Gangs, Violence, and the Redivision of Space in Chicago

John Hagedorn, Criminal Justice, University of Illinois, Chicago

Research Grant, 2002

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Recent declines in homicide in Chicago have been seen as similar to earlier declines in New York City and Los Angeles. Popular explanations that policing strategies largely explain variation in rates of violence have been skeptically greeted by criminologists. However, no plausible explanation for persisting high rates of homicide in some cities and very low rates in others has been credibly presented. One reason for this may be the narrowness of criminological investigations. Explanations for violence internationally have included human rights, housing, and economic development among other variables. This essay presents data from a study on homicide in Chicago and supplements criminological thinking on homicide by adding insights from urban and globalization research.

This essay presents data from a study on homicide in Chicago and supplements criminological thinking on homicide by adding insights from urban and globalization research.

Bibliography

1. Hagedorn, John and Rauch, Brigid. "Housing, Gangs, and Homicide: What We can Learn from Chicago."Urban Affairs Review 42:4 (March 2007): 435- 456.

2. Hagedorn, John (ed.). Gangs and the Global City: Alternatives to Traditional Criminology. University of Illinois Press, 2006.

3. Hagedorn, John. A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men and Gangsta Rap Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

The Kayapo Conjuncture: An Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance with International Civil Society Against Violence and Rights Abuse by the State and National Security

Terence Turner, Anthropology, University of Chicago

Research Grant, 1997, 1999

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The 1990s brought an intensification of efforts to extract the natural resources of the Amazon (mining, especially of gold; logging of tropical hardwoods; the clearing and burning of large tracts of forest by agribusiness and cattle ranching interests; big highway construction projects that brought uncontrolled influxes of settlers and further deforestation; and vast hydroelectric dam schemes that threatened to destroy fisheries and flood huge areas) that were fostered by the Brazilian state, whose developmentalist policies were driven in large part by pressure from global financial institutions and foreign governments to reduce Brazil’s huge debt and trade deficit. Standing in the path of these projects were scattered indigenous peoples and communities of regional Brazilian settlers. These groups were unorganized, poor, and in many cases relatively unacculturated. To most observers, they seemed about to be overwhelmed and pushed off their land, as their forest habitat was burned around them and their rivers dammed and polluted by mining operations.

The performance and achievements of the Kayapo and the conjuncture of forces of which they were able to make themselves the focus during this period was nothing short of spectacular.

As an anthropologist who had been studying one of the most important indigenous Amazonian peoples, the Kayapo, since 1962, it seemed to me that the prophecies of doom were premature. I had observed that beginning in the mid-1970s, the Kayapo had been taking the measure of the threats to their ecosystem and the survival of their communities and culture, and acquiring the resources and contacts to confront and deflect or defeat them. I thought that chronicling and analyzing their struggles in the climactic decade of the mid-90s to mid-2000s might have general implications for the conventional wisdom of developmentalist theory, anthropological and political science treatments of the relation of marginal and ‘weak’ populations and ethnic groups to globalization and state-sponsored development, and might also serve as an example for other indigenous and regional settler groups contending with the same forces. In a number of field trips made possible by the grant, I was able to document, and to a considerable extent theorize, the processes through which the Kayapo were able to transform their own social and political structure to form a united front to regain control of their extensive traditional territory, make a series of interethnic alliances with other indigenous and Brazilian settler groups, attract the support of national and international civil society (in the form of nongovernmental organizations devoted to environmental conservation, human rights, and indigenous support), and important sectors of the Brazilian state itself (such as the judicial system, parts of the federal bureaucracy, and elected members of the national congress) as well as important coverage in the media and the scientific and academic establishment. This was the conjuncture I proposed to study: I was fortunate that so much of it developed and exerted its effects in the period supported by the grant. The performance and achievements of the Kayapo and the conjuncture of forces of which they were able to make themselves the focus during this period was nothing short of spectacular, and has continued to be so down to the time of this writing. I believe that the account of their achievements and the analysis of the factors and processes that have made them possible that I have been able to work out and publish with the support of the grant have had (at least to some extent) the more general effects on developmentalist thinking and anthropological theory for which I hoped.

