How does the prevalence of female combatants in a rebel group influence conflict severity? Previous research has investigated the impact conflict has on women but has overlooked women’s contributions to conflict. Diverging from this paradigm, recent quantitative research has investigated why women join rebellions, why rebel groups recruit them, and how this affects conflict dynamics and outcomes. This study contributes to this new direction by asking how the gender composition of a rebel group influences the number of battle deaths amassed during a conflict. I hypothesize that a higher prevalence of female combatants in a rebel group increases conflict severity. I argue that female combatants increase rebel group capabilities, creating parity between rebel-state dyads, which then produces a greater quantity of battle deaths. Using a dataset on women’s prevalence in 211 rebel groups between 1989 and 2014, I run an ordinary least squares regression model to test my hypothesis. This study’s empirical evidence shows support for my hypothesis but does not yield any substantive indication of how female combatants contribute to severity. The causal mechanism behind this relationship remains for future research to uncover.

Au courant des dernières années, les chercheurs s’intéressant aux guerres civiles ont proposé une multitude de théories pour expliquer pourquoi les groupes rebelles en viennent parfois à cibler les populations civiles. Malgré cette abondance théorique, notre compréhension des processus et des mécanismes menant les combattants de rang inférieur à participer à cette violence demeure, étonnamment, très limitée. Cette carence est en partie due au fait que les travaux existants reposent souvent sur des postulats implicites – et parfois infondés – à propos des combattants se situant au bas de la hiérarchie militaire et qui sont ceux qui mettent en œuvre la violence envers les civils sur le terrain. Ainsi, certaines questions importantes sur les micro-déterminants de la violence au sein des groupes rebelles demeurent, à ce jour, sous-étudiées dans la littérature sur les guerres civiles. Cette thèse pose donc la question suivante : comment les combattants rebelles en viennent-ils à tuer des civils non-armés durant les conflits intra-étatiques? Mobilisant des méthodes mixtes (i.e. analyses statistiques et études de cas) et explorant une variété de cas empiriques, cette thèse puise dans la sociologie et la psychologie pour soutenir que la participation des combattants rebelles à la violence envers les civils peut être comprise comme étant le fruit d’un processus de socialisation. Spécifiquement, la thèse conceptualise cette participation comme découlant des puissants besoins, sanctions, contraintes, influences et incitatifs sociaux auxquels les combattants font face – et qui deviennent souvent prépondérants – durant les guerres civiles. Au fil du temps, ces forces sociales façonnent les dispositions attitudinales et les tendances comportementales des combattants, motivant chez ceux-ci la recherche d’un alignement par rapport aux normes et aux attentes de leurs dirigeants et de leurs pairs. Bien que les trois articles qui forment cette thèse abordent des sujets distincts, ils sont tous informés et unis par ce cadre théorique. Le premier article de la thèse synthétise les théories existantes sur la socialisation des combattants et les incorporent dans un modèle intégré, qui distingue cinq trajectoires pouvant mener ceux-ci à la violence. Ce faisant, l’article spécifie les principaux mécanismes socio- psychologiques au travers desquels les dynamiques de socialisation peuvent encourager la participation à cette violence. Sur cette base, l’article illustre la valeur ajoutée de ce modèle en explorant les trajectoires vers la violence des combattants rebelles durant la guerre civile au Sierra Leone. Le deuxième article explore la manière dont le contexte opérationnel au sein duquel les combattants évoluent peut façonner la nature des influences de socialisation auxquelles ils sont exposés. S’intéressant aux variations entre et au sein des groupes rebelles utilisant des tactiques de guérilla, l’article soutient que le degré « d’intégration opérationnelle » (operational embeddedness) de ces groupes au sein des populations locales influence de manière importante le type de relations que les combattants développent avec les civils. Entamant un dialogue entre les littératures sur la gouvernance rebelle et la socialisation des combattants, cet article mobilise des tests statistiques et une étude de cas qualitative (l’insurrection des Talibans en Afghanistan), mettant en lumière la manière dont l’environnement opérationnel d’un groupe affecte l’essence des dynamiques de socialisation et, par conséquent, le répertoire d’actions des combattants. Le troisième article examine comment les caractéristiques organisationnelles des « new new insurgencies » (NNIs) – tel que définies par Walter – affectent la propension de ces groupes djihadistes transnationaux à cibler les populations civiles. L’article soutient que l’idéologie de plus en plus fratricide des NNIs, le fait que leurs dirigeants ancrent leur autorité dans des sources divines et la présence de combattants étrangers radicalisés au sein de ces groupes créent de puissantes dynamiques de socialisation, qui tendront à motiver une participation accrue à la violence envers les civils. Mobilisant également des analyses quantitatives et une étude de cas qualitative (l’insurrection d’al-Shabaab en Somalie), cet article démontre que les NNIs sont associées à des taux de violence particulièrement élevés par rapport à la fois aux autres types de groupes rebelles, mais