Peter Kreuzer | Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (original) (raw)
Papers by Peter Kreuzer
Zwischen Bürgerkrieg und friedlicher Koexistenz, 2007
Kultur und soziale Praxis, 2007
Das Buch vergleicht drei multiethnische Gesellschaften Süd- und Südostasiens - die Philippinen, S... more Das Buch vergleicht drei multiethnische Gesellschaften Süd- und Südostasiens - die Philippinen, Sri Lanka und Malaysia - in Bezug auf deren Fähigkeit, interethnische Konflikte gewaltarm zu bearbeiten. Gezeigt wird, dass weder Multiethnizität Gewalt befördert, noch dass eine demokratische Regierungsform als Allheilmittel zur Zivilisierung des interethnischen Konfliktaustrags gelten kann. Vielmehr kommt dem Faktor Kultur eine zentrale Rolle sowohl für die Wege in die Gewalt als auch für deren Vermeidung zu. Ethnizität und politische Institutionen können in Abhängigkeit von kulturellen Mustern sowohl konfliktverschärfend als auch -zivilisierend wirken.
The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2016
The conflicts in the South China Sea have caught much attention in the past few years. The vast m... more The conflicts in the South China Sea have caught much attention in the past few years. The vast majority of academic studies focus almost exclusively on the Sino-Vietnamese and the Sino-Philippine conflicts in the South China Sea and the Sino-Japanese conflict in the East China Sea. By not considering the structurally fairly similar conflict between China and Malaysia and generally focusing on the past decade only those analyses neglect variation in Chinese conflict behaviour over time and between opponents. This article compares the high-profile Sino-Philippine conflict to the rather smooth relations between China and Malaysia. Whereas China has regularly challenged Philippine claims and activities in disputed regions, it has exhibited much more restraint towards Malaysia, even though the two countries' claims overlap and Malaysia, unlike the Philippines, has been extracting substantial resources (LNG) from regions disputed with China since the 1980s. I argue that much of the observable between-country and overtime variation in Chinese conflict behaviour is rooted in the approaches chosen by China's opponents for framing their overall bilateral relationships with China. Specifically, it is argued that China's opponents in territorial and maritime conflicts can assuage Chinese behaviour on the ground by signalling recognition and respect of China's overall self-role and world-order conceptions. Conversely, if they challenge the overarching Chinese self-role and world-order conceptions, China tends towards a coercive strategy. China will also tolerate higher levels of assertiveness of its opponent in the contest for sovereignty, when the opponent displays respect for China's recognition needs.
The killing of political opponents is an established practice in the Philippines, to which severa... more The killing of political opponents is an established practice in the Philippines, to which several dozen officeholders fall victim each year and which undermines democracy. In this report, Peter Kreuzer presents a detailed data set on this type of violence and answers the questions why the practice is so widespread and why it hardly ever provokes public debate. The analysis focuses on the peace covenant, a central means of symbolic politics to contain violence, but one that unintentionally naturalizes it
DEU, 2015
to China. Further, the Philippines as well as the other claimants should call the Chinese bluff o... more to China. Further, the Philippines as well as the other claimants should call the Chinese bluff of offering joint exploration of seabed resources. They should also propose to enter into bilateral negotiations on those problems that are bilateral in nature. Finally, ASEAN might broker talks that aim at establishing a joint fisheries authority, which would be responsible for establishing quotas and temporary fishery protection zones for those areas that are within the EEZ claims of the various claimant states. 6. China's "new assertiveness" in the South China Sea 6.1 The Philippines: instrumentalizing the US and challenging China 6.2 Malaysia: ignoring provocations and upholding the "we" 7. Conclusion Bibliography
DEU, 2020
The images used are subject to their own licenses.
This article provides a detailed analysis of pre-Duterte and Duterte police use of deadly force i... more This article provides a detailed analysis of pre-Duterte and Duterte police use of deadly force in the Philippines. It first develops a set of indicators that allow for assessing the magnitude of police use of deadly force in "armed encounters", its relation to the threat environments in which the police operate, and the lethality of such violence. Then, based on a self-developed dataset for the pre-Duterte decade and the ABS-CBN dataset on Duterte period police killings, it establishes the past and current patterns of police use of deadly force. The analysis shows that in the past decade as under Duterte inter-provincial spatial and temporal variation of police use of deadly force has been very high. Differences in the threat environment play only a minor role in explaining this variation. Differences in sub-national units' reactions to the Duterte campaign mirror those in police use of deadly force during the earlier decade, signaling strong path-dependency. Lethalit...
