DESARROLLO DEL JUEGO

Rebel groups can be popular with citizens for many reasons and also have varying degrees of domestic support. First, the perceived legitimacy of a rebel group tends to figure prominently into the decision for a citizen to support a rebel group. Indeed, public support is habitually linked with the legitimacy of a rebel group. According to Schlichte and Schneckener (2015), “Legitimacy… refers to the belief in the rightfulness of an armed group’s agenda and violent struggle” (p. 413).

The definition of legitimacy provided by Schlichte and Schneckener (2015) suggests that insurgent organizations are popular if citizens accept both their political objectives and their use of violence. Both these conditions require further attention. With regard to the legitimacy of political objectives, rebel groups may have different goals as well as multiple goals. Rebel groups fighting wars of secession have the ultimate goal of achieving independence for a given territory within the boundaries of a state. Other rebel groups may have a list of goals they want the civil war government to address, including those that provide certain political, economic, or social rights to their constituencies. More extreme goals involve rebel groups that seek to usurp the ruling elites and impose their own system of government (Metz & Millen, 2005). Goals of rebel groups may also change during the course of the conflict; some rebel groups that originally demanded independence may eventually be satisfied with a concession deal that provides them with limited autonomy rights (see Baikoeni & Oishi, 2016).

Citizens, however, may differ regarding the extent they support a rebel group’s political objectives. A citizen may, for example, agree with a partial list of goals of the rebels (i.e., improvements in minority rights) but reject the rebels’ goal of implementing a socialist state.

Another citizen may accept all of the goals advanced by the rebels, thereby providing the latter with a greater degree of popular support. Hence, there may be variation in the degree of domestic support for the political objectives of the insurgent organization (Kaltenthaler & Miller, 2015). Some citizens may also acknowledge some of the grievances of insurgent groups but disagree with their overall political objectives. Citizens may simply possess “feelings or expressions of sympathy” (Paul, 2010, p. 489) for the plight of the insurgents. In some cases, citizens may want the civil war government to offer some sort of political concession to the rebels falling short of their actual demands. During the conflict, citizens by and large preferred granting the rebels a limited form of self-government rather than having the country lose territory (Miller, 2009, p. 52).

The second component of the definition of Schlichte and Schneckener (2015), centering on the approval of an insurgent’s use of violence, also requires attention. Citizens who approve of a rebel group that came into power via violence to install a new political regime necessarily approve of the political agenda of the rebels and their use of violence that was used to achieve those objectives. Datum polls conducted in Peru during the 1980s provide insights into the percentage of respondents who favor both the political objectives of the rebels and the use of violence. A 1982 poll conducted by Datum in Peru (as cited in McClintock, 2001, p. 88) found that 13% of respondents surveyed favored a socialist-inspired regime in which the ruling elites came into power via the use of force. These citizens necessarily support both the political ideology of the ruling elites and the use of violence.

However, recall that popular support is not a straightforward concept and there is often variation in the type and degree of support for a rebel group: one citizen may approve both of the goals of the rebels and their use of violence while another citizen may agree with the main goals

of an insurgent group but denounce their use of violence. Potentially, rebel violence may force citizens to lend their support to the civil war government (see La Serna, 2012), causing shifts in the balance of popular support between the civil war government and the insurgents. In Pakistan, insurgent violence reduced domestic support for insurgents, with disapproval the strongest among communities living in areas where violence was commonplace (Blair, Fair, Malhotra, & Shapiro, 2013). In cases of extreme dissatisfaction with rebel violence, civilians may take up arms against the insurgents themselves, a phenomenon that has been documented across a number of armed conflicts, including in Peru with the Sendero Luminoso (La Serna, 2012). During the earlier years of the armed conflict between the Indonesian state and the Free Aceh Movement, many Acehnese condemned violent rebellion (Abuza, 2016, p. 29) while

simultaneously condemning the civil war government’s policies of extracting oil resources for development initiatives outside of the province (a key grievance of the Free Aceh Movement) (Prasetyo & Birks, 2010). Overall, the Acehnese did not support the rebels during the 1970s under President Suharto (Abuza, 2016, p. 29).

