The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts DON’T STOP TILL YOU GET ENOUGH: REBEL GROUP WAR AIMS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN CIVIL WAR A Dissertation in Political Science by Jakana L. Thomas ©2012 Jakana L. Thomas Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2012 The dissertation of Jakana L. Thomas was reviewed and approved* by the following: Douglas Lemke Associate Professor of Political Science Dissertation Advisor Chair of the Committee Glenn Palmer Professor of Political Science Phil Schrodt Professor of Political Science John Horgan Associate Professor of Psychology Director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism Lee Ann Banaszak Professor of Political Science Director of Graduate Studies *Signatures on file in the Graduate School ii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines whether government concessions to rebel group demands have an effect on conflict resolution in civil wars. This dissertation also examines whether the credibility of the rebel group being conceded to moderates the effect of these concessions on bargaining outcomes. Previous literature suggests rebel group demands, in general, are not credible. These arguments lead to the expectation that granting concessions to rebels will have no positive effect on the probability that a dyad will reach a peaceful settlement. From existing arguments we should expect, instead, that concessions to rebels will be followed by additional, escalated demands as rebels will attempt to gain as many concessions from their government opponents as possible. If all rebel demands are incredible and all rebels act on the same incentives to gain the greatest number of concessions in bargaining, concessions to these demands should always be negatively related to measures of conflict resolution such as the signing of peace agreements and the cessation of hostilities. Existing literature, however, does not consider that rebels, or some types of rebels, are actually responsive to government concessions. Absent from existing literature is any explanation as to why some rebel groups end their conflicts when their demands are met while others do not. I offer these explanations here. In this project, I argue that such variation in settlement exists and can be explained by rebel group credibility. Specifically, more credible rebel groups are more likely to stick to their demands and stop fighting when they are offered concessions that address their aims. Non-credible groups, however, will not be responsive to concessions as their demands are not credible indicators of their requirements for conflict termination. Empirically, this means that rebel groups that follow through with their threats to continue fighting until their aims are met should sign agreements and stop fighting when governments offer them significant concessions on their demands. Groups whose aims are not credible should not be any more likely to agree to settlements when they are granted concessions addressing their demands. I argue that the variation in the credibility of rebel groups (and their demands) can be explained by the presence of an internal mechanism binding these groups to their publicly announced demands. The argument in this dissertation explains why a civilian support base is this credibility mechanism for groups that have them. Variation in rebel credibility, then, iii can be attributed to the fact that not all rebel groups rely on a civilian support base to operate. In Chapters 5 and 6, using original data on rebel group demands and government concessions in a sample of 108 African rebel-state dyads involved in civil conflicts from 1989-2009, I test this argument and find that rebel groups operating with support bases are in fact more likely to sign formal agreements and terminate their conflicts when their demands are met than are groups that do not rely on civilian supporters to mobilize resources. These results demonstrate that credibility is variable across types of rebel groups and furthermore that a key characteristic distinguishing credible rebels from non-credible rebels is readily discernible to governments. This dissertation is important because it demonstrates that for groups with support bases, publicly made demands represent credible information that can help dyads negotiate peace deals. Substantial concessions to these groups, then, should lead to conflicts with successful peaceful terminations. In addition to examining how concessions to demands affect conflict settlement, this project also examines the types of rebel groups to which governments tend to offer concessions during negotiations. The results here show that although groups with support bases are more credible negotiating partners, governments are significantly more likely to negotiate with groups that do not have support bases. Together, these findings suggest a convincing alternative explanation for why civil conflict tends to be so difficult to settle. Overall, this project offers new arguments about the importance of demands, concessions and rebel credibility in intrastate conflict bargaining. