Waging Civil Conflict: Essays on Counterinsurgency and Repression

Abstract

My dissertation explains governments' strategies for using force in civil conflict. Combined, these papers make two primary contributions. First, each highlights why, counterintuitively, governments rely on tactics that have negative consequences---mass repression, forced resettlement, and destruction of property. Second, I show how opportunity cost shapes citizens' decision-making, leading them to take actions that reinforce governments' reliance on particularly destructive tactics.

The Wages of Repression:

Incidents of government repression vary in which individuals are targeted. Building on a conceptual distinction between targeted repression (against opposition group members) and mass repression (against citizens broadly), I explain why regimes use both types of repression in combination. Targeted and mass repression have distinct effects on civilians' incentives to support an opposition. Targeted repression decreases the benefit of challenging the regime, activating security concerns. Mass repression affects individuals' material wellbeing, improving opportunities for participants in the economy. These participation and material wellbeing mechanisms make targeted and mass repression jointly optimal for the regime. By identifying distinct logics for targeted and mass repression, I show in some cases, both types of repression are complements, meaning it is optimal for governments to employ more targeted and mass repression simultaneously.

Forced Economic Migration:

Why do governments manipulate the movement of citizens in conflict? I develop a model of forced resettlement by a counterinsurgent regime that show how economic incentives influence, and in some cases determine, the form and intensity of displacement. Specifically, governments may use forced resettlement to affect labor markets. As the government uses force to retake contested territory, it decreases the opportunity cost of migration for citizens in conflict-affected areas. This can lead to an influx of migrants to government-controlled regions, increasing the supply of labor and exerting downward pressure on wages. Governments may forcibly resettle citizens to avoid an oversupply of labor in secure areas, or an undersupply in areas in which they regain control. I compare the economic incentives that lead to two common forms of resettlement, government-controlled model villages and internal displacement camps, and show that increasing economic development in government-controlled regions may increase levels of forced resettlement.

Targeting Lives and Livelihoods:

I develop a model of civil conflict that explains why combatants choose to destroy capital under control of their opponents, as a substitute for or in combination with violence against non-combatants. A government and an insurgent group can direct force against two types of targets: citizens that may support their opponent and the natural and produced capital that enables each side to fight. The choice of tactics by each party affects citizens' decision of which side to support, which may lead to either moderation or escalation of the use of destructive war-fighting tactics. I show violence against citizens and destruction of capital are often substitute tactics, and that governments and insurgent groups adopt opposite strategies. One side chooses high levels of violence against citizens and the other side chooses high levels of capital destruction. Moreover, I show that despite backlash against the use of force, violence against citizens may benefit the government.