When We Torture: Moral and Pragmatic Arguments For and Against Torture, and Their Effect on Public Support For Redressing Past and Preventing Future InjusticeEmanuele Castano, Psychology, New School for Social ResearchBernhard Leidner, Psychology, New School for Social ResearchResearch Grant, 2009 Violence can take many forms, and it can vary in scale and intensity. This research project focuses on one specific type of violence that is usually perpetrated against a relatively small number of individuals, but surely not less heinous or consequential: torture (Rothenberg, 2003; Skoll, 2008). There are several reasons for focusing on torture. One reason is that it has been a central element in many of the conflicts that have characterized the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in Central and South America, where torture (e.g., Peters, 1984; Staub, 1989) and disappearances (e.g., Argentine National Committee of the Disappeared, 1986) were also central to postconflict attempts to rebuild the countries socially and politically (e.g., Becker, 1986). Furthermore, the recent use of torture by the United States has stirred countless debates, further contributed to already-entrenched divisions in public opinion, and damaged the US’s reputation and moral authority worldwide. The project aimed specifically to develop an understanding of how the debate over lethal and nonlethal torture against prisoners perpetrated by one’s government affects people’s opinion about how to punish perpetrators and compensate victims, and whether and how to prevent torture in the future. This is considered an important step, for public opinion will inform individual and group behavior and thus affect policy. Appealing to the moral and good in human nature may be worthwhile and effective after all, and may help strengthen the normative power of international humanitarian law. Broadly speaking, arguments against torture fall into one of two categories. First, torture can be opposed on the basis of pragmatic arguments, considering cost-benefit analyses regarding its efficacy (e.g., torture does not work) or its repercussions (e.g., loss of reputation). Second, torture can be opposed on the basis of moral arguments (e.g., torture violates human rights). We conducted three experimental studies investigating how these two types of arguments affect US citizens’ attitudes toward US-committed torture. In Study 1, Americans expressed stronger demands for redressing the injustice of US-committed torture after they were presented with moral rather than pragmatic arguments or no arguments against torture. Study 2 replicated this finding and showed that the effects of moral arguments against torture on Americans’ opposition to torture further depend on how attached someone is to his or her country, and how much someone glorifies his or her country. Specifically, moral arguments increased justice demands among those who typically react most defensively to wrongdoings committed by their own country: people who are strongly attached to their country and strongly glorify it. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that the effect of moral arguments against torture on justice demands and support for torture among strongly glorifying Americans is driven by moral outrage and empathy but not guilt. That is, moral arguments against torture made strongly glorifying Americans more outraged about the behavior of their own country, and made them more empathic towards the victims of torture; this increase in outrage and empathy then made them more opposed to torture. To conclude, moral arguments against torture committed by one’s own country seem to increase demands for justice and decrease support for torture, precisely in those people who are most problematic from the perspective of social justice and peaceful intergroup relations—that is, people who strongly glorify their own country. Rather than being a naïve or hopelessly idealistic approach, appealing to the moral and good in human nature may be worthwhile and effective after all, and may help strengthen the normative power of international humanitarian law.
Epigenetic Influences on the Development of the Serotonin System: A Mechanism of Risk for Chronic Aggressive Behaviors in Humans?Linda Booij, Clinical Psychology, University of MontrealResearch Grant, 2010 Many studies have shown that what happens early in development influences the way the brain develops and someone’s risk to develop behavioral problems later on, including chronic aggression. Studies in animals have shown that adverse factors during a mother’s pregnancy (e.g., malnutrition) or adverse experiences early in life (e.g. child abuse, bullying) can influence the way the child’s genes are expressed through “DNA methylation,” a process in which genes are marked with a chemical coating. This changes the development of certain brain regions and may have consequences for the way the child will develop emotionally, socially, and cognitively later in life. In studies supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, we studied how early adversity affects the development of the brain, behavior, and the expression of genes that regulate serotonin, a brain chemical important for aggression. Two studies were supported: a study in animals and a study in boys and girls who were 15 years old. In the animal study, we investigated how stress in rats during the adolescent period affected the brain and neurochemical serotonin, as well as aggression and anxiety. We used the so-called social intruder paradigm, in which a rat is placed in the cage of another rat, thereby creating interpersonal conflict, which is considered an animal analogue