"Escalate or Negotiate? Constraint and rebel strategic choices towards rivals in civil wars."

Abstract

Theories of interaction among rebel groups in multiparty conflicts, like other works in the armed conflict literature, continue to see force as foundational to the trajectory and outcome of conflict. The analysis of inter-rebel conflicts in the Syrian civil war shows that military force is not always the preferred tool even in situations where one could expect violence to prevail: in conflicts between dominant actors and weaker rivals. Rather than using force, aspiring rebels sometimes choose to negotiate with their rivals. Given that existing theories of inter-rebel conflict fail to explain the variation in rebel responses in the Syrian conflict, what alternative explanations might better account for the puzzle of non-force? I theorize that the constraint emanating from the conflict with the main enemy determines rebels’ strategies towards rivals. In order to assess the plausibility of the argument, the paper draws on data triangulation in the form of written agreements between Jabhat al-Nusra and other Syrian rebel groups, a database of important military operations in the Syrian civil war since 2011, and interviews with members of major armed groups, civil activists, representatives of local councils, humanitarian workers, and religious clerics.