Rebel Territorial Control, Governance, and Political Accountability in Civil War: Evidence from the Communist Insurgency in the Philippines Michael A. Rubin Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Michael A. Rubin All rights reserved ABSTRACT Rebel Territorial Control, Governance, and Political Accountability in Civil War Michael A. Rubin Under what conditions do rebel organizations control territory during civil war? How do civilians influence the distribution of territorial control? Why do rebels invest in governance, and why do they target civilians with violence, in some locations but not others? This dissertation advances a political accountability theory to explain how civilians influence the distribution of territorial control and governance during civil war. Existing research explaining variation in rebel territorial control and behav- ior have emphasized structural and organizational factors, identity politics, economic conditions, and geography. However, the classic insurgency literature and recent counterinsurgency doctrine emphasize the importance of securing civilian support and protecting the population to achieving military objectives in civil war. If true, civilians retain at least some power over rebel personnel. The accountability theory of rebel conduct provides a unified framework linking inter-related conflict processes associated with rebel groups' territorial control, governance, and strategic use of vi- olence during civil war. It argues that community collective action capacity, the ease with which communities facilitate collective action to pursue common interests, influ- ences the distribution territorial control and belligerent conduct during civil war. The empirical strategy draws upon complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to test the accountability against plausible alternatives using village-level data from the communist insurgency in the Philippines. The results provide robust support for the accountability theory over plausible alternatives, and yield policy implications for peace-building and economic development in conflict-affected states. Contents List of Tables iii List of Figures iv 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Preview of the Argument . 9 1.2 Contribution to the Civil Wars and Conflict Processes Literature . 13 1.3 Contribution to the Political Accountability Literature . 21 1.4 Empirical Research Design and Case Selection . 25 1.5 Scope ................................... 31 2 Defining Key Concepts 33 2.1 Varieties of Sovereignty and Civil War . 34 2.2 TerritorialControl ............................ 37 2.3 Rebel Regimes . 38 2.4 Rebel Governance . 46 2.5 Accountability and Responsiveness . 50 2.6 Collective Action Capacity . 56 i 3 A Political Accountability Theory of Rebel Regimes 61 3.1 Actors: Rebel Units and Civilian Communities . 62 3.2 Rebel Motivations to Control Territory . 65 3.3 Civilians' Motivation to Enforce Rebel Accountability . 69 3.4 Additional Assumptions . 70 3.5 Collective Action Capacity, Rebel Governance, and Territorial Control 73 4 Research Design 86 4.1 The Communist Insurgency in the Philippines . 87 4.2 Government Administrative Data . 99 4.3 The Barangay-Level Key-Informant Interviews . 108 4.4 Empirical Strategy . 115 4.5 Hypotheses: Accountability Theory . 118 4.6 Alternative Theories and Hypotheses . 122 5 Quantitative Evidence: CPP-NPA Territorial Control 128 5.1 Data.................................... 129 5.2 Econometric Model . 141 5.3 MainResults ............................... 145 5.4 Temporal and Geographic Trends . 150 6 Qualitative Evidence: CPP-NPA Territorial Control and Governance 155 6.1 CPP-NPA Territorial Control . 158 6.2 CPP-NPA Governance . 163 6.3 Accountability in CPP-NPA Regimes . 167 6.4 Endogenous Collective Action Capacity . 178 6.5 Predatory NPA Control . 182 6.6 Summary: Qualitative Evidence . 188 ii 7 Conclusions and Policy Implications 190 7.1 Implications for Theories of Political Violence and Civil War . 192 7.2 Implications for Political Accountability Theory . 196 7.3 Extensions for Future Research . 198 7.4 Policy Implications . 202 Bibliography 207 Appendix A: Quantitative Data and Robustness Checks 223 Quantitative Administrative Data . 223 Logit Model with Province Fixed Effects . 224 TSCS Multilevel Logit with Municipality and Year Varying Intercepts and Linear Interaction . 225 Alternative Measures of Local Government Performance . 227 Alternative Sample: Poor Household Networks . 229 Alternative Measures of Collective Action Capacity . 232 Appendix B: Supplementary Information for Village Interviews 235 List of Tables 5.1 CPP-NPA Control by Year . 131 5.2 Covariate Balance . 