Explaining Rebel Group Outcomes: A Social Framework of Rebel Group Taxation

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries II, African Politics & Middle East and North Africa Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries II

Abstract

Modern violent rebellions and insurgencies have costly consequences – they impede broader goals of development and democratization (Collier 2008), cost the international community millions of dollars in counterinsurgency interventions, trigger mass migrations of refugees fleeing violence and instability (Greenhill 2008), and result in violence and tragic loss of life. Insurgencies are also costly to operate – for example, it is estimated that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) spent over US$300 million annually on operations (McDermott 2017) and the Islamic State allegedly spent US$70 million annually (Blannin 2017). Money, it appears, is therefore crucial to the operations and existence of these insurgent organizations, and disrupting these finances is a key counterinsurgency tactic (Schostak, 2017). Most insurgent organizations raise their revenues through illicit activities (Rettberg and Ortiz-Riomalo 2016), the looting of natural resources (Le Billion 2006), ransom and kidnapping (Adusei 2015), and taxation or extortion monies (Ahmad 2017). My research project deals with the revenue raising activities of these insurgent groups, and in particular whether or not their source of income has an impact on their outcomes – that is, whether they collapse, persist, or transform into legitimate political actors.

To date, insurgent group behaviours have been explained from both the “fiscal pact” and “war economies” perspectives. The fiscal pact literature posits that rulers collect taxation revenue so that they can fund their efforts in war (Tilly 1985; Olson 2000). This fiscal pact perspective suggests that the ensuing bargain over tax collection can help build accountable and responsive governance (Levi 1988; Brautigam 2008; Prichard 2015; Moore et al. 2018). These theories would predict that rebel groups that depend on taxation eventually transform into legitimate political actors (de Zeeuw 2007; Mampilly 2011; Arjona et al. 2015).

On the other hand, the “war economies” literature has demonstrated that conflict can also create perverse incentives for the perpetuation of instability, particularly in the presence of lucrative natural resources, (Ross 2015, Le Billion 2006), trafficking or trade routes (Ahmad 2017; Cook 2011), or other possible spoils of war, such as international relief aid (Ahmad 2012; Andreas 2008; Kiley 2018; de Waal 1993). The lucrative opportunities that arise in theatres of war, therefore, actually act as an incentive for sustained conflict by creating conditions that facilitate long term looting behaviour. In any case, from both the fiscal pact and war economies perspective, rebel groups are characterized and understood as business-minded actors who seek to capitalize on economic opportunities which arise from conflict.

Yet, such economically-driven explanations of rebel group behaviour diverge from empirical realities in some cases. For example, as a stipulation of the 2016 peace agreement signed between the FARC rebel group and the Colombian government, FARC members left behind hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit revenue that they were able to capture during conflict (McDermott 2017) in exchange for a political seat at the table. As well, the Islamic State still engaged in the challenging and costly task of civilian governance despite having easy access to lucrative oil revenues in some regions (Revkin, forthcoming). These cases challenge the assumption that rebel groups are driven by profits alone. By focusing on non-financial motivations of taxation and governance, some key insights could be made about the conditions in which good governance, conflict resolution, and sustainable peace might occur.

This paper proposes a framework of rebel group taxation which emphasizes the role of social institutions in rebel group taxation, revenue raising, and post-conflict outcomes. An analysis of the cases of the FMLN in El Salvador, and the FARC in Colombia will be used, given the fact that the FMLN transitioned into a cohesive political unit following the 1992 Chapultepec peace accords, while the FARC in Colombia has struggled to unify all of their members in their political transition, and the ongoing peace process is rift with fragmentation. It will be argued that the underlying source of variation in outcomes in these two comparable insurgent organizations lies in the relationship between taxation and governance before and during conflict, and specifically the reliance of the FMLN on citizen tax money rather than illicit revenue as was the case with FARC. The paper will conclude with recommendations for counter-insurgency strategies as well as best practices for crafting post-conflict peace agreements that are durable and sustainable.

Author

• Tanya Bandula-Irwin, University of Toronto