Prisoner Dilemmas: Conceptualizing Hostage-Taking Violence

• In Event: The Effectiveness of Coercion

Abstract

Hostage taking is a global, costly, and underexplored problem for international and domestic politics. Across decades, regions, tactical innovations, and perpetrators from criminal gangs to autocratic states, hostage taking remains a devastating asymmetric tool, in which weaker actors use sustained human captivity to coerce leverage from their stronger opponents. Despite its colloquial use as the epitome of coercion, hostage taking itself is seldom explicitly studied. In this paper, I address that lacuna, arguing that research on hostage-taking violence offers insights on credibility, assurances, deterrence, and the conditions under which coercion succeeds and fails. To do so, I first define hostage taking as coercive detention and situate hostage taking in relation to other forms of coercion, abduction, and captivity. Then, I introduce a conceptual typology of hostage taking, illustrating how varying aspects of coercion and detention—where and why captives are held—condition the dynamics of violence and possibility of release. Finally, I conclude by proposing promising new avenues for a research agenda on captivity in conflict, examining the causes, consequences, and responses to hostage taking, crucial for scholarly exploration and policymakers’ response.

Author

• Danielle Gilbert, Northwestern University