LEADER 03483oam 2200457 450 001 9910554500203321 005 20210730232055.0 010 $a0-231-55372-2 024 7 $a10.7312/hage20064 035 $a(CKB)4100000011977094 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC6385741 035 $a(DE-B1597)600433 035 $a(OCoLC)1269269095 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780231553728 035 $a(EXLCZ)994100000011977094 100 $a20210730d2021 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcnu|||||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aFriend or foe $emilitia intelligence and ethnic violence in the Lebanese Civil War /$fNils Hägerdal 210 1$aNew York, New York :$cColumbia University Press,$d[2021] 210 4$d©2021 215 $a1 online resource (xiii, 223 pages) $cillustrations, maps 225 0 $aColumbia Studies in Middle East Politics 327 $tFrontmatter -- $tContents -- $tAcknowledgments -- $tIntroduction -- $tI Ethnic Violence in Non- Separatist Wars -- $tII The Lebanese Civil War, 1975? 1990 -- $tIII Demographics, Migration, and Violence -- $tIV Lebanon?s Christian Militias -- $tV Palestinian, Muslim, and Left- Wing Armed Groups -- $tConclusion -- $tNotes -- $tReferences -- $tIndex 330 $aWhen civil conflicts break out in plural societies, violence often occurs along group divides?running the risk of spiraling into ethnic cleansing. Yet for militants who do not seek ethnic separation as a political goal, indiscriminate attacks are detrimental to their cause. Under what circumstances are such combatants more or less likely to commit ethnic violence?Nils Hägerdal examines the Lebanese civil war to offer a new theory that highlights the interplay of ethnicity and intelligence gathering. He shows that when militias can obtain reliable intelligence?particularly in demographically intermixed areas where information can cross ethnic boundaries?they are likely to refrain from indiscriminate tactics. Access to local intelligence helps armed groups distinguish between neutral and hostile non-coethnics to target individual opponents while leaving civilians in peace. Conversely, when militias struggle to access local information, they often fall back on ethnicity as a proxy for political allegiance, with bloody consequences. As intelligence capabilities shape the course of sectarian strife, the role of ethnicity can vary even within a particular conflict.Hägerdal conducted sixteen months of fieldwork in Lebanon, interviewing former militia fighters and commanders and collecting novel statistical evidence. He combines documentation by government agencies, NGOs, local news media, and the United Nations with firsthand narratives by participants to provide an unparalleled account of the processes that generate violence or coexistence when a diverse society descends into armed conflict. Theoretically innovative and descriptively rich, Friend or Foe sheds new light on the logic and dynamics of ethnic violence in civil wars. 606 $aEthnic conflict$zLebanon 607 $aLebanon$xHistory$yCivil War, 1975-1990 607 $aLebanon$xEthnic relations 615 0$aEthnic conflict 676 $a956.92044 700 $aHägerdal$b Nils$01218365 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bUtOrBLW 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910554500203321 996 $aFriend or foe$92817485 997 $aUNINA