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Alliance Formation in Civil Wars
Abstract
Some of the most brutal and long-lasting civil wars of our time – those in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Lebanon, and Iraq, among others – involve the rapid formation and disintegration of alliances among warring groups, as well as fractionalization within them. It would be natural to suppose thatwarring groups form alliances based on shared identity considerations – such as Christian groups allying with other Christian groups, or Muslim groups with their fellow co-religionists – but this is not what we see. Two groups that identify themselves as bitter foes one day, on the basis of some identity narrative, might be allies the next day and vice versa. Nor is any group, however homogeneous, safe from internal fractionalization. Rather, looking closely at the civil wars in Afghanistan and Bosnia and testing against the broader universe of fifty-three cases of multiparty civil wars, Fotini Christia finds that the relative power distribution between and within various warring groups is the primary driving force behind alliance formation, alliance changes, group splits, and internal group takeovers.
... The existing literature on rebel groups' alliances focuses on two dominant paradigms: on the one hand, scholars underline the relevance of power relations, in which groups seek to maximise their chances to obtain power while offering the minimum share of future payoffs to allies (Bapat and Bond 2012, Christia 2012, Bencherif and Campana 2017, Desgrais et al. 2018); on the other hand, more recent literature has stressed the relevance of identity politics in shaping conflict and inter-rebel dynamics (Gade et al. 2019, Balcells et al. 2022, Blair et al. 2022, Berti 2023, Blair and Potter 2023, Schwab 2023. While not competitive, the two paradigms aim to explain why rebel groups decide to ally -the power politics paradigm -and with whom they decide to cooperate -the identity politics paradigm. ...
... Understanding why rebel groups ally with one another is relevant for explaining the trajectories and outcomes of internal armed conflict and other dynamics relevant in the post-conflict era (Gade et al. 2019, Balcells et al. 2022, Steinwand and Metternich 2022. While translating International Relations theory on alliances within the dynamics of internal armed conflicts (Walt 1987), the current scholarship emphasises the uncertainty and unpredictability of civil wars due to the highly dynamic and anarchical characteristics of the civil wars themselves (Christia 2012, Roessler 2016, Blair et al. 2022, resulting in a constant analysis of the cost and benefits by armed groups. For example, the wartime coalition between the Congolese Tutsis and Katangans was able to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko in the former Zaire. ...
... The power politics paradigm claims that rebel groups decide to cooperate with other non-state armed actors if they can have more opportunities to win the conflict, with a lower level of future payoffs to other groups (Christia 2012). This paradigm helps to understand why rebel groups ally. ...
Why do rebel groups decide to create alliances with other non-state armed groups? And with whom? The existing literature on alliance formation in civil wars is divided into two paradigms. The former paradigm is related to a neo-realist approach to power politics drawing from the International Relations literature on alliance formation. In contrast, the latter considers the role of ethnic and ideological constituencies in determining rebel groups' preferences. These two paradigms of alliance formation, although non-competitive, can answer the previous questions in combination. This article aims to reframe the existing scholarship on alliance formation in civil wars and bridge the two paradigms by developing a typology based on the role of the coalition's short-and long-term goals and its internal composition in terms of ethnicity and ideology. The typology also presents a more nuanced understanding of why and with whom rebel groups ally by identifying four types of configurations, differentiating between tactical and strategic alliances, and homogeneous and heterogeneous compositions. By reframing the existing literature within the paradigms mentioned above and bridging them with the typology, the article paves the way for future research, particularly by understanding how alliances might change and evolve during civil wars.
... Existing scholarship argues that interactions between rebel organisations often lead to distrust and violence due to competition for limited resources and severe credibility and commitment problems (Christia 2012). Because these groups cannot assure mutual reciprocity during a partnership in the absence of externally enforceable agreements between allies, they are more prone to conflict than cooperation. ...
... The scholarship has developed around two prominent issues: inter-group conflict and cooperation. While the first line of work addresses why rebel organisations fight instead of simply ignoring one another (Christia 2012, Horowitz and Potter 2014, Phillips 2014, Popovic 2017, Mosinger 2018, Walter 2018, the other line focuses on when insurgents are more likely to join an alliance and with whom they prefer to collaborate (Cunningham et al. 2009, Moghadam 2015, Bacon 2018, Pischedda 2018, Gade et al. 2019, Balcells et al. 2020. ...
In this article, I focus on why AQ and IS affiliates develop different regional interactions with one another, ranging from high conflict to high cooperation.
... The bulk of the literature on the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ignores the complex interethnic dynamics of alliance formation, including infighting within the alliance or even within the same ethnic group. One of the few authors to deal with this is (Fotini, 2012), who states that "all warring parties were both foes and allies at different times throughout the conflict: Serbs against Muslims and Croats, Serbs with Muslims, Serbs with Croats, and Muslims against Croats" (Fotini, 2012). There was also interethnic conflict between Muslims (called Bosniaks from 1993) in Cazinska Krajina, the western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ...
... The bulk of the literature on the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ignores the complex interethnic dynamics of alliance formation, including infighting within the alliance or even within the same ethnic group. One of the few authors to deal with this is (Fotini, 2012), who states that "all warring parties were both foes and allies at different times throughout the conflict: Serbs against Muslims and Croats, Serbs with Muslims, Serbs with Croats, and Muslims against Croats" (Fotini, 2012). There was also interethnic conflict between Muslims (called Bosniaks from 1993) in Cazinska Krajina, the western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ...
