ISBN: 978-0-19-286671-4

Nils Petter Gleditsch

PRIO

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As Stathis Kalyvas notes in his preface to this book, most current conflict are internal, typically in very poor post-colonial countries. Although such conflicts vary considerably, they are generally discussed in what he calls ‘the big three’: they lead to widespread disorder, they produce massive and gratuitous violence, and they reduce civilians to victims. This edited volume introduces a new concept in the study of civil war: that of civilian protective agency, ‘actions carried out by individuals and communities to protect themselves and/or others in violent settings’. The editors distinguish between four forms: Evasion (actions to escape the reach of armed actors to avoid immediate danger, recruitment, control and/or persecution), resistance (the refusal to act according to implicit and explicit demands by armed groups), rescue (actions to protect others by people who are not themselves directly targeted by armed groups), and adaptation (maintaining social identities that sustain hope and enable collective action). This perspective is pursued in twelve insightful case studies, divided into three sections: forms of civilian protective agency, violent forms, and the role of external actors. The cases range from ranging from civilian resistance to the Holocaust in the Low Countries, to vigilantism (autodefensa) in Mexico, and the role of UN peacekeeping. The concluding chapter discusses the dynamics of civilian protective agency, triggers, facilitators, and effects, and unintended consequences. Although many chapters discuss positive consequences of civilian protective agency, the concluding chapter acknowledges that there may also be negative consequences. The book provides much food for thought and introduces a rich research agenda, but a question remains whether the concept of civilian protective agency may be overly broad.