Journal of Peace Research

2017, Vol. 54(5) 687–700

Armed group institutions and combatant ª The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permission:
socialization: Evidence from El Salvador sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0022343317715300
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Amelia Hoover Green

Department of Politics, Drexel University

Abstract
Ex-combatants who fought with the Salvadoran Army during El Salvador’s 1980–92 civil war often recall being
‘captured’, rather than recruited, suffering beatings and humiliation in the course of training, and fighting without a
sense of purpose or direction. Those who served with rebel forces, by contrast, recall fatigue and frustration with new
routines, but seldom hazing or abuse; most also recalled deep, ongoing instruction about the purpose and goals of the
war. This comparison highlights the broad variation in armed groups’ formal institutions for socialization, a topic
that political scientists have only recently begun to examine in depth. The Salvadoran case also emphasizes some
shortcomings of the existing literature, which may elide the differing effects of different formal institutions, treat
individual institutions as operating independently on combatant behavior, and/or fail to map complex causal
processes intervening between institutions and behavior. This article takes as its starting point the observation that
many armed group institutions – including recruitment, military training, political training, and disciplinary regimes
– are components of the process known more generally as ‘combatant socialization’. Examining specific institutional
processes associated with combatant socialization allows for the generation of more refined and specific theories of
combatant socialization as both a causal variable and an outcome. At the same time, treating armed group institutions
as related elements of a broader process, rather than as fully separate institutions, may also advance understandings of
the effects of these institutions. I demonstrate that the implementation and content of formal institutions for
socialization varied significantly both across and within groups in El Salvador; building on this analysis, I lay out
several potential directions for comparative research.

Keywords
armed groups, civil war, institutions, socialization, war

Introduction Cohen, 2013; Manekin, 2013; Gutiérrez Sanı́n &

Wood, 2014; Oppenheim & Weintraub, 2016; Hoover
Recently, conflict researchers have focused increasingly
Green, 2016). However, while this literature often
on internal armed group institutions and practices (see
invokes ‘socialization’, it seldom investigates combatant
Checkel’s introductory essay, 2017). The institutions in
socialization in depth, either as an institution itself or as a
question include both formal, top-down processes such
causal mechanism connecting institutions to patterns of
as recruitment, training, indoctrination, and disciplinary
combatant behavior.
procedures, and informal, bottom-across (cf. Wood,
Responding to this gap in the literature, this article
2009; Wood & Toppelberg, 2017) processes such as
takes a descriptive, theory-building approach to the pro-
small-group bonding, hazing, informal discipline, and
cess of combatant socialization, focusing on the ways
officer–enlisted interactions. Several scholars have
demonstrated associations between individual armed
group institutions and patterns of (non)violence
against civilians (e.g. Humphreys & Weinstein, 2006; Corresponding author:
Weinstein, 2007; Gutiérrez Sanı́n, 2008; Wood, 2009; ameliahoovergreen@gmail.com
688
that formal institutions affect socialization. 1 This
approach has some advantages over previous investiga-
tions. Considering institutional components of socializa-
tion allows for greater specificity in defining, observing,
and hypothesizing about a construct often viewed as
nebulous or over-general. In addition, by considering
the socialization effects of multiple armed group institu-
tions, both separately and more holistically, it provides a
corrective to research that places exclusive focus on the
independent effects of individual institutions, eliding the
complex interactions between institutions that contrib-
ute to socialization.
Below, I describe in detail the ways that armed groups
implemented specific formal institutions during civil war
in El Salvador (1980–92). I examine how four types of
institutions – recruitment, military training, political
education, and disciplinary procedures – contributed
to combatant socialization in the Salvadoran context.
The analysis draws on 113 semi-structured interviews
and 360 brief structured interviews with Salvadoran
ex-combatants. I document considerable variation in
socialization experiences both across and within state and
rebel forces. Scholars frequently treat the rebel coalition,
the Farabundo Martı́ National Liberation Front (Frente
Farabundo Martı́ para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN)
as effectively unitary, rather than as the highly coordi-
nated umbrella group it was.2 Here, I show that while
the FMLN’s two largest subgroups were similar in
many ways, combatants nevertheless report signifi-
cantly different socialization experiences. On the state
side, I examine differences between the experiences of
regular army personnel and those who joined elite state
groups, such as immediate reaction battalions or
paramilitary security forces.
The considerable subnational (and even intragroup)
variation in the Salvadoran case is worth documenting in
its own right. In addition, however, it implies a further
set of research questions. I consider the links between
institutional configuration and combatant socialization,
and the ways in which institutions, via socialization, may
1
Throughout the article, I adopt the definition of ‘socialization’ used
by all articles in this Special Issue: Socialization is a process of
inducting actors into the norms and rules of a given community,
the endpoint of which is internalization (Checkel, 2017). Thus, by
‘combatant socialization’, I mean the process of inducting new
combatants into the norms and rules of a given armed group; as in
Checkel’s formulation, the (theoretical, if not always realized)
endpoint of this process is internalization of the group’s norms.
2
For example, Wood (2003) and Viterna (2013) each conducted
research with a specific FMLN faction, yet refer to ‘the FMLN’
throughout their published work.
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
affect patterns of behavior toward civilians. Examining
combatant socialization this way highlights some odd
(though understandable) discontinuities in political
science literature. In particular, I note significant
differences between comparative politics and interna-
tional relations approaches to socialization, and (relat-
edly) between analyses of socialization in state versus
non-state armed groups. The article proceeds in four
additional sections: I briefly review existing literature,
describe the research design and methods underlying the
evidence from El Salvador, present the analysis of inter-
view and survey data, and discuss some implications for
future research on combatant socialization.
Armed group institutions
and combatant socialization
Research that invokes armed group ‘socialization’ often
fails to specify which processes are assumed to lead to
socialization. Research on political socialization, which
frequently considers experiences in state armed organi-
zations, has investigated the role of the military as a
‘school for the nation’ (Krebs, 2004: 93). But much of
this literature does not clarify which elements of the
military experience are expected to cause the hypothe-
sized changes. In any event, most find no direct effects of
military membership on long-term political attitudes
(Bachman et al., 2000; Krebs, 2004; Erikson & Stoker,
2011). Among scholars of non-state armed groups, on
the other hand, ‘socialization’ is often linked with armed
group institutions. However, these institutions are often
viewed as a set of interchangeable tools for inducing
compliance with commanders’ preferences (i.e. as solu-
tions to a principal–agent problem, cf. Gates, 2002;
Weinstein, 2007), rather than as a group of distinct
processes operating in distinct ways. It often remains
unspecified how – either practically, at the level of the
group, or internally, at the level of the individual ‘target’
– socialization actually occurs (see also Checkel, 2017).