Almost thirty years after the General Framework for Peace (DPA) was initialled in Dayton and then signed in Paris, Bosnia and Herzegovina has not taken full ownership over its governance. The Office of the High Representative (OHR), which has been given the responsibility to oversee the civilian implementation of the DPA, has been heavily criticized for being controversial, undemocratic, illegal, and it has been seen as an obstacle to the EU integration of the country. This paper analyses the effects of civilian international presence on the governance of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It argues that such strong and long-lasting international control fosters a culture of dependency in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which in turn jeopardizes the creation of federal spirit in the country.
... Through all of these diverse alliances, Iran continued to operate on identity-based narratives, whether by proclaiming its Shia theological mission, its constitutional prerogative to help fellow Muslims or its Persian historical ties with its neighbors. It is not any single identity label, but actors' interests and politics, that help explain this complex variation in alliances ( Christia 2012 ). A singular focus on the most obvious identity dimension would create blind spots in analyses of political outcomes. ...
... Scholars of armed organizations with ideologies that claim to be based on religion have increasingly documented micro-level variation in the attitudes and conduct of individual members of the organization who sometimes but do not always comply with the organization's ideology, i.e., its official interpretation of religion ( Gutiérrez Sanín and Wood 2014 ;Leader Maynard 2019 ). It is now wellestablished that ideology-as expressed through an organization's official policies and doctrines-is a causal factor in the violence wielded by members of armed organizations, although scholars disagree about its importance relative to other factors including economic incentives ( Weinstein 2006 ), changes in the relative military power of competing organizations leading to "side-switching" ( Christia 2012 ), and territorial control ( Kalyvas 2006 ). However, there is more to be learned about how and why individual members of an organization vary in their level of commitment to the ideology, whether religious or secular, and the role that commitment plays in the divergence between violence prescribed as policy and that observed on the ground. ...
Despite significant advances in our understanding of the politics of religious ideology and identity across time and space, scholars disagree on how to conceptualize “religious” conflicts and “religious” actors, and how to infer religious motivations from actors’ behavior. This Forum brings together scholars with diverse research agendas to weigh in on conceptual, methodological, and ethical questions surrounding the study of contemporary religious conflicts. We ask: How do we know when individuals and groups are acting on religious, as opposed to other, motivations? To what extent can analysts rely on actors’ own claims about their motivations? How does the “secular bias” affect scholarly research on religion and conflict? Is there a bias over which conflicts and actors come to be labeled and coded as “religious” by scholars, policymakers, and the media? The Forum fosters a debate aimed at identifying gaps within and between academic research and policy as well as media analyses on religion and political violence. The contributors examine contradictory conclusions by academics and policy analysts rooted in diverging assumptions and arguments about “religious” actors, “religious” motivations, and “religious” conflicts. The Forum proposes some ways for scholars to overcome these challenges as well as offers implications for policymakers and journalists who shape the public discourse.
... The Yemeni Civil War, when viewed through the lens of literature examining the relationship between war and nationalism, illustrates why such a conflict is expected to lead to the disintegration of national identity. This expectation arises from several key factors discussed in academic literature, such as the nature of the conflict (Christia 2012;Sambanis, Skaperdas, and Wohlforth 2020;Kulyk 2023;Haller 2003), state capacity (Alesina 2020), societal structures (Varshney 2021), international dynamics (Sambanis, Skaperdas, and Wohlforth 2020), and the role of leadership (Varshney 2021). ...
This paper examines the transformation of Yemeni nationalism from its peak following the country’s unification in 1990 to its gradual disintegration in the ensuing decades. It explores the interplay of factors contributing to the erosion of a once robust national identity, highlighting the significant shift post-1994, the rise of the Southern Movement in 2007, and the escalation of the Yemeni Civil War from 2015 onwards. The paper identifies three concurrent factors that have led to the decline of Yemeni nationalism: The negative shift in the material conditions of the populace, particularly the South. Second, the presence of fragmenting factors like entrenched regional identities. Third, the absence of mitigating factors such as unifying leadership or a common enemy, which could counterbalance divisive elements.
... In this sense, race is an artificial association or correlation between a set of physical characteristics including skin colour, certain facial features, hair texture and an imagined set of psychological and behavioral tendencies, conceived as either positive or negative, good, or bad. The alliances have been created and maintained by dominant groups (Christia, 2012). Being a biological trait, race is socially manufactured. ...
I have portrayed Dalits from diverse theoretical and philosophical standpoints. The main objective of this article is to explore the Dalits and their identity crisis from various insights. Documental study/desk review is used. A critical approach to generating information, united with thematic analysis in data interpretation, and the use of both digital and manual libraries, are the core areas of study in this field. These sources yielded the knowledge that Dalits no matter whether they are male or female are rich because of their traditional skills, occupations and distinctive capacities. Despite these strengths, they have been struggling for their identities. Dalit women are triply oppressed as stigmatized Dalit, as Dalit women, and as powerless beings. For generations, Dalits including women have been subjected to various forms of exclusion, denial, dominance, and discrimination. Dalit women's case is even worse as they are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. When viewed from various viewpoints, Dalits continue to be intricate and varied. Questions of representation, empowerment, and belonging continue to influence Dalits' individual and collective identities as they traverse this challenging landscape. People in these communities frequently experience an identity crisis as a result of these perceptions of Dalits, divided between the desire for greater social inclusion and their traditional caste-based identity. Their fight for recognition and justice within a broader context of historical injustices and international power dynamics emphasises their experiences and voices that are often ignored in mainstream discourse.
... Each of this can be attributed, to some degree, to land redistribution. Land redistribution was also an issue with the shifting Mujahideen factions (Christia, 2012). ...
How do rebel regimes consolidate power while staying true to their revolutionary goals? Though some studies have found that revolutions can be efficiency-enhancing, our analysis of victorious rebellions from 1946 to 2021 and case studies from Ethiopia and Afghanistan finds that successful rebels establish constitutions that involve selective enforcement of property rights. Rebel-led constitutions tend to include provisions for private property rights that simultaneously empower the government to suspend these rights and expropriate property under broad justifications. Governance strategies post-victory include property insecurity as a tactic for maintaining political authority.
