Ottmann, Martin
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Room: A101 West Wing
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Tel:
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Fax: +44 (0)115 951 4859
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Email: Martin Ottmann
'Biting the Hand that Feeds You': Rebel Organisation and One-sided Violence in Africa
Civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa are characterised by the frequent use of rebel violence against the population. Scholars have conceptualised such violence as a strategy employed by rebel groups in order to solve the collective action problem underlying any rebellious activity. According to this past research, the conflict dynamics between government and rebels are the main determinant of this violent behaviour.
My PhD research moves beyond this existing body of knowledge and analyses the organisational configuration of rebel groups as an additional determinant of civilian victimisation. I argue that rebel leaders resort to violent strategies when the organisation of their group precludes non-violent strategies to solve the collective action problem. The organisational features under scrutiny are the rebels’ political purpose, the cohesion of the political and military rebel leadership, the internal structure of the group and the relation to competing rebel factions and external supporters.
I employ a mixed-method research design for my PhD research. I begin with a statistical analysis testing the impact of rebel organisation on violence against civilians in African civil wars from 1989 to 2007. Firstly, I analyse how the aforementioned organisational factors influence the onset of rebel violence against civilians. Secondly, I analyse the influence of rebel organisation on the actual number of civilians killed in a given year. Following this, I explore the causal mechanisms underlying the statistical findings in more detail. For this, I conduct case studies of rebel violence against the population in the conflicts in Eastern, Western and Southern Sudan.
Civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa are characterised by the frequent use of rebel violence against the population. Scholars have conceptualised such violence as a strategy employed by rebel groups in order to solve the collective action problem underlying any rebellious activity. According to this past research, the conflict dynamics between government and rebels are the main determinant of this violent behaviour.
Prof Cees Van Der Eijk and Prof Philip Cowley
University of Nottingham and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
My research focuses on the determinants of political violence and internal armed conflicts on a national, regional and global level. I also explore the organisation of rebel groups and its impact on conflict dynamics. Against this background, current projects include analyses of the use of political violence by ethnic groups striving for political autonomy (with Christa Deiwiks) and the utility of power-sharing and autonomy agreements in Sudan’s peace process (with Stefan Wolff).
Conference Papers
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Ottmann, Martin: 'Rebel Ideology and the Use of Civilian victimisation in Civil Wars', presented at the Centre for the Study of Civil War Workshop 'The Principals and Agents of Violence', Nottingham, United Kingdom, April 2010
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Ottmann, Martin (2010): “Relative Capabilities and the Magnitude of Civilian Victimization in African Insurgencies, 1989-2006”, presented at 51th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), New Orleans (LA), USA, 17-20 February 2010.
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Ottmann, Martin and Deiwiks, Christa (2010): “The Impact of Civilian Victimization on Political Autonomy Arrangements. Strategic Violence in Territorial Intrastate Wars, 1989-2006”, presented at 51th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), New Orleans (LA), USA, 17-20 February 2010.
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Ottmann, Martin (2009): “Collective Action in Civil Wars and the Incidence of Civilian Victimisation”, presented at 5th General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), Potsdam, Germany, 10-12 September 2009.
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Ottmann, Martin and Wolff, Stefan (2009): “Content and Context. Autonomy and Conflict Settlement in Sudan”, presented at the 3rd European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), 4-7 June, Leipzig, Germany.
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Ottmann, Martin (2009): “Putting the Pieces Together: Analysing the Interdependencies of Battle Violence and Civilian Victimisation in Civil Wars”, presented at the Workshop “Institutional Constraints to Violence”, Working Group ‘Human Rights, Governance and Conflict’, Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW) at PRIO, Nottingham, United Kingdom, 16-17 April 2009.
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Ottmann, Martin (2009): “Bloody Relations. The Impact of Transnational Ethnic Linkages on Civil War Violence”, presented at 59th Annual Political Studies Association (PSA), Manchester, United Kingdom, 7-9 April 2009.
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Ottmann, Martin (2009): “Relative Capability and Ethnic Violence: Analysing the Degree of Civilian Victimisation in Ethnic Civil Wars”, presented at 50th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), New York (NY), USA, 15-18 February 2009.
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Ottmann, Martin (2008): “Ethnic violence. Conceptual and Empirical Clarifications”, presented at 12th Annual PSA Postgraduate Conference for Central and Northern England (CANE), University of Nottingham, 8. November 2008.
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Ottmann, Martin (2008): “Explaining One-sided Violence in Ethnic Civil Wars: The Case of Southern Sudan”, presented at 2nd ECPR Graduate Conference, Universitat Autonòma Barcelona, 25-27 August.