of equity hypothesize that the comparison process adjusts for the person’s investments which may include time, effort, and status. Two distinctions in research on perceptions of justice have been between the outcome and the process through which the decision is reached. Tyler concluded that individuals are motivated to support their institutions and view institutional relationships as continuing. As a consequence, the judgment of fairness is heavily influenced by an individual’s treatment by those institutions and treatment has more in common with process than with outcome. It is reasonable to suppose that the importance of the outcome and the likelihood of the process recurring are important factors. Someone accused of murder may view justice as being served only if the jury decides ‘not guilty’ and this may be true whether or not the person is guilty. Being judged guilty (and being hanged) allows no future

Important understanding and hypotheses may be derived from the examination of societies that are peaceful. Although disagreements exist within these groups, they are resolved, in almost all cases, with minimal physical violence. Although the groups identified as peaceful appear to be relatively small in numbers with sufficient physical space generally available so that unresolved disagreements may lead dissidents to separate, at least temporarily, from the main group, the structure of such societies and their values do not seem to be totally dependent on these physical circumstances. Central to their existence are several characteristics that are consistent with the findings of the Robbers Cave studies and other psychological research. First, they are organized on a basis of equality in both authority and economic distribution. These may be deriv atives of the emphasis on cooperation and the absence, to a degree approaching abhorrence, of competition and conflict, especially that which takes overt physical expression. Even sporting activities are generally in the direction of play rather than competition. This contrasts sharply with the industrialized societies among whom the conclusion based on research is that the United States is the most competitive. Examples consistent with the above characterization were observed among the Zuni Indians who emphasized community possession of material goods and the free circulation of wealth. In a major sporting event, the four-mile footrace, the winner was not announced and someone who repeatedly won was excluded from future races. The Iroquois obtained individual pleasure from group efforts rather than from dominance. The Bathonga of South Africa are essentially noncompetitive both socially and economically and react negatively to any expression of competition. These attributes are present in groups that are geographically quite dispersed and include the Mixtecans of Mexico, the Inuit of Canada, the Tangu of New Guinea (among whom the goal of one game is a draw), and the

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Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

Australian Aborigines who demonstrate a great deal of cooperation both within their tribe and with members of other tribes. Unfortunately, peaceful societies who occupy resources desired by nonpeaceful groups have been suppressed and/ or exterminated. Among the groups that are peaceful are the Bonobos, a chimpanzee species that is a close relative of humans and who occupy a rich forested area in central Africa. The Bonobos apparently resolve emerging conflicts through sexual activity and also employ this means for reconciliation. Sexual activity is the pervasive mediator. Their numbers are dwindling and major efforts are required to prevent the species from disappearing. Nevertheless, the presence of peaceful societies, although representing only a small fraction of the human species, argues for the importance of socialization in governing conflict and for the nondeterminative consequences of biological predispositions toward aggression.

Current Conflict Domains Ethnic Conflict Quantitative and propositional approaches

Among the investigators who are currently involved in developing quantitative ethnic data sets are R. Rummel, whose focus is ‘democide’ (politicide, ethnicide, and genocide), T. R. Gurr, ethnic conflict, and J. D. Singer’s specialized collection of ethnic attributes of political states within the Correlates of War project. Two previous efforts at formalizing the influence of ethnicity are those of Levine and Campbell, and of Richardson. The first presented a set of generalizations based on cross-cultural information and provided an important step in producing testable principles related to ethnic conflict. Richardson’s work remains a landmark contribution to the quantitative study of conflict. Conflicts between 1820 and 1945 were categorized by the number killed. Attributes of the parties such as language and religion were included. Richardson concluded, based on statistical analyses, that those who spoke the Spanish language were more likely than statistically expected by chance to have engaged in conflict and that Christian–Muslim conflicts were also more likely. The Chinese language was underrepresented. Richardson’s conclusions must only be considered suggestive but his approach is a model for research in this domain. Psychological aspects

The observations of peaceful societies suggest that there is no inevitable conflict between groups that differ in language, religion, or custom. Nevertheless, such differences are often associated with conflict. One difficulty in assessing the role of ethnicity is that frequently there are concomitant differences, such as economic or political,

that may be the actual source of the grievance. On the other hand, to the extent that societies are competitively oriented, the role of ethnicity may be major. There are psychological reasons for this. Group identification is an important basis for selfworth. Since thought occurs in language, the role of language in group identification should not be surprising. Systems of beliefs (religion) are of great significance because they define worth. As a consequence of group identity, destruction of the group is also a destruction of the self. For the individual, there is also life after death through identification with the larger collectivity. Thus individuals are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the group. Suicide missions have existed for Millennia. The 300 Spartans at Thermopolae (c. 480 BC) were prepared to fight, and did so, to the last warrior in defense of Sparta against the overwhelming manpower of the Persians. Even when the suicide mission will not protect the group, if it protects the worthiness of the group in the eyes of others, the honorable memory of the individuals is preserved. The attack on the Twin Towers of New York on 11 September 2001, did not change the world. It presented to a large unaware portion of humanity that when there is strong identification with a group, a physical contradiction may represent a psychological consistency; the individual does not die in the suicide but lives through the group. Language and religion along with physical proximity, social custom, dress, and food, distinguish the in-group from the out-group. Whether conflict results from such distinctions depends on the extent to which there is perceived threat. This perception may be objective or imagined and the source can be either physical or social. Unfortunately, the mere presence of different others frequently leads to a feeling of danger. This may be reduced by increasing physical distances between groups, elimination or domination of one by the other, or through tolerance. A history of conflict almost inevitably leads to a belief that the out-group presents a continuing risk and these impressions are passed from generation to generation. Coupled with competition either for a resource, such as water, or for ideas, such as religion, conflict is almost inevitable. (D. Horowitz has examined in detail instances of ethnic conflict in The deadly ethnic riot.) The prognosis, therefore, is that for the great bulk of humanity group identification will remain important and ‘threat’ will continue to be perceived. The reduction in ethnic conflict will most likely require tolerance at levels of understanding that have rarely been reached. Ecological Conflict Ecological competition overlaps ethnic differences. Such competition is not likely to be resolved amicably.

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

Overcrowding, birth, and aging

A number of observations, including the research of Calhoun, suggest that overcrowding is associated with aggression and social disorganization. The total number of humans increases by about 100 000 000 persons a year, in spite of the deaths of approximately 6 000 000 children per year from malnutrition. Generalizations based on economically developed groups in population dense regions such as the Netherlands, Japan, Israel, and Rhode Island are of limited value. For these, the physical living quarters as well as the psychological living space (the perceived opportunity for physical mobility and individual expression) are greater than among the crowded impoverished countries of the Third World. In addition to overcrowding, the economic levels of the total human population cannot be raised to that of the most developed unless massive new resources become available. The history of atomic, solar, and wind energy does not indicate that such new resources will be available very soon. If the poor wish to emulate the rich, competition for resources exists. Consumption of natural resources

Dissipation of forests is occurring far more rapidly than replacement with per capita consumption in the United States leading the world. The result is a threat to the available oxygen supply. With approximately 4.5% of the world’s population, the United States provides 28% of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide and consumes 25% of the total oil. Global warming is one consequence and were other nations to operate at this industrialized level, oil supplies would be depleted. Pollutants from emissions and pesticides contaminate the ground and the water. A large portion of the world does not have potable water. Analyses by David Pimental at Cornell University indicate that about 40% of the worlds deaths are caused by water, air, and soil pollution. The percentage of people worldwide that are malnourished has risen from about 20% of the 2.5 billion people in 1950 to 57% of the 6.5 billion people in 2007 with 20% of the world’s population without clean water. Malaria still kills approximately 1.5 million people per year and 3 million die from air pollution each year. Resources exist to ameliorate or eliminate the above problems. There is however, an economic cost. The priority of economics is thus apparent in the manner in which the world conducts its business. This fact is perhaps most directly evident in the statistics for deaths from smoking. In the United States, over 400 000 people die each year from cigarette smoking; worldwide that figure is 4 000 000 and accounts for 1 in every 10 deaths. Within the United States 1 in 5 deaths is attributable to cigarette smoking and approximately 30% of all cancer deaths are a result of cigarettes.

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These ‘wars without soldiers’ result in many times the number of deaths compared to those from armed conflict, even when both civilian and military casualties are included. The likelihood of conflict over resources

Solutions to resource depletion currently seem unlikely. First, those societies that have been identified as peaceful generally shared economic wealth; the hope for such munificence by the developed countries is forlorn. Second, the elevation of other peoples to the levels of the developed nations is physically impossible since there are insufficient resources to accommodate such massive industrialization. Nor is there much possibility that the industrialized nations will scale back their consumption in a fit of mass altruism. However, to the extent that a common threat exists, such as global warming, international cooperation, as represented in the Kyoto Treaty, may develop. Nevertheless, the United States under President Bush, withdrew in 2001 from the Treaty claiming that it would inhibit the US economy. Further, economic power is becoming more concentrated in a very limited number of corporations that operate on a global scale. The effect may be to also concentrate political power. Within the United States, based on data compiled by Domhoff, the wealthiest 1% expanded their proportion of the total wealth from 20% in 1976 to 38% in 1998. Except for Switzerland, the upper 10% in the United States control more of the wealth than in any other developed Western nation. The income of the upper 1% in the United States increased from 13% of the total in 1982 to 20% in 2000 and CEOs expanded their pay from 40 times that of the average worker in 1980 to over 400 in 2005. Some evidence of the competitive environment has become apparent. Commodity prices have increased dramatically in almost all areas from those that are necessary for manufacturing to those that are considered more secure forms of wealth. The rapid industrialization of China and India, in particular, which contain over onethird of the total world population, has contributed to this competition. In addition, political changes, notably in South America, are partly a result of a belief by many citizens that their societies are being dominated by and disadvantaged by the wealthier nations. Successful competition for resources requires economic and military strength. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that in 1997, the United States spent 38% of the expenditures on armaments with the European Union adding about 33%. By 2003, the wealthy nations of the world, with 16% of the population, were spending 75% of the world’s total of 950 billion. Were a small fraction diverted to feeding the starving, millions of deaths each year would be avoided. But the competition for resources is such that, in the United States particularly,

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Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

food such as corn and soybeans is being produced for conversion to ethanol to maintain the current levels of energy usage. The realistic judgment is that the twenty-first century will provide its share of conflict and exploitation.

Future Research and Methodology The development of empirical generalizations about conflict is aided by focusing on a particular source such as disputes over religion, over territory, or over economic distribution. Some general principles may be discovered but they are more likely to emerge if similar patterns are demonstrated in separate analyses employing disparate research strategies. The Role of Emotion and External Validity The Peace Science section of this article illustrates that the problem of external validity may be bypassed by studying actual events. However, variables cannot be controlled and this leads to the attempt to extract important components and subject them to experimentation. Unfortunately the two-way street rarely carries traffic in the other direction. That is, the generalizations obtained in the experimental environment are infrequently tested through prediction to real events. Such tests are important since the intensity of the relevant emotional components is difficult to duplicate in the laboratory. The Unit of Analysis The behavior of individuals combines to constitute the behavior of the group. However, it does not follow that the study of individuals will automatically, or even likely, lead to an understanding of the group or that the study of subgroups will lead to understanding of processes in larger units, such as the state. Another difficulty is the language of explanation. Reifications and anthropomorphisms are endemic. Political and social units do not perceive nor do they experience frustration or assess risk. Actors in distinct roles do. Experts will greet such statement with academic horror since ‘everybody knows that’. These terms are employed, it is argued, because they are shorthand for the fuller understanding. Unfortunately, the shorthand has missing fingers since it masks necessary distinctions. The specific roles/individuals must be identified as well as the relationship of their perceptions, feelings, and decisions to those in other roles in the society. Then there must be some statement that converts these relationships to group action. The lack of such precision increases the difficulty of subjecting hypotheses to scientific test.

The Terminology of Discourse Construction of research questions is influenced substantially by the terminology of discourse. For example, the phenomenon labeled social loafing (similar to that of ‘free riding’) refers to the ability of some to obtain benefits because of the efforts of others. Of course, if no one contributed then there would be no gain for anyone. Social welfare might be an example of social loafing and/or freeridership. However, these labels imply socially disapproved motivation. Such a priori value judgments reduce the likelihood of objective design and analysis. The concept of a social dilemma is another example. A social dilemma is said to exist because the individual must balance self-interest against community interest. However, in most social existence there is no dilemma. The individual organism, whether at the level of the ant or human, has no balance to achieve – it is given. For insects the determination is biological. In humans, the balance results from social values that have developed within the family and other institutions. A dilemma implies a cognitive, decision-making problem that is not necessarily consistent with the essentially automatic balance achieved by many. That such distinctions and generalizations may be developed does not justify the conclusion that they are important in real environments. Perhaps even more provocative is the current analysis of ‘social paranoia’. Paranoia is an irrational belief in persecution. Social paranoia refers to comparable beliefs when applied to the social environment, for example, corporate or governmental behavior. Unfortunately, the term pre-judges the legitimacy of the suspicion. Tobacco company executives did know the dangers of smoking and concealed the information from consumers as did Merck in the distribution of its drug Vioxx. American-Indians were justifiably suspicious of treaties with the US government since by the mid-1940s the likelihood that the US would fulfill treaty obligations was extremely small. The Jews of Europe could not believe that the country of Beethoven and Schiller would exterminate them, even under Hitler. A Downing Street memo did exist which described the actions of British and US political representatives who sought to provide justification for an invasion of Iraq although the evidence for weapons of mass destruction was absent. Matthew Rycroft, a Downing Street foreign policy aide, authored the memo. It was published in the Sunday Times (UK) on 1 May 2005. Thus, the paranoia label may be assigned to cast suspicion on critics of public and corporate policy. The scientific questions are about the evidence for the suspicion and the circumstances under which such beliefs arise. Forced versus Casual Observations Laboratory research generally creates a forced environment in which the participants’ attention and perception

Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

are concentrated on a particular task. In the real world, the processes are much more casual or automatic. The cognitions, perceptions, and reasoning in such environments may be substantially different, if not in kind than in emphasis, than those obtained in the forced environments. E ‘When . . . Then’ Not ‘If . . . Then’ Particularly important in conflict research are the results from laboratory experiments in which the variables are controlled and others are systematically varied. The scientific argument is that experimental procedures allow the determination of the effect of changes in one variable upon another. However, this model omits an important factor. The relationship between X and Y holds ‘when the conditions in the laboratory (other variables) are at the identified levels’. In physical science, altering these fixed conditions may still result in the same relationship between X and Y, for example, the pressure on a closed container will increase when heat is applied. This leads to the ‘if . . . then’ reasoning. However, in social science, the relationship of X to Y interacts with the other variables and may change substantially when the level of one or more of the fixed variables is altered. Therefore, the relationship that is observed is only a ‘when . . . then’, that is, the relationship is correct ‘when’ the variables are fixed at the specified levels. In the real world, the variables, however, are not and cannot be fixed at these levels. This does not argue against experimentation in the social sciences. It does suggest that such research is only a first step. The Integration of Disciplines Finally, there is a need for greater interdisciplinary research without which the development of analytic tools is limited. Although the separate components are important, it is also necessary to advance testable hypotheses that predict from individual perception, decision strategies, and emotions to group interaction that ranges from low levels of intensity to riot, interethnic hostility, and war. The extent to which such propositions are supportable requires predictions to objective events. See also: Aggression, Psychology of; Conflict Management and Resolution; Peaceful Societies; Social Psychology of Violence

Further Reading Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge: AddisonWesley. Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Brams, S. (1994). Theory of moves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Calhoun, J. B. (1962). Population density and social pathology. Scientific American 206, 139–148. Coser, L. A. (1956). The functions of social conflict. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Davies, J. C. (1962). Toward a theory of revolution. American Sociological Review 27(1962), 5–19. Dawidowicz, L. (1975). The war against the Jews: 1933–1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict: Constructive and destructive processes. New Haven: Yale University. Deutsch, M. and Krauss, R. M. (1960). The effect of threat upon interpersonal bargaining. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 61, 181–189. Domhoff, G. W. (2005). Who rules America: Wealth, income, and power. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html (updated December 2006). Gamson, W. (1981). The political culture of the Arab–Israeli conflict. Conflict Management and Peace Science 5(2), 79–84. Gurr, T. R. (1970). Why men rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Holsti, O. R. (1965). The 1914 case. American Political Science Review 59(2), 365–378. Horowitz, D. L. (2001). The deadly ethnic riot. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Isard, W. (1992). Understanding conflict and the science of peace. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Kohn, A. (1986). The case against competition. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. LeVine, R. A. and Campbell, D. T. (1971). Ethnocentrism: Theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes, and group behavior. New York: Wiley. McAdams, D. and Snow, D. A. (1997). Social movements: Readings on their emergence, mobilization and dynamics. Los Angeles: Roxbury. Mintz, A. (1951). Non-adaptive group behavior. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 46, 150–159. Moyersoen, J. (2004). Psychology’s prospect theory: Relevance for identifying positions of local satiation as robust reference points of joint action in peace agreements. Peace Economic, Peace Science and Public Policy 10(1)/Article 2. http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article¼1066&context¼peps (accessed on February 2008). Osgood, C. E. (1962). An alternative to war or surrender. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois. Pevehouse, J. C. and Goldstein, J. S. (1999). Serbian compliance or defiance in Kosovo? Statistical analysis and real-time predictions. Journal of Conflict Resolution 43(3), 538–546. Pilisuk, M. and Skolnick, P. (1968). Inducing trust: A test of the Osgood proposal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, 121–133. Pruitt, D. G. (1998). Social conflict. In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T., and Lindzey, G. (eds.) The handbook of social psychology vol. 2, pp. 470–503. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Pruitt, D. and Carnevale, P. J. (1993). Negotiation in social conflict. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Richardson, R. F. (1960). Statistical of deadly quarrels. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle. Rouhana, N. N. and Kelman, H. C. (1994). Promoting joint thinking in international conflicts: An Israeli–Palestinian continuing workshop. Journal of Social Issues 50(1), 139–156. Segal, J. (1974). Coalition Formation in the Tetrad, a Critical Test of Four Theories. PhD Thesis, Wayne State University. Sherif, M. (1958). Superordinate goals in the reduction of intergroup conflict. American Journal of Sociology 63, 349–356. Stephan, W. G. (1985). Integroup relations. In Lindzey, G. and Aronson, E. (eds.) The handbook of social psychology vol. 2, pp. 599–638. New York: Random House. Tyler, T. R. (1989). The psychology of procedural justice: A test of the group value model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57 (5), 830–838. Werner, S. (1998). Negotiating the terms of settlement: War aims and bargaining leverage. Journal of Conflict Resolution 42(3), 321–343.

Relevant Website http://peacefulsocieties.org – Peaceful Societies.

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SUBJECT INDEX NOTES: Cross-reference terms in italics are general cross-references, or refer to subentry terms within the main entry (the main entry is not repeated to save space). Readers are also advised to refer to the end of each article for additional cross-references - not all of these cross-references have been included in the index cross-references. The index is arranged in set-out style with a maximum of three levels of heading. Major discussion of a subject is indicated by bold page numbers. Page numbers suffixed by t and f refer to Tables and Figures respectively. vs. indicates a comparison. This index is in letter-by-letter order, whereby hyphens and spaces within index headings are ignored in the alphabetization. Prefixes and terms in parentheses are excluded from the initial alphabetization. Common Abbreviations used in subentries: ACTH – adrenocorticotropic hormone or adrenocorticotropin ICC – International Criminal Court ICJ – International Court of Justice PTMD – Posttraumatic mood disorder PTSD – Posttraumatic stress disorder

A ‘A-bomb disease’ see Radiation sickness Aboriginal Development Corporation 545 Aboriginal Land Rights Act (1975) 545, 792 Aboriginal populations 509–513 conflict–cooperation dynamics 842 definitions 510 democide 289 feuds and warfare 155 geographic distribution 536, 538t indigenous rights movements 509 population percentage 538t response to conquest Latin America 511 self-determination 535 settler states Australia 535 Canada 535 New Zealand 535 political movements 509, 540t United States 535 Abu Ghraib prison 524 Abusive behaviors child abuse abuse effects borderline personality disorder 586 childrearing cognitive–communication model 662 verbal aggression 661 Zapotec culture 791 Cinderella effect 21 physical punishments Zapotec culture 791 communication skills 661 linguistic violence 672 personal accountability 663 spousal abuse social psychological factors 109 violence against women patriarchal systems 165 Abyssinia see Ethiopia Access victims, definition 389 Accidents airline see Airline accidents definition 731 motor vehicle see Motor vehicle accidents see also Trauma Acetylcholine 62 Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) acute stress response, role in 489–490

anticholinesterases, protection against 491 gene expression associations 492, 492f inhibitors (anticholinesterases) see Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors overexpression, effect on nervous system 492, 493f post stress changes, role in 490 Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors acute stress response, role in 490 definition 302, 488 exposure with stress, outcomes of 489t genetic factors 489–490 Gulf war use/Gulf war syndrome 488 Ache culture 25 Acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 ACTH see Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) Active avoidance conditioning see Avoidance/ avoidance conditioning Active democide 284 Activist movements indigenous peoples Australia 512 Canada 535 Latin America 511 New Zealand 535 nonviolent action 511 United Nations 509 United States 510 Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) see Myocardial infarction (MI) Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) 329 Chernobyl accident 736–737 definition 735 Acute stress disorder (ASD) 582–583, 582t acute reaction/response definition 463 definition 463, 771 diagnosis emergency personnel 771–772 disasters and 763 Acute stress reaction/response definition 463 Addison’s disease stress response, absence of 15 Adjudication 30, 694f, 828 ADMAPU (Mapuche) 540t Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) 152 Adolescence adolescence-limited antisocial behavior 92

gang involvement urban gangs 149 juvenile crime delinquent behavior 577 gang involvement urban gangs 149 wartime impacts 575 violent behaviors gang involvement urban gangs 149 television programming 716 youth violence gang involvement urban gangs 149 wartime impacts 575 see also Children Adrenal hormones 9, 55 Adrenaline 55–56 Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) stress effects/response 13, 14–15 acute stress response 490 Adrenocorticotropin see Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) Adversarial bargaining 827–828 Adversarial type murder–suicide 605 Aerial ladder, definition 775 Affective aggression 87 Afghanistan guerilla warfare 356 healthcare/health services 560 indigenous peoples 538t wartime casualties 227f, 551t Africa colonization treaties 535 indigenous peoples 538t infant mortality rates 559 peacekeeping missions 233f sorcery and witchcraft 31 violence against women 37 World War II 274, 275 African Americans gang involvement 148 hostile aggression 88 linguistic factors 671 Agelaius phoeniceus 70 Agenda 21 see Rio Earth Summit (1992) Agent Orange 221, 304, 305 Age-60 rule 733–734 Age studies trauma-related reactions 594 wartime impacts 575

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850

Subject Index

Aggravated assaults acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 victimization statistics 196 Aggression 693–701 aggravated assaults acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 international violent crime rate 197, 197t victimization statistics 196 animal societies 65–74 adaptive behaviors 19 dominance hierarchies 70 game theory 20, 67 general discussion 66 natural selection 18, 66 nonhuman primates 74–82 competition–conflict comparisons 77 control mechanisms 77–78 dominance hierarchies 79 functions 76 polyadic social aggression 80 reconciliation processes 80–81 research approaches 75 social context 77 social mechanisms 81 territoriality 79 win–loss dynamics 79 reproductive skew theory 70 ritual behaviors 171 selfish behavior 19, 66, 67f sexual conflict 66 social conflicts 70 territoriality aggressive behaviors 79 dear enemy effects/familiar neighbors 69 respect for ownership 68 basic concepts 75 biochemical factors 51–65 background research 51 cholesterol 63 general discussion 64 glucose regulation 63 hormones adrenal hormones 55 gonadal androgens 52 neurotransmitters acetylcholine 62 adrenal hormones 55 catecholamines 60 central nervous system (CNS) 51 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 monoamine oxidase (MAO) 62 peptides 61 serotonin 56 close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f communication skills 661 cross-cultural variations biocultural perspective 790–791 conflict strategies 697 gender studies indirect (covert) aggression 792 sex differences 792 general discussion 695–696 kin selection 788 low aggression levels 698 psycho-cultural conflict management mechanisms 697, 786t Semai culture 697, 788t Waorani culture 697, 788t, 793 definitions biochemical factors 51 emic–etic perspective 694 human nature perspective 5 multiple meanings 694 evolutionary theory 17–28 adaptive behaviors 19 behavior explanations 19 cooperation strategies 20 environmental aspects individual development 27

gene-based theories 19 general discussion 18 kinship basic concepts 21 Cinderella effect 21 infanticide 22 parent–offspring conflict 22 moral issues 27 natural selection 18 psychological aspects 27 sexual reproduction competition 22 gender differences 23 male–male competition 24 risk-taking aversion 25 violent behaviors 23 Yanomamo¨ culture 25 sexual violence 25 general discussion 695, 793–794 kin selection 788 linguistic factors 682–693 complex language 683 conversation ritual 684 ethnicity 688 human interactions 683 miscommunication 685 nonviolent action 690 political violence 687 problematic interactions 685 sense-making circumstances 684 symbolic violence 686 third-party intervention 689 media violence 702, 705, 706 peaceful societies in-group vs. out-group 800 multidimensional construct 801 personal accountability 663 polyadic social aggression 80 psychological processes 85–94 aversive conditions frustration effects 89 perceived associations 91 stress-related instigators 90 basic concepts decision-making processes 87 general discussion 86 hostile aggression 87, 92, 108 impulsive aggression 87, 93 instrumental aggression 86, 108 motives 87 democide 296 general discussion 93–94 observational learning 106 persistent dispositions aggressive personalities 92 change patterns 92 consistent behaviors 92 hostile aggression 92 impulsive aggression 93 longitudinal studies 92 priming general discussion 88 movie and television violence 88, 666 weapon effects 88 situational determinants appraisal theory 91 aversive conditions 89 priming 88 social learning theory 106 ritual violence 172, 180 social conflict 40–41 socialization general discussion 791 Zapotec culture 791 sociocultural change 793 sociocultural factors 693 television programming 710–723 analytical perspectives 713 background information 710 counteracting interventions experimental research 720

media literacy interventions 667 parental guidance 667 program rating systems 667 individual effects aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663 institutionalized violence 115 international comparisons Asia 712 Australia 712 Canada 711 Europe 711 general discussion 711 Israel 711 Japan 712 New Zealand 712 United Kingdom 713 international conflict 667 key concerns 710 measurement issues international comparisons 711 methodology 711 priming 89, 666 psychological processes cognitive priming theory 666 desensitization 198, 664 excitation transfer 666 observational learning 106 public opinion surveys drama-related violence 719 factual program-related violence 719 general discussion 719 marketability 721 war-related violence 720 research evidence correlational surveys 716 field studies 716 general discussion 715 laboratory studies 715 longitudinal studies 717 natural environments 717 regulatory practices 721 viewer perceptions 714 viewing impact cultivation effects 719 general discussion 715 intervention studies 718 research evidence 715 violence against women patriarchal systems 165 rape genocide 165, 299 institutionalized violence 115–116 male privilege 164 wartime experiences 165 Agitational terror 677 Agonistic behaviors 5–6 Agoraphobia Holocaust-related 613–614 Agriculture agricultural policies 284–285 early agricultural societies 238 neurophysiological research brain structure 9 general discussion 8 neural characteristics 9 pre–agricultural societies 238 Aguinaldo, Emilio 350 Ahimsa (nonharmfulness) animal welfare 405 basic concepts 405 peace movements 814 AIDS epidemic 554–555 Air carriers, definition 731 Aircraft comdat aircraft 639–640 evolutionary development 188 World War I 260–261 World War II 272–273, 279