140 iii List of Figures 3.1 Effect of Collective Action Capacity on Rebel Governance and Territorial Control .................................... 78 4.1 NHTS-PR Networks . 103 4.2 Barangay Network Examples . 104 5.1 CPP-NPA Control 2011-2014 . 131 5.2 Bridging Illustration . 133 5.3 Barangay Network Examples . 134 5.4 Bridging Summary Statistics . 135 5.5 NHTS-PR Assessment . 136 5.6 Good Governance Index (2005) Summary Statistics . 137 5.7 Bivariate Relationship between Communist Control and Community Bridg- ing....................................... 146 5.8 Model 1 Results . 147 5.9 Model 1 Predicted Probabilities . 149 5.10 Model 2 Results . 150 5.11 Model 2 Predicted Probabilities . 151 iv 5.12 Model 3 Results (Predicted Probabilities by Year) . 152 5.13 Model 3 Results (Predicted Probabilities by Region) . 154 A.1 Model 4 Results . 224 A.2 Model 5 Results . 226 A.3 Model 1, 1980 Literacy Rate measures Community Outside Options . 227 A.4 Model 1, 1980 Rural Population measures Community Outside Options . 228 A.5 Compare Bridging across Samples . 229 A.6 Model 1 (Poor HH Networks) Results . 229 A.7 Model 1 (Poor HH Networks) Predicted Probabilities . 230 A.8 Model 1, Largest Component Size measures CAC . 232 A.9 Model 1, Density measures CAC . 233 v Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge and thank my academic advisers, Page Fortna and Massimo Morelli. Page's guidance from the initial stages of devel- oping the dissertation proposal throughout the writing of this manuscript has been crucial. Not only has Page provided helpful feedback at every stage of the project, but she has from the beginning engaged with me and her other advisees as colleagues, which has helped us to grow as scholars in her example. Massimo's guidance was es- pecially essential to developing and refining the theory advanced in the manuscript. I am especially grateful for his patience and his willingness to take the time to help me through the many sources of my confusion along the way. Jack Snyder and Macartan Humphreys also provided helpful comments and critical discussions of many drafts of the dissertation manuscript, and I thank them for their thoughtful advice. I also acknowledge and thank my undergraduate advisers at Emory University, especially David Davis and Dani Reiter, for going out of their way to guide me to- wards graduate school and providing sage advice during my time at Columbia. Thank you also to Cliff Carrubba and the QuanTM program at Emory University for inviting me to spend a semester back at Emory as a Pre-doctoral Fellow, and for supporting my research project. vi I thank and acknowledge the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG)-Law and Social Sciences program for pro- viding funding to conduct the interviews presented in this dissertation manuscript. Helpful reviewers provided comments that greatly improved the design and imple- mentation of the data collection process. This project could not have been completed without the support of the NSF DDRIG program. The Weatherhead East Asia In- stitute, Earth Institute, and the political science department at Columbia University each provided additional funds for fieldwork trips to the Philippines. I would also like to thank the dedicated research team at Ateneo de Davao Univer- sity and the Association of Psychologists Helping Practitioners (APHP); especially Dr. Gail Ilagan, Randolph Reserva, and Hadji Balajadia, who organized, conducted, and translated the interviews with community leaders in sampled villages. Their hard work, long hours of travel, and advice while developing the survey questionnaire were essential to completing the data collection for this dissertation. I would also like to thank them for their hospitality during my stays in Davao City. I wish Hadji and Randolph all the best in their graduate studies and their careers. Please do not hesitate to let me know if there is any way I can help. I also thank the Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC) at Ateneo de Manila University for hosting me as a visiting scholar and supporting the research project. I would like to thank Atty. Teng Am- bolodto and Asst. Secretary Ina Ambolodto not only for their incredible help with the research project, but also for their generous hospitality during my time in Manila and in Cotabato City. I hope I can return the favor soon on your next trip to the United States. I would like to acknowledge the Government of the Philippines Office of the Pres- vii idential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for providing data for this research project. I am grateful that OPAPP and DSWD have entrusted me with the sensitive data and information necessary to complete this research