The Power to Resist: Mobilization and the Logic of Terrorist Attacks in Civil War

Abstract

Existing research has argued that terrorism is common in civil war because it is "effective." Surprisingly, however, only some groups use terrorism during civil wars, while many refrain altogether. We also see considerable variation in the use of terrorism over time. This article presents a theory of terrorism as a mobilization strategy in civil war, taking into account benefits, costs, and temporal dynamics. We argue that the choice and the timing of terrorism arise from the interaction between conditions for effective mobilization and battlefield dynamics. Terrorism can mobilize support when it provokes indiscriminate government repression or when it radicalizes rebels' constituency by antagonizing specific societal groups. The timing of attacks, however, is influenced by battlefield losses, which increase rebels' need to rally civilian support. The analyses of new disaggregated data on rebels' terrorist attacks during conflicts and of ISIS tactics in Iraq and Syria support our theoretical argument.

Border Control and Insurgent Tactics

“…One notable result, that rebels reduce civilian victimization in the face of border control, suggests an important modification to extant theoretical accounts predicting a positive association between resource losses and violence against civilians (Hultman 2007;Wood 2014). The fact that interdiction of external havens can spur greater rebel forbearance in relations with civilians is more consistent with accounts that emphasize how combatants carefully anticipate civilian reactions and calibrate behavior accordingly (Zhukov 2017;Polo and González 2020). Broadly, this finding comports with theories emphasizing civilian agency in conflict (Kalyvas 2006; and reinforces the imperative of avoiding collateral damage Schutte 2017).…”

“…Correspondingly, border fortification in homogeneous districts is associated with a 0.52 standard deviation reduction in insurgent collateral damage, a 0.57 standard deviation reduction in sectarian killings, and a 1.14 standard deviation reduction in insurgent civilian casualties. These effects reverse in mixed districts, where rebel violence can more easily target out-group civilians that rebels' civilian constituents are more likely to tolerate or even condone targeting (Polo and González 2020). Border fortification in mixed districts is associated with a 0.36 standard deviation increase in insurgent collateral damage, a 0.41 standard deviation increase in sectarian killings, and a 0.92 standard deviation increase in the insurgent civilian casualties.…”

“…Still, the production of civilian victimization is about resources and civilian perceptions. Polo and González (2020) show that public opinion conditions rebel violence against civilians even when rebels' resource losses could incentive them to pursue coercive local extraction. When rebels expect popular backlash, they may not resort to victimization despite suffering major setbacks.…”

“…13 This effect should be greatest in areas where rebels share identity ties (e.g. co-ethnicity, co-sectarianism) with the civilian populace, since rebel outreach is most credible among in-group civilians (Polo and González 2020). Combining these arguments, the fortification dilemma emerges.…”

Violence Against Civilians During Armed Conflict: Moving Beyond the Macro- and Micro-Level Divide

“…Using cross-national data, some scholars find evidence that militarily weak rebel groups are more likely to target civilians (Wood 2010) and nonmilitary targets (Polo & Gleditsch 2016), while others use event data to show that rebel groups are also more likely to attack civilians following battlefield losses (Hultman 2007, Wood 2014). Polo & González (2020), meanwhile, propose an alternative theoretical mechanism, positing that rebel groups confronting military losses attack civilians as a means of provoking government repression, to mobilize support for the rebellion.…”