Why do some groups provide security and promote local production, while others loot and prey on the population? Why do some groups break into competing, violent factions, while others remain unified?

In my attempt to answer these questions, I focus on the relationships that exist between rebel leaders and their troops, especially their top commanders. Rebel groups must deal with the same principal–agent challenges that exist in any organization. A leader sets a policy and offers incentives to subordinates, who then compare the leader's incentives with their best outside options. But during conflict, when rebel leaders do not have access to externally enforced contracts or credit markets, these agency relationships have deep implications for group behavior. By exploring these implications and testing the consequences both within Liberia and across conflicts, this book makes two broad theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of rebellion. The theory also offers several policy implications for international interventions to end civil wars.

CONTRIBUTIONS

The book makes two contributions relating to the effects of resources during conflict and the role of external supporters of rebellion. First, the lack of externally enforced contracts means that different types of resources have different effects on the leader's ability to control subordinates. When leaders have direct access to financing, they can create incentives for cooperation by offering cash payments. But when revenues are collected by commanders or other subordinates – what I call lootable resources – the leader's ability to create incentives is weakened. Leaders can overcome these problems to some extent with promises of future rewards. But without enforceable contracts, the credibility of these promises often depends on the social bonds between leaders and their top commanders. Across civil wars, I show that leader financing is systematically related to less civilian abuse and a lower risk of group factionalization, while lootable resources are associated with a substantial increase in these types of dysfunctional behavior.

These dynamics also play out within civil wars. The effectiveness of spot payments depends on monitoring. Even when leaders can induce cooperation through cash payments, they struggle to restrain their troops in unstable and remote areas.