... According to Christia (2012), rebel factions make decisions about splintering and coalescing as they make efforts to improve their future prospects in light of the changing nature of the conflict and its environment. The number of rebel actors involved and the shifting of these actors has implications for how governments will wage their war or engage in negotiations (see the work of D. E. Cunningham 2006or Lintner 1994. ...
This article focuses intently on three pieces of civil war research and how they interact with each other to improve our understanding of the dynamic nature of warring actors. Patrick Regan’s book, entitled Sixteen Million One, delves into the conditions under which civil wars emerge by focusing intently on why individual actors take up arms to form a rebel faction. Research by Olson Lounsbery and Cook illuminates the challenge of these actors operating in a cohesive manner when they are faced with decisions to negotiate, while additional research by Olson Lounsbery presents the conditions under which previously splintered factions would once again unite. Each piece is presented through a systemist graphic approach. Doing so helps demonstrate how they interact with one another to improve our knowledge in the field of civil war studies. The article concludes with lessons learned through the application of systemism.
... This paper offers novel theoretical and empirical contributions to various strands of literature in International Relations, primarily addressing studies on states' international legal commitments, the deterrence effects of international legal institutions, and their impact on civil conflict (Prorok 2017;Krcmaric 2020;Ginsburg 2009). Additionally, it contributes to the literature on transborder civil wars (Salehyan 2009;Christia 2012;Salehyan 2008;2010;Stewart and Liou 2017), and it engages with the emerging body of work concerning the role of leaders-particularly rebel leaders (Huang et al. 2022;Huang and Sullivan 2021;Prorok 2016). ...
This paper examines an overlooked yet important outcome of the international justice regime on civil war: rebel leaders going into exile. Utilizing an original dataset detailing the exile trajectories of rebel leaders (1989-2017), including when and where they flee, the study reveals two key findings. First, as a rebel’s home government becomes more susceptible to the international legal regime, rebel leaders implicated in serious human rights violations are more likely to seek exile. Second, the international justice regime shrinks the options for exile for these culpable rebel leaders: unlike in previous eras, now, when pursuing asylum, rebel leaders strategically select destinations with a lower likelihood of legal repercussions—leaving fewer options for their safe haven. These findings have critical implications for the literature on civil war, international law, and how law enforcement affects the migration patterns of implicated political leaders.
... When ideological preferences come in conflict with this underlying motivation, ideology invariably changes or is jettisoned altogether. 1 Former ideological enemies can become allies in pursuit of their interests, and allies could turn on each other if power consolidation demands it. The prevalence of side switching in civil conflicts is presented as evidence that ideology is not a real constraint on factional realignments. ...
... This argument ignores the causality of strategic behaviors that give rise to alliances, changes in alliances, and armed group rivalries that emerge in homogeneous societal structures in terms of identity. The second paradigm highlights power politics and argues that the balance of power logic operates in the alliance choices of armed groups (Christia 2012). This argument fails to identify the motivation behind the strategic behavior of armed groups and the existence of non-alliance strategies. ...
... Recent research on armed opposition suggests that rebel groups should seek to maximize their autonomy within partnerships to facilitate a quick breakaway when they believe doing so will provide specific advantages in a post-war setting. Autonomy-security trade-offs will shape alliance preferences at the risk of falling under another group's control (Christia 2012). Still, rebels engage in diverse alliances, from joint attacks to shared command. ...
Why do some rebel organizations form a united front when others confine themselves to a loose partnership? Existing research on rebel movements reveals that insurgents should quickly leave cooperative agreements if doing so will provide particular advantages in a post-conflict setting. Still, rebel groups may build diverse alliances, from joint attacks to shared command structures. If rebels are indeed purely pragmatic, why would they tie themselves to partnerships that hinder their ability to defect easily? In this article, I argue that three relational factors shape how armed groups cooperate: rebel-civilian relations (civilian support), inter-rebel relations (partners), and rebel-sponsor relations (external patrons). Groups connected through these social networks will be more likely to join a united opposition with their shared channels of trust. Developing a new dyadic dataset, I find that sharing allies or civilian support is positively associated with forming united fronts. Yet, state sponsorship does not produce similar results.
... Mechanism 2, which we call the Competition Mechanism is also at work. Here, rebel groups that are in active opposition to each other rush to city-centers to beat their enemies to valuable resources or key strategic locations to survive the day (see Christia 2012). In this situation, as with Mechanism 1, the groups are informally learning about their opportunity vis-à-vis the government from their competition. ...
Rebels that fight near or capture cities gain more concessions from the government than those that remain in the periphery. Yet, not all groups challenge urban centers. Previous scholarship expects rebel strength to explain this strategic decision. However, weak rebel groups challenge cities, too. Our approach focuses on the conflict process more broadly. We argue that as the network of rebels challenging the government increases, opposition groups become more likely to attack cities as either they become emboldened, given the government’s disadvantage in multi-front wars, or they are propelled to strategic and resource centers in competition with the other groups. Statistical analysis of all African conflicts from 1989-2009 strongly supports this logic, while an exploration of most typical cases highlights each of these mechanisms in practice. This project thus links literature on civil war tactics and conflict contagion.
... 6 Fotini Christia (2012) argues that relative power is the primary driver of civil war alliances, regardless of whether they are ideologically or ethnically driven. 7 In particular when facing a more powerful common threat, groups may choose to set aside their differences and cooperate to gain a bargaining advantage, or to simply survive. 8 Partnering with other organizations, especially those with different strengths can offer groups significant operational benefits since pooling resources and transferring skills can increase groups' efficiency and scope of operations while filling gaps in knowledge, overcoming resource limitations, and improving existing skills. ...
