Causal Pathways of Rebel Defection from Negotiated Settlements: A Theory of Strategic Alliances

Abstract

While it is widely accepted that negotiated settlements are prone to breakdown, our understanding of the processes through which signatories defect lacks precision. A growing qualitative literature recognizes the potential for rebel group fluidity, yet the conflict field’s converging reliance on dyadic data obscures pathways of defection that result in splintering or merger in quantitative studies. An in-depth case study of a failed peace process in Uganda—which is misclassified in the extant data—helps to illustrate the ways in which excluded groups can lower the opportunity cost of defection for splintering factions, resulting in a strategic alliance. I test the generalizability of this argument against the full sample of rebel parties to settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa (1975–2015) using a large-N qualitative analysis of causal process observations (CPOs). The aggregated results provide strong evidence that the defection-by-alliance pathway is much more prevalent than previously recognized, accounting for more than one-third of all defections in the sample. Where settlements create shared incentives for stakeholders inside and outside the peace process to spoil, rebel elites appear more willing to bear the costs of an alliance with a rival, rather than surrendering under adverse conditions.

Military integration and intelligence capacity: informational effects of incorporating former rebels

“…Cross-national quantitative studies have examined factors affecting military integration's inclusion in peace agreements (Hartzell 2014;Hartzell and Hoddie 2007, ch.2); impacts of integration on the likelihood of peace agreement signing and/or implementation to end a civil war (Glassmyer and Sambanis 2008;Hartzell and Hoddie 2007, ch.3;Joshi and Quinn 2017); and whether partially or fully implemented agreements produce sustained peace or conflict recurrence (Berg 2020;Derouen, Lea, and Wallensteen 2009;Hartzell and Hoddie 2007, ch.4;Hoddie and Hartzell 2003;Jarstad and Nilsson 2008;Joshi and Quinn 2017;Mattes and Savun 2009;Ottmann and Vüllers 2015;Quinn, Joshi, and Melander 2019;Toft 2009). Military integration is suggested to be especially helpful as a strategy in civil wars in which a government is facing multiple rebel groups, since ending conflict in one dyad can allow a government to concentrate on combatting remaining rebels (Brandt 2020;Quinn, Joshi, and Melander 2019), now with increased forces, 3 though the peace process itself may lead the integrated group to splinter, with some members joining the state security forces and others returning to the field as insurgents in a fragment of the original group or by joining with other rebel organizations (Johnson 2020(Johnson , 2021Quinn, Joshi, and Melander 2019;Reiter 2016;Stedman 1997).…”