Subject Index

Airline accidents 731–735 accident rates 731, 732f alcohol 733 human factors 731–732 pilot age 733–734 pilot error 732 aviation categories of 732–733, 733t policy interventions 734 risk factors 733 environmental factors 734 stress model 731 types of stress 732 Air pollution 845 Alaska (US) 540t Alcohol abuse see Alcohol abuse airline accidents 733 excessive consumption see Alcohol abuse Muslims 395 use post 9/11 395 Alcohol abuse refugees 622 Alcoholic offenders biochemical factors 55 hormonal correlations 53 Alexander, Jeffrey 176 Alexander the Great 190 Algeria civil wars 227f guerilla warfare 356 social revolutions 229 Alienation, role in suicide terrorism 382 Alliances characteristics Correlates of War data set 842 indigenous peoples 535 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 280 post-World War II era 280 pre-World War II era 271 Warsaw Pact 280 Allied forces see World War II Alprazolam 584–585 Al Qaeda ethnic conflicts 207 networked warfare 232–233 political terrorism 112 urban terrorism 233–234 Al Qaeda, role in suicide terrorism 380 Alternative dispute resolution model basic concepts 826 Alternative splicing definition 488 Altruism 693–701 in children 574 cross-cultural variations gender studies indirect (covert) aggression 792 sex differences 792 general discussion 696 kin selection 788 reciprocal altruism 697 Semai culture 697, 788t Waorani culture 697, 788t definitions 695 general discussion 695, 793–794 kin selection 20, 699 socialization general discussion 791 Zapotec culture 791 Altruistic suicide 603t al-Zawahiri, Ayman 404 Amazons 137 Ambushes 159–160, 569 American Indian Movement 512, 540t American Indian population see Native Americans American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978) 512 American Revolution 348 Amino acids 60

Amitriptyline 584–585 Amnesty International (AI) 530 Amygdala PTSD 773–774 Anabaptists 406, 819 Androgens 10, 52 Anesthesia 196, 196t Anger acute stress disorder (ASD) 582t appraisal theory 91 floods 747 frustration effects 89 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550, 581t stress-related instigators 90 Angola civil wars 252, 253 indigenous peoples 538t war-related health consequences 560 Animal models definition 463 PTSD 467 transgenic models see Transgenic animal models Animals animal sacrifice 400 animal societies 65–74 adaptive behaviors 19 dominance hierarchies 70 game theory 20, 67 natural selection 18, 66 nonhuman primates 74–82 aggressive behaviors competition–conflict comparisons 77 control mechanisms 77–78 dominance hierarchies 79 functions 76 polyadic social aggression 80 reconciliation processes 80–81 research approaches 75 social context 77 social mechanisms 81 territoriality 79 reproductive skew theory 70 ritual behaviors 171 selfish behavior 19, 66, 67f sexual conflict 66 social conflicts 70 territoriality aggressive behaviors 79 dear enemy effects/familiar neighbors 69 respect for ownership 68 disease surveillance programs 420 violence toward animals organized protection movements 405 Annoyance-motivated aggression 87 Anomic suicide 603t Anomie, definition 373 Anomie theory institutionalized violence 114 ANS see Autonomic nervous system (ANS) Anthrax 313, 413, 418–419, 419f Anthropological research 28–39 assault 36 capital punishment 35 conflict resolution 31 disputing rhetoric 32 domestic violence 37 ethnicity 34 ethnographic studies 30 female genital mutilation 36 feuds 34 general discussion 29 homicide 35 nationalism 34 peace-building processes 33 rape 36 ritual practices 31 ritual violence 172 robbery 36 sorcery and witchcraft 31 suicidal behaviors 35–36

851

terrorism 37 torture 36 warfare 33 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty 325–326 Antibiotics 196t, 197, 419, 422 Anti-Bourgeois strategy 69 Anticholinesterases see Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors Anticipatory anxiety 599 Anticipatory stress, definition 756 Anti-Comintern Pact (1936) 271 Antidepressants 584–585 Anti-gang initiative 153 Antigay violence see sexual minorities Anti-nuclear activists 334–335 Antipsychotic medication 584–585 Antirape adaptations 26 Antisense oligonucleotide suppression 492–493 Antiseptics 196, 196t Anti-Slavery Society (1839) 542 Antisocial behaviors adolescence-limited antisocial behavior 92 catecholamines 60 frustration effects 89 hormonal correlations 53, 55 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 media violence 706 persistent dispositions change patterns 92 consistent behaviors 92 longitudinal studies 92 television programming 710–723 analytical perspectives 713 background information 710 counteracting interventions experimental research 720 media literacy interventions 667 parental guidance 667 program rating systems 667 individual effects aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663 institutionalized violence 115 international comparisons Asia 712 Australia 712 Canada 711 Europe 711 general discussion 711 Israel 711 Japan 712 New Zealand 712 United Kingdom 713 international conflict 667 key concerns 710 measurement issues international comparisons 711 methodology 711 priming 88–89, 666 psychological processes cognitive priming theory 666 desensitization 198, 664 excitation transfer 666 observational learning 106 public opinion surveys drama-related violence 719 factual program-related violence 719 general discussion 719 marketability 721 war-related violence 720 research evidence correlational surveys 716 field studies 716 general discussion 715 laboratory studies 715 longitudinal studies 717 natural environments 717 regulatory practices 721 viewer perceptions 714

852

Subject Index

Antisocial behaviors (continued) viewing impact cultivation effects 719 general discussion 715 intervention studies 718 research evidence 715 Antiviral medications 418, 422 Antiwar movements civilian society 221–222 feminism 169, 169t Ants (social conflicts) 71 Anxiety associated conditions/factors affecting following terrorism 374 nuclear warfare threat see Nuclear warfare, threat of Anxiety disorders 581 Apartheid see South Africa Apes see Primates, nonhuman Appraisal theory 91 Arab–Israeli conflict conflict-cooperation dynamics 834–835 US-Soviet involvement 228 wartime casualties 227f Arafat, Yasser 678–679 Arbitration conflict resloution 694f conflict resolution 828, 834 third-party intervention 689 Archaeological Resources Protection Act (1979) 512 Ardrey, Robert 4 Argentina aggressive behaviors 792 healthcare/health services 562 indigenous peoples 538t trends 225–236 Aristocratic warriors 145 Aristotle human nature perspective 4 Armament see Weapons Armed conflicts characteristics 225, 559 children case studies background information childhood experiences 578 delinquent behavior 577 family realignment effects 578 geographic displacement 577 parental adjustments 578 child soldiers 572 health consequences 557 psychological effects 568–580 age-related differences 576 altruism 574 case studies 576 childhood experiences 578 competence theories 573 cumulative risk model 572 curiosity 573–574 delinquent behavior 577 demographic analysis 575 emotional impact 569 exposure to atocities 575 family realignment effects 578 gender differences 576 general discussion 568, 579 geographic displacement 572, 577 parental adjustments 578 postponement skills 574 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 569 predictive factors 573 resilient coping skills 573 social class 576 social maps 570 survival skills 574 civil society 205 close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f combat leadership role 191

psychological effects continuous combat effects 575 psychiatric casualties 575 trauma situations close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f deterrence conventional deterrence high-tech warfare 232–233 economic factors nuclear deterrence central deterrence 322 credible threats 320 escalation dominance 324–325 extended deterrence 324 flexible response 324 general discussion 322 implementation strategies 320 second-strike capabilities 322, 323 theoretical perspectives 319 theoretical concepts credible threats 320, 842 economic factors 236–248, 629–635, 635–646 arms races 639 casualty-cost analysis 553, 556 classifications 629, 630t conflict resolution 636 conversion impacts 637 cost of war 630f, 633 direct effects 629, 630t economic sanctions 644 economic theories heterodox perspectives 243 mainstream perspectives 243–244 monopoly capital school 243 negative–sum game theory 244 rational decisions versus irrational violence 243 equitable resource distribution 638 as evolutionary strategy 242 external cost 630t feedback systems 645 general discussion 237–238 historical background capitalism 240 continual war 239 early agricultural societies 238 general discussion 237–238 hunter–gatherer societies 238 nation–states 240 pastoral nomadic societies 239 pre–agricultural societies 238 indirect effects 629, 630t internal costs 630t macroeconomic analysis 631 microeconomic analysis 629 military spending 631, 637 nuclear weapons 640 peace studies 644–645 resource transfer effects 632 socioeconomic dynamics general discussion 244 group commitment 244 loyalty 245 modern societies 245 folkloric expressions 182 guerilla warfare 346–358 basic concepts 346 civil society 205 counterinsurgency tactics 348 future directions 357 historical conflicts Afghanistan 356 Algerian insurgency 356 American Civil War 349 American Revolution 348 Boer War 350 Chechen uprising 357 Chinese revolutions 352 Cuban revolution 353

French Indochina 354 Greek Communist insurgency 351 Malaysian insurgency 353 Philippine uprising 350 Spanish uprising 349 Vende’e uprising 348 Vietnam War 355 linguistic factors 671 low-intensity warfare 555, 556 gunpowder warfare 191, 194 health consequences 548–558 casualty-cost analysis 556 casualty data collection 551, 551t children 557, 568–580 general discussion 549 healthcare/health services 558–568 budget impacts 562 community involvement 563 equipment and supply disruptions 562 general discussion 559 health policy formation 563 human resources 562 infrastructure destruction 561 positive impacts 565 postconflict challenges 566 service activities 561 service availability 560 tracer conditions 559 historical background 549 long-term effects 557 mental health issues 549, 550, 551, 553, 560 methodological issues 551 physical health issues 554 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550 refugees 552, 553t, 557 socioeconomic consequences 555 twentieth century casualties 226, 227f, 552 war classifications civil wars 555 dirty wars 555 general discussion 549 international warfare 555 low-intensity warfare 556 terrorism 555 women 557 institutionalized violence 117–118 intergroup violence 108 just-war criteria jus in bello laws of war 231–232 linguistic factors 670–682 general discussion 670 language of peace general discussion 678 negative peace 678 positive peace 679 language of war euphemisms/manipulation 674 general discussion 673–674 jargon 674 legitimacy 676 metaphors 675 propaganda campaigns 675 totalitarianism 678 warist discourse 670 perception and behavior characteristics of war 671 general discussion 671 influencing factors 671 warist discourse 670 sociocultural factors general discussion 672 linguistic nonviolence 673, 679 linguistic Violence 672 mass media 667, 720 military organizations 158 battle tactics 158 characteristics 158 composition 158 fraternal interest groups 158 function 158

Subject Index

general discussion 158 goals and motives 159 modern warfare technological impact casualty rates 226, 227f, 554 high-tech warfare 232–233 industrialization 117, 145, 212, 216–217, 226–227 network-centric warfare (NCW) 232, 234f post–Cold War 207 post-World War II era 227f preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327 tactics and strategies battle tactics 158 health consequences 557 technological impact twentieth century casualties 552 total war civil society 205 linguistic factors 678 trends 226 trends changing patterns 225–226 conflict reduction trends Cold War termination 230 democratization 230 globalization processes 230 high-tech warfare 232–233 information age warfare 232 irregular wars 233 legal constraints 231 network-centric warfare (NCW) 232, 234f prevention measures 230, 233f contemporary trends general discussion 235 nonstate militias 235 nuclear proliferation 235 suicidal terrorism 234–235 superterrorism 235 irregular wars 228–229, 233 nuclear weapons 227f total war 226 United Nations financial support 642 peace-building processes 640 women contemporary issues collective organizing tactics 367 essentialism–difference debate 366 military service 367 motherhood–war relationship 367 direct casualties 359 domestic violence 362 economic losses 363 environmental destruction 363 general discussion 359 geographic displacement 360 health consequences 557 loss of family 362 militarism–patriarchy connection 369 military production workers 365 military service general discussion 220, 365 military spending 363, 364t mourning 365 patriotism and nationalism 365 prostitution 361 rape 165, 361 research areas mobilization strategies 368 peacetime–wartime connections 368 policymaking contributions 368 response factors 368 survival and rebuilding efforts 368 resistance efforts 366 survival and rebuilding efforts 366, 368 see also Revolutions; Warfare; Weapons Armenia wartime casualties 551t

Arms control disarmament treaties Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (1972) 413, 415 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) goals and objectives 325 nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) contemporary peace movements 814 United Nations 640 Arms production arms exports 639 Arms races 639 Arms trade economic factors arms exports 639 arms races 639 Aron, Raymond 124 Arson/arsonists biochemical factors 60 Arthropods (sexual conflict) 73 Art of War (Sun-Tzu) 673–674 Arusha culture 32 Ashoka (Emperor) 405 Asia indigenous peoples 538t peacekeeping missions 233f violent/aggressive television programming 712 Asian Americans gang involvement 148 Assault anthropological research 36 children 568–569 Assault rifles 195 Assaults aggravated assaults acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 international violent crime rate 197, 197t victimization statistics 196 Assault sorcery 31 Assembly of First Nations 542 Association basic concepts hostile aggression 108 instrumental aggression 108 civil society 200–209 basic concepts 200 Cold War 202, 204–205 global civil society 202–203 historical perspectives 204 post–Cold War 207 social movements 202 warfare 204 democide 296 psychological processes 85–94 aversive conditions frustration effects 89 perceived associations 91 stress-related instigators 90 basic concepts decision-making processes 87 general discussion 86 hostile aggression 87, 92 impulsive aggression 87, 93 instrumental aggression 86 motives 87 general discussion 93–94 observational learning 106 persistent dispositions aggressive personalities 92 change patterns 92 consistent behaviors 92 hostile aggression 92 impulsive aggression 93 longitudinal studies 92 priming general discussion 88 movie and television violence 88, 666 weapon effects 88 situational determinants

853

appraisal theory 91 aversive conditions 89 priming 88 social learning theory 106 Association Nacional Indigena del Salvador 540t Assured destruction policy 321 Asylum-seekers 551–552, 553, 553t, 557, 585, 621, 622 see also Refugees Asymmetric warfare 228–229, 414 Atlantic, Battle of the 276 Atomic bomb 552 Atrocities Sino–Japanese War 271 war-exposed children 575 World War I 262 World War II 95 Atrocities international criminal courts and tribunals International Court of Justice (ICJ) 641 International Criminal Court (ICC) human rights issues 641 Attempted suicides 601 Atypical depression see Major depressive disorder (MDD) Augustine, Saint 680–681 Augustinian doctrine of the just war 671 Aum Shinrikyo 413, 414, 811–812 Aum Shrinryko 380 Australia indigenous peoples colonization treaties 535 demographics 538t political movements 540t response to conquest 535 violent/aggressive television programming 712 violent crime rate 197, 197t Australia Group (AG) 415 Australian fiddler crabs 70 Austria pre-World War II era 270–271 Austro-Hungarian Empire World War I 258 Authority figures 106 Autoimmunity definition 455 Vietnam War veterans 458–460 Autonomic nervous system (ANS) stress effects/response 12–13 Aversive conditions frustration effects 89 perceived associations 91 stress-related instigators 90 Avoidance/avoidance conditioning motor vehicle accident 756 Avoidance behaviors conflict resloution 694f post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550, 581t, 582t territoriality 100, 101f Awad, Mubarak 679 Awards, military 159, 214 Axis powers defeat and surrender 278 expansion efforts 272 losses and turning points 275 see also Collective security systems Aztec empire democide 289

B Bacteriological weapons see Biological weapons Baha’i tradition 399 Balanced reciprocity 700 Balkans wartime casualties 227f World War II 274 Ballistic missile defense 319, 323, 417

854

Subject Index

Bands causal factors 155–156 characterestics 155 definition 138 Bangladesh 291 civil wars 253 indigenous peoples 538t violence against women 361 violent/aggressive television programming 712 wartime casualties 551t Bargaining methods 828 Barotse culture 30 Barthes, Roland 176 Baruch Plan (1946) 325 Basic needs model 40, 41, 827 Basque Nation and Liberty (ETA) 234 Batista, Fulgencio 353 Battery 362 Battle of Britain 273 Battle of the Atlantic 276 Battle of the Bulge 279 Battle of the Coral Sea 275–276 Battle tactics 158 Bay of Pigs invasion 106 Bedouin culture 696 Bees 71 Begin, Menachem 678–679 Behavioral impulsivity 93 Behavioral psychology (behaviorism) killing/combat situations operant conditioning 191–192, 195 resistance factors 189 nonhuman primates 74–82 aggressive behaviors 75 competition-conflict comparisons 77 control mechanisms 77–78 dominance hierarchies 79 functions 76 polyadic social aggression 80 reconciliation processes 80–81 social context 77 social mechanisms 81 territoriality 79 win–loss dynamics 79 Behavioral violence 126 Belgium violent crime rate 197, 197t World War II 272–273 Belize 538t Bentham, Jeremy war-peace perspective 121 Benzodiazepines (BZs) 584–585 clinical uses PTSD 474 Bereavement disasters 764 Bhagavad Gita religious violence 399, 401 Bias crimes see Hate crimes Biblical traditions see Peace spirituality Bin Laden, Osama 677 bin Laden, Osama 403–404 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (1972) Article I 312 Article II 312 Article IV 312 Article VI 312 Article VII 312 Article X 313 general discussion 413 historical background 312 verification regimes 415 Biological toxins, chemical warfare use 305 Biological weapons 306–313 general discussion 306 historical background 312 post-World War II era 312 World War II 312

Biophilia 811 Bioshield Act (2004) 422 Bioterrorism 412–424 combatant strategies defense strategies active defense 417 interdiction programs 417 passive defense 417 deterrence 416 diplomatic policies 415 general discussion 414 passive defense decontamination strategies 422 detection/identification technologies 420–421 medical logistics 421 medical research and development 422 physical protection 418 postattack medical responses 418, 419f preattack vaccinations 418 prophylaxis campaigns 419, 419f, 421 preemption 417 general discussion 422 threat likelihood 413 BioWatch program 420 Bird flu 420 Birds disease surveillance programs 420 sexual conflict 66 territoriality 67 Black Americans see African Americans Blister agent, definition 302 Blitzkrieg 226, 260 Blitzkrieg 272 Bloch, Maurice 176 Blood agent, definition 303 Blood–brain barrier definition 488 dysfunction/disturbance stress effects, Gulf War Syndrome 488 Blood wealth payments 31–32 Boer War 350 Bolivia indigenous peoples 535, 538t Bolshevism 246 Bombers 318, 319 Bombing linguistic factors 676 Bombings indiscriminate bombing 569 saturation bombinb 569 suicide bombers 109 terrorism 555 World War II 273 Bonaparte, Napoleon Spanish uprising 349 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 402 Bonobos 844 Borderline personality disorder 586 Border security 417 Bororo Afar culture 538t Bosnia-Herzegovina civil wars 253 Bosnia–Herzegovina civilian casualties 553 ethnic cleansing 299, 361 ethnic conflicts 207, 208 rape 361 Botswana indigenous peoples 538t Botulinum toxin 305, 413 Boys and Girls Clubs of America 151 Brahman priestly caste 209 Brain research structural factors 9, 96 territoriality avoidance behaviors 100, 101f dominance hierarchies 97 personality traits 100 psychological aspects 95–96

shattered assumptions theory 98 social context 97 stranger-related aggression 99 voluntary frame transformation process 103, 103f Brainwashing tactics 675 Brazil indigenous peoples demographics 538t human rights issues 546 Brethren religious sects 813 Brief modified behavioral interventions, earthquake survivors 742 Britain, Battle of 273 British Expeditionary Force (BEF) 272–273 Broca, Paul 9 Brock-Ute, Birgit 128 Bruce effect 66–67 Bubonic plague 550 Buddhism ahimsa (nonharmfulness) 405 peace spirituality 680 religious violence historical background 398 sanctions 401 symbolic images 399 Buid culture 696 Bulge, Battle of the 279 Burma indigenous peoples 538t Burundi wartime casualties 551t Bush, George W preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327 September 11 terrorist attacks 208, 246 Bushmen culture 538t Butterflies 69 Bystander theory democide 294

C Cambodia civil wars 253 democide 110, 288t healthcare/health services 564 mass killing 35 wartime casualties 551t Cammbodia peacekeeper abuses 361 Canada indigenous peoples demographics 538t political movements 540t response to conquest 535 violent/aggressive television programming 711 violent crime rate 197, 197t Cancer radiation-induced, Hiroshima survivors 329–330 Cannibalism Maori culture 144 ritual preparations 144, 144f spiders 73 tribal warriors 141–142 trophies 144 Cannons 191 Cannon, Walter B 14 Capitalism class conflict socioeconomic dynamics 246 warfare economics 240 Marxist perspective 121 social bases antagonism–conflict theories 46 Capital punishment see Death penalty Captivity acceptance 511 adaptation to 509–513 captive’s behavior 510

Subject Index

captor’s behavior 510 disbelief 509 hypervigilance 510 recovery from 513–517 brief euphoria 513 compliance/resistance 514 denial 514 gradual readjustment 515 hyperarousal 513 resistance/compliance 510 startle/disorientation 509 Captor behavior 510 Carbamate, use in gulf war 488 Carbon taxes 643 Cardiovascular system and stress stress responsivity firefighters 776 Cargo screening programs 417 Caribbean see Latin America Carnival 180 Castro, Fidel 246, 353, 677 Casualty-cost analysis 556, 633 Catecholamines 10, 60 definition 775 levels following terrorism acts 600 Vietnam War veterans 458 Causes of war see Warfare Cavalry 188, 193–194 Cavell, Edith 262 CCW Convention 308 Cease-fire agreements 834 Censorship 221 Center for Legal Education and Research (CLEAR) 641 Center for Nonviolent Communication 681 Central America see Latin America Central nervous system (CNS) neurotransmitters 51 Central Powers 262–263 Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) adrenal hormones 55 catecholamines 60 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 serotonin 56 testosterone 53 Ceremonies, military 213 Chad civil wars 253 Chamberlain, Neville 271 Chaos theory, definition 750 Chariots 188, 191, 192 Charles XII (King of Sweden) 180–181 ChAT gene 489–490 Chatino culture 793 Cheating 20 Chechnya guerilla warfare 357 Chemical warfare 302–306 chemical weapons classification 303 definition 303 history 303 incapacitating agents 305 nerve agents 303, 304 terrorist organizations and 303, 305 vesicants 303, 304 Chemical weapons 306–313 Article I: General Obligations 309 Article III: Declarations 309 Article IV: Chemical weapons 309 Article IX: Consultations, cooperation, and fact-finding 310 Article VI: Activities not prohibited under this convention 309 Article XII: Measures to redress a situation and to ensure compliance, including sanctions 310 general discussion 306 International Peace Conference, Declaration IV (1899) 306–307 post-World War II era 308

Resolution 2603A (XXIV)(1969) 308 World War I 260, 307 World War II 307 Chemical Weapons Convention (1993) Article I: General Obligations 309 Article III: Declarations 309 Article IV: Chemical weapons 309 Article IX: Consultations, cooperation, and fact-finding 310 Article VI: Activities not prohibited under this convention 309 Article XII: Measures to redress a situation and to ensure compliance, including sanctions 310 Chernobyl accident 735–739 health consequences 735 acute radiation syndrome 736–737 far-field 737 on-site 736 psychological 736 PTSD 737 shock trauma 737 thyroid disease 737 vulnerable groups 738 stress effects Lifton’s psychosomatic bind 738 long-term 738 short-term 737, 738 Chewong culture conflict strategies 696 Chiang Kai-Shek 271, 352 Chiefdoms characteristics 143 Childhood stress Holocaust effects 614, 615, 616, 617 Oklahoma city bombing, impact of 390 refugees 622 Children child abuse abuse effects borderline personality disorder 586 childrearing cognitive–communication model 662 verbal aggression 661 Zapotec culture 791 Cinderella effect 21 childrearing discipline 791 Mbuti culture 818 Mennonites 813 physical punishments Zapotec culture 791 violent childrearing Zapotec culture 791 Zapotec culture 791 linguistic violence 672 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 587 socialization 791 television programming violent/aggressive programming 710–723 background information 710 critical viewing skills 708 cultivation effects 719 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 international comparisons 711 intervention studies 718 key concerns 710 measurement issues 711 media responsibilities 709 military conditioning 197 mitigation interventions 708 risk factors 706 viewer perceptions 714 viewing impact 663, 705, 715 wartime impacts case studies background information 576 childhood experiences 578 delinquent behavior 577 family realignment effects 578

855

geographic displacement 577 parental adjustments 578 child soldiers 572 health consequences 557 psychological effects 568–580 age-related differences 576 altruism 574 case studies 576 childhood experiences 578 competence theories 573 cumulative risk model 572 curiosity 573–574 delinquent behavior 577 demographic analysis 575 emotional impact 569 exposure to atocities 575 family realignment effects 578 gender differences 576 general discussion 568, 579 geographic displacement 572, 577 parental adjustments 578 postponement skills 574 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 569 predictive factors 573 resilient coping skills 573 social class 576 social maps 570 survival skills 574 Zapotec culture 791 see also Adolescence Chile indigenous peoples demographics 538t political movements 540t China civil wars 233f, 250 democide 288t, 290 guerilla warfare 352 indigenous peoples 538t military culture 209 pre-World War II era 269 warfare civilian casualties 552 wartime casualties 551t Chipko movement 540t, 816 Chlorine gas 307 Choking agent, definition 303 Cholera 313, 560 Cholesterol 63 Cholinergic neurons/transmission stress effects 491f Cholinesterase see Acetylcholinesterase Cholos 181–182 Christian Crusades 399, 400–401 Christian pacifism 406 Christians/Christianity issues following 9/11 393, 397 martyrs 394 Christian traditions faith-based peace groups 813 ideological democide 287 just-war criteria 671 military service 813 nonviolence concepts 404–405, 406 peace–war dualism 812 religious violence historical background 398 martyrs 400 persecutions and heresy 402 sanctions 402 symbolic images 399–400 Chronic environmental stress syndrome 738 Chronic illness, coping skills see Coping/coping skills Chronic mourning see Grief/grieving Chronic stress responses progression 438f Chronic suicide 602 Churchill, Winston 272–273 Cinderella effect 21