I argue that armed group institutions are an important
practical means by which armed group elites attempt to
socialize new combatants to group norms. These prac-
tical processes of socialization may not result (indeed,
may not even be intended to result) in combatants’ full
internalization of group norms. Many formal institu-
tions operate to shape combatants’ behaviors, rather
than the ‘true’ preferences or beliefs implicated in intern-
alization (cf. Hoover Green, 2016; Gates, 2017). Below,
I consider potential socialization effects of four key
armed group institutions: recruitment, military training,
political education, and disciplinary regimes.
Hoover Green
What, exactly, is an ‘armed group institution’? March
& Olsen (2008: 3) define institutions this way: ‘An
institution is a relatively enduring collection of rules and
organized practices, embedded in structures of meaning
and resources that are relatively invariant in the face of
turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the
idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals
and changing external circumstances’. Armed group
institutions, then, are the relatively enduring rules and
organized practices of armed groups, those that tend to
persist despite changes in membership or external cir-
cumstances. In line with this definition (and with the
data limitations discussed in the following section), this
article focuses on formal institutions. I do not dispute
that informal institutions play an important role in com-
batant socialization experiences, but I am most interested
here in formal institutions’ dual role as potential drivers
of both compliance and internalization.
I argue below that different (formal) armed group insti-
tutions act upon different types (and therefore different
processes) of socialization. Checkel (2017), reviewing
levels of socialization, considers the differences between
‘type 0’ socialization (acting in accordance with group
norms for purely instrumental reasons), ‘type 1’ socializa-
tion (learning and performing a particular pro-group role,
perhaps habitually), and ‘type 2’ socialization (full inter-
nalization of, and identification with, group norms).
While some readers may not consider mere compliance
a type, or level, of socialization, the evidence suggests that
compliance plays an important role in socialization. Even
involuntary behavior change may produce significant
changes in attitude (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959; and
see Checkel, 2017 on self-persuasion and cognitive
dissonance). Sociologists of total institutions (including
military barracks) have carefully documented the extent
to which behavioral control contributes to internalization
(e.g. Goffman, 1961; Arkin & Dobrofsky, 1978).
The level of socialization varies across institutions; so,
importantly, does its content. As noted above, socializa-
tion is, by definition, socialization to something – a
particular set of stylized facts, ideologies, expectations,
and behavioral norms. For example, military socializa-
tion practices carry specific messages about gender, gen-
der performance, the appropriate role of violence, and
respect for hierarchies, often equating courage with tra-
ditional masculinity and deriding femininity (e.g. Arkin
& Dobrofsky, 1978; Burke, 2004). For each institution
described below, I consider potential variation in the
type(s) of socialization primarily targeted by the institution
and the range of normative content that the institution
primarily reinforces.
689
A rich literature has theorized the connections
between recruitment and combatant behavior in non-
state armed groups, often taking a rationalist perspective
that – in specifying fixed preferences for both comba-
tants and commanders – effectively precludes the possi-
bility of type 2 socialization (e.g. Gates, 2002; Mitchell,
2004; Weinstein, 2007; Beber & Blattman, 2013). This
literature identifies three basic types of recruitment:
forced unpaid recruitment, voluntary paid recruitment,
and voluntary unpaid recruitment. By contrast, literature
on professionalism (and professionalization) in state
militaries tends to assume payment and to focus on the
difference between conscription and volunteer service,
typically addressing concerns about whether volunteer
service dilutes traditional military values, promotes ‘pro-
fessionalism’ (variously defined), or both (e.g. Moskos,
1977; Cohen, 1995).
Because it occurs prior to the bulk of the socialization
process, often at a single point in time rather than as an
ongoing process, recruitment may not be an obvious insti-
tution of socialization. However, rather than dismiss
recruitment as an engine of socialization, I examine varia-
tion in the ways that recruitment socializes. Perhaps most
importantly, recruitment practices shape the initial mix of
attitudes and behavioral predispositions in an armed
group, as well as group members’ initial social hierarchies
and levels of interpersonal trust (Cohen, 2013). In addi-
tion, recruitment provides new fighters with their first
lessons about the group’s expectations and culture. In
many groups, particularly non-state groups, the recruit-
ment process can stretch over weeks or months as recrui-
ters vet potential candidates for ideological belonging,
physical toughness, or other aspects of ‘fit’.
Recruitment practices vary extensively on several
dimensions. Recruitment may occur suddenly or over a
long period (e.g. when recruits join via religious organi-
zations, school groups, or friendships);3 violently or
peacefully; it may include offers of payment, or not; it
may be forced or voluntary; it may be random or highly
selective, and recruits may take an oath or not. Some
patterns of recruitment (forced recruitment, for example)
may implicate only type 0 socialization, whereas others
(extensive vetting and instruction) may produce (or
reflect) type 1 or type 2 socialization.
Following recruitment, most recruits receive at least
some level of military training. ‘Military training’ con-
sists, minimally, of showing a new combatant how to fire
3
Manekin (2017) describes the lengthy pre-enlistment socialization
measures employed by the IDF.
690
a gun before sending him or her into battle. More com-
monly, at least among state militaries, training takes place
over a relatively extended period in which recruits are
removed from normal life and the group exercises almost
complete control over day-to-day routines (Goffman,
1961). ‘Boot camp’ deprives recruits of privacy, creates
physical exhaustion, and habituates recruits to instant
obedience via drilling. Military training is vital to nearly
all armed groups because this is the period in which
recruits learn to kill (cf. Grossman, 1996). While some
– perhaps, in some contexts, many – new recruits are
more predisposed to violence than the general population,
most are not. Commanders must therefore create a pop-
ulation that is willing and able to wield violence, despite
having no necessary initial inclination toward violence.
Military training, like all formal institutions, varies
significantly across groups. As noted above, military
training may be minimal or extensive, targeting only type
0 socialization or all three types of socialization. Cooper-
Thomas & Anderson (2002) find that the primary
variable mediating the relationship between British
Army socialization tactics and attitude change during the
first eight weeks of service (i.e. during the military train-
ing period) is information acquisition, suggesting that
military training, in this case, focuses on type 1 socializa-
tion. It may include skills training other than weapons or
tactical training, or not; it may be an immersive, totaliz-
ing process as in the US military, or it may occur on an
ad hoc basis; it may subject recruits to extreme physical
privation or abuse, or not. In all armed groups, however,
the vital content of this socialization remains the same:
killing in combat as the fighter’s raison d’être, and the
creation of the skills and mindset necessary for killing.
