Are There No Political Solutions? Have No Faith in Rebel Constitutions?

• In Event: New Methods for Studying Political Violence

Abstract

Rebels engage in a myriad of governance activities with significant consequences for battlefield behavior, negotiations with the government, international intervention, and conflict resolution (Aronja, Kasfir, and Mampilly 2015; Coggins 2015; Heger and Jung 2017, Mampilly 2012; Stewart 2018). This paper uses computational methods to analyze the content of constitutions created by rebel groups in civil war. We argue that rebel groups write and publish their constitutions for a variety of reasons, both strategic (information signaling) and emotive (aspirational), including to: 1) convey their political aims to current and potential members; 2) signal their policy positions to the government; 3) signal their policy positions to the international community, including potentially interested third party sponsors; ; and 4) to express sincere group agency. The analysis allows for the possibility of rebels mixing among these strategies.

Authors

• William L. Reed, University of Maryland

• Katherine M. Sawyer, Stony Brook University

• Tiago Augusto da Silva Ventura, University of Maryland