Why do civilians suffer most during times of violent conflict? Why are civilian fatalities as much as eight times higher, calculated globally for current conflicts, than military fatalities? In Why They Die, Daniel Rothbart and Karina V. Korostelina address these questions through a systematic study of civilian devastation in violent conflicts. Pushing aside the simplistic definition of war as a guns-and-blood battle between two militant groups, the authors investigate the identity politics underlying conflicts of many types. During a conflict, all those on the opposite side are perceived as the enemy, with little distinction between soldiers and civilians. As a result, random atrocities and systematic violence against civilian populations become acceptable.
Rothbart and Korostelina devote the first half of the book to case studies: deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the Ukraine, genocide in Rwanda, the Lebanon War, and the war in Iraq. With the second half, they present new methodological tools for understanding different types of violent conflict and discuss the implications of these tools for conflict resolution.

Why They Die: Civilian Devastation in Violent Conflict

History

Karina V. Korostelina

Daniel Rothbart

Military

University of Michigan Press

Looking at a variety of countries, this book explores the influence of cultural dimensions on the interrelations between personal and social identity, and the impact of identity salience on attitudes, stereotypes, and the structures of consciousness.

Social Identity and Conflict: Structures, Dynamics, and Implications

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

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Books by Karina V. Korostelina