This project furthers understanding of the selection of targets in conflicts characterized by unconventional violence, which is used by non-state, often clandestine, actors with political goals and does not utilize an army to engage an enemy. As the conflicts in Iraq and Israel demonstrate, this type of violence is used against a wide variety of targets such as civilians, infrastructure, the military, and government officials.
This study analyzes the strategic incentives of violent organizations. It conceives of violent groups as actors operating in a larger system where complex political incentives link groups of individuals and organizations. Understanding group behavior requires some minimal understanding of the totality of their relations. This project looks at two key relationships: the bond between a government and its supporters and the bond between a violent organization and its supporters. Using insights from comparative and American politics, the project develops a theory of violent groups' targeting using the incentives that both governments and violent organizations have for developing political support. Given organizations' desire for policy concessions from governments, the study tests the hypotheses that violence is directed toward a government's supporters in order to undermine their relationship with governing officials. The group targets these individuals because they are most likely to successfully pressure politicians into concessions. However, non-state groups are constrained by their political supporters when these groups participate in electoral politics and select targets that maximize their electoral support, even though these might not maximize their chances of gaining policy concessions.
The project explores these ideas using multiple methods to maximize the validity of the project's claims. Using a cross-national dataset of attacks over the last 40 years, the study looks for evidence that violent organizations target certain regimes in unique ways based on who the regime empowers and presents detailed case histories of conflicts in Israel, Turkey, and Northern Ireland to examine how regime changes, a group's political participation, and counter measures influence the targets of unconventional violence.
The broader insights from this project lead to a more nuanced understanding of issues such as why these groups target civilians, when attacks will be particularly lethal, and which groups choose to attack government and military targets. Developing knowledge of these groups' targeting strategies is particularly important for improving counter-insurgency policies. Without being thoroughly familiar with the character and nature of unconventional political violence, efforts to design counter measures to both disrupt these groups internally and deter the threat that they pose will be flawed.