In all, the research made possible by the grant has directly or indirectly produced twenty published articles and reports, and either directly supported or laid the foundation for nine trips to Kayapo communities, or in a couple of cases to the offices and archives of Brazilian governmental and nongovernmental agencies concerned with the Kayapo, located in Brasilia and Sao Paulo. A selected list of articles follows, including a recently published piece which although it is later than the period covered by the grant does draw together most of the main issues addressed by the research.

Bibliography

1. Turner, Terence. "Extrativismo mineral por e para comunidades indígenas da Amazônia: a experiência entre os Waiãpi do Amapá e os Kaiapó do sul do Pará" [Mineral extraction by and for indigenous Amazonian Communities: Gold Mining by the Wayampi and Kayapo]. Cadernos do Campo, Sao Paulo, (1998).

2. Turner, Terence. "Indigenous and culturalist movements in the contemporary global conjuncture." In Francisco F. Del Riego, Marcial G. Portasany, Terence Turner, Josep R. Llobera, Isodoro Moreno, and James W. Fernandez. Las identidades y las tensiones culturales de modernidad,1999.

3. Turner, Terence. "Indigenous rights, environmental protection and the struggle over forest resources in the Amazon: the case of the Brazilian Kayapo." In Jill Conway, Kenneth Keniston, and Leo Marx, eds., Earth, air, fire and water: the humanities and the environment, 2000.

4. Turner, Terence and Fajans-Turner, Vanessa. "Political innovation and inter-ethnic alliance: Kayapo resistance to the developmentalist state." Anthropology Today 22(5) (2006):3-10.

Violent Street Groups and Organized Crime in Russia

Svetlana Stephenson, International Comparative Sociology, London Metropolitan University

Research Grant, 2005, 2006

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Youth violence remains a stark problem in many Russian cities, as does the presence of organized criminal gangs. Do violent practices serve to “embed” young people in criminality and facilitate their transition to membership in organized criminal groups, or are they just a feature of male street socialization? Can violence come to be regulated from below in the course of group transformation and change in the economic and political climate?

To answer these questions, I, together with my Russian collaborators, conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups with young people who were members of violent territorial street groups in two major Russian cities, Kazan and Moscow, as well as with representatives of the local police, youth workers, teachers and parents.

Do violent practices serve to "embed" young people in criminality and facilitate their transition to membership in organized criminal groups, or are they just a feature of male street socialization? 

This research revealed substantial differences in the social organization of street youth in these cities and the aspirations of their members. Most of the Kazan gangs are entrepreneurial gangs, whose members tend to graduate into organized criminal groups when they grow older. These groups have developed a sophisticated system of regulation of violence, which has allowed them to reap substantial economic benefits through racketeering and informal control of the local businesses. Their domination over nongang young people and small businessmen, who are forced to pay their “dues,” is based upon the use of verbal and physical violence and effective construction of their groups as the street elite. The violent practices have changed over time. At the end of the 1980s the gangs battled for the local supremacy, and this created high levels of violence. But, as they have demarcated their borders and created stable structures of authority and command, levels of violence have subsided. Eruptions of uncontrolled violence are now an obstacle to the gangs’ business aims, and the gangs try to limit fights and conflict on their territory. They have also developed mutually beneficial connections with representatives of the local police, which also acts to limit the violence. As the economic and political situation in Russia has stabilized, the gang members increasingly aspire to careers in mainstream society, combined with participation in organized crime networks.

The situation in Moscow is different. In this economically prosperous and socially diverse city, more or less stable territorial groups emerge only at the outskirts of the city. As in Kazan, young people have also developed their strategies of territorial domination, which include the harassment of nongang young people and representatives of ethnic and sexual minorities. But they tend not to engage in racketeering and other violent entrepreneurial activities to the same extent. The majority of the members of street groups see their membership as a necessary stage in their masculine socialization. They learn to create a powerful physical presence on the street, develop the skills of verbal domination and accumulate the knowledge of norms and rituals associated with cultural perceptions of dominant masculinity. For only a minority of them are street violence and crime steps towards affiliation into the structures of organized crime. This is also true for some homeless young men, who form their own street groups. They aspire to join organized crime, which they see as the only realistic way out of homelessness, and which can guarantee them some stability and social membership. Violence at the outskirts of Moscow is highly ritualized, and it bears the traditions of the Russian village fights, with their prohibitions of attacks against women and children and a specific street “code” of fighting.

