Peace Spoilers in Transitions from Civil Conflict: Why Rebel Commanders Rearm

• In Event: Building and Breaking Peace

Abstract

What explains mid-level commander defection from integrated rebel groups transitioning away from civil conflict? Why do some mid-level commanders stay within and contribute to a peace process, while others defect to insurgencies? Incentives for defecting differ when a civil conflict is settled without a clear victory for either side: peace processes following peace accords create a host of security dilemmas that might be absent in the case of rebel victory. This paper explains why, within a country case, some field commanders decide to remain within the peace process while others defect. Based on a novel dataset of high- and mid-level leadership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the paper first demonstrates how the former rebel group assigned its commanders to political or administrative positions after the 2016 peace agreement. The FARC Former Commanders dataset (FFCOM) covers defections and status switches during the first five years of the peace process (2016-2021). The paper then offers a theory of mid-level commander defection through network analysis of FARC mid-level commander. We argue that each rebel commander’s decision to rearm relies significantly on the propensity for regroupment after conflict to reconstitute the organizational structure that had existed during the war. This incentive is agnostic to commanders’ rationale for rearming. Whether commanders defect to restart fighting against the state, receive concessions, or engage in criminal activity, rearming depends on whether a commander can amass a veritable force akin to wartime networks.

Authors

• Sally Sharif, University of British Columbia

• Dayron Monroy, University of Los Andes