Greene, Kevin
(2020)
Battles Over Perceptions Among Violent Non-state Actors.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
This is the latest version of this item.
Abstract
There is a growing consensus in the political violence literature that competition between violent non-state actors contributes to longer conflicts and more dramatic forms of violence. However, violence, as a solitary tactic, is too blunt of an instrument for political groups, to effectively compete with rivals and mobilize support. Instead violence, without additional context, leads to a series of ambiguities, which undermine a group's short and long term goals. I detail how messaging allows groups to clarify the innate ambiguities of violence, and helps mobilize resources. To identify evidence for the proposed mechanism I first develop a typology of the strategies used by these actors, then use a machine learning model to extract these occurrence from their statements. By moving beyond bag-of-words based representations and leveraging additional tools from natural language processing I am able to show significant variation in group communication, both in the strategies employed and the aspects discussed. I observe that groups devote considerable attention both to promoting their broader political agenda, and to undermining the goals and actions of their rivals.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
| Title | Member | Email Address | Pitt Username | ORCID |
|---|
| Committee Chair | Colaresi, Michael | mcolaresi@pitt.edu | | | | Committee Member | Savun, Burcu | | | | | Committee Member | Hayes, Jude | | | | | Committee Member | Metternich, Nils | | | |
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| Date: |
16 September 2020 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
June 2020 |
| Approval Date: |
16 September 2020 |
| Submission Date: |
30 June 2020 |
| Access Restriction: |
2 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 2 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
124 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Political Science |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
non-state actors, text analysis |
| Date Deposited: |
16 Sep 2020 13:52 |
| Last Modified: |
16 Sep 2022 05:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/39312 |
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Battles Over Perceptions Among Violent Non-state Actors. (deposited 16 Sep 2020 13:52)
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