Rebel recruitment and retention in civil conflict

ABSTRACT

While the conflict literature has examined the use of forced recruitment in conflict, the question remains why groups would choose to do so when forced recruits require expensive coercion and time intensive socialization processes. The prevailing wisdom in the literature is that forced recruitment is a tactic of the weak; yet empirically, we often observe relatively strong rebel groups employing forced recruitment. In this paper, we argue that credible threats of punishment for desertion are a prerequisite to successful coercive recruitment. Thus, stronger rebels, those that are able to credibly threaten punishment, are more likely to engage in forced recruitment than are weaker rebels. Forced recruitment is not a tactic of last resort but a human rights abuse frequently exploited by already advantaged rebel groups. We find strong support for our argument quantitatively and qualitatively using cross-national data on rebel recruitment practices and case illustrations of the contras in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador. The results speak to the growing literature emphasizing the importance of integrating individual and group level processes both theoretically and empirically.

Si bien en la literatura sobre conflictos se ha analizado el uso del reclutamiento forzoso en los conflictos, el interrogante sigue siendo por qué los grupos optan por hacerlo cuando los reclutamientos forzosos requieren una coacción costosa y procesos de socialización que suponen mucho tiempo. La idea predominante en la literatura es que el reclutamiento forzoso es una táctica de los débiles; sin embargo, empíricamente, a menudo observamos grupos rebeldes relativamente fuertes que utilizan el reclutamiento forzoso. En este artículo, sostenemos que las amenazas creíbles de castigo por deserción son un requisito previo para lograr un reclutamiento coercitivo satisfactorio. Por consiguiente, los rebeldes más fuertes, que pueden amenazar de manera creíble con un castigo, tienen más probabilidades de ejercer el reclutamiento forzoso que los rebeldes más débiles. El reclutamiento forzoso no es una táctica de último recurso, sino un abuso de los derechos humanos frecuentemente ejercido por los grupos rebeldes ya aventajados. El uso de datos transnacionales sobre las prácticas de reclutamiento de rebeldes e ilustraciones de casos de los contras en Nicaragua y el Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) en El Salvador brinda un respaldo importante a nuestro argumento, en términos tanto cuantitativos como cualitativos. Los resultados muestran que existe una bibliografía cada vez más abundante en la que se destaca la importancia de integrar los procesos a nivel individual y grupal tanto de forma teórica como empírica.

Bien que la littérature portant sur les conflits ait examiné le recours au recrutement forcé dans les conflits, la question demeure de savoir pourquoi des groupes choisiraient de le faire alors que les recrutements forcés nécessitent une coercition coûteuse et de longs processus de socialisation. L’idée prévalant dans cette littérature est que le recrutement forcé est la tactique des faibles, pourtant, d’un point de vue empirique, nous observons souvent des groupes rebelles relativement puissants qui ont recours au recrutement forcé. Dans cet article, nous soutenons que les menaces crédibles de sanction pour désertion sont une condition préalable nécessaire à la réussite du recrutement coercitif. Les rebelles plus puissants capables de menacer de sanctions crédibles sont donc davantage susceptibles de s’engager dans un recrutement forcé que les rebelles plus faibles. Le recrutement forcé n’est pas une tactique de dernier ressort mais plutôt une violation des droits de l’Homme fréquemment exploitée par des groupes rebelles déjà avantagés. Nous avons trouvé de solides exemples quantitatifs et qualitatifs étayant notre argument en utilisant des données transnationales portant sur les pratiques de recrutement des rebelles et des illustrations de cas des contras au Nicaragua et du Front Farabundo Martí de Libération Nationale (FMLN) au Salvador. Nos conclusions sont en phase avec une littérature croissante qui souligne l’importance de l’intégration de processus au niveau de l’individu et du groupe, tant sur le plan théorique qu’empirique.

Keywords:

• Civil wars
• forced recruitment
• human rights abuses

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Editor and reviewers for all of their feedback on this manuscript as well as Kanisha Bond, Kathleen Cunningham, David Cunningham, William Reed, and Emily Ritter.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary Information

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ Reuter, Christoph. May 11, 2015. “The Afghan’s Fighting Assad’s War.” Spiegel Online International. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/afghan-mercenaries-fighting-for-assad-and-stuck-in-syria-a-1032869.html.