856

Subject Index

Civil disobediance satyagraha 679 satyagraha 814 Civilian casualties casualty rates 551t, 552 children 568, 569 historical background 549 indiscriminate violence 232, 234 insurgencies 233–234 laws of war 231–232 war classifications civil wars 555 dirty wars 555 general discussion 549 international warfare 555 low-intensity warfare 556 terrorism 233–234, 555 Civil society 200–209 basic concepts 200 Cold War 202, 204–205 global civil society 202–203 historical perspectives 204 peace culture 809 peaceful behaviors 809 post–Cold War 207 social movements 202 warfare 204 Civil War (US) guerilla warfare 349 inflation 631 mental health issues 550 Civil war (US) general discussion 251 Civil wars 248–256 basic concepts 249 characteristics 251 conflict resolution 254 escalation factors 252 general disscusion 255 infant mortality rates 559 sociopolitical factors 251–252 war-related health consequences 550 Clan conflict 153–161 basic concepts 154, 155f fraternal interest groups 154 society typology bands 155 sociocultural factors 155 tribes 156 Clan conflicts 153–161 fraternal interest groups 158 general discussion 158 Class conflict social bases antagonism–conflict theories 46 Classroom cooperation 836 Class systems see Social class Clausewitz, Carl von views on war 218, 225 warfare economics 243–244 Clean Air Act 830–831 Clinical homicide statistical applications rates and trends 569 victim–offender relationships intimate partners/families 21, 24, 108 Clinical Resource and Efficacy Support Team, Northern Ireland, PTSD 345 Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) 473–474 Close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f Coalitions see Alliances; Cooperation Code Pink 169 Coefficient of relatedness 19 Coercive diplomacy 40, 694 Cognition Holocaust, stress effects 615–616 Cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) 586, 594–595 applications disasters 768–769

PTSD 345, 461, 474, 742, 775 definition 739 Cognitive processes aggressive behaviors 86, 108 cognitive–communication model 662 impulsive aggression 93 mass media effects 702 television violence cognitive priming theory 666 desensitization 198, 664 excitation transfer 666 observational learning 106 violent behaviors 106–107 Cohesion, military 214–215 Cohort study, definition 455 COISE 540t Cold chain 562 Cold War bilateral superpower relations nuclear deterrence 228 civil society 202, 205 nuclear targeting 321 nuclear warfare strategies central deterrence 322 escalation dominance 324–325 extended deterrence 324 flexible response 324 general discussion 322 second-strike capabilities 322, 323 origins post-World War II era 280 termination 230, 233f war-peace perspective 123–124 Cold war civil wars 249 Collateral damage concept 232, 673 Collective memories democide 300 military culture 218–219 retributive genocide 286, 291 victimization 109 Collective security systems free–rider problem 244 Collins, Randall 176 Colombia gang wars 233 indigenous peoples 538t Colonialism decolonization civil wars 249 self-determination 535 indigenous peoples 535 linguistic violence 672 Columbine high school killings 102 Combat acute reactions to 432–435 predispositions and precipitants 432, 433f prevention 434 treatment 433 chronic stress 435–440 acute stress vs. 435–436 combat intensity and duration 436 physical fitness 439 predispositions 436, 437f prevention 438 PTSD 436, 437–438 diagnosis problems 439 resistance factors 436, 437f signs and symptoms 436 treatment 436, 438f, 439f see also Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) intensity 428 Korean conflict 341 leadership role 191 psychological effects 440–450 close combat, physiology of 445 continuous combat effects 575 legacy of lies 441 overcoming, resistance to killing 447 physiological arousal and fear 443

price, of overcoming the resistance to killing 447 psychiatric casualties 575 psychiatric casualties, in war 442 resistance to killing 446 trauma of close-range, interpersonal aggression 444 trauma situations close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f stress responses 428 hyperarousal symptoms 432 see also Combat stress reaction (CSR) see also War(s) Combat fatigue (shell shock) 456–457 see also Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Combat stress 481 Combat stress indicators, troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan 450–455 battle fatigue/combat fatigue 450 clinic screening data 452–453 general discussion 452 Mental Health Advisory Team IV (MHAT IV) 452–453 methods 450 results 451 depression and monthly death counts, in Afghanistan 453f depression and monthly death rate, in Iraq 452f mental health indicator 451, 451t Combat stress reaction (CSR) 427–432 combat psychiatry 429 combat-related PTSD 428 definition 427, 463 environmental stressors 429 influencing factors 432–433, 433f Lebanon war 464 prevention 430 risk factors 428 scientific evidence 427–428 treatment 429, 433 proximity immediacy and expectancy principle 464 Yom Kippur war 464 see also Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Comdat aircraft 639–640 Comfort women 165 Command and control systems high-tech warfare 232 modern warfare 217 Communicable diseases 560, 561 Communications system modern warfare 226 Communications systems civil society 201, 202 linguistic factors 682–693 complex language 683 conversation ritual 684 ethnicity 688 human interactions 683 miscommunication 685 nonviolent action 690 political violence 687 problematic interactions 685 sense-making circumstances 684 symbolic violence 686 third-party intervention 689 modern warfare 216–217 Communication studies 659–670 aggressive behaviors 661 co-orientational accuracy 660–661 gender differences 660 intercultural differences 660 interpersonal conflicts 659 media violence aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663, 668 international conflict 667

Subject Index

mitigation interventions 667 music lyrics 665 theoretical models cognitive priming theory 666 excitation transfer theory 666 general discussion 665 social learning theory 665 social scripts model 666 Communism social revolutions 121–122, 201 Community/communities losses, disasters 765 Community policing anti-gang initiatives 153 Comorbidity definition 473, 753 psychiatric disorders prisoners of war (POWs) 507 Compassion fatigue, definition 771 Compensation feuds 34, 156–157 Competition conflict-cooperation dynamics 835 classroom cooperation 836 in-group/out-group aggression 835, 836 resource competition 845 Robbers Cave studies 835 threat factors 837 trucking dilemma experiment 837 evolutionary theory 17 nonhuman primates 76 sexual conflict 66 Competitive negotiations 698–699, 700f Complex language 683 Complicated grief 581 Compulsory military service see Conscription Comradeship, military 214–215 Comte, Auguste 680–681, 694 war-peace perspective 122 CONAIE 540t Concentration camps 278, 606, 834 definition 610 Holocaust 456–457, 614, 622 survivors 610, 622 group therapy see also Concentration camp survivors see also Holocaust survivors see Concentration camp survivors Concentration camp survivors 610–613 Cambodian Pol Pot 611 children of 612 Nazi survivors 610, 622 see also Holocaust prisoner of war 611 Concentration camp syndrome 610, 612, 622 Concentration difficulties 553–554, 581t, 582t Concessions see Deterrence Conduct disorder (CD) symptoms 55 CONFEN1AE 540t Conflict animal societies 65–74 adaptive behaviors 19 dominance hierarchies 70, 79 game theory 20, 67 general discussion 66 natural selection 18, 66 nonhuman primates 74–82 competition–conflict comparisons 77 control mechanisms 77–78 dominance hierarchies 79 functions 76 polyadic social aggression 80 reconciliation processes 80–81 research approaches 75 social context 77 social mechanisms 81 territoriality aggressive behaviors 79 win–loss dynamics 79 reproductive skew theory 70

selfish behavior 19, 66, 67f sexual conflict 66 social conflicts 70 territoriality dear enemy effects/familiar neighbors 69 respect for ownership 68 antagonism–conflict theories 46 anthropological research 28–39 assault 36 capital punishment 35 conflict resolution 31 disputing rhetoric 32 domestic violence 37 ethnicity 34 ethnographic studies 30 female genital mutilation 36 feuds 34 general discussion 29 homicide 35 nationalism 34 peace-building processes 33 rape 36 ritual practices 31 robbery 36 sorcery and witchcraft 31 suicidal behaviors 35–36 terrorism 37 torture 36 warfare 33 characteristics 559 clan conflict 153–161 casual factors 155–156 fraternal interest groups 154 society typology bands 155 sociocultural factors 155 tribes 156 class conflict social bases antagonism–conflict theories 46 communication skills media violence desensitization 198 conflict management conflict resolution 694, 823 social order perspectives 40 conflict resolution 822–832 anthropological research 31 basic concepts 694, 694f, 824 civil wars 254 conflict-cooperation dynamics general discussion 833 research approaches 834–835 conflict management 42, 694, 824 economic factors 636 egocentrism 834 general discussion 790, 822 methodology adjudication 694f, 828 application context 831 arbitration 694f, 828, 834 general discussion 827 mediation 694, 694f, 697f, 829, 834 negotiated rule making 830 negotiation 694f, 698–699, 700f, 827, 834 nonviolent principles 46–47 ombudsmanry 829 problem-solving workshops 831 modeling approaches alternative dispute resolution model 826 basic needs model 42, 827 deterrence model 825 peace studies 166–167, 169t ritual practices 31 social conflict 527 social psychological factors 109 conflict–trade relationships exchange theories 44 social conflict 44 conflict transformation stages

857

graduated reciprocation in tension (GRIT) reduction strategy 839 tit-for-tat strategy 839 variable circumstances protracted conflict 346 coping strategies 696 cross-cultural variations biocultural perspective 790 gender studies indirect (covert) aggression 792–793 sex differences 792 general discussion 695–696 kin selection 698–699 low aggression levels 698 psycho-cultural conflict management mechanisms 697, 786t, 793, 794 Semai culture 697, 788t Waorani culture 697, 788t, 793, 794 ethnic conflicts anthropological research 34–35 ethnic cleansing 299 ideological democide 296 language construction 688 retributive genocide 286 riots 283–284 evolutionary theory 17–28 adaptive behaviors 19 behavior explanations 19 cooperation strategies 20 environmental aspects individual development 27 gene-based theories 19 general discussion 18 kinship basic concepts 21 Cinderella effect 21 infanticide 22 parent–offspring conflict 22 moral issues 27 natural selection 18 psychological aspects 27 sexual reproduction competition 22 gender differences 23 male–male competition 24 risk-taking aversion 25 violent behaviors 23 Yanomamo¨ culture 25 sexual violence 25 human interactions 683 linguistic factors 682–693 complex language 683 conversation ritual 684 ethnicity 688 human interactions 683 miscommunication 685 nonviolent action 690 political violence 687 problematic interactions 685 sense-making circumstances 684 symbolic violence 686 third-party intervention 689 military organizations characteristics 158 nonviolent conflict management 46–47 political violence conflict characteristics general discussion 559 healthcare/health services 558–568 health consequences 548–558 budget impacts 562 casualty-cost analysis 556 casualty data collection 551, 551t children 557, 568–580 civil wars 555 community involvement 563 dirty wars 555 equipment and supply disruptions 562 general discussion 549, 559 health policy formation 563 historical background 549

858

Subject Index

Conflict (continued) human resources 562 infrastructure destruction 561 international warfare 555 long-term effects 557 low-intensity warfare 556 mental health issues 550, 560 methodological issues 551 physical health issues 554 positive impacts 565 postconflict challenges 566 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550 refugees 551–552, 553, 553t, 557 service activities 561 service availability 560 socioeconomic consequences 555 terrorism 555 tracer conditions 559 twentieth century casualties 226, 552 war classifications 555 women 557 tactical strategies 549–550 post-World War II era 227 purpose 525 realistic conflicts 46 ritual behaviors 173 social conflict 39–47 aggressive behaviors 41 animal societies 70 authority structure 526 basic needs model 42 class conflict 46 conflict resolution 527 exchange theories 44 functionalist theory 45–46 purpose 525 relative deprivation theory 41 social identity theory 42 social integration 46 social order 43 theoretical perspectives 40 sociocultural change 793 superimposed conflicts 46 theoretical concepts social conflict 524 theoretical perspectives social conflict 39–47 tribal conflict 153–161 basic concepts 154, 155f causal factors 155–156 fraternal interest groups 154 military organizations characteristics 158 society typology bands 155 sociocultural factors 155 tribes 156 see also Armed conflicts; Interpersonal conflicts; Peace; Power; Revolutions Conflict-cooperation dynamics 833–847 Conflict resolution authority structure 526 Conflicts clan conflicts 153–161 fraternal interest groups 158 general discussion 158 communication skills 659–670 aggressive behaviors 661 co-orientational accuracy 660–661 gender differences 660 intercultural differences 660 interpersonal conflicts aggressive behaviors 661 cognitive–communication model 662 general discussion 659 personal accountability 663 verbal aggression 661 media violence aggressive behaviors 663 cognitive priming theory 666 desensitization 664

excitation transfer theory 666 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663, 668 international conflict 667 mitigation interventions 667 music lyrics 665 social learning theory 665 social scripts model 666 theoretical models 665 conflict resolution communication skills 659–670 conflict-cooperation dynamics 842 credible threats 842 disappointed expectations 842 ecological conflicts 844 ethnic conflicts 844 future research areas 846 justice perceptions 843 peaceful societies 843 real-world interactions 842 termination of war 843 ethnic conflicts ethnic cleansing 205, 207 institutionalized violence 118 international conflict mass media 667 linguistic factors 670–682 general discussion 670 language of peace general discussion 678 negative peace 678 positive peace 679 language of war euphemisms/manipulation 674 general discussion 673–674 jargon 674 legitimacy 676 metaphors 675 propaganda campaigns 675 totalitarianism 678 warist discourse 670 perception and behavior characteristics of war 671 general discussion 671 influencing factors 671 warist discourse 670 sociocultural factors general discussion 672 linguistic nonviolence 673, 679 linguistic violence 672 military organizations battle tactics 158 composition 157 fraternal interest groups 158 function 158 general discussion 158 tribal conflict fraternal interest groups 158 general discussion 158 military organizations composition 157 function 158 Conformity groupthink 106, 842 Confucianism military culture 209 nonviolence concepts 405 Congo see Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo Conscientious objection utopian communities 812 Conscription France 259 Imperial Germany 258 pre-World War II Germany 270–271 sociopolitical trends 219 United States 274 see also Draft, military Consensus 830 Conservation–withdrawal syndrome 760 Consortial type murder–suicide 605

Constantine 813 Contemporary faith-based peace groups 813 Continual war 239 Continuous combat effects 575 Conventional deterrence high-tech warfare 232–233 Convention on Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 163 Convention on Prohibitions and Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW Convention) 308 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the United Nations (UNGC) 283 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (1972) see Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (1972) Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (1993) see Chemical Weapons Convention (1993) Conversation ritual 684 Cooperation conflict-cooperation dynamics 833–847 competition studies classroom cooperation 836 in-group/out-group aggression 835, 836 Robbers Cave studies 835 threat factors 837 trucking dilemma experiment 837 ecological conflicts natural resource consumption 845 overcrowding 845 resource competition 845 ethnic conflicts in-group/out-group identities 844 psychological aspects 844 quantitative studies 844 formal games coalition formation 840 emotional environments 838 Exclusion of the Top Dog 840 general discussion 837 missile conversion game 839 panic behaviors 838 Prisoner’s Dilemma 837, 838f rationality theories 838 theory of moves 838 future research areas casual observations 846 discourse terminology 846 external validity 846 forced observations 846 interdisciplinary research 847 logical arguments 847 units of analysis 846 general discussion 833 real-world interactions credible threats 842 disappointed expectations 842 interstate rivalries 843 justice perceptions 843 termination of war 843 research approaches coalition formation 840 competition studies 835 conflict spiral 839 emotional factors 841 Exclusion of the Top Dog 840 formal games 837 framework 835 Israeli–Palestinian workshops 840 local stability theory 841 missile conversion game 839 Osgood strategy 839

Subject Index

Cooperative negotiations 698–699, 700f Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program 415 Co-orientational accuracy 660–661 Coping/coping skills strategies/techniques cultural variability 334 Holocaust survivors 614, 615, 616 nuclear warfare anxiety 334 Coral Sea, Battle of the 275–276 Cordillera Peoples Alliance 540t Correlates of War data set 842 Corruption institutionalized violence 114–115 Corticosterone stress effects/response acute stress response, role in 490 Corticotropin see Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) Corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) see Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) stress effects/response 14–15 Cortisol 53, 55 stress effects/response 14–15, 773 Vietnam War veterans 458, 460f Cosmic warfare, role in suicide terrorism 380 Costa Rica indigenous peoples 538t sociocultural change 793 Cost–benefit analyses natural selection 18 warfare 630f, 633 Counterinsurgency warfare 327, 348 Coup (war achievement) 140 Coups d’ etat basic concepts 249 Court–martials 211–212 Creatinine 56 Credible threats 320, 842 see also Deterrence Crew-served weapons 191 CRH see Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) Crimes against humanity see Human rights Criminal activity/behavior religion and 393 Criminal behavior acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 crime-victim narratives 182 drug-related crime United States gangs 150 international violent crime rate 197, 197t juvenile crime delinquent behavior 577 gang involvement urban gangs 149 justice system 149 wartime impacts 575 theoretical perspectives urban environments urban gangs 149 Criminal justice system gangs 149 Criminal recidivism, religion 393 Criminology institutionalized violence 115–116 Critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) 583 emergency personnel 774 Critical incident stress management (CISM), emergency personnel 774 Croatia ethnic cleansing 207, 299, 361 folkloric expressions 183 Crosscultural continuum model 798, 799f Cruise missiles 319 Crusades 399, 400–401, 813 Cuba foreign aggression 246 guerilla warfare 353 healthcare/health services 562

Cuban Missile Crisis historical background 228 Cultural backgrounds instrumental aggression 86 Cultural studies trauma-related reactions 594 Cultural violence linguistic factors 679, 686 positive versus negative peace 129 rape 361 social psychological factors 40–41, 107, 111 Culture of peace 808–821 basic concepts 809 daily life celebrations 810 civil society 811 families 810 peaceful societies Anabaptists 813 Mbuti culture 818 play and imagination 820 ritual behaviors 819 sanctuaries 820 social bonds 818 trade and exchange 820 zones of peace 820 general discussion 810 historical background 812, 813 peace–war dualism 812 religious peace cultures contemporary faith-based peace groups 813 historical background 812 resistance efforts 366 secular peace movements contemporary peace movements 814 historical background 813 peace education movement 816 utopias contemporary communities 812 historical perspectives 811 women’s cultures basic concepts 814 contributions 815 global peace services 817 networking 817 peace colonies 817 peace education movement 816 peace journeys 816 Culture of Peace Program (UNESCO) 694, 814 Curiosity, in children 573–574 Cyanides, chemical warfare use 304–305 Cycles of blame 763 Czarist Russia 259 Czechoslovakia pre-World War II era 271

D Dahomey 137 Danzig 272 Daoism see Taoism Darfur, Sudan 300 see also Sudan Darwinian medicine, stress response and see Stress response Datura arborea 139–140 Davidson Self-Rating PTSD Scale 473–474 Dawkins, Richard 176 Dear enemy effects 69 Death in Life 329 Death penalty anthropological research 35 tribal societies 156 Debriefing critical incident stress debriefing 774 definition 771 disasters 768 emergency personnel 774 goals 774–775 theoretical debriefing model 345

859

Deception cooperation tactics 834 guerrilla warfare 569 Decision-making processes emotional factors 841 Decision theory two-person games Prisoner’s Dilemma 837, 838f Declaration IV, International Peace Conference (1899) 306–307 Declaration of Hawaii 530 Declaration of Human Rights (UN) state torture 529 structural violence concerns 129–130 Declaration of Tokyo 530 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (UN) 510 Decolonization civil wars 249 Defeat, military 218, 278 Defense(s) definition 11 stress response as 12 Defense spending economic factors economic impact 637 economic impact 363, 364t macroeconomic analysis 631 spending reductions 562 Defensive weapons 318, 639 de Gaulle, Charles 273 Dehumanization 107, 278, 526 captivity 509 Holocaust experiences 619 torture 519 Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) 56 Delinquency see Juvenile crime; Youth violence Democide 281–302 anthropological research rape 36 causes biological/behavioral perspectives economic explanations 296 general discussion 295 individually-oriented explanations 296 Marxist explanations 296 processual explanations 297 sociobiological explanations 295 structural explanations 297 general discussion 294–295 popular explanations 295 collective memories 300 death statistics 282t definitions active democide 284 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the United Nations (UNGC) 283 passive democide 284 target populations 285–286 terminology usage 283 dehumanization 107 documentation 298 eight stages of genocide 301t ethnic cleansing 299 forecasts 300 general discussion 281 indigenous peoples 289 major occurrences general discussion 288 pre-twentieth century ancient Middle East 289 Aztec/Mayan empires 289 general discussion 288–289 Melos 289 Mongol hordes 289 Native Americans 289 twentieth century China 290 Eastern Europe 291 Herero tribe (Namibia) 290

860

Subject Index

Democide (continued) megamurderers 288t Pakistan 291 post-1945 290 pre-1945 289 Rwanda 107, 110 World War II 278 Yugoslavia 299 patterns ecological patterns 292 general discussion 292 participants bystanders 294 deniers 294 general discussion 292 helpers/rescuers 294 perpetrators 293 victims 293 temporal patterns 292 prevention 300 public awareness 299 rape 165, 299, 361 social identity theory 42 typology despotic/hegemonic/repressive regimes 286 economically-based democide 286 general discussion 286 habitual democide 287 ideological democide 110, 287, 296 massacres 287 retributive genocide 286, 291 strategic–tactical democide 286 see also Genocide Democratic People’s Republic of Korea democide 288t Democratic Republic of the Congo civil wars 251–252 wartime casualties 551t Democratization civil society 201 conflict reduction trends 230, 233f democratic peace theory Kantian philosophy 230 warfare between democracies 230 socioeconomic dynamics 246 Demonstrations peace movements 814 Dengue fever 560 Denial response, floods 746 Deniers (democide) 294 Denmark World War II 272 Deontological pacifism 680–681 Deportation programs 278 Depression trauma-induced disorders 581 Depression/depressive disorders atypical see Major depressive disorder (MDD) definitions 385, 610 disasters and 763 major see Major depressive disorder (MDD) refugees 623 terrorism and 374 Deprivation absolute deprivation 110 relative deprivation 41, 109 social conflict 42 Descartes, Re´ne´ 241 Despotic regimes 286 Detachment behaviors 581t, 582t Detachment, emergency personnel 749 Deterrence biological weapons 416 conflict resolution 825 conventional deterrence high-tech warfare 232–233 nuclear deterrence central deterrence 322 Cold War superpower crisis behavior 228 credible threats 320 economic factors 640

escalation dominance 324–325 extended deterrence 324 flexible response 324 general discussion 322 implementation strategies 320 second-strike capabilities 322, 323 theoretical perspectives 319 theoretical concepts credible threats 320, 842 nuclear threats 320 Deutsch, Karl 837 Developmental democide 286 Deviant behaviors frustration effects 89 Dewey, John linguistic nonviolence 680–681 Dharma just-war criteria 401 religious violence 401 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 580–581 third edition (DSM-III) definition 455 Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) 457 definition 455 Diazepam 584–585 Dien Bien Phu 355 3,4-Dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) 60 Dinka culture 30 Dioxins see Agent Orange Diplomacy coercive diplomacy 40 Diplomatic policies 415 see also Deterrence Direct-contact victims, definition 389, 750 Direct-impact victims, definition 389 Direct violence 107, 126, 128–129 Dirty wars 555 Disarmament arms control treaties Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (1972) 413, 415 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 640–641 arms trade 639 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) goals and objectives 325 peace movements 206 Disaster mental health definition 389, 750 elderly 387 see also Disaster syndrome Disaster phases 760 definition 759 ensuing disaster phases 760 unfolding of disaster syndrome 761 Disasters 761–770 children and 767 definition 756, 759, 761 disaster response 762 displaced persons 767 economic consequences 763 elderly and 385, 767 intensity of exposure 768 life threat and traumatic injury 763 losses 764 natural 763, 765 Oklahoma city bombing 389–390 posttraumatic growth 766 previous exposure 766 psychosocial effects 763 recovery environment 768 separation and dislocation 765 stressors 762 chronic 766 definition 761 see also Disaster mental health Disaster syndrome 759–761 features 759 purpose 760

similar syndromes, place within 760 treatment 761 Disaster victim identification (DVI) 764 Disbelief, floods 746 Discipline childrearing Zapotec culture 791 Discrimination Hiroshima survivors 330 military culture 219–220 Disease biological weapons 313 epidemics 285, 550, 559–560 surveillance programs 420 vector control programs 561 war-related health consequences 559–560 Dislocation, disaster, following 765 Disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified (DESNOS) 554 Displaced aggression 91 Dispute resolution 822–832 anthropological research 31 basic concepts 823 conflict management 823 economic factors 636 general discussion 822 methodology adjudication 828 application context 831 arbitration 828 general discussion 827 mediation 829 negotiated rule making 830 negotiation 827 ombudsmanry 829 problem-solving workshops 831 modeling approaches alternative dispute resolution model 826 basic needs model 827 deterrence model 825 peace studies 169t ritual practices 31 social psychological factors 110 tribal societies 32 Disrespectful behaviors 90 Disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) 55 Dissociation 581t, 582t definition 376 peritraumatic definition 771 emergency personnel 773 PTSD 773 role in suicide terrorism 381 Distal explanations 19 Distributive bargaining 828 Distributive negotiations 699, 700f Dobu culture 697 Domestic violence anthropological research 37 child abuse 661 cognitive–communication model 662 communication skills 661 gender analysis 169t instrumental aggression 86 interpersonal violence 108 peace studies 164 personal accountability 663 reproduction competition 24 verbal aggression 661 wartime experiences 362 weaponry evolution acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 general discussion 195 international violent crime rate 197, 197t medical lifesaving technology 196t, 197 weapon lethality 195 weapons effectiveness 195, 196t Dominance hierarchies animal societies 70, 79 authority structure 526

Subject Index

dominator-partnership models 129 indigenous peoples 535 territoriality 97 Dominance-maintaining democide 286 Dominican Republic civil wars 253 Dominions 261 Doomsday Clock 332–333 Dopamine 10, 60 Doxepin 584–585 Draft, military France 259 Imperial Germany 258 pre-World War II Germany 270 sociopolitical trends 219 United States 274 see also Conscription Dripping faucet syndrome 747 Driving phobia 754 Drug abuse drug-related crime gangs 150 see also Substance abuse Drug(s) PTSD 345 stress reduction, implications for physiological functioning 15 Drug trafficking guerilla warfare 357–358 Drug use see Substance abuse Dspute resolution communication skills 659–670 Dual diagnosis see Comorbidity Dulles, John Foster 321 Duna culture 31, 35–36 Durkheim, Emile conflict theories 123 ritual behaviors 174–175 suicidal behaviors 35–36, 603, 603t Durkheim’s theory of anomie 375

