Kevin Mazur’s review raises important issues. The most central point for discussion is the extent to which civilian behavior during conflict is a product of political identity. Although I would contend that there are some areas where Mazur mischaracterizes my argument in his review, nevertheless our very real disagreement about the central question of how much civilian responses to conflict are driven by political identity is valuable for further discussion. I therefore focus my response on this theme.

The foundation for Mazur’s critique that I underemphasize political identity comes from literature showing how political identity influences the violent behavior of armed groups, such as the work of Stathis Kalyvas. Mazur then pivots from research findings that emphasize the role of political identity in the behavior of armed groups to asserting that civilians behave with the same logic. This is a major area of disagreement between us. My book stresses that civilian behavior must be understood through a fundamentally different lens than the behavior of armed groups. In fact, although armed groups tend to have explicitly political objectives that are linked with political identity, I stress in my book that civilians often do not want to get involved in political contention. Armed groups behave politically, but civilians often seek to avoid politics.

Instead, civilians seek to survive conflict and continue living their life as well as possible. The capacity of civilians to find ways to survive and cope with conflict requires some psychological discussion. Mazur asks how psychological factors interact with structural factors, and for this I would refer readers to the extensive discussion I provide of exactly this issue in chapter 4. I argue that people vary in their ability to identify available responses to violent threats during conflict, and posttraumatic growth can increase their capacity to adapt in this respect. When civilians lose their ability to identify available responses in a narrative rupture, I argue that migration can be selected as a last resort. In this way, narrative understandings of conflict dynamics connect structural conditions with the psychological characteristics of individual actors.

Regarding the structural factors, Mazur contends that I conflate material resources with personal networks in my conceptualization of wasta, whereas I explicitly observe that people vary in the extent to which wasta includes these components. Rather than define wasta through regression, I allowed my respondents to provide their own definitions of wasta. This is where some respondents equate wasta with membership in a specific ethnic group (namely, Alawi). By presenting a nuanced conceptualization of wasta, rather than my own externally imposed definition, I presented a complex concept to match the diverse perspectives of my respondents. Such an inductive conceptualization is crucial to adequately discussing such an important concept.

I greatly appreciate Mazur’s engagement with my book. I do not claim to hold the last word on civilian survival strategies, and I sincerely hope that more is written in this vital research area.