Foreign Sponsorship in Secessionist Conflicts

• In Event: Principal-Agent Challenges

Abstract

A growing body of social science scholarship attends to the motivations and means of foreign sponsorship in civil wars but extant literature largely under-specifies how foreign sponsors shape the dynamics of those conflicts. In addressing this gap, I theorize about the implications of foreign sponsorship in secessionist conflicts by comparing a range of evidence from three purposefully selected cases: East Pakistan in 1971, East Timor between 1975 and 1979, and Eastern Ukraine since 2014. For each, I trace the timing and forms of overt and covert support to uncover the mechanisms through which foreign sponsors influence the onset, escalation and duration of armed conflict. Focusing specifically on collective identity, political rivalry, elite ideology, and patterns of violence in the contested regions, I show that foreign patronage, courtesy of global or regional powers, boosts incumbent states and secessionist rebels in distinct ways.

Author

• Mayesha Alam, Yale University