A Leap Of Faith When And How Ex-Combatants Resort To Violence Analysis

The article “A Leap of Faith: When and How Ex-Combatants Resort to Violence” by Anders Themnèr, examines and argues an alternate theory as to what triggers Ex-Combatants to become violent. The previous school of thought, argued for the DDR approach; DDR stands for disarm, demobilize and reintegrate. This approach is based on the idea that Ex-combatant violence has a causal relationship with personal security, economic opportunity, and access to arms. Themnèr argues, contrary that there are three aspects, plus an opportunity, first there must be military affinities, or combatants with previous history with active military, next there has to be an intermediary to go between a large number of ex-combatants and the elite who create the opportunity,
Themnèr’s article outlines the main argument, proposing that there are three requirements in addition to opportunity, that contribute to Ex-combatants resorting to violence. First Themnèr discusses the need for opportunity, or entrepreneurs of violence. Ex-combatants lack the ability to organize themselves, they do not have access to the large amounts of resources or influences that the elites do, thus they cannot usually be the inciters of violence on their own. So before any other circumstances are relevant, there has to be an opportunity for the ex-combatant to participate in violence. Then, the first requirement is military affinities which is a “a previous history of active military cooperation”¹. Without a unit of trusted comrades, ex-combatants are more unlikely to feel unsafe participating in more violence. Further, some are eager to join to escape hostile, or simply non-prosperous communities that they settled in after the war. In addition to the military connections, there needs to be someone to bridge the gap between the numerous ex-combatants and the elite that wish to hire or entice them; Themnèr calls them intermediaries. Intermediaries are necessary for practical management, as well as for
First, there is discrepancy as to what qualifies someone as an ex-combatant. Further, “...establishing who actually took part in the fighting and who did not is sometimes difficult” (lol 9). There are often civilians that were part of support units, that backed up the regular military operations, confusing the point further. A second methodological problem is that in according to Themnèr’s definition of ex-combatant violence, the violence must have harmed the peace, or had a negative impact. This becomes dubious, because violence can come from pro-government militias, paramilitaries, and this violence despite coming from the state or groups acting on behalf of the state, it can threaten the postwar