Cunningham and Sawyer (2019) ‘Conflict negotiations and rebel leader selection.’
Citation: Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham and Katherine Sawyer, ‘Conflict negotiations and rebel leader selection,’ Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 56, No. 5 (2019), pp. 619-634.
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Theory, Research Question, Hypothesis: Cunningham and Sawyer (2019:620): “states are more likely to negotiate with rebel leaders that come to power through local selection processes as opposed to those that gain power in other ways.”
H1: Rebel leaders coming to power through a local selection process will be more likely to participate in negotiations than those coming to power through an orientation-focused process or when there is no change in leadership.
H2: Rebel leaders elected into leadership will be more likely to participate in negotiations than those coming to power through other processes or when there is no change in leadership.
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Argument/Conclusion: Cunningham and Sawyer (2019:620): “the way rebel leaders come to power influences the incentives states have to invite rebels to the table. We identify different paths to power, differentiating between those that are based on a local selection process (such as elections, selection by rebel officers, or inheriting power) and those that reflect orientation toward other actors (such as founding a group, splitting from an existing group, the merger of multiple groups, or via a third party). These different processes of taking power provide key information to states about whether the conflict is ‘ripe’ for negotiations”
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Abstract: The international community often calls for negotiations in civil wars. Yet, we have limited understanding of when and why specific rebels enter into negotiations. The emergence of a new leader in a rebel group can provide an opportunity for the state seeking to end war, but this is conditional on how leaders take power. Rebel leaders who come to power through a local selection process (such as an election) provide information to the state about the likely cohesion of the rebel group. This affects state perceptions of the viability of a rebel group as a bargaining partner in civil war negotiations. Using original data on rebel leaders in civil wars, we show that new leaders coming to power through a local selection process are more likely to get to the negotiating table than leaders coming to power in other ways. We find that the election of a rebel group leader has a particularly strong and positive effect on the chance of getting to the table. Rebel leaders that founded their own group or brought together disparate rebels to create a single group are less likely to get to the negotiating table. This article advances our understanding of conflict dynamics by offering a novel argument of rebel leader ascension and its impact on conflict bargaining and has critical implications for parties external to the conflict interested in conflict resolution. External actors seeking to facilitate lasting peace may benefit from observing patterns of rebel leadership.
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