This article analyzes whether state repression in post—civil war situations can be explained by dynamics associated with previous civil wars. It claims that in post—civil war situations the state can more easily resort to indiscriminate repression against social groups, relying on information related to the civil war. Two civil war dynamics are tested: preemptive indiscriminate violence to eliminate opposition by the defeated population and retaliation for crimes committed during the war. Using data from the first decade of the Francoist regime in Spain, the author found that civil war dynamics, and not actual dissent, explain most of the country’s postwar violence.
Harry Hansen, The Civil War: A History (New York: New American Library, 2001), 654.
2.
Alistair Horne, The Fall of Paris. The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 ( London: Penguin, 2007).
3.
Philip Verwimp , "Testing the Double-Genocide Thesis for Central and Southern Rwanda," Journal of Conflict Resolution47, no. 4 (2003): 423-42.
4.
Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence (Boston: Beacon, 1998), 124.
5.
See, among others, Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein, "Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil Wars," American Political Science Review 100, no. 3 (2006): 429-47; and Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
6.
Conway W. Henderson, "Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression," Journal of Conflict Resolution 35, no. 1 (1991): 120-42; Steven C. Poe and Neal Tate, "Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s: A Global Analysis," American Political Science Review 88, no. 4 (1994): 853-72; Scott S. Gartner and Patrick M. Regan, "Threat and Repression: The Non-Linear Relationship between Government and Opposition Violence," Journal of Peace Research 33, no. 3 (1996): 273-87; Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Christian Davenport, State Repression and the Domestic Democratic Peace (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
7.
Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy. Explaining Ethnic Cleansing ( Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
8.
Paul Collier, War, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 20-21.
9.
George A. Lopez, "A Scheme for the Analysis of the State as Terrorist," in The State as Terrorist: The Dynamics of Governmental Violence and Repression , ed. M. Stohl and G. A. Lopez (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1984); Timothy P. Bushnell, Vladimir Shlapentokh, Christopher K. Vanderpool, and Jeyatnam Sundran, "State Organized Terror: Tragedy of the Modern State," in State Organized Terror, ed. T. Bushnell, V. Shlapentokh, K. Vanderpool , and J. Sundran ( San Francisco: Westview, 1991); R.J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2004).
10.
Benjamin A.Valentino, Final Solutions. Mass Killings and Genocide in the 20th Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).
11.
James Ron , "Varying Methods of State Violence," International Organizations51, no. 2 (1997): 275-300; Gartner and Regan, "Threat and Repression."
12.
Poe and Tate, "Repression of Human Rights," 486.
13.
Henderson, "Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression," 125.
14.
Will H. Moore, "The Repression of Dissent: A Substitution Model of Government Coercion,"Journal of Conflict Resolution44, no. 1 ( 2000): 107-27; Steven C. Poe, Neal Tate, Linda Camp Keith, and Drew Lanier, "Domestic Threats: The Abuse of Personal Integrity," in Paths to State Repression. Human Rights Violations and Contentious Politics, ed. Christian Davenport (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2000 ).
15.
Christian Davenport , "Multi-dimensional Threat Perception and State Repression: An Inquiry into Why States Apply Negative Sanctions,"American Journal of Political Science39, no. 3 (1995): 683-713.
16.
Christian Davenport , "State Repression and Political Order,"Annual Review of Political Science10 ( 2007): 1-23.
17.
See, e.g., Poe and Tate, "Repression of Human Rights," 863-64; and Matthew Krain, "State-Sponsored Mass Murder: The Onset and Severity of Genocides and Politicides," Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, no. 3 (1997): 331-60.
18.
See Ted Robert Gurr, "The Political Origins of State Violence and Terror: A Theoretical Analysis," in Government Violence and Repression: An Agenda for Research, ed. Michael Stohl and George A. Lopez (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986); Steven C. Poe, Nicolas Rost, and Sabine Carey, "Assessing Risk and Opportunity in Conflict Studies. A Human Rights Analysis," Journal of Conflict Resolution 50, no. 4 (2006): 484-507.