Transnational jihadist organizations, such as the Islamic State, have sought to reinforce their reputations by establishing new global affiliates. Islamic State affiliates, in particular, have leveraged preexisting militant infrastructures in new locations to create strategic partnerships with some militant organizations, while delegitimizing and attacking others as rivals. In this context, we pose the following question: what factors explain whether local groups will cooperate with an emergent transnational affiliate, or engage in a rivalry? We present a theoretical framework, which depicts how state sponsorship of militant groups, and the persistent rivalry between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, can combine to influence new inter-group relationships. Applying our typology to the case of Islamic State Khorasan in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, we demonstrate that the more adversarial a local militant group’s relationship with the Pakistani state, and the weaker its historical relational proximity to Al-Qaeda, the more likely the group is to cooperate with ISK.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought returned focus to civil–military relations in complex, fluid, and “asymmetric” environments. The close integration of politics and violence has led to renewed calls for more careful civilian control and involvement in strategy-making and operational design. While scholars and practitioners have struggled with this pressing task, so have the insurgent organizations that the United States and others have been fighting against. And, in some ways, rebels have been more successful in harmonizing military and political efforts. Yet, there is little research into the form and implications of their civil–military balance. This article constructs a typology of rebel civil–military relations that maps the overlap of an intensive form of civilian control, political integration, and the degree of military professionalization. The typology is developed by categorizing a range of prominent organizations operative in contemporary and past civil wars and considering how these patterns might influence insurgents’ pursuit of intricately intertwined political and military goals. This theory development exercise—intended for hypothesis generation to inform future avenues of research—has implications for how we understand insurgency and state-based civil–military relations in unstable environments.
What drives the cohesion of secessionist movements? Previous research emphasized the role of internal and external factors but produced mixed results regarding their effects. This article advances scholarship on this question by examining the role of critical junctures as periods of heightened contingency that can shift movements towards fragmentation or cohesion. It focuses on independence referendums and how states respond to them as important critical junctures, and on how they shape interorganizational relations as a key dimension of movement cohesion. Empirically, it explores the effects of the 2017 referendum in Catalonia using a mixed-methods research design that combines qualitative inquiry with network analyses of protest event data. The network analyses showed that the movement was notably less cohesive in the protest arena after the referendum than during the referendum campaign. Qualitative materials were employed to inductively identify strategy framing processes as key mechanisms to explain this development. Frame alignment around the referendum as a shared goal led to more cohesion during the campaign. After the event, a frame dispute over the meaning of the referendum led to diverging strategies and fragmented the movement, as state repression limited the movement’s room for maneuver. The findings suggest that research on secessionist movement cohesion should pay more attention to critical junctures and how secessionists make sense of them.
Are civil wars shaped by how they start? While existing literature points to the path-dependent nature of conflict, the link between the type of onset and wartime dynamics have been largely overlooked. Building on a recent typology capturing the dynamics of civil war onset (1944–2020), I analyze conflict trajectories, focusing on three macro-level wartime dynamics: warfare, intensity, and duration. This article shows that how large-scale armed conflicts begin (e.g., whether they start as peripheral conflicts or are fought centrally) helps us predict how intensely they will be fought or how long they will last. These findings show that onset matters beyond signaling the start of large-scale conflict and tells us about the dynamics that will likely follow. Altogether, this article establishes a new process-oriented macro-level research program in the field of conflict analysis.
The revived men’s movement, colloquially the “manosphere,” has recently increased in prominence and influence, and has been connected to numerous instances of violence, including mass shootings targeting women. Despite this, political science has paid scant attention to the manosphere, and the tactics these groups use against women, feminism, and gender equality, including violence. This theory-building paper begins to fill this gap by focusing on two goals. First, using an original dataset of manosphere blogs, forums, and websites, we provide a descriptive analysis of the manosphere. Second, we develop an original typology of the manosphere along two dimensions — communitarianism and their interactions with women — which helps us theorize about which manosphere subgroups are more prone to use violence. We also compare cases from each subgroup to show initial proof of concept for our theory. Ultimately, we show how excluding the manosphere from political conversation inhibits a comprehensive understanding of contentious politics.
What is the future of sovereignty? This work argues that the size and shape of nations is likely to continue to devolve, and the Americas offer a helpful laboratory for thinking about new forms of sovereignty because of their diverse experiments with decentralization. All parallels are imperfect, but the early Americas in particular provide unusually good examples of how small numbers of people with force projection problems cobble together cohesive polities across a range of geographic, economic, military, and ideological circumstances.
What explains cooperation between armed groups? Challenging existing literature that assumes armed groups must be similar or not cooperate at all, I argue that explicit differences are key to some cooperation. Comparative advantage explains why rebels and criminals—organizations that typically eschew collaboration—cooperate to produce violence. This article introduces “black market white labeling”—cooperation that emerges when one actor buys an illicit good or service from another and re-brands it as their own. To demonstrate this phenomenon and the conditions under which it occurs, I focus on kidnapping, an underexplored but common form of armed group violence. Drawing on 113 interviews with Colombian kidnappers and hostage recovery personnel from Colombia and the United States, I theorize the conditions under which rebels “outsource” violence to criminal gangs or produce it “in house.” This article explains the organizational dynamics of rebel-criminal cooperation that perpetuate violence against civilians.