If military training socializes recruits to a fighter-as-
killer identity, political education (hereafter PE) often
pushes recruits to view themselves as members of a polit-
ical movement, expressing political commitments through
their work as fighters. Hoover Green (2016: 9) defines PE
as ‘formal instruction that explains specific social or polit-
ical purposes of a particular conflict, and connects conflict
purposes to specific behavioral norms’. Often PE takes the
form of direct instruction, mandatory meetings, or struc-
tured conversation about the meaning and purpose(s) of
war or violence (Gutiérrez Sanı́n & Wood, 2014; Hoover
Green 2011, 2016; Oppenheim & Weintraub, 2016).
Unlike the other institutions discussed here, PE may
be entirely absent from an armed group’s socialization
process. When present, it may be more or less routine; it
may continue following deployment or be confined to
the initial training period; most importantly, PE may or
may not attempt to control or restrain combatants’ use of
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
violence. Frequently, PE is tied directly to behavioral
expectations, and consequently it could be said to sup-
port all three types of socialization. Yet, in its strong
focus on the reasons for conflict and violence, PE,
perhaps more than any other institution, focuses on
internalization of group norms (type 2 socialization).
The content of PE – that is, the specific political com-
mitments that combatants are meant to internalize –
may vary widely. The rabid anti-Tutsi sentiment broad-
cast by Interahamwe militia leaders in Rwanda may be
said to constitute PE; so would the Marxist-infused
liberation theology that informed much of the Salva-
doran FMLN’s ideology; so would the rabid anti-
communism of elite Salvadoran state organizations (on
which, see below). While internalization itself may lead
to increased command control over combatant beha-
viors, it is the content of the internalized ideology that
determines whether type 2 socialization will be associ-
ated with generalized restraint (Hoover Green, 2016).
Formal disciplinary institutions make up a final set of
institutions for socialization. ‘Discipline’ here includes
systems of behavioral rules, rewards, and punishments,
and – importantly – the group’s capacity for enforcing
them. Thus, disciplinary procedures are primarily aimed
at type 0 and type 1 socialization. While nearly all armed
groups implement some disciplinary system, formal dis-
ciplinary systems vary in the extent to which they are
intended to regulate combatants’ actions moment to
moment, the level of detail and formality with which
rules are promulgated, the extent to which disciplinary
processes are routinized and bureaucratized, and –
importantly – the extent to which disciplinary policies
are actually enacted. In addition, as discussed at greater
length in the context of data from El Salvador, disciplin-
ary institutions may employ physical violence or humi-
liation, or not.
Importantly, formal institutions often appear together
in ‘styles’ or ‘sets’: forced recruitment often occurs in
groups that employ little military or political training;
lengthy recruitment often occurs with significant
commitments to PE; abusive recruitment practices with
abusive disciplinary regimes; and so on. Indeed, research-
ers attempting to explain variation in violence or other
outcomes with reference to a particular institution may
have difficulty determining which institution is ‘doing
the work’. For example: did PE produce the narrow
repertoires and low levels of violence committed by the
FMLN in El Salvador (cf. Hoover Green, 2011), or was
it the lengthy, voluntary recruitment process (cf. Cohen,
2013)? Given that different formal institutions may rein-
force or undermine one another, considering them
Hoover Green
together as part of a broader process may yield real ana-
lytical benefits. In the following two sections, I consider
the socialization effects of formal institutions in
Salvadoran armed groups, first describing the data
underlying the comparisons and then laying out the
comparisons themselves.
Research design and methods
For this analysis, I draw on two original data collections,
as well as several excellent accounts by other scholars
(Montgomery, 1995; Wood, 2003; Viterna, 2013).
I collected a total of 113 semi-structured interviews in
2008–09 (N ¼ 89 interviews) and 2015 (N ¼ 24),
primarily with low-level ex-combatants. (The 2008–09
sample also included a few higher-ranking officers and
US special forces ex-combatants who had worked as trai-
ners.) In addition, during 2009, I contracted with a
Salvadoran colleague to administer 360 brief structured
interviews with state and non-state ex-combatants. In
what follows I refer to semi-structured interview data
as ‘interviews’ or ‘interview data’ and data from struc-
tured interviews as ‘survey data’.4
These data were not gathered with the aim of under-
standing combatant socialization per se. Rather, I sought
to test the hypothesis that, all else equal, armed groups
with rigorous, ongoing PE programs perpetrate more
uniform repertoires of violence, and lower levels of unor-
dered violence, against civilians (Hoover Green, 2011,
2016). In order to distinguish the effects of PE from
those of other institutions, I examined in detail how
low-level combatants experienced recruitment, training,
PE, and disciplinary practices. Thus, while these data
were not specifically intended to consider the socializa-
tion process, they can be repurposed to form the basis for
some theorizing about how, and to what extent, formal
institutions affect socialization.
I selected El Salvador as a case for investigation for a
number of reasons. Initial data and secondary accounts
suggested considerable variation in levels and repertoires
of violence, both between state and non-state forces and
among different fighting forces on each side. At the time,
institutional variation within Salvadoran armed groups
had received little sustained attention, but I believed that
there was significant variation on these key independent
variables as well. Moreover, I believed that I could gain
4
Structured interviews were completed with ex-combatants of both
state and FMLN forces who were present in veterans’ benefit offices
on randomly selected days, one day per office. The offices visited were
located in 12 of El Salvador’s 14 departments.
691
access to significant numbers of ex-combatants for inter-
views without exposing respondents to excessive risk.
Both the interview and the survey arms of the project
were approved by institutional review boards, at Yale
University (interviews and survey) during 2008–10 and
at Drexel University (interviews only) in 2015. Asking
former combatants about their wartime experiences
poses special risks, particularly in the context of civil
war (Wood, 2006). The detailed narratives of wartime
experiences that ex-combatants shared raised the possi-
bility that respondents could be identified. To mitigate
this risk, I assured respondents that no recordings, tran-
scripts or notes from semi-structured interviews would
be released.5
Interview respondents included former members of
all five FMLN factions and veterans of a wide array of
state groups (paramilitary security forces, many regular
army units, the paratroop battalion, and elite Immediate
Reaction Battalions [Batallones de Infanterı́a de Reac-
ción Inmediata, BIRIs]). To collect interview data, a
Salvadoran research assistant contacted community orga-
nizations and ex-combatants’ organizations, explaining
my research project and requesting introductions to ex-
combatants who might be willing to speak with us ‘about
training and discipline in armed groups during the civil
war’. My research assistant then contacted individuals
whose names and information we received. Each inter-
view closed with a request for additional contacts; thus,
the interview sample reproduces social networks among
ex-combatants to an extent, and cannot be taken as rep-
resentative. Particularly on the FMLN side, the sample
likely comprises respondents who are more engaged with
community or other organizations than is typical. On
the state side, it remains unclear to me whether respon-
dents’ disaffection with their experiences is a result of the
networks to which I had access, or whether this accu-
rately represents the population of state ex-combatants.
