CHILD SOLDIERS IN INTRASTATE CONFLICTS: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS by Vera V. Achvarina B.A. in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Russian State University for Humanities, Moscow, 2000 M.A. in East Asian Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2003 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2010 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS This dissertation was presented by Vera V. Achvarina It was defended on February 12, 2010 and approved by Simon F. Reich, Professor, Director of the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University William Keller, Professor, GSPIA Barry Ames, Professor and Chair, Department of the Political Science Carolyn Ban, Professor, GSPIA Charli Carpenter, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts-Amherst Dissertation Advisor: Simon F. Reich, Professor, Director of the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University ii Copyright © by Vera V. Achvarina 2010 iii CHILD SOLDIERS IN INTRASTATE CONFLICTS: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS Vera V. Achvarina, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2010 In my dissertation I seek to answer the question of why some non-state armed groups in modern conflicts recruit children whereas others do not. I argue that four factors help explain the difference in rebels’ recruitment of minors. The first two are related to the armed group-specific characteristics of fighting capacity relative to the government and the scope of belligerents’ territorial access and control within and across the conflict country borders. Both of these factors positively affect the insurgency’s propensity to recruit children, especially for armed groups that are unpopular among their constituency. The third and fourth contextual and individual factors of poverty and presence of ethnic persecution in a country, I argue, also have a positive influence on the outcome of child recruitment, especially for popular insurgencies. My findings are based on both quantitative and qualitative research. I conducted large-N tests on a dataset of 112 insurgencies that I newly compiled. I also analyzed data which I collected on Liberian armed groups and former underage combatants from the surveys which I administered in the field. I complemented my statistical analysis with comparative and process-tracing temporal case studies, as well as the plausibility probe on FARC armed group from Colombia and the LTTE faction of Sri Lanka. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction.......................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Literature Review ...........................................................................................................39 Section 1. Child Motivations: Why children enlist into armed groups? ..........................................42 Section 2. Child Vulnerability: What makes minors susceptible to recruitment?............................56 Section 3. Conflict, Group and Child Characteristics: Why armed groups need children?.............61 Chapter 3: Explanatory Framework ................................................................................................71 Section 1. Child Recruitment from Groups’ Standpoint and Child Availability Perspective..........71 Section 2. Recruitment for Popular and Unpopular Armed Groups ................................................86 Section 3. Alternative Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Child Recruitment ........................93 Section 4. Alternative Explanations...............................................................................................101 Chapter 4: Methodology ..................................................................................................................104 Section 1. Data and Samples for Analyses.....................................................................................105 Section 2. Measurement of Concepts.............................................................................................111 Section 3. Large-N Analysis ..........................................................................................................123 Section 4. Case Studies Analysis ...................................................................................................126 Chapter 5: Empirical Results..........................................................................................................130 Section 1. Models Specification and Results .................................................................................130 Section 2. Discussion of Results ....................................................................................................145 Section 3. Methodological Caveat .................................................................................................150 Section 4. Explaining Outliers ………………………………………………………………… 154 Chapter 6: Case Study I...................................................................................................................163 Section 1. Liberian Conflict and its Five Non-State Actors...........................................................163 Section 2. Dependent Variable: Child Recruitment Practices of Five Liberian Factions ..............166 Section 3. Independent Variables: Do Armed Groups Differ in their Crucial Characteristics?.....173 Chapter 7: Case Studies II...............................................................................................................202 Section 1. Extended Comparative Cross-Case Study.....................................................................203 Section 2. Temporal Within-Case Study........................................................................................218 Chapter 8: Plausibility Probes ........................................................................................................234 Section 1: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka .......................................234 Section 2: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).....................................................244 Chapter 9: Conclusions....................................................................................................................256 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................................269 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Child Soldiers: Conflicts and Percentages, 1975-2002 ............................................................8 Table 2. Potential Causes of Child Soldiering: Current State of the Literature....................................40 Table 3. Unpopular African Armed Groups without Material Resources............................................97 Table 4. Operationalization and Measurement of Concepts Used in the Argument ..........................111 Table 5. Summary Statistics for all Variables Used in the Analysis..................................................130 Table 6. Logistic Regressions of Child Recruitment without Interaction Terms ...............................132 Table 7. Logistic Regressions of Child Recruitment with Interaction Terms ....................................134 Table 8. Marginal Effects of Predictor Variables...............................................................................138 Table 9. Logistic Regressions of Child Recruitment on Split Samples..............................................139 Table 10. Logistic Regressions of Child Recruitment on Split Samples............................................140 Table 11. Logistic Regressions of Child Recruitment on Split Samples............................................141 Table 12. Probit Regressions with and without Instrumental Variable (IV) ......................................154 Table 13. Child Soldiers in Armed Groups of the First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996) .................168 Table 14. Factors Determining Child Soldier Recruitment by Armed Groups ..................................200 Table 15. Armed Groups Popularity and Factors Explaining their Child Soldier Recruitment .........214 Table 16. Factors Determining Child Soldier Recruitment by Armed Groups ..................................215 Table 17. NPFL’s Popularity and Prediction of its Child Soldier Recruitment over Time................232 Table A1. Determination of the Fighting Capacity Values for Five Liberian Armed Groups...........277 Table A2. Determination of the Material Capacity Values for Five Liberian Armed Groups...........277 Table A3. Determination of the Ethnic Persecution Values for Five Liberian Armed Groups..........278 Table A4. Determination of the Ethnic Persecution Values for Five Liberian Armed Groups..........278 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Model of Prediction of Child Soldier Recruitment by Armed Groups .................................72 Figure 2. Model of Prediction of Child Soldier Recruitment by Armed Groups .................................90 Figure 3. Map of Liberia ....................................................................................................................271 vii PREFACE I would like to thank my dissertation committee and especially Simon Reich for their invaluable advice during my scientific explorations. I am grateful that I had a chance to learn about academic standards and methodology from such teachers as Simon Reich and Barry Ames.