E Earthquake epicenter, definition 739 Earthquakes definition 740 prevention 743 stress effects 739–744 psychological consequences 740 acute phase 740 factors associated 741 long-term effects 741 major depressive disorder, rates 741t medium-term effects 740, 741t PTSD, rates 741t treatment of survivors 742 brief modified behavioral interventions 742 Earth Summit (1992) 830–831 East Bengal 291 Eastern Europe democide 291 East Germany see Germany Ecofeminism 166, 169t Ecological conflicts natural resource consumption 845 overcrowding 845 resource competition 845 Economics early agricultural societies 238 economic violence 138 hunter–gatherer societies 238 natural resource consumption 845 pastoral nomadic societies 239 political economy military expenditures 562 pre–agricultural societies 238 preindustrial violence materialism 33–34 violent/aggressive television programming 721

warfare 236–248, 629–635, 635–646 arms races 639 casualty-cost analysis 553 classifications 629, 630t conflict resolution 636 conversion impacts 637 cost of war 630f, 633 direct effects 629, 630t as economic behavior 242 economic sanctions 644 economic theories heterodox perspectives 243 mainstream perspectives 243–244 monopoly capital school 243 negative–sum game theory 244 rational decisions versus irrational violence 243 equitable resource distribution 638 as evolutionary strategy 242 external cost 630t feedback systems 645 general discussion 237–238 historical background capitalism 240 continual war 239 early agricultural societies 238 general discussion 237–238 hunter–gatherer societies 238 nation–states 240 pastoral nomadic societies 239 pre–agricultural societies 238 indirect effects 629, 630t internal cost 630t macroeconomic analysis 631 microeconomic analysis 629 military spending 363, 364t, 631, 637 nuclear weapons 640 peace studies 644–645 resource transfer effects 632 socioeconomic dynamics general discussion 244 group commitment 244 loyalty 245 modern societies 245 United Nations financial support 642 peace-building processes 640 women 363 Economic sanctions 644 Economic violence 138 Economists for Peace and Security 644–645 Ecthics Western traditions Christian traditions just-war criteria 671 Ecuador indigenous peoples demographics 538t human rights issues 546, 547 political movements 540t Waorani culture 697–698, 788t, 793 ECUARUNARI 540t Edged-weapon combat 190 Education and training, military 145, 217 Egalitarianism 804 Egocentrism 834 Egoism 694 Egoistic suicide 603t Egypt chemical weapons 308 warfare economics 239 Eight stages of genocide 301t Einsatzgruppen 274–275, 278 Elderly disasters, impact of 385 Electric shock avoidance conditioning see Avoidance/ avoidance conditioning torture, as 518–519 Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) 318 Elephant seals 72

861

El Nin˜o 745 El Salvador gross national product (GNP) 562 healthcare/health services 562, 563, 564 indigenous peoples demographics 538t political movements 540t wartime impacts 363 Emergency personnel 770–775 acute stress disorder 771–772 Chernobyl accident 736 critical incident stress management 774 debriefing 774 critical incident stress 774 emotional disclosure 774–775 PTSD diagnosis 771 families, impact on 772 firefighters 777–778 interventions 774 predictors 772 research studies 772 symptoms 772 see also Police Emotion Holocaust stress effects 615–616 memory and see Memory Emotional aggression psychological processes 87, 91 Emotional disclosure, emergency personnel 774–775 Enculturation processes 790 Endlosung 676 Endocrine research 9 Enemy relationships enemy images 107, 278 Enforcement terror 677 England religious violence 403 war-peace perspective 121 see also United Kingdom Enlistment and recruitment see Military service Enniskillen bombing, PTSD 344 Entente 256, 259–260 Entente 269–270 Environment environmental sampling techniques 420 mismatch between ancestral and modern 16 Environmental Protection Agency (US) 830–831 Environmental stress chronic syndrome 738 Environmental stress syndrome, chronic 738 Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) 420 Epidemics 285, 550, 559–560 Epinephrine 9, 55–56 Episodic violence 107 Equal rights (military culture) 220 Equity feminism 162–163 Eritrea healthcare/health services 565 Eschatology 406–407 Esprit de corps 139, 144–145 esprit de corps 215 Estradiol 52 Estrogen 10 ETA see Basque Nation and Liberty (ETA) Ethanol see Alcohol Ethics medical professionals 530 Western traditions Christian traditions faith-based peace groups 813–814 ideological democide 287 military service 813 nonviolence concepts 404–405, 406 peace–war dualism 812 religious violence 398–399, 399–400 Judaism nonviolence concepts 406 religious violence 398–399

862

Subject Index

Ethiopia healthcare/health services 565 military expenditures 562 war-related health consequences 559–560 wartime casualties 551t Ethnic cleansing, former Yugoslavia 468–469 Ethnic Conflicts Research Project (ECOR) gang involvement 148 Ethnicity ethnic conflicts anthropological research 34–35 ethnic cleansing 205, 207, 299, 361 ideological democide 296 institutionalized violence 118 language construction 688 retributive genocide 286 riots 283–284 ethnic profiling 677 identity politics ethnic identity conflict theories 44 ethnocentrism 40–41 jokes 179 verbal aggression 662 Ethnocentrism social conflict 40–41 Eugenics 176 Europe violent/aggressive television programming 711 European Union peace studies 644–645 Europe of the Regions concept peacekeeping missions 233f peace movements 205–206 Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna (ETA) 234 Evacuation syndrome, definition 441 Evidence-based medicine, PTSD interventions 774 Evil war-related encounters 569–570 Evolutionary theory of violence 17–28 adaptive behaviors 19 behavior explanations 19 cooperation strategies 20 environmental aspects individual development 27 gene-based theories 19 general discussion 18 kinship basic concepts 21 Cinderella effect 21 infanticide 22 parent–offspring conflict 22 moral issues 27 natural selection 18 psychological aspects 27 sexual reproduction competition 22 gender differences 23 male–male competition 24 risk-taking aversion 25 violent behaviors 23 Yanomamo¨ culture 25 sexual violence 25 Evolution, stress response and see Stress response Excessive worry 581 Exclusion of the Top Dog 840 Execution see Death penalty Executioners 293–294 Expectancy, combat stress reaction (CSR) 429 Expectation, definition 427 Expressive aggression 87 Extended deterrence 324 Extermination units 278, 606 External war 159 Eye movement desensitization and remodeling (EMDR) PTSD treatment 345, 474 Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy 594–595

F Fairy tale approach 675, 677–678 Fairy tales (genre) 179 Faith-based peace groups 813 Falklands War (1982) 192, 227f, 228 Fallout 318 Familial type murder–suicide 606 Familiar neighbor effects 69 Families family therapy 594–595 gang involvement 149 marital therapy 594–595 peaceful behaviors 810 Family/families nuclear warfare anxiety, influence on 334 PTSD, emergency personnel 772 Famines 284–285, 550 Fatalism 690 Fatalistic suicide 603t Fatigue pilot error, airline accidents 734 Fear definition 441 earthquake experience 740, 741 irrational see Phobias Fear conditioning PTSD 600–601 Fearfulness 25, 665 Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders 540t, 544–545 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 744 Hurricane Katrina, response to 751 Federation of Alaskan Natives 540t Female genital mutilation 36 Female warriors 137 Feminism ecofeminism 166, 169t peace studies communication styles 167 conflict resolution/mediation 166, 169t domestic violence 164, 169t ecofeminism 166, 169t equality versus difference debate 162–163 general discussion 166 nonviolence roles 167, 169t peace movement organizations 168, 169t women’s cultures basic concepts 814 contributions 815 global peace services 817 networking 817 peace colonies 817 peace education movement 816 peace journeys 816 women’s cultures resistance efforts 366 risk-taking aversion 25 social change 169t social identity theory 43 social identity theory 43 violence against women patriarchal systems 165 rape genocide 165, 299 institutionalized violence 115–116 male privilege 164 marital rape 36 wartime experiences 36, 165 wartime impacts 358–370 contemporary issues collective organizing tactics 367 essentialism–difference debate 366 military service 367 motherhood–war relationship 367 direct casualties 359 domestic violence 362 economic losses 363 environmental destruction 363

general discussion 359 geographic displacement 360, 572, 577 health consequences 557 loss of family 362 militarism–patriarchy connection 369 military production workers 365 military service general discussion 365 military spending 363, 364t mourning 365 patriotism and nationalism 365 prostitution 361 rape 361 research areas mobilization strategies 368 peacetime–wartime connections 368 policymaking contributions 368 response factors 368 survival and rebuilding efforts 368 resistance efforts 366 survival and rebuilding efforts 366, 368 see also Domestic violence wartime impacts military service general discussion 220 Festive violence 180 Feudalism feudal nobility 145 feudal society 200 Feuds 153–161 anthropological research 34 basic concepts 154, 155f casual factors 155–156 characteristics compensation 156 distinguishing factors 157 extent 157 key elements 156 vengeance factors 157 fraternal interest groups 154 society typology bands 155 sociocultural factors 155 tribes 156 Fight-or-flight response physiological effects 14 PTSD 345 Figley, Charles 456 Figurative lie 676 Fiji warriors 144, 144f Filial type murder–suicide 605 Finland conflict strategies 696 indigenous peoples 540t violent/aggressive television programming 711 World War II 272 Firearms evolutionary development 199 technological impact 216 Firefighters 775–778 Chernobyl accident 736 hazards, changing nature of 776 injury risk 776 Oklahoma city bombing 390 physical stress 776 psychological stresses 776, 777 PTSD risk 773 see also Disasters; Emergency personnel Firestorms 317 First Nations 512 First-responders definition 750 see also Emergency personnel First-strike weapons 639–640 Fish social conflicts 70 Fission bombs 314, 315f Fitness 18, 695, 699 firefighters 777

Subject Index

Flashbacks 553–554, 581t, 582t PTSD 345 Flashflooding 744 Flight and separation, refugees 621 Flogging 211–212 Floods 744–750 emergency and medical personnel 749 fatalities 744 Hurricane Katrina-related 751 infectious diseases 748 New Orleans 745–746, 748 physical symptoms 748 postdisaster coping 746 children 748 early adaptation 746 immediate 746 latephase adaptation 747 midphase adaptation 747 resolution 747 symptom development 747 trauma severity assessment 749 Fluoxetine PTSD 474 Folklore/folklore studies 177–186 basic concepts 177 future research areas 185 personal/professional dilemmas 185 research approaches general discussion 178 peaceful contexts 178 violent contexts 180 Food sorcery 31 Forced deportation 278 Forced labor 284–285 Forced marches state-sanctioned violence 292 World War II 275 Forced sex see Rape Forcible rape see Rape Fore culture conflict strategies 696 Former Yugoslavia see War stress, former Yugoslavia Formica excecta 71 Fort Devons Operation Desert Storm Reunion Survey 336 Fourier, Charles 680–681 France guerilla warfare Algerian insurgency 356 Vende’e uprising 348 Vietnam 354 pre-World War II era 269 violent crime rate 197, 197t World War I 259 World War II 272 Francis of Assisi, Saint 406 Franco, Francisco 250, 271 Fraternal interest groups 154, 158 Free City of Danzig 272 Freedom fighters 671 Free–rider problem 244 French Guiana 538t French Indochina 354 French resistance movement 273 French Revolution 120–121 Freud, Sigmund human nature perspective 4, 8 Frustration effects 89 Fryatt, James 262 Functionalist theory 45–46, 175–176 Fundamental attribution error 109 Fusion bombs 316

G GAD see Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) Gaddafi, Muammar al- 677 Galtung, Johan conflict resolution 637

positive peace 679 structural violence 126, 163 Game theory animal societies 67 conflict-cooperation dynamics coalition formation 840 emotional environments 838 Exclusion of the Top Dog 840 general discussion 837 missile conversion game 839 panic behaviors 838 Prisoner’s Dilemma 837, 838f rationality theories 838 theory of moves 838 conflict resolution 636 decision theory two-person games Prisoner’s Dilemma 837, 838f evolutionary theory 20 negative–sum game theory 244 ritual behaviors 171 Gandhi, Mohandas historical background 814 political nonviolence ahimsa (nonharmfulness) 814 basic concepts 405–406 language of peace 679 religious violence 398–399, 401 Gangrene 313 Gang Resistance Educational Assistance and Training (GREAT) 153 Gangs 146–153 community involvement 149 definition 147 ethnicity 148 folkloric expressions 181 gender studies 148–149 group dynamics delinquent behavior 149 drug-related crime 150 membership process 150 violent behaviors 150 historical background 147 involvement theories cultural theories 148 explanation levels 148 social disorganization 148 wartime impacts 575 legal system response 153 magnitude assessment 148 Papua New Guinea 36 social learning theory 106 strategic responses community organization programs 152 economic opportunities 152 major initiatives 152 social intervention programs 151 suppression 151 urban environments community involvement 149 historical background 147 urban gangs 149 Gang wars 233 Garter snakes 72–73 Gas masks 418 Gas warfare 260, 307 see also Biological weapons; Chemical weapons Gay populations linguistic factors 671 Gebusi culture 35 Gender motor vehicle accidents 755 PTSD and Israeli research 466 Gender studies 161–170 aggressive behaviors 791–792 basic concepts 162 child abuse female genital mutilation 36 communication styles 167 conflict research 660

863

domestic violence anthropological research 37 cognitive–communication model 662 communication skills 661 folkloric expressions 182 gender analysis 169t instrumental aggression 86 interpersonal violence 108 peace studies 164 personal accountability 663 reproduction competition 24 verbal aggression 661 wartime experiences 362 weaponry evolution acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 general discussion 195 international violent crime rate 197, 197t medical lifesaving technology 196t, 197 weapon lethality 195 weapons effectiveness 195, 196t dominator-partnership models 129 feminism ecofeminism 166, 169t equality versus difference debate 162–163 peace studies communication styles 167 conflict resolution/mediation 166, 169t domestic violence 164, 169t ecofeminism 166, 169t general discussion 166 nonviolence roles 167, 169t peace movement organizations 168, 169t women’s cultures 815 women’s cultures 366 risk-taking aversion 25 social change 169t social identity theory 43 wartime impacts 358–370 collective organizing tactics 367 direct casualties 359 domestic violence 362 economic losses 363 environmental destruction 363 essentialism–difference debate 366 general discussion 359 geographic displacement 360, 572, 577 health consequences 557 loss of family 362 militarism–patriarchy connection 369 military production workers 365 military service 367 general discussion 365 military spending 363, 364t motherhood–war relationship 367 mourning 365 patriotism and nationalism 365 prostitution 361 rape 361 research areas 368 resistance efforts 366 response factors 368 survival and rebuilding efforts 366, 368 gang involvement 148–149 gender analysis 169, 169t general discussion 162 indirect (covert) aggression 792–793 infanticide 66–67 masculinity gender studies 163–164 male–male competition 23 privileged behaviors 163–164 social identity theory 43 military culture 220 nonviolence 167, 169t peace movement organizations 168, 169t risk-taking aversion 25 sexual minorities linguistic factors 671 sexual reproduction 22 social change 169t

864

Subject Index

Gender studies (continued) social identity theory 43 socio-economic issues 163 trauma-related reactions 594 violence democide 293–294 hormonal correlations 53 institutionalized violence 115 rape 164 reproduction competition 24 against women see also Domestic violence rape 299 see also Domestic violence violent behaviors 163 warriors 137 wartime impacts 575 military service 221 women as property 165 General adaptation syndrome (GAS) 760 stress response utility 12 Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) 581 disasters 763 Genetic cleansing (insect societies) 71 Geneva Convention Biological weapons 313 biological weapons 413 war victims 231–232 Geneva convention warfare constraints 678 Geneva Gas Protocol 313 Geneva Protocol (1925) 313, 413 Genital mutilation 36–37 Genocide causes biological/behavioral perspectives economic explanations 296 general discussion 295 individually-oriented explanations 296 Marxist explanations 296 processual explanations 297 sociobiological explanations 295 structural explanations 297 general discussion 294–295 popular explanations 295 civil society 205 collective memories 300 definitions Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the United Nations (UNGC) 283 terminology usage 283 dehumanization 107 documentation 298 eight stages of genocide 301t ethnic cleansing 299 forecasts 300 international criminal courts and tribunals International Court of Justice (ICJ) 641 International Criminal Court (ICC) human rights issues 641 linguistic factors 676 rape 165 warfare strategies 165 major occurrenc twentieth century Rwanda 107 major occurrences general discussion 288 pre-twentieth century ancient Middle East 289 Aztec/Mayan empires 289 general discussion 288–289 Melos 289 Mongol hordes 289 Native Americans 289 twentieth century China 290 Eastern Europe 291 Herero tribe (Namibia) 290 megamurderers 288t

Pakistan 291 post-1945 290 pre-1945 289 Rwanda 110 World War II 278 Yugoslavia 299 patterns ecological patterns 292 general discussion 292 participants bystanders 294 deniers 294 general discussion 292 helpers/rescuers 294 perpetrators 293 victims 293 temporal patterns 292 prevention 300 public awareness 299 rape 36, 299, 361 Rwanda dehumanization processes 107 ideological democide 110 social identity theory 43 typology despotic/hegemonic/repressive regimes 286 economically-based democide 286 general discussion 286 habitual democide 287 ideological democide 110, 287, 296 massacres 287 retributive genocide 286, 291 strategic–tactical democide 286 German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939) 272 Germany arms control treaties pre-World War II era 269 chemical weapons 307 democide Herero tribe (Namibia) 290 Nazi Germany 109, 285–286, 288t Imperial Germany 258 pre-World War II era 269 violent/aggressive television programming 711 war crimes World War I 262 war-peace perspective 120–121 World War I 122–123, 262, 307 World War II aftermath 280 civilian casualties 552 defeat and surrender 278 expansion efforts 272 linguistic factors 676 losses and turning points 275 Stalingrad battle 276 violence against women 361 war production efforts 276–277 Ghettoes 614 Giddens, Anthony 119–120, 125 Giraf-language 681 Gita religious violence 399, 401 Glass ceiling 163, 169t Global civil society 202–203 Global fallout 318 Globalization civil society 202 conflict reduction trends 230 Global Peace Service 646 Global warming conflict-cooperation dynamics 842 Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) 112 Glucocorticoid(s) (GCs) acute stress response, role in 490 biological actions/roles immune system actions immune suppression 15 see also Corticosterone; Cortisol Glucose regulation 63 Goebbels, Joseph 277–278

Gonadal androgens 52 Gorbachev, Mikhail peace movements 206 Gossip 38, 786t Governmental sanctioned torture, definition 517 Graduated reciprocation in tension (GRIT) reduction strategy 839 Gramsci, Antonio 200–201 Gray, Jeffrey 96 Great Britian see United Kingdom Great Depression (1929-30) 270 Great War see World War I Greece civil wars 253 Communist insurgency 351 guerilla warfare 351 violent crime rate 197, 197t weaponry evolution 193 Greenham Common 366 Greenhouse gases see Global warming Green swordtail fish 72 Grief/grieving 581 disasters 764 PTSD analogy 343 see also Bereavement Griffith, Paddy 189 Grimm brothers 179 Ground zero, proximity, PTSD 393 Group therapy 594–595 applications PTSD 345 Groupthink 106, 842 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba 524 Guatemala healthcare/health services 562 indigenous peoples 535, 538t Guerilla warfare 346–358 basic concepts 346 civil society 205 counterinsurgency tactics 348 future directions 357 historical conflicts Afghanistan 356 Algerian insurgency 356 American Civil War 349 American Revolution 348 Boer War 350 Chechen uprising 357 Chinese revolutions 352 Cuban revolution 353 French Indochina 354 Greek Communist insurgency 351 Malaysian insurgency 353 Philippine uprising 350 Spanish uprising 349 Vende’e uprising 348 Vietnam War 355 linguistic factors 671 low-intensity warfare 228–229, 556 trends 228–229, 232–233 Guerrilla warfare civilian casualties 569 Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’ 354 Guilt definition 623 paradoxical see Paradoxical guilt torture and 519–520 Guinea-worm disease 560 Gulf War 335–340, 460 chemical warfare 303 definition 463 environmental destruction 363 ethnic conflicts 207 folkloric expressions 183 health risks 335 linguistic factors 677–678 mass media 667 maternal care, stress response effects 465 mental health 336 civilians 337, 338 veterans 336, 338

Subject Index

physical symptoms 338 relationship with psychological complaints 339 prisoners of war 507 PTSD 336 predictors 338 prevalence 474 stressors of 336 traumatic stress reactions 465 war-related health consequences 554, 561, 566 see also Gulf War Syndrome Gulf war illnesses 500–501 Gulf War Syndrome 303, 338–339, 487–494 acute stress and anticholinesterase 488 Gulf war veterans 485 Gunpowder warfare 191, 194–195 Guns see Firearms Guyana indigenous peoples 538t

H Habitual democide 287 Habituation costs and benefits 13 PTSD 466 Hague Peace Conferences biological weapons 413 chemical weapons 306–307 historical background 813–814 warfare constraints 678 Hakkaido Utari 540t Hallucinations hallucenogenic materials tribal rituals 139–140, 142 Hamilton’s rule 20, 699 Hamilton, William 20, 699 Handguns see Firearms Hand-to-hand combat 190f, 192 Hate crimes psychological processes 90–91 Havel, Va´clav 679 Hawaii 696 Hawk–Dove–Bourgeois game 69 Hawk–Dove game 68, 68t Hazelius, Arthur 180–181 Headhunters 141 Health of UK service personnel, Iraq war syndrome 494–500 biological and chemical weapons 499 epidemiological studies 495 method 495 non-specific stress of war 498–499 perceived fair or poor general health and deployment relation 498t self-reported symptoms 497t, 498t symptomatic ill health 496–497 ‘Heart attack’ see Myocardial infarction (MI) Heart rate in PTSD 467 Heat-related instigators 90 Hebrew Bible 401, 406 Heckler, Richard 199 Hegel, Georg 200 Hegemonic regimes 201, 286 Helpers/rescuers (democide) 294 Herbicides 307–308 Herero tribe (Namibia) 290 Heretics/heresy 402 Heritability, definition 455 Heroism, desire for, role in suicide terrorism 382 Heterosexism 164–165 Hierarchical structure animal societies 70 conflict-cooperation dynamics 834 gender 162 social inequality antagonism–conflict theories 46 warriors

chiefdoms characteristics 143 ritual preparations 144, 144f trophies 144 general discussion 143 states 144–145 High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol 63 High-Efficiency Particle (HEPA) filters 418 High-tech warfare 232–233 Hinduism animal welfare 405 democide 291 ideological democide 287 nonviolence concepts 404–405 religious violence historical background 398 sanctions 401 symbolic image 399 retributive genocide 286 Hippie movement 812 Hippocampal volume (HCV) definition 771 PTSD 773–774 Hippocampus research 96 Hiroshima bombing 328–332 radiation-induced cancers 329–330 survivors, discrimination 330 Historic peace churches 813 see also Brethren religious sects; Mennonites; Quakers; Religion Hitler, Adolph 270, 677 HIV 554–555, 560 see also AIDS epidemic Hizbollah/Hezbollah 232–233 Hobbes, Thomas human nature perspective 4 Ho Chi Minh 354, 677 Holmes, Richard 189 Holocaust definition 137, 225, 610 ideological democide 110, 278, 280 physical effect on survivors 610–611 psychiatric effect on survivors 611 stress effects 613–617 adults 613, 615, 616 children 614, 615, 616, 617 cognitions 615–616 coping and 614, 615, 616 emotions and 615–616 lessons and challenges associated 617 at liberation 615 physical sequelae 615 posttraumatic reactions 464 postwar 615 psychosocial and psychiatric sequelae 615 recent times 616 second and subsequent generations 616, 617 spiritual sequelae 615–616 survivor syndrome 615, 617, 624 see also Survivor guilt suicidal behaviors 606–607 survivors, experiences of 618–620 cultural background 618 mitigating factors and the truth 620 stress and trauma, moral and spiritual 618, 619 Holy Inquisition 399, 400–401, 402 Holy war 407–412 background 408 clinical experience 409 clinical research 409 Palestinian views 410, 410t research 410 stress management in 411 theory 408 Homicide anthropological research 35 child abuse 21 fueds 156–157 international violent crime rate 197, 197t media violence 706

865

medical lifesaving technology 196, 196t mental disorders 571 murder–suicide relationship repressed anger 605 suicidal murderers/murderous suicides 605 statistical applications rates and trends 569 tribal societies 156 victim-offender relationships intimate partners/families 108 victim–offender relationships inclusive-fitness theory 21, 700 intimate partners/families 21, 24 Homosexuality extralegal violence 164–165 linguistic factors 671 Homovanillic acid (HVA) 60 Honduras indigenous peoples 538t indigenous rights movements 546 Honors, miliary 159, 214 Honors, military 140–141 Hooded warblers 70 Hopi culture 510 Hormones adrenal hormones 55 gonadal androgens 52 neurophysiological research 9 Horses 188, 194 Hostages learned helplessness 344 Hostage-taking tactics 569 Hostile aggression 87, 92, 108 Huks 252, 352 Human factors, definition 731 Human nature 3–11 attitude formation 3 definition 3 general discussion 3, 11 innate–environmental relationship 7 neurophysiological research brain structure 9 general discussion 8 neural characteristics 9 philosophical perspectives 3 prenatal influences 3 Human needs conflict theory 40, 42 Human rights children child soldiers 572 dominator-partnership models 129 gender studies 163 indigenous rights movements 509 institutionalized violence 114–115 international criminal courts and tribunals International Court of Justice (ICJ) 641 International Criminal Court (ICC) basic issues 641 peace-building processes 645 international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) 207–208 United Nations state torture 529 violent behaviors International Criminal Court (ICC) 572 war victims 361 Human sacrifice 289, 399 Human trafficking violence against women 165 Hume’s Guillotine 67 Humiliation effects 90 Humor 179, 182–183, 672–673 Hungary violent crime rate 197, 197t Hunting hunter–gatherer societies 238 Hunts (democide) 285 Hurricane(s) 744 Hurricane Andrew definition 750

866

Subject Index

Hurricane Katrina 745–746, 750–753 destructive impact 750 impact 751 flooding 751 health issues 751 mental health problems 752 special populations 752 recovery issues 752 research, methodological issues 751 Hurricane Mitch 745 Hurricane Stan 745 Hussites 406 Hutu culture see Rwanda Hydrocortisone see Cortisol 5-Hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 5-Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) 56 Hygiene 550 Hyperarousal combat stress 432 PTSD 345 Hyperarousal symptoms 553–554, 581t Hypervigilance 581t, 582t Hypnosis therapy 594–595 Hypoglycemia 63 Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis definition 456, 771 Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis hormones 54 Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, stress and 14–15 acute stress response role in 490 habituation 13

