Evaluación del entrenamiento

This chapter has provided an overview and discussion of the existing theoretical and empirical literature that this research project draws upon. In the first two sections, I have discussed the theoretical framework adopted in this study, which combines insights from previous literature on involvement in political violence and on organisational decision-making and behaviour. Guided by this framework, I consider female involvement in political violence to be a rational process in which the context plays an essential role. As far as the debates on greed vs. grievances and structure vs. agency are concerned, it remains to be seen which factors were decisive in the decision-making on the inclusion of female fighters during the Lebanese civil war. Based on the framework outlined, I view non-state armed actors as rational actors not essentially and inherently different from other, non- violent individuals and groups. I therefore believe that they will: (1) take a means-to-ends approach to their actions, (2) choose from a number of possible options the one they expect to provide them with the highest expected gain and (3) make predictions of the expected outcome of their actions and act accordingly. On the group-level, I view non-state armed

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organisations as complex units which are subject to change.

Believing that context matters, I adopt a multi-level approach to the study of female political violence, taking into account: (1) individual motivations, (2) organisational characteristics, (3) the security context and (4) societal

factors. This is how the remainder of the thesis is structured.

The original contribution to knowledge which this thesis makes is the analysis of the organisational decision-making of the militias involved in the Lebanese civil war. It adds a group of cases to the universe of studies of female political violence that has not been studied in as much detail before. Moreover, beyond studying reasons for the inclusion of female perpetrators of political violence during the Lebanese civil war, I consider existing theories on women’s involvement in political violence by applying them to a new group of cases.

In the next chapter, I will provide an overview of the epistemological and methodological assumptions made in this study, and a discussion of the research strategy and challenges I encountered whilst collecting and analysing data for the purpose of this research project.

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Chapter 3 | Conducting field

research on non-state political

violence

Reflections on one’s epistemological and methodological approach are an essential part of any academic study. This is of particular importance when studying a topic such as non-state political violence, where scholars are “often accused of employing weak research methods” (Singh, 2013: 141), and critical evaluations on the state of the field are rare (Dolnik, 2013b: 1). To test hypotheses, this research adopts a small-n comparative study of all of the key non-state armed groups involved in the civil war I was able to gain access to. It includes organisations associated with the two main camps at the beginning of the war; namely, the pro-reform and pro-Palestinian Lebanese National Movement (LNM) on the one hand, and the pro-status quo Christian-dominated Lebanese Front (LFr) on the other. As part of this study, accounts of former members of eleven militias were analysed. These were: the LCP, Communist Action Organisation (CAO), PFLP, Fatah, PSP, Amal, Kataeb, Lebanese Forces (LF), Guardians of the Cedar, Tanzim and Tigers militia. However, the focus of this study lies on seven organisations; namely, the LCP, PFLP, Fatah, PSP (all LNM), Kataeb, LF (both LFr) and Amal

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(not formerly associated with any of the two camps, but close to the LNM). Of these, the LCP, PFLP, Fatah, Kataeb and LF included female fighters; Amal started deploying female fighters from 1978 and the PSP refrained from employing women in combat roles.

The study’s aim is to explain this variation and to highlight organisational motivations for female inclusion in combat in the different organisations. Existing literature focuses on four explanations for female participation in combat: individual motivations, organisational characteristics, societal norms and the security context. In turn, this study focuses on what role (1) individual motivations, (2) organisational characteristics, (3) the security context and (4) societal factors, played in the decision-making of the respective groups. Variation over time, in different parts of the country as well as within and between various organisations will be considered.

The first question on individual motivations was added during the field work phase, as although I started with the aim of focusing on the group’s decision- making, I realised later that women’s motivations to join the fight played an equally important role. Omitting the individual perspective from the analysis would thus not have allowed me to fully explain the phenomenon.

Researching political violence is often linked to a number of problems – both theoretical and practical. In what follows, I will explain and critically reflect on expected and actual issues that I encountered during the research

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process. The aim of this chapter is to “describ[e] in precise, step-by-step detail how [I] engaged in fieldwork” (Kenney, 2013: 27) and the research process as a whole, in the hope that this transparency – this opening of my academic tool box and documentation of how I used the items inside – will

contribute to the validity and reliability of my findings (Silverman, 2014: 84). In the following sections of this chapter, I will first give an overview of the epistemological and methodological frameworks I have chosen to work with. I outline both advantages and limitations, and the ways in which I attempted to mitigate the latter. Section Two then looks at data collection, and Section Three looks at data management and analysis. The last section examines questions related to research ethics and researcher reflexivity.

The chapter demonstrates how combining a positivist framework with qualitative methods can help to overcome some of the limitations of purely positivist, quantitative studies. It illustrates the usefulness of aiming for variety when selecting interviewees which, in this case, meant that both men and women, former militia members and individuals not associated with any of the militias, as well as former members of various militias, were interviewed. Lastly, it shows that access to former militia members proved to be easier than suggested in some existing publications on armed groups – which can be explained with the specific post-war context in Lebanon.

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