Explaining Anti-Religious Violence in Civil Wars That Are Not About Religion

Why, when, and where do rebels involved in civil wars that are not about religion engage in violence against religion? This article conceptualizes violence against religious leaders, communities, and property as a distinctive element in the repertoire of violence available to rebels. I propose three distinct causal factors that shape the incidence and the spatial and temporal distribution of violence against religious targets in these conflicts: the mobilizing capacity of religious leaders, the local politicization of minority faith identities, and the extent of rebel territorial control. Relying on an in-depth analysis of the case of Shining Path in Peru (1980–99), including an original dataset of violence against both Catholic and Evangelical targets, I leverage within-conflict variation to show how groups that do not focus their agenda on religion can come to see it as a target only at certain times and places.