Local Insurgent-Foreign Fighter Relations

• In Event: New Approaches to Inter-rebel Group Relations

Abstract

What kinds of relationships do domestic insurgents and foreign fighters forge? What shapes the type of relationships they establish? Local insurgents seek foreign fighters to improve their chances at victory, while foreign fighters volunteer to join conflicts to defend a shared identity. Their goals align in principle. But those seemingly compatible motivations then must translate into arrangements on the ground, which are far more complex and include diverging preferences. Foreign fighters typically constitute a small minority of combatants; consequently, domestic insurgents should be able to mitigate their influence under some conditions. Indeed, relations between local insurgents and foreign fighters vary not only across insurgent movements, but also over the course of an insurgency and even among the different groups that make up a given insurgent movement. I propose that local insurgent groups’ embeddedness within their constituency and orientation within the insurgent movement, i.e., as status quo or revisionist in terms of their position, shapes their relations with foreign fighters and whether foreign fighters enact local insurgents’ preferences or succeed in imposing their own.

Author

• Tricia Bacon, American University