Fragile Proxies: Explaining Rebel Defection Against Their State Sponsors

Foreign governments frequently intervene in armed conflicts by sponsoring rebels against their adversaries. A sponsorship is less costly than a direct military intervention, but rebels often defy orders, desert fighting, or turn guns against their sponsors. Under what conditions do rebels defect against their sponsors? Drawing on organizational theory, I argue that as rebel organizations become less centralized and formalized, the rebels are likely to defect against their sponsors. This occurs because non-centralized organizations have weak central leadership and allow for dispersed decision-making, both of which narrow the manipulative capacity of sponsors. Due to these disadvantages, non-centralized rebel movements are less accountable to their sponsors, cannot credibly commit to rapidly change their policies in response to changes in the sponsor’s demands, and suffer from frequent and destructive quarrels between the top and lower echelons. Using multilevel logistic models for panel data, I test my argument on a novel dataset. My quantitative analysis shows that rebel structure is a robust predictor of defection.     

Too central to fail? Terror networks and leadership decapitation

ABSTRACT

Leadership decapitation, as a means of hindering the operations and hastening the demise of terrorist organizations, has been the subject of a growing body of research. However, these studies have not examined how an organization’s position in a broader network impacts its ability to weather decapitation. We argue that highly networked organizations possess characteristics that make decapitation less effective. To test this argument, we combine data on leadership decapitation with network data on terrorist organizations and find that well-networked organizations are resilience to leadership decapitation. Our study has implications for our understanding of how terrorist organizations respond to counterterrorism efforts.     

Battlefield Outcomes and Rebel Cohesion: Lessons From the Eritrean Independence War

This article uses data from the Eritrean war for independence to refine existing theories of rebel fragmentation. The author argues organizational performance affects the emergence of factional infighting within rebel organizations in unique and novel ways. While battlefield losses increase the likelihood of internal fragmentation, so do battlefield gains. The implication is battlefield stalemates possess unique properties that promote organizational cohesion in war, a relationship this study refers to as “cohesive stalemates.” The article extends an emerging literature on the internal politics of insurgent groups that has linked the coherence of rebel organizations to rebel losses.     

Rebel-to-political and back? Hamas as a security provider in Gaza between rebellion,politics and governance

ABSTRACT

After winning the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections and subsequently taking control of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, the Palestinian Hamas – a hybrid political, social and military actor – undertook a complex process to ascertain authority and control over Gaza. The article focuses on understanding Hamas’s performance as a political party and a “rebel government” as well as the impact of this newly acquired role on the group’s strategy. Relying on primary sources, field-work and interviews with members of the Hamas government and its security sector, the study looks at Hamas’s role as a security provider and analyses the complex relationship between the institutionalized security sector and the group’s insurgent armed wing. Examining Hamas’s logic as a security provider and exploring the inherent tensions between political and insurgent logics allows for a better understanding of both the rebel group’s role as a political actor and the broader challenges behind the successful rebel-to-political transformations of non-state armed organizations. In doing so it contributes to the emerging literature on non-state actors’ shifts between ballots and bullets and on their potential role as alternative governance providers.     

Nicaragua's Sandinista project: Ideology,power building,and social manipulation

This paper examines the ideology of the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) through an evaluation of official declarations, published objectives and analyses, stated objectives, and programs pursued. Since its seizure of power in 1979, the FSLN's efforts to “Leninize” the country have occurred gradually and often have been camouflaged. For example, the FSLN has promoted a ‘'people's church” to capitalize on the strong Nicaraguan religious sentiment while extending countrol over public life and undermining the official church. The paper describes the Sandinistas’ use of “magnet” and “salami” tactics to attract useful collaborators and restrict the influence of rival political organizations. While the FSLN ostensibly has tolerated other parties’ participation in the National Assembly, the Sandinistas in reality have required support for FSLN programs and have increased their own numbers in the assembly and gained control of the top positions in all state institutions, ministries, and the executive and legislative branches of government. Organizational changes have been geared toward centralization and hierarchization. As a result, the Nicaraguan state has been fully subordinated to the FSLN. Although the Sandinistas officially espouse a “mixed” economy with some room for a private agricultural sector as well as token political opposition, the author concludes that they are likely to continue on their course of increasing centralized control of virtually all aspects of public life, Leninizing of political structures, extending and consolidating the party's powers, and creating socialized economic patterns.     

