{"title":"Why insurgents engage in kidnappings: A coercive strategy in quasi-state governance and control?","authors":"Lu Liu, Manuel Eisner","doi":"10.1177/00223433241254983","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite the common perception viewing kidnappings as means to generate ransom income and to obtain political concessions, it remains unclear why kidnappings are disproportionately employed by some violent insurgent groups but not by the others. Combining data from the Global Terrorism Database and the Big Allied and Dangerous Insurgency Dataset, we empirically examined this question with a theoretical focus on the possible role of insurgents’ performance of state-like functions, which may necessitate the use of kidnappings as an illicit form of ‘policing’ and punishment for social control. Our analyses mainly focused on three aspects of quasi-state activities: extraction; provision of public services; and warring activities. A series of negative binomial regressions were conducted to examine the effects of insurgents’ quasi-state activities on their kidnapping activities over a base model with only group capacity and resource factors. We found that the initial effects of territory-control and membership size disappeared when variables measuring quasi-state activities were included into the model. This suggests that the influence of group capacity and resources on kidnappings may be an indirect one via insurgents’ strategic need for coercive control when contending for quasi-state status.","PeriodicalId":48324,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peace Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Peace Research","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241254983","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite the common perception viewing kidnappings as means to generate ransom income and to obtain political concessions, it remains unclear why kidnappings are disproportionately employed by some violent insurgent groups but not by the others. Combining data from the Global Terrorism Database and the Big Allied and Dangerous Insurgency Dataset, we empirically examined this question with a theoretical focus on the possible role of insurgents’ performance of state-like functions, which may necessitate the use of kidnappings as an illicit form of ‘policing’ and punishment for social control. Our analyses mainly focused on three aspects of quasi-state activities: extraction; provision of public services; and warring activities. A series of negative binomial regressions were conducted to examine the effects of insurgents’ quasi-state activities on their kidnapping activities over a base model with only group capacity and resource factors. We found that the initial effects of territory-control and membership size disappeared when variables measuring quasi-state activities were included into the model. This suggests that the influence of group capacity and resources on kidnappings may be an indirect one via insurgents’ strategic need for coercive control when contending for quasi-state status.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Peace Research is an interdisciplinary and international peer reviewed bimonthly journal of scholarly work in peace research. Edited at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), by an international editorial committee, Journal of Peace Research strives for a global focus on conflict and peacemaking. From its establishment in 1964, authors from over 50 countries have published in JPR. The Journal encourages a wide conception of peace, but focuses on the causes of violence and conflict resolution. Without sacrificing the requirements for theoretical rigour and methodological sophistication, articles directed towards ways and means of peace are favoured.