Bibliography

1. Stephenson, S. "Kazanskii Leviathan: Molodyozhnie Territorialnie Gruppirovki i Problema Sotsialnogo Poriadka" [The Kazan Leviathan: Youth Territorial Gangs and the Problem of Social Order]. Otechestvennie Zapiski 30.3 (2006): 97-110.

2. Stephenson, S. "Rebiata s Nashego Dvora. Podrostkovo-molodyozhnie gruppirovki v Moskve" [The guys from our courtyard. Youth groups in Moscow]. Ethnograficheskie Obozrenie. (Forthcoming)

3. Two English-language papers are being written.
   

Strategic Observers Underground: How They See Trouble and What They Do Next

Harvey Molotch, Sociology, New York University

Research Grant, 2005

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Following Jane Jacobs’s observations of the role of “public characters” as a mechanism for heading off city crime and street violence, we asked just how such individuals actually do their work of keeping the peace. We interviewed seventy New York City subway workers and directly observed at worksites. While not an official part of the security apparatus, such individuals—”strategic observers” in our parlance—link local scenes with more distant authority structures. Through the lens of exigencies in the work setting and anticipated organizational reaction, we asked how noticing occurs and the range of actions workers take.

Workers develop acute familiarities with their work environments—even through areas they just pass by in work tasks. In managing danger in their workplace (on trains and in stations), they respond to emergent conditions with a high degree of inventiveness, while also dealing with official organizational rules. Conductors, for example, must hold their eyes on certain prescribed spots on platforms, as per subway regulations. They do so unfailingly, our observations suggest. But they also, in the context of that constraint, inspect platforms and trains for troubles. This more informal search follows past experience (and stories from other workers) that inform them of a particular repertoire of problems likely to evolve—e.g. drunks bothering other passengers, potential suicides, rowdy teenagers crowding turnstiles in a dangerous way. Workers evaluate what they see and what they should see through these twin lenses—those of formal requirements and those of routine troubles.

Through the lens of exigencies in the work setting and anticipated organizational reaction, we asked how noticing occurs and the range of actions workers take.

Subway workers tend to operate in isolation, both from one another and also from supervisors. Although they do sometimes call for help (from police via supervisors), they do so sparingly. If they consistently called for outside help, they would overwhelm the helping system and also risk holding up the trains. There are also specific perverse incentives. Workers do not want to risk sanction for unrelated misdeeds, like wearing an unauthorized clothing item that responding authorities discover on their person. Nor do they want to risk being late getting home by having to fill in a special report. They strive to call in authorities in ways that do not interfere with the running of the trains or accomplishing other needs, some related to their personal safety and some to their job enhancement.

Linked into accomplishing all such goals is creative manipulation of workplace equipment and infrastructure, including such items as train doors, horns, and braking tools. Whatever the designated official function, workers repurpose physical equipment to protect their own bodies and to discipline unruly passengers or prod people toward appropriate behaviors.

Our findings suggest that “public characters” are linked into complex organizational contexts which structure how they see, how they evaluate, and what they do next. These contexts vary, in ways we indicate, in how they enable informal vigilance in the production of public peace and the functioning of urban infrastructure.

Bibliography

1. Molotch, Harvey and Mcclain, Noah. "Things at Work: Informal social-material mechanisms for getting the job done." Journal of Consumer Culture 8.1 (2008): 35-67.

Social Violence and Religious Conflict in Late Medieval Valencia

Mark D. Meyerson, History and Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

Research Grant, 2003

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My HFG-supported project explores violence within the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities of the kingdom of Valencia (Spain) as well as violence between these communities in order to shed new light on the transformation of Spain between 1300 and 1600 from a land of three religions into one uniformly Catholic. I focus on the kingdom of Valencia because it had the largest Muslim population in Christian Spain and a substantial Jewish population. I regard its history as paradigmatic for developments elsewhere in medieval and early modern Iberia. The archival sources for the Valencian regional history, moreover, are especially rich. This project is largely based on the records of various tribunals: criminal justice, bailiff general, governor, Royal Audience, and Spanish Inquisition.