I Identity attacks on, torture, as 519 loss of, role in suicide terrorism 382 Ideological democide 110, 287, 296 Ik culture 697 Illicit drugs United States drug-related crime gangs 150 Illness 32 Imaginal exposure definition 473 Imipramine 584–585 Immediacy combat stress reaction (CSR) 429 definition 427 Immune response glucocorticoid effects 15 neuroendocrine system interactions see Neuroendocrine systems Immune system see Immune response Immunization coverage 559–560 Imperial Germany World War I 258 Imperialism Marxist perspective 121 Impulsive aggression 87, 93 Incapacitating agents, chemical warfare use 305 Incentive-motivate aggression 87 Incidental killings 284–285 Incident, definition 731 Inclusive fitness 18, 19, 22, 695, 699 India indigenous peoples demographics 538t political movements 540t military culture 209 utopian communities 812 violent/aggressive television programming 712 wartime casualties 551t World War I 261–262 Indian Act (Canada) 512 Indian Child Welfare Act (1978) 512

Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act (1975) 512 Indigenous peoples 509–513 conflict-cooperation dynamics 842 definitions 509 democide 289 feuds and warfare 155 geographic distribution 509, 538t indigenous rights movements 509 population percentage 509, 538t response to conquest Latin America 511 self-determination 535 settler states Australia 535 Canada 535 New Zealand 535 political movements 509, 540t United States 535 Indirect (covert) aggression 693, 792 Indirect violence 107, 126, 128 Indiscriminate bombing 569 Indonesia democide 288t indigenous peoples 538t violent/aggressive television programming 712 Industrialization peace studies 122 Industrialized warfare technological impact 117, 145, 212, 216–217, 226 Infanticide evolutionary theory 22 natural selection 66–67 suicide rates 605 Infant mortality rates 559 Inflation 631 Information age warfare 232 Informed of radioactive contamination syndrome 738 In-group/out-group aggression 835, 836 Inhalants passive defense strategies 417 Inhibitory avoidance see Avoidance/avoidance conditioning Initiation ceremonies 151 Inner city communities gang involvement 149 Inpatient therapy 594–595 Inquisition see Holy Inquisition Insect societies 71 Institutionalized prostitution 165 Institutionalized violence 113–119 cult of violence 115 definition 114 economic development effects 119 emerging scenarios 116 global context 116 insurgencies 229 linguistic violence 672 religion 115, 118, 399 security provisions 115 state-sanctioned violence 114, 117–118 symptoms 114–115 see also Revolutions; Structural violence; Warfare Instrumental aggression 86, 108 Insults 33, 672 Insurgencies 569 Insurrections characteristics 250–251 Integration (military culture) 219–220 Integrative negotiations 699, 700f Intentional aggression 93 Intentional killings 284–285 Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) bilateral superpower relations 227–228 central deterrence 322 Interdiction programs 417 Intergroup violence 108, 836–837 Interior life see Peace spirituality

Interleukin-1 (IL-1) acute stress response, role in 490 Intermale competition 24 Intermittent explosive disorder 87–88 Internally displaced persons (IDPs) 553, 553t, 559–560 Internal war 159 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 640–641 background information 640–641 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) see World Bank International Bill of Rights see Declaration of Human Rights (UN) International code of Medical Ethics 530 International conflict mass media 667 International Council of Scientific Unions 814 International Court of Justice (ICJ) background information 641 self-determination issues 510–511 International Criminal Court (ICC) background information 641 human rights issues 572 war crimes 641 International criminal courts International Court of Justice (ICJ) background information 641 self-determination issues 510–511 International Criminal Court background information 641 war crimes 641 International Criminal Court (ICC) human rights issues 572 International Indian Treaty Council 512 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) 641–642 International Labor Organization (ILO) indigenous rights movements 542 International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) global civil society 202–203 human rights 207–208 International Peace Conference, Declaration IV (1899) 306–307 International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) 517 International tribunals see International criminal courts International Women’s Year 817 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs 542 Internet information age warfare 232 Internet, role in, suicide terrorism 382 Interpersonal conflicts communication skills aggressive behaviors 661 cognitive–communication model 662 general discussion 659 personal accountability 663 verbal aggression 661 social psychological factors 109 Interstate system interstate wars collective security system free–rider problem 244 Interstate wars US-Soviet involvement 228 Intifada 408, 409, 466 definition 407, 463 Intimate partner homicides 21, 24, 108 Intimidating democide 286 Intraself risk factors, definition 389 Intrasexual competition 66 Intrusions, floods 747 Intrusive memories or thoughts 553–554, 581t, 582t Inuit culture demographics 538t In vivo exposure, definition 473

Subject Index

Iran civil wars 253 refugees 553 wartime casualties 227f, 551t Iraq biological weapons 413–414 chemical weapons 308 civil wars 253 war-related health consequences 554, 561, 566 wartime casualties 227f, 551t, 552 see also Gulf War Iraq War ethnic conflicts 208 interstate wars 228 mass media 668 war-related health consequences 551t Iraq war syndrome, health of UK service personnel 494–500 biological and chemical weapons 499 epidemiological studies 495 method 495 analysis 496 deployment and fatigue relation 498t funding source role 496 perceived fair or poor general health and deployment relation 498t results 496 self-reported symptoms 497t, 498t study design and population 495 non-specific stress of war 498–499 symptomatic ill health 496–497 Ireland social revolutions 229 terrorism urban terrorism 228–229 Irregular forces 232 Irregular wars 229, 233 Irritability following terrorism 374 Ischemia definition 775 Islam 9/11 393 definition 391 democide 291 distorted versions of, role in suicide terrorism 380, 382, 383–384 see also Muslims Islamic tradition religious violence historical background 403 sanctions 402 symbolic images 399 terrorism 400, 404 Islamic traditions democide 291 faith-based peace groups 811 ideological democide 287 Israel Arab-Israeli conflict US-Soviet involvement 228 wartime casualties 227f Arab–Israeli conflict conflict-cooperation dynamics 834–835 Israeli–Hezbollah conflict (2006) 834 violent/aggressive television programming 711 Israeli-Arab arms race 647–656 ADF unit root test 652t bivariate specification, causality test 652–653, 653t categories 647 causality analysis, with specification 648, 652 cointegration and error correction model 650 conflict 648 Israel-Egypt peace treaty 649 Palestinians Occupied Territories 649 partition plan 648–649 data description and sources 651 econometric methodologies 650 FEVD 651–652 modified WALD (MWALD) causality test 651

FEVD for Arab countries 655, 655t for Israel 655, 655t full information maximum likelihood (FIML) method 650 Granger causality tests 647 military burden 647, 648f peace treaty impact 654–655, 654t quadvariate specification, causality test 653, 653t structural breaks, causality test 653, 654t vector error correction (VEC) 650 Israeli–Hezbollah conflict (2006) 834 Israeli–Palestinian workshops 840 Istanbul Protocol 521 Italy pre-World War II era 269

J Jainism ahimsa (nonharmfulness) 404–405 animal welfare 405 James, William 8, 176 Janet’s model of traumatic memory 345 Japan biological weapons 313, 413–414 democide 288t indigenous peoples 538t Pearl Harbor strikes 275 pre-World War II era 269 religious violence 401 violent/aggressive television programming 712 warfare civilian casualties 552 technological impact 216 war production efforts 276–277 wartime casualties 551t World War I 261–262 World War II 165, 274, 313 Jealousy 24 Jefferson, Thomas 7–8 Jehovah’s Witnesses 406 Jews Holocaust see Holocaust issues following 9/11 393, 396 Jharkhand 540t Jigsaw classroom studies 836–837 Jihad Islamic tradition 403 Jihad, definition 377 Jihadist ideologies 380 Jokes 179, 672–673 Judaism faith-based peace groups 812–813 nonviolence concepts 406 religious violence historical background 398–399 martyrs 406 sanctions 402 World War II 278 jus ad bellum justificatory criteria laws of war 231–232 preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327 jus ad bellum Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928) 678 jus in bello laws of war 231–232 Justice system gangs 149 international criminal courts and tribunals International Court of Justice (ICJ) 641 self-determination issues 510–511 International Criminal Court (ICC) human rights issues 641 juvenile crime 149 Just wars Christian traditions 402, 671 jus in bello

867

laws of war 231–232 law of conquest 510 Juvenile crime delinquent behavior 577 gang involvement urban gangs 149 justice system 149 wartime impacts 575 see also Youth violence

K Kamikaze pilots 277 Kanak Independence Movement 540t Kant, Immanuel democratic peace 230 linguistic nonviolence 679, 681 war-peace perspective 120 war–peace perspective 220 Karma 405 Kayapo culture 547 Kazakhstan indigenous peoples 538t Keegan, John 190 Kegworth Air Disaster, PTSD 344 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) 230 peacekeeping efforts 230–231 Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928) 270 peacekeeping efforts 270 peace movements 221–222 warfare constraints 678 Kelly, George 99 Kelman, Herbert 840 17-Ketosteroids, definition 775 Khomeini, Ruhollah 403–404, 677 Kidnappings 569, 576 Killing, resistance to 189 King, Martin Luther, Jr Christian pacifism 406 political nonviolence 679 Kinship evolutionary theory basic concepts 21 Cinderella effect 21 infanticide 22 parent–offspring conflict 22 kin recognition ant colonies 71 chiefdoms characteristics 143 ritual preparations 144, 144f trophies 144 fueds 157 linguistic factors 689 kin selection 18, 20, 695 tribes 138 Kissinger, Henry 678–679 Knights/knightly traditions 145, 194, 212 Knockdown measures, definition 775 Korea wartime casualties 551t see also Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Korean conflict 340–342 combat exposure 341 prisoners of war cognitive impairment 505 psychiatric morbidity 506 trauma research, critical issues 341 Korean War wartime casualties 227f Kosovo social revolutions 208 systemic violence 107 Krauss, RM 837 Kshatriya warrior caste 209, 401 Kuma culture 31 !Kung culture conflict strategies 696 reciprocal altruism 700

868

Subject Index

Kuomintang 352 Kuwait war-related health consequences 566

L Lachrymation, definition 303 Language 670–682, 682–693 complex language 683 conversation ritual 684 disputing rhetoric 32 ethnicity 688 general discussion 670 human interactions 683 language of peace general discussion 678 negative peace 678 positive peace 679 language of war euphemisms/manipulation 674 general discussion 673–674 jargon 674 legitimacy 676 metaphors 675 propaganda campaigns 675 totalitarianism 678 warist discourse 670 miscommunication 685 nonviolent action 690 perception and behavior characteristics of war 671 general discussion 671 influencing factors 671 warist discourse 670 political violence 687 problematic interactions 685 sense-making circumstances 684 sociocultural factor general discussion 672 linguistic nonviolence 673, 679 linguistic violence 672 symbolic violence 686 terrorism 37, 676 third-party intervention 689 Laos civil wars 253 indigenous peoples 538t La Paz Zapotec see Zapotec culture Large-scale killings see Democide; State-sanctioned violence Lasswell, Harold 7–8 Latin America indigenous peoples demographics 538t political movements 540t response to conquest 509, 511 peacekeeping missions 233f positive peace 680 Latino populations gang involvement 148 Laufer, Robert 457 Law see Legal systems Law enforcement anti-gang initiatives 153 community policing anti-gang initiatives 153 Law of conquest 510 Laws of war modern laws jus ad bellum justificatory criteria 230 preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327 jus ad bellum Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928) 270, 678 jus in bello 231–232 League of Nations arms control treaties 270 conflict resolution efforts 272

peace settlements 263 warfare constraints 678 World War I 257 Learned helplessness following terrorism 374 hostage victims 344 Leavings sorcery 31 Lebanon civil wars 253 Israeli–Hezbollah conflict (2006) 834 Lebanon war, combat stress reaction 464 Lebensraum 270 Lederer, Emil 122–123 Le Duc Tho 678–679 Legacy Study, Vietnam War veterans 457 Legal system violent behaviors gangs 152–153 Leishmaniasis 560 Lend-Lease bill 275 Lesbian populations Lessons learned effects 219 Lethal fights (animal societies) 67 Leukemia, Hiroshima survivors 329–330 Lewisite, chemical warfare use 304 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 380 Liberia civil wars 253 Lieber Code 307 Life-course-persistent antisocial behavior 92 Life events stressful, definition 463 Lifton’s psychosomatic bind, Chernobyl accident 738 Limbic system 9 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) 325 Lincoln, Bruce 176 Lithuania pre-World War II era 271–272 Locarno Conference (1925) 270 Locke, John 7, 241 Lockerbie Air Crash 385–389 impact on elderly people 385, 387f Lollards 406 Longbow 189, 194 Longitudinal studies definition 740, 753 Lorenz, Konrad 4, 171 Lost Generation 545 Louse-borne typhus epidemics 560 Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol 63 Low-intensity warfare 228–229, 556 Lozi culture 30 Luftwaffe 270, 272–273 Lusitania 261 Luxembourg World War II 272–273

M Maasai culture 538t Maathai, Wangari 816 MacArthur, Douglas 279 Maccabean revolt 400, 401–402 Machine guns 191 Machismo 108 MacLean, Paul 9 Macy, Joanna 815 Magical spells 31 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) PTSD 773–774 Magsaysay, Ramon 352 Major depressive disorder (MDD) 479 earthquake survivors, rates in 741t motor vehicle accidents 754 Malaria epidemics 559–560, 561, 564, 845 Malaysia guerilla warfare 353 indigenous peoples 538t, 540t Semai culture

conflict strategies 696 peaceful behaviors 787, 788t violent/aggressive television programming 712 Male–male competition 24 Male privilege 164, 369 Malnutrition 845 Malvinas War see Falklands War (1982) Manchuria (Manchuko) pre-World War II era 270 wartime casualties 551t Mandela, Nelson 679 Manic disorders 604 Manichaeanism 677 Manifest destiny 109–110, 287 Mann, Michael 125 Maori Affairs Act (1967) 544 Maori culture 144 Maori Peoples Liberation 540t Maori Social and Economic Advancement Act (1945) 544 Maori Unity Movement 540t Mao Tse-tung 271, 352, 677 Mapuche culture 540t Marching chants 184 Marginalization, role in suicide terrorism 382 Marriage marital rape 36 marital therapy 594–595 Marshall, SLA 188–189 Martyrdom 409 9/11 393 Christian 394 suicide terrorism ideologies 382 Martyrs religious violence Christian traditions 400 Islamic traditions 403 Judaism 401, 406 suicide bombers 109 Marxism class conflict 121 conflict theories antagonism–conflict theories 46 class conflict 40–41, 46 human nature perspective 7 warfare economics 243 Marx, Karl capitalism 241 social revolutions 200 Masculinity gender studies 163–164 male–male competition 24 privileged behaviors 163–164 social identity theory 43 violent behaviors 163 Maslow, Abraham 8 Massacres anthropological research 35 World War II 278, 287 Mass-casualty event, definition 389, 750 Mass deportations 278 Mass media 701–709 aggressive behaviors 88–89 children television programming violent/aggressive programming viewing impact 705 civil society 201, 202 definition 702 exposure effects aggression 705, 706 behavioral changes 704 content analysis 704 influencing factors 702 media violence 705 physiological effects 704 risk factors 706–707 target populations 704 general discussion 667, 709 institutionalized violence 115 international conflict 667

Subject Index

mass communication 702 media violence aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 exposure effects 705 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663, 668 influencing factors 702 international conflict 667 military culture 221 mitigation interventions critical viewing skills 708 media responsibilities 667, 709 music lyrics 665 risk factors 706–707 theoretical models cognitive priming theory 666 excitation transfer theory 666 general discussion 665 social learning theory 665 social scripts model 666 modern warfare 207 pornography exposure effects 703 purpose 702 race/racism 703 television programming 710–723 analytical perspectives 713 background information 710 children desensitization 198 military conditioning 197 risk factors 706 violent/aggressive programming 663 counteracting interventions experimental research 720 media literacy interventions 667 parental guidance 667 program rating systems 667 individual effects aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663 institutionalized violence 115 international comparisons Asia 712 Australia 712 Canada 711 Europe 711 general discussion 711 Israel 711 Japan 712 New Zealand 712 United Kingdom 713 international conflict 667 key concerns 710 measurement issues international comparisons 711 methodology 711 priming 88–89 psychological processes desensitization 198, 664 observational learning 106 public opinion surveys drama-related violence 719 factual program-related violence 719 general discussion 719 marketability 721 war-related violence 720 research evidence correlational surveys 716 field studies 716 general discussion 715 laboratory studies 715 longitudinal studies 717 natural environments 717 regulatory practices 721 sanitized or glamorized portrayals 706 viewer perceptions 714

viewing impact cultivation effects 719 general discussion 715 intervention studies 718 research evidence 715 viewing impact 702 Mass murder definition 282 linguistic factors 676 school incidents 102 social psychological factors 109 suicidal behaviors 606 World War II 278 Mass violence 761–770 definition 762 see also Terrorism mater dolorosa 365 Maternal care stress response effects 14 Persian Gulf War 465 Mato Tope´ 140–141, 141f Mayan empire 289 Mbuti culture characteristics 818 conflict strategies 696 demographics 538t McNamara, Robert S 321 Meadows, Donella 815 Measles epidemics 559–560 Medals, military 214 Mediation 693–701 conflict resolution approaches 694, 694f, 829, 834 definition 30, 694 general discussion 695 peace-building processes 110 peace studies 166, 169t process stages flow chart 697f general discussion 695 meeting phase 696 postmediation phase 696 preparation phase 695 strategies and tactics 697 third-party intervention 689 Media violence aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 exposure effects 705 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663, 668 influencing factors 702 international conflict 667 mitigation interventions critical viewing skills 708 media responsibilities 667, 709 music lyrics 665 risk factors 706–707 theoretical models cognitive priming theory 666 excitation transfer theory 666 general discussion 665 social learning theory 665 social scripts model 666 Medical professionals 198, 529–530 Megamurderers see Democide Melanesia 31 Melos 289 Melpa culture 31 Memory consolidation, PTSD 600–601 traumatic Janet’s model 345 Meningitis 560 Menninger, Karl 602 Mennonites characteristics 819 nonviolence concepts 406, 819 Mental health issues Hurricane Katrina impact 752 torture, consequences of 519

869

Mental illness classification personality disorders intermittent explosive disorder 87–88 trauma-induced disorders 580–588 ADAPT model 586–587 anxiety disorders 553, 581 complex trauma 585 complicated grief 581 depression 554, 581 post-traumatic reactions acute stress disorder (ASD) 582–583, 582t cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) 586, 594–595 early intervention approaches 583 pharmacological therapy 584 treatment approaches 594 vulnerability factors 582 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) children 569 general discussion 580–581 symptoms 581t treatment approaches 594 wartime impacts 553–554, 575 special populations children 570, 586 refugees 585 terrorism 586 substance abuse 581 transcultural issues 581 wartime impacts 553–554, 560 trauma–induced disorders wartime impacts 221 violence predictors wartime impacts 553–554, 560 Mercenary armies 145 Mertazapine 584–585 Metaphors 675 3-Methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG) 60 3-Methoxytyramine 60 Methyladrenaline 56 Methylnoradrenaline 56 Mexico democide 288t indigenous peoples 538t sociocultural change 793 wartime casualties 551t Micronesia 35–36 Midbrain, definition 441 Middle East democide 289 Middle East conflict 408 Militarism civil society 204 economic factors economic development effects social welfare 562 political economy military expenditures 562 gender analysis 169t, 369 patriarchal systems 164, 369 Military culture 209–222 civilian society civilian response 221 general discussion 220 military representations 220 collective memories 218–219 cultural elements background information 221 ceremonies and etiquette 213 change patterns 216 discipline group discipline 211 importance 211 individual discipline 211 social controls and punishments 211 Esprit de corps 139, 144–145 esprit de corps/cohesion 214 folkloric expressions 183 leadership training 214 marching chants 184

870

Subject Index

Military culture (continued) professional ethos 212 social class 145 education and training 145, 212–213, 217 gender studies 165, 220 historical research 209 industrialization 212, 216–217 prostitution 165 sociopolitical trends 219 technological impact 212, 216, 549 violence against women 361 see also Guerilla warfare; Modern warfare Military equipment and technology see Arms production Military industrial complex (MIC) warfare economics 243 Military organizations battle tactics 158 characteristics 158 composition 157 fraternal interest groups 158 function 158 general discussion 158 goals and motives 159 women soldiers general discussion 220, 364 Military personnel Gulf War, effect on 336 Military service bonding esprit de corps 215 Christian traditions 813 education and training 145, 212–213, 217 government assistance and recognition United States 221 race relations 219–220 women soldiers general discussion 220, 364 Military sexual trauma (MST) 473 Military spending economic factors economic impact 637 economic impact 363, 364t healthcare impacts 562 microeconomic analysis 629 Military studies race relations 219–220 Military threats see Deterrence Military training, combat stress reaction prevention 431 Mills, C Wright 124 Milosevic, Slobodan 107 Milton, John 101 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) prisoners of war 506 Minority populations educational programs 284 ideological democide 287 linguistic factors 671 retributive genocide 286 sexual minorities linguistic factors 671 structural accommodation verbal aggression 662 Mirounga angustirostris 72 Miscommunication 685 see also Communication studies; Language Misinformation 38 Misogynism 165, 169t Missiles cruise missiles 319 first-strike weapons 639–640 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) bilateral superpower relations 227–228 central deterrence 322 interdiction programs 417 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) 322 Mitosis, definition 303 Mobile warfare 262–263

Mobile warfare (World War I) 260 Mobilization/pre-deployment stress 481 Mock executions, torture 518–519 Modern warfare asymmetric warfare 228–229 gunpowder warfare 194–195 health consequences 548–558 casualty-cost analysis 556 casualty data collection 551t children 557, 568–580 general discussion 549 healthcare/health services 558–568 budget impacts 562 community involvement 563 equipment and supply disruptions 562 general discussion 559 health policy formation 563 human resources 562 infrastructure destruction 561 positive impacts 565 postconflict challenges 566 service activities 561 service availability 560 tracer conditions 559 historical background 549 long-term effects 557 mental health issues 550 methodological issues 551 physical health issues 554 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550 refugees 551–552, 553t, 557 socioeconomic consequences 555 twentieth century casualties 552 war classifications civil wars 555 dirty wars 555 general discussion 549 international warfare 555 low-intensity warfare 556 terrorism 555 mass media 207 military service general discussion 220 political economy military expenditures 562 tactics and strategies battle tactics 158 health consequences 554 technological impact casualty rates 227, 227f, 554 high-tech warfare 232–233 industrialization 117–118, 145, 212, 216–217, 226–227 network-centric warfare (NCW) 232, 234f trends irregular wars 228–229 women contemporary issues collective organizing tactics 367 essentialism–difference debate 366 military service 367 motherhood–war relationship 367 direct casualties 359 domestic violence 362 economic losses 363 environmental destruction 363 general discussion 359 geographic displacement 360 health consequences 557 loss of family 362 militarism–patriarchy connection 369 military production workers 365 military service general discussion 365 military spending 363, 364t mourning 365 patriotism and nationalism 365 prostitution 361 rape 165, 361 research areas mobilization strategies 368

peacetime–wartime connections 368 policymaking contributions 368 response factors 368 survival and rebuilding efforts 368 resistance efforts 366 survival and rebuilding efforts 366, 368 Mohawk culture 542 Mongol hordes 289 Monkeys see Primates, nonhuman Monoamine oxidase (MAO) 62 Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) PTSD 474 Monopoly capital school 243 Montagu, Ashley 4 Montgomery, Bernard 276 Mood (testosterone) 54 Moonlighting, definition 775 Morale, military 214–215 Moralistic aggression 20 Morocco civil wars 253 Mortality/mortality rates warfare casualty data collection 551, 551t infant mortality rates 559 war stress former Yugoslavia, health effects of 470 prisoners of war (POWs) 505 Moscow Treaty see Strategic Offensive Force Reduction (SORT) Treaty Mother-headed families 362 Motivation trauma-related reactions 594 Motor vehicle accidents 753–756 gender 755 major depressive disorder (MDD) 754 previous trauma 755 psychological disorder 753 psychological remission predictors 755 psychopathology predictors 755 PTSD 754 severity 755 Mounted knights 194 Mourning 365 Movement of Aotearoa 540t Movie and television violence institutionalized violence 115 priming 88–89, 666 Moyersoen, Johan 841 Mozambique civil wars 253 healthcare/health services community involvement 563 human resources 562 positive developments 565 service availability 560 war-related health consequences 559–560 peacekeeper abuses 361 wartime casualties 551t Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) 476 Murder international violent crime rate 197, 197t linguistic factors 676 medical lifesaving technology 196, 196t murder–suicide relationship repressed anger 605 suicidal murderers/murderous suicides 605 Murray, Henry Alexander 8 Music folk songs 184 violent lyrics 665 Muslim National Liberation Front (FLN) 356 Muslims alcohol 395 gender-based trends, post 9/11 395 medical illness, post 9/11 395 mental health post 9/11 393, 394 denial 395–396 paranoia 396 suicide bombers, reward system 393 see also Islam

Subject Index

Muslim tradition religious violence historical background 398–399 sanctions 402 symbolic images 399–400 terrorism 398–399, 404 Muslim traditions democide 291 faith-based peace groups 813 ideological democide 287 retributive genocide 286 Mussolini, Benito 270, 279 Mustard gas 307 Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine 227–228, 323 Myanmar indigenous peoples 538t Myocardial infarction (MI) definition 776 Myrdal, Alva 816

N Nagasaki bombing 330–331 Nakbeh 408 definition 407 Name-calling 688–689 Namibia democide 290 indigenous peoples 538t Nanak, Guru 401 Napalm 307 Narcotic drugs tribal rituals 139–140, 142 United States drug-related crime gangs 150 Narratives (folklore genre) 179, 182, 184 National Advisory Board for Biosecurity 422 National Biosurveillance Integration System (US) 421 The National Center for PTSD 473 National Comorbidity Study (NCS) 580–581 National Comorbidity Study Replication 772 Nationalism anthropological research 34 institutionalized violence 117 pre-World War I Europe 262–263 social identity theory 109 structural accommodation systemic violence 107 women 366 National liberation movements 674 National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) 457 definition 456 National Youth Gang Center (NYGC) 152 Nation-states anthropological research 34–35 institutionalized violence 117 warriors 145 see also Modern warfare Nation–states capitalism 240 civil society 202 warfare economics 240–241 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) 512 Native Americans Canada 535 colonization treaties 535 democide 289 social status 139 warriors female warriors 137 honors and achievements 140, 141f trophies 141–142 warrior associations 142–143 warrior societies 139 Native Title Act (1993) 545

