This thesis aims to investigate how the Russian PMSC the Wagner Group affects conflict severity in countries where they operate. To illustrate their impact two countries, The Central African Republic and Syria, will be compared to each other. PMSCs and their effect on conflict dynamics have been studied before, usually by using a quantitive method, and the Wagner Group since their debut to the daylight in 2014 have also received scholarly attention. However, these two fields have not been linked together before and thus will this thesis bring new knowledge to both scientific fields by presenting a qualitative comparative study. The study is based on the social movement theoretical framework of resource mobilization by John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald and sets out to test the theory whitin this new context of conflict dynamics. The result from this thesis shows some correlation between the implementation of the Wagner Group and conflict severity and that resource mobilization can be used to explain changes in conflict dynamics. However, the results isnt´t conclusive, and more research is needed on the subject.

As there seem to be a relationship between child soldiering and increased fighting capacity, there appears to be logical advantages of using child soldiers. However, research suggest that children ought to be inferior soldiers than adults. This pinpoints the need for clarifications regarding what disadvantages are associated with the benefits of using child soldiers. As child soldiering has mainly been investigated out of a perspective of systemic influences, there is a need to better understand the recruitment decision side; why rebel leaders prefer to recruit children. While the quantitative research on civil conflicts has tried to identify what ingredients that make conflict severe, the presence of child soldiers has been suggested to be, perhaps not such an ingredient, but at least an exacerbating one. By conducting a quantitative analysis of data on civil conflicts between 1989 and 2010, this study asks how the use of child soldiers affects the severity of the conflict, in terms of rebel losses. As the hypothesis suggests that rebel groups that are using child soldiers have a higher number of rebel losses, the results of this study indicate that the hypothesis is supported. Based on the results of this study, it can be argued that there are costs associated with the benefits of increased fighting capacity, and that these costs are high, when measured in rebel losses.