Methodologically, the project is in many respects a form of anthropological history. Viewing violence as integral and specific to particular cultures and as a form of social discourse, I am interested in analyzing the forms, rituals, and meanings of verbal and physical violence perpetrated within each religious community. The practice and control of violence in each community were distinct, as a result of particular kinship structures, economic pursuits and competition, relationship with the authorities of the Christian state, and, of course, historical experience. While this anthropological approach is intrinsically valuable for interpreting the violent behaviors of medieval Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and thus for providing a new understanding of their mentalities, the project’s comparative dimension elucidates the differential acculturation of Muslims and Jews to the dominant Christian culture. Among the Christians, for example, the ritual of “assaulting the house” of one’s (Christian) enemy as a means of dishonoring him or her, was widely performed. (This involved several armed males bursting through the doors of a rival’s house—understood metaphorically as a woman’s body—beating up, in a controlled fashion, the men or women within, and sometimes scarring a woman’s face.) I found that Jews engaged in such household assaults when feuding with coreligionists, and that, for various reasons, Jewish forms of violent status competition came increasingly to resemble those of Christians. The conquered Muslims, in contrast, perpetuated modes of feuding with their own rites of violence and manhood, which were understood to be peculiarly “Moorish.” Hence they did not perform household assaults in the Christian manner, though they did violate an enemy’s domestic space in other meaningful ways (e.g., the abduction of unmarried girls).

Their status anxiety was fed by the authorities' public criticism of them for shameful and un-Christian mingling with Jews and Muslims; they resolved it, I argue, through collective and cathartic violence against the other religious communities.

In exploring the intensity of violence among Christians, especially among the laboring-class Christians who composed the mobs that attacked Jews and Muslims, this study shows that Christians suffered from a high degree of status anxiety, which they expressed in their punctiliousness about questions of “honor.” Their status anxiety was fed by the authorities’ public criticism of them for shameful and un-Christian mingling with Jews and Muslims; they resolved it, I argue, through collective and cathartic violence against the other religious communities. I regard the choice of baptism or death that Christians offered their Muslim and Jewish victims as an expression of the ambivalence with which they viewed them. Finally, by examining the violent practices and feuds of baptized Jews (Conversos) and of baptized Muslims (Moriscos), I show that the Conversos were increasingly contesting honor and status with Old Christians and thus assimilating, whereas Moriscos persistently directed their violence mostly at members of their own ethnic group and thus paradoxically enhanced Morisco distinctiveness and resistance to assimilation. In other words, by viewing violence as integral to and constitutive of culture, I am able to show, at least in part, how and why Muslims and Jews, and later Moriscos and Conversos, followed such different paths in regard to Christian society and culture, and why Spain took the shape it took over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Bibliography

1. Meyerson, Mark. Of Bloodshed and Baptism: Social Violence, Religious Conflict, and the Transformation of Spain. forthcoming.

2. Meyerson, Mark. "The Murder of Pau de Sant Martí: Jews, Conversos, and the Feud in Fifteenth-Century Valencia," In "A Great Effusion of Blood"? Interpreting Medieval Violence. ed. O. Falk, M.D. Meyerson, D. Thiery. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

Neuroendocrine Consequences of Dominance and Subordination

Randall R. Sakai, Biology, University of Pennsylvania

Research Grant, 1997

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The visible burrow system (VBS) provides a unique model for studying complex behaviors in rat social groups in a seminaturalistic environment. In this setting, dominance is associated with the expression of species-typical aggressive behaviors. The studies in our proposal allowed us to explore the basis of these behaviors at levels not feasible or ethically permissible in human subjects. Specifically, we have assessed multiple behavioral, physiological, chemical, and neurological parameters in rats before, during and after they live in the VBS and experience hierarchy formation. Our studies are designed to discover specific neurochemical and hormonal signaling pathways linked to both dominant and subordinate behaviors. Once these correlates are identified, it is our long-term goal to then develop and use experimental interventions in an attempt to modify offensive/aggressive behaviors of dominants and defensive behaviors of dominant and subordinates. In addition to novel insights into the biochemical basis of aggressive behavior, these studies should provide us with a wealth of new and important information on the physiological consequences of prolonged exposure to subordination, a stressor that is of particular relevance to humans. Because this kind of psychological stress has been associated with an increased incidence of both mental and somatic illnesses, a greater understanding of the neurochemical and endocrine correlates and consequences of stress should lead to more effective therapeutic approaches to stress-related disorders.