aussi aux groupes islamistes antérieurs et non-transnationaux. L’article souligne ainsi l’importance de prendre en considération l’idéologie, l’autorité et les processus de mobilisation transnationaux pour mieux comprendre le comportement rebelle. Ainsi, les trois articles brossent un portrait théorique systématique des processus et des mécanismes au travers desquels les combattants rebelles en viennent à tuer les civils durant les conflits intra-étatiques, plaçant ainsi cette littérature sur une base conceptuelle plus solide. Ce faisant, la thèse met en lumière la considérable diversité des trajectoires, l’inhérente complexité des processus menant à la violence et la fondamentale humanité des combattants rebelles. / Although the civil war literature is replete with theories purporting to explain why rebel groups wield violence against civilians, we still have a surprisingly limited understanding of the processes and mechanisms driving low-ranking combatants to participate in civilian targeting. As I argue in this thesis, this is in part because much of existing research on rebel behavior relies on implicit, unstated, or even unfounded assumptions about the flesh-and-blood individuals who carry out such violence on the ground. Accordingly, a number of fundamental questions about the perpetrators of wartime violence and the micro-level drivers of their behaviors have remained largely under-addressed in the scholarship on civil war violence. This thesis thus asks the following question: how do low-ranking rebel combatants come to kill unarmed civilians during intrastate conflicts? Leveraging mixed methods that combine statistical analyses with case studies and exploring a variety of empirical cases, the thesis draws from the conceptual repertoire of sociology and psychology and contends that violence perpetration can best be understood as a socialization process. Specifically, I conceptualize participation in violence against civilians as deriving from the potent social influences, needs, incentives, sanctions, and constraints that rebel combatants experience – and which often become overriding – in the midst of civil wars. In turn, these powerful social forces progressively shape combatants’ attitudinal dispositions and behavioral tendencies, creating strong pressures for them to seek alignment with the violent norms and expectations of their leaders and peers. While the three articles that form this thesis tackle different topics, they are informed and united by this overarching theoretical approach. In the first article, I synthesize existing theories of combatant socialization and combined them into an integrated framework, which charts five key pathways toward civilian targeting. The article also specifies the main underlying socio-psychological mechanisms through which socializing influences motivate participation in such violence. It then illustrates how these pathways map onto the actual experiences of civil war combatants by examining the drivers of individual participation in violence during the Sierra Leone Civil War. In the second chapter, I explore how the environment in which rebel combatants operate can affect their repertoire of action by shaping the nature of the socializing influences to which they are exposed. Focusing on variations across and within rebel groups waging guerrilla warfare, this article argues that the extent of a group’s operational embeddedness – that is, the degree to which its operational bases are physically integrated within civilian communities – can considerably affect the type of relations that combatants come to nurture with civilians. Bridging the rebel governance and combatant socialization literatures, the article mobilizes cross-national statistical analyses and case study evidence from the Taliban’s insurgency in Afghanistan and finds strong empirical support for these arguments, highlighting the importance of the operational context in shaping socialization dynamics and, consequently, rebel behavior. In the third chapter, I examine whether the organizational characteristics of “new new insurgencies” (NNIs) – as defined by Walter – affect the extent to which these transnational jihadist rebel groups target civilian populations. Specifically, this article argues that the increasingly fratricidal ideology of NNIs, the fact that their leaders anchor their authority claims in divine sources, and the presence of radicalized foreign fighters in their membership base create potent socialization dynamics that are likely to steer combatants toward violence. Using cross-national statistical tests and qualitative evidence from al-Shabaab’s insurgency in Somalia, the article highlights that this new – and increasingly prevalent – breed of insurgents indeed tends to impose a particularly heavy toll on civilian populations, relative to both other types of rebel groups as well as earlier and non-transnational Islamist groups. The article thus emphasizes the need to account for ideology, authority, and membership when studying the determinants of rebel behavior. Together, these three articles thus offer a systematic theoretical account of the processes and mechanisms through which low-ranking rebel combatants come to kill civilians during civil wars, placing debates over the determinants of rebel behavior on a more solid conceptual footing. As a whole, therefore, this thesis advances our understanding of civil war violence by casting the focus on low-ranking combatants and by calling attention to the fundamental diversity of their trajectories, to the inherent complexity of the perpetration process, and to the basic humanity of perpetrators of political violence.