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) see North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Natural disaster(s) 763, 765 health consequences 751 Natural resource consumption 845 Natural selection aggressive behaviors 66 altruism 695 dominance hierarchies 70 evolutionary theory 18 reproductive skew theory 70 ritual behaviors 171–172 selfish behavior 19, 66, 67f social conflicts 70 Natural selection, definition 11 Navajo culture 510 Naval warfare Pacific Theater (World War II) 275 World War I 263, 264t World War II 274 Nazi Germany see Germany; World War II Ndembu culture 32 Negative peace language of peace 678 structural violence 126–127 Negative reciprocity 700 Negative–sum game theory 244 Negotiated rule making 830 Negotiation 693–701 conflict resolution 31, 636, 827, 834 definition 30 distributive versus integrative negotiations 699, 700f peace-building processes 110, 645 Neomammalian brain 9 Neo-Marxism 44 Neo–Marxism 243 Neoplasia see Cancer Nepotism 71 Nerve agents chemical warfare use 304 definition 303 Netherlands violent/aggressive television programming 711 violent crime rate 197, 197t World War II 272–273 Network-centric warfare (NCW) 232, 234f Neurochemistry see Brain research; Neurotransmitters Neuroendocrine–dysregulation disease hypothesis 458 Neuroendocrine systems dysregulation/dysfunction neuroendocrine–dysregulation disease hypothesis 458 Neurological-based aggression 93 Neuron(s) overactivation, Gulf War syndrome 489 Neurophysiological research brain structure 9 general discussion 8 neural characteristics 9 Neurotransmitters acetylcholine 62 adrenal hormones 9, 55 catecholamines 10, 60 central nervous system (CNS) 51 dopamine 10, 60 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 monoamine oxidase (MAO) 62 peptides 61 pharmacological therapy 584 serotonin aggressive behaviors 55 suicidal behaviors 604 suicidal behaviors 604 New age communities 812 New Orleans floods 745–746, 748 Newspeak 675–676

871

New Zealand indigenous peoples colonization treaties 535 demographics 538t political movements 540t response to conquest 535 violent/aggressive television programming 712 violent crime rate 197, 197t Nicaragua civil wars 252 healthcare/health services community involvement 563 human resources 562 infrastructure destruction 561 positive developments 565 service availability 560 war-related health consequences 559–560 indigenous peoples 538t Nicknames 688–689 Nicotine 62 Niebuhr, Reinhold 402 Nigeria healthcare/health services 562 wartime casualties 551t Nightmares 553–554, 581t, 582t PTSD 345 Nimitz, Chester 279 9/11 391–397, 460 Christian issues 397 circumstances surrounding 392 definition 391 Jewish issues 396 motives 393 Muslims/Islamic issues effects upon 394 mental health and 394 alcohol use 395 gender differences 395 persecution fears 395 nature of areas attacked 392 psychiatric treatment services 394 PTSD 393 religion and paradoxes 393 suicide 393 Nisga’a Nation 542–543 Nixon, Richard 512 Nobel Peace Prize language of peace 678–679 Nonconstant-sum two-person games Prisoner’s Dilemma 837, 838f Non governmental organizations (NGOs) civil society 202 Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) environmental nongovernmental organizations Rio Earth Summit (1992) 830–831 faith-based peace groups 813 Non governmental organizations (NGOs) global civil society 202–203 Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) healthcare/health services 563–564 indigenous rights movements 542, 546 medical ethics 530 political influence Rio Earth Summit (1992) 830–831 Nonharmfulness (ahimsa) animal welfare 405 basic concepts 404–405 Nonharmfulness (ahimsa) peace movements 814 Nonhuman species see Animals Nonviolence basic concepts 404–405 classifications 103f eschatology 406–407 gender studies 167, 169t linguistic factors 690 linguistic nonviolence 673, 679 sanctions 405

872

Subject Index

Nonviolent conflict management avoidance 805 belief systems 801 conflict resolution, third-party involvement 806 egalitarianism 804 general discussion 801 informal social control 806 internalization 805 La Paz children 804, 804f negative and posititve verbal responses 803f socialization 802 Noradrenaline 9 Nordic Saami Council Saami Union 540t Norepinephrine 9, 56, 60 Normandy, invasion of 279 North Africa (World War II) 274, 275 North American Indian Brotherhood 540t North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliances 280 nuclear weapon strategies 227 peace movements, 255 North, Douglass 239 Northeast quadrant, definition 750 Northern Ireland assassination attacks 374 posttraumatic stress disorder 342–346 Enniskillen bombing 344 Kegworth Air Disaster 344 rates according to home address 345t theoretical debriefing model 345 see also Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) torture 36 violent behaviors 34–35 Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition 168–169 North Korea see Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Norway indigenous peoples 540t violent crime rate 197, 197t World War II 272 Nuclear Age Peace Foundation 681 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) goals and objectives 325 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 640–641 Nuclear warfare, threat of 332–335 anxiety associated 332 coping strategies 334 family influences 334 individual studies 333 people affected 334 prevalence 334 psychological disorders and 335 questionnaires 333 evaluation 332 Nuclear weapons 314–328 arms control treaties Baruch Plan (1946) 325 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 640–641 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) goals and objectives 325 nuclear test ban treaties objectives 325 objectives 325 background information 314 Cold War strategies central deterrence 322 escalation dominance 324–325 extended deterrence 324 flexible response 324 general discussion 322 second-strike capabilities 322, 323 deterrence central deterrence 322 Cold War superpower crisis behavior 228 credible threats 320 economic factors 640 escalation dominance 324–325 extended deterrence 324 flexible response 324

general discussion 322 implementation strategies 320 second-strike capabilities 322, 323 theoretical perspectives 319 explosion effects blast effects 317 dynamic overpressure/winds 317 electromagnetic pulse (EMP) 318 fallout 318 firestorms 317 general discussion 316–317 heat flashes 317 magnitude assessment 317t prompt nuclear radiation 317–318 shock waves 317 thermal radiation 317 fission bombs 314, 315f fusion bombs 316 future directions 326 linguistic factors 676 military strategy impact character of war 318 delivery methods 319 deterrence credible threats 320 implementation strategies 320 theoretical perspectives 319 nuclear targeting 320 nuclear threats 640 nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) contemporary peace movements 814 preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327 United Nations 640 World War II 280, 552 Nuclear winter 318 Nuer culture 30 Numbing symptoms 553–554, 581t, 582t Nutrition infant mortality rates 559 Nuxalk Nation 542–543

O Oceania indigenous peoples 538t peacekeeping missions 233f sorcery and witchcraft 31 suicidal behaviors 35–36 Offensive language 672 Offensive weapons 318, 639 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 152 Oklahoma city bombing 389–391 emergency personnel 390 impact on children 390 site 389 Oklahoma City Bombing Stress Response (OKCBSR) 389–390 Ombudsmanry 829 Ontogenic explanations 19 Operant conditioning killing/combat situations psychological weapons 192, 195 resistance factors 189 Operant conditioning, definition 441 Operation Anvil/Dragoon 279 Operation Bagration 278–279 Operation Barbarossa 274, 277 Operation continue hope (Somalia) 476 Operation Dynamo 272–273 Operation enduring freedom/operation iraqi freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans 485 Operation joint endeavor 476 Operation joint guard 476 Operation Market Garden 279 Operation Overlord 279 Operation Ranch Hand Study 458 definition 456 Operation reserve hope (ORH) (Somalia) 476 Operation Sealion 273

Operation TORCH 276 Operation Uranus 276 Oppressive language 672 Oral traditions see Folklore/folklore studies Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 644–645 Organized violence 128 Orwell, George 4, 674, 675–676 Ostracism 693, 786t Outer Space Treaty (1967) 325 Ovis aries 72–73 Oxytocin 61–62

P Pacific Islands see Oceania Pacific Theater (World War II) 275 Pacifists Christian traditions 402, 406 linguistic nonviolence 679 peace movements 221–222 Pact of Steel (1939) 272 Pain-related aggression 90 Pakeha 543 Pakistan democide 288t, 291 indigenous peoples 538t refugees 553 violence against women 361 violent/aggressive television programming 712 wartime casualties 551t Paleomammalian brain 9 Palestine Israeli–Palestinian workshops 840 refugees 553 war-related health consequences 561–562 Panama indigenous peoples 538t Pangia culture 31 Panic disorder 581 Panzer units 272 Papua New Guinea anthropological research communication 33 conflict resolution 32, 33 feuds 34 homicide 35 peace-building processes 33 rape 36 robbery 36 sorcery and witchcraft 31 suicidal behaviors 35–36 warfare 33, 34, 35 indigenous political movements 540t Paradoxical guilt 330 see also Survivor guilt Parage aegeria 69 Paraguay indigenous peoples 538t Paranoia 846 following 9/11 396 Parasuicide 601 Parasympathetic nervous system definition 441 Paratyphoid 313 Parental care childrearing discipline 791 physical punishments Zapotec culture 791 violent childrearing Zapotec culture 791 Cinderella effect 21 infanticide 22 parent–offspring conflict 22 sexual reproduction 22 suicidal behaviors 73 Pareto-optimal frontier 636 Paroxetine 584–585 PTSD 474, 775

Subject Index

Parsons, Talcott 123–124 Passive avoidance see Avoidance/avoidance conditioning Pastoral nomadic societies 239 Pathogens see Bioterrorism Patriarchal system ecofeminism 166 militarism–patriarchy connection 369 Patriarchal systems peace studies 164 social identity theory 43 Patriotism military culture 215 social identity theory 109 women 365 Paulus, Friedrich 276 Pavlov, Ivan 7, 592 Pax Materna 366 Pax Romana 120, 194, 239 Pax Romano 674 Peace democratic peace theory basic concepts warfare between democracies 230 Kantian philosophy 230 economic factors 236–248 economic theories heterodox perspectives 243 mainstream perspectives 243–244 monopoly capital school 243 negative–sum game theory 244 rational decisions versus irrational violence 243 general discussion 237–238 historical background capitalism 240 continual war 239 early agricultural societies 238 general discussion 237–238 hunter–gatherer societies 238 nation–states 240 pastoral nomadic societies 239 pre–agricultural societies 238 socioeconomic dynamics 246 linguistic factors 670–682 general discussion 670 language of peace general discussion 678 negative peace 678 positive peace 679 language of war euphemisms/manipulation 674 general discussion 673–674 jargon 674 legitimacy 676 metaphors 675 propaganda campaigns 675 totalitarianism 678 warist discourse 670 perception and behavior characteristics of war 671 general discussion 671 influencing factors 671 warist discourse 670 sociocultural factors general discussion 672 linguistic nonviolence 673, 679 linguistic violence 672 peace-building processes anthropological research 33 characteristics 110 financial support 642 human rights 644, 645 linguistic factors 690 mediation 110 reconstruction efforts 112 religious approaches ritual and ceremony 33 women’s cultures 366, 815 peace culture 808–821 basic concepts 809

daily life celebrations 819 civil society 820 families 812 peaceful societies 814–815 play and imagination 820 ritual behaviors 819 sanctuaries 820 social bonds 817 trade and exchange 820 zones of peace 820 general discussion 809 historical background 813 peace–war dualism 812 religious peace cultures contemporary faith-based peace groups 813 historical background 812 secular peace movements contemporary peace movements 814 historical background 813 peace education movement 816 women’s cultures resistance efforts 366 peaceful societies Anabaptists 406, 813, 819 conflict-cooperation dynamics 842 Mbuti culture characteristics 818 conflict strategies 696 peacekeeping missions international efforts 230 peace movements civilian society 221–222 contemporary peace movements 814 feminism 168, 169t historical background 813 peace education movement 816 peace studies feminism women’s cultures 815 peace prizes Nobel Peace Prize 678–679 peace studies domestic violence 164, 169t feminism communication styles 167 conflict resolution/mediation 166, 169t ecofeminism 166, 169t equality versus difference debate 162–163 general discussion 166 nonviolence roles 167, 169t peace movement organizations 168, 169t women’s cultures 366 positive versus negative peace 127, 678 structural violence issues 130 Peace activists 334 Peace-building processes conflict resolution 636 United Nations 640 Peace churches 813 Peace enforcement, definition 475 Peaceful societies 795–808 existence and nature 796 low-conflict societies 796 natural history of peace 796 nonviolent conflict management avoidance 805 belief systems 801 conflict resolution, third-party involvement 806 egalitarianism 804 general discussion 801 informal social control 806 internalization 805 La Paz children 804, 804f negative and posititve verbal responses 803f socialization 802 theoretical issues crosscultural continuum model 798, 799f cultural changes 800 in-group vs. out-group aggression 800

873

intracultural variation 800 multidimensional construct aggression 801 peacefulness-aggressiveness continuum 798 Peacekeeper abuses 360–361 Peacekeeping 475–478 definition 475 mission types 476 psychological impact 477 recently established missions 476 unique stressors 476 Peacekeeping roles, definition 475 Peace movements Europe 205–206 Peace of Paris 269–270 Peace psychology 111 Peace rallies 208 Peace settlements League of Nations 263 World War I 263, 268t Peace spirituality basic concepts nonviolence linguistic factors 680 Peace studies economic factors 644 Enlightenment era 120 industrialized societies 122 Peace treaties Kantian philosophy 679 pre-World War II era 269 Versailles Peace Treaty (1919) arms control treaties 270 World War I 263–268, 268t see also Alliances Peace walks 814 Pearl Harbor strikes 275 Penicillin 196, 196t Penitentiaries see Prisons People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) 356 People’s Republic of China see China Peptides 61 Perceived associations 91 Peres, Shimon 678–679 Perisoreus infaustus 70 Peritraumatic dissociation definition 771 emergency personnel 773 Perrin, Noel 199 Persecutions 400, 402 Persian Gulf War (PGW) see Gulf war Personal firearms see Firearms; Weapons Personality attacks on, torture, as 519 Personality disorders borderline personality disorder 586 intermittent explosive disorder 87–88 Personality traits territoriality 100 Personal narratives 182, 184 Personal protective equipment, definition 776 Personal violence 126, 128–129, 672 Peru indigenous peoples 538t Pe´tain, Philippe 273 Phalanx 193 Pharmacological, definition 473 Pharmacological therapy 584, 594–595 see also Drug(s) Phenylalanine 60 Philippines civil wars 252 guerilla warfare American occupation forces 350 Communist insurgency 352 huk 252 Huks 352 indigenous peoples demographics 538t political movements 540t violent/aggressive television programming 712

874

Subject Index

Phobias motor vehicle accidents, following 753 Phosgene gas 307 Phylogenetic explanations 19 Phylogeny definition 12 stress response 12, 13 cost–benefit trade-offs 13 cross-species comparisons 13 Physical injury disasters 763 firefighters, risk of 776 refugees 621 road traffic accidents see Motor vehicle accidents torture 518 traumatic events, following 763 see also Trauma Physical morbidity, definition 505 Physical torture 518 Physiological arousal, PTSD 466 Piaget, Jean 98 Pietists see Brethren religious sects Pilot error, airline accidents 732 age 733–734 aviation categories 732–733, 733t definition 731 fatigue 734 past safety performance 734 policy interventions 734 risk factors 733 Plague 313, 550 Plasma testosterone 53 Plato human nature perspective 4 language of war 675 Play therapy, child earthquake survivors 742 Plunder 159 Pluralism 207 Plutonium (Pu) 315 Poetry peace poetry 681 Pogroms 283–284 Point-and-shoot video games 198 Point subtraction agression paradigm (PSAP) 59 Poisonous gas see Chemical weapons Poland democide 288t German invasion 272 pre-World War II era 269 social revolutions 201 Police PTSD 773 see also Emergency personnel Policing community policing anti-gang initiatives 153 insect societies 71 Polish Corridor 272 Political economy military expenditures 562 Political movements indigenous peoples 509, 540t Political terrorism 109, 112 Political violence conflict characteristics general discussion 559 health consequences 548–558 casualty-cost analysis 556 casualty data collection 551, 551t children 557, 568–580 general discussion 549 healthcare/health services 558–568 budget impacts 562 community involvement 563 equipment and supply disruptions 562 general discussion 559 health policy formation 563 human resources 562 infrastructure destruction 561 positive impacts 565

postconflict challenges 566 service activities 561 service availability 560 tracer conditions 559 historical background 549 long-term effects 557 mental health issues 550, 560 methodological issues 551 physical health issues 554 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550 refugees 553, 553t, 557 socioeconomic consequences 555 twentieth century casualties 226, 227f, 552 war classification civil wars 555 dirty wars 555 general discussion 549 international warfare 555 low-intensity warfare 556 terrorism 555 women 557 linguistic factors 687 tactical strategies 549–550 Politics ethnic identity politics ethnic identity conflict theories 43 ethnocentrism 40–41 gender studies 163, 165 ideological democide 109–110, 287 politicide causes 294 definition 282 state torture 528 Pollutants 363, 845 Polyadic social aggression 80 Polygyny 154–155 POMC see Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) Population Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) 380 Pornography mass media 703 Portugal democide 288t Positive peace language of peace 679 structural violence 127 Positron emission tomography (PET) PTSD 773–774 Postmigration stress, refugees 622 Post-structuralism 175–176 Posttraumatic mood disorder (PTMD) concept of 479 suicide prevention focus 482 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) assessment/diagnosis 473 Clinician Administered Scale 473–474 emergency personnel 771 biology/pathophysiology fear conditioning 600–601 fight-or-flight response 345 habituation 466 heart rate 467 memory/memory consolidation 600–601 neural substrates see Posttraumatic stress disorder studies 600 see also Posttraumatic stress disorder, HPA axis dysregulation children 569 clinical features dissociative experiences 773 flashbacks 345 hyperarousal 345 nightmares 345 sleep and 466 sleep disturbance 773 combat/war-related 428, 464, 472–475 assessment and diagnosis 473 Cambodian concentration camp survivors 612

combat stress, diagnosis issues 439 Gulf War 336 reservists 474 holocaust survivors 611 Northern Ireland see Northern Ireland prisoners of war 465, 506, 611 stressors 473 treatments 474 Vietnam War veterans 456, 457, 459t, 462t see also Combat stress reaction (CSR) definition 342, 373, 385, 427, 441, 456, 463, 468, 740, 771 disaster victims 763–764 Chernobyl accident 737 earthquake survivors, rates in 741t elderly 386 emergency personnel see Emergency personnel gender differences prevalence 466 general discussion 580–581 grief/grieving analogy 343 Israeli experience 463–468 Holocaust survivors 464 prisoners of war 465 terrorist attacks, impact 466 war veterans 464 predictors of in emergency personnel 772 peritraumatic dissociation 773 prevalence gender differences 466 psychological disorder 449 research studies animal models 467 emergency personnel 772 violence survivors 343 risk factors biological 773 secondary traumatization 465 stigma associated 772 symptoms 581t terrorism victims 374, 599–600 9/11 attacks and 393 core symptoms 374 torture and 519, 520 traumatic injury and 465 motor vehicle accidents 754 treatment approaches 594 treatments/interventions cognitive–behavioral therapy 345, 461, 474, 742 eye movement desensitization and remodeling (EMDR) 345, 474 pharmacological 474 anticholinesterases 488 psychotherapeutic 474 wartime impacts 221, 550 Posttraumatic stress disorder, HPA axis dysregulation 773 Posttraumatic stress disorder, neurobiology 466 arousal systems 466 neuroimaging studies 773–774 sleep problems 466 Posttraumatic symptoms, chronic 600 see also Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Post-Vietnam syndrome 457 see also Vietnam War veterans Poverty gender studies 163 institutionalized violence 115–116 peace-building processes 644–645 Power linguistic violence 672 Pragmatic democide 286–287 Prazosin PTSD 474 Predatory democide 286 Preemption 417 Preflight stress, refugees 621 Preindustrial violence materialism 33–34

Subject Index

Premeditated aggression 87–88 Premigration trauma, refugees 622 Pre-twentieth century democide ancient Middle East 289 Aztec/Mayan empires 289 general discussion 288–289 Melos 289 Mongol hordes 289 Native Americans 289 Prevalence, definition 753 Preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327 Primary adrenal insufficiency see Addison’s disease Primary Care PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD) 473 Primary emotions see Emotion Primates, nonhuman 74–82 aggressive behaviors competition–conflict comparisons 77 control mechanisms 77–78 dominance hierarchies 79 functions 76 polyadic social aggression 80 reconciliation processes 80–81 research approaches 75 social context 77 social mechanisms 81 territoriality 79 win–loss dynamics 79 Priming general discussion 88 movie and television violence 88, 666 weapon effects 88 Principle of double effects see Just wars Principle of medical ethics 530 Prior residence effect 66 Prisoner’s dilemma 636–637, 837, 838f Prisoners of war (POWs) 505–509 cannibalism 141–142 cognitive impairment 505 comorbidity of psychiatric disorders 507 etiological factors 507 hospital admissions 505 mortality 505 physical health 505 psychological morbidity 506 PTSD 465, 506 torture 106, 141–142 Vietnam War 508 World War II 274–275 Prison industrial complex suicidal behaviors 606 Prisons torture 106 Proactive aggression 87, 93 Problem-solving workshops 831 Project Heartland 389–390 Projectile weapons 194 Projective identification, holy war 408–409 Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) stress effects/response 13 Propaganda campaigns 277, 675 Prophylaxis campaigns 419, 419f, 421 Prosocial behavior biochemical factors 51–65 background research 51 cholesterol 63 general discussion 64 glucose regulation 63 hormones adrenal hormones 55 gonadal androgens 52 neurotransmitters acetylcholine 62 adrenal hormones 55 catecholamines 60 central nervous system (CNS) 51 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 monoamine oxidase (MAO) 62 peptides 61 serotonin 56 Prospective cohort study, definition 740

Prostitution military culture 165 wartime experiences 361 Protests aboriginal populations 545 peace rallies 204, 208 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare 307 Protracted conflict 346 Proverbs 180 Proximal cause events 75 Proximate explanations 19 Proximity combat stress reaction 429 definition 427 Proximity immediacy and expectancy (PIE) principle, combat stress reaction treatment 464 Prozac see Fluoxetine Pseudo-commando type murder–suicide 606 Pseudo-speciation 35 Pssive democide 284 Psychiatric casualty, definition 441 Psychiatric disorders classifications personality disorders borderline personality disorder 586 intermittent explosive disorder 87–88 combat effects 575 suicidal behaviors 604 Psychic homicide 605 Psychic shock 760 Psychoactive drug use tribal rituals 139–140, 142 United States drug-related crime gangs 150 Psychodynamic therapy 594–595 Psychological debriefing 594–595 Psychological democide 296 Psychological disorders nuclear warfare anxiety and 335 Psychological effects, of combat 440–450 close combat, physiology of 445 combat stress, effects of 445 hormonal-induced heart-rate increase, effects of 445f SNS activation 445–446 legacy of lies 441 overcoming, resistance to killing 447 killing enabling factors 448f physiological arousal and fear 443 continuous combat 444 homeostasis state 443 parasympathetic nervous system 443 sympathetic nervous system’s (SNS) 443 price, of overcoming the resistance to killing 447 killing experience rationalization and acceptance processes 447–448, 448t PTSD psychological disorder 449 purification ritual 447 psychiatric casualties, in war 442 continuous combat, effects of 442, 443f evacuation syndrome 442 somatoform disorder 442 World War I and II 442 resistance to killing 446 trauma of close-range, interpersonal aggression 444 fear and horror 444 impact 444 World War II 444 Psychological morbidity, definition 505 Psychological stress definition 488 Psychological torture 519 Psychological violence rape 361 Psychometric, definition 473

875

Psychoneuroendocrinology definition 456 Psychopathology definition 753 Psychopathy biochemical factors 60 violence predictors 575 Psychosocial rehabilitation 594–595 Psychotherapeutic, definition 473 Psychotic disorders suicidal behaviors 604 Psychotropic drugs 9/11 394 PTMD see Posttraumatic mood disorder PTSD see Posttraumatic stress disorder Public displays (folklore) 183 Public safety see Policing Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs 814 Pulmonary agents, chemical warfare use 305 Punishment childrearing Zapotec culture 791 international criminal courts and tribunals International Court of Justice (ICJ) 641 International Criminal Court (ICC) human rights issues 641 military discipline 211–212 tribal societies 156 Punitive raids 283–284 Purification ritual, definition 441 Pyridostigmine, use in gulf war 488

Q Qaddafi, Muammar al- 677 Quakers characteristics 819 nonviolence concepts 406, 680, 819 Qutb, Sayyid 403–404

R Rabin, Yitzhak 678–679 Race/racism ideological democide 110, 287 jokes 179 linguistic violence 672 mass media 703 military culture 219–220 military service 219–220 proverbs 180 World War II 278, 280 Radar 226 Radiation cancer induction, Hiroshima survivors 329–330 UNSCEAR 735 Chernobyl dose estimates 736 see also Radiation sickness Radiation sickness acute 329, 735, 736–737 chronic 737–738 symptoms 329 Radical feminism 162–163 Radical ideologies 110 Radicalization, suicide terrorism ideologies 382 Radiophobia 737 Raging Grannies 169 Randomized controlled clinical trial, definition 740 Rape anthropological research 36 evolutionary theory 25 genocide 165, 299 institutionalized violence 115–116 male privilege 164 marital rape 36 military culture 361