Interviews generally took place in respondents’
homes, although some interviews took place at commu-
nity centers or veterans’ benefits centers. They were con-
ducted in private (with the respondent, myself, and my
research assistant present) except where the respondent
wished to have another person present. The majority of
5
Raw data from semi-structured interviews is protected by human
subjects agreements and therefore cannot be released. However, all
interview questions for structured and semi-structured interviews, a
de-identified list of interview locations and dates, de-identified
quantitative data, and further information about ethical and
methodological considerations are available online: https://
www.prio.org/JPR/Datasets/.
692
interviews lasted 60–90 minutes, with the shortest being
approximately 30 minutes long and the longest lasting
150 minutes. Most were conducted in the capital region
(within an hour’s drive of San Salvador, in the depart-
ments of San Salvador and La Libertad), or in the
Chalatenango and Morazán departments.
Survey data were collected at veterans’ service centers
in 12 of El Salvador’s 14 departments during October
2009. We received permission from veterans’ service
centers run by the government and (in some locations)
FMLN veterans’ associations to approach all visitors to
these offices on days when the offices were busy because
benefits were disbursed. (No record of the number of
refusals was kept, unfortunately.) Among those who
agreed to be surveyed, data were collected anonymously,
except where respondents requested that the research
assistant administer the survey verbally and mark down
their answers. Each night, my colleague uploaded survey
responses via a web form and then destroyed the paper
forms. The survey was two pages long and required
approximately 10–15 minutes to complete. It is impor-
tant to emphasize that these data did not originate with a
systematic sample from a known population. While the
surveys represent a broad set of ex-combatants from
around the country, the sample is not representative of
ex-combatants in the statistical sense. Moreover, it is
difficult to assess whether the veterans’ organization sam-
ple is biased in a way that is systematically associated
with socialization experiences.
Both interviews and survey questions addressed the
respondent’s experience of recruitment, training, PE
(if any), and disciplinary practices in the armed group.
Because of the lengthy period between the close of the
conflict (1992) and my first interviews (2008), the
fallibility of memory represents a significant concern in
analyzing these data. It is essentially impossible to ensure
that respondents’ recollections are correct when their
experiences have not previously been chronicled. How-
ever, given the considerable specificity with which many
combatants reported (for example) the titles of books
and pamphlets they received during training, or the
specific training regimens they undertook, I believe that
respondents’ recollections about their interactions with
formal institutions are substantially correct.
Moving from hypothesis testing to theory-building
requires some re-thinking and re-analysis of this body
of evidence. Rather than examining the evidence as a
way of distinguishing one ‘theory of violence’ from
another, the work here is in process-tracing (see the over-
view of this literature in Bennett & Checkel, 2014).
Examining both interview and survey data, I looked for
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
indicators of a socialization process, including socializa-
tion of all three types (0, 1, 2) outlined above. The
indicators I looked for included the respondent’s
subjective sense of changes in perspective or way of life;
opinions of group leaders/hierarchy; allegiance to the
group; knowledge, acceptance or internalization of the
group’s goals; approval of the group’s tactics; postwar
political engagement; and so on.
Armed group socialization in El Salvador
(1980–92)
After providing some background information about the
Salvadoran civil war, this section considers each of four
formal institution types in turn: recruitment, military
training, political training, and socialization. For each,
I consider how the institution, and its effects on comba-
tant socialization, varied both across and within state and
FMLN forces. I analyze the practices of the two largest
FMLN subgroups; on the state side, I compare regular
army units to state groups usually considered ‘elite’,
including paramilitary security forces, the Army’s para-
troop battalion, and US-trained immediate reaction
infantry battalions.6
The Salvadoran civil war (officially 1980–92) pitted
leftist rebels against a US-backed military government.
The Farabundo Martı́ National Liberation Front (Frente
Farabundo Martı́ para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN)
was a well-coordinated coalition of five smaller armed
organizations; of these, the two largest were the Popular
Forces of Liberation (Fuerzas Populares de Liberación,
FPL) and the People’s Revolutionary Army (Ejército
Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP). The state’s forces
included regular army units, specially trained immediate
reaction infantry battalions (Batallones de Infanterı́a de
Reacción Inmediata, BIRI), and several paramilitary
security forces, including the National Guard, National
Police, and Treasury Police. Salvadoran state forces were
supported by millions (eventually billions) of dollars of
US military aid, as well as the presence of a difficult-to-
specify number of US military ‘advisers’.7
6
The decision to group very different elite forces together for the
purposes of this analysis was motivated primarily by the relatively low
numbers of interview and survey respondents from each of these types
of group, and by a wish to highlight the distinction between regular
Salvadoran Army ex-combatants’ experiences and those of more elite
ex-combatants. The identification of specific state groups as ‘elite’ was
nearly universal across state ex-combatants, and my categorization
reflects those of my respondents.
7
The official limit placed on the number of US advisers in El
Salvador at a given time was 55 starting in 1981. However, US
Hoover Green
The conflict had its roots in decades of military rule,
which reinforced the economic and social power of the
landed elite at the expense of a large and dense popula-
tion of landless peasants (Stanley, 1996). While peaceful
calls for reform from both peasant and urban unions
were prominent in the 1960s and 1970s, government
forces responded with extraordinary repression. As refor-
mers disappeared, the revolutionary armed groups that
would unite to form the FMLN coalesced and gained
strength, drawing particularly from church-based pea-
sant organizing (Wood, 2003). The conflict is usually
‘officially’ dated to 1980, when the FMLN was formally
organized as a coalition of five rebel organizations
(Montgomery, 1995). In the war’s earliest (and most
intense) years, the technology of warfare was surprisingly
conventional: rebels in FMLN zones gathered in large
encampments and conducted large-unit maneuvers
against state forces that were poorly equipped, under-
strength, and undertrained (Schwarz, 1991). However,
following rapid increases in state forces, and particularly
the heavy use of aerial bombardment, the FMLN dis-
banded its large encampments in 1984–85, thereafter
focusing on small-unit, hit-and-run tactics (Peceny &
Stanley, 2010). Throughout the conflict, state forces
committed the vast majority of violence against civilians;
this was particularly true in the earliest years of the war
(Hoover Green, 2011: Chapter 7; Betancur, Planchart &
Buergenthal, 1993). However, levels of lethal violence
against civilians remained low, relative to the conflict’s
early years, for the duration of the war.8 A peace agree-
ment was signed in late 1991 and took effect in early
1992. Despite rising levels of criminal violence, there has
been no return to conflict.
Recruitment
State and FMLN recruitment experiences differed
starkly. State ex-combatants, particularly those who
served in the regular army, were much more likely to
report forced recruitment, particularly violent forced
officials developed an array of measures to evade this limit. The
highest estimates of total US military and CIA personnel in El
Salvador over the duration of the war is in the low thousands (see,
e.g. interview with a former special forces operative in Smyth, 1993).
