Recent Research on Ideology's Effects on Armed Conflict
An Annotated Bibliography

Introductory Note: This is a list of academic books, book chapters or peer-reviewed journal articles published since 2000, which engage in empirical analysis of the impact of ideology on some form or dynamic of armed conflict. These criteria exclude some important publications, such as key theoretical pieces (especially Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín’s and Elisabeth Jean Wood’s leading article on ‘Ideology in Civil War’), works focused on the determinants of ideologies themselves rather than their effects on conflict (e.g. Holly Nyseth Brehm’s article, ‘State Context and Exclusionary Ideologies’), works that mainly use alternative orientating concepts than ideology – even if these are closely related (for example, Stuart J. Kaufman’s various publications on the role of ‘symbolic politics’ in conflict), or works primarily engaged in descriptive rather than causal analysis of ideology. For general readings on ideology, see the separate reading list available under my 'Teaching' page.

Within this scope, the list includes all works I have found, but I do not claim that it is completely exhaustive, and am open to suggestions (emailed to [email protected]) of further publications that meet the above criteria. Any authors who think that the brief summary of their conclusions I have provided is misleading should also feel free to contact me. The list is ordered chronologically by year, then alphabetically amongst publications published in the same year.

Important pre-2000 words that place a central emphasis on ideology include Robert Revere, “Revolutionary Ideology in Algeria,” Polity 5/4 (1973), Stephen Walt, Revolution and War (Cornell University Press, 1996), John M. Owen, Liberal Peace, Liberal War (Cornell University Press, 1997) and Charles J.M. Drake, ‘The Role of Ideology in Terrorists’ Target Selection,’ Terrorism and Political Violence 10/2 (1998).

My thanks to Kai Thaler for identifying additions to my original list.
 
Ron, James. 2001. Ideology in Context: Explaining Sendero Luminoso's Tactical Escalation. Journal of Peace Research, 38(5): 569-592.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency; Terrorism
Central Conclusions: Escalation of Sendero Luminoso’s violence is explained by: i) the organization’s ideological ‘movement frames’, plus ii) political opportunities and iii) competition with rivals.
 
Gause, F. Gregory. 2003. Balancing What? Threat Perception and Alliance Choice in the Gulf. Security Studies, 13(2): 273-305.
Conflict Type(s): Interstate War
Central Conclusions: Gulf states’ threat perceptions and alliances reflect ideological cleavages more than distributions of power.
 
Haas, Mark L. 2005. The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789-1989. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Haas, Mark L. 2014. Ideological Polarity and Balancing in Great Power Politics. Security Studies, 23(4): 715-753.
Conflict Type(s): Interstate War
Central Conclusions: Great powers’ threat perceptions and balancing strategies are shaped by ‘ideological distances’ between their governments.
 
Mann, Michael. 2005. The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Conflict Type(s): Genocide/Mass Killing
Central Conclusions: Ethnically exclusivist understandings of democratic community generate political pressure and legitimating resources for ethnic cleansing during democratization.
 
Goodwin, Jeff. 2007. "The Struggle Made Me a Nonracialist": Why There Was So Little Terrorism in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle. Mobilization: An International Quarterly Review, 12(2): 193-203.
Conflict Type(s): Restraint/Nonviolence
Central Conclusions: Ideological commitments to nonracialism encouraged the African National Congress’ eschewal of terrorism in the anti-apartheid struggle.
 
Graham, George. 2007. People's War? Self-Interest, Coercion and Ideology in Nepal's Maoist Insurgency. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 18(2): 231-248.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Alongside self-interest and coercion, ideological and emotional commitments explain the onset of, momentum of, and degree of popular participation in the Maoist insurgency in Nepal.
 
Asal, Victor & Rethemeyer, R. Karl. 2008a. Dilettantes, Ideologues, and the Weak: Terrorists Who Don't Kill. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 25: 244-263.
Asal, Victor & Rethemeyer, R. Karl. 2008b. The Nature of the Beast: Organizational Structures and the Lethality of Terrorist Attacks. The Journal of Politics, 70(2): 437-449.
Conflict Type(s): Terrorism
Central Conclusions: The lethality of terrorist organizations, and their propensity to kill at all, are joint products of i) the organization’s size, and ii) the organization’s ideology.

Ugarriza, Juan E. 2009. Ideologies and conflict in the post-Cold War. International Journal of Conflict Management, 20(1): 82-104.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Uses the discourse of rebel organizations in Afghanistan, Colombia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to argue for the continued relevance of ideology to civil conflict in the post-Cold War era. Suggests that elements of nationalism, socialism, and religious fundamentalism, in some combination, tend to characterize post-Cold War rebel ideologies.

