The Ontology of Cruelty in Civil War: The Analytical Utility of Characterizing Violence in Conflict Studies

This article explores the ontology of cruelty in civil war. I argue that taking cruelty as the unit of analysis provides new insights into the dynamics of civil war. A focus on cruelty reveals both the physical and the ontological impacts of violence on civilian populations that cannot currently be identified in the existing literature. Cruelty as an analytical concept bridges debates surrounding the instrumental use of violence and its impacts during civil war. Acknowledging the physical–ontological connection of cruelty produces a new methodological approach that can link different approaches to the study of civil war. To explore the ontology of cruelty and develop an associated analytical approach, I first start by conceptualizing cruelty and then comparing it to related concepts. From there, I review the closest scholarly subfield of civil war studies: research that centers violence against civilians as the unit of analysis. In this article, I argue that although these literatures document acts of cruelty, they fail to accurately consider their variation and impact. After reviewing these literatures, I then return to cruelty and explore its ontological impact on civilians in order to further flesh out its analytical potential. This potential shines in its capacity to highlight the interactions between established analytical variables of war as well as consider more deeply civilian perspectives in order to understand the socially transformative potential of violence. I then operationalize these insights by applying them to the existing analyses of massacres during the Colombian civil war. En este artículo, se explora la ontología de la crueldad en la guerra civil. Sostengo que considerar la crueldad como unidad de análisis brinda nuevos conocimientos sobre la dinámica de la guerra civil. Un enfoque en la crueldad revela los impactos tanto físicos como ontológicos de la violencia en las poblaciones civiles que actualmente no se pueden identificar en las publicaciones existentes. La crueldad como concepto analítico une los debates sobre el uso instrumental de la violencia con sus impactos durante la guerra civil. Reconocer la conexión física y ontológica de la crueldad aporta un nuevo enfoque metodológico que puede vincular diferentes enfoques para el estudio de la guerra civil. Para explorar la ontología de la crueldad y desarrollar un enfoque analítico asociado, primero conceptualizo la crueldad y, luego, la comparo con conceptos relacionados. A partir