876

Subject Index

Rape (continued) reproduction competition 24 tribal societies 156 wartime experiences 165, 361 Rape of Nanking (1937) 271 Rational choice conflict-cooperation dynamics 833 democide 296 instrumental aggression 86 social order 43 Rationing 277 Reactive aggression 87, 93 Realistic conflicts 46 Realistic conflict theory 39, 108 Reardon, Betty 164 Rebellions see Revolutions Reciprocal altruism 20, 695, 699 Reciprocal inhibition hypothesis 592 Reciprocity 700 Reconciliation 80–81 Recreational drug use see Substance abuse Recreational rape 299 Recruitment, military see Military service Red Army 274 Red-winged blackbirds 70 Refugees 620–623 definition 620–621 geographic displacement 360, 572, 577 protective factors 621 stress-related disorders 622 behavioral 622 physical 622 psychiatric 622 stress, types of 621 trauma-induced disorders 585 twentieth century casualties 553, 553t vulnerable groups 621 war-related health consequences 551–552, 559–560 Regimental systems 214 Rehabilitation and Research Center for Torture Victims (RCT) 517 Relapsing fever epidemics 560 Relationship-focused coping see Coping/coping skills Relative deprivation theory 41, 109 Religion 9/11 paradoxes 393 criminal activity 393 criminal recidivism 393 Eastern traditions Buddhism ahimsa (nonharmfulness) 405 faith-based peace groups 812–813 peace spirituality 680 religious violence 399 Hinduism animal welfare 405 democide 291 nonviolence concepts 404–405 religious violence 399 Jainism ahimsa (nonharmfulness) 404–405 animal welfare 405 Sikhism 399, 401, 697 Hinduism ideological democide 287 retributive genocide 286 ideological democide 109–110, 287, 291 institutionalized violence 115, 118, 399 peace-building processes ritual and ceremony 33 peace cultures contemporary faith-based peace groups 813 historical background 812 refugees 621–622 religious violence 397–407 characteristics 400–401 definition 398 eschatology 406–407 historical background 398

martyrs 109, 400, 403, 406 monotheistic traditions 398–399 sanctions 401 symbolic images 399 role in suicide terrorism 380, 384, 393 sorcery and witchcraft 31 Western traditions Christian traditions just-war criteria 671 nonviolence concepts 404–405, 406 religious violence 399, 400 christian traditions faith-based peace groups 813 ideological democide 287 military service 813 peace–war dualism 812 Islam faith-based peace groups 812–813 ideological democide 287 religious violence 399 Judaism nonviolence concepts 406 religious violence 398–399 Religious martyrdom 393 Relocation camps 278 Reparation payments 632 Repetitive stress injury (RSI) 590 Repressive regimes 286 Reproduction competition gender differences 23 insect societies 71 male–male competition 24 risk-taking aversion 25 violent behaviors 23 Yanomamo¨ culture 25 female-damaging behaviors 73 gene-based theories 19 natural selection 18, 23, 66 reproductive skew theory 70 Reptilian brain 9 Republic of the Congo ethnic conflicts 233 wartime casualties 551t Research studies animal models see Animal models Hurricane Katrina, methodological issues 751 Vietnam War veterans see Vietnam War veterans Reservists, definition 473 Resettlement, refugees 621 Residents Action Committee Sarawak Indigenous Peoples’ Association 540t Resilience trauma-related reactions 594 war-related exposures 573 Resistance killing/combat situations 189 women against war 366 Resolution 2603A (XXIV)(1969) 308 Restlessness 581t, 582t Retribution genocide 286, 291 international criminal courts and tribunals International Court of Justice (ICJ) 641 International Criminal Court (ICC) human rights issues 641 warfare goals 138, 159 Revenge see Retribution; Warfare Revolutionary War (US) 348 Revolutions characteristics 251 social revolutions irregular warfare 228 Marxist perspective 121 post–Cold War era 202 Ricin 305 Rio Earth Summit 830–831 Rio Earth Summit (1992) 830–831 Riot control agents 305

Riots ethnic conflicts 283–284 riot control weapons 307 Risk factors, definition 427 Risperidone 584–585 Ritual behaviors 171–177 animal populations 171 anthropological research 172 basic concept 171 chiefdoms 144, 144f conflict resolution 31 conflict theories 173 conversation ritual 684 ethological research 176 gangs 151 human populations 173 military culture ceremonies and etiquette 213 chiefdoms 144, 144f tribal warriors 142 peace-building processes 33, 175 peaceful behaviors 819 psychoactive drug use 139–140, 142 ritual violence 172, 180 tribal warriors 142 Robbers Cave studies 835 Robbery anthropological research 36 Role conflict peacekeepers 477 definition 475 Rolland, Romain 680–681 Roman Catholicism 399–400 Romans ideological democide 287 language of war 673 warfare economics 239 warfare strategies 193 weaponry evolution 193–194 Rome–Berlin Axis 271 Rommel, Erwin 274, 276 Roosevelt, Franklin D 274 Roosevelt, Theodore 512 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 7 Routine occupational stressors, definition 771 Royal Air Force (RAF) 273 Rules of engagement, definition 475 Rumor 38 Russell, Bertrand 680–681 Russia civilian casualties 552 civil wars 253 democide 288t guerilla warfare Afghanistan 356 Chechen uprising 357 indigenous peoples 538t wartime casualties 551t World War I 259 Russian Federation see Russia Rwanda civil wars 253 ethnic conflicts 208 genocide dehumanization processes 107 ideological democide 110 mass murder 35 survival and rebuilding efforts 366 wartime casualties 551, 551t

S Saami culture 538t Saami Youth Council 540t Sabotage 569 Sacrifice animal sacrifice 400 characteristics 400 definition 407 human sacrifice 289, 399

Subject Index

suicide terrorism ideologies 382 symbolic violence 686 Sadat, Anwar 678–679 Safe futures program 152–153 Safe spaces 817 Saint-Simon, Henri 680–681 Salaam 405, 406 Salafi, role in suicide terrorism 380 Salivary testosterone 53 Samurai tradition 401 San Andres Zapotec see Zapotec culture Sanctions 644 Sanctuaries 820 San culture 538t Sarvodaya movement 812 Sati 399 Saturation bombinb 569 Satyagraha basic concepts 405–406 historical background 814 political nonviolence 679 Scalps 141 Scapegoats 686–687, 836 Schizophrenia 604 definition 620 refugees 623 Schlieffen-Plan 262–263 School system school safety 102 School systems gang involvement 149 Schumpeter, Joseph 243 Scorched earth policy 274–275, 363 Scotland violence against women see United Kingdom violent crime rate 197, 197t see also United Kingdom Seabed Treaty (1971) 325 Secessionist movements 251 Secondary traumatization, PTSD 465 Security studies collective security system free–rider problem 244 Segal, Jonathan 840 Segmentary principle 35 Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) 584–585 clinical uses PTSD 474, 775 definition 740 Self-blame survivor guilt 624 Self-destruction (democide) 283–284 Self-destructive behaviors 602 Self-determination indigenous peoples 535 Self-efficacy definition 750 Self-efficacy adaptational coping, definition 389 Self-injury 602 Selfish behavior 66, 67f Selfish genes 19 Self-mutilation 601 Self-sacrifice 697 Semai culture nonviolent conflict management coping strategies 697 peaceful behaviors 787, 788t Sense-making circumstances 684 Separation disaster, following 765 September 11 terrorist attacks language of war 677 religious violence 399, 403–404 socioeconomic dynamics 246 US policies 208 see also 9/11, Terrorism Serbia ethnic cleansing 207, 299, 361 rape 361

Serotonin aggressive behaviors 56 suicidal behaviors 604 Sertraline 584–585 PTSD 474, 775 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) 420 Sex categories 162 Sexist language 673, 676 Sexual assault see Rape Sexual conflict animal societies 66 evolutionary theory 22 Sexual exploitation see Prostitution Sexually explicit media see Pornography Sexual minorities linguistic factors 671 Sexual offenses gonadal androgens 52 violence against women patriarchal systems 165 Sexual offences, torture, as 518–519 Sexual orientation see Sexual minorities Sexual violence 25 Shalom 405, 406 Sharp, Gene language of peace 681 Shattered assumptions theory 98 Sheep 72–73 Shell shock 456–457, 550 Sherif, Muzafer 835–836 Shia theology 399–400 see also Islamic tradition Shiva, Vandana 816 Shoah see Holocaust Shock trauma Chernobyl accident 737 definition 735 Short swords 193 Shotguns 195 Shrunken-head trophies 141 Siberian jays 70 Sickness 32 Sikhism 399, 401, 697 Silence 33 Simmel, Georg 122–123 Sinai Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) 476 peacekeepers 476 Sino–Japanese War 271, 274 Skinner, Burrhus Friederich 7, 96–97 Slavery minority populations 284 violence against women human trafficking 165 Sleep deprivation see Sleep deprivation disorders see Sleep disorders disturbances PTSD 466, 773 Sleep deprivation torture, as 519 Sleep disorders PTSD 466, 773 Sleep disturbances 553–554, 581t, 582t Sleeping sickness 560 Slovakia pre-World War II era 271–272 Slow-wave sleep (SWS) see Sleep Small war see also Guerilla warfare Small wars 228–229 Smith, Adam peaceful behaviors 820 war-peace perspective 120 Smith, Philip 176 Snakes 72–73 Social bonds 817 Social change aggressive behaviors 793 gender studies 169t

Social class Marxism 121 social bases antagonism–conflict theories 46 wartime impacts 575 Social conflict 39–47 aggressive behaviors 41 animal societies 70 authority structure 526 basic needs model 42 class conflict 46 conflict resolution 527 exchange theories 44 functionalist theory 45–46 purpose 525 relative deprivation theory 41 social identity theory 43 social integration 46 social order 43 theoretical perspectives 40 Social control conformity groupthink 106, 842 military discipline 211 obedience authority figures 106 Social Darwinism 176 Social equality see Social inequality Social identity theory 43, 109 Social inequality antagonism–conflict theories 46 Socialization aggressive behaviors general discussion 791 Zapotec culture 791 peaceful behaviors general discussion 791 Zapotec culture 791 peace societies 802 Semai culture 698, 788t Waorani culture 698, 788t Social justice see Human rights Social learning theory aggressive behaviors 106 media violence 665–666 Social movement organizations civil society 202 global civil society 202–203 Social networks 22 Social order 43 Social paranoia 846 Social psychology typology mass violence 109 violent behaviors 40, 105–113 characteristics 107 cultural violence 107, 111, 679 peace-building processes characteristics 110 equitable relations 111 reconstruction efforts 112 sources cognitive influences 106 situational determinants 106 systemic interactions 107 structural violence 107, 111 typology general discussion 107 intergroup violence 108 interpersonal violence 108 Social revolutions irregular warfare 228 Marxist perspective 121 post–Cold War era 202 Social stress (testosterone) 54 Social violence democide 282 dominator-partnership models 129 Society of Friends see Quakers Socioenvironmental risk factors, definition 389

877

878

Subject Index

Sociological research social order perspectives conflict theories Marxism 121 Durkheim’s theories 123 Simmel’s theory 122–123 Weber’s theory 122–123 war-peace perspective 119–126 classic perspective 122 Enlightenment era 120 free trade 121 general discussion 119–120 industrialized societies 122 Kantian philosophy 120 Marxism 121 post-World War II era 123–124 republican order 120 Smith’s theory 121 Spencer, Herbert 122 Sociopathy 189 Soil pollution 845 Sokolov, E.N. 96 Soldier’s heart 550 Solidarnosc 201 Somalia indigenous peoples 538t peacekeeper abuses 361 operation restore hope 476 Sombart, Werner 122–123 Songs see Music Sorcery and witchcraft 31 South Africa Boer War 350 war-related health consequences 561–562 South America see Latin America South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) 355 Soviet Union biological weapons 313, 414 chemical weapons 308 civil wars 252 Cold War bilateral superpower relations 227f nuclear targeting 321 post-World War II era 280 termination 230 democide 285–286, 288t foreign aggression 246 guerilla warfare Afghanistan 356 Chechen uprising 357 pre-World War II era 269 wartime casualties 551t World War II aftermath 280 biological weapons 313 end of war 279 expansion efforts 272 losses and turning points 275 Stalingrad battle 276 violence against women 361 war production efforts 276–277 see also Russia Spain arms production terrorism urban terrorism 228–229 civil wars 227f, 250, 271 guerilla warfare 349 pre-World War II era 271 religious violence 399 Spanish Civil War 227f, 250, 271 Spanish Inquisition see Holy Inquisition Spears 191, 193 Special populations, Hurricane Katrina impact 752 Speckled wood butterflies 69 Spells, magical 31 Spergel, Irving A 152–153 Spiritual well-being Holocaust, stress effects 615–616 Spiders 73

Spontaneous remission, definition 753 Spousal abuse communication skills 661 personal accountability 663 social psychological factors 109 Sri Lanka civil wars 252 democide 291 indigenous peoples 538t retributive genocide 286 utopian communities 812 violent behaviors 35 Stalin, Joseph concept of evil 677 World War II 273 Starvation 284–285, 550 Startle response PTSD 466 State-as-house/state-as-person metaphors 675 State-sanctioned violence death statistics 282t democide 281–302 causes biological/behavioral perspectives 295 general discussion 294–295 popular explanations 295 collective memories 300 definitions active democide 284 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the United Nations (UNGC) 283 passive democide 284 target populations 285–286 terminology usage 283 dehumanization 107 documentation 298 eight stages of genocide 301t ethnic cleansing 299 forecasts 300 general discussion 281 indigenous peoples 289 major occurrences general discussion 288 pre-twentieth century 288 twentieth century 278, 288t, 289 patterns bystanders 294 deniers 294 ecological patterns 292 general discussion 292 helpers/rescuers 294 participants 292 perpetrators 293 temporal patterns 292 victims 293 prevention 300 public awareness 299 rape 36, 299, 361 social identity theory 43 typology despotic/hegemonic/repressive regimes 286 economically-based democide 286 general discussion 286 habitual democide 287 ideological democide 287, 296 massacres 287 retributive genocide 286, 291 strategic–tactical democide 286 institutionalized violence 114, 117–118 state torture background information 528 definition 529 implementation explanations political factors 528 typology ideological democide 110 Stegodyphus lineatus 73 Stepparents 21 Stereotyping effects ethnic conflicts 688

Steroids 10 Stirrup, importance of 188, 194, 217 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 637, 845–846 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) goals and objectives 325 Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) deterrence strategies 322 Strategic Offensive Force Reduction (SORT) Treaty 321 Strategic–tactical democide 286 Stratification antagonism–conflict theories 46 Street gangs see Gangs Stress catecholamines and see Catecholamines definition 14, 756 effects definition 613 Holocaust-related see Holocaust, stress effects multidimensional nature 617 mobilization/pre-deployment 481 post-deployment 481 Stressor(s) definition 613, 618 Stress-related aggression post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550 testosterone 53–54 Stress-related instigators 90 Stress response Addison’s disease, absence in 15 evolutionary origins and functions 11–17 adaptive regulation 15 adrenal cortical system 14 ancestral and modern environments mismatch 16 defense 12 negative event association 15 immediate 14 mechanisms 14 cortisol role 773 phylogeny of 12, 13 cost–benefit trade-offs 13 cross-species comparisons 13 utility 12, 14 general adaptation syndrome 12 situations associated 12 Strikes peace movements 814 research background 127 Structural democide 286, 297 Structuralism 175–176 Structural violence 126–133 basic concepts 126 direct versus indirect violence 128–129 dominator-partnership models 129 economic factors 636 gender studies 163 peace research issues 130 positive versus negative peace 127 rape 361 social psychological factors 40, 107, 111 Style’s general adaptation syndrome see General adaptation syndrome (GAS) Subaltern genocide 286 Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) 322 Submarine warfare World War I 261 World War II 276 Substance abuse gangs 150 post 9/11 395 refugees 622 trauma-induced disorders 581 United States drug-related crime gangs 150 Subthreshold depression see Depression/ depressive disorders

Subject Index

Sudan democide 300 violence against women 37 war-related health consequences 560, 561 wartime casualties 551t Suicidal behavior, in war veterans 478–484 biological and psychosocial influences after the deployment 482 between birth and mobilization/ deployment 480 combat stress, traumatic brain injury, and physical injury 481 genetic factors 479 mobilization/pre-deployment stress 481 model of 480f post-deployment stress 481 prenatal development 480 PTMD 479 suicide prevention, with PTMD 482 focus 482 pharmacological treatment 482 placebo effect 482 triggering suicidal act 482 Suicidal behaviors 601–608 anthropological research 35–36 characteristics 602 composition theories 604 definition 602 epidemiology 602, 602t individual suicides 604 institutionalized violence 116 murder–suicide relationship repressed anger 605 suicidal murderers/murderous suicides 605 prevention measures 607 prisons 606 samurai tradition 401 social causation theories 603, 603t spiders 73 terrorism 109, 234–235 warfare compassionate–bellicose nation comparisons 607 decline explanations 607 German concentration/extermination camps 606 rate declines 606 World War II 277 Suicidal terrorism 234–235 Suicide definition 407 epidemic of, among current and former u.s military personnel 484–487 activated military personnel 485 epidemiology of 485 Gulf war veterans 485 OEF/OIF veterans 485 risk of 486t Vietnam war veterans 485 holy war 409 prevention, with PTMD 482 focus 482 pharmacological treatment 482 placebo effect 482 religion 9/11 393 stressors former Yugoslavia, war stress 471, 472f 9/11 393 Suicide bombers 109, 234–235 Suicide terrorism 376–385, 466 current epidemic 378–379 history of 378 ideologies 380 as displacement 383 individual motivations 380 sympathetic 382 trauma-based 381 locations under threat 378 main aspects 379 reasoning behind 379

recruiting 382 religion, role of 380, 384, 393 societal support of 383 sponsoring groups, motivation 379 success of 378 vulnerability of bombers 381–382 see also 9/11 Sulfur mustard, chemical warfare use 303, 304 Sun-Tzu 225, 673–674 Superimposed conflicts 46 Suriname indigenous peoples 538t Survival International 542 Survival skills 366, 368, 574 Survival strategies, definition 759 Survivor(s) definition 613, 618, 623 of Holocaust see Holocaust Survivor guilt 623–625 history of concept 623 manifestations 624 physiological 624 psychological 624 social 624 moral features 624 sense and purpose 624 treatment 625 see also Paradoxical guilt Survivor syndrome, Holocaust survivors 615, 617, 624 Sweden child abuse 21 indigenous peoples 540t violent crime rate 197, 197t Sword fighting 193 Symbolic violence 686 Symbolism/Symbolic behaviors see Ritual behaviors Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) 443 activation 445–446 definition 441 Syndromes, definition 456 Systemic violence 107

T Taboos 183–184 Taborites 406 Taiping Rebellion 250 Taiwan indigenous peoples 538t Taliban 208, 560 Talk avoidance 33 see also Afghanistan Tank warfare 260, 272–273 Taoism 405 Taxation 631, 642 TBI see Traumatic brain injury Tear gases 305 Technological disaster, definition 757 Technologies/technological impacts warfare high-tech warfare 232–233 historical background 226 network-centric warfare (NCW) 232, 234f Television programming children violent/aggressive programming critical viewing skills 708 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 media responsibilities 709 military conditioning 197 mitigation interventions 708 risk factors 706 viewing impact 663, 705 institutionalized violence 115 violence 710–723 analytical perspectives 713 background information 710

879

children desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 military conditioning 197 risk factors 706 viewing impact 663, 705, 714–715 violent/aggressive programming 663, 705 counteracting intervention critical viewing skills 708 media literacy interventions 667 media responsibilities 709 parental guidance 667 program rating systems 667 counteracting interventions experimental research 720 individual effects aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663 international comparisons Asia 712 Australia 712 Canada 711 Europe 711 general discussion 711 Israel 711 Japan 712 New Zealand 712 United Kingdom 713 international conflict 667 key concerns 710 measurement issues international comparisons 711 methodology 711 priming 88–89, 666 psychological processes cognitive priming theory 666 desensitization 198, 664 excitation transfer 666 public opinion surveys drama-related violence 719 factual program-related violence 719 general discussion 719 marketability 721 war-related violence 720 research evidence correlational surveys 716 field studies 716 general discussion 715 laboratory studies 715 longitudinal studies 717 natural environments 717 regulatory practices 721 risk factors 706 sanitized or glamorized portrayals 706 viewer perceptions 714 viewing impact cultivation effects 719 general discussion 715 intervention studies 718 research evidence 715 Terezin Project 834 Terra nullius 535, 545 Territoriality 94–105 aggression 99 aggressive behaviors 79 avoidance behaviors 100, 101f dear enemy effects/familiar neighbors 69 dominance hierarchies 97 general discussion 104 personality traits 100 psychological aspects 95–96 respect for ownership 68 shattered assumptions theory 98 social context 97 stranger-related aggression 99 voluntary frame transformation process 103, 103f Terrorism 373–376 Al Qaeda

880

Subject Index

Terrorism (continued) ethnic conflicts 207 political terrorism 112 urban terrorism 233–234 anthropological research 37 bioterrorism 412–424 combatant strategies active defense 417 defense strategies 417 deterrence 416 diplomatic policies 415 general discussion 414 interdiction programs 417 passive defense 417 preemption 417 general discussion 422 passive defense decontamination strategies 422 detection/identification technologies 420–421 medical logistics 421 medical research and development 422 physical protection 418 postattack medical responses 418, 419f preattack vaccinations 418 prophylaxis campaigns 419, 419f, 421 threat likelihood 413 causes 112 chemical warfare 303, 305 civilian casualties 569 definition 373 institutionalized violence 114 linguistic factors 37, 676 mental health symptoms 598–601 clinical predictors 599–600 probability 599 modern terrorism urban terrorism 228–229 motivations 374 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 586 psychological profiles 373 religious violence 399, 404 social psychological factors 109 society, effects on 375, 762 suicidal terrorism 109 suicide attacks see Suicide terrorism terrorist, effect on 373 traumatic experiences, relationship 599 traumatic stress responses, Israeli experiences 466 victims, effect on 374 war-related health consequences 555 see also September 11 terrorist attacks Testosterone 52 Thailand violent/aggressive television programming 712 Thamnophis sirtalis 72–73 Thomas of Aquinas, Saint 671 Threat-controlling democide 286 Threats de see Deterrence; Psychological violence Three Mile Island accident 738, 756–759 health consequences long-term 758 psychological 736 short-term 757 Unit 2 venting 757 stressors 757 Thucydides language of war 673 social conflict theories 40 views on war 225 Thwarting effects 89 Thyroid gland Chernobyl accident, disease associated 737 definition 735 Tigray 565 Timetables of History 811 Tit-for-tat strategy 839 Tiv culture 30 Tobin tax 642 Tolstoy, Leo 406, 680–681

Tomatina (tomato fight) 180 Toraja culture low aggression levels 698 nonviolent conflict management coping strategies 696 Torture 517–523 anthropological research 36 current status 517 definition 517–518 delimitation 519 democracy, relationship with 518 government-sanctioned 519 impunity 522 indications of 519 indigenous peoples 535 magnitude of problem 518 posttorture state, definition of 521 prevention of 522 prisoners of war 106, 141–142 purpose 518 rape 361 rehabilitation models 521 counseling 521 holistic approach 521 psychological insight therapy 521 psychological supportive therapy 521 screening methods 521 state torture background information 528 definition 529 implementation explanations political factors 528 symptoms and aftereffects 519 tribal warriors 141–142 see also democide types 518 physical 518 psychological 519 Torture syndrome 520 Totalitarianism state-sanctioned violence 286–287 Total war asymmetric warfare 228–229 civil society 205 linguistic factors 678 trends 226 women as direct casualties 359 Touraine, Alain 119–120, 125 Toxic industrial chemical, definition 303 Toxic stress syndrome 738 Toxins see Bioterrorism Trade conflict–trade relationships exchange theories 44 social conflict 44 peaceful behaviors 820 Traditional democide 287 Trafficking see Drug trafficking; Human trafficking Tranquilizers 584–585 Transarmament 639 Transgenic animal models overexpression, definition 488 Transnational organizations global civil society 202 Transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) global civil society 202–203 Transportation systems modern warfare 260 Trauma acute trauma 570 children acute trauma 569, 570 chronic trauma 570 chronic trauma 570 combat effects close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f definition 463, 613, 618, 623, 759 mental disorders 580–588

ADAPT model 586–587 anxiety disorders 553, 581 complex trauma 585 complicated grief 581 depression 553, 581 post-traumatic reactions acute stress disorder (ASD) 582–583, 582t cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) 586, 594–595 early intervention approaches 583 pharmacological therapy 584, 594–595 treatment approaches 594 vulnerability factors 582 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) children 569 general discussion 580–581 symptoms 581t treatment approaches 594 wartime impacts 550, 575 special populations children 570, 586 refugees 585 terrorism 586 substance abuse 581 transcultural issues 581 wartime impacts 550, 560 post–traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 465 wartime impacts 221 see also Physical injury[?h=t]refugees 621 stress reactions Persian Gulf War 465 terrorist attacks, Israeli experience 466 traumatology applications desensitization 592 general discussion 592 reciprocal inhibition hypothesis 592 background information 595 basic concepts psychobiological models 591 psychological trauma models 591 sociological models 591 stress injuries 590 systemic and secondary traumatic stress models 591 general discussion 589 treatment event-related contextual application factors 594 general discussion 593 person-related contextual application factors 594 treatment approaches 594 Traumatic brain injury (TBI) 473, 481 Traumatic situations, definition 613, 759 Traumatic stressors definition 613, 618, 771 Traumatology applications desensitization 592 general discussion 592 reciprocal inhibition hypothesis 592 background information 595 basic concepts psychobiological models 591 psychological trauma models 591 sociological models 591 stress injuries 590 systemic and secondary traumatic stress models 591 general discussion 589 treatment event-related contextual application factors 594 general discussion 593 person-related contextual application factors 594 treatment approaches 594 Treaties see Alliances Treaty of Riga (1921) 270 Treaty of Versailles (1919)

Subject Index

arms control treaties 270 chemical weapons 307 World War I 263–268, 268t Treaty of Washington (1922) 307 Trench warfare 222, 260 Tribal societies characteristics 156 definition 138 tribal conflict 153–161 basic concepts 154, 155f battle tactics 158 casual factors 155–156 fraternal interest groups 154, 158 general discussion 158 military organizations characteristics 158 composition 157 function 158 society typology bands 155 sociocultural factors 155 tribes 156 tribal warriors general discussion 138 honors and achievements 140, 141f, 159 ritual preparations 142 social status 139 training 139–140 trophies 141–142, 159 warrior associations 142 warrior societies 138 violent behaviors 30 warfare 33 Tricothecene mycotoxins, chemical warfare use 305 Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) PTSD 474 Tricyclics 584–585 Triggered displaced aggression 91 Tripartite Pact (1940) 274 Tropical storm Alberto 744–745 Tropical storm Charlie 745 Tropical storm Tammy 746 Trophies chiefdoms 144 tribal warriors 141–142 warfare goals 159 Truce of God (1041) 674 Trucking dilemma experiment 837 Truman Doctrine 351 Tryptophan 56 tsav 30–31 Tuareg culture 538t Tuberculosis 564 Tumor necrosis factor(s) (TNFs) acute stress response 490 Tumors see Cancer Turkey democide 288t Turkistan 538t Tutsi culture see Rwanda TV Parental Guidelines 667 Twentieth century democide megamurderers 288t post Rwanda 110 post-1945 Eastern Europe 291 general discussion 290–291 Pakistan 291 Yugoslavia 299 pre-1945 China 290 general discussion 289–290 Herero tribe (Namibia) 290 World War II 278 twentieth century democide post-1945 Rwanda 107 Two-Ocean Navy Expansion Act (1940) 274 Typhoid 313