to bullying). We used a technique called immunohistochemistry to study the consequences of social defeat in adolescence for the density of the serotonin transporter in the brain in adulthood. We found that social defeat in adolescence increased serotonin transporter density in part of the prefrontal cortex when the rats were adults (Tao et al, 2017). Anxiety was also increased, with no effects of aggression. These results were somewhat different than what was previously observed when adverse experiences occurred earlier in life, and suggests that the effects of adverse experiences on brain, serotonin and behavior may depend on the specific timing of the stressor. Together, these studies suggest that early adversity is associated with the development of the brain and with the regulation of the serotonin transporter. In the human study, we studied the impact of early adversity on brain development, DNA methylation in genes that regulate serotonin, and on behaviors. For this study, we tested teenagers that had been followed since birth, and thus we had good documentation of their home environment and childhood experiences. Individuals were genetically identical twins, which allowed us to look at specific environmental factors and control for genetic effects. All individuals underwent brain imaging in combination with an emotion processing task to measure how their brain responded to various types of emotional information. A DNA sample was taken to study DNA methylation. We found that, while controlling for genetics, prenatal (before-birth) factors but not postnatal (after-birth) factors predicted adolescent brain development. We also found that environmental-induced changes in epigenetic regulation in the serotonin transporter were predictive of neural activation in the Orbitofrontal Cortex and the way this brain region was connected to other regions (e.g. the amygdala) of the so-called limbic network. Associations were only observed when the brain was processing sad and/or fearful stimuli but not when processing angry stimuli. Together, these studies suggest that early adversity is associated with the development of the brain and with the regulation of the serotonin transporter. Serotonin transporter density (animals) and methylation (humans) was more linked to regulation of sadness/fear than of aggression. The specific effects on brain, expression of genes, and behaviors may also depend on timing and/or type of the exposure to adverse events, genetics, and/or a combination of these.
Christian Martyrs and the Making of an Islamic Society in the Post-Conquest PeriodChristian C. Sahner, History, Princeton UniversityDissertation Fellowship, 2014 This dissertation examines the role of state-sanctioned violence against Christians during the Umayyad and early ‘Abbasid periods. It explores a neglected group of Christian saints (often called “neomartyrs”) who died between the seventh and ninth centuries AD. They hailed from practically every corner of the greater Middle East where Christian majorities lived alongside Muslim minorities, including Spain, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the Caucasus. As such, their lives were recorded in a range of languages, including Arabic, Greek, Latin, Armenian, Georgian, and Syriac. The dissertation pairs these texts with Muslim sources, including legal and historical literature, to provide a three-dimensional and balanced portrait of Islamization, Arabization, and official violence in the post-conquest period. Seen from this perspective, there were three main types of martyrs. The first and most numerous were Christian converts to Islam who then returned to Christianity. Because apostasy was considered a capital offense under Islamic law, they could face execution if found guilty. The second group was made up of Muslims from entirely Muslim backgrounds who converted to Christianity. The third consisted of Christians who publicly blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad, usually before high-ranking Muslim officials. We cannot understand early Islam unless we see it as a minority religion interacting with older, larger, and more established communities of non-Muslims scattered across the Middle East, in particular, Christians. The dissertation argues that violence played an important role in regulating relations between the two communities, but it was limited in its scope and aimed at two specific goals: first, to secure the primacy of Islam at a time when Muslims were outnumbered by their non-Muslim subjects; and second, to forge boundaries between religious groups at a time of considerable social and confessional fluidity. It argues that monks wrote biographies of martyrs, in turn, in an attempt to stem the tide of conversion and to protest the effects of Arabization on their communities. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that martyrdom peaked during the first fifty years of ‘Abbasid rule (ca. 750–800) as old Muslims, recent Muslim converts, and non-Muslims first began to interact as members of a shared society, and not as rulers and subjects in a divided post-conquest society. The dissertation represents a contribution to a growing field of literature on the transition from late antiquity to the early Islamic period. As such, it seeks to situate the rise of Islam within the late ancient milieu in which it was born, as well as through the non-Muslim communities it interacted with as it spread. Throughout, it suggests that we cannot understand early Islam unless we see it as a minority religion interacting with older, larger, and more established communities of non-Muslims scattered across the Middle East, in particular, Christians.
