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SSP Wednesday Seminar with speaker Philip A. Martin, assistant professor of international security in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. The talk will be broadcast live on the MIT Security Studies Program Youtube channel

Abstract: When civil wars end, the field commanders of armed groups often become critical for the maintenance of peace, state recovery, and regime survival. Why do these violence entrepreneurs sometimes help to build loyal national armies that underpin stability, but in other cases resist centralized statebuilding? Drawing on original data and field research in West Africa, I argue that when non-state armed groups govern occupied territories in ways that promote civilian welfare, field commanders from these groups are more likely to become locally embedded in rebel-ruled communities, and in turn sustain greater capacity to resist central regime leaders after post-conflict military integration. Embedded commanders enjoy social support among civilians and local elites in former rebel-ruled zones, hold status as informal guarantors of social order, and can more easily monitor and control networks of armed supporters in areas of limited state presence.  Ironically, effective rebel governance can hinder postwar state consolidation by creating regionally entrenched strongmen.

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  • Jonathan Wynn

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