19.
Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
20.
Statish Kalyvas , "The Paradox of Terrorism in Civil War,"Journal of Ethics8, no. 1 (2004): 97-138, 101.
21.
Mark Irving Lichbach, "Deterrence or Escalation? The Puzzle of Aggregate Studies of Repression and Dissent," Journal of Conflict Resolution31, no. 2 (1987): 266-97; David T. Mason and Dale A. Krane, "The Political Economy of Death Squads: Toward a Theory of the Impact of State-Sanctioned Terror,"International Studies Quarterly33, no. 2 (1989): 175-98; Francisco Herreros, "The Full Weight of the State: The Logic of Random State-Sanctioned Violence,"Journal of Peace Research43, no. 6 (2006): 671-89.
22.
Jeremy M. Weinstein , Inside Rebellion. The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007: 206).
23.
Verwimp, "Testing the Double-Genocide Thesis," 440.
24.
Kalyvas, Logic of Violence, 148-49.
25.
Chris Bellamy , Absolute War. Soviet Russia in the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 2007), 285.
26.
Paul Collier , Anke Hoeffler, and Mans Söderbom, "Post-Conflict Risks,"Journal of Peace Research45, no. 2 (2008): 461-78.
27.
Tilly, Politics of Collective Violence, 41.
28.
Manuel Álvaro , "Por derecho de fundación: la legitimación de la represión franquista," in La gran represión. Los años de plomo del franquismo, ed. Mirta Nuñez (Barcelona: Flor del Viento),132.
29.
Ibid., 129-32.
30.
The data are taken from Álvaro, "Por derecho de fundación," 129-32.
31.
Máximo Cajal, La Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas (Madrid: Reus, 1939); Francisco Moreno, "La represión en la posguerra," in Víctimas de la guerra civil, ed. Santos Juliá (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 1999).
32.
Álvaro, "Por derecho de fundación," 111.
33.
Moreno, "La represión en la posguerra," 316.
34.
The data are taken from Pedro Montoliú, Madrid en la posguerra, 1939-1946. Los años de la represión (Madrid: Silex, 2005); Josep M. Solé i Sabaté, La repressió franquista a Catalunya. 1938-1953 (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1985); G. Herrero and A. Hernández, La represión en Soria durante la Guerra Civil (Soria: Hernández García, 1982); R. Robledo, ed., Esta salvaje pesadilla. Salamanca en la guerra civil española (Barcelona: Crítica, 2007); S. Vega, De la esperanza a la persecución. La represión franquista en la provincia de Segovia (Barcelona: Crítica, 2005); J. Prada, De la agitación republicana a la represión franquista. Ourense, 1934-1939 (Barcelona: Ariel, 2006); M. Souto, La represión franquista en la provincial de Lugo (1936-1940) (La Coruña: Edicios do Castro, 1998); J. Chaves, La represión en la provincia de Cáceres durante la guerra civil (1936-1939) (Cáceres: Universidad de Extremadura, 1995); F. Espinosa, La columna de la muerte. El avance del ejército franquista de Sevilla a Badajoz (Barcelona: Crítica, 2003); F. Espinosa, La guerra civil en Huelva (Huelva: Diputación Provincial, 2006); J. Gutierrez, Guerra civil en Cantabria y pueblos de Castilla (Madrid: Librosenred, 2006); Francisco Moreno, La guerra civil en Córdoba (1936-1939) (Madrid: Editorial Alpuerto, 1985); F. Cobo, Conflicto rural y violencia política. El largo camino hacia la dictadura. Jaén, 1917-1950 (Jaén: Universidad de Jaén, 1999); A. Nadal, Guerra civil en Málaga (Málaga: Arguval, 1984); J. Casanova, A. Cenarro, J. Cifuentes, M. Malvenda, and M. Salomón, El pasado oculto. Fascismo y violencia en Aragón (1936-1939) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1992); José María Ruiz, La guerra civil en la provincia de Toledo. Utopía, conflicto y poder en el sur del Tajo (1936-1939) (Ciudad Real: Almud, 2004); M. J. Ruiz Vilas, ed., Navarra 1936. De la esperanza al terror (Tafalla: Altaffaylla, 2004); Vicente Gabarda, Els Afusellaments al País Valencià (1938-1956) (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1993); Wenceslao Álvarez and Secundino Serrano, La Guerra Civil en León (León: Edilesa, 2009); Jesús María Palomares, La Guerra Civil en Palencia. La eliminación de los contrarios (Palencia: Cálamo, 2002); R. Salas, Pérdidas de la guerra (Barcelona: Planeta, 1977).