Desistance from Right-Wing ExtremismPete G. Simi, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of NebraskaResearch Grant, 2012 The research grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation provided the funds to conduct intensive life history interviews with an initial sample of thirty-five former North America–based far-right extremists. Interviews for this project were completed between 2012 and 2014, although additional subjects have since been interviewed and the sample is now 102 former far-right extremists. The HFG project focused on examining the disengagement process from far-right extremism, although the design of the life history protocol also meant that unique data regarding childhood and adolescent experiences, the entry process into extremism, and different facets of the person’s involvement were also collected. While far-right extremism has a long history in the United States and across the globe, the recent resurgence of far-right movements has spurred renewed interest in the topic. The attention directed toward the “alt-right,” the electoral success of populist candidates, and a surge of far-right violence underscore the need to understand the factors that help explain involvement as well as the factors that lead people to leave these movements and what can be done to help facilitate disengagement. The results from the life history interviews shed light on several of these issues and are now being used in partnership with Life After Hate to provide intervention services to assist individuals in the disengagement process. First, the interview findings helped generate a multidimensional risk factor model for how individuals become involved in far-right extremism (Simi, Sporer, and Bubolz 2016). In short, we found that individuals reported experiencing a number of untreated trauma during childhood, such as physical and sexual abuse, parental abandonment, and family substance abuse. In line with decades of research, individuals also reported experiencing heightened levels of negative emotions such as depression and anger as a consequence of the trauma. In turn, individuals engaged in various forms of misconduct as part of a downward spiral. As such, involvement in extremism provided a mechanism for individuals to address these problems by offering generic solutions such as a surrogate family, protection, and shelter. Our findings suggest that hate may have addictive qualities and, in some cases, result in potentially permanent consequences that make leaving more complicated than previously thought. The interview data also produced important findings about the disengagement process suggesting the following: a lack of organizational trust and dissatisfaction with leadership (Windisch, Ligon, and Simi 2017); the importance of anger in the disengagement process (Simi, Windisch, Harris, and Ligon 2018), and the development of positive relationships with individuals from different racial and religious backgrounds (Bubolz and Simi 2015). We also found violence was an important factor in terms of promoting disengagement. In some cases, individuals involved in high levels of violence reported experiencing “burnout,” while other individuals reported experiencing moral apprehension from either direct involvement or vicarious involvement (e.g., watching the television coverage of the casualties from the Oklahoma City bombing). To examine the long-term consequences of extremism, we discussed the overlap between identity residual and addiction processes in a recent article in the American Sociological Review (Simi, Blee, DeMichele, and Windisch 2017). Our findings suggest that hate may have addictive qualities and, in some cases, result in potentially permanent consequences that make leaving more complicated than previously thought. BibliographySimi, Pete, Kathy Blee, Matthew DeMichele, and Steven Windisch. 2017. “Addicted to Hate?: Identity Residual among Former White Supremacists.” American Sociological Review 82, 6: 1167-87.Simi, Pete, Karyn Sporer and Bryan Bubolz. 2016. “Narratives of Childhood Adversities and Adolescent Misconduct as Precursors to Violent Extremism: A Life-Course Criminological Approach.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 53, 4: 536-63.
An Unexpected Peace: Understanding Resilient Order and Violence in Multi-Gang EnvironmentsViridiana Rios, Department of Political Science, Purdue UniversityMario Arriagada, Open Society Foundations, New YorkResearch Grant, 2014, 2015 Rival criminal organizations sometimes coexist peacefully in the same territory. Mexican drug cartels, known worldwide for their violent battles for turf (Molzahn et al. 2012), are not the exception. Until the nineties, criminal organizations would peacefully share border entries to the U.S. according to certain rules of territorial pricing (Blancornelas 2004, Mauleon 2010). In more recent years, while there is evidence that gangs have violently fought for turf in 348 Mexican municipalities, we also know that they peacefully coexisted in 99 others (Coscia and Rios 2012). We studied why rival criminal organizations sometimes coexist peacefully and sometimes not. We also found evidence that peace is more common where marijuana is produced and not eradicated by the government or where the federal government has the same party identification as local governments. For this study, we brought together social science and journalism to create a natural, experimental setting to study why criminals restrain their violent confrontations in some places and not in others. First, we identified a random sample of places where multiple criminal gangs were operating simultaneously and where inter-gang violence remained contained. Second, we gathered an extensive dataset of the main economic, social, and geographical characteristics of non-violent cases and matched it with a balanced control sample of violent cases. Finally, we traveled to every municipality in our sample to conduct investigative journalism and semi-structured interviews. Our results show that Mexican criminal organizations coexist peacefully when they are located farther away from the U.S. border and outside the main routes of illegal trafficking. In Yucatán, for example, we found that violence had migrated from one municipality to another exactly at the time that a new highway was constructed. We also found evidence that peace is more common where marijuana is produced and not eradicated by the government or where the federal government has the same party identification as local governments. We interpret this as evidence that enforcement operations in economically (or politically) valuable territories for criminal operations are a trigger for violence. Other international cases of peace among criminal organizations follow similar patterns. BibliographyDell, M. (2015). Trafficking networks and the Mexican drug war. The American Economic Review, 105(6), 1738-1779.Calderón, G., Robles, G., Díaz-Cayeros, A., & Magaloni, B. (2015). The beheading of criminal organizations and the dynamics of violence in Mexico. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(8), 1455-1485.Holland, B. E., & Rios, V. (2017). Informally Governing Information: How Criminal Rivalry Leads to Violence against the Press in Mexico. Journal of Conflict Resolution , 61(5), 1095-1119.Lessing, B. (2015). Logics of violence in criminal war. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(8), 1486-1516.Ríos, V. (2015). How government coordination controlled organized crime: The case of Mexico’s cocaine markets. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(8), 1433-1454.Shirk, D., & Wallman, J. (2015). Understanding Mexico’s drug violence. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(8), 1348-1376.