The images used are subject to their own licenses.
verschärfte sich in den letzten Jahren der Konflikt zwischen der Volksrepublik (VR) China und ins... more verschärfte sich in den letzten Jahren der Konflikt zwischen der Volksrepublik (VR) China und insbesondere den Philippinen, aber auch den anderen Staaten, die Ansprüche auf Territorien und Souveränitätsrechte innerhalb weitreichender ausschließlicher Wirtschaftszonen (AWZ) beanspruchen. China scheint in den letzten Jahren zunehmend darauf zu setzen, durch aggressives Handeln vor Ort Fakten zu schaffen und die anderen Anspruchsteller aus der Region zu verdrängen. Gegen die chinesische Position erhebt sich verschärfter Widerstand. Am prominentesten wurde dieser durch die philippinische Entscheidung von 2013 sichtbar, ein Schiedsverfahren vor dem Ständigen Schiedshof in Den Haag anzustrengen, das im Wesentlichen darauf abzielte, die chinesischen Ansprüche als unrechtmäßig zu entlarven und China als aggressive Macht bloßzustellen.
This report deals with domination in three different regions in the Philippines: the two province... more This report deals with domination in three different regions in the Philippines: the two provinces of Pampanga and Negros Occidental, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Domination in the Philippines has been analysed under various headings, from patron-client relations to patrimonialism, oligarchy, bossism and principalia-rule. While there are certain differences, the various broadly used concepts coalesce around an understanding that posits a fusion of wealth and political power as well as a political process that is characterised by clientelism, crime and coercion exerted by elected politicians. Yet despite significant consensus with respect to the empirical representations of Philippine politics, no model has emerged up to the present that integrates all four core dimensions of oligarchy, patronage, corruption and illegal business, and violence. This report proposes a model that differentiates between the structural viewpointwhich focuses on the predominance of an oligarchic elite-and the process modelwhich describes domination as a specific way of doing politics Mafia-style. From the outset, one must bear in mind that Mafia-style domination does not presuppose the existence of a Mafia-type organisation but rather refers to a specific way of exerting and upholding power. As Henner Hess, one of the foremost researchers on the Mafia, has argued, this is a "method for the consolidation of ruling positions" (Hess 1998: 6). Understood in such a way, Mafia can "in principle […] be applied to any power phenomena functioning analogously in other cultures" (Hess 1998: 175). In the final analysis, fundamental change depends on the ballot box and will not be forthcoming as long as proponents of the status quo continue to be re-elected by an electorate that expects governance through clientelist exchange relationships. 6. Conclusion 6.1 Mafia-style domination: Variations of a common theme 6.2 Thinking about change Bibliography 1 In the report, many of the details on individual cases had to be omitted. For the case studies see: Kreuzer 2011a, 2011b, 2012. For a study on Mafia-style politics in the Philippines that largely focuses on other regions see Kreuzer 2009. The present study is based on extensive literature surveys in European and Philippine libraries and extended fieldwork in the years 2004, 2005, 2010 and 2011. The interviewees comprise a broad array of political actors, from local level politicians to state administrators (e.g. members of the police or the Human Rights Commission), NGO workers, church representatives and members of the media).
I would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for the generous grant provided f... more I would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for the generous grant provided for the project "Genesis, Structure and Workings of Coercive Systems of Social Control" (BR 878/22-2).
Behemoth, 2009
Despite its rather strong and venerable democratic credentials the Philippines is still marred by... more Despite its rather strong and venerable democratic credentials the Philippines is still marred by political violence. Targeted killings and physical harassment by vigilantes, death squads, private armed groups, para-military militias, the police or members of the armed forces as well as violent competition for political jobs cost hundreds of lives every year. One central anchor point of this broad range of violent actors and forms are the locally embedded political bosses. (Defective) democracy provides an ideal frame for the continuing competition between various segments of the highly fragmented elite. However, political competition includes a huge number of dirty tricks including the use of violence. The paper shows how the bosses succeeded in controlling most means of political violence employed and were thereby able to advance their interests to an extraordinary extent. Upholding private control over means of violence furthered their interests as a political class even though it weakened the state.