8
While it is difficult to estimate levels of other forms of violence
because of data quality issues, it appears that levels of non-lethal
violence (such as arbitrary detention, torture, and sexual violence)
by state forces did not decline in the same way as lethal violence,
perhaps because international attention, including attention from
government forces’ US backers, focused on lethal violence to the
exclusion of other tactics.
693
recruitment, than were FMLN combatants. Many state
ex-combatants recalled being hit, punched, or kicked
during recruitment. State organizations paid (though
always poorly and often late), while no FMLN faction
offered payment. The Salvadoran army generally
demanded two years of service, while the term of service
to the FMLN was understood to be indefinite. Among
the minority of state ex-combatants reporting voluntary
recruitment, most reported that they joined because it
was the only job available. However, only 23% of
regular army survey respondents reported fully volun-
tary recruitment. In interviews, these respondents often
described being abducted off the street before transfer
to a particular unit for training and deployment. Rela-
tive to regular army units, elite state groups were much
less likely to recruit by force. Most members of these
groups report joining voluntarily or semi-voluntarily,
often transferring to BIRIs or security forces from
regular army units.
FMLN respondents, by contrast, often responded to
questions about their reasons for joining with narratives
of ideological awakening. Particularly among those who
joined early in the conflict (or prior to the conflict), the
recruitment process could take months or years, unfold-
ing through clandestine conversations in schools,
churches, and civil society organizations, small ‘mis-
sions’, and membership in home-based clandestine
militias before culminating with membership in a regular
guerrilla unit. Indeed, FMLN ex-combatants frequently
had difficulty naming a particular time when they
‘joined’ or ‘became members of’ a group. Many, partic-
ularly those who joined early in the conflict, understood
their membership in Christian Base Communities,
school groups, peasant unions or other civil society
organizations as membership in the FMLN, while others
understood their membership to have begun only when
they arrived in a guerrilla encampment. As the war
progressed, however, FMLN recruitment became more
routinized and shorter in duration.
I also observed important differences within the
FMLN with respect to recruitment, differences that
reflected – at least to an extent – ideological differences
between the FMLN’s two largest groups. The ERP was
clearly the most militant of the five FMLN subgroups.
It formed a political wing only after several years of
existence as an armed revolutionary organization, and
adhered, particularly early in the conflict, to a Guevarist
foquismo strategy (Montgomery, 1995). Here, the armed
revolutionary movement is essentially a vanguard;
politics is secondary to the military victory. In practice,
this approach had several effects, most notably on
694
recruitment strategies. While the ERP primarily rec-
ruited voluntarily, mid-level officers in my interview
sample viewed recruitment as a tactic for building a
high-quality force, rather than an independent impera-
tive. The ERP recruited via a number of civil society
organizations, as well as via clandestine networks in
local schools – but when the supply of willing recruits
dried up, leaders were willing to order coercive recruit-
ment tactics, sometimes including outright abduction,
in the group’s zone of control. ERP experiments with
forced recruitment in Morazán department during
1983–84 provides some interesting evidence about the
role of particular institutions in the broader process of
socialization. The few forcibly recruited ERP ex-
combatants with whom I spoke were more critical of
the ERP and its tactics than were those recruited volun-
tarily or semi-voluntarily. Yet they were still much more
satisfied, and much less likely to report witnessing or
committing violence against civilians, than were forcibly
recruited state combatants.
Like the ERP, the FPL conducted lengthy recruit-
ment processes based in Christian Base Communities,
schools, and civil society organizations; unlike the ERP,
the FPL appears never to have engaged in forced recruit-
ment as a matter of policy. However, interview respon-
dents reported that its recruiting strategies in refugee
camps were heavy-handed, and FPL survey respondents
were less likely to report fully voluntary recruitment than
were ERP respondents. Moreover, in discussing reasons
for joining, FPL ex-combatants’ accounts reflect the dif-
ferences between FPL and ERP ideologies: whereas ERP
ex-combatants emphasized societal transformation and
the moral imperative to revolution, FPL ex-combatants
emphasized personal transformation (the ‘new man’) as a
key element of social revolution.
Over all, recruitment into state forces was generally
sudden, and frequently violent and bewildering to boot.
This brief period supported socialization by abruptly
severing ties with civilian life, informing recruits of their
abject status in the organization, and preparing them to
accept the strictures of military life. This is type 0 or 1
socialization, in (potential) service of type 2. FMLN
recruiters, particularly early in the conflict, sought
members via information and persuasion – type 1 or
perhaps type 2 socialization.
Military training
In both state and FMLN forces, military training focused
on skill, information, and habituation – that is, type 1
socialization. Yet the outcomes of military training
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
differed considerably. US commentators, including mil-
itary advisers, generally identified Salvadoran state forces
as extremely poorly trained (as well as undisciplined; see
below), particularly in the early years of the conflict
(e.g. Bacevich, 1988; Schwarz, 1991). Once enlisted,
members of regular army units received, at minimum,
a three-month course of formal military training before
entering combat operations. Interview respondents often
recalled this period as dangerous or abusive, connecting
the abuse they suffered to generally low opinions of
commanding officers. Over half of all regular army
survey respondents (59%) reported physical or psycho-
logical injury, or both, during the training period. While
US advisers reported that Salvadoran military training
grew more effective over the course of the war, the survey
revealed no significant differences in abusive training
practices by the period (prewar, early, middle, or late)
during which state ex-combatants were recruited.
Differences between regular army and elite state groups
were similarly small: 59% of regular army ex-combatants
reported abuse during the training period, versus 53% of
elite-group ex-combatants. Both regular and elite-group
state combatants reported abuse during the training
period that was led by officers, and that often explicitly
involved gender. In one case, a former member of the
paratroop battalion recalled a punishment that involved
running laps around the mess hall, wearing women’s
clothing, while other recruits beat him as he passed.
By contrast, while the FMLN was quite resource-poor
during the earliest years of the conflict, its military
training was seen as rigorous and high-quality by both
its own ex-combatants and US advisers to the Salvadoran
military. Both the FPL and the ERP focused on strict
routinization and physical training when combatants
arrived at training camps. Indeed, in Viterna’s (2013)
study of women FPL cadre, the intensity of physical
training led to divisions between urban and rural natives.
Interestingly, FMLN military training procedures
echoed those of state organizations – for good reasons.
Both the ERP and the FPL relied on deserters from the
Salvadoran state military, and on officer instruction from
the Cuban military, as they built their training regimes
(Oñate, 2011). Yet, while military training procedures
were formally similar to those employed by state groups,
FMLN ex-combatants were much less likely than state
ex-combatants to report injury during the training
period. Just 32% of FPL ex-combatants, and 10% of
ERP ex-combatants, reported any type of injury. In
interviews, FMLN respondents frequently complained
about the privations of life in camp, but most also recog-
nized the harsh conditions as necessary and fair.