In this paper, by studying the fragmentation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 2004, I identify two distinct pathways to rebel fragmentation: one that is triggered by democratization in the home country (EU-anchored democratization in Turkey) and the other by the empowerment of a rival co-ethnic organization in a neighboring country through foreign military intervention (American invasion of Iraq and the empowerment of Iraqi Kurdish leadership). First, by expanding the room for nonviolent mobilization, democratization can result in an organizational fragmentation between soft-liners, who support laying down the arms, and hard-liners, who prefer the continuation of the armed insurgency under new circumstances. Second, foreign intervention in a neighboring country can radically change the distribution of power and empower an organization’s rival co-ethnic organization. This can lead some actors within the organization to rethink their alliances and advocate a better relationship with their rival co-ethnics and the intervening foreign power, resulting in organizational fragmentation over the organization’s external relationships. The paper broadly contributes to the literature on rebel fragmentation, the effects of democratization on civil war processes, international dynamics of civil wars, transborder ethnic-kin, and rebel alliances in civil wars.
In this forum article, we examine the state of the field of Peace and Conflict Studies in providing a platform to incorporate local knowledge to generate global insights. Many scholars in peace and conflict studies have traditionally relied on cross-national empirical analyses to investigate conflict dynamics, which can present opportunities for increased level of collaboration, methodological advancement, and interdisciplinary works. Whereas Western-oriented institutions and approaches serve as the locomotive of the production in the field, the vast majority of their data locates in non-Western contexts with diverse cultural, political, social, linguistic, and economic settings. Hence, the overarching theme of this forum emphasizes the benefits of an empirically-driven, methodologically rigorous research agenda that strongly incorporates local knowledge. We offer a platform to discuss the limits and prospects of Global North- South cooperation, the challenges of gathering dependable data, and the ways to overcome these issues while maintaining academic integrity and deepening our understanding of conflict dynamics. We believe that sustained investment in collaborative partnerships and capacity-building initiatives will be critical for unlocking the full potential of local expertise and insights in advancing knowledge-production and fostering peace and stability in conflict-affected areas.
Which factors contribute to the cohesion of alliances among rebel groups during civil wars? Through the case of the Syrian civil war, which experienced a high level of fragmentation and cohesion among rebel groups, we emphasise how the establishment and implementation of power-sharing mechanisms in horizontal wartime institutions ensure lasting cohesion in alliances. Moreover, we posit how the mere establishment of these mechanisms is insufficient, and they must be effectively implemented. The implementation of power-sharing mechanisms in horizontal wartime institutions increases the costs of defection, and it reduces the incentives for unilateral defection from an alliance by coalition members.
This article explores the strategic decision making of armed groups during war-to-peace transitions—critical time frames during which militant leaders must reconcile their commitment to armed survival with the imperative of postwar civilian conversion. We specify the internal organizational risks rebel groups confront, as well as the menu of strategies from which they select, in navigating the uncertainty inherent in these perilous periods. Our approach broadens the analysis of war-to-peace transitions, offering new insights into the question of why rebels sometimes successfully integrate into postconflict politics, economies, and society, while at other times they forgo participation in the postconflict state. It represents the first step in a wider research program—one that promises to open a number of new directions in the study of insurgent organizations, transitional societies, and postwar outcomes.
Federalism has come to be seen as an important tool for conflict resolution and management providing a framework suitable to accommodate diversity, equal representation, and democracy. This article analyses the federal institutional architecture and dynamics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The methodology used in this article is the one of a case study analysis. By applying single case analysis to our study, we will be able to examine the particularities of Bosnia and Herzegovina's federal system, we will look at distribution of competences , inter-governmental relations, and the impact of these structures on governance and internal dynamics. The goal of this article is to contribute to a broader understanding of federalism, especially to its role in post-conflict societies and multi-ethnic countries.
What explains the choice of means and methods of warfare by armed groups? Conversely, why would some groups choose not to use certain weapons? Beyond the legitimacy- and reputation-based explanations common in existing literature, this article highlights the role of tactical utility, inherent costs, and normative biases of specific means and methods in shaping these decisions. Through a combination of congruence analysis and comparative methods, the article examines why the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), while employing a wide range of brutal forms of violence, generally avoided using landmines, contrasting this restraint with the behavior of other Colombian armed groups. Although the lack of tactical utility seems to be the primary driver of the non-use of landmines, the costs and stigma associated with using mines influence how the AUC perceived their utility. The findings underscore the importance of context-specific factors in the decision-making processes of non-state armed groups and contribute to broader discussions on the disaggregation of violence in civil wars.
This article delves into the dynamics of a dyadic political violence case study in Rojava, Northern Syria, focusing on the conflict between Kurdish rebels and ISIS from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2019. We employ agent-based modelling and a formalisation of the conflict as an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game. The study provides a nuanced understanding of conflict dynamics in a highly volatile region, focusing on microdynamics of an intense dyadic strategic interaction between two near-equally- powered actors. The choice of using a model based on the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, though a classical approach, offers substantial insights due to its ability to model dyadic, equally-matched strategic interactions in conflict scenarios effectively. The investigation primarily reveals that shifts in territorial control are more critical than geographical or temporal factors in determining the conflict’s course. Further, the study observes that the conflict is characterised by periods of predominantly one-sided violence. This pattern underscores that the distribution of attacks, and target choices are a more telling indicator of the conflict nature than specific behavioural patterns of the actors involved. Such a conclusion aligns with the strategic implications of the underlying model, which emphasises the outcome of interactions based on differing aggression levels. This research not only sheds light on the conflict in Rojava but also reaffirms the relevance of this type of game-theoretical approach in contemporary conflict analysis.