Ashes of co-optation: from armed group fragmentation to the rebuilding of popular insurgency in Myanmar

This article argues that attempts to buy insurgency out of violence can achieve temporary stability but risk producing new conflict. While co-optation with economic incentives might work in parts of a movement, it can spark ripple effects in others. These unanticipated developments result from the interactions of differently situated elite and non-elite actors, which can create a momentum of their own in driving collective behaviour. This article develops this argument by analysing the re-escalation of armed conflict between the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and Myanmar's armed forces after a 17-year-long ceasefire broke down in 2011. After years of mutual enrichment and collaboration between rebel and state elites and near organisational collapse, the insurgency's new-found resolve and capacity is particularly puzzling. Based on extensive field research, this article explains why and how the state's attempt to co-opt rebel leaders with economic incentives resulted in group fragmentation, loss of leadership legitimacy, increased factional contestation, growing resentment among local communities and the movement's rank and file and ultimately the rebuilding of popular resistance from within.     

When Heads Roll: Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation

Leadership targeting has become a key feature of current counterterrorism policies. Both academics and policy makers have argued that the removal of leaders is an effective strategy in combating terrorism. However, leadership decapitation is not always successful, and existing empirical work is insufficient to account for this variability. As a result, this project answers three primary questions: (1) Under what conditions does leadership decapitation result in the dissolution of a terrorist organization?; (2) Does leadership decapitation increase the likelihood of organizational collapse beyond the baseline rate of collapse for groups over time?; and (3) In cases where decapitation does not result in group collapse, to what extent does it result in organizational degradation and hinder a group's ability to carry about terrorist attacks? I develop a dataset of 298 incidents of leadership targeting from 1945–2004 in order to determine whether and when decapitation is effective. First, I identify the conditions under which decapitation has been successful in bringing about organizational decline. The data show that a group's age, size, and type are critical in identifying when decapitation will cause the cessation of terrorist activity. As an organization grows in size and age, it is much more likely to withstand the removal of its leadership. Organizational type is also significant in understanding the susceptibility of an organization to decapitation. Ideological organizations are most likely to experience a cessation of activity following the removal of leader, while religious organizations are highly resistant to leadership decapitation. Second, I determine whether decapitation is an effective counterterrorism strategy that results in organizational collapse. The data show that decapitation does not increase the likelihood of organizational collapse beyond a baseline rate of collapse for groups over time. Organizations that have not had their leaders removed are more likely to fall apart than those that have undergone a loss of leadership. The marginal utility of decapitation is negative for many groups, particularly for larger, older, religious, and separatist organizations. Finally, I look at the extent to which decapitation results in organizational degradation and hinders a group's ability to carry about terrorist attacks. Case studies illustrate whether decapitation has an effect on the operational capacity of an organization by identifying whether the removal of key leaders changes the number and lethality of attacks. If certain organizations are more resilient than others, it is important to know when decapitation should be effective and when it could lead to counterproductive outcomes. Overall, these findings illustrate the need to develop a new model for evaluating the efficacy of leadership decapitation and for developing effective counterterrorism policies.     

Strategic rebels: a spatial econometric approach to rebel fighting durations in civil wars

ABSTRACT

Recent research on multi-actor civil wars highlights that rebel organizations condition their conflict behavior on that of other rebel organizations, with competition and free-riding constituting the core theoretical mechanisms. We provide a new actor-centric approach to explicitly model strategic interdependence in multi-actor civil wars. We argue that rebel organizations have incentives to remain mobilized until the end of a conflict to maintain their power to negotiate, power to spoil, power to enforce, and power to protect. This induces strategic complements that dominate duration dynamics in multi-actor conflicts. Based on a network game-theoretic model, we derive a spatial econometric framework that allows for a direct test of strategic interdependence. We find that the estimated duration interdependence is positive but partially offset in secessionist conflicts where the public goods nature of the incompatibility also induces strategic substitution effects.     

Leading by design: Informal influence and international secretariats

This article tests three hypotheses concerning the influence of international secretariats in world politics. This is a topic that has so far received limited systematic attention by IR theorists, who have tended to regard secretariats as bit players in global affairs. Drawing on institutional design literature, I develop a detailed theoretical explanation for both secretariat leadership and state mastery of international organizations. Because powerful actors anticipate channels for informal influence when designing secretariats, they seek to maximize formal bureaucratic autonomy. I assess the explanatory power of this theory through an analysis of negotiations over the design of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). A detailed archival investigation reveals that powerful countries, led by the United States, sought to maximize the autonomy of the UNEP secretariat. Developing countries, which expected to exert less informal influence on the new secretariat, sought to ensure strong intergovernmental control over UNEP’s secretariat. Since UNEP has been a frequently cited example of secretarial leadership and initiative, finding that the UNEP secretariat’s ability to act autonomously was in significant part determined by past institutional design choices holds relevance for theory development.     

