Jumping on the Bandwagon: Differentiation and Security Defection during Conflict

When confronted with mass uprisings, governments deploy their security forces for crowd control or repression. However, sometimes security agencies choose to side with the opposition movement. Recent work shows that “fragmentation” contributes to defection: fragmenting the security forces into parallel units leads to oversight problems and grievances among soldiers, which raises the risk of members of the security forces defecting to the opposition movement. However, I argue that the effect on defection is strongly moderated by the circumstances under which states choose to fragment their military: fragmentation for the purpose of security specialization, called “differentiation,” even decreases its risk. Employing Bayesian multilevel modeling, the findings corroborate this distinction. The study contributes to the fundamental discussion on civil–military relations, shedding light on why some conflict situations see security defections while others do not. Understanding this phenomenon is a pivotal element to explaining how conflicts develop, escalate, and end

Desertion and Collective Action in Civil Wars

This article examines the impact of military unit composition on desertion in civil wars. I argue that military units face an increased risk of desertion if they cannot develop norms of cooperation. This is a challenging task in the context of divided and ambiguous individual loyalties found in civil wars. Norms of cooperation emerge, above all, from soldiers sending each other costly signals of their commitment. Social and factional ties also shape these norms, albeit in a more limited fashion. Hence, unit composition can serve as an intervening variable explaining how collective aims can sometimes induce individual soldiers to keep fighting. Analyzing original data from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), I demonstrate that three characteristics of a military unit's composition—the presence of conscripts rather than volunteers, social heterogeneity (whose effect is found to be limited to volunteer units), and polarization among factions—increase the individual soldier's propensity to desert. Unit composition proves at least as important as individual characteristics when explaining desertion. This analysis indicates the usefulness of moving beyond commonly used atomistic understandings of combatant behavior. Instead, it suggests the importance of theoretical microfoundations that emphasize norms of cooperation among groups of combatants

Desertion, control, and collective action in civil wars

This dissertation develops and tests a new theoretical synthesis for understanding how armed groups keep their combatants fighting rather than deserting or defecting. It examines two basic methods of limiting desertion: keeping coercive control over combatants, and fostering norms of mutual cooperation among them. It argues that the effectiveness of each approach is conditioned by the degree to which combatants value the common aim of the success of the armed group. Norms of cooperation require a commitment to this common aim to be effective. Control can be effective even when combatants are uncommitted, but loses effectiveness with severe disagreements among combatants. This approach provides an advance on past work on the requirements for armed groups in civil wars. Some assume, unrealistically, that common aims drive individual behaviour directly. Others focus exclusively either on individual rewards and punishments or on norms of cooperation. This dissertation, in contrast, sees each as important and as contingent upon the prior consideration of whether combatants share a common aim.A qualitative analysis of armed groups in the Spanish Civil War examines micro-level evidence about common aims, the provision of control, and the emergence of norms of cooperation. The dissertation then tests its major hypotheses statistically using two original datasets of soldiers from that war, based on the author's archival research. It conducts further statistical tests against a new dataset of defection from government armies in 28 civil wars during the 1990s. It concludes with a discussion of new directions.Cette thèse élabore et met à l'essai une nouvelle synthèse théorique permettant de comprendre comment les groupes armés arrivent à faire en sorte que leurs membres continuent de se battre au front plutôt que de déserter ou de faire défection. Elle examine deux méthodes traditionnelles permettant de limiter la désertion, soit l'exercice continu d'un contrôle coercitif sur les combattants et l'encouragement de normes de coopération mutuelle entre eux. Elle soutient que l'efficacité individuelle de ces approches est déterminée selon l'importance accordée par les combattants à l'objectif commun de la réussite du groupe armé. Les normes de coopération nécessitent un engagement envers cet objectif commun afin de pouvoir être efficaces. Si le contrôle peut être utile même lorsque les combattants ne sont pas engagés, son efficacité est réduite lorsqu'il y a des désaccords profonds entre ces derniers. Cette approche présente une avancée sur des travaux antérieurs portant sur la présence nécessaire de groupes armés dans un contexte de guerre civile. Certains savants croient à tort que ce sont les objectifs communs qui influencent directement les comportements individuels alors que d'autres ne pensent qu'aux récompenses et punitions individuelles, ou alors aux normes de coopération. Quant à elle, cette thèse reconnaît l'importance individuelle de ces deux méthodes et considère qu'elles sont liées à la considération antérieure cherchant à savoir si les combattants partagent un objectif commun.Une analyse qualitative des groupes armés de la guerre civile espagnole traite de données détaillées en lien avec les objectifs communs, la disposition de contrôle ainsi que l'émergence des normes de coopération. La thèse met ensuite ses hypothèses principales à l'essai sur le plan statistique à travers l'usage de deux bases de données originales de soldats tirés de cette guerre, basés des recherches d'archives de l'auteur. Elle réalise des tests statistiques additionnels à partir d'un nouvel ensemble de données sur la défection d'armées gouvernementales dans 28 guerres civiles au cours des années 1990. Pour conclure, elle ouvre un dialogue portant sur de nouvelles directions

CPS_appendix_revised_for_conditional_acceptance_(1) – Supplemental material for Disloyalty and Logics of Fratricide in Civil War: Executions of Officers in Republican Spain, 1936-1939

<p>Supplemental material, CPS_appendix_revised_for_conditional_acceptance_(1) for Disloyalty and Logics of Fratricide in Civil War: Executions of Officers in Republican Spain, 1936-1939 by Theodore McLauchlin and Álvaro La Parra-Pérez in Comparative Political Studies</p