Aggression and Morality: Links in Early ChildhoodJudith G. Smetana, Clinical and Social Psychology, University of RochesterResearch Grant, 2015 Differences in aggressive behavior emerge in early childhood, become more stable with age, and can lead to significant psychological problems, including violence in adulthood. It is, therefore, imperative to understand the factors that contribute to the development of aggressive tendencies early in life. Although aggression involves intentional harm to others, surprisingly little research has examined whether deficits in children’s moral judgments of issues involving harm and unfairness toward others are implicated in children’s aggressive behavior. Our research investigated this issue, taking advantage of recent advances in how researchers define and measure moral judgments and aggression. Moral development research has shown the importance of distinguishing children’s judgments of moral transgressions, which entail negative consequences for others, from judgments of transgressions involving more arbitrary, agreed-on social-conventional norms (like those pertaining to manners). Additionally, aggression research has shown that it is not sufficient to consider only whether a child is aggressive but that we must also question why. Some children have difficulty controlling feelings of anger and frustration, leading to a reactive form of aggression that is impulsive, “hot-blooded,” and aimed at responding to perceived threats from others. Considering callous-unemotional tendencies may prove essential for understanding the role of moral judgments in the development and maintenance of young children's deliberate, calculated aggression. In contrast, other children exhibit callous-unemotional tendencies, which reflect a lack of empathy, remorse, or concern for others, and use aggression in a proactive, “cold-blooded” manner to obtain rewards and accomplish goals. We tested whether deficits in children’s ability to distinguish between moral and conventional norms was associated with increases in aggression over time and whether this link was stronger for children showing greater callous-unemotional tendencies. A socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample of 135 4- to 7-year-olds, 128 of their parents, and 49 teachers participated in the study. Children were told stories about hypothetical, everyday moral and conventional transgressions using an iPad and were asked to make several types of judgments for each story. At the beginning of the study and then nine-months later, parents and teachers rated children’s aggressive behavior, and teachers rated children’s callous-unemotional tendencies. We found that, controlling for gender and age, children who had difficulty differentiating between moral and conventional norms were more aggressive at the beginning of the study and showed greater increases (relative to their peers) in aggression over time, but only if they also possessed callous-unemotional tendencies. The ability to make distinctively moral judgments did not predict aggression among children who were capable of empathy and concern for others. Our findings suggest that considering callous-unemotional tendencies may prove essential for understanding the role of moral judgments in the development and maintenance of young children’s deliberate, calculated aggression. Further research needs to be directed toward studying the emergence (and amelioration) of these tendencies in early childhood. This developmental period is particularly critical to target, as the opportunities for successful intervention are greater than in later childhood or adolescence, when destructive patterns are more established. BibliographyJambon, M., & Smetana, J. G. (under review). Callous-unemotional traits moderate the association between children's early moral understanding and aggression: A short-term longitudinal study.
