Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 1999. Graduate Programme in Political Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 762-812). Filmography/Videography: p. 813. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ39264.

In the past three decades, more than two dozen civil conflicts have ended in a long-term truce between the government and rebels. In these agreements, neither side disarms or makes any substantial concessions. Instead, rebel forces are permitted to recruit, fund themselves, and patrol territory without punishment so long as they leave government forces alone. Governments typically offer these agreements when they have few domestic or political interests in the conflict (as in remote separatist regions) or when they face short-run international pressure to reduce violence (as in high-profile conflicts). What happens to rebel organizations when the government permits them to operate and recruit freely? Governments and scholars believe that forbearance benefits rebel organizations, allowing them to gather new funds and new members who will empower them on the battlefield and at the bargaining table. This book argues instead that these periods of truce undermine rebel organizations by changing the types of recruits they attract. Truces do indeed make life safer and easier for rebel soldiers, attracting an influx of new rebel recruits. But they also undermine a key screening process in rebel recruitment. Rebel leaders need rebel soldiers to sacrifice their own desires (safety, pleasure, and profit) for the movement’s goals (battlefield victory, territorial control, and bargaining credibility). The safety and material benefits of truce disproportionately attract selfish opportunists who are prone to desert, defect, and disobey in the long run. Constrained by recruitment competition and bureaucratic incapacity, rebel leaders struggle to screen or control these new soldiers. I lay out this argument in a formal model of rebel recruitment, competition, and screening, validated with dozens of interviews of current and former rebels in Northeast India and Sri Lanka. I examine the effects of long-term truces on rebel organizations using three forms of evidence. First, I test how truces affect the behavior and motivations of rebel recruits with an innovative recruitment experiment in three separatist regions in Northeast India. By mimicking local rebel recruiting strategies in civic organizations and public gathering places, I gather nearly 400 likely rebel recruits. These recruits then evaluated randomly-generated hypothetical rebel groups, testing what factors make them more willing to join. The results shows that the safety and material benefits of truce disproportionately attract recruits who are less community-oriented, both in past behavior and self-assessments. Second, I explore the broader impacts of these recruit-side motivations on rebel organizations with 76 in-depth case interviews in Northeast India and Sri Lanka. These interviewees include rebel leaders, current and former rebel soldiers, and civilians interacting with rebel groups. By comparing over time (before and after truce agreements) and between movements, I track how truces shape rebel recruitment and control. Third, I construct an original worldwide dataset of civil conflict endings since 1946. This exercise shows just how common long-term truces are: since the end of the Cold War, more civil conflicts have ended in a truce than in a rebel victory or peace agreement. I also combine this data with existing conflict data, demonstrating that after a truce rebel groups are more likely to fragment, struggle in clashes with the government, and abuse civilians. This book challenges several key assumptions that scholars and policymakers hold about conflict resolution, rebel organizations, and state development. By shining a light on the largely ignored phenomenon of long-term truces in civil conflicts, it demonstrates what happens when reducing violence does not resolve a conflict. With innovative experimental evidence of rebel recruits’ motivations, it shows how changing resources can shift the quantity and quality of recruits rebels attract. By tracking rebel organizations before and after truce, it shows how a government can more effectively undermine a rebel movement in the long run with forbearance than with violent crackdown.

As rebel organizations are associated with violence and war, the term “rebel use of nonviolent action” seems paradoxical at first glance. Yet, some rebel organizations — after pursuing their aims through militant means unsuccessfully — do start to use mass-based nonviolent action, mobilizing and organizing the population to participate in large-scale mass protests, demonstrations, or boycotts. Sometimes, as evidenced by the cases of Timor- Leste’s Maubere Council for National Resistance or the Nepalese Maoists, this strategic shift can bring them considerably closer to their ultimate goal. This study addresses the following question: Why do some rebel organizations strategically use nonviolent mass popular action in a civil war? The aims of this dissertation are two-fold: First, I explore, conceptualize and define “rebel use of nonviolent action”. Second, I build a theory to explain to explain whether or not rebel groups will seize on an opportunity for using strategic nonviolent action that builds on the rebel group’s internal organizational processes. Precisely because mass based nonviolent action is unexpected and very difficult to organize, there can be significant strategic benefits for rebel organizations who successfully launch a nonviolent campaign. First, they demonstrate the breadth and depth of their popular support by mobilizing the people to actively and en masse put themselves at risk as protesters. Second, the use of nonviolent action displays a high degree of movement resilience and control, as nonviolent events that are most effective in urban areas must be coordinated with a rebel leadership likely located in the periphery. Third, the rebel group can signal norms adherence, as nonviolent action is generally associated with democratic values. Fourth, nonviolent action can garner significant international attention, as masses of civilians peacefully protesting against a civil war backdrop create a powerful image. The proposed theoretical framework takes an organizational approach to understanding rebel group behavior, which accounts for the role of civilians as potential group actors. The appropriateness of this framework is established through an in-depth theory-building case study of Timor-Leste’s violent/nonviolent independence struggle. Based on insights gleaned from this case and a conceptual exploration of nonviolent action as a rebel strategy, my theory is anchored on the insight that a rebel operational shift towards the use of nonviolent action constitutes a particularly disruptive instance of strategic innovation. The theory unfolds in two parts: First, I argue that consolidated political authority in a rebel organization is necessary for disruptive innovation in the form of nonviolent action. Second, I explore the operational requirements for actually carrying out nonviolent action, and argue that embedded organizational structures linking rural rebel strongholds with urban popular centers are necessary to allow for both popular mobilization for nonviolent action and control of individual events and the organization as a whole. The common organizational “theme” uniting these two complex features is an operational focus on functional task differentiation. The Timorese theory-building case study analyzes findings from in-person interviews, first-person accounts and historiography of the conflict to trace and explore the relevant mechanisms leading from a violent (guerrilla) to a largely nonviolent conflict strategy. This case study also establishes that the decision to adopt nonviolent action as a strategy and the actual planning of nonviolent events can be directly linked to a rebel organization’s leadership. To test the plausibility of the theory and explore the scope, I present two additional medium-length case studies of the Nepali Maoists and the Salvadoran Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional. In addition to providing the first comprehensive conceptualization of nonviolent action as a rebel strategy, this dissertation makes two key analytical and conceptual contributions: First, I provide a framework for studying rebel groups as organizations with internal frameworks and processes that come together in a dominant structure that can explain operational and strategic choices, options, and trajectories. A comprehensive understanding of a rebel group’s dominant structure requires careful over-time analysis. Second, the example of nonviolent action as a conflict strategy shows the necessity of studying the population — and its ties to the rebel organizations — as active resistance participants that must be included in a comprehensive organizational analysis of a rebel group.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr Will H. Moore, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, Dept. of Political Sciences. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Mar. 3, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Bob Jones University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 245-252).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DXN058049.

Issued also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University. / "I have given especial emphasis to the period of the editorship of Fox."--Pref. "Appendix: Identification of authorship": p.[394]-428. Bibliography: p. [429]-438.

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Paris 12, 1999.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1943. / "I have given especial emphasis to the period of the editorship of Fox."--Pref. Vita. "Appendix: Identification of authorship": p. [394]-428. Bibliography: p. [429]-438.