The Overtness of External Support to Rebels and the Provision of Social Services

• In Event: Proxy War

Abstract

How does the overtness of external support to rebels correlate with the provision of social services by the insurgents in civil wars? Studies show that rebels receiving overt support from foreign sponsors tend to be less violent toward civilians than those receiving covert support. This paper focuses on whether, in addition to correlating with the level of violence toward noncombatants, the overtness of external support correlates with the insurgents’ propensity to provide social services. I argue that, unlike covert assistance, overt support is post-conflict oriented and leads sponsors to encourage the rebels to invest strongly in social service institutions. This sponsor-level assumption leads to the hypothesis that insurgents receiving overt assistance engage in social service provision more frequently than those receiving covert support. Statistical analyses using data from 1989 to 2012 support my hypothesis. Then, a case study of the way the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) governed Raqqa between 2017 and 2020 allows me to show that while overt support is often associated with rebel investments in social service institutions, formal civilian inclusion does not necessarily equate to a genuine devolution of power to noncombatants.

Author

• Arthur Stein, Université de Montréal