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The purpose of this case study is to examine and explore the consequences of reintegration among female ex-combatants in Sri Lanka and Nepal. DDR-programs have often been critiqued by scholars for their lack of gender perspective, consequently this research aims to understand the unique challenges and outcomes faced by women with different intersectional identities. This study uses structured, focused comparison, to systematically compare social, economic and political aspects of reintegration based on several comparing factors such as psychological health, stigmatisation, employment opportunities, education, financial support, political participation and representation. Through this methodology, and the creation of the theoretical framework based on critical feminism and the analytical tool intersectionality, the study aims to answer what differences and similarities can be found in the two countries. The findings shows that social identities such as gender, class, caste, ethnicity, age and ideology have a significant impact on female ex-combatants’ access to reintegration. Furthermore, that prior education levels of female ex-combatant have a decisive influence on the possibility of a meaningful reintegration in society.

Mainstream portrayals of women in research, politics, and media during armed conflict often limit them to the roles of victims or, at best, peacemakers, disregarding their diverse and active participation. This study challenges such binary portrayals by investigating the involvement of women in armed conflict, particularly why some regions experience high levels of female combatants while others do not. It posits that close proximity to conflict enhances women's opportunities and willingness to engage in combat, leading to an increase in the fraction of female combatants relative to men. Using a comparative case study design, this research analyzes regions in southeast Ukraine based on their proximity to the Donbas conflict zone from 2014 to 2018. The empirical findings support the hypothesis, indicating that greater proximity to conflict zones increases the likelihood of female combatants. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of women's roles in armed conflicts and offer valuable insights for the field of peace and conflict studies by shedding light on the disruption of societalgender roles during times of conflict, thus revealing broader societal impacts of violence and war.

Cette thèse a pour objectif de démontrer que la lutte contre le terrorisme n’exige pas de mesures arbitraires pour se prémunir et/ou éradiquer un tel phénomène globalisé. Deux notions s’affrontent : le maintien de la paix et la sécurité et les droits de l’homme. Sont-elles compatibles ? La lutte contre le terrorisme doit elle être menée à tout prix ? Nous verrons que le contrôle international/régional des mesures prises par les Etats au sein d’une instance internationale ou individuellement est nécessaire et ce en raison de la globalisation du terrorisme qui impacte toutes les nations. Certains droits sont particulièrement menacés par les diverses mesures anti-terroristes, ainsi que les cadres définis des possibilités ou des interdictions de déroger ou de limiter spécifiquement chacun de ces droits. Ce contrôle va être confié à des organes internationaux/régionaux de statuts différents et disposant de moyens de contrôles différents pour contrôler les mesures des Etats. Ce contrôle va permettre de vérifier si les mesures prises par les Etats sont bien conformes au droit international et notamment que ces mesures ne violent pas ni le droit international des droits de l’homme ni le droit humanitaire.Toutefois, ce contrôle international est limité. En effet, les mesures édictées au niveau international sont prises par les Etats victimes du terrorisme et pour lesquelles un contrôle de légalité semble difficile à envisager. Ce contrôle est limité également en raison de l’objectif primordial de lutte contre le terrorisme existant au sein de chaque organe international et régional visant à ne pas freiner l’action des Etats. Nous verrons ainsi que la portée de ce contrôle reste encore nuancée. / The aim of this work is to prove that the fight against terrorism doesn’t need arbitrary measures to eradicate such a globalised phenomena. Two notions are in conflict: peace keeping and human rights. Are they compatible? Should the fight against terrorism be lead by all means?We will see the the international/regional control of the measures taken by the States is necessary because of the globalisation of terrorism. Rights are threatened by measures undertaken by the States. The control is done by international/regional organs which can take different ways. It checks that the States respect international law and especially International Human rights and Humanitarian Law.Nethertheless, this control is limited because the measures adopted at international level are made by States who are victims of terrorism. The international control of legality is far from being accepted. The control is also limited because of the primary aim of the States which is to fight against terrorism. We will see that the scope of the control is nuanced.