Hoover Green
Political education
PE in some form was a mainstay across FMLN organi-
zations, but was virtually unknown among state ex-
combatants. Indeed, among my interview respondents,
no members of regular Salvadoran army units reported
receiving any formal training not directly associated with
military skills, routines, or obedience during this period.
Of course, broad differences between the state and the
FMLN ought not to mask relatively subtle, but signifi-
cant, differences within the FMLN.
ERP leaders strongly emphasized military discipline
and skills among its recruits; among both commanders
and combatants, there existed a durable understanding
that violence, including violence against civilians, was
often necessary and sometimes good. This was, as one
interviewee put it, ‘just the reality of the situation’, a
phrase that echoed ERP PE materials focused on identi-
fying (reframing) ‘reality’ in El Salvador (Interview 102).
Particularly early in the war, ERP PE emphasized the
utility of civilians as allies to the military effort, rather
than the inherent value of transformation and ‘conscien-
tization’ of civilian populations themselves, an ideologi-
cal position that we might expect to lead to increased
violence against civilian populations. However, the ERP
developed and deployed a written PE program well
before other FMLN factions. The curriculum began
with brief illustrated guides to the history of El Salvador
(Level 1) and progressed to lengthier, and less heavily
illustrated, outlines of Marxist principles. In both inter-
views and survey data, pre-1983 ERP recruits were sig-
nificantly more likely than early FPL recruits to mention
receiving printed matter, even though the initial levels of
education and literacy reported by ex-combatants from
the two factions were very similar. While PE materials
had been substantially unified across the FMLN by the
middle years of the war, early differences between ERP
and FPL ‘curricula’ were associated with substantial dif-
ferences in combatant behavior (Hoover Green, 2016).
While the ERP and the FPL coordinated impressively
in many instances, there are significant differences
between the two, both ideologically and institutionally.
Among my interview sample, respondents from all
factions reported that the FPL was ‘more political’ than
the ERP, meaning that it was more invested in the polit-
ical than the military. FPL leaders had, from the outset,
committed publicly to a strategy of prolonged popular war
(e.g. Harnecker, 1993; Pearce, 1986). This approach
emphasizes the political aspects of guerrilla war over the
military, viewing revolutionary consciousness among civi-
lians as a necessary precondition to any military victory.
The FPL implemented the prolonged popular war model
695
in several ways: it formed a nonviolent political wing
much earlier than did the ERP (Montgomery, 1995); in
its zones of control, its citizens’ political committees
appear to have wielded actual power in some instances.
FPL military and political training programs in the
initial period of the war (approximately 1980–82) also
reflected ideological and strategic differences with the
ERP. In general, FPL training institutions were less
rigorous and formalized than ERP training institutions,
with fewer printed curricula, less direct instruction, and
more semi-structured conversation. FPL interview
respondents frequently cited ‘meetings’ as the mechan-
ism for learning about the purposes and history of the
war; here, a mid-level political officer would lead a
conversation about some topic relevant to the purpose
or progress of the conflict. While a slightly higher pro-
portion of FPL than ERP survey respondents reported
receiving PE, FPL ex-combatants were less likely to recall
specific materials in both interviews and survey results.
The FPL’s ideological position emphasized the political
over the military, but its relatively less rigorous, forma-
lized PE program may have undermined this position
somewhat. Separately, but perhaps relatedly, FPL cadre
report PE, rules, and disciplinary measures focused on
religious themes, personal morality, and individual trans-
formation. FPL leaders, for example, tightly regulated
sexual relationships among cadre, performing ceremo-
nies that marked particular couples as ‘almost married’
and therefore inviolable.
Among interview respondents, no regular army ex-
combatant who joined the state military prior to approx-
imately 1983 reported receiving any training in human
rights or civilian relations. Those who joined later occa-
sionally reported receiving a cursory introduction to
human rights and the importance of human rights, but
none suggested that this training was institutionalized or
repeated. A few interview and survey respondents from
the army reported that officers talked about ‘killing
Communists’ [or ‘terrorists’, or ‘subversives’] during
training exercises, but most suggested that after a period
of intense hazing they entered combat with poor to
moderate military skills and no sense of the goal or
purpose of the war.
One regular army ex-combatant (Interview 20)
recalled with some irritation the imposition of cursory
human rights training by Americans in the mid-1980s:
‘There were no human rights until ’84, until the Amer-
icans came.’ He reported that after ‘a speech’, the topic
was never broached again, by US advisers or anyone else.
Among regular army ex-combatants, just 12% recalled
receiving or viewing any media as part of their training;
696
those who did recall reading materials generally men-
tioned the Constitution of El Salvador.
There exists some evidence of formal training regard-
ing the historical background and purpose of the war
among BIRI and security force combatants. In survey
results, those who joined BIRIs or security forces were
much more likely to report receiving reading material
than regular army ex-combatants. Yet members of BIRIs
Atlacatl, Bracamonte, Arce, and Atonal reported in inter-
views and surveys that political training was perfunctory.
One member of BIRI Atlacatl, who joined mid-conflict,
stated, ‘We were, honestly, really scared of the Commu-
nists, you know, the terrorists and subversives. But I’m
not sure we really knew why’ (Interview 47). Similarly,
some members of the security forces reported hearing
repeatedly (and, in one case, reading) that they were
fighting to defend the country from communism. Only
a few respondents (two veterans of the Treasury Police
[PH] and one from the National Guard [GN]) reported
knowing what the FMLN’s goals were, even in a general
fashion, or what ‘communism’ entailed.
One PH ex-combatant (Interview 53), who had
served in the Salvadoran army since the 1960s and trans-
ferred to the PH in the mid-1970s, allowed me to copy a
PH training document received in about 1983 (his esti-
mate). The document was evidently designed both to
familiarize personnel with the basic outlines of commu-
nist thought and to convince them of the true danger of
communist takeover. The final section of the 14-page
document is titled ‘What Life Will Be Like in This
Country if Communists Take Power’, and consists of a
27-point list of items such as ‘You will live in fear’ and
‘The elimination of bourgeois morality will lead to cor-
ruption and sexual excesses among the youth’. I asked
this informant what he thought when he received the
book. His answer was equivocal. ‘I think maybe
I believed it,’ he said. ‘But it didn’t play a big role in
what we did every day.’ Among my interview sample,
elite-group ex-combatants reported better relations with
officers than did regular army ex-combatants, and were
generally better-off in the postwar period. Yet they were
no more likely to talk about continuing political engage-
ment than were other state ex-combatants.