Typhus epidemics 560 Tyrosine 60

U Uca mjoebergi 70 Uganda healthcare/health services budget impacts 562 equipment and supply disruptions 562 health policy formation 563 human resources 562 infant mortality rates 559 Ultimate explanations 19 Uncertainty definition 757 Uncontrollable worry 581 Uncorrelated asymmetry 69 UNESCO Culture of Peace Program 809–810, 814 UNICEF 559, 568 Uniforms, military 213 Union of Concerned Scientists 814 United Kingdom arms control treaties pre-World War II era 269 democide 288t pre-World War II era 269 violent/aggressive television programming 713 violent crime rate 197, 197t World War I 258 World War II aftermath 280 end of war 279 entrance into the war, 2515 war production efforts 276–277 United Nations 814 arms control treaties nuclear weapons 640–641 background information 640 financial support 642 human right issues state torture 529 human rights issues indigenous rights movements 509 indigenous peoples 509, 510 indigenous rights movements 509 peace-building processes 640, 814 peacekeeper abuses 361 peacekeeping missions international efforts 230, 233f Resolution 2603A (XXIV)(1969) 308 warfare constraints 678 United Nations Convention on Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 163 United Nations Convention against torture 517, 522 United Nations Convention on Torture and Other Inhuman and Degrading Acts (1984) 529 United Nations Declaration for the Protection of All Persons from being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 529 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights state torture 529 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948) structural violence concerns 129–130 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) see UNESCO United Nations High Commission for Refugees 360 United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) 735 Chernobyl accident, radiation dose estimates 736 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) state torture 529, 530 structural violence concerns 129–130

881

United Nations Vienna Declaration, definition 517 United States American Revolution 348 arms control treaties pre-World War II era 269 chemical weapons use 307–308 Civil War guerilla warfare 349 inflation 631 civil war mental health issues 550 Cold War bilateral superpower relations 228 nuclear targeting 321 post-World War II era 280 termination 230 drug-related crime gangs 150 guerilla warfare Civil War 349 Philippine uprising 350 Revolutionary War 348 Vietnam War 355 indigenous peoples colonization treaties 535 demographics 538t political movements 540t response to conquest 535 military background 221 pre-World War II era 269 Revolutionary War 348 utopian communities 812 violence violent crime rate 197, 197t World War I 122, 259 World War II aftermath 280 end of war 279 entrance into the war 275 Pearl Harbor strikes 275 war production efforts 276–277 see also Gulf War Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) state torture 529, 530 structural violence concerns 129–130 Unokais 24 Unorganized violence 128 Unselfish behavior 694 Unspeak 676 Upanishads nonviolence concepts 405 Uranium (U) fission bombs 314–315 Urban environments criminal behavior urban gangs 149 gangs community involvement 149 historical background 147 urban gangs 149 inner city communities gang involvement 149 Urban legends 182 Urban terrorism 228–229, 233–234 Urinary hormones see Neurotransmitters US civil war general discussion 251 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 830–831 Utopias contemporary communities 812 historical perspectives 811 women’s cultures basic concepts 814 contributions 815 global peace services 817 networking 817 peace colonies 817 peace education movement 816 peace journeys 816

882

Subject Index

V Vaccinations 418, 422 Value of life analysis 633 Vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) 60 Vasopressin 61 V-chip technology 667 Veblen, Thorstein 243 Vedic religion see Hinduism Vegetarians 405 Vende’e uprising 348 Venezuela indigenous peoples demographics 538t human rights issues 546 Vengeance see Retribution Venlafaxine, PTSD 474 Verbal aggression 37, 661, 693, 792 Verbal harassment 672, 690 Verification biological weapons 415 Versailles Peace Treaty (1919) arms control treaties 270 chemical weapons 307 World War I 263–268, 268t Vesicants chemical warfare use 304 definition 303 Veterans see War veterans Veterans, military military culture 221 military service government assistance and recognition United States 221 Vicarious traumatization (VT) 749 Vichy France 273 Vicious circle metaphor 101, 101f Victimology victim populations collective memories 109 crime-victim narratives 182 Victim populations sexual minorities violence against women patriarchal systems 165 Victim-precipitated murder 605 Video games 198, 665, 703 Vienna Declaration, Article 60 522 Viet Cong 355 Viet Minh 354 Vietnam civil wars 252 guerilla warfare American occupation forces 355 French occupation 354 healthcare/health services 565 indigenous peoples 538t social revolutions 228–229 Vietnam Experience Study (VES) 457–458 definition 456 Vietnam War democide 288t folkloric expressions 184 guerilla warfare 355 massacres 287 prisoners of war 508 veterans see Vietnam War veterans wartime casualties 227f war veterans 221 Vietnam war veterans 455–463, 485 adjustment problems 456, 457 PTSD 456, 457, 459t, 462t research studies 457 implications 461 Legacy Study 457 National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study 457 psychobiological and biomedical findings 458 Vietnam Experience Study 456, 457–458 Vikings 700

Villains 677 Vinogradova, O.S. 96 Violence acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 anthropological research 28–39 assault 36 capital punishment 35 conflict resolution 31 disputing rhetoric 32 domestic violence 37 ethnicity 34 ethnographic studies 30 female genital mutilation 36 feuds 34 general discussion 29 homicide 35 nationalism 34 peace-building processes 33 rape 36 ritual practices 31 robbery 36 sorcery and witchcraft 31 suicidal behaviors 35–36 terrorism 37 torture 36 warfare 33 biochemical factors 51–65 cholesterol 63 general discussion 64 glucose regulation 63 hormones adrenal hormones 55 gonadal androgens 52 neurotransmitters acetylcholine 62 adrenal hormones 55 catecholamines 60 central nervous system (CNS) 51 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 monoamine oxidase (MAO) 62 peptides 61 serotonin 56 characteristics 107 childrearing cognitive–communication model 662 verbal aggression 661 Zapotec culture 791 close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f crime-victim narratives 182 definition anthropological approach 29 definitions biochemical factors 51 domestic violence anthropological research 37 child abuse 661 cognitive-communication model 662 communication skills 661 folkloric expressions 182 gender analysis 169t instrumental aggression 86 interpersonal violence 108 peace studies 164 personal accountability 663 reproduction competition 24 verbal aggression 661 wartime experiences 362 weaponry evolution acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 general discussion 195 international violent crime rate 197, 197t medical lifesaving technology 196, 196t weapon lethality 195 weapons effectiveness 195, 196t economic factors economic violence 138–139 economic violence 138–139 evolutionary theory 17–28 adaptive behaviors 19

behavior explanations 19 cooperation strategies 20 environmental aspects individual development 27 gene-based theories 19 general discussion 18 kinship basic concepts 21 Cinderella effect 21 infanticide 22 parent–offspring conflict 22 moral issues 27 natural selection 18 psychological aspects 27 sexual reproduction competition 22 gender differences 23 male–male competition 24 risk-taking aversion 25 violent behaviors 23 Yanomamo¨ culture 25 sexual violence 25 festive violence 180 folkloric expressions 182 gang involvement urban gangs 149 gangs community involvement 149 definition 146, 147 ethnicity 148 folkloric expressions 181 gender studies 148–149 group dynamics delinquent behavior 149 drug-related crime 150 membership process 151 violent behaviors 150 historical background 147 involvement theories cultural theories 148 explanation levels 148 social disorganization 148 wartime impacts 575 legal system response 153 magnitude assessment 148 Papua New Guinea 36 social learning theory 106 strategic responses community organization programs 152 economic opportunities 152 major initiatives 152 social intervention programs 151 suppression 151 urban environments historical background 147 gender studies democide 293–294 hormonal correlations 53 male privilege 163–164, 369 rape 164, 299 against women patriarchal systems 165 see also Domestic violence see also Domestic violence institutionalized violence 114 cult of violence 115 definition 114 economic development effects 119 emerging scenarios 116 global context 116 religion 115, 118, 399 security provisions 115 state-sanctioned violence 114, 117–118 symptoms 114–115 international violent crime rate 197, 197t legal system gangs 152–153 linguistic factors 682–693 complex language 683 conversation ritual 684 ethnicity 688

Subject Index

human interactions 683 miscommunication 685 nonviolent action 690 political violence 687 problematic interactions 685 sense-making circumstances 684 symbolic violence 686 third-party intervention 689 linguistic violence 672 media violence aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663, 668 influencing factors 702 international conflict 667 mitigation interventions 667 critical viewing skills 708 media responsibilities 709 music lyrics 665 theoretical models cognitive priming theory 666 excitation transfer theory 666 general discussion 665 social learning theory 665 social scripts model 666 minority populations neurophysiological research brain structure 9 general discussion 8 neural characteristics 9 political violence conflict characteristics general discussion 559 health consequences 548–558 budget impacts 562 casualty-cost analysis 556 casualty data collection 551, 551t children 557, 568–580 civil wars 555 community involvement 563 dirty wars 555 equipment and supply disruptions 562 general discussion 549, 559 healthcare/health services 558–568 health policy formation 563 historical background 549 human resources 562 infrastructure destruction 561 international warfare 555 long-term effects 557 low-intensity warfare 556 mental health issues 550, 560 methodological issues 551 physical health issues 554 positive impacts 565 postconflict challenges 566 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550 refugees 553, 553t, 557 service activities 561 service availability 560 socioeconomic consequences 555 terrorism 555 tracer conditions 559 twentieth century casualties 552 war classifications 555 women 557 tactical strategies 549–550 preindustrial violence materialism 33–34 social violence dominator-partnership models 129 structural violence 126 television programming institutionalized violence 115 toward animals organized protection movements 405 twentieth century casualties 226, 227f typology direct versus indirect violence 128–129 United Nations involvement

religious violence 397–407 characteristics 400–401 definition 398 eschatology 406–407 historical background 398 martyrs 400, 403, 406 monotheistic traditions 398–399 sanctions 401 symbolic images 399 ritual violence 172, 180 school safety issues 102 social identity theory 43 social psychological factors 105–113 characteristics 107 cultural violence 107, 111, 679 peace-building processes characteristics 110 equitable relations 111 reconstruction efforts 112 sources cognitive influences 106 situational determinants 106 systemic interactions 107 structural violence 107, 111 typology general discussion 107 intergroup violence 108 interpersonal violence 108 mass violence 109 social violence democide 282 sources cognitive influences 106 situational determinants 106 systemic interactions 107 television programming 710–723 analytical perspectives 713 background information 710 children desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 military conditioning 197 risk factors 706 viewing impact 663, 705, 714–715 violent/aggressive programming 663, 705 counteracting intervention critical viewing skills 708 media responsibilities 709 counteracting interventions experimental research 720 media literacy interventions 667 parental guidance 667 program rating systems 667 individual effects aggressive behaviors 663 desensitization 198, 664 fearfulness 665 general discussion 663 international comparisons Asia 712 Australia 712 Canada 711 Europe 711 general discussion 711 Israel 711 Japan 712 New Zealand 712 United Kingdom 713 international conflict 667 key concerns 710 measurement issues international comparisons 711 methodology 711 observational learning 106 priming 88–89, 666 psychological processes cognitive priming theory 666 desensitization 198, 664 excitation transfer 666 public opinion surveys

883

drama-related violence 719 factual program-related violence 719 general discussion 719 marketability 721 war-related violence 720 research evidence correlational surveys 716 field studies 716 general discussion 715 laboratory studies 715 longitudinal studies 717 natural environments 717 regulatory practices 721 risk factors 706 sanitized or glamorized portrayals 706 viewer perceptions 714 viewing impact cultivation effects 719 general discussion 715 intervention studies 718 research evidence 715 typology intergroup violence 108 interpersonal violence 108 mass violence 109 urban environments community involvement 149 urban gangs 149 wartime experiences rape 36 against women patriarchal systems 165 rape genocide 36, 165, 299, 361 institutionalized violence 115–116 male privilege 164 marital rape 36 wartime experiences 36, 165, 360 social identity theory 43 wartime experiences direct casualties 359 domestic violence 362 economic losses 363 environmental destruction 363 general discussion 359 geographic displacement 360 loss of family 362 military spending 363, 364t prostitution 361 rape 165, 361 see also Domestic violence youth violence wartime impacts 575 see also Aggression; Homicide Violent offenders biochemical factors 51–65 cholesterol 63 general discussion 64 glucose regulation 63 hormones adrenal hormones 55 gonadal androgens 52 neurotransmitters acetylcholine 62 adrenal hormones 55 catecholamines 60 central nervous system (CNS) 51 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) 56 monoamine oxidase (MAO) 62 peptides 61 serotonin 56 Violent societies see Waorani culture Violent video games (VVGs) 723–728 agreement and disagreement points 723 best practices 725 effect size estimation 725 standardized and unstandardized measures 725 perfect meta-analyses 724 psychological studies 725 effect sizes, criminal justice research 727t

884

Subject Index

Violent video games (VVGs) (continued) risk factors 726 youth violence and video game sales trend, in US 727t publication bias analyses 724 Voltaire 241 Vo Nguyen Giap 354 VVGs see Violent video games Vygotsky, L. 570

W Wagner-Pacifici, Robin 176 Waitangi Action Committee 540t Waldensians 406 Waorani culture 698, 788t, 793 War(s) definition 407 Iraq 395 stress management in 411 stressors 336 see also Combat; War veterans War crimes Germany World War I 262 international criminal courts and tribunals International Court of Justice (ICJ) 641 International Criminal Court (ICC) human rights issues 641 World War I 262 Warfare anthropological research 33 asymmetric warfare 228–229 battle tactics 158 casualties methodological issues 551 psychiatric casualties 575 twentieth century casualties 226, 227f, 551t, 552 women 359 characteristics 225, 559 children case studies background information 576 childhood experiences 578 delinquent behavior 577 family realignment effects 578 geographic displacement 577 parental adjustments 578 child soldiers 572 health consequences 557 psychological effects 568–580 age-related differences 576 altruism 574 case studies 576 childhood experiences 578 competence theories 573 cumulative risk model 572 curiosity 573–574 delinquent behavior 577 demographic analysis 575 emotional impact 569 exposure to atocities 575 family realignment effects 578 gender differences 576 general discussion 568, 579 geographic displacement 572, 577 parental adjustments 578 postponement skills 574 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 570 predictive factors 573 resilient coping skills 573 social class 576 social maps 570 survival skills 574 civil society 204 close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f combat leadership role 191 psychological effects

continuous combat effects 575 psychiatric casualties 575 trauma situations close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f death statistics 282t economic factors 236–248, 635–646 arms races 639 casualty-cost analysis 556 conflict resolution 636 conversion impacts 637 as economic behavior 242 economic sanctions 644 economic theories heterodox perspectives 243 mainstream perspectives 243–244 monopoly capital school 243 negative–sum game theory 244 rational decisions versus irrational violence 243 equitable resource distribution 638 as evolutionary strategy 242 feedback systems 645 general discussion 237–238 military spending 637 nuclear weapons 640 peace studies 644–645 United Nations financial support 642 peace-building processes 640 economics factors 629–635 casualty-cost analysis 633 classifications 629, 630t cost of war 630f, 633 direct effects 629, 630t external cost 630t indirect effects 629, 630t internal cost 630t macroeconomic analysis 631 microeconomic analysis 629 military spending 631 resource transfer effects 632 as evolutionary strategy 242 goals and motives 138–139, 159 guerilla warfare 346–358 basic concepts 346 civilian casualties 569 civil society 205 counterinsurgency tactics 348 future directions 357 historical conflicts 348 Afghanistan 356 Algerian insurgency 356 American Civil War 349 Boer War 350 Chechen uprising 357 Chinese revolutions 352 Cuban revolution 353 French Indochina 354 Greek Communist insurgency 351 Malaysian insurgency 353 Philippine uprising 350 Spanish uprising 349 trends 228–229, 232–233 Vende’e uprising 348 Vietnam War 355 linguistic factors 671 low-intensity warfare 556 gunpowder warfare 191, 194–195 health consequences 548–558 casualty-cost analysis 556 casualty data collection 551, 551t children 557, 568–580 general discussion 549 healthcare/health services 558–568 budget impacts 562 community involvement 563 equipment and supply disruptions 562 general discussion 559 health policy formation 563 human resources 562

infrastructure destruction 561 positive impacts 565 postconflict challenges 566 service activities 561 service availability 560 tracer conditions 559 historical background 549 long-term effects 557 mental health issues 550, 560 methodological issues 551 physical health issues 554 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 550 refugees 553, 553t, 557 socioeconomic consequences 555 twentieth century casualties 227f, 552 war classifications civil wars 555 dirty wars 555 general discussion 549 international warfare 555 low-intensity warfare 556 terrorism 555 women 557 historical background capitalism 240 continual war 239 early agricultural societies 238 general discussion 237–238 hunter–gatherer societies 238 nation–states 240 pastoral nomadic societies 239 pre–agricultural societies 238 industrialized warfare technological impact 117, 145, 212, 216–217 information age warfare 232 interstate wars US-Soviet involvement 228 irregular wars 229, 233 linguistic factors 670–682 general discussion 670 language of peace general discussion 678 negative peace 678 positive peace 679 language of war euphemisms/manipulation 674 general discussion 673–674 jargon 674 legitimacy 676 metaphors 675 propaganda campaigns 675 totalitarianism 678 warist discourse 670 perception and behavior characteristics of war 671 general discussion 671 influencing factors 671 warist discourse 670 sociocultural factors general discussion 672 linguistic nonviolence 673, 679 linguistic violence 672 massacres 287 mass media 667, 720 military culture 209–222 background information 221 ceremonies and etiquette 213 change patterns 216 civilian society civilian response 221 general discussion 220 military representations 220 collective memories 218–219 cross–national studies 209–210 discipline group discipline 211 importance 211 individual discipline 211 social controls and punishments 211 education and training 145, 212–213, 217 esprit de corps/cohesion 214

Subject Index

esprit de corps/cohesion 139, 144–145 folkloric expressions 183 gender studies 165, 220 historical research 209 industrialization 212, 216–217 leadership training 212 marching chants 184 professional ethos 212 prostitution 165 social class 145 sociopolitical trends 219 technological impact 212, 216, 549 violence against women 361 military organizations battle tactics 158 characteristics 158 composition 157 fraternal interest groups 158 function 158 general discussion 158 goals and motives 159 modern warfare technological impact casualty rates 227, 227f, 551 high-tech warfare 232–233 industrialization 117, 145, 212, 216–217, 226–227 network-centric warfare (NCW) 232, 234f nationalism technological impact high-tech warfare 232–233 theoretical perspectives post–Cold War 207 post-World War II era 227 preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327 socioeconomic dynamics general discussion 244 group commitment 244 loyalty 245 modern societies 245 suicidal behaviors compassionate–bellicose nation comparisons 607 decline explanations 607 German concentration/extermination camps 606 rate declines 606 tactics and strategies battle tactics 158 health consequences 549–550 technological impact historical background 226 twentieth century casualties 226, 227, 552 total war civil society 205 linguistic factors 678 trends 226 trends 225–236 changing patterns 225–226 Cold War termination 230 contemporary trends high-tech warfare 232–233 information age warfare 232 irregular wars 233 network-centric warfare (NCW) 232, 234f suicidal terrorism 234–235 democratization 230 future trends emerging technologies 235 general discussion 235 nonstate militias 235 nuclear proliferation 235 superterrorism 235 globalization processes 230 irregular wars 233 legal constraints 231 nuclear weapons 227 prevention measures 230, 233f total war 226 tribal conflict 153–161

basic concepts 154, 155f battle tactics 158 casual factors 155–156 fraternal interest groups 154, 158 general discussion 158 military organizations characteristics 158 composition 157 function 158 society typology bands 155 sociocultural factors 155 tribes 155 typology 159 women 358–370 contemporary issues collective organizing tactics 367 essentialism–difference debate 366 military service 367 motherhood–war relationship 367 direct casualties 359 domestic violence 362 economic losses 363 environmental destruction 363 general discussion 359 geographic displacement 360 health consequences 557 loss of family 362 militarism–patriarchy connection 369 military production workers 365 military service general discussion 220, 365 military spending 363, 364t mourning 365 patriotism and nationalism 365 prostitution 361 rape 165, 361 research areas mobilization strategies 368 peacetime–wartime connections 368 policymaking contributions 368 response factors 368 survival and rebuilding efforts 368 resistance efforts 366 survival and rebuilding efforts 366, 368 see also Violence; Just wars; Revolutions; Weapons World War I 261, 262 Warist discourse 670 War neurosis 456–457 Warriors 137–146 Amazons 137 centralized polities chiefdoms characteristics 143 ritual preparations 144 trophies 144 states 144–145 characteristics 137 chiefdoms characteristics 143 general discussion 143 military culture 209 military organizations battle tactics 158 characteristics 158 composition 157 fraternal interest groups 158 function 158 general discussion 158 goals and motives 159 peace culture 817–818 tribal warriors general discussion 138 honors and achievements 140, 141f, 159 ritual preparations 142 social status 139 training 139–140 trophies 141–142, 159 warrior associations 142–143 warrior societies 138

885

Warsaw Pact nuclear weapon strategies 227 post-World War II era 227, 280 War stress, former Yugoslavia 468–472 health effects of 469 incidence 469–470, 470f infectious disease incidences 469–470 ischemic heart disease 470–471 mortality 470 pregnancy and prenatal development 470, 471f suicide 471, 472f historical and political background 468 migrations, ethnic cleansing and social impact 469 social behavior and violence, effects of 471 stress-induced consequence of 468 Wartime humor 182–183 War veterans adjustment problems, postwar 456, 457 combat fatigue 456–457 PTSD see Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research studies 460 shell shock see Combat fatigue (shell shock) Vietnam War see Vietnam War veterans Yom Kippur and Lebanon wars, combat stress reaction 464 see also Veterans, military Washington Treaty (1922) 307 Water pollution 363, 845 Watson, John Broadhus 7 Weapons economic factors economic impact 637 economics factors macroeconomic analysis 631 evolutionary development 186–199 domestic violence acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome (AVIDS) 198 general discussion 195 international violent crime rate 197, 197t medical lifesaving technology 196t, 197 weapon lethality 195 weapons effectiveness 195, 196t future directions 198 general discussion 187 medical lifesaving technology 196t, 197 overcoming human physical limitations distance requirements 188 general discussion 187 mobility requirements 188 physical force requirements 187 protection requirements 188 psychological weapons close-range interpersonal aggression 190, 190f combat leadership 191 crew-served weapons 191 distance requirements 190, 190f general discussion 188 group dynamics 191 mobility advantages 190 operant conditioning 192, 195 posturing 189 resistance to killing 189 weapons effectiveness 195, 196t weapon survey chariots 192 general discussion 192 mounted knights 194 operant conditioning 195 phalanx 193 projectile weapons 194 Roman system 193 weapon effects aggressive behaviors 88 technological impact 216, 226, 552 weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) linguistic factors 676 preventive/preemptive war theory 326–327

886

Subject Index

Weber, Max nation–state evolution 239 social order perspectives 43, 122–123 West Nile virus 420 White populations gang involvement 148 Wilson, EO 172 Wilson, E.O. 7 Wilsonia citrina 70 Wilson, Woodrow peace settlements 263–268 Win-win solutions 636 Witchcraft 30–31, 786t Witch trials 400–401, 403 Wola culture 31 Wolf-language 681 Wolpe, J. 592 Women ecofeminism 166, 169t peace studies communication styles 167 conflict resolution/mediation 166, 169t domestic violence 164, 169t ecofeminism 166, 169t equality versus difference debate 162–163 general discussion 166 nonviolence roles 167, 169t peace movement organizations 168, 169t women’s culture basic concepts 814 contributions 815 global peace services 817 networking 817 peace colonies 817 peace education movement 816 peace journeys 816 women’s cultures resistance efforts 366 risk-taking aversion 25 social change 169t social identity theory 43 violence against women patriarchal systems 165 rape genocide 165, 299 institutionalized violence 115–116 male privilege 164 marital rape 36 wartime experiences 36, 165 social identity theory 43 see also Domestic violence wartime impacts 358–370 contemporary issues collective organizing tactics 367 essentialism–difference debate 366 military service 367 motherhood–war relationship 367 direct casualties 359 domestic violence 362 economic losses 363 environmental destruction 363 general discussion 359 geographic displacement 360, 572, 577 health consequences 557 loss of family 362 militarism–patriarchy connection 369 military production workers 365 military service general discussion 220, 365 military spending 363, 364t mourning 365 patriotism and nationalism 365 prostitution 361

rape 361 research areas mobilization strategies 368 peacetime–wartime connections 368 policymaking contributions 368 response factors 368 survival and rebuilding efforts 368 resistance efforts 366 survival and rebuilding efforts 366, 368 Women In Black 169 Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF) 168–169 Women’s rights movement 815 Women/women’s studies see Feminism; Gender studies Working classes see Capitalism; Class conflict; Poverty World Bank health policy formation 564–565 World Conference on Human Rights (1993) 129–130 World Council of Churches (WCC) 542, 813 World Court see International Court of Justice (ICJ) World Health Organization (WHO) biological weapons 415 health policy formation 564 war-related health consequences 363 World Medical Association 530 World Medical Association’s Tokyo Declaration, definition 517 World Peace Society 681 World Psychiatric Association 530 World Trade Center see September 11 terrorist attacks World Trade center disaster see 9/11 World Treasury concept 642 World War I 256–269 characteristics aircraft 260–261 atrocities 262 gas warfare 260 tank warfare 260 trench warfare 222, 260 war crimes 262 chemical warfare 303, 304–305 chemical weapons 307 course of events 262, 264t global participants 262, 264t historical research 257 home front experiences 261, 264t inflation 631 peace settlements 263 protagonists Austro-Hungarian Empire 258 Czarist Russia 259 France 259 Imperial Germany 258 United Kingdom 258 United States 259 wartime casualties 227f sociological perspective 122–123 technological developments 552 war crimes 262 wartime casualties 551t war veterans 221 World War II 269–281 aftermath 280 atrocities 95 Axis powers defeat and surrender 278 expansion efforts 272 losses and turning points 275 biological weapons 312

chemical weapons 307 civilian casualties 552, 553 economic factors 276 massacres 278, 287 nuclear weapons 280, 552 origins 269 Pacific Theater 275 propaganda campaigns 277 psychiatric casualties 575 technological impact 226, 552 wartime casualties 227, 227f, 551t World War II, prisoners of war 508 cognitive impairment 505 psychiatric morbidity 506 Worry 581 Wright, Quincy 173

X Xenobiotics use in Gulf War 488 Xiphophorus helleri 72

Y Yanomamo¨ culture anthropological research 33, 34 conflict strategies 696 human rights issues 546 reproduction competition 24 response to conquest 510 sociocultural factors 693 Yellow ribbon displays 183 Yemen civil wars 253 Yom Kippur war combat stress reaction 464 definition 463 Youth violence gang involvement urban gangs 148 wartime impacts 575 see also Juvenile crime Yugoslavia democide 288t ethnic cleansing 233, 299, 361 healthcare/health services 561, 562 World War II 274 see also Bosnia–Herzegovina; Croatia; Serbia Yugoslavia, war stress see War stress, former Yugoslavia Yukaghir culture 697

Z Zapotec culture conflict strategies 696 low aggression levels 698 psycho-cultural conflict management mechanisms 786t socialization 791 Zero-sum games 42 Zimbabwe folkloric expressions 183–184 Zionism 401–402 definition 391 Zone of proximal development 570 Zones of active conflict 381 Zones of peace 820 Zulu warriors 144–145