Eck, Kristine. 2010. “Recruiting rebels: indoctrination and political education in Nepal,” in The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal: Revolution in the Twenty-first Century, edited by Mahendra Lawoti and Anup K. Pahari, pp.33-51. New York: Routledge.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Maoist ideology was used in Nepal to mobilize and motivate rebel fighters and socialize civilians into the CPN-M rebels’ political program by providing a framework of analysis for peasant grievances.

Owen, John M. 2010. The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States and Regime Change, 1510-2010. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Conflict Type(s): Interstate War
Central Conclusions: Patterns of forcible regime promotion are determined by the intensity of international ideological contests, with specific interventions produced by perceptions of ideological threats/opportunities.
 
Hegghammer, Thomas. 2010/11. The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad. International Security, 35(3): 53-94.
Conflict Type(s): N/A (foreign fighter involvement across conflicts)
Central Conclusions: The growth of Muslim foreign fighters is a violent offshoot of a new ideological subcurrent of Islamism, which emerged in the 1970s as a result of strategic action by marginalized elites in nonviolent international Islamic organizations.
 
Thaler, Kai M. 2012. Ideology and Violence in Civil Wars: Theory and Evidence from Mozambique and Angola. Civil Wars, 14(4): 546-567.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency; Restraint/Nonviolence
Central Conclusions: Early restraint in targeting civilians by Frelimo and MPLA in Mozambique and Angola reflected elite ideological commitments, and targeting of civilians increased as these commitments eroded.
 
Ugarriza, Juan E. & Craig, Matthew J. 2012. The Relevance of Ideology to Contemporary Armed Conflicts: A Quantitative Analysis of Former Combatants in Colombia. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 57(3): 445-477.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Armed groups’ members can be differentiated by pre-membership ideological affinity, but such affinity is cultivated after joining and promotes armed group cohesion.
 
Asal, Victor, Legault, Richard, Szekely, Ora & Wilkenfeld, Jonathan. 2013. Gender ideologies and forms of contentious mobilization in the Middle East. Journal of Peace Research, 50(3): 305-318.
Conflict Type(s): Restraint/Nonviolence
Central Conclusions: Middle Eastern political organizations with gender-inclusive ideologies are much less likely to engage in violent contentious politics.
 
Costalli, Stefano & Ruggeri, Andrea. 2015. Indignation, Ideologies, and Armed Mobilization: Civil War in Italy, 1943-45. International Security, 40(2): 119-157.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: In the Italian Civil War 1943-45, emotions (specifically indignation) and prior ideological attitudes/networks (specifically radical ideologies) were key in individuals’ shift from acceptance of the status quo to participation in violence.
 
Oppenheim, Ben, Steele, Abbey, Vargas, Juan F. & Weintraub, Michael. 2015. True Believers, Deserters, and Traitors: Who Leaves Insurgent Groups and Why. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(5): 794-823.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: 1) Combatants in Colombia who joined for ideological reasons were less likely to defect overall, but more likely to side-switch or demobilize when their group deviates from its ideology. 2) Political indoctrination of economically motivated combatants decreases demobilization/defection.
 
Toft, Monica Duffy & Zhukov, Yuri M. 2015. Islamists and Nationalists: Rebel Motivation and Counterinsurgency in Russia's North Causasus. American Political Science Review, 109(2): 222-238.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Islamist groups in Russia’s North Caucasus are, compared to violent nationalist groups, less susceptible to coercion through selective violence, and display distinct geographical and temporal distributions of violence.
 
Staniland, Paul. 2015. Militias, Ideology, and the State. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(5): 770-793
Conflict Type(s): N/A (state policies towards militias across conflict)
Central Conclusions: State strategies towards militias operating on their territory are a product of i) militia’s power, and ii) the ideological fit between militia and state.
 
Straus, Scott. 2015. Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership and Genocide in Modern Africa. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Conflict Type(s): Genocide/Mass Killing; Restraint/Nonviolence
Central Conclusions: Established elite ideologies – in particular the ‘founding narratives’ that describe the political community – influence states’ inclination or aversion to genocidal violence in national crises.
 
Ahmad, Aisha. 2016. Going Global: Islamist Competition in Contemporary Civil Wars. Security Studies, 25(2): 353-384.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Islamist groups whose ideology espouses a global Islamic identity have advantages in internal cohesion and durability over Islamist groups that rely on ethnic or tribal identities.
 
Brett, Roddy. 2016. The Origins and Dynamics of Genocide: Political Violence in Guatemala. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency; Genocide/Mass Killing
Central Conclusions: Ideological motives were important in generating participation in rebellion in Guatemala. Ideology also significantly shaped the state’s response, with racist and dehumanizing conceptions of indigenous people encouraging massacres and genocide.
 
