Violence against civilians and public support for the state: The moderating role of governance and ideology
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231200926 |
| Author | Gabriella Levy |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231200926
Journal of Peace Research
2025, Vol. 62(1) 52 –67
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433231200926
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1225162JPR0010.1177/00223433231200926Journal of Peace ResearchLevy
research-article2023
Regular Article
Violence against civilians and public
support for the state: The moderating
role of governance and ideology
Gabriella Levy
Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Brown University
Abstract
When state armed forces engage in violence against civilians during civil wars, why do some citizens continue to
support the government? I argue that individuals’ support for the state in such contexts is shaped by the interplay
between their perceptions of violence, governance and ideology. Drawing on research concerning motivated
reasoning, I suggest that ideological similarity with and effective governance from the state can alleviate the
negative effect of military violence against civilians on support for the state and, conversely, augment the positive
effect of insurgent abuse on attitudes toward the government. Analysis of seven years of surveys fielded by the
Latin American Public Opinion Project in Colombia between 2005 and 2011 suggests that individuals’ responses
to victimization by the state’s armed forces depend on whether the individuals are ideologically aligned with the
state. More specifically, among people who have an ideology similar to that of the president, military victimization
has a less negative effect on support for the armed forces and for the national government. There is also mixed
evidence that the quality of state governance, particularly the provision of security from crime, shapes the ways
people respond to victimization. While existing studies primarily focus on the effects of either violence or
governance on attitudes toward the state, these findings indicate that a more complete theory of why people
support governments which engage in violence against civilians requires an understanding of not only violence but
also of governance and ideology.
Keywords
civil war, Colombia, public opinion, violence against civilians
Introduction
When state forces engage in violence against civilians
during civil wars, why do some citizens continue to sup-
port the government? There are ample examples. From
1982 to 1983, General Efraı
´n Rı
´os Montt led a period of
the Guatemalan civil war in which the state killed 75,000
of its citizens, many of whom were indigenous. Yet, in
1999, in a newly democratic Guatemala, 45% of victims
of state violence and 59% of indigenous Guatemalans
had favorable views of Montt (Bateson, 2021). Similarly,
although the government of Colombia’s former presi-
dent, A
´lvaro Uribe, engaged in egregious abuses of civi-
lians, almost 70% of Colombians had confidence in him
close to the end of his presidency (Rodriguez Raga &
Seligson, 2011). In fact, 33% of victims of state violence
had confidence in him, as did 72% of victims of pro-state
paramilitary violence.
This is puzzling, because civilians threatened by vio-
lence against civilians turn against armed actors which
employ it (e.g. Wood, 2003; Kalyvas & Kocher, 2007).
1
Even among populations which are not targeted, vio-
lence against civilians can depress support for the use
of force (e.g. Johns & Davies, 2019; Dill & Schubiger,
Corresponding author:
gabriella_levy@brown.edu
1
Violence against civilians can be indiscriminate, collective or
selective, but in this project I do not differentiate between forms of
targeting.
Levy 53
2021; Dill, Sagan & Valentino, 2022). Indeed, people
evaluate civilian targeting as unethical (Levy, 2022). In
other words, there is a strong norm against violence
against civilians.
Prior literature offers several reasons why people may
not oppose the government even when it engages in
violence against civilians. The state could provide devel-
opment, aid, or goods and services (e.g. Berman et al.,
2013; Mikulaschek, Pant & Tesfaye, 2020). Alterna-
tively, individuals could identify with the state; people
respond less negatively to civilian targeting when they are
religiously, ethnically or nationally aligned with the per-
petrator (Condra & Shapiro, 2012; Lyall, Blair & Imai,
2013; Silverman, 2019). These studies primarily focus
on the relationship between public attitudes and either
violence or governance. In contrast, I consider how gov-
ernance, identity and violence interact to shape public
opinion toward the state in conflict. I examine how
people reconcile military abuse with receiving effective
governance from the state or identifying with it ideolo-
gically, and I study how paramilitary and rebel violence
against civilians affects support for the state.
I conceive of support for the state as attitudinal and
continuous, meaning that someone can moderately sup-
port the state but not have a positive attitude toward it.
I argue that support for the state is shaped by the inter-
play between individuals’ perceptions of violence,
governance and ideology. It is not only characteristics
and actions of the government which shape public
attitudes, as existing literature demonstrates, but also
violence committed by other armed groups: insurgent
violence against civilians increases support for the state,
whereas pro-government paramilitary civilian targeting
depresses support for the state. I further theorize that
ideological similarity with or effective governance from
the state can alleviate the negative effect of military vic-
timization on support for the government and augment
the positive impact of insurgent violence on support for
the state.
I examine seven years of nationally representative
public opinion surveys in Colombia fielded by the Latin
American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). I consider
how public support for the armed forces and national
government is shaped by perceptions of victimization,
the quality of state governance, and ideological similarity
with the government. The results indicate that attitudes
toward the state depend on exposure to violence com-
mitted by the military and guerrillas, the quality of
municipal services and security from crime, and ideolo-
gical similarity with the president. Furthermore, individ-
uals who are not ideologically aligned with the president
react more negatively to victimization by the armed
forces. Exploratory analyses focusing on rural rather than
urban residents and support for guerrillas rather than for
the state provide mixed evidence that the quality of state
governance may also shape how people react to
victimization.
This study makes several contributions. First, by con-
sidering how civilians integrate information about gov-
ernance, ideology and violence, it clarifies how and how
much the governance provided and the ideology pro-
moted by the government condition regular people’s
responses to violence against civilians. Second, this
project demonstrates that studying violence, governance
or ideology in isolation paints an incomplete picture of
civilian support for armed actors. Integrating all three
into one theory helps us understand the complex,
nuanced attitudes of people who are deeply affected by
civil conflict and who shape both conflict processes
(e.g. Kalyvas, 2006; Kilcullen, 2010) and post-conflict
stability (e.g. Samii, 2013; Tellez, 2020). Last, this
research suggests that the citizens of countries at war
do not blame the state for pro-state paramilitary violence,
affirming previous research which suggests that states
employ pro-state paramilitaries in order to evade
accountability for war crimes (e.g. Carey & Mitchell,
2017).
Existing explanations
Civilians threatened by state violence are more likely to
oppose the government. They may do so out of rational
self-interest; violence against civilians makes it more dan-
gerous to remain neutral (e.g. Krane & Mason, 1989;
Kalyvas & Kocher, 2007). Or, they may do so because of
a strong norm against civilian targeting. Judgments of
civilian targeting follow a logic which suggests that peo-
ple see such violence as unethical (Levy, 2022). Indeed,
more than three-quarters of people living in countries
affected by armed conflict believe that it is wrong to
attack combatants in populated areas, ‘knowing that
many civilians would be killed’ (ICRC, 2016: 7).
Civilian victimization causes anger and grievance among
victims (Goodwin, 2001; Wood, 2003; Cederman et al.,
2020), but even people who are not affected by such
violence oppose it, seek to avoid it, and internalize
related norms of international law (Johns & Davies,
2019; Wallace, 2019; Dill & Schubiger, 2021; Han
et al., 2021). International civil society also mobilizes
in opposition to such abuse (e.g. Sikkink, 2011;
Stanton, 2016).
2journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
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