Rebel Responses to Repression: Evidence from Argentina in the 1970s
Brian Phillipes
CIDE
Abstract:
A substantial line of research examines the effects of indiscriminate targeting such as widespread repression. At the same time, scholars of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism debate the consequences of more focused tactics such as militant group leadership removal. These two types of tactics, relatively indiscriminate and selective targeting, are not often directly compared. This manuscript argues that they should have divergent effects, based on contrasting ways they affect militant groups’ incentives to retaliate and their organizational capacity. Analyses use novel data on an important case, conflict during the 1970s in Argentina. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that forced disappearances, which were relatively indiscriminate, are associated with increased insurgent violence in subsequent months. Leadership targeting, on the other hand, is associated with decreased insurgent violence. The findings add a substantial caveat to the conventional wisdom that indiscriminate repression reduced rebel violence in this case, and they contribute to broader debates in the study of repression and subnational conflict.
Discussants:
Ursula Daxecker (University of Amsterdam)
Cyanne Loyle (Indiana University)
Yuri Zhukov (University of Michigan Ann Arbor)
Jacob Aronson (University of Maryland)
OPSC Coordinator:
Emily Hencken Ritter (University of California Merced)
Graduate Assistant:
Peter D. Carey II (University of California Merced)