The Neural Circuitry of Aggression, Sex and Sexual AggressionDavid J. Anderson, Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience, California Institute of TechnologyResearch Grant, 2014 Mating and aggression are innate (or instinctive) behaviors that are performed without training. Interestingly, among animals, these two seemingly different behaviors appear to be inextricably intertwined: aggressive encounters are often associated with mating, when males exhibit their dominance for sexual opportunities. However, male-female interactions are primarily sexual (mating) and male-male interactions tend to be aggressive, while aggression toward females is more often the exception than the norm. What brain mechanisms are responsible for separating sexual behavior toward females, and violent aggression toward males, under normal conditions? To investigate the brain mechanisms, we used a technique called microendoscopy that allowed us to image deep-brain (hypothalamic) neuronal activity in male mice engaged in social behaviors. We recorded over two hundred neurons on average in each mouse (total 25 mice), and the mice had no trouble fighting or mating because of the microendoscope neural implant. In sexually and socially experienced adult male mice, neurons were strongly active during interactions with conspecifics, but not with a toy. It was immediately clear that characteristic, yet separate, ensembles of neurons were active during interactions with male or female conspecifics. But surprisingly, in inexperienced adult males, common populations of neurons were activated by both male and female conspecifics. The sex-specific ensembles gradually emerged as the mice acquired social and sexual experience. These observations indicated that interactions with males and females was required for the distinct representations of males and females in the adult mouse brain. These observations reveal an unexpected requirement of experience for behaviors that were traditionally viewed as "hard-wired" or innate. We performed another set of experiments where adult male mice were permitted to investigate (touch, smell, etc.) but not mount or attack other female or male mice. In this case, we did not observe female- or male-specific ensembles or divergent representations in the brain, suggesting that sensory exposure itself was insufficient. However, providing male mice with brief sexual experience was sufficient to generate neuronal ensembles that were specific to males and females, divergent neural representations of conspecific sex and aggression towards males. This experiment demonstrated that social interactions are necessary for the formation of male and female specific neuronal ensembles. These observations reveal an unexpected requirement of experience for behaviors that were traditionally viewed as “hard-wired” or innate. Social experience was required for the formation of neuronal ensembles that themselves control social behavior. Bibliography Remedios R, Kennedy A, Zelikowsky M, Grewe BF, Schnitzer MJ, Anderson DJ. (2017) Social Behaviour Shapes Hypothalamic Neural Ensemble Representations Of Conspecific Sex. Nature. In Press. Kennedy A, Asahina K, Hoopfer E, Inagaki H, Jung Y, Lee H, Remedios R, Anderson DJ. (2015) Internal States and Behavioral Decision-Making: Toward an Integration of Emotion and Cognition. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 79:199-210.
An Education in Violence: Teaching and Learning to Kill in Central TexasHarel Shapira, Department of Sociology, University of Texas at AustinResearch Grant, 2015 This research examined a relatively new and growing population: people who have obtained concealed handgun licenses and carry their guns with them on a regular basis. Drawing on field work at gun schools and in-depth interviews with concealed handgun license holders, the research examined two aspects of gun ownership that have been given insufficient attention in existing scholarship: first, the process by which people are socialized into gun ownership; and second, the embodied, everyday practice of gun ownership. The research showed that becoming a gun owner involves a learning process in which both the mind and body are trained to feel comfortable with, and need, guns. Cognitively, it means developing interpretative frames for thinking about guns, safety, and violence. Specifically, one must learn to think that they need guns, that guns are safe, and that killing another human being can sometimes be a moral action. Gun owners train their bodies to feel comfortable with guns through habit formation, making the experience of holding, shooting, and carrying a gun so normal that the violence contained within the gun is rendered banal. While one must become ideologically comfortable with guns, a person must also learn to be physically comfortable with guns, and ultimately have positive experiences holding, shooting, and carrying guns. Although such embodied experiences are enabled by the above interpretative frames, they are not directly produced by them and require physical training. Gun owners train their bodies to feel comfortable with guns through habit formation, making the experience of holding, shooting, and carrying a gun so normal that the violence contained within the gun is rendered banal. These learned interpretive frames and the embodied pleasures that gun owners experience with guns are co-constitutive, so that the interpretive frames enable and are simultaneously enabled by a set of embodied experiences, and vice-versa. BibliographyShapira, H. and Simon, S.J. (2018) “Learning to Need a Gun.” Qualitative Sociology 41(1): 1-20.