Using a visible burrow system to investigate social interactions, we have found that subordinate status is positively correlated with plasma stress hormone levels but negatively correlated with plasma androgen levels.

Our recent studies using the VBS have documented behaviors in the subordinate rats that include reduced social, sexual and aggressive activity, changes in sleep cycles, and weight loss associated with lower food intake. This spectrum of behaviors is characteristic of human symptoms of chronic subordination, loss of job and job security, and clinical depression. This experimental preparation therefore provides an important and unique animal model for the analysis of the behavioral, neuroendocrine, and neurochemical changes that accompany the process of becoming subordinate as well as those involved with the development of dominance.

Using a visible burrow system to investigate social interactions, we have found that subordinate status is positively correlated with plasma stress hormone levels but negatively correlated with plasma androgen levels. We have also determined that a significant subset of subordinate animals become nonresponsive to novel stressors. These findings are consonant with what has been reported for humans living under conditions of chronic stress situations. We have therefore begun to investigate possible neural correlates of the subordinate state, and have recently found that animals living in the visible burrow system have changes in neuron morphology. These data are important for several reasons. First, altered neuron morphology is indicative of chronically altered neuronal activity and connectivity. Second, the brain region in which we have found these changes, the hippocampus, is known to be involved in responding to and learning about emotional situations. Finally, the data are consistent with what has been reported using different models of experimental stress. Of primary interest to us is that when the data were analyzed by social status, the dominant animals were observed to have the greatest degree of neuronal remodeling, with the subordinate animals having significantly less. This key finding suggests that the reports of neuronal restructuring that have been observed in other experimental models may in fact reflect different underlying endocrine and neurochemical mechanisms. It further suggests that a more sophisticated animal model, such as the visible burrow system, will be necessary for uncovering and ultimately understanding the complex changes that occur in the brain when individuals are stressed in naturalistic ways. At this point, it is unclear if the changes observed are harmful to the animal in and of themselves, especially since it is the dominant animals that display the greatest neuronal change. Our studies continue to build upon our previous research by determining whether these social stress–induced changes in the brain are reversible or not, and whether changes in neurogenesis or neurodegeneration may produce pathological situations to these animals.

Political Violence, Military Conflict and Civil Unrest in Palestine: The Palestinian Police, the Fatah Tanzim and the “Al-Aqsa Intifada”

Nur Masalha, Political History of the Middle East, Saint Mary's University of Surrey

Research Grant, 2002, 2003

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This research project was originally undertaken with the aim of examining the roles played by the military and civilian police forces of the Palestinian Authority, and the popular militias (in particular the Fatah Tanzim), during the current uprising (“Al-Aqsa Intifada”) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was particularly intended to focus on the likely future trajectories of these organizations, the factors determining the dynamics between them, and the various options for their future evolution. The project outlined a number of research objectives relating both to the Palestinian police and to the popular militias and raised a number of hypotheses about the relationship between these forces; between these forces and the Palestinian Authority; and between these forces and the local population.

The research began by examining the pre–Al-Aqsa Intifada period, focusing on the post-1993 state formation in Palestine and the roles played by the Palestinian Police and Security Forces in the pre-Intifada period between 1994 and September 2000. The work then proceeded to examine the causes for outbreak and subsequent militarization of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the rise of the Fatah Tanzim, and the emergence of the Palestinian popular militias in 2001 and 2002.

During the course of the research, the situation in Palestine changed dramatically. Throughout 2002 and 2003, the project continued to monitor ongoing developments on the ground as they affected the research, and to modify the goals accordingly. Despite the deteriorating security situation in Palestine, which made visits to many parts of the country difficult, field trips to Jerusalem, Ramallah. and Bethlehem were extremely useful in conducting interviews and collecting primary and secondary material in Arabic and Hebrew.

The police as an institution engaged in very little armed resistance. Most of the resistance put up by the Palestinian population was led by the militias (Fatah Tanzim, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad).

