Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T16:11:00.916Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Civil War as State-Making: Strategic Governance in Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

Get access

Abstract

Why do some rebel groups provide governance inclusively while most others do not? Some insurgencies divert critical financial and personnel resources to provide benefits to anyone, including nonsupporters (Karen National Union, Eritrean People's Liberation Front). Other groups offer no services or limit their service provision to only those people who support, or are likely to support, the insurgency. The existing literature examines how insurgencies incentivize recruitment by offering selective social services, yet no research addresses why insurgencies provide goods inclusively. I argue that inclusive provision of services legitimates insurgents’ claim of sovereignty to domestic and international audiences, and thus is a strategic tool secessionist rebels use to achieve their long-term goal of independence. With new and original data, I use a large-N analysis to test this hypothesis. The results of the analysis support the hypothesis, underscoring the importance insurgent nonviolent behavior and addressing key issues such as sovereignty and governance.

Type
Research Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beardsley, Kyle, Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, and Lo, Nigel. 2015. Roving Bandits? The Geographical Evolution of African Armed Conflicts. International Studies Quarterly 59 (3):503–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Eli, and Laitin, David D.. 2008. Religion, Terrorism and Public Goods: Testing the Club Model. Journal of Public Economics 92 (10):1942–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Eli, Shapiro, Jacob N., and Felter, Joseph H.. 2011. Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq. Journal of Political Economy 119 (4):766819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, Mia M. 2004. Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share, and Outbidding. Political Science Quarterly 119 (1):6188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheibub, José Antonio, Gandhi, Jennifer, and Vreeland, James Raymond. 2010. Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited. Public Choice 143 (1–2):67101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cliffe, Lionel. 1988. The Eritrean Liberation Struggle in Comparative Perspective. In The Long Struggle of Eritrea for Independence and Constructive Peace, edited by Cliffe, Lionel and Davidson, Basil, 87104. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press.Google Scholar
Coggins, Bridget. 2011. Friends in High Places: International Politics and the Emergence of States from Secessionism. International Organization 65 (3):433–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coggins, Bridget. 2014. Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century: The Dynamics of Recognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collelo, Thomas. 1991. Angola: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office 550 (59). Available at <http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a234415.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Cunningham, David E., Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, and Salehyan, Idean. 2009. It Takes Two: A Dyadic Analysis of Civil War Duration and Outcome. Journal of Conict Resolution 53 (4):570–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Da Silva, Antero Benedito. 2010. Amilcar Cabral's Pedagogy of Liberation Struggle and His Influence on FRETILIN 1975–1978. In Proceedings of the Understanding Timor-Leste Conferece, edited by Leach, Michael, Mendes, Nuno Canas, da Silva, Antero, da Costa Ximenes, Alarico, and Boughton, Bob, 266–71. Melbourne: Timor-Leste Studies Association, Swinburne. Available at <http://tlstudies.org/pdfs/tlsa_conf_whole.pdf#page=266>.Google Scholar
Desta, Yemane. 2009. Does the EPLF (Eritrean People's Liberation Front) Qualify to Be a Learning Organization? A Modern Systems Theory Perspective. Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change 6 (1):528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dhada, Mustafah. 1993. Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Efron, Bradley, and Gong, Gail. 1983. A Leisurely Look at the Bootstrap, the Jackknife, and Cross-Validation. The American Statistician 37 (1):3648.Google Scholar
Efron, Bradley, and Tibshirani, Robert. 1997. Improvements on Cross-Validation: The 632+ Bootstrap Method. Journal of the American Statistical Association 92 (438):548–60.Google Scholar
Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). 1982. Selected Articles from EPLF Publications (1973–1980). Eritrea: The Eritrean People's Liberation Front.Google Scholar
Fazal, Tanisha. 2013. Secessionism and Civilian Targeting. Paper Presented at 2013 APSA Annual Meeting, Chicago. Available at <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2300126>..>Google Scholar