IV rious term. It thereby stands in the way of a critical reevaluation that could provide a cruci... more IV rious term. It thereby stands in the way of a critical reevaluation that could provide a crucial first stepping stone for constructing a viable path towards reform. While studies like the one done by Human Rights Watch in 2010, exposing the violent and despotic regime of the Ampatuan Clan are highly laudable, true change will only be possible, when such studies are done by locals, when Muslim researchers turn to their own society to expose its shortcomings and defects and from there devise paths for a better future. The report addresses issues pointed out by the Geneva and Oslo declarations on armed violence, which stress the people's right to security as well as the nexus between security and development. It especially stresses the right of the people to live free from fear, pointing to triggers of fear that do not lie in civil wars or simple crime, but in fairly well established practices of violent social control and domination emanating from the establishment. Whereas the two declarations are rather shy about naming either governments or established elites as perpetrators or instigators of violence, this report argues, that any strategy aiming at a peaceful society geared towards better chances for development has not only to take into account violence emanating from conflicts between governments and guerrilla movements or criminal gangs and syndicates, but also violence perpetrated by representatives of the establishment in order to safeguard continued control and domination. Social Order and Social Control in Muslim-Mindanao up to the early 20 th century 3.1 Anarchical competition within an order of sanctified inequality 3.2 Adat in an Islamic guise 3.3 Blood-feuding as a form of social control 3.4 Status demonstration as social control 3.5 The interrelationship of different forms of physical violence 4. Social order and social control after World War II 4.1 The Social Order: Continuity amidst Change 4.2 Social Control in the Muslim Regions 4.3 Mediation and Adjudication beyond the State 4.4 Blood-feuding as a form of social control 4.5 Status demonstration as social control 5. Conclusion: persistence and change of violent social control Bibliography
Ian Bannon, Paul Collier (eds.), Natural Resources and Violent Conflict, Washington DC (The World... more Ian Bannon, Paul Collier (eds.), Natural Resources and Violent Conflict, Washington DC (The World Bank) 2003). In terms of methodology they are firmly fixed in the variable-based large-n-comparison, which de facto excludes any focus on the difference and individuality of cases from the start.
Zwischen Bürgerkrieg und friedlicher Koexistenz, 2007
Kultur und soziale Praxis, 2007
Das Buch vergleicht drei multiethnische Gesellschaften Süd- und Südostasiens - die Philippinen, S... more Das Buch vergleicht drei multiethnische Gesellschaften Süd- und Südostasiens - die Philippinen, Sri Lanka und Malaysia - in Bezug auf deren Fähigkeit, interethnische Konflikte gewaltarm zu bearbeiten. Gezeigt wird, dass weder Multiethnizität Gewalt befördert, noch dass eine demokratische Regierungsform als Allheilmittel zur Zivilisierung des interethnischen Konfliktaustrags gelten kann. Vielmehr kommt dem Faktor Kultur eine zentrale Rolle sowohl für die Wege in die Gewalt als auch für deren Vermeidung zu. Ethnizität und politische Institutionen können in Abhängigkeit von kulturellen Mustern sowohl konfliktverschärfend als auch -zivilisierend wirken.
The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2016
The conflicts in the South China Sea have caught much attention in the past few years. The vast m... more The conflicts in the South China Sea have caught much attention in the past few years. The vast majority of academic studies focus almost exclusively on the Sino-Vietnamese and the Sino-Philippine conflicts in the South China Sea and the Sino-Japanese conflict in the East China Sea. By not considering the structurally fairly similar conflict between China and Malaysia and generally focusing on the past decade only those analyses neglect variation in Chinese conflict behaviour over time and between opponents. This article compares the high-profile Sino-Philippine conflict to the rather smooth relations between China and Malaysia. Whereas China has regularly challenged Philippine claims and activities in disputed regions, it has exhibited much more restraint towards Malaysia, even though the two countries' claims overlap and Malaysia, unlike the Philippines, has been extracting substantial resources (LNG) from regions disputed with China since the 1980s. I argue that much of the observable between-country and overtime variation in Chinese conflict behaviour is rooted in the approaches chosen by China's opponents for framing their overall bilateral relationships with China. Specifically, it is argued that China's opponents in territorial and maritime conflicts can assuage Chinese behaviour on the ground by signalling recognition and respect of China's overall self-role and world-order conceptions. Conversely, if they challenge the overarching Chinese self-role and world-order conceptions, China tends towards a coercive strategy. China will also tolerate higher levels of assertiveness of its opponent in the contest for sovereignty, when the opponent displays respect for China's recognition needs.