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ……………………………………………………………………………. vii List of Figures .………………………………………………………………………….. viii Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………….. ix Chapter 1: Introduction …………………………………………………………………... 1 Dissertation Roadmap …………………………………………………………… 3 Chapter 2: Signaling Commitment How Rebel Support Bases Help Form Credible Commitments in Civil War ………………………………………………………………. 5 Uncertainty in Battle………………………………………………………………5 Uncertainty in Negotiations……………………………………………………….11 Rebel Credibility and the Costs of Bluffing ……………………………………….16 The Rebel Support Base ………………………………………………………… 19 Cost to Rebel Leaders …………………………………………………………… 26 Public Demands- A Public Good ………………………………………………. 30 Compromise …………………………………………………………………….. 31 Signaling Commitment……………………………………………………………32 Chapter 3: Demand and Concession Data: An Investigation of What Rebels Want and Receive in Civil Wars .…………………………………………………………………… 37 What Rebels Want and Receive in Civil War. ……………………………………. 44 Demand- Level Codebook ……………………………………………………… 55 Dyad-Month- Level Codebook .…………………………………………………. 57 Chapter 4: Rewarding Bad Behavior: How Governments Respond to Rebel Group Tactics in African Civil Wars ………………………………………………………………………..60 Introduction: Putting the Horse Before the Cart …………………………………60 Why Not Negotiate With The Terrorists? .………………………………….…….65 Terrorism, Terror and the Power to Hurt .………………………………….…… 69 Research Methods .………………………………….…………………………... 72 Results …………………………………………………………………………... 78 v Rebel Claims .………………………………….………………………………….85 Discussion .………………………………….……………………………………85 Chapter 5: The Effect of Concessions on Negotiated Settlements ………………………. 87 Agreements in Civil War .………………………………….…………….………. 89 Research Design .………………………………….…………………………….. 92 Results ………………………………….……………………………………….. 98 Substantive Effects .………………………………….………………………….107 Conclusion .………………………………….…………………………………..108 Chapter 6: Stopping When They Get Enough: The Effect of Concessions to Rebel Demands on Civil War Termination …………………………………………………….109 Literature .………………………………….……………………………………109 Research Design .………………………………….…………………………….110 Results .………………………………….………………………………………114 Substantive Effects ………….………….……………………………………… 119 Conclusion .………………………………….…………………………………. 120 Chapter 7: Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 121 Results .………………………………….………………………………………122 Future Work .………………………………….………………………..……… 126 Data Issues and Solutions .………………………………….…………………...129 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………130 References ………………………………………………………………………………132 Appendix A: Figures and Tables for Chapter 3 ………………………………….………140 Appendix B: Statistical Tables from Chapter 4 …………………………………………..150 Appendix C: Statistical Tables for Chapter 5……………………………….…………….155 Appendix D: Statistical Tables for Chapter 6 ……………………………………………160 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: List of Demands ……………………………………………………………..140 Table 3.2: Coding Rubric ……………………………………………………………….144 Table 4.1: Logit Regressions of the Effect of Group Characteristics on Civil War Negotiations ……………………………………………………………………………150 Table 4.2: Negative Binomial Regressions of the Effect of Group Characteristics on the Number of Government Concessions .………………………………………………….151 Table 4.3: Rebel Groups Coded as Using Terrorism in the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) ………………………………….……………………………………………….153 Table 5.1: Probit Regressions of the Effect of Government Concessions on the Probability of Agreements (Parsimonious Models) ………………………………………………….155 Table 5.2: Probit Regressions of the Effect of Government Concessions on the Probability of Agreements (with Support Bases and Many Controls) .……………………………… 156 Table 5.3: Probit and Bivariate Probit Regressions of the Effect of Government Concessions on the Probability of Agreements ……………………………………………………… 157 Table 6.1: Probit Regressions of the Effect of Government Concessions on Conflict Termination .………………………………….…………………………………….........160 Table 6.2: Probit Regressions of the Effect of Government Concessions on Termination (Lagged Dependent Variable) .………………………………….………………………..161 Table 6.3: Bivariate Probit Regressions of the Effect of Government Concessions on Negotiations, Agreements & Termination .………………………………………….........162 Table 6. 4: Cox Regressions of the Effect of Government Concessions on Time until Termination .………………………………….………………………………………... 163 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Frequency