The rise of rebel contenders

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 551-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Fjelde ◽  
Desirée Nilsson
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Windows Of Opportunity ◽  
Ethnic Networks ◽  
The Government ◽  
Opposition Movements ◽  
Conflict Termination

Fragmentation of armed opposition movements through the rise of new rebel groups constitutes a significant challenge to conflict termination and peacebuilding. Yet, the question of why some rebel movements remain cohesive whereas others see a number of contending groups during the course of the armed conflict has received limited attention in existing research. This article addresses this gap by analyzing the determinants of the rise of rebel contenders in intrastate armed conflicts worldwide, 1975–2013. The theoretical framework focuses on barriers to entry, that is, variations in the costs and disadvantages that must be borne by nascent rebel contenders that are not borne to the same extent by incumbent rebel groups. The study proposes that strong social networks underpinning incumbent groups create structural barriers to entry for nascent groups by aggravating challenges of organization building. It further suggests that the interaction between incumbent groups and the government influences strategic barriers to entry as changes in government policies produce windows of opportunity for nascent groups to form. Consistent with these arguments, the study finds that when incumbent groups have strong networks – because rebels either tap into ethnic networks or draw on a leftist ideology – the risk of fragmentation is lower. Furthermore, when the government accommodates groups, through either negotiations or democratic concessions, the risk of fragmentation increases.

scholarly journals Could rebel child soldiers prolong civil wars?

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roos Haer ◽  
Tobias Böhmelt
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Child Soldiers ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Conflict Duration ◽  
The Government ◽  
Recruitment Practice ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts ◽  
Child Soldiering

While we know why rebels may recruit children for their cause, our understanding of the consequences of child soldiering by non-state armed groups remains limited. The following research contributes to addressing this by examining how rebels’ child recruitment practice affects the duration of internal armed conflicts. We advance the argument that child soldiering increases the strength of rebel organizations vis-a-vis the government. This, in turn, lowers the capability asymmetry between these non-state actors and the incumbent, allowing the former to sustain dispute. Ultimately, the duration of armed conflicts is likely to be prolonged. We analyse this relationship with quantitative data on child soldier recruitment by rebel groups in the post-1989 period. The results confirm our main hypothesis: disputes are substantially longer when rebels recruit children. This work has important implications for the study of armed conflicts, conflict duration and our understanding of child soldiering.

Transitional Justice During Armed Conflict

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyanne E. Loyle
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Power Shift ◽  
New Finding ◽  
The Government

Armed conflict is ultimately about the violent confrontation between two or more groups; however, there is a range of behaviors, both violent and nonviolent, pursued by governments and rebel groups while conflict is ongoing that impacts the course and outcomes of that violence. The use of judicial or quasi-judicial institutions during armed conflict is one such behavior. While there is a well-developed body of literature that examines the conditions under which governments engage with the legacies of violence following armed conflict, we know comparatively little about these same institutions used while conflict is ongoing.Similar to the use of transitional justice following armed conflict or post-conflict justice, during-conflict transitional justice (DCJ) refers to “a judicial or quasi-judicial process initiated during an armed conflict that attempts to address wrongdoings that have taken or are taking place as part of that conflict” (according to Loyle and Binningsbø). DCJ includes a variety of institutional forms pursued by both governments and rebel groups such as human rights trials, truth commissions or commissions of inquiry, amnesty offers, reparations, purges, or exiles.As our current understanding of transitional justice has focused exclusively on these processes following a political transition or the termination of an armed conflict, we have a limited understanding of how and why these processes are used during conflict. Extant work has assumed, either implicitly or explicitly, that transitional justice is offered and put in place once violence has ended, but this is not the case. New data on this topic from the During-Conflict Justice dataset by Loyle and Binningsbø suggests that the use of transitional justice during conflict is a widespread and systematic policy across multiple actor groups. In 2017, Loyle and Binningsbø found that DCJ processes were used during over 60% of armed conflicts from 1946 through 2011; and of these processes 10% were put in place by rebel groups (i.e., the group challenging the government rather than the government in power).Three main questions arise from this new finding: Under what conditions are justice processes implemented during conflict, why are these processes put in place, and what is the likely effect of their implementation on the conflict itself? Answering these questions has important implications for understanding patterns of government and rebel behavior while conflict is ongoing and the impacts of those behaviors. Furthermore, this work helps us to broaden our understanding of the use of judicial and quasi-judicial processes to those periods where no power shift has taken place.