The killing of political opponents is an established practice in the Philippines, to which severa... more The killing of political opponents is an established practice in the Philippines, to which several dozen officeholders fall victim each year and which undermines democracy. In this report, Peter Kreuzer presents a detailed data set on this type of violence and answers the questions why the practice is so widespread and why it hardly ever provokes public debate. The analysis focuses on the peace covenant, a central means of symbolic politics to contain violence, but one that unintentionally naturalizes it
DEU, 2015
to China. Further, the Philippines as well as the other claimants should call the Chinese bluff o... more to China. Further, the Philippines as well as the other claimants should call the Chinese bluff of offering joint exploration of seabed resources. They should also propose to enter into bilateral negotiations on those problems that are bilateral in nature. Finally, ASEAN might broker talks that aim at establishing a joint fisheries authority, which would be responsible for establishing quotas and temporary fishery protection zones for those areas that are within the EEZ claims of the various claimant states. 6. China's "new assertiveness" in the South China Sea 6.1 The Philippines: instrumentalizing the US and challenging China 6.2 Malaysia: ignoring provocations and upholding the "we" 7. Conclusion Bibliography
DEU, 2020
The images used are subject to their own licenses.
This article provides a detailed analysis of pre-Duterte and Duterte police use of deadly force i... more This article provides a detailed analysis of pre-Duterte and Duterte police use of deadly force in the Philippines. It first develops a set of indicators that allow for assessing the magnitude of police use of deadly force in "armed encounters", its relation to the threat environments in which the police operate, and the lethality of such violence. Then, based on a self-developed dataset for the pre-Duterte decade and the ABS-CBN dataset on Duterte period police killings, it establishes the past and current patterns of police use of deadly force. The analysis shows that in the past decade as under Duterte inter-provincial spatial and temporal variation of police use of deadly force has been very high. Differences in the threat environment play only a minor role in explaining this variation. Differences in sub-national units' reactions to the Duterte campaign mirror those in police use of deadly force during the earlier decade, signaling strong path-dependency. Lethalit...
The images used are subject to their own licenses.
verschärfte sich in den letzten Jahren der Konflikt zwischen der Volksrepublik (VR) China und ins... more verschärfte sich in den letzten Jahren der Konflikt zwischen der Volksrepublik (VR) China und insbesondere den Philippinen, aber auch den anderen Staaten, die Ansprüche auf Territorien und Souveränitätsrechte innerhalb weitreichender ausschließlicher Wirtschaftszonen (AWZ) beanspruchen. China scheint in den letzten Jahren zunehmend darauf zu setzen, durch aggressives Handeln vor Ort Fakten zu schaffen und die anderen Anspruchsteller aus der Region zu verdrängen. Gegen die chinesische Position erhebt sich verschärfter Widerstand. Am prominentesten wurde dieser durch die philippinische Entscheidung von 2013 sichtbar, ein Schiedsverfahren vor dem Ständigen Schiedshof in Den Haag anzustrengen, das im Wesentlichen darauf abzielte, die chinesischen Ansprüche als unrechtmäßig zu entlarven und China als aggressive Macht bloßzustellen.
This report deals with domination in three different regions in the Philippines: the two province... more This report deals with domination in three different regions in the Philippines: the two provinces of Pampanga and Negros Occidental, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Domination in the Philippines has been analysed under various headings, from patron-client relations to patrimonialism, oligarchy, bossism and principalia-rule. While there are certain differences, the various broadly used concepts coalesce around an understanding that posits a fusion of wealth and political power as well as a political process that is characterised by clientelism, crime and coercion exerted by elected politicians. Yet despite significant consensus with respect to the empirical representations of Philippine politics, no model has emerged up to the present that integrates all four core dimensions of oligarchy, patronage, corruption and illegal business, and violence. This report proposes a model that differentiates between the structural viewpointwhich focuses on the predominance of an oligarchic elite-and the process modelwhich describes domination as a specific way of doing politics Mafia-style. From the outset, one must bear in mind that Mafia-style domination does not presuppose the existence of a Mafia-type organisation but rather refers to a specific way of exerting and upholding power. As Henner Hess, one of the foremost researchers on the Mafia, has argued, this is a "method for the consolidation of ruling positions" (Hess 1998: 6). Understood in such a way, Mafia can "in principle […] be applied to any power phenomena functioning analogously in other cultures" (Hess 1998: 175). In the final analysis, fundamental change depends on the ballot box and will not be forthcoming as long as proponents of the status quo continue to be re-elected by an electorate that expects governance through clientelist exchange relationships. 6. Conclusion 6.1 Mafia-style domination: Variations of a common theme 6.2 Thinking about change Bibliography 1 In the report, many of the details on individual cases had to be omitted. For the case studies see: Kreuzer 2011a, 2011b, 2012. For a study on Mafia-style politics in the Philippines that largely focuses on other regions see Kreuzer 2009. The present study is based on extensive literature surveys in European and Philippine libraries and extended fieldwork in the years 2004, 2005, 2010 and 2011. The interviewees comprise a broad array of political actors, from local level politicians to state administrators (e.g. members of the police or the Human Rights Commission), NGO workers, church representatives and members of the media).
