How Rebels Cooperate

"How Rebels Cooperate: Internal Bargaining, Credibility, and the Design of Alliance Contracts in Multiparty Civil Wars" by Brandon Bolte (Penn State University)

Abstract:

"Civil wars involving more than one rebel group comprise more than half of all internal conflicts over the past 75 years. Although previous work has shown that the distribution of power, third-party sponsors, and ethnic or ideological homophily affects the tendency of groups to cooperate in these multiparty wars, qualitative variation in the types of rebel alliances is not well-understood. This is surprising, given that scholars have studied variation in alliance agreements between states for decades. Why do some groups cooperate incidentally, while others publicly commit to formal cooperation in the future and still others create joint power-sharing institutions to coordinate their war efforts? I propose a new conceptual framework for understanding rebel alliances and their “contract provisions” based on the level of public commitment made by rebel leaders and whether they agree to share power over decision-making with the leaders of other groups. I then develop a theory of intra-organizational bargaining, in which the distribution of power between central leaders and subcommanders affects the group’s credibility in making cooperative commitments to other rebel organizations. Using an original dataset on inter-rebel cooperation agreements and their features encompassing over 1,170 rebel-dyad years and 233 distinct rebel organizations in multiparty conflicts around the globe, I find strong empirical support for my theory. The conceptual, theoretical, and empirical contributions of this analysis suggest a need to develop a better understanding of inter-rebel relations, including the causes and consequences of cooperative arrangements between armed organizations in war."

Discussants:

Kanisha Bond (Binghamton University)

Kathleen Cunningham (University of Maryland)

Emily Kalah Gade (Emory University)

OPSC Coordinator:

Cassy Dorff (Vanderbilt University)