Why do some winning rebel groups build loyal postwar militaries, while others do not? Surprisingly, though victorious rebel political and military elites cooperate successfully to seize sovereign power, they often struggle to share it. In roughly one-third of rebel regimes, military elites attempt to depose their leaders through military coups. I contend that postwar coup risk is primarily shaped by the wartime roles of rebel leaders. Rebel leaders that occupy a frontline role—exposing themselves to the hazards of the conflict theater—establish regimes less likely to suffer postwar coups. Frontline leaders win greater prestige and stronger legitimacy among military audiences. Further, frontline leaders’ greater proximity to their military commanders allows them to develop institutional structures that more effectively reduce military autonomy. However, remote leaders, who are absent from the conflict theater, exercise weaker postwar control over the armed forces, resulting in greater coup risk. I find support for this theory using original cross-national data on all rebel regimes and the wartime roles of victorious rebel leaders between 1945 and 2010. A controlled case comparison of civil–military relations in two rebel regimes—Guinea-Bissau and Uganda—further illustrates the mechanisms tying wartime roles to postwar coups.
This contribution starts from the idea that military heroism is a manifestation of what is called the “social construction of reality”. This implies there is change and variation—in time and place—regarding to what and who a military hero is. A military hero there may not be a hero here, a hero then may no longer be a hero now, and vice-versa. Also, it is important to recognize the heroes in civilian life who seem to become increasingly important. Next, two types of military heroes are distinguished: Achilles versus Odysseus. Achilles connects to the ‘absolutist’ way of doing things military, i.e. the military is seen as the core of regulating tensions in (inter)national affairs, whereas for Odysseus and the ‘pragmatist’ way of dealing with tensions military action is only one of the options. ‘Pragmatism’, i.e. the Odysseus way, seems on the rise given the emergence of important operational notions to be used on the battlefield such as “tactical patience” and “courageous constraint”. However, there are enough signs that indicate that the ‘absolutist’ way of thinking is still seen as the right manner to solve issues, both in the Western and the Eastern hemisphere.
What explains civilian victimization during civil war? Existing scholarship claims that violence against civilians is driven primarily by competition between armed actors. We argue that this explanation neglects a crucial cause of civilian victimization: in communities they rule, armed groups employ systematic violence against civilians to establish and sustain social order. Drawing on original microlevel quantitative data from Colombia, we show that areas controlled by a sole armed actor experience high levels of victimization, while places where multiple actors jointly govern exhibit significantly less violence. To explain this pattern, we draw on evidence from original interviews, focus groups, and secondary sources. We show that armed groups employ violence to govern areas they control and enact social order. But this violence is checked when multiple groups rule jointly: the factors that sustain pacted rule disincentivize victimization. These results have implications for theories of political order, violence, and governance by non-state actors.
A ground-breaking study on how natural disasters can escalate or defuse wars, insurgencies, and other strife.
Armed conflict and natural disasters have plagued the twenty-first century. Not since the end of World War II has the number of armed conflicts been higher. At the same time, natural disasters have increased in frequency and intensity over the past two decades, their impacts worsened by climate change, urbanization, and persistent social and economic inequalities. Providing the first comprehensive analysis of the interplay between natural disasters and armed conflict, Catastrophes, Confrontations, and Constraints explores the extent to which disasters facilitate the escalation or abatement of armed conflicts—as well as the ways and contexts in which combatants exploit these catastrophes.
Tobias Ide utilizes both qualitative insights and quantitative data to explain the link between disasters and the (de-)escalation of armed conflict and presents over thirty case studies of earthquakes, droughts, floods, and storms in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. He also examines the impact of COVID-19 on armed conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and the Philippines.
For refugees who have fled civil conflict, do experiences of victimization by one armed group push them to support the opposing armed groups? Or, does victimization cause refugees to revoke their support for all armed groups, whatever side they are on, and call instead for peace? This paper studies the effect of civilian victimization on threat perceptions, loyalties, and attitudes toward peace in the context of Syrian refugees in Turkey, many of whom faced regime-caused violence prior to their departure. Our research strategy leverages variation in home destruction caused by barrel bombs to examine the effect of violence on refugees’ views. We find that refugees who lose their home to barrel bombs withdraw support from armed actors and are more supportive of ending the war and finding peace. Suggestive evidence shows that while victims do not disengage from issues in Syria, they do show less optimism about an opposition victory.
What determines the outcomes of civil wars? Existing literature highlights numerous factors at the systemic, state, and organizational levels of analysis. Yet there is little research on the attributes of rebel leaders in shaping war outcomes despite ample theories of their importance in steering their organizations. This article focuses on rebel leaders’ age as one key driver of their behavior. Applying insights from developmental psychology to the context of armed rebellion, we argue that young rebel leaders are the most likely to suffer military defeats, middle-aged leaders to win military victories, and elderly ones to reach negotiated settlements. We use a mixed-methods strategy to substantiate our claims, combining case studies of George Washington and Yasser Arafat with new data from the Rebel Organization Leaders (ROLE) database. Our findings help advance the study of non-state violent leaders in world politics while illuminating neglected sources of risk and opportunity for peace practitioners.
Existing research portrays militant splinter groups as more violent than their parent organizations due to factors like more extreme preferences or capacity-building needs. Though widely held, the assumption that splinters are particularly violent has not been systematically tested. In this paper, we develop and test an alternative explanation for splinter behavior. We argue splinter groups often appear less violent than their parents due to an underlying selection effect. Splinters break away where there are large organizational barriers to internally address a faction’s grievances. These barriers tend to exist in well-organized parents that are also capable of high levels of violence. Splinter groups lack this established organizational infrastructure, resulting in lower levels of relative violence. We test this logic with an original dataset on parent and splinter groups and a pair of comparative case studies. We find that splinters are less violent than parent organizations, challenging conventional wisdom.