Of particular importance was the strategy demonstrated by the Israeli government under Ariel Sharon, of semipermanent military reoccupation of the West Bank, which seemed to be aimed at the very destruction of the Palestinian Authority itself. The research attempted to measure and assess the effect of the ongoing reoccupation on the ability to respond of the Palestinian security forces and the militias, and concluded that the Israeli assault on the official Palestine Police (the destruction of police stations and police facilities throughout the occupied territories), contributed to the rise of the popular militias and armed units, including those of the Fatah Tanzim, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade and militant Islamic organizations (including Hamas and Islamic Jihad).

During its reoccupation of the West Bank, the Israeli army targeted the security organizations of the Palestinian Authority, particularly the police, and police posts and police stations were repeatedly destroyed and the police killed or arrested in very large numbers. The police as an institution engaged in very little armed resistance. Most of the resistance put up by the Palestinian population was led by the militias (Fatah Tanzim, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad).

The decreasing ability of the Palestinian Authority to function, on the security or any other level, resulted from the Sharon government’s underlying strategy of preventing the emergence of a viable Palestinian state. This in turn led to the development of a degree of skepticism among the Palestinian population about the Palestinian Authority’s future and the future of the two-state solution in general.

Among the specific new factors which the research identified as key are the following:

a) the tendency of the popular Palestinian militias to look to the example of the Lebanese Hizbullah and its tactics in confronting the Israeli army in south Lebanon;
b) the rise in levels of support for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade among the population;
c) the close collaboration and a certain degree of merging between Islamist and nationalist forces and between these groups and the official police;
d) the occasional adoption by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, which had a secular nationalist tendency, of the tactic of suicide attacks which had hitherto been confined to Islamic groups;
e) evidence of an increasing traumatization of Palestinian society (see points d and f.);
f) the participation of Palestinian women in armed attacks in both secular nationalist and Islamist armed groups, including in suicide attacks;
g) the serious implications of the Brigade’s activities in terms of undermining the Palestinian Authority.

Competitive and Cooperative Behaviors among Forest Elephants in the Presence of a Limited Resource

Katy Payne, Bioacoustics, Cornell University

Research Grant, 2001, 2002

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In early 2002, ELP (the Elephant Listening Project) collected data on the behavior of forest elephants in the Central African Republic’s Dzanga National Park. The field site is a large, mineral-rich clearing in the equatorial rainforest; it is a unique center of forest elephant concentration and also the site of much competition. This fact in combination with team member Andrea Turkalo’s ability to recognize roughly 80 percent of the estimated three thousand elephants individually (the result of her twelve-year research project here), made Dzanga an ideal place for a detailed study of dominance and aggression in elephants.

ELP conducted focal surveys to measure the incidence and intensity of aggressive interactions among elephants in a particular (“focal”) area of the clearing that contained preferred drinking pits and was thus the site of easily defined competition. In twenty-three focal surveys, 553 aggressive interactions were documented. The same events were recorded acoustically on seven autonomous recording units surrounding the clearing. These are small, self-contained recorders capable of storing months of audio, and are time-synchronized via GPS signals. From this composite recording, elephant calls were later located on a computer-generated map. Simultaneous video recordings enabled us to attribute many located calls to the elephants who made them. This includes infrasonic calls, those calls made below the range of human hearing.

Most of the relationships revealed support the hypothesis that elephants use aggression to establish and/or maintain their place in a dominance hierarchy which can be roughly defined in terms of age/sex classes, as follows: musth males>adult males>subadult males>adult and subadult females>juveniles>infants and newborn calves. Aggressors tend to target individuals in the same or lower rank than themselves. This finding holds true both in cases of active aggression and in displacements. The latter are situations where there is no contact and no visible threat on the part of the displacer. This strongly suggests that elephants are aware of their relative status in a preestablished hierarchy, and that this awareness persists in the absence of aggression.

Overall, we found a positive correlation between the frequency of aggressive acts and the numbers of elephants in the clearing. This suggests a relationship between aggression and resource limitation and/or crowding and/or the contagion of social excitement.