Fearon, James D., and Laitin, David D.. 2003. Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. American Political Science Review 97 (1):7590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firebrace, James, and Holland, Stuart. 1985. Never Kneel Down. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press.Google Scholar
Florea, Adrian. 2014. De Facto States in International Politics (1945–2011): A New Data Set. International Interactions 40 (5):788811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, Jack. 2008. Revolution As Development: The Karen Self-Determination Struggle Against Ethnocracy from 1949–2004. Irvine, CA: Universal Publishers.Google Scholar
Fortna, Virginia Page. 2015. Do Terrorists Win? Rebels’ Use of Terrorism and Civil War Outcomes. International Organization 69 (3):519–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Girod, Desha M. 2012. Effective Foreign Aid Following Civil War: The Nonstrategic-Desperation Hypothesis. American Journal of Political Science 56 (1):188201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, Thomas D. 1999. The Recognition of States: Law and Practice in Debate and Evolution. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Grynkewich, Alexus G. 2008. Welfare as Warfare: How Violent Non-State Groups Use Social Services to Attack the State. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31 (4):350–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendrix, Cullen S. 2010. Measuring State Capacity: Theoretical and Empirical Implications for the Study of Civil Conflict. Journal of Peace Research 47 (3):273–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, and Aten, Bettina. 2012. Penn World Tables, Version 7.1. Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Högbladh, Stina, Pettersson, Therese, and Themnér, Lotta. 2011. External Support in Armed Conflict 1975–2009: Presenting New Data. Paper Presented at Annual International Studies Association Convention. Montreal.Google Scholar
Islamic State. 2015. Specimen 5I: Ultimatum for Medical Professionals and Academics to return to IS-held areas, Ninawa Province (May 2015). Islamic State Administrative Documents. Available at <http://www.aymennjawad.org/2015/01/archive-of-islamic-state-administrative-documents>..>Google Scholar
Jaber, Hala. 1997. Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Jo, Hyeran. 2015. Compliant Rebels. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis, and Balcells, Laia. 2010. International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict. American Political Science Review 104 (3):415–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D., and Risse, Thomas. 2014. External Actors, State-Building, and Service Provision in Areas of Limited Statehood: Introduction. Governance 27 (4):545–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacina, Bethany. 2015. Periphery Versus Periphery: The Stakes of Separatist War. The Journal of Politics 77 (3):692706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacina, Bethany, and Gleditsch, Nils Petter. 2005. Monitoring Trends in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths. European Journal of Population/Revue européenne de Démographie 21 (2–3):145–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lasley, Trace, and Thyne, Clayton. 2015. Secession, Legitimacy and the Use of Child Soldiers. Conflict Management and Peace Science 32 (3):298308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1989. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lintner, Bertil. 1990. The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mampilly, Zachariah. 2015. Performing the Nation State: Rebel Governance and Symbolic Processes. In Rebel Governance in Civil War, edited by Arjona, Ana, Kasfir, Nelson, and Mampilly, Zachariah, 7497. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mampilly, Zachariah Cherian. 2011. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tse-Tung, Mao. 1961. On Guerrilla Warfare. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
McColl, Robert W. 1969. The Insurgent State: Territorial Bases of Revolution. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 59 (4):613631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, Tanja R. 2012. From Rebel Governance to State Consolidation: Dynamics of Loyalty and the Securitisation of the State in Eritrea. Geoforum 43 (4):793803.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulligan, Casey B., Gil, Ricard, and Martin, Xavier Sala-i. 2004. Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies? The Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (1):5174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munro, William A. 1996. Power, Peasants and Political Development: Reconsidering State Construction in Africa. Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1):112–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oh, Su-Ann. 2013. Competing Forms of Sovereignty in the Karen State of Myanmar. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Working Paper (1):123. Available at <https://www.academia.edu/3237467/Competing_forms_of_sovereignty_in_the_Karen_state_of_Myanmar>..>Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Group. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1993. Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development. American Political Science Review 87 (3):567–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Organization for Statehood and Freedom. 2010. The Sahrawi Stuggle: Tindouf Refugee Camp. Available at <http://www.statehoodandfreedom.org/en/the-saharawi-stuggle>. Accessed 6 November 2014..+Accessed+6+November+2014.>Google Scholar