I would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for the generous grant provided f... more I would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for the generous grant provided for the project "Genesis, Structure and Workings of Coercive Systems of Social Control" (BR 878/22-2).
Behemoth, 2009
Despite its rather strong and venerable democratic credentials the Philippines is still marred by... more Despite its rather strong and venerable democratic credentials the Philippines is still marred by political violence. Targeted killings and physical harassment by vigilantes, death squads, private armed groups, para-military militias, the police or members of the armed forces as well as violent competition for political jobs cost hundreds of lives every year. One central anchor point of this broad range of violent actors and forms are the locally embedded political bosses. (Defective) democracy provides an ideal frame for the continuing competition between various segments of the highly fragmented elite. However, political competition includes a huge number of dirty tricks including the use of violence. The paper shows how the bosses succeeded in controlling most means of political violence employed and were thereby able to advance their interests to an extraordinary extent. Upholding private control over means of violence furthered their interests as a political class even though it weakened the state.
IV rious term. It thereby stands in the way of a critical reevaluation that could provide a cruci... more IV rious term. It thereby stands in the way of a critical reevaluation that could provide a crucial first stepping stone for constructing a viable path towards reform. While studies like the one done by Human Rights Watch in 2010, exposing the violent and despotic regime of the Ampatuan Clan are highly laudable, true change will only be possible, when such studies are done by locals, when Muslim researchers turn to their own society to expose its shortcomings and defects and from there devise paths for a better future. The report addresses issues pointed out by the Geneva and Oslo declarations on armed violence, which stress the people's right to security as well as the nexus between security and development. It especially stresses the right of the people to live free from fear, pointing to triggers of fear that do not lie in civil wars or simple crime, but in fairly well established practices of violent social control and domination emanating from the establishment. Whereas the two declarations are rather shy about naming either governments or established elites as perpetrators or instigators of violence, this report argues, that any strategy aiming at a peaceful society geared towards better chances for development has not only to take into account violence emanating from conflicts between governments and guerrilla movements or criminal gangs and syndicates, but also violence perpetrated by representatives of the establishment in order to safeguard continued control and domination. Social Order and Social Control in Muslim-Mindanao up to the early 20 th century 3.1 Anarchical competition within an order of sanctified inequality 3.2 Adat in an Islamic guise 3.3 Blood-feuding as a form of social control 3.4 Status demonstration as social control 3.5 The interrelationship of different forms of physical violence 4. Social order and social control after World War II 4.1 The Social Order: Continuity amidst Change 4.2 Social Control in the Muslim Regions 4.3 Mediation and Adjudication beyond the State 4.4 Blood-feuding as a form of social control 4.5 Status demonstration as social control 5. Conclusion: persistence and change of violent social control Bibliography
Ian Bannon, Paul Collier (eds.), Natural Resources and Violent Conflict, Washington DC (The World... more Ian Bannon, Paul Collier (eds.), Natural Resources and Violent Conflict, Washington DC (The World Bank) 2003). In terms of methodology they are firmly fixed in the variable-based large-n-comparison, which de facto excludes any focus on the difference and individuality of cases from the start.
Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte as president, the Philippines have been engulfed in a vicio... more Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte as president, the Philippines have been engulfed in a vicious campaign against drug-related crime. More than 1,500 suspects have been killed by police officers in so-called legitimate encounters. An analysis of past patterns of killings by police shows that there are widespread, if less conspicuous, antecedents to the current spate of police-perpetrated vigilante justice. In the past and now, the differences between provinces and regions are attributable to the attitudes of officials in power at the local level. The pressure exerted on local officials by the current national administration reduces their options for resisting the invitation to carry out acts of vigilante justice. The current patterns of strongman rule also exhibit disturbing similarities to the ones used by Ferdinand Marcos before the declaration of martial law in 1972 (and should be seen as an ominous portent of what lies ahead).
The text not only provides a detailed analysis of current patterns, but presents also new data on the lethality of "legitimate encounters" for a number of Philippine regions and provinces for the past decade. It also compares the Philippine data with those of selected other countries at the national or sub-national level (from England and Wales over the United States to South Africa, Brasil and Rio de Janeiro).
https://www.hsfk.de/fileadmin/HSFK/hsfk_publikationen/prif142.pdf