Grasping the Financing and Mobilization Cost of Armed Groups: A New Perspective on Conflict Dynamics

Wennmann, Achim

doi:10.1080/13523260903059864

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Internally, a rebel group also needs to establish a structured organization to sustain group cohesion until the armed conflict ceases. Both mobilization and structuring incur distinguishable costs on rebel actors (Wennmann, 2009). According to Olson (1993), those rebel groups that are able to monopolize violence in a confined territory and establish themselves as the predominant local institutional structure are able to extract a permanent revenue stream through local taxation.…”

Section: Theoretical Underpinningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Computational Conflict Research

Deutschmann¹,

Lorenz²,

Nardin³

et al. 2020

Computational Social Sciences

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adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

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Section: Theoretical Underpinningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To estimate rebel costs, we neglect the start-up costs of rebel groups and focus only on maintenance costs. Wennmann (2009) calculates different cost ranges depending on the intensity of the conflict. We use present-day Somalia as an example of medium-intensity conflict and apply Wennmann's estimations accordingly.…”

Section: Security Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Conflict Research

Deutschmann¹,

Lorenz²,

Nardin³

et al. 2020

Computational Social Sciences

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“…In addition, research on conflict financing has tended to focus on the income produced from specific financing methods, not on an extended analysis to compare such revenue to the cost of a specific military strategy. Research on mobilization costs emphasized the importance of the relationship between available revenue sources and the financial requirements to organize the type of military strategy needed to reach a particular objective (Killicoat, 2007;Wennmann, 2009). This relationship between available funding and mobilization costs provides new insight into what constitutes an "effective" source of conflict financing at three levels: first, resources that are easy to centralize and generate a high value and immediate revenue stream (which is key to initiate a conflict); second, resources providing constant revenue over time (which are key to maintain a conflict), and third, minor resource flows that can motivate commanders and troops to keep a conflict alive but that on their own are insufficient to pay for a conflict (Wennmann, 2009).…”

Section: Conflict Financingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Economy of Violent Conflict Within States

Wennmann¹

2019

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies

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The political economy of violent conflict is a body of literature that investigates how economic issues and interests shape the dynamics associated to violent conflict after the Cold War. The literature covers an area of research focusing on civil wars—the predominant type of conflict in the 1990s and early 2000s—and an area of research focusing on other types of violent conflict within states, such as permanent emergencies, criminal violence, and political violence associated to turbulent transitions. The first area involves four themes that have come to characterize discussions on the political economy of civil wars, including research on the role of greed and grievance in conflict onset, on economic interests in civil wars, on the nature of conflict economies, and on conflict financing. The second area responds to the evolution of violent conflict beyond the categories of “interstate” or “civil” war and shows how political economy research adapted to new types of violent conflict within states as it moved beyond the “post-Cold War” era. Overall, the literature on the political economy of violence conflict emphasizes the role of informal systems behind power, profits and violence, and the economic interests and functions of violence underlying to violent conflict. It has also become a conceptual laboratory for scholars who after years of field research tried to make sense of the realities of authoritarian, violent or war-affected countries. By extending the boundaries of the literature beyond the study of civil wars after the Cold War, political economy research can serve as an important analytical lens to better understand the constantly evolving nature of violent conflict and to inform sober judgment on the possible policy responses to them.

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Rebel Group Protection Rackets: Simulating the Effects of Economic Support on Civil War Violence

Duffy

Klosek

Nardin

et al. 2019

Computational Social Sciences

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Rebel groups engage in a series of economic transactions with their local populations during a civil war. These interactions resemble those of a protection racket, in which aspiring governing groups extort the local economic actors to fund their fighting activities and control the territory. Seeking security in this unstable political environment, these economic actors may decide to flee or to pay the rebels in order to ensure their own protection, impacting the outcomes of the civil war. We present a simulation model (executable at https://gnardin.github.io/RebelGroups) that attempts to capture the decision-making and behavior of the involved actors during protection racket interactions as well as the cooperation and competition between rebel groups to control territory. Our model reveals insights about the mechanisms that are helpful for understanding violence outcomes in civil wars, and the conditions that may lead rebel groups to prevail. Analysis of various scenarios demonstrates the impact that different security factors play on civil war dynamics. Using Somalia as a case study, we also assess the importance of the rebel groups' economic bases of support in a real-world setting.

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Grasping the Financing and Mobilization Cost of Armed Groups: A New Perspective on Conflict Dynamics

Cited by 6 publications

References 9 publications

Computational Conflict Research

Computational Conflict Research

The Political Economy of Violent Conflict Within States

Rebel Group Protection Rackets: Simulating the Effects of Economic Support on Civil War Violence

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