Does Emergency Rule Help Counterinsurgents? Testing Hearts and Minds Theories

• In Event: Understanding Counterinsurgency

Abstract

Is popular support necessary to win counterinsurgency wars? To increase control over civilians, countries facing an insurgent threat routinely issue a state of emergency and make exceptions to existing laws to increase police powers and give the military the power to detain, search and arrest. Emergency legislations help governments to escape civilian due process but they abridge rule of law and by doing so, bring extraordinary limitations to civilian rights and liberties. We argue that countries that rely on extralegal frameworks to defeat insurgencies are less likely to win COIN wars because although greater civilian control helps cut insurgent logistics, it complicates the process of winning hearts and minds among civilian populations. We test this argument with new data on emergency rule in counterinsurgency wars in the post-1945 period. We find that counterinsurgents that choose extraordinary legal frameworks over civilian rule in wars are less likely to win. We particularly find support to the argument that emergency regulations targeting a specific region in the country where the insurgency is active are much more likely to lead to state defeat.

Authors

• Aysegul Aydin, University of Colorado, Boulder

• Anna Marie Gray, University of Colorado Boulder