As a caveat, it is not always the case that increases in violence by rebels necessarily translates to a reduction in domestic support. Insurgent groups by definition are violent in nature (Schlichte & Schneckener, 2015, p. 415). Hewitt (1990) notes how the most lethal rebel groups that use terrorism, including the Basque separatists, still enjoyed high approval rates nationally during the early years of the conflict with the central government of Spain. However, Schlichte & Schneckener (2015) maintain that the lengthier conflicts (which produce more casualties) should be negatively associated with public support for insurgents (p. 416).

Citizens can also support insurgents for other reasons not related to legitimacy or their use of violence (Schlichte & Schneckener, 2015). Citizens may support rebel groups because

they provide the population with critical services, such as education, health, or security (see Paul, 2010; Mampilly, 2012, p. 54; Schlichte & Schneckener, 2015, p. 418). In extreme cases, citizens support rebels out of apprehension or force—these citizens face execution by rebels for failing to support them (Schlichte & Schneckener, 2015, p. 414). Citizens may also provide rebels with indirect support, such as allowing the rebels to train in their communities without reporting them to local state authorities (Paul, 2010, pp. 490-491).

Finally, it is important to note that public support for the rebels is not static and may change, and often does, over time depending on conflict dynamics. The Zapatistas in Mexico considerably increased their support base during the 1990s as the government became more repressive during the short-lived armed conflict (Muñoz, 2006).

Support for the government.

Similar to claims made in the discussion on popular support for rebels, public support for the civil war government is often tied to the legitimacy of the government. According to Lipset (1959), “Legitimacy involves the capacity of a political system to engender and maintain the belief that existing political institutions are the most appropriate or proper ones for the society” (p. 86). According to Jackman (1993), under legitimate regimes, there exists “an acceptance of the political order as generally reasonable, given the known or feasible alternatives” (p. 99).

There may be variation in degree of domestic support for the civil war government. Citizens may support the overall political regime and its ideologies and reject those espoused by the rebels (see La Serna, 2012). Other citizens may simply support the civil war government by default, even if it has failed to improve welfare for citizens, because the alternative form of government supported by the rebels is not acceptable (Velasco, 2005).

Alongside support for the political regime in power, citizens may also support the government’s use of violence, including its counterinsurgencies, to protect the civil war

government from being overthrown by non-state actors. A democratic form of government had the backing of most citizens during the armed conflict in Peru with the Sendero Luminoso (Palmer, 1992, p. 66). Moreover, many citizens favored the use of force against the rebels (La Serna, 2012, p. 171) and rejected the political ideologies of the Sendero Luminoso (St. John, 1984).

However, during armed conflicts, the popularity of the civil war government may be a function of its use of violence. The government’s counterinsurgencies—particularly those that employ indiscriminate use of violence against civilians, rely on repression, and cause massive economic and infrastructural destruction— may not only lead to a loss of domestic support for the incumbent, but may also increase domestic support for the rebels (Hewitt, 1990). According to the “provocation-repression” line of argument (Hewitt, 1990, p. 146), the balance of popular support in favor of the rebels increases when the civil war government uses force and repression against the rebels. Due to the military advantage of the civil war government (Akcinaroglu, 2012; Zartman, 1995, p. 8), antipathy toward the ruling regime is brewed in the population when state troops react to insurgent violence by using routine repression to scout out alleged members of rebel groups (Hewitt, 1990, p. 146). In many cases, rebels leverage the government’s military advantage to win support: The underpowered Zapatista rebels in Mexico hoped that the civil government’s counterinsurgency against the rebels would generate dissatisfaction toward ruling elites while simultaneously increasing domestic support for the opposition (Bob, 2001, p. 326). Indeed, the government’s human rights abuses during the short-lived armed conflict played out heavily in the media (Brewster, 2005, p. 152).