An Economic and Social Assessment of the Syrian Civil War

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-23
Author(s):  
Viorela-Beatrice Iacovoiu ◽  
Mirela Panait ◽  
Alexandru-Cristian Enache
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Oil Fields ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Syrian Civil War ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Syrian Conflict

Starting from the theories and studies on armed conflicts and in particular civil wars, and based on relevant figures, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the Syrian Civil War. The Syrian conflict developed into a civil war with a sectarian dimension and has lasted longer mostly because of major powers, as well as some Middle Eastern countries that were directly and actively involved in the conflict, supporting the government forces or rebel groups. According to the analysed data, the war deeply affected the Syrian economy and its citizens due to the loss of governmental control over oil fields, the destruction of infrastructure and households, and the great number of forcibly displaced people and casualties. At the same time, the Syrian Civil War created great opportunities for arms-producing companies to sell their products without cutting off profits. Thus, the conclusion is that there is no benefit to war except for those who profit of it, namely the countries as well as the arms manufacturers that use conflicts as a proxy to promote their interests.

scholarly journals Peace agreements in armed conflicts: focusing on finding a solution to the conflict incompatibility

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
S. Hogbladh
Keyword(s):  
Peace Process ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Dyadic Relationship ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Peace Agreements ◽  
Conflict Termination

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s (UCDP) Peace Agreement Dataset was first published in 2006. Its main goal was to provide the research community with a dataset on peace agreements that was not linked to conflict termination, i. e. included both successful and failed agreements. The latest update of the dataset includes 355 peace agreements concluded in the 1975–2018 period. A number of studies have been based on the dataset over the years. The dataset is unique in its strict connection to the UCDP conflict data and in its focus on the conflict dyad, actors, and the conflict incompatibility. The dataset’s focus on only those agreements that involve the dyadic relationship between primary warring parties – between governments and rebel groups or between two governments – has direct policy implications, as it is exactly these parties who need to change their stances on incompatibilities in order to solve a conflict. Also, the Peace Agreement Dataset’s focus on agreements that address the key incompatibilities contested by the parties allow it to distinguish peace agreements on other negotiated deals, including ceasefires, and to differentiate between full, partial and peace process agreements. Finally, the analysis of key trends in peace agreements is presented. It shows that in contrast to the previous historical peak in the number of armed conflicts back in the early 1990s that corresponded to the peak in annual numbers of peace agreements, the new peak in annual numbers of armed conflicts in the late 2010s was not matched by a similar rise in peace agreements.

Case Evidence: Conflict Trajectories in Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Syria

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Tir ◽  
Johannes Karreth
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
East Timor ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Crisis Resolution ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
The Government

Two low-level armed conflicts, Indonesia’s East Timor and Ivory Coast’s post-2010 election crises, provide detailed qualitative evidence of highly structured intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) engaging in effective civil warpreventing activities in member-states. Highly structured IGOs threatened and sanctioned each of these states and offered (long-term) benefits conditional on successful crisis resolution. The governments were aware of and responded to these IGOs’ concerns, as did the rebels in these respective cases. The early stages of the conflict in Syria in 2011 provide a counterpoint. With Syria’s limited engagement in only few highly structured IGOs, the Syrian government ignored international calls for peace. And, without highly structured IGOs’ counterweight to curtail the government, the rebels saw little reason to stop their armed resistance. The result was a brutal and deadly civil war that continues today.

Stick Then Carrot: When Do Governments Give Amnesty during Civil War?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley-Ann Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Policy Choice ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Government

Abstract Governments grant amnesties to rebel groups during civil wars and this is a puzzle. Why would the government offer an amnesty, which can be interpreted as a signal of weakness? In certain circumstances, offering amnesty is a rational policy choice. Governments should give amnesties when they are winning: the risk of misinterpreted signals is lessened, costs are low, rebel groups are weakened, and so amnesty can be used instrumentally to encourage defection or division among foot soldiers or as an incentive to leaders. Therefore, the government capitalizes on its military advantage and offers amnesty in a “stick then carrot” tactic. Using a database of amnesties during conflicts from 1990 to 2011, the article shows that governments are more likely to give amnesties following high rebel deaths. The use of amnesty during conflict is nuanced and context is important when understanding strategic choices.

scholarly journals Envisioning Climate Change Adaptation Futures Using Storytelling Workshops

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6630
Author(s):  
Rachel Harcourt ◽  
Wändi Bruine de Bruin ◽  
Suraje Dessai ◽  
Andrea Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Adaptation Planning ◽  
The West ◽  
Community Or ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Government

