Warfare, atrocities, and political participation: eastern Africa
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-05-2017-0290 |
| Pages | 11-23 |
| Date | 11 February 2019 |
| Published date | 11 February 2019 |
| Author | Carol R. Ember,Eric C. Jones,Ian Skoggard,Teferi Abate Adem |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Aggression, conflict & peace,Sociology,Gender studies,Gender violence,Political sociology, policy & social change,Social conflicts,War/peace |
Warfare, atrocities, and political
participation: eastern Africa
Carol R. Ember, Eric C. Jones, Ian Skoggard and Teferi Abate Adem
Abstract
Purpose –Ember et al. (1992) addressed whether the “democracies rarely fight each other”hypothesis held true
in the anthropological record of societies of various sizes and scales around the world. They indeed found that
more participatory polities had less internal warfare –or warfare between one society’sterritorialunits(e.g.bands,
villages, districts). The purpose of this paper is to examine when political participation would have similar effects in
eastern Africa, and whether more participatory polities commit fewer atrocities against each other.
Design/methodology/approach –A cross-cultural sample of 46 societies from eastern Africa wasused to
retest the original Ember et al. (1992) multiple regression model and revised post-hoc models. The team read
ethnographies to code for levels of political participation at the local and multilocal levels. Other variables
came from previous research including warfare and atrocity variables (Ember et al., 2013).
Findings –The Ember et al. (1992) model did not replicate in eastern Africa, but analysis with additional
variables (degree of formal leadership, presence of state-level organization, and threat of natural disasters
that destroy food supplies) suggested that greater local political participation does predict less internal
warfare. Also, more participatory polities were less likely to commit atrocities in the course of internal warfare.
Originality/value –This study demonstrates regional comparisons are important because they help us
evaluate the generalizability of worldwide findings. Additionally, adding atrocities to the study of democracy
and warfare is new and suggests reduced atrocities as an additional benefit of political participation.
Keywords State, Democracy, Political participation, War, Authoritarian, Atrocities
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The finding that “democracies rarely fight each other”is strongly supported by research in
internationalrelations (Russett and Oneal, 2001,p. 43; Mansfield and Snyder, 2007;Dafoe, 2011,
p. 247) and is a dominant paradigmin political science. In addition, democracies appear less likely
to terrorize their own people (Krain, 1997; Rummel, 1995). How does this paradigm apply to
smaller-scale polities and units within states? Ember et al. (1992) tested the “democracies rarely
fight each other ”hypothesis in a worldwide sample of societies in the ethnographic or
anthropologicalrecord. Arguing that internal warfare (i.e.fighting between territorial units, suchas
bands, villages,districts, of the same society)in non-centralized societiesprior to the dominance of
the nation-state is analogous to international warfare, their results generally supported the
hypothesis. Ember et al. reasoned that if more political participation is analogous to democracy,
it follows that polity dyads in the past that were more participatory would have fought less with
each other –hencehave less internal warfare–compared with more autocraticdyads. The present
study attempted to: replicate the Ember et al. worldwide findings in eastern African societies
described inthe nineteenth and twentiethcenturies; and to test an importantcorollary, namely that
increased politicalparticipation lowers the likelihoodof committing atrocities –the most egregious
form of warfare behavior –during the course of internal warfare.
Regional comparisons can be used to develop global models, or to replicate global findings in
regions (Burton and White, 1991, p. 62) as we do here. Regional comparisons do not just identify
whether certain regions show differences, but also use ethnographic knowledge of particular
regionsto help identify factors that maybetter account for the differences(Burton and White, 1991;
Received 15 May 2017
Revised 6 October 2017
6 November 2017
Accepted 7 November 2017
The comparative research in
eastern Africa was supported by
the Office of Naval Research ONR
under MURI Grant No.
N00014-08-1-0921 to George
Mason University with a subaward
to the Human Relations Area Files,
and by the National Science
Foundation (SMA No. 1416651).
The earlier Ember et al. (1992)
work from which some of these
data were derived was supported
by the political science program
and the cultural anthropology
program at the National Science
Foundation, the United States
Institutes of Peace, and the World
Society Foundation (Switzerland).
Carol R. Ember is the President
of the Human Relations Area
Files, at the Yale University,
New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Eric C. Jones is an Assistant
Professor of Public Health at
the University of Texas Health
Science Center at Houston,
Houston, Texas, USA.
Ian Skoggard and
Teferi Abate Adem are
Research Anthropologists,
both at the Human Relations
Area Files, Yale University,
New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
DOI 10.1108/JACPR-05-2017-0290 VOL. 11 NO. 1 2019, pp.11-23, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1759-6599
j
JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH
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