Presidential Agenda-Setting of Traditional and Nontraditional News Media

The president’s ability to influence the news agenda is central to the study of American politics. Although there is a large literature that examines presidential agenda-setting vis-à-vis traditional news sources, such as newspapers or broadcast television networks, there is little research that explores the effects of presidential agenda leadership of nontraditional media whether online or cable television. This study remedies this state of affairs by examining the relationship between the president’s daily agenda and traditional and nontraditional daily news agendas. I argue that although the president should find similar space on all news for topics he raises in his speeches, nontraditional sources are more likely to cover other stories that reference the president. Analysis of 748 stories on the presidency for 63 days in early 2012 from 7 traditional, cable, and online news sources provides support for my argument, with cable news providing the most presidential news coverage. I conclude with some implications about what my findings mean for presidential leadership of nontraditional media.     

Political party formation by former armed opposition groups after civil war

ABSTRACT

Under what conditions are rebel groups successfully incorporated into democratic politics when civil war ends? Using an original cross-national, longitudinal dataset, we examine political party formation by armed opposition groups over a 20-year period, from 1990 to 2009. We find that former armed opposition groups form parties in more than half of our observations. A rebel group’s pre-war political experience, characteristics of the war and how it ended outweigh factors such as the country’s political and economic traits and history. We advance a theoretical framework based on rebel leaders’ expectations of success in post-war politics, and we argue that high rates of party formation by former armed opposition groups are likely a reflection of democratic weakness rather than democratic robustness in countries emerging from conflict.     

From victorious rebels to strong authoritarian parties: prospects for post-war democratization

ABSTRACT

In a number of cases, rebel movements that won civil wars transformed into powerful authoritarian political parties that dominated post-war politics. Parties whose origins are as victorious insurgent groups have different legacies and hence different institutional structures and patterns of behaviour than those that originated in breakaway factions of ruling parties, labour unions, non-violent social movements, or identity groups. Unlike classic definitions of political parties, post-rebel parties are not created around the need to win elections but rather as military organizations focused on winning an armed struggle. Key attributes of victorious rebel movements, such as cohesive leadership, discipline, hierarchy, and patterns of military administration of liberated territory, shape post-insurgent political parties and help explain why post-insurgent parties are often strong and authoritarian. This article seeks to identify the mechanisms that link rebel victory in three East African countries (Uganda, Ethiopia, and Rwanda) to post-war authoritarian rule. These processes suggest that how a civil war ends changes the potential for post-war democratization.     

A Theory of Terrorist Leadership (and its Consequences for Leadership Targeting)

States often target terrorist leaders with the belief that the leader's death or capture will cause the terrorist organization to collapse. Yet the history of this strategy of “leadership targeting” provides a mixed record—for every example of effectiveness, there are similar examples of ineffectiveness. The central question of this article is: what makes a terrorist leader important? Specifically, what does a terrorist leader do that no one else can do (or do as well) for the organization? To answer this question, I develop a theory of terrorist leadership that argues that leaders might potentially perform two main functions: they can provide inspiration and/or operational direction (or not for both). I also theorize as to how and why the provision of these functions changes over time as the organization itself changes. The consequences for leadership targeting flow naturally from this theory—when leaders provide these functions to the organization, leadership targeting is most likely to be effective. Case studies of Algeria, Peru, and Japan offer insights into why some cases of leadership targeting were effective and why others were not. The conclusion extends this model with an analysis of al-Qaeda's prospects after the death of bin Laden.     

Success or Failure in the Peace Processes of Aceh and Sri Lanka: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This study examines why some internal conflicts end in negotiated agreements, while negotiations fail in others. In order to address this question, I compare the cases of Aceh, where some 30 years of armed conflict ended in a 2005 peace agreement between Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM, the Free Aceh Movement) and the government of Indonesia; and Sri Lanka, where 2002–2006 negotiations between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam broke down. This study adopts ideas from bargaining theories of war, focusing on the adversaries’ power perceptions in relation to actions that led to the civil war settlements. It identifies three variables as decisive: (1) information revealed by war, (2) control over spoilers, and (3) divisions in the ranks of the rebel organization.     

Evaluating the impact of repeated leadership targeting on militant group durability

ABSTRACT

The effects of repeated leadership targeting on militant organizations have been little discussed and quantitatively assessed. This research undertakes to assess the policy’s effectiveness by account for targeting policies’ repeated nature. Analysis of 207 militant organizations between 1970 and 2008 finds that repeated targeting can hasten a group’s demise, but quadratically. While initial targeting interventions actually increase a group’s resilience, a series of successive attacks significantly reduces their survivability. This effect is particularly significant for young organizations. The findings suggest that for targeting to be effective, patience and repeated interventions are required; it is erroneous to conclude its effectiveness based on a single intervention result.     