Torture, Taxes, and the Colonial State in Madras, c. 1800–1858Derek L. Elliott, University of CambridgeDissertation Fellowship, 2013 For over a century and a half, the publication of the Madras Torture Report remained the singular instance of a metropolitan state openly acknowledging the use of illegal violence by its functionaries. It was not until 2012, when the British government declared in High Court that Kenyans were tortured during the anticolonial Mau Mau Rebellion that another such admission occurred. To date, these are the only instances of self-proclaimed liberal regimes admitting torture. More recently, the United States of America, which is widely acknowledged to have used torture under the guise of national security, has stopped short of actually admitting to the practice. Nonetheless, torture in Madras remains an understudied and relatively unknown aspect of South Asian history. This thesis examines the Madras “torture question,” as it was known among contemporaries, and argues that the structure of the British East India Company’s government in Madras long knew of and did little to end the violence exercised by its officials in the collection of revenue. Instead, its policies and laws sought to maximize taxation at the expense of the justice and good governance it claimed as the justification, legitimization and hallmark of its rule. The British East India Company operated an extractive and coercive system of government that had deep impact, sometimes leaving physical scars as reminders, on the lives and bodies of those existing on the margins of its rule. The thesis looks at the structure of Company governance in India and begins with the cooperative efforts of British and Indian reformers who brought torture to the public’s attention, resulting in the Madras Commission of Enquiry. I then move on to discuss the investigatory proceedings and findings of the Commission. The chapters that follow deal with the economic conditions of Madras and the administrative structures that prioritized revenue extraction. Additionally, nonstate responses to revenue violence are examined in a chapter on missionaries, which questions their popular image as humanitarian reformers. Finally, the adjudications of cases of revenue violence are looked at in detail to demonstrate how the Company was able to legally absolve itself of complicity in the use of extrajudicial violence for the ends of state. The research undertaken demonstrates that the Company operated an extractive and coercive system of government that had deep impact, sometimes leaving physical scars as reminders, on the lives and bodies of those existing on the margins of its rule. It focuses specifically on revenue violence used in the collection of taxes primarily due on land by raiyats and other agricultural cultivators during the first half of the nineteenth century, with a particular attention on the 1850s, ending with the outbreak of the 1857 Rebellion. In the mofussil, away from the centers of Company power, torture to secure taxes in land was a regular and overlooked fact of Indian agricultural life. By looking at this kind of physical coercion, so central to the exigencies of the state, this research contributes to a growing body of scholarship seeking to expose the violence inherent in the colonial project.
Armed Politics and the State in Post-Colonial AsiaPaul Staniland, Political Science, University of ChicagoResearch Grant, 2013 & 2014 The political relationships between governments and armed groups differ dramatically. Sometimes they are locked in intense conflict, in other contexts they cut live-and-let-live deals, and in yet others they cooperate closely or even become merged together. My ongoing book project, using fieldwork and archival research funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, seeks to explain how these different armed orders emerge and change. It uses detailed data from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma/Myanmar to establish patterns of armed order across space and time within these countries. Research in New Delhi, Kashmir, northern Thailand, Myanmar, and Nagaland is complemented with extensive archival and secondary source research to systematically measure peace deals, ceasefires, combat operations, and informal cooperative. These allow me to identify armed orders of alliance, limited cooperation, and military hostilities, as well as the collapse or incorporation of groups. Tactical calculations and the agency of the armed groups themselves help explain more fine-grained patterns of armed order. I argue theoretically that the threat perceptions of central governments are deeply conditioned by their ideological projects: the definitions and boundaries of the nation and the role of the state within it that key elites seek to construct and defend. Ideas about politics help leaders and their security services decide which armed groups are deeply threatening, which are politically unproblematic, and which are unsavory or tolerable. These political foundations of state and regime form the basis of state strategy, but tactical calculations and the agency of the armed groups themselves help explain more fine-grained patterns of armed order. This argument helps us understand why governments often devote massive repression toward groups that are militarily weak or disorganized, while cooperating with or ignoring much more powerful groups. These complex interactions between states and armed actors create diverse forms of political order in the contemporary world. Bibliography"Politics and Threat Perception: Explaining Pakistani Military Strategy on the North West Frontier." With Asfandyar Mir and Sameer Lalwani. Security Studies (forthcoming). "Armed Politics and the Study of Intrastate Conflict." Journal of Peace Research Vol. 54, No. 4 (July 2017)."Armed Groups and Militarized Elections." International Studies Quarterly Vol. 59, No. 4 (December 2015), pp. 694-705. "Militias, Ideology, and the State." Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 59, No. 5 (August 2015), pp. 770-793.
