Violence against civilians in civil war is widely thought of as a strategic choice by combatant groups. We argue that a common strategic logic of competition underlies diverse theories of civilian victimization. We develop a theory of strategic complements in victimization, hypothesizing that an armed group’s propensity to victimize civilians will increase with its expectation that its competitors will act likewise. We test this argument by structurally estimating a formal model of strategic interdependence between armed groups using data from the Colombian civil war. Our findings indicate that strategic expectations are responsible for a substantial amount of violence against civilians: the two major combatant groups would have systematically victimized civilians in at least 9% fewer municipalities if they had expected no violence by their rival. Examining causal mechanisms, we also find that victimization in the Colombian case was more likely aimed at controlling civilians than at influencing peace negotiations.

内战中针对平民的暴力行为被广泛认为是战斗团体的战略选择。我们认为，竞争的共同战略逻辑是各种平民受害理论的基础。我们发展了一种受害战略互补理论，假设武装团体对平民施害的倾向将随着其竞争者采取同样行动的预期而增加。我们通过使用哥伦比亚内战的数据从结构上估计武装团体之间战略相互依存的正式模型来检验这一论点。我们的研究结果表明，战略预期是造成大量针对平民的暴力行为的原因：如果两个主要战斗团体预计其对手不会实施暴力，那么他们在至少 9% 的城市中系统性地使平民受害。