Discipline
FMLN ex-combatants frequently identified continuities
between PE and discipline, often via the practice of crit-
icism and self-criticism. Indeed, interview respondents
frequently identified criticism and self-criticism as both
a form of PE and a form of discipline. I interpret this
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
continuity, and FMLN respondents’ clear statements
about the importance of revolutionary consciousness to
the maintenance of military discipline, as evidence that
PE supported type 2 socialization among FMLN
combatants.
The ERP was known for its disciplined fighting force.
Among interviewees who discussed disciplinary mea-
sures, the most commonly mentioned was criticism and
self-criticism, although physical punishments (generally
via unscheduled exercise rather than via beatings or other
corporal punishment) were also common. Somewhat less
frequently, ERP ex-combatants (particularly those who
remained in Morazán following the war) discussed ‘re-
education’ measures. Combatants who committed
repeated ‘errors’ in military procedure or who committed
minor violations against civilian populations were
removed from the general combatant population and
relocated for remedial instruction. While respondents,
including one mid-level officer, did not offer extensive
detail on these programs, they emphasized that ‘re-
education’ was not simply a euphemism for punishment.
For the most serious crimes, including violence against
civilians, both FPL and ERP ex-combatants reported
that capital punishment was a real threat. Nearly all
interview respondents confirmed that they had heard
about, or known, combatants who were executed for
grave ‘errors’, including sexual violence. Notably,
though, FPL leaders stated in interviews that even the
threat of capital punishment was insufficient to fully
control ‘excesses’ committed against civilians in the early
years of the conflict.
On the state side, disciplinary measures were incon-
sistently applied, to say the least. State ex-combatants
frequently reported that the ‘most important’ rules were
the rules of hierarchy, particularly instant obedience to
superiors. Rules about the conduct of war, including the
treatment of civilians, were literally never invoked as
most important among my interview respondents. Both
interview and survey respondents agreed that punish-
ments for rule infractions – when they occurred – were
often harsh, abusive, or humiliating. US advisers to the
Salvadoran armed forces stated that the supply of
non-commissioned officers – key maintainers of comba-
tant discipline – was insufficient and ill-trained, and that
discipline was generally poor (Schwarz, 1991). More-
over, field-grade officers were generally promoted
according to their tanda (military academy class year)
rather than according to merit, a practice that led to
considerable abuse and corruption throughout the
Salvadoran military apparatus (Stanley, 1996). This pat-
tern of harsh but inconsistent discipline – particularly in
Hoover Green
the absence of any PE – led most state combatants to
view officers as enemies. Discipline was maintained only
to the extent that combatants expected punishment for
misbehavior, an indicator of type 0 socialization. State
ex-combatants were much less likely to report any
current political engagement, and were much less likely
to identify their period of service as having changed their
outlook on life more broadly.
‘Holistic’ institutions
Beyond the specifics of any individual formal institution,
ex-combatants from both state and non-state organiza-
tions reported what ERP respondents often referred to as
a ‘completely holistic’ (‘completamente integral’) experi-
ence.9 That is, while formal institutions made indepen-
dent contributions to the socialization process, as
described above, these institutions also amplified – or,
occasionally, undermined – one another. Given this,
I argue, researchers can and should consider interactions
between armed group institutions as they consider paths
to (and effects of) combatant socialization.
Given the interview evidence, I suspect that ERP
combatants – in line with the generally more formal,
routinized, top-down nature of their socialization expe-
rience – were explicitly instructed that their experiences
of recruitment, training, indoctrination, and discipline
should be ‘completely holistic’. However, FPL ex-
combatants also remarked on the interdependence of the
various socialization experiences, particularly the impor-
tance of PE to military victory. Several remarked on the
impossibility of military victory without personal trans-
formation. Respondents from all FMLN factions
reported that criticism and self-criticism operated as
both training and discipline. Among women FMLN
ex-combatants I interviewed (N *10), many discussed
how revolutionary ideology, combined with tight disci-
pline and a willingness to recruit women to combat
positions, led to more equal gender relations than they
had previously experienced.10 Most reported that this
change had survived the war.
9
Many ERP ex-combatants used this precise phrase during semi-
structured interviews, both in Morazán (the ERP’s main zone of
control during the conflict) and in San Salvador. This may be an
artifact of conversations among the networks that I utilized to obtain
interviews, but the observation was generally stated with considerable
supporting detail.
10
This is not to suggest that gender politics within the FMLN did
not reproduce patriarchal norms. Women were much more likely to
serve as kitchen staff or nurses than as combat soldiers, for example.
697
Differences in socialization experiences between ERP
and FPL combatants do exist, however, and are intri-
guing because they seem to run counter to the groups’
ideological orientations. Broadly speaking, FPL ex-
combatants reported more negative relations with offi-
cers, greater incidence of physical and psychological
injury during training, and greater amounts of non-
lethal civilian abuse, than did ERP ex-combatants. They
also appeared less likely to remain politically engaged in
the postwar period (although this impression from my
interview sample may reflect the sample, rather than
reality; there are no survey data on this question). I
suspect that, to the extent that the differences I observed
between FMLN organizations reflect reality, these dif-
ferences can be traced to differing formal institutions.
Demographically and in terms of motivations for recruit-
ment, FPL and ERP combatants in my sample were
quite similar at recruitment. However, as I describe
above, their experiences of formal institutions and their
socialization outcomes differ somewhat. I would argue
that the implication of this finding is that institutional
‘strength’ (formality, regularity, top-down investment)
may contribute to socialization outcomes and combatant
behavior as much as the content (incentives, informa-
tion, ideology) conveyed.
FMLN ex-combatants had generally positive mem-
ories of their ‘holistic’ recruitment, training, indoctrina-
tion, and disciplinary experiences. State ex-combatants
emphasized a different unifying theme: violence. Many
were recruited violently, in a process that was confusing
and frightening. As noted above, physical violence and
humiliation (perpetrated by officers or by other enlistees)
was a common feature of both training and disciplinary
practices in state groups. This type of top-down, institu-
tionalized violent socialization is an interesting counter-
part to the bottom-up violent socialization that Cohen
(2013, 2017) associates with forced recruitment and
the perpetration of gang rape. Salvadoran state ex-
combatants, unlike Cohen’s RUF respondents, seldom
spoke about committing or witnessing sexual violence,
largely because I did not ask explicitly about the perpe-
tration of violence. Interestingly, though, the two
descriptions of gang rape in my interviews came from
voluntarily recruited members of BIRIs. Also notable is
the extent to which the state’s limited efforts at political
indoctrination were based on demonization of the
communist enemy and the association of civilian
communities with the subversive threat.
