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Under what conditions do rebel organizations control territory during civil war? How do civilians influence the distribution of territorial control? Why do rebels invest in governance, and why do they target civilians with violence, in some locations but not others? This dissertation advances a political accountability theory to explain how civilians influence the distribution of territorial control and governance during civil war. Existing research explaining variation in rebel territorial control and behavior have emphasized structural and organizational factors, identity politics, economic conditions, and geography. However, the classic insurgency literature and recent counterinsurgency doctrine emphasize the importance of securing civilian support and protecting the population to achieving military objectives in civil war. If true, civilians retain at least some power over rebel personnel. The accountability theory of rebel conduct provides a unified framework linking inter-related conflict processes associated with rebel groups’ territorial control, governance, and strategic use of violence during civil war. It argues that community collective action capacity, the ease with which communities facilitate collective action to pursue common interests, influences the distribution territorial control and belligerent conduct during civil war. The empirical strategy draws upon complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to test the accountability against plausible alternatives using village-level data from the communist insurgency in the Philippines. The results provide robust support for the accountability theory over plausible alternatives, and yield policy implications for peace-building and economic development in conflict-affected states.
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Network Competition and Civilian Targeting during Civil Conflict
Abstract Building on recent developments in the literature, this article addresses a prominent research question in the study of civil conflict: what explains violence against civilians? We use a novel computational model to investigate the strategic incentives for victimization in a network setting; one that incorporates civilians’ strategic behavior. We argue that conflicts with high network competition—where conflict between any two actors is more likely—lead to higher rates of civilian victimization, irrespective of the conflict's overall intensity or total number of actors. We test our theory in a cross-national setting using event data to generate measures of both conflict intensity and network density. Empirical analysis supports our model's finding that conflict systems with high levels of network competition are associated with a higher level of violence against the civilian population.
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- PAR ID:
- 10421573
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- British Journal of Political Science
- Volume:
- 53
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0007-1234
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 441 to 459
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123422000321
