Explaining State Violence in the Guatemalan Civil War

Rebel Threat and Counterinsurgency

Bibliographic Data

ID3037801
AuthorsYuichi Kubota (0000-0001-9718-9169, University of Niigata Prefecture, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume59
Issue3
Pages48-71
Publication date2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Politics and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1531-426X • E-ISSN: 1548-2456
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/laps.12026
OpenAlexW2744648983
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited52

Literature on the Guatemalan Civil War has debated whether or not state violence was triggered by rebel activities. Did the government respond to each insurrection caused by the rebels, or did it blindly target regions where antigovernment antipathy and movements had historically prevailed? Because state violence was extensive during the civil war period, the dynamism of the war could have been the reason for its occurrence. Relying on the threat-response model of state violence, this article argues that human rights violations occurred when the government perceived a rebel threat that would have seriously degraded its capability in future counterinsurgencies. The article employs propensity score matching to address the problem of confounding in empirical analysis, and reveals that rebel attacks, particularly those targeting security apparatus and resulting in human injury, increased the likelihood of state violence in the Guatemalan Civil War

Antipathy · Criminology · Development economics · Dynamism · Economics · Human rights · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Politics and Society in Latin America

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