How do United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions influence the use of conflict related sexual violence (CRSV) by armed non-state actors? This study argues efficacy is influenced by conditions that precede deployment and the composition of UN forces. Poor intragroup cohesion within rebel ranks incentivizes CRSV, putting peacekeepers in a precarious position upon deployment. UN police improve law enforcement capabilities, build relationships with local communities, and promote information diffusion mechanisms. As a result, UN police are associated with a decrease in CRSV, even in the most difficult environments.
This paper investigates ruling parties’ calculations in wartime legislative elections. The paper argues that ruling parties’ strategies are shaped by opportunity structures and the party’s desire to protect party insiders, rather than simply by considerations about ‘government-held’ or ‘rebel-held’ territory. Ruling parties may adopt several strategies: (1) ceding seats to popular opposition candidates, even in government-controlled territory; (2) allowing rebels to run on the ruling party’s ticket; and (3) blatant electoral manipulation. Ruling parties may miscalculate, including about how much manipulation the population will countenance. The paper examines these dynamics through a case study of Mali’s 2020 legislative elections.
"This book is based on a profound and detailed analysis...that shows very convincingly the dynamics that the political elites succeeded in exploiting in the course of the instrumentalization of the national: behind the ethnicization [during the disintegration of Yugoslavia] were power-political interests. In this study Caspersen offers a convincing new perspective on the radicalization of nationalism.". Südosteuropa. "Empirically, the book makes a major contribution to the study of intra-Serb relations and rivalries during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia... it constructs a new theoretical framework that will allow for more nuanced and accurate explanations of intra-ethnic competition and inter-ethnic conflicts.". Peter Viggo Jakobsen, University of Copenhagen. "This important and pioneering work well illustrates the complexities of nationalist politics and offers a novel conceptual model for its study.". Slavic Review. "Only unity saves the Serbs" is the famous call for unity in the Serb nationalist doctrine. But even though this doctrine was ideologically adhered to by most of the Serb leaders in Croatia and Bosnia, disunity characterized Serb politics during the Yugoslav disintegration and war. Nationalism was contested and nationalist claims to homogeneity did not reflect the reality of Serb politics. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Serb politics and challenges widespread assumptions regarding the Yugoslav conflict and war. It finds that although Slobodan Milosevic played a highly significant role, he was not always able to control the local Serb leaders. Moreover, it adds to the emerging evidence of the lack of importance of popular attitudes; hardline dominance was generally based on the control of economic and coercive resources rather than on elites successfully "playing the ethnic card." It moves beyond an assumption of automatic ethnic outbidding and thus contributes toward a better understanding of intra-ethnic rivalry in other cases such as Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, Nagorno-Karabakh and Rwanda.
International Security 27.4 (2003) 184-219
Few issues cut so deeply to the core of international relations theory as the origins of diplomatic alignments. If only one of the great powers had chosen a different alliance strategy at any of several critical junctures over the past century, the course of world history might have been radically altered. Germany might have succeeded in the conquest of Europe, or it might have been deterred from hostilities altogether. Much depended on Great Britain, which avoided entangling itself in continental crises until each world war had already become inevitable. By making a stronger commitment to France in the early 1910s, or by forging a close partnership with the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, Britain might have been able to persuade German leaders that military conflict would not have been worth the risk. Given the enormous stakes of great power politics, it is of vital importance for the field of international relations to provide a compelling account of how states choose their allies and adversaries.
The academic debate over alignment has centered on two schools of thought within the realist paradigm. One view posits that states tend to balance against the most powerful actor in the system; the other asserts that states concern themselves only with specific threats to their national security. Using these theories as a point of departure, many scholars have also explored second- order factors that affect great power alignments, including offense-defense balance, revisionist motives, domestic regime characteristics, and intra-alliance bargaining dynamics. Such works have not directly challenged the core assumption that states respond to either power or threat; instead, they have attempted to refine and develop the basic tenets of realism to gain more explanatory leverage over a wider range of cases.
The literature on the origins of alignment has provided many valuable insights into state behavior, but it rests on deeply problematic theoretical foundations. Its focus on power and threat is premised on the idea that states' search for strategic partnerships is motivated above all by the desire for security. This is an eminently reasonable assumption, but it is woefully incomplete. Security is not an object unto itself; it has no meaning in isolation of interests. Most obviously, states have an interest in protecting their homeland from invasion, but that may not be the only consideration influencing their alignment decisions. Unfortunately, realism has almost nothing to say about the process by which other such interests are defined. The best it can do is to try to infer from states' actions, ex post and ad hoc, what concerns other than self-preservation might have contributed to their broadly conceived "national interest."
The problem of interest definition comes sharply into focus when states are internally divided over the question of alignment. If, as realists assume, a state's optimal strategy can be derived from an objective evaluation of its abstract "national security" requirements, partisan turnover in its executive leadership should have little effect on the essential character of its foreign policy. Only if different parties hold irreconcilable views on the nature of the international system or the intrinsic value of certain goods within it should they pursue divergent alignment strategies. Realism simply lacks the conceptual tools to deal with this eventuality. Most realists would concede that "domestic politics matters," but not at the stage of interest definition. They maintain that the international system creates unique "national interests" for states, so they incorporate domestic politics only to the extent that it constrains the pursuit of such interests. Yet, partisanship is nothing like a constraint; instead, it is a fundamental disagreement over the means and ends of foreign policy.
Great Britain prior to both world wars is a case in point for these theoretical issues. From 1905 to 1939, its political parties consistently took opposing positions over their country's alignments with the European great powers. In the years leading up to World War I, Conservatives argued that Britain should openly support France and Russia against Germany and Austria, while most Liberals and Labourites opposed taking sides between the two continental alliances. After the war, the defense of France became less controversial, but new cleavages arose. The Conservatives...