This dissertation establishes how different citizen soldiers were employed and evaluated in the imaginary of fifth century Athens and gives explanations why popular thinking on military personnel was organised in this way. In so doing it emerges that a particular citizen soldier figured in Athenian conceptions about many aspects of martial activity. Also, it has proven necessary to analyse several other conceptions concerning the waging of war in which military personnel strictly play no part because of their indirect but important influence on how this or that class of Athenian fighters was judged. As a result this study ends up throwing light on the ways in which fifth century Athenians conceived not only of citizen combatants but also of warfare in general. The dissertation begins by outlining the primary sources for the Athenian imaginary and its major characteristics. The numerous tragedies and comedies surviving from the fifth century are shown to be sure evidence for the imaginary and the funeral oration of the period to have had a vital role in the transmission of key elements of Athenian self-identity and their understanding of warfare. Although playwrights and public speakers were invariably members of the Athenian elite, the particular contexts in which they performed compelled them to take up and articulate the values and conceptions of their overwhelmingly non-elite audiences. The imaginary then had a decidedly popular character. It was also a sprawling cultural melange within which incongruous and even patently contradictory ideas could subsist side by side. The second part of this dissertation exposes that the citizen hoplite enjoyed a central and paradigmatic role in the popular thinking of fifth century Athens. It was only ever to the heavily armed soldier that poets and orators turned when they wanted to consider general aspects of warfare, the military obligations of citizenship, and gallant and fainthearted behaviour on the battlefield. The Athenian hoplite also served as the pivotal reference point for the marking out of age and gender distinctions within the city and of the differences in military morality between Greeks and barbarians. Critically, as the prevailing definitions of bravery and cowardice were modelled exclusively on the phalanx warfare of the hoplites, Athenian lightly armed troops, cavalrymen and perhaps even sailors with their very different modes of combat were judged one way or another to be cowardly. Yet the final part of this dissertation demonstrates that this normative status of the heavy infantryman in no way prevented citizen sailors from gaining recognition and positive evaluation of their metier and themselves in the Athenian imaginary of the fifth century. The citizen masses of this period saw their city as the major seapower in the Mediterranean and well understood that its formidable might and security rested on its navy. Fifth century Athenians also had a high regard of seamanship in general and great pride in the naval dominance of their city in particular. Indeed, superlative nautical skills were thought to be 'national' traits of the citizens of imperial Athens which they had enjoyed even in the esteemed age of the heroes. Contemporary citizen sailors themselves were also held to be the saviours of the city and were accorded extraordinary esteem and an exalted status if they perished at sea fighting for Athens. Finally, despite the fact that it directly contradicted their hoplite centred conception of bravery, fifth century Athenians firmly believed that fellow citizens serving as sailors could display gallantry in battle.

What does “success” mean for social reintegration of ex-combatants in urban settings? Although reintegration of former fighters has been at the center of academic and policy discourse for achieving peace, limited attention has been paid to unraveling how social reintegration processes occur and how they are impacted in urban contexts. This thesis studies the specific issue of successful social reintegration in urban contexts and asks why it evidences higher levels of success in some urban settings than others. Drawing on previous research on the impact of security conditions on reintegration processes, it argues that actual or suspected eroded security conditions, caused by the presence of organized armed groups as well as reintegrating ex-combatants whose former unit operated in the same host community, negatively impact levels of success of social reintegration in urban centers because they each increase levels of fear towards ex-combatants among community members. Through process tracing and structured focused comparison, this thesis assesses the explanatory power of the proposed hypotheses for the cases of Bogota and Medellin. Based on the yielded results, support for both hypotheses is identified. Nonetheless given the nuanced conceptualizations propose heiring, future research is called upon to further assess the explanatory power of the proposed models.

In a broader sense, this thesis examines the extent to which the international community decides on the application and shape of standard security templates in post-conflict environments. These standard templates are increasingly criticized for their inflexibility and inability to adapt to the actual conditions and needs on ground. In order to alleviate this criticism, as well as improve the success of these programs, the international community recently embraced the concept of national ownership. Whether it is a rhetorical concept and political tool and how its understanding differs between theory and reality are the main topics of this thesis. Specifically, the paper analyzes the concept of national ownership in the process of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants on the example of Sudan from 2003 until 2013. Sudanese DDR process has been defined as nationally owned, but nevertheless criticized for the blind following of international standards and overall inability to adapt to the context. The objective of the thesis was set out to establish what the interpretation of national ownership was in theory and compare it with the type of ownership that had taken place in practice. The main part of this study is the analysis of the control exercised by national and...