Packwood, Lane V. 2009. Popular Support as the Objective in Counterinsurgency: What Are We Really After? Military Review 89 (3):6777.Google Scholar
Pepper, Suzanne. 1999. Civil War in China: The Political Struggle 1945–1949. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Peters, Krijn. 2011. War and the Crisis of Youth in Sierra Leone. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pool, David. 2001. From Guerrillas to Government: The Eritrean People's Liberation Front. Athens: James Currey.Google Scholar
Salehyan, Idean, Siroky, David, and Wood, Reed M.. 2014. External Rebel Sponsorship and Civilian Abuse: A Principal-Agent Analysis of Wartime Atrocities. International Organization 68 (3):633–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Jacob N. 2013. The Terrorist's Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Martin. 1991. Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
South, Ashley. 2013. Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma: The Golden Sheldrake. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
South African History Archive. 2016. Life in the Refugee Camps. Available at <http://www.saha.org.za/zapu/life_in_the_refugee_camps.htm>. Accessed 11 July 2016..+Accessed+11+July+2016.>Google Scholar
South Asian Terrorism Portal. 2014. National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Isak-Muivah; Incidents and Statements involving NSCN-IM: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 1992-2012. Available at <http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/nagaland/terrorist_outfits/nscn_im.htm>. Accessed 2 March 2015..+Accessed+2+March+2015.>Google Scholar
Stewart, Megan A., and Liou, Yu-Ming. 2017. Do Good Borders Make Good Rebels? Territorial Control and Civilian Casualties. The Journal of Politics 79 (1):284301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tadesse, Kiflu. 1998. The Generation: Ethiopia, Transformation and Conflict: The History of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party. Part II. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European states, AD 990–1992. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tomasevski, Katarina. 2001. Free and Compulsory Education for All Children: The Gap Between Promise and Performance. Available at <www.right-to-education.org/sites/right-to-education.org/files/resource-attachments/Tomasevski_Primer%202.pdf>. Accessed 11 July 2016..+Accessed+11+July+2016.>Google Scholar
United States Government. 1975. Memorandum of Conversation between President Ford and President Suharto. National Security Archive. Available at <http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc1.pdf>. Accessed 27 February 2016..+Accessed+27+February+2016.>Google Scholar
Ward, Michael D., Greenhill, Brian D., and Bakke, Kristin M.. 2010. The Perils of Policy by P-Value: Predicting Civil Conflicts. Journal of Peace Research 47 (4):363–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinstein, Jeremy M. 2006. Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Amrit. 1991. The Challenge Road: Women and the Eritrean Revolution. Trenton, NJ: The Red Sea Press.Google Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas. 2012. Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Elisabeth J. 2003. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank. 1997. World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. Washington, DC: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2012. World Development Indicators 2012. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.Google Scholar
World Policy Center. 2016. Does the Constitution Guarantee Citizens the Right to Education or a Specific Constitutional Right to Primary Education? Available at <http://worldpolicycenter.org/policies/does-the-constitution-guarantee-citizens-theright-to-education-or-a-speci_c-constitutional-right-to-primary-education>. Accessed 11 July 2016..+Accessed+11+July+2016.>Google Scholar
Young, John. 2006. Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: The Tigray People's Liberation Front, 1975–1991. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Joseph K. 2013. Repression, Dissent, and the Onset of Civil War. Political Research Quarterly 66 (3):516–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Stewart supplementary material

Stewart supplementary material 1

Download Stewart supplementary material(File)
File 1.6 MB