This article investigates the determinants of armed group organization and the downstream effects of organization on civil wars. It demonstrates that the interaction between geographical and technological factors influences the types of hierarchical organizations that armed groups develop. It then argues that variations in the types of hierarchies developed by armed groups have important consequences for principal-agent relations, which in turn affect groups' overall level of military effectiveness. Using evidence from field research conducted in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the model's plausibility is examined in comparative case studies of four armed groups that fought in those countries from 1989–2003.
Axelrod's (1970) notion of “connected coalition” is generalized to the N-dimensional case, and a simple but powerful model of coalition dynamics is put forth which generates connected coalitions with certainty in the unidimensional case and which usually, but not necessarily, gives rise to minimal winning coalitions. Political decision making is discussed at the levels of the group, organization, society, and supranational system. Unlike most other models in the coalition literature, the model presented: (a) is based on notions of ideological policy proximity rather than on notions such as least resources or zero-sum conflict; (b) posits a dynamic process of protocoalition formation which permits two actors to join in a (proto)coalition only when each is the other's most preferred partner; and (c) for sufficient information about the policy preferences/ideological views of the political actors, yields unique predictions as to which coalition can be expected to form.
The now-deceased leader of the Anbar Awakening, Sheikh Abd al Sittar Abu Reesha, once said, ''Our American friends had not understood us when they came. They were proud, stubborn people and so were we. They worked with the opportunists, now they have turned to the tribes, and this is as it should be.'' 1 Until 2007, the most violent region of insurgent attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq had been al Anbar, the largely rural, expansive western province stretching from the outskirts of Baghdad to Iraq's lengthy, mostly unsecured desert borders with Sunni-dominated Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. 2 In what is most easily described as a marriage of convenience, Sunni insurgents and foreign Sunni al Qaeda fighters in al Anbar had formed a strategic and tactical alliance against what was perceived as an occupation by the United States or, more pointedly, against the occupation of a Muslim land by a largely Christian force, a deep affront to traditional Muslim values harkening back to the Crusades of the Middle Ages. 3 Iraqis in al Anbar provided local knowledge, logistics, and up to 95 percent of the personnel, while experienced foreign al Qaeda fighters provided training, expertise, and financing. The pitch was simple: ''We are Sunni. You are Sunni. The Americans and Iranians are helping the Shi'a*/ let's
It is imperative that the United States initiate a proactive offensive on the Taliban, whose agenda presents a significant threat to our national security and moral leadership. By aiding the Taliban's victims, supporting moderate Afghans, and elevating the importance of Afghanistan at home, the United States can implement a policy that will prevent this group from further consolidating its power and asserting itself as an uncontrollable rogue state.
A puzzling aspect of the 1992-95 Bosnian war—the intra-Muslim civil war in northwestern Bosnia—can highlight the role of local elites in capturing important interaction effects between micro-level economic incentives and macro-level ethnic cleavages in civil wars. During civil wars where the broader conflict is cast in macro-ethnic terms, economic incentives can still seriously affect intragroup behavior. Ethnic group unity can be undermined by the presence of charismatic local elites who can guarantee the survival of their local constituents, while providing access to micro-level economic payoffs.
After the fall of the communist regime in Afghanistan, remnants of the Afghan regular army organized themselves into one of the factional armies which filled the vacuum created by the collapse of the Afghan state. Initially, this army maintained features similar to those of the regular forces from which it came, but over the years it developed into something closer and closer to the militias which occupied most of the rest of the country. The article tries to explain the causes of this transformation.
There is a tendency among social scientists and others to interpret the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia Hercegovina as the result of a political policy carefully orchestrated from above and systematically carried out. Whatever eruptions of war violence might deviate from this interpretation are generally viewed as primitive balkanism, pointless acts, banditism or mental aberrations. Terms of this kind reflect an uncritical acceptance of a central or national leader perspective, dismissing as deviant everything that fails to go according to plan, and denying the significance of specific local and regional circumstances or failing at any rate to problematize and examine them. This article describes a process the final result of which can be seen as the ethnic homogenization of a region, but only part of its dynamics can be attributed to a policy implemented from above. Rather, its course can largely be traced back to local vendettas and a long-standing conflict between Franciscan friars and diocesan priests. The case illustrates that a systematic study "from below" is crucial to a better understanding of the dynamics and the developmental logic of the processes of ethnic cleansing. The article concludes with some theoretical thoughts which fit into the current debate on civilizing and decivilizing processes.
To date, most of the academic and journalistic accounts and analyses have treated the Bosnian War as a relatively uniform conflict among two or three warring parties along a nearly 1,000 km‐long front line. Yet the most militarily charged and conflictual spots along this line were several strategic urban areas such as Bihac, Mostar, Sarajevo, Brcko, Tuzla, Srebrenica and Gorazde. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina can thus also be viewed as a collection of local wars. By focusing on the case of Mostar the authors argue that these local conflicts were part of a state‐building process, but that, due to the connivance among the different militias and state armies on the ground, the Mafia‐style war economy, as well as thanks to the newly emerged ethnically based institutions and ruling elites, such process resulted in a polity that more resembles a seventeenth‐century pirate colony than a modern state. In this sense the word ‘sack’ instead of ‘war’ describes more aptly the politico‐military dimension of the war waged in and around Mostar.
The scattering of a charged fermion from an electroweak or semi-local string is investigated and a full solution obtained for both massive and massless cases. For the former, with fractional string flux, there is a helicity conserving and helicity-flip cross-section, of equal magnitude and of a modified Aharonov-Bohm form: for integer flux the strong interaction cross-section is suppressed by a logarithmic term. The results also apply for GUT cosmic strings and chiral fermions. Comment: 18 pages, DAMTP 93-46