35.
Ángel Viñas and Fernando Hernández, El desplome de la República (Barcelona: Crítica, 2009).
36.
The data for this variable have been taken from Fernando Puell and Justo A. Huerta, Atlas de la guerra civil española: antecedentes, operaciones y secuelas militares (1931-1945) (Madrid: Síntesis, 2007).
37.
The sources of these data are Vicente Gabarda, La represión en la retaguardia republicana. País Valenciano, 1936-1939 (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1996); J. Solé i Sabaté, J. and J. Villarroya, La Repressió a la Reraguarda de Catalunya (1936-1939) (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Monserrat, 1990); J. Gutierrez, Guerra Civil en Cantabria; J. L. Ledesma, Los días de llamas de la revolución. Violencia y política en la retaguardia republicana de Zaragoza (Zaragoza: Diputación de Zaragoza, 2003); J. L. Ledesma, "La violencia en el Aragón Republicano: negras sombras del Alba Roja," in Guerra Civil en Aragón. 70 años después, ed. A. Cenarro and V. Pardo (Zaragoza: Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza, 2006); E. Casanova, "Represaliados en el Teruel republicano. Justicia o venganza durante la guerra civil," in La historia Local en la España Contemporánea, ed. P. Rújula and I. Peiró (Barcelona: L’Avenç, 1999); L. Castro, Capital de la cruzada. Burgos durante la guerra civil (Barcelona: Crítica, 2006); Cobo, Conflicto rural y violencia política; Nadal, Guerra civil en Málaga; Quirosa and Muñoz, Política y Guerra Civil en Almería (Almería: Cajal, 1986); Moreno, La guerra civil en Córdoba; R. Gil Bracero, Granada: Jaque a la República (Granada: Caja General de Ahorros de Granada, 1998); Espinosa, La columna de la muerte; Espinosa, La guerra civil en Huelva; Chaves, La represión en la provincia de Cáceres; R. Casas de la Vega, El Terror. Madrid 1936 (Madrid: Editorial Fénix, 1994); M. Ortiz, Violencia política en la II República y primer franquismo. Albacete, 1936-1950 (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1996); F. Alía, La guerra civil en retaguardia, Ciudad Real (1936-1939) (Ciudad Real: Diputación de Ciudad Real, 1994); Salas, Pérdidas; Ruiz, La guerra civil en la provincia de Toledo; A. Martín, Paz, piedad, perdón . . . y Verdad. La represión en la guerra civil: una síntesis definitiva (Madrid: Fénix, 1997); C. González, "Poder político y sociedad civil en la región de Murcia durante la II República y la Guerra Civil" (PhD thesis, Universidad de Murcia, 1997).
38.
Moreno, "La represión en la posguerra," 302.
39.
Davenport, State Repression, 7.
40.
