The Effect of Rebel Governance on Third-Party Interventions in Civil Wars

• In Event: Explaining the Causes and Consequences of Rebel Governance

Abstract

In the modern world, armed conflicts mainly manifest themselves in the form of civil wars which are fought between numerous groups vying for power in the country (Bove, Gleditsch, and Sekeris 2016). Some of such conflicts can trigger foreign intervention by third parties. Interfering actors can play the role of impartial mediators or join one of the sides of the conflict. In the latter case, the bias of the third party can manifest itself in supporting the official government or one of the opposition groups.

But why would external actor choose any side in the conflict? In case of intervention on the government side, researchers have suggested that regime and cultural similarity (Corbetta 2015), access to lootable resources (Findley and Marineau 2015), and ethnic ties between state leaders (Koga 2011) can explain this type of bias. On the other hand, the research attention to determinants of rebel-biased interventions appears to be scant. Previous works in this area found that relative capabilities (Koga 2011) and the size of the rebel group (Szentkirályi and Burch 2018) are the strong predictors of intervention on the side of the opposition.

We offer a novel explanation of rebel-biased interventions by referring to the notion of governance as the ability to distribute public services. Following standard realist arguments, we assume that states are rational actors that seek to maximize their international influence. Foreign intervention, therefore, serves as a tool that states can use to increase this influence. When states choose to intervene in an internal conflict, they use simple heuristics to determine which side of the conflict to join. Provision of public services by rebels acts as a cue which signals to the external actors that the opposition is competent and can govern. This governance ability can substantially reduce costs of intervention for a third party, both during the actual conflict and especially after the conflict subsides. First, groups that can effectively govern the territories they control are deemed capable of ruling and sustaining their positions which is essential for a victory in a civil war. Second, all third-party interventions entail the risk of involvement that lasts longer than planned and sometimes even long after the actual fighting is over. Provision of public services helps rebels to signal that they can govern independently after the end of the conflict and, therefore, reduces the perceived risks of longer-than-planned involvement by third parties. Therefore, we suggest that biased third-party interventions are more likely on behalf of rebel groups that effectively govern the territory they control.

To test this hypothesis, we employ data on biased interventions from Regan’s dataset (2002) and use the recently published dataset on rebel governance (Albert 2020) to retrieve data on rebel public services. To obtain the estimate of rebel governance, we apply summation to binary indicators of rebel public services. We perform a logit regression analysis and find that rebel governance helps rebels in attracting third-party support. As an additional robustness check, we construct a latent variable estimate of rebel governance using IRT model and obtain very similar results. Overall, the empirical evidence strongly supports our central argument and points out to an important role rebel governance plays in attracting third-party interventions.

References
Bove, Vincenzo, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, and Petros G. Sekeris. 2016. "Oil above Water": Economic Interdependence and Third-Party Intervention". Journal of Conflict Resolution 60 (7): 1251 - 1277.
Corbetta, Renato. 2015. "Between Indifference and Coercion: Third-party Intervention Techniques in Ongoing Disputes". Conflict Management and Peace Science 32 (1): 3 - 27.
Findley, Michael G., and Josiah F. Marineau. 2015. "Lootable Resources and Third-party Intervention into Civil Wars". Conflict Management and Peace Science 32 (5): 465 - 486.
Koga, Jun. 2011. "Where Do Third Parties Intervene? Third Parties' Domestic Institutions and Military Interventions in Civil Conflicts". International Studies Quarterly 55 (4): 1143 - 1166.
Szentkirályi, Levente, and Michael Burch. 2018. “An Umbrella of Legitimacy: Rebel Faction Size and External Military Intervention.” International Political Science Review 39 (4): 515–530.
Regan, Patrick M. 2002. “Third-Party Interventions and the Duration of Intrastate Conflicts.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46 (1): 55–73.
Albert, Karen E. 2020. Rebel Quasi-State Institutions Dataset.

Authors

• Daniil Chernov, NRU HSE

• Evgeny Sedashov, Higher School of Economics