Engaging people in preparing for inevitable climate change may help them to improve their own safety and contribute to local and national adaptation objectives. However, existing research shows that individual engagement with adaptation is low. One contributing factor to this might be that public discourses on climate change often seems dominated by overly negative and seemingly pre-determined visions of the future. Futures thinking intends to counter this by re-presenting the future as choice contingent and inclusive of other possible and preferable outcomes. Here, we undertook storytelling workshops with participants from the West Yorkshire region of the U.K. They were asked to write fictional adaptation futures stories which: opened by detailing their imagined story world, moved to events that disrupted those worlds, provided a description of who responded and how and closed with outcomes and learnings from the experience. We found that many of the stories envisioned adaptation as a here-and-now phenomenon, and that good adaptation meant identifying and safeguarding things of most value. However, we also found notable differences as to whether the government, local community or rebel groups were imagined as leaders of the responsive actions, and as to whether good adaptation meant maintaining life as it had been before the disruptive events occurred or using the disruptive events as a catalyst for social change. We suggest that the creative futures storytelling method tested here could be gainfully applied to support adaptation planning across local, regional and national scales.

Consumers’ Misevaluation and Public Promotion

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsushi Yamagishi
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Loss ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Free Entry ◽  
Opposite Result ◽  
True Value ◽  
Oligopolistic Market ◽  
Public Econ ◽  
The Government

Abstract: I analyze markets in which consumers may misestimate the true value of goods and the government can affect the valuation through public promotion. When entry of firms is not allowed, the government makes consumers overvalue the goods to mitigate welfare loss from underproduction in an oligopolistic market, provided that the promotion cost is sufficiently low. On the contrary, in a free-entry market, no matter how low the promotion cost is, the government may make consumers undervalue them in order not to induce wasteful entries despite the remaining underproduction problem. In addition, my result in a free-entry market suggests that the main finding of Glaeser and Ujhelyi (J Public Econ 94: 247-257, 2010)crucially depends on the barriers to entry and the opposite result may be obtained under free entry.

Wars within Wars: Why Windows of Opportunity and Vulnerability Cause Inter-rebel Fighting in Internal Conflicts

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Costantino Pischedda
Keyword(s):  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Window Of Opportunity ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Vulnerability Theory ◽  
The Government ◽  
Window Of Vulnerability ◽  
And Control

Why do rebel groups often fight each other when confronting a common, and typically stronger, enemy—namely, the government? Inter-rebel aggression is a calculated response by rebel groups to opportunities for expansion and to the threats confronting such groups. In particular, inter-rebel wars occur under the following conditions: (1) when a window of opportunity emerges allowing rebel groups to defeat coethnic rivals at low costs and thus achieve rebel hegemony, or (2) when rebel groups are confronted with a window of vulnerability, in which they experience a radical deterioration of power relative to that of coethnic rivals and then attempt to escape in a desperate military gamble. Both strict military considerations and ethnic identities shape the rebel groups' calculus. Coethnicity influences the threat perception of rebel groups and their ability to grow at the expense of rivals, thus providing both defensive and offensive motives for inter-rebel aggression. Because coethnic rebel groups want to mobilize and control the same ethnic communities, they are highly sensitive to immediate, intense conflicts of interest and see other coethnic rebel groups as serious threats. Moreover, coethnic rebel groups can generally expect to absorb the resources of defeated rivals, which in turn may improve their chances in the fight against the government. In-depth case studies of multiparty insurgencies in Ethiopia's Eritrea and Tigray provinces, based on interviews with former rebel leaders, strongly support the window of opportunity and vulnerability theory of inter-rebel war.

Rebel Jurisdiction, Due Process, and Tamil Tiger Justice

2021 ◽  
pp. 219-354
Author(s):  
René Provost
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
International Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Court System ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Rebel Governance ◽  
Law And Courts ◽  
The Government

Chapter 3 examines the implication of a broad requirement of due process for rebel courts, taking as a case study the judicial system put into place by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. The LTTE launched an armed insurgency against the government of Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, eventually controlling nearly 40 percent of national territory. The LTTE developed an independent civil administration which included a state-like court structure with seventeen distinct courts at trial, appeal, and supreme court levels. The group also enacted comprehensive civil and criminal codes, as well as other important pieces of legislation. The chapter takes this exceptionally sophisticated insurgent court system to interrogate the concept of rebel jurisdiction, exploring the foundations in public international law of the extent and limits of territorial, subject-matter, and personal jurisdictions of rebel law and courts. The analysis then turns to the thorny issue of due process requirements that must be met under international humanitarian and human rights law to consider as fair a trial before a rebel court. The precise content of the requirement of a fair trial under international law does vary in situations of emergency like international and non-international armed conflicts. In addition, legal standards must be adjusted to reflect the nature of non-state courts and the particular contextual challenges faced by rebel governance in conflict zones. On that basis, each applicable due process guarantee is analysed to determine the precise requirements it imposes on rebel justice.

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