Other forms of opposition toward Franco’s regime took place much later, during the 1950s and 1960s. For example, nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country were all but nonexistent during the 1940s and most of the 1950s. In Catalonia, the main nationalist party of the Republican period, The Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), nearly completely disappeared. It tried to revive a feeble "government in exile" in France in 1945, but it was practically nonexistent inside Spain (Albert Balcells, El nacionalismo catalán [Madrid: Historia 16, 1999], 137-43). It was not until the second half of the 1950s that Catalan nationalism began to rebuild itself, but even then very slowly. It was the same in the case of the Basque Country. Nationalist mobilization against Franco did not really begin until the creation of the terrorist group ETA at the end of the 1950s. Even then, the strength of that mobilization was rather low until the end of the 1960s, when ETA committed its first deadly attacks. Actually, the first person killed by ETA was in 1968 (Gurutz Jauregui, "ETA: orígenes y evolución ideológica y política," in La historia de ETA, ed. Antonio Elorza [Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2006], 246.
41.
Moreno, "La represión en la posguerra"; Secundino Serrano, Maquis. Historia de la guerrilla antifranquista (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2001).
42.
The source of the data is Francisco Aguado, El maquis en España. Su historia (Madrid: San Martín , 1975).
43.
The source for these data is Llibert Ferri, Jordi Muixí, and Eduardo Sanjuán, Las huelgas contra Franco (1939-1956) ( Barcelona: Planeta, 1978).
44.
Michael Richards , A Time of Silence. Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco’s Spain, 1936-1945 (Cambridge , UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
45.
Ibid., 160-61.
46.
See Henderson, "Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression," 124; Alok K. Bohara, Neil J. Mitchell, and Mani Nepal, "Opportunity, Democracy, and the Exchange of Political Violence: A Subnational Analysis of Conflict in Nepal," Journal of Conflict Resolution 50, no. 1 (2006): 108-28, 113; Davenport, "Multi-dimensional Threat Perception and State Repression," 700; Davenport, State Repression, 14.
47.
Collier, Hoeffler, and Söderbom, "Post-Conflict Risks," 8.
48.
Source: Albert Carreras and Xabier Tafunell, Historia Económica de la España Contemporánea (Barcelona: Crítica, 2003).
49.
The source for these last two variables is the Anuario Estadistico de España1943.
50.
Edward E.Malefakis, Agrarian Reform and Peasant Revolution in Spain. Origins of the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970).
51.
Henderson, "Conditions Affecting the Use of Political Repression," 125.
52.
Malefakis, Agrarian Reform.
53.
Laia Balcells , "Rivalry and Revenge: Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars," International Studies Quarterly54 (2010): 291-313.
54.
The source for these data is Javier Tusell, Las elecciones del Frente Popular (Madrid: Edicusa, 1971).
55.
Given that both dependent variables are count variables (number of people subjected to state repression) and that there is overdispersion, a negative binomial model has to be estimated.
56.
Joseph M. Hilbe , Negative Binomial Regression ( Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
57.
I have estimated OLS models with the dependent variable and the variable of people killed by Republican forces standardized by population, people killed by the Maquis, and Maquis’ sabotages and the results are basically the same. These models are shown in the appendix.
58.
Moreno, "La represión en la posguerra," 360-61; Richards, A Time of Silence.
59.
Leandro Prados de la Escosura, "Growth, Inequality and Poverty in Spain, 1850-2000. Evidence and Speculation" (WP 06-04, Working Papers in Economic History, Universidad Carlos III, 2006).
60.
Causa General, vi.
61.
Moreno, "La represión en la posguerra," 304-5.
62.
Ibid., 309.
63.
Ibid., 310.
64.
Serrano, Maquis.
65.
Source: National Statistics Institute, INE.
66.
Source: J. L. Ledesma, Los días de llamas de la revolución. Violencia y política en la retaguardia republicana de Zaragoza ( Zaragoza: Diputación de Zaragoza, 2003), 335-6.
67.
Source: J. L. Ledesma, Los días de llamas de la revolución. Violencia y política en la retaguardia republicana de Zaragoza ( Zaragoza: Diputación de Zaragoza, 2003).
68.
Source: J. Casanova, A. Cenarro, J. Cifuentes, M. Malvenda, and M. Salomón, El pasado oculto. Fascismo y violencia en Aragón (1936-1939) (Madrid: SigloXXI, 1992).
