Secessionist social services reduce the public costs of civilian killings: Experimental evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom

Rebel actors engage in a number of behaviors beyond violent conflict, including social service provision, diplomacy, and establishing local governance. This article centers on an oft-overlooked aspect of rebel behavior and governance: rebel groups conducting popular elections in wartime. We argue that rebel elections are a means through which rebels can strengthen both local and international legitimacy, but that there are risks to employing elections (such as logistical failures or publicized disconnect from civilians). We hypothesize that rebels that are pursuing legitimacy (local and international) in other ways are likely to set up rebel elections and that rebel groups with greater organizational capacity are more likely to introduce elections because they are well placed to manage the risks elections entail. Using a global data set of rebel use of elections where local civilians vote to elect rebel representatives at various levels of organizational hierarchy, we find empirical support for these propositions.

Section: Explaining Rebel Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voting for Militants: Rebel Elections in Civil War

Cunningham

Huang

Sawyer

2020

“…Will the global increase in the use of referenda politics (by both states and nonstate actors) change external perceptions of rebel elections? Flynn and Stewart (2018) show that local service provision has a positive effect on external opinions of rebel groups, but we have little understanding of how other governance behaviors shape views of rebel groups.…”

Section: Agendas For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to the Special Feature on Dynamic Processes of Rebel Governance

Cunningham

Loyle

2020

Research on conflict processes has recently highlighted the myriad of tactics rebels use which are not violent in nature (cf. Petrova 2019 ; Ryckman 2019 ; Cunningham, Dahl, and Frugé 2017 ). Concurrently, rebel governance has drawn increasing attention from scholars and peacebuilding practitioners. In-depth historical studies of rebel groups highlight the activities and behaviors that rebels engage in beyond making war—such as providing social services and building local political institutions ( Mampilly 2011 ; Arjona 2016a ; Arjona, Kasfir, and Mampilly 2015 ). Complementing these works, studies have sought to provide cross-national examination of trends in these governance behaviors ( Huang 2016 ; Heger and Jung 2017 ; Stewart 2018 ). Despite this work, quantitative and formal research in conflict processes often ignores the insights that the rebel governance literature has generated, frequently focusing exclusively on violent tactics or considering governance issues primarily as part of conflict settlement processes. In this special feature, we work to integrate the study of rebel governance with the conflict processes literature, providing a conceptual link between the two while offering novel contributions to advance our understanding of the dynamic processes of rebel governance.

“…Few studies have explicitly examined how audiences construct attitudes toward armed groups in foreign countries. However, recent experimental evidence suggests that group-level characteristics and behaviors can shape international audience perceptions (Arves, Cunningham, and McCulloch 2019; Flynn and Stewart 2018). In particular, Western audiences appear to hold a more positive view of rebels that engage in nonviolent resistance campaigns, avoid violence against civilians, provide social services, and demonstrate a commitment to democracy.…”

Section: Female Combatants and Audience Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rebel movements also engage in outreach to foreign publics more broadly (Flynn and Stewart 2018). This may occur indirectly via international media coverage or when rebels disseminate propaganda directly via traditional or social media.…”

Section: Audience Attitudes and Transnational Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing the Narrative: Female Fighters, External Audience Attitudes, and Transnational Support for Armed Rebellions

Manekin

Wood

2020

Female combatants play a central role in rebel efforts to cultivate and disseminate positive narratives regarding the movement and its political goals. Yet, the effectiveness of such strategies in shaping audience attitudes or generating tangible benefits for the group remains unclear. We propose and test a theory regarding the channels through which female fighters advance rebel goals. We argue that female fighters positively influence audience attitudes toward rebel groups by strengthening observers’ beliefs about their legitimacy and their decision to use armed tactics. We further contend that these effects directly help them secure support from transnational nonstate actors and indirectly promote state support. We assess our arguments by combining a novel survey experiment in two countries with analyses of new cross-national data on female combatants and information about transnational support for rebels. The empirical results support our arguments and demonstrate the impact of gender framing on rebel efforts to secure support.