The 553 aggressive acts documented in twenty-three focal surveys varied in intensity and nature. Overall, we found a positive correlation between the frequency of aggressive acts and the numbers of elephants in the clearing. This suggests a relationship between aggression and resource limitation and/or crowding and/or the contagion of social excitement.

The negative correlation between the number of displacements per survey and the ratio of adult and subadult males to other elephants in the clearing suggests that members of these dominant age/sex classes can suppress aggressive interactions by members of other less dominant age/sex classes. The presence of older males seems to provide a stabilizing force.

High-frequency calls (screams and trumpets) were correlated with aggression, all trumpets being made by aggressors and most screams by objects of aggression. Most of the screams were associated with tactile active behaviors (stabs, kicks, jousting, and shoves) and nontactile active interactions (chasing, trunk-shooing and defense of hole). It seems that high-frequency vocal responses can indicate not only the presence but also the intensity of aggressive acts.

None of the contact interactions resulted in obvious serious injuries. It is clear that dominance is quite different in nature from active aggression and violence, at times serving to abort or mediate potentially injurious interactions. In the above analyses we included a set of mildly aggressive interactions labeled as displacement. Without physical contact, these interactions appeared to reinforce elephants’ awareness of a dominance hierarchy. We postulate for forest elephants that although the cost of maintaining a rigorous dominance hierarchy includes such mildly aggressive interactions, their presence effectively precludes greater losses to the individual, family, and society.

The Dynamics of Violence in Civil War: Evaluating the Impact of Ethnicity on Violence

Stathis Kalyvas, Political Science, New York University

Research Grant, 2000, 2001

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My goal in this project was to investigate the assumption that ethnic conflict is associated with higher levels of violence compared to other forms of conflict, such as revolutionary wars. More specifically, I sought to evaluate whether and how ethnic violence in the context of a civil war is really different from nonethnic violence and estimate to what extent ethnic violence is really ethnic; for, ethnic violence is more than violence between individuals of different ethnicities.

The main obstacle in answering this question is methodological: comparing ethnic and nonethnic wars does not allow us to control for the multitude of factors that may be causing whatever differences we observe. In addition, it would be difficult to move from correlations to causal connections.

As a result, I chose to begin with a carefully designed paired comparison at the micro level, as a first step toward a broader investigation to be undertaken in the future. Having completed a microcomporative study of violence in about seventy villages of Southern Greece (the Argolid region) where the civil war took place within a homogeneous ethnic environment, I used the support of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation to conduct a study of a region in Northern Greece that was similar in many respects to the southern one, but was ethnically diverse and polarized (the Almopia region). Fieldwork involving interviews and archival research was conducted in 2000 and 2001.

Insofar as I was able to isolate an independent effect of ethnicity on violence, I found that the two were inversely related: the presence of the ethnic cleavage tended to reduce the levels of violence, by acting as a deterrent under conditions of contested control.

The goal was to find out which of the following three outcomes were supported by the data: ethnic polarization causes (a) higher levels of violence, (b) lower levels of violence, or (c) has no effect. The results support strongly the third hypothesis, while also suggesting some support for the second one. The first hypothesis was rejected. It is important to emphasize here that these findings cannot be generalized to the universe of conflict, but constitute a first step toward more rigorous empirical and theoretical work.

More specifically, I found that violence was considerably less widespread in the ethnically heterogeneous northern region than in the ethnically homogeneous southern one. This cannot be accounted for by patterns of group interaction: ethnic isolation and animosity were real; however, they did not lead to mass violence. In fact, the ethnic cleavage appears to have had little independent effect on the dynamics of violence during the civil war. Factors related to the conduct of warfare (the resources of the rival sides, the level of militarization of the conflict, and the incumbents’ ability to move the population away from mountainous terrain and close to well-defended urban centers) appear to account for the relative absence of lethal violence. Insofar as I was able to isolate an independent effect of ethnicity on violence, I found that the two were inversely related: the presence of the ethnic cleavage tended to reduce the levels of violence, by acting as a deterrent under conditions of contested control.

My research suggests that the observed or perceived relation between ethnic polarization and violence may be the result of a selection bias; as we continue to study ethnic violence, we should take much more seriously into account overlooked factors such as the type of warfare and the resources of the combatants in addition to the nature of the social and political divisions, of which ethnicity is only one.

