When Civilians kill Civilians: Violent Civilian Agency and its Legacies

While existing studies have examined violence by armed actors or the non-violent agency of civilians, literature rarely discusses the potential for civilians themselves to turn violent. This project addresses this gap, arguing that civilians can kill each other for at least three different reasons: material greed, revenge for prior victimisation, and the pre-emption of future harm. To test these mechanisms, the project will compare civilian-perpetrated violence during the Korean War (1950-) and the Italian Civil War (1943-45). The project’s most novel finding identifies a “pre-emptive” pathway to violence: as an occupying force begins to retreat, local collaborators may pre-emptively kill potential avengers to forestall future retribution. This mechanism, however, is contingent on the public’s knowledge of collaborators’ identity. In contrast to the Korean case, Italy saw relatively few instances of pre-emptive civilian killing. Unlike the four-month North Korean occupation, the Italian fascist regime’s two-decade tenure meant that collaborators were already deeply embedded and publicly known. This long-term exposure made it impossible for collaborators to pre-emptively eliminate all potential avengers or conceal their long-standing skeletons once the tide of war shifted. The project also seeks to uncover the long-term legacies of civilian-on-civilian violence. We expect that communities that experienced violent civilian agency face lower inter-personal trust and greater barriers to collective action. We test these expectations through a quasi-experimental survey in South Korea.