While violent socialization experiences were a recur-
ring theme across all state organizations, it is also impor-
tant to note the very considerable within-group variation
698
in other aspects of the socialization experience. The Sal-
vadoran military was a large enough organization, with
little enough coordination between geographic zones,
that combatant experiences varied widely among the
various barracks and detachments. In addition, as in
many state militaries, several more layers of bureaucracy
separated combatants and commanders in state organi-
zations than in the FMLN. While military training and
disciplinary policies in the Salvadoran armed forces
appear to have changed rather significantly as the state’s
US patrons exerted greater control, it is unclear whether
these changes (including increases in the numbers of
non-commissioned officers, more rigorous tactical train-
ing, and less physically abusive but more consistent
disciplinary procedures; cf. Schwarz, 1991) strongly
affected Salvadoran army practices on the ground. Sur-
vey respondents who joined after 1983 (i.e. after US
advisers had been placed with many detachments) were
somewhat more likely to report physical and psycholo-
gical injuries during training, despite the Americans’
avowed purpose of professionalization. Overall, while
elite state groups appear to have provided somewhat
stronger, less abusive experiences to recruits who were
more likely to have joined voluntarily, this appears to
have resulted only infrequently in long-lasting type 2
socialization.
Discussion
The evidence here supports the view that different
formal institutions emphasize different types of socializa-
tion, from mere compliance to complete internalization.
Yet the evidence also complicates this analysis. In partic-
ular, while we can identify some separate (or at least
separable) effects of individual institutions, the set of
formal institutions to which FMLN and state ex-
combatants were exposed appeared to operate holisti-
cally. On the FMLN side, formal institutions generally
fostered long-term identification with group goals. On
the state side, the violence with which formal institutions
were implemented colored ex-combatants’ views of the
military decades after the close of the war. Perhaps more
importantly, violence suffered by combatants maps to
the considerable and frequently disorganized violence
that combatants visited on civilians.
Theoretically and methodologically, it remains
unclear what institution is ‘doing the work’ of socializa-
tion, or other outcomes. The evidence here suggests it
may be difficult or impossible to identify fully indepen-
dent effects of institutions. Elsewhere I have argued that
the extent to which combatant violence reflects
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 54(5)
command preferences, particularly for limited violence,
can be taken as a measure of internalization, that is, of
‘successful’ socialization. However, I argued (Hoover
Green, 2011, 2016) that political education played the
predominant role in successful socialization. Strong and
consistent political education may increase the likelihood
of type 2 socialization, but it may also be undermined by
other institutions. The specific content of socialization
appears to play a role as well. It may be easy, in the
circumstances of armed conflict, to produce widespread
internalization of the norm that violence is a first resort
against suspected enemies. It may be much more difficult
to produce type 2 socialization when the norm under
consideration is controlled violence (cf. Oppenheim &
Weintraub, 2016; Hoover Green, 2016).
This article considers state and non-state armed
organizations together, as roughly like units appropriate
for comparison. This raises some analytical questions. In
particular, the evidence here does examine variation
across individual units within the state military, raising
the possibility that referring to ‘regular army’ units lumps
together sets of ex-combatants who may have had
extremely different socialization experiences. This unit
of analysis problem is particularly acute for state
militaries, but may equally well affect non-state groups,
particularly those that are highly fractionalized or that
operate as less-cohesive coalitions than the FMLN.
Further, while examining variation in socialization as
an outcome of institutional variation provides some
interesting insights, these are incomplete without a
clearer sense of how institutions themselves develop, and
what institutional variation we might expect across
groups. For example, longer-lived organizations may
feature path-dependent investments in particular institu-
tional configurations (cf. Pierson, 2003). In addition,
among older groups (including most state groups)
‘institutional thickening’ (cf. Skowronek, 1993) may
lead over time to complex fighting organizations with
many near-separate forces (e.g. special versus regular
forces, differing service branches). Combatants in differ-
ent parts of the same large, long-lived organizations may
undergo quite different socialization processes. Finally,
differences in resource flows (both in terms of overall
resource endowments and the sources of armed group
resources) suggest another set of systematic differences in
institutions for socialization, particularly (though not
necessarily) between state and non-state groups. The
operational effects of being resource-poor have seldom
been considered for state armed groups, except as part of
the more general literature on state weakness and failure.
Considering rebels, Weinstein (2007) predicts that
Hoover Green
resource-poor groups will create non-tangible incentives
via indoctrination, while Beber & Blattman (2013)
predict that lack of resources will be associated with
forced recruitment and coercion – quite different
implications for socialization.11
The questions raised here highlight the need for a
multi-method, multi-level approach that includes more
systematic cross-national data. The (largely) qualitative
data in this analysis are useful for considering specific
causal mechanisms, for testing a limited set of hypoth-
eses, and for formulating others. But, given the extent
to which formal institutions covary, it may be difficult
to test hypotheses about institutions and socialization
convincingly without cross-national data on multiple
formal institutions.
Cross-national comparisons will also be vital to ques-
tions about ‘styles’ of combatant socialization: do par-
ticular sets of institutions often or always go together?
For example, communist insurgencies often grow from
a similar set of institutional blueprints (cf. Gutiérrez
Sanı́n & Wood, 2014); these blueprints emphasize the
role of political ideology in military success, and there-
fore often include rigorous PE and intense vetting of
new combatants. Weinstein (2007) theorizes that
groups with plentiful tangible resources have no initial
need for either PE or forced recruitment. Alternatively,
as Beber & Blattman (2013) hypothesize, groups that
engage in forced recruitment may find coercion super-
ior to indoctrination, implying that forced recruitment,
harsh discipline, and absent PE should go together.
Thickly descriptive qualitative research will also be
vital to this emerging research area. As several of the
articles in this Special Issue discuss, process tracing will
play a crucial role in efforts to more fully understand
the socialization–violence nexus. Nevertheless, the
push to further specify both institutional and psycho-
logical (individual- or small-group-level) processes of
socialization, and the connections between socialization
and violence, holds significant promise both for
academic researchers and practitioners.
Acknowledgements
I thank members of the working group on Armed Group
Socialization and Violence and members of a 2015 Peace
Science Society pre-conference working group on Brid-
ging IR and Comparative Perspectives on Intrastate
Conflict and Violence, who provided comments on early
11
See Gates (2017) for a more formal analysis of the relation of an
organization’s resources to coercion.
699
drafts, particularly Jeffrey Checkel, Elisabeth Jean
Wood, Dara Kay Cohen, Regina Bateson, and Will H
Moore.
Funding
I acknowledge research support for this project from the
United States Institute of Peace and the Whitney and
Betty MacMillan Center at Yale University.
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AMELIA HOOVER GREEN, b. 1981, PhD in Political
Science (Yale University, 2011); Assistant Professor of
Politics, Drexel University (2011– ); Field Consultant,
Human Rights Data Analysis Group (2007– ); current book
manuscript: The Commander’s Dilemma: Understanding
Repertoires of Wartime Violence Against Noncombatants.