The Middle Eastern Military as a Factor in Domestic and Regional Conflict and Violence: A Case Study of the Iranian Army

Stephanie Cronin, History, University of London

Research Grant, 1999

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The research project consisted of a case study of the political and social role played by the Iranian army in the recent history both of Iran itself and of the Persian Gulf region. Beginning with the collapse of the army following Riza Shah’s abdication in 1941, my research dealt substantively with the years of Muhammad Riza Shah’s power, and concluded with an assessment of the impact of its history on the structure of the Iranian army in the Islamic republic, its military effectiveness, and its political reliability. The project incorporated a strong comparative element and a discussion of the lessons of the Iranian experience for understanding and predicting the behavior both of the Iranian and of other Middle Eastern armies.

The case study aimed at drawing lessons from the Iranian experience regarding issues such as: under what circumstances armies decide to resort to force to influence the political arena; the impact of western military assistance; the nature and consequences of programs of weapons acquisition and the prospects for arms control; and the role played by military force, actual and potential, in regional relations.

It seems, firstly, that political tendencies within the Iranian army were always more variegated than has been assumed; that communist or Tudah party affiliations among individual officers or groups of officers were mainly significant as an expression of radical nationalism; and that elements comparable to the "Free Officers" of the Arab world may be identified in the late 1940s and '50s.

The research fell into three chronological periods: 1941–53, 1954–79, and post-1979. The first chronological period focused on the army as a factor in domestic Iranian politics and examined the interaction between army, shah and political opposition, beginning with an examination of the response of the officer corps to the deposition of its chief, Riza Shah, and the political impact on the army of the Allied invasion of 1941. The second chronological period of this research focused on the twin processes of the consolidation of Muhammad Riza Shah’s control over the army and the consolidation of his army-based regime’s control over the country. The third period examined the role played by the professional army under the Islamic Republic. The research has posited a number of conclusions, of which the most important may be summarized as follows. It seems, firstly, that political tendencies within the Iranian army were always more variegated than has been assumed; that communist or Tudah party affiliations among individual officers or groups of officers were mainly significant as an expression of radical nationalism; and that elements comparable to the “Free Officers” of the Arab world may be identified in the late 1940s and ’50s. Clearly, between 1941 and 1954, the most senior reaches of the officer corps contained individuals and groups possessing political ambitions that were independent of the shah, though not politically radical, and that the stifling of such tendencies as the shah consolidated his power was partially responsible for the army’s paralysis in 1977–9. Indeed, the measures employed by the shah to protect himself from any emerging military ambition resulted in the army’s political paralysis in 1977–9, and in its failure to generate an alternative leadership capable of replacing the shah but preserving secular nationalist rule in Iran, an idiom to which it had historically been wedded.

The research also argues that the army’s competence and effectiveness in its conventional military capacity was, and remained, problematic, and that, although Iran claimed a regional role based on military strength, this strength was largely illusory, as was demonstrated for example by the counter-insurgency operations in Dhofar in the 1970s. Furthermore it seems that considerable confusion resulted from a shift away from the army’s traditional role, of safeguarding internal security, towards regional concerns, while the regime yet continued to rely on the army to suppress domestic opposition, a task for which it was no longer being trained or equipped. The research has found that the army was a crucial vehicle for the replacement of British influence in Iran by US influence and that the shah was the most suitable candidate for facilitating the increasing US domination of the army, senior military officers themselves often wishing to distance the army from the US military missions and retain control more securely in their own hands. The “Americanization” of the army was, furthermore, one of the most important factors tarnishing the army’s nationalist credentials and ultimately discrediting the regime itself. The research has concluded that a professional army has survived the vicissitudes of revolution and war in Iran but that it has played and will continue to play a subordinate political role in the Islamic republic, and that mechanisms are in place to protect the regime from any military challenge.

Bibliography

1. Cronin, Stephanie (eds.)."Riza Shah and the Paradoxes of Military Modernizarion in Iran." The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941. New York: Routledgecurzon, 2003.

2. Cronin, Stephanie "Riza Shah and the Paradoxes of Military Modernizarion in Iran." Oriente Moderno. forthcoming.