Civil War Diffusion and the Emergence of Militant Groups, 1960–2001

In this research note, I argue that scholars of the international diffusion of civil conflict would benefit from directly measuring rebel mobilization prior to the onset of civil war. To better understand the way in which international processes facilitate dissidents overcoming the collective action problem inherent in rebellion, I focus on militant organizations and model the timing of their emergence. I use several data sets on militant groups and violent nonstate actors and rely on Buhaug and Gleditsch’s (2008) causal framework to examine how international conditions predict militant group emergence. While Buhaug and Gleditsch conclude that civil war diffusion is primarily a function of internal conflict in neighboring states, once militant group emergence is substituted in the dependent variable, I observe that global conditions affect rebel collective action. A final selection model links militant groups with civil conflict onset and demonstrates the variable performance of diffusion effects. The results indicate that many rebels mobilize in response to more global events and then escalate their behavior in response to local conditions.     

Sport Mediation: Mediating High‐Performance Sports Disputes

Conflicts in high‐performance sports (HPS) are typically tense and emotionally charged experiences for the athletes, coaches, and sports organizations involved. Such disputes raise intriguing challenges for the mediators handling them. These disputes typically involve multiple parties who often have intensely competitive personalities negotiating a volatile mix of high‐stakes win/lose issues. Mediators typically confront numerous process challenges and must operate within the rigid policy parameters of the various governing organizations involved. Mediation can successfully manage and resolve these challenging disputes, often in creative ways that repair and preserve the parties’ relationships. To be successful in this environment, however, mediators must adapt to and confront the unique dynamics of sports disputes described here. In this article, I examine multiple case studies of mediations conducted through the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC) with the goal of identifying successful mediation strategies for HPS disputes. The centre, which has made mediation mandatory for almost all cases, had an overall settlement rate over a twelve‐year period of 46 percent, with rates as high as 94 percent for mediations voluntarily requested by the parties. Mediation has been used only sparingly elsewhere in the world for resolving HPS disputes to date, although, I argue, it is a successful tool that should be increasingly used both nationally and internationally. In recognition of mediation's potential role, the Court of Arbitration for Sport introduced updated mediation rules in 2016 and is moving to increase the use of mediation in international sports disputes.     

Universal soldiers or parochial actors: Understanding jihadists as products of their environments

ABSTRACT

Why did the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra (JN)—two groups that shared similar ideological preferences and were both initially part of the Al Qaeda network—take different paths in the Syrian conflict? Part of the answer lies in the fact that JN is primarily a Syrian organization, whereas Iraqis lead ISIS. A jihadist group’s relationship to its country of origin and domicile (the two are not always the same) helps to explain that organization’s ideological preferences and alliance behavior. Yet no method of categorization based on jihadist-state relations exists. I fill this gap by theorizing an explanatory typology based on a jihadist group’s relationship with its country of origin and/or domicile. This typology consists of two tiers. The first classifies jihadist organizations based on whether they are nationally homogeneous or heterogeneous, and whether they are based in their country of origin, exile, or multiple locations. The second tier categorizes groups based on the nature of their engagement—collaborative, belligerent, or neutral—with a state. This new typology enables the generation of multiple hypotheses and has practical implications given that most U.S. counterterrorism efforts require cooperation from partner nations.     

Wars of Succession

I analyze a model of bargaining, war, and endogenous leadership turnover in which (1) leader attributes affect war outcomes and (2) war can insulate settlements from renegotiation. Shifts in bargaining power caused by leadership turnover are endogenous and discontinuous, but sufficiently decisive war outcomes can solve the associated commitment problem. In contrast to other models where the shadow cast by a hawkish successor encourages moderation toward a dovish incumbent, the foreign state attacks instead—despite a dovish incumbent’s known preference for peace—using war to lock in a settlement that would otherwise be lost to future leadership turnover. I discuss the theory’s implications for widening the empirical scope of the commitment problem explanation for war to limited wars over relatively lower stakes and for integrating the politics of leadership turnover with the study of strategic rivalries.     

“Survival Mode”: Rebel Resilience and the Lord’s Resistance Army

ABSTRACT

To date, scholarly work on armed groups has seldom considered the notion of rebel resilience, or the factors that enable these groups to survive despite time, military pressure, and the myriad contingent events of civil war. In an effort to develop an explanatory framework for resilience as a distinct outcome of civil war and rebellion, this article examines the conditions under which the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has persisted for nearly three decades. Based on fieldwork and original research, the article explains the LRA’s resilience in light of the group’s organizational structure and resource self-sufficiency, which have been well suited for the borderlands of East and Central Africa. The LRA is a key case of rebel resilience. It is important because it sheds light on the organizational foundations of armed groups, the relationship between resources and rebellion, and the broader study of conflict duration and termination. Understanding the sources of the LRA’s resilience can inform efforts to end such insurgencies.