Comparative Politics

B19(b) - War, Security, and Political Violence in Comparative Perspective

Date: Jun 5 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location:

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Andrew Basso (WLU)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Lucas Savino (University of Western Ontario)

The Russian War of War: Extreme Domicide in Ukraine: Andrew Basso (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Abstract: Why are homes targeted for destruction during warfare outside of a military necessity? This paper expands on recent research on extreme domicide – the intentional destruction of homes in the context of political violence – by focussing on Russia’s aggressive warmaking on Ukraine. Tracing the development of the Russian way of war over the past three decades of conflict in Chechnya, Syria, and now Ukraine, Russian forces clearly engage in deliberate policies of targeting and destroying the homes of their adversaries. In the Ukrainian context, homes have been destroyed by Russian forces in two main unique ways. First, Russian forces have used disproportionate weaponry as they engage in indiscriminate aerial bombardment of cities and towns. Second, Ukrainian homes have simply been razed to the ground outside of active conflict. Russian forces have deliberately destroyed Ukrainian homes outside of a military necessity to destabilize and demoralize Ukrainian resistance, and to erase Ukrainian identities from securitized spaces. Both types of destruction constitute fundamental and flagrant breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict should be considered war crimes. These actions can also be understood as crimes against humanity as per the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This paper contributes new understandings to how domicide is used as a weapon of war and method of exerting control over vulnerable populations. These human security and justice dimensions will be tied to human rights laws and norms and atrocity prevention and punishment regimes to argue the need to explicitly criminalize domicide in international law.

Understanding Anti-Foreign Interference Policies in Taiwan: The Case of the 2020 Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法): Michaël Désormeaux (McMaster University), Tony Porter (McMaster University)
Abstract: This paper examines the adoption of anti-foreign interference (FI) policies in democracies, focusing on a case study of Taiwan’s policy response to foreign interference. As part of a broader comparative research between Canada and Taiwan, the paper answers the question: Why do some states adopt foreign interference policies, while others refrain or delay such actions? The study employs a structured and focused analysis of Taiwan (2014-2020) to shed light on the causes of its policy adoption against Chinese FI. Data collection included 25 semi-structured interviews with participants from the media, civil society, think tanks, academia, political parties, and state agencies. In addition, document analysis was conducted on Legislative Yuan debates, reports from state agencies, think tanks, and NGOs, as well as presidential speeches and media publications. The theoretical framework proposed in this research triangulates three approaches to study policy change: Multiple Streams Framework, Advocacy Coalition Framework, and Securitization theory. This innovative combination allows for assessing how governmental and non-governmental coalitions initiate cross-sectorial mobilization by constructing threat narratives to ultimately shape security policy. This research contributes to political science and policy practice in several ways. Introducing a case with high levels of resilience against foreign interference scrutinizes the performance of democratic governance models in the realm of defence against such threats. It calls for expanding beyond state-centred analysis to recognize the role of non-traditional actors in security arenas as agents of policy change. This approach challenges conventional top-down accounts of the policy process and offers a nuanced understanding of anti-FI policy adoption in democratic contexts.

Political Violence and Party System Fragmentation: Abelardo Gómez Díaz (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Laura Sparascio (Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals)
Abstract: This study addresses the extent to which local incidences of political violence contribute to party system fragmentation. With a focus on Mexico, it relies on data from over two thousand municipalities across three consecutive elections (2018, 2021, and 2024), as well as on a series of generalized least squares regressions with random effects and clustered standard errors. These show (1) that local incidences of political violence contribute to less party system fragmentation; (2) that this effect becomes stronger over time; (3) and that it is stronger during concurrent presidential elections. These findings highlight the importance of considering both temporal and contextual factors when examining the impact of political violence on party systems.