Hoover Green, Amelia. 2016. The commander's dilemma: Creating and controlling armed group violence. Journal of Peace Research, 53(5): 619-632.
Conflict Type(s): Restraint/Nonviolence
Central Conclusions: Armed groups that use significant political education to socialize their combatants commit lower levels of sexual violence and, when promoting restraint of violence, commit lower levels of civilian killings.
 
Balcells, Laia. 2017. Rivalry and Revenge: The Politics of Violence during Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: In non-frontline zones in civil wars, ‘direct’ violence against civilians is shaped by intensity of competition between political identities, while ‘indirect’ violence is shaped by the dominance of antagonistic political identities.
 
Bulutgil, H. Zeynep. 2017. Ethnic Cleansing and Its Alternatives in Wartime: A Comparison of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires. International Security, 41(4): 169-201.
Conflict Type(s): Genocide/Mass Killing
Central Conclusions: Wartime ethnic cleansing is more likely under political leaderships united by ideological commitments to nationalist territorial goals and ethnic cleavages. Divided leaderships, leaderships with other goals, or leaderships oriented around non-ethnic cleavages are less likely to pursue ethnic cleansing.

Hafez, Mohammed M. 2017. Fratricidal Rebels: Ideological Extremity and Warring Factionalism in Civil Wars. Terrorism and Political Violence, Early Release Online
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Rebel infighting is most likely to emerge when rival factions are competing for the same constituency - due to shared ideological origins - but perceive each other as straddling irreconcilable ideological divides - between extremists and centrists - which threaten factional survival. Factions may use a number of strategies to deal with such threats, but only extremists contemplate fratricide.

Hirose, Kentaro, Imai, Kosuke & Lyall, Jason. 2017. Can civilian attitudes predict insurgent violence? Ideology and insurgent tactical choice in civil war. Journal of Peace Research, 54(1): 47-63.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency; Terrorism
Central Conclusions: Insurgent violence in Afghanistan is targeted according to the ideological attitudes of vulnerable civilian communities.
 
Oppenheim, Ben & Weintraub, Michael. 2017. Doctrine and violence: The impact of combatant training on civilian killings. Terrorism and Political Violence, 29(6): 1126-1148.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Among insurgent groups that emphasize the strategic and tactical importance of restraint towards civilian populations, political training can reduce civilian killings. Such an impact is observable for members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC).
 
Walter, Barbara F. 2017. The Extremist's Advantage in Civil Wars. International Security, 42(2): 7-39.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: Under certain conditions, rebel groups are incentivized to adopt extremist ideologies, since these help groups overcome three organizational challenges: i) convincing individuals to pay high costs of fighting; ii) recruiting soldiers who will remain trustworthy and committed after deployment; iii) reassuring combatants and supporters that elites will implement reforms and resist corruption once in power.
 
Wood, Reed M. & Thomas, Jakana L. 2017. Women on the frontline: Rebel group ideology and women's participation in violent rebellion. Journal of Peace Research, 54(1): 31-46.
Conflict Type(s): Civil War/Insurgency
Central Conclusions: A rebel group’s political ideology plays a central role in determining the prevalence of female fighters within the group.

Kim, Nam Kyu. 2018. Revolutionary Leaders and Mass Killing. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 62(2): 289-317.
Conflict Type(s): Genocide/Mass Killing
Central Conclusions: Leaders committed to revolutionary ideologies are four times more likely than non-revolutionary leaders to commit genocide/politicide, with revolutionaries with exclusionary ideologies most likely of all.

Adam Scharpf. 2018. Ideology and state terror: How officer beliefs shaped repression during Argentina's 'Dirty War'. Journal of Peace Research, 55(2): 206-221.
Conflict Type(s): State Repression
Central Conclusions: The ideological alignments of military officers significantly affected the levels of violence in the territories they preside over during Argentina's repressive 'Dirty War', with areas under the control of officers in the more liberal cavalry branch of the military experiencing lower violence.

Joshua Tschantret. 2019. Revolutionary Homophobia: Explaining State Repression Against Sexual Minorities. British Journal of Political Science, Early Release Online Version.
Conflict Type(s): State Repression
Central Conclusions: Repression of sexual minorities represents a puzzle, since they present no serious threat to states. Such repression can be explained by the interaction of strategic motives - particularly to preemptively repress potential opposition - with the ideological construction of sexual minorities as threatening due to their perceived association with internal or external opponents. Revolutionaries guided by exclusionary ideologies are most likely to engage in such repressive violence against LGBT groups.