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Control, Coercion, and Cooptation

How Rebels Govern after Winning Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2021

Shelley X. Liu Open the ORCID record for Shelley X. Liu [Opens in a new window]
Shelley X. Liu*
Affiliation:
Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
*
E-mail: shelleyxliu@berkeley.edu
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Abstract

This article examines how rebels govern after winning a civil war. During war, both sides—rebels and their rivals—form ties with civilians to facilitate governance and to establish control. To consolidate power after war, the new rebel government engages in control through its ties in its wartime strongholds, through coercion in rival strongholds where rivals retain ties, and through cooptation by deploying loyal bureaucrats to oversee development in unsecured terrain where its ties are weak. These strategies help to explain subnational differences in postwar development. The author analyzes Zimbabwe's Liberation War (1972–1979) and its postwar politics (1980–1987) using a difference-in-differences identification strategy that leverages large-scale education reforms. Quantitative results show that development increased most quickly in unsecured terrain and least quickly in rival strongholds. Qualitative evidence from archival and interview data confirms the theorized logic. The findings deepen understanding of transitions from conflict to peace and offer important insights about how wartime experiences affect postwar politics.

Keywords

conflictpostconflict developmentrebel governancestate buildingsub-Saharan AfricaZimbabwe

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Research Article
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World Politics , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 37 - 76
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Copyright © 2021 Trustees of Princeton University

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