Insurgent is a label applied to a large variety of armed political actors, but all these actors have one need in common: the need to arm their fighters. This paper examines how the manner in which insurgent groups acquire arms affects the likelihood that the group will fragment or cohere over time. Specifically, if an insurgent group has a highly centralized process of arms acquisition, such as direct transfers to insurgent commanders by a third party, the cost of defection for insurgent field commanders will be high. If the cost of defection is high, then a splinter group is less likely to form. To test this hypothesis, this paper deploys a mixed method approach, combining quantitative analyses of the Uppsala Conflict Data and the Minorities at Risk: Organizational Behavior Data with two case studies in the Central African Republic and the Solomon Islands