² We use the term “beneficial” only in regards to what may be an increase in the ability of rebels to wage war. The ethical and moral implications of such forms of civilian abuse are by no means beneficial to the abused, their families, and broader society (including the perpetrators).

³ There is an extensive literature on the use of child soldiers (Achvarina and Reich 2006; Andvig and Gates 2007, Beber and Blattman 2013), consequences (Blattman and Annan 2010), their skill in battle (Blattman and Annan 2010; Haer and Tobias 2016; Haer and Tobias 2017), their long term potential (Beber and Blattman 2013; Haer and Böhmelt 2016), as well as characteristics of groups that use them, including their lack of popular legitimacy (Achvarina and Reich 2011). Yet, part of the theoretical issue with this literature, as Eck (2014) observes, is that many studies presume children and adolescents are unable to voluntarily commit to fighting.

⁴ Using data on rebel and state troop size from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Date of retrieval: 14/07/01) UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia: www.ucdp.uu.se/database, Uppsala University.

⁵ Rebel groups can also use a process of socialization to the group, which often involves forcing recruits to engage in violent actions on behalf of the group (Checkel 2017; Gates 2017; Littman and Paluck 2015).

⁶ Which is not to say they are never paid; there are notable exceptions. Some abducted fighters in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were offered natural resources to motivate fighting (Humphreys and Weinstein 2008).

⁷ Since 1994, the LRA has been primarily reliant on abduction (Doom and Vlassenroot 1999).

⁸ Cohen (2013) concludes that rape was used as a socialization device in Sierra Leone to counteract the negative social identification effects of experiences of extreme violence in forced recruitment.

⁹ UCDP defines armed conflict as: “a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year.’’ For further information, see http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/definitions/. We include dyad years prior to 1989 for conflicts active during the study period.

¹⁰ Following Cohen (2013, 2016), in additional analyses, reported in Appendix Table 1, we substitute a measure of rebel abduction. We find similar results: stronger rebels are significantly more likely to engage in rebel abduction.

¹¹ Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Date of retrieval: 14/07/01) UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia: www.ucdp.uu.se/database, Uppsala University.

¹² As a robustness check, the relative balance of rebel to state troops (ratio, log transformed) is reported in the Appendix, Table 4. All results are statistically and substantively similar.

¹³ Data from Expanded Armed Conflict Data (EACD) v2.3, updated 2013.

¹⁴ Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede (2013). Modified Polity P4 and P4D Data, Version 4.0.

¹⁵ From the World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2016.

¹⁶ In additional models reported in the Appendix, conflict dynamics, including battle deaths and territorial control (from Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2013), as well as length of conflict following Carter and Signorino (2010), t, t², and t³, are added. See Appendix Table 5, Appendix Table 6, and Appendix Table 7, respectively. The results with respect to rebel strength do not substantively change across model specification.

¹⁷ This is a change from approximately 6.908 (first quartile) to 9.210 (third quartile). The predicted probabilities are calculated following the observed values approach described by Hanmer and Kalkan (2013). Predicted probabilities are calculated by regressing forced recruitment on the set of explanatory variables in Table 1, Model 3 and are significant at the 95% confidence level.

¹⁸ “Sierra Leone Rebels Forcefully Recruit Child Soldiers.” Humans Rights Watch. 2000. Accessed online: May 30, 2017. https://www.hrw.org/news/2000/05/31/sierra-leone-rebels-forcefully-recruit-child-soldiers.

¹⁹ In additional analyses, reported in Appendix Table 8, we explore the effect of state troop size on government conscription. Similar to our results with respect to rebel groups, stronger states are significantly more likely to engage in conscription while accounting for differences in regime type, GDP per capita, and population.

²⁰ Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Date of retrieval: 10/11/17) UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia: www.ucdp.uu.se/database, Uppsala University.

²¹ Following FMLN’s military victories, recruits reported they were not free to voluntarily join or defect from FMLN but were in fact “somewhere in between” being coerced and willingly fighting. In part, this was because civilians felt their choice was either to join the FMLN or be forcibly recruited by the state (Hoover Green 2018). Apart from this period of shifting military power, a majority of the forced recruitment during the conflict as a whole was perpetrated by state forces (Cohen 2016; Hoover Green 2018).