Opportunity cost of rebellion refers to the potential income an individual forfeits by joining to a non-state actor. Economic approaches to civil conflict postulate that this opportunity cost affects the recruitment capacity of rebel groups (Collier and Hoeffler, 1998; Collier, Hoeffler and S¨oderbom, 2004; Collier, Hoeffler and Rohner, 2009). Low opportunity cost is associated with higher recruitment ability for non-state actors because recruits must be compensated and the
CHAPTER 5. CONSCRIPTION & CIVIL CONFLICT 95 amount of compensation is proportional to the amount they forfeit by participating in a rebellion (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004). The higher the forfeited income, the higher the rebel groups need to pay for recruits.
Many insurgencies around the world have managed to survive for decades thanks to new generations of recruits. If potential recruits need to give up large amount of prospective income, they are less likely to join a rebel organization, and the rebellion is more likely to die off. Using per capita income, growth rate and male secondary school enrollment rate for proxies of opportunity cost of violence, Collier, Hoeffler and S¨oderbom (2004) find that all three are negatively associated with conflict duration.
When estimating the income foregone due to joining to a rebellion, the MMSS of a country has not been taken into account so far (e.g. Collier and Hoeffler, 1998; Collier, Hoeffler and S¨oderbom, 2004). However, if a person is excluded from accessing the labor market due to the military service requirement, potential wages in the private sector has a little or no immediate value for him/her. The economic literature on MMSS highlights conscription as a tax, exacting labour way below market values. In this sense, conscription dramatically changes potential income of young males. For the overwhelming majority of countries relying on conscription, young males need to join the military for a period of roughly 24 months.8 Therefore, conscription
effectively blocks the access of young males to labour market for a long period of time, rendering pay in the private sector irrelevant. As such, income foregone is not the wages in civilian life but military wages for conscripts. As highlighted by economic models on the MMSS, military wages for conscripts often remains way below the market value because they are set administratively and the state has little incentives to match the market prices. This leads to substantial differences in civilian life pay and military wage.
Beyond the real wages, the opportunity cost hypothesis should also take the non-pecuniary costs of military life into account.9 As formalized by Warner and Asch (1995), the utility
forfeited because of serving in an armed force, whether a state military or a rebel army, is the sum of pecuniary and non-pecuniary payoffs from the civilian life. Participating in an armed rebellion is a demanding task. It is often extremely dangerous, and it involves living in precarious conditions. There might be non-pecuniary benefits from rebellion, such as the utility of pursuing an ideological goal or some social gains (e.g. feeling of solidarity and respect
8
The average duration of mandatory service is 24.04 months for countries using conscription and facing civil conflict (Toronto, 2005; Melander, Pettersson and Themn´er, 2016). Data on service duration is available only for 39% of the cases. Conscription of females is a very rare practice.
9
This argument borrows from Warner and Asch (1995). Warner and Asch (1995) compare civilian and military life. I extend this discussion to civilian, military and rebellion life.
96 CHAPTER 5. CONSCRