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Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence
Some rebel groups abuse noncombatant populations, while others exhibit restraint. Insurgent leaders in some countries transform local structures of government, while others simply extract resources for their own benefit. In some contexts, groups kill their victims selectively, while in other environments violence appears indiscriminate, even random. This book presents a theory that accounts for the different strategies pursued by rebel groups in civil war, explaining why patterns of insurgent violence vary so much across conflicts. It does so by examining the membership, structure, and behavior of four insurgent movements in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. Drawing on interviews with nearly two hundred combatants and civilians who experienced violence firsthand, it shows that rebels' strategies depend in important ways on how difficult it is to launch a rebellion. The book thus demonstrates how characteristics of the environment in which rebellions emerge constrain rebel organization and shape the patterns of violence that civilians experience.
430 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 14, 2016
This book seeks to explain why some rebel groups deploy high levels of indiscriminate violence and others are more restrained. Its answer is that the group's strategies of violence are related to the initial conditions its leaders confront: in areas rich with natural resources or foreign patrons, rebel groups do not require civilian cooperation and therefore act with impunity, whereas when rebel groups rely on "social endowments"--social networks, cultural ideals, etc--they will be more restrained.
I think the idea that a rebel group's pre-existing relationship to the civilian population plays a role in its deployment of violence makes good intuitive sense. I find the "economic" and "social" endowments categorization a bit too schematic for my tastes, however.
I think the idea that a rebel group's pre-existing relationship to the civilian population plays a role in its deployment of violence makes good intuitive sense. I find the "economic" and "social" endowments categorization a bit too schematic for my tastes, however.
January 25, 2026
(I would give a 4.5 but that rating doesn't exist, so I'm going to aim to pull the average rating up a bit towards there).
This is a really excellent exercise in the power of theoretical parsimony. Weinstein uses precisely one independent variable --- the resources a rebel group is endowed with at its foundation --- and links it, through adverse selection problems in recruitment processes, to a whole host of important outcomes (rebel group structure, rebel governance, violence against civilians). He makes his argument concisely and clearly, and supports it with an absurd depth of interview data from three very different conflict contexts (Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru).
I have quibbles, mostly with his conceptualization of social endowments, since they really appear to be a bundle of things with completely different properties (capacity to make a credible long-term commitment, ability to align perceived interests of individuals with those of the group, ability to police the behavior of group members). Most of these things come out of the social networks in which a group is embedded, but ideological fervor and political education can work just as well as shared ethnicity sometimes. That raises the problem of endogeneity, since Weinstein's theory depends on *initial* endowments set exogenously to the conflict process, but political education of new recruits only begins with the construction of a rebel army with training areas.
I also worry that Weinstein overstates the degree to which a recruit's "type" (long-term "investor" in a movement or short-term profit-seeking "consumer") is set prior to recruitment and remains a fixed characteristic of their personality. This "type" argument is a common simplification in economics and game theory approaches, but it fits awkwardly within a book that otherwise uses the nuanced tools of small-n qualitative political science.
This is a really excellent exercise in the power of theoretical parsimony. Weinstein uses precisely one independent variable --- the resources a rebel group is endowed with at its foundation --- and links it, through adverse selection problems in recruitment processes, to a whole host of important outcomes (rebel group structure, rebel governance, violence against civilians). He makes his argument concisely and clearly, and supports it with an absurd depth of interview data from three very different conflict contexts (Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru).
I have quibbles, mostly with his conceptualization of social endowments, since they really appear to be a bundle of things with completely different properties (capacity to make a credible long-term commitment, ability to align perceived interests of individuals with those of the group, ability to police the behavior of group members). Most of these things come out of the social networks in which a group is embedded, but ideological fervor and political education can work just as well as shared ethnicity sometimes. That raises the problem of endogeneity, since Weinstein's theory depends on *initial* endowments set exogenously to the conflict process, but political education of new recruits only begins with the construction of a rebel army with training areas.
I also worry that Weinstein overstates the degree to which a recruit's "type" (long-term "investor" in a movement or short-term profit-seeking "consumer") is set prior to recruitment and remains a fixed characteristic of their personality. This "type" argument is a common simplification in economics and game theory approaches, but it fits awkwardly within a book that otherwise uses the nuanced tools of small-n qualitative political science.
September 3, 2021
Innovative thesis, but the lack of social scientific rigor limits its wider applicability.
No one would deny that social economic condition plays an important role in group survival strategies, but to what extent does it shape and inform ideologies?
And isn't political ideology the foremost motif in rebel movements, in which insurgents have a set idea on who would be friends (allies with resources) or partners of common interests, as well as who would be foes (enemies in a zero-sum game) or rival parties with conflicting interests?
No one would deny that social economic condition plays an important role in group survival strategies, but to what extent does it shape and inform ideologies?
And isn't political ideology the foremost motif in rebel movements, in which insurgents have a set idea on who would be friends (allies with resources) or partners of common interests, as well as who would be foes (enemies in a zero-sum game) or rival parties with conflicting interests?
June 15, 2022
authors argument is heavily path dependent and doesnt feel fully fleshed out. they say a good theory is a simple one but this one is too simple for me. the peru case study felt a bit out of place for a comparative study and i just wish there had been more info and less fluff.
August 1, 2021
That was a wade
May 3, 2015
This book looks at variations in the degree to which insurgent groups use indiscriminate violence against civilian populations, drawing on case studies from Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. I don’t have any in-depth familiarity with those conflicts so will have to defer to the author on the accuracy of his reporting and analysis of the specifics.
The main thesis here is that economic or material endowments are the determining factor in a rebel group’s use of violence (this is contrasted with theories of contestation/signaling or territorial control). Weinstein takes an organizational analytic approach and posits that new rebel movements bring in recruits with promises of either long-term or short-term payoffs; the former requires close social ties and repeated interactions that can build trust and commitment to a deferred reward, while the loyalties of the latter group are bought through the use of material incentives.
In a variation of resource curse and state formation theories, insurgent movements that have initial access to lots of material resources that can be acquired without widespread civilian cooperation — drugs, aid from foreign patrons, etc — end up using those to move first to recruit their supporters, whose interests are more short-term and who see little need to modify their behavior towards civilians and tend to loot indiscriminately. Resource-poor movements must rely much more on civilian support and tend to invest more in political ideologies, governance arrangements that give representation to civilian interests, and so forth. These initial recruiting patterns tend to result in strategic path dependence on the part of the organization in terms of the levels and character of violence they carry out over the course of a conflict.
This makes a reasonable amount of intuitive sense, although the book is somewhat vague on just how much economic wealth is “too much” and would cause a movement to shift towards the more opportunistic, short-time horizon membership that it links to indiscriminate military action against civilians. The book also concedes that even the more tightly-controlled insurgent groups, like the Shining Path in Peru, may at times deliberately target civilians — sometimes in large numbers — who are seen as political rivals, so the difference between the two types of insurgent groups described here appears to be primarily one of control rather than strategy.
Other studies are more skeptical about the importance of material endowments — Staniland flips the emphasis and argues pre-conflict social networks are more important for determining how resources will be applied than the resources themselves, and Snyder and Goodhand have suggested that even large sources of lootable wealth can still lead to forms of stability under certain extraction regimes (though none of these look specifically at the relationship between insurgent armies and civilians, as Weinstein does here). I gather much more has been written on the impact of material resources (particularly in the context of African contexts, which I’m less familiar with) so I’ve added a number of books to the reading pile to follow this one.
The main thesis here is that economic or material endowments are the determining factor in a rebel group’s use of violence (this is contrasted with theories of contestation/signaling or territorial control). Weinstein takes an organizational analytic approach and posits that new rebel movements bring in recruits with promises of either long-term or short-term payoffs; the former requires close social ties and repeated interactions that can build trust and commitment to a deferred reward, while the loyalties of the latter group are bought through the use of material incentives.
In a variation of resource curse and state formation theories, insurgent movements that have initial access to lots of material resources that can be acquired without widespread civilian cooperation — drugs, aid from foreign patrons, etc — end up using those to move first to recruit their supporters, whose interests are more short-term and who see little need to modify their behavior towards civilians and tend to loot indiscriminately. Resource-poor movements must rely much more on civilian support and tend to invest more in political ideologies, governance arrangements that give representation to civilian interests, and so forth. These initial recruiting patterns tend to result in strategic path dependence on the part of the organization in terms of the levels and character of violence they carry out over the course of a conflict.
This makes a reasonable amount of intuitive sense, although the book is somewhat vague on just how much economic wealth is “too much” and would cause a movement to shift towards the more opportunistic, short-time horizon membership that it links to indiscriminate military action against civilians. The book also concedes that even the more tightly-controlled insurgent groups, like the Shining Path in Peru, may at times deliberately target civilians — sometimes in large numbers — who are seen as political rivals, so the difference between the two types of insurgent groups described here appears to be primarily one of control rather than strategy.
Other studies are more skeptical about the importance of material endowments — Staniland flips the emphasis and argues pre-conflict social networks are more important for determining how resources will be applied than the resources themselves, and Snyder and Goodhand have suggested that even large sources of lootable wealth can still lead to forms of stability under certain extraction regimes (though none of these look specifically at the relationship between insurgent armies and civilians, as Weinstein does here). I gather much more has been written on the impact of material resources (particularly in the context of African contexts, which I’m less familiar with) so I’ve added a number of books to the reading pile to follow this one.
April 9, 2009
This is an important book among those who are trying to understand the causes and contexts of civil war. Specifically, this author address how the availability, value, and type of natural resources can influence the way that rebel groups form. That is, in those places where lootable, high-value resources are located, challengers to the state will often take the characteristics of violent rebel groups, specifically violent towards the civilian population because they do not need civilian support. Then just need civilian obeisance since the rebels have access to incomes from the natural resources and can use that income to recruit new soldiers.
An interesting thesis, well-supported.
Yet, needing more details... What about situations wherein high value, lootable resources are located but the challenger to the state does not arise or does not take the predicted characteristics? What about situations wherein identity plays a more fundamental role than this model allows?
I will read this book a second time to get more out of it.
I dare say that the best part of the book is the appendix on his methodology "The Ethnography of Rebel Organizations"!
An interesting thesis, well-supported.
Yet, needing more details... What about situations wherein high value, lootable resources are located but the challenger to the state does not arise or does not take the predicted characteristics? What about situations wherein identity plays a more fundamental role than this model allows?
I will read this book a second time to get more out of it.
I dare say that the best part of the book is the appendix on his methodology "The Ethnography of Rebel Organizations"!
November 23, 2008
I studied with Weinstein. He's wicked smaht and has written a good book on rebellion in Africa.
January 27, 2016
Weinstein's work looks at social and economic endowments, and how the impact the insurgent's organizations and strategy as a result.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews