Rebel group discipline depends on the interaction between leaders and their top commanders. When rebel leaders can provide on-the-spot cash payments and credible promises of future rewards, they motivate commanders to work toward achieving group goals. Motivated commanders train, monitor, and feed their troops and provide security for civilians. Commanders, however, might be tempted to use their weapons and manpower for personal profit, or simply let the soldiers fend for themselves. This chapter discusses how leaders incentivize commanders through spot payments and future rewards and considers the effects of lootable resources as well as motivations such as punishment, status, and ideology. The chapter then discusses the tools used by commanders to control their soldiers. The second half of the chapter develops a formal model of the theory and draws out testable predictions of rebel group behavior.

SPOT PAYMENTS

Spot payments operate in the same way as salaries or performance-based bonuses in business firms. By providing money to commanders, rebel leaders encourage commanders to deploy their weapons and manpower toward achieving group ends. The efficacy of spot payments depends on both the size of the transfer and the leader's ability to monitor the commander's actions. As with standard economic models, the more money the leader can offer the commander, the greater the commander's willingness to exert effort and implement the leader's orders.

The key feature of spot payments is that the leader provides rewards greater than those the commander could acquire on his own. The money for spot payments must come from resources controlled by the rebel leader and inaccessible to commanders on the battlefield. Revenues from civilian taxation or alluvial diamonds, for example, cannot form the basis for spot payments because the leader must rely on commanders to collect those resources. Without externally enforced contracts, commanders might be tempted to keep the revenues for themselves, rather than send a share to the rebel leader.

Because spot payments must be accessible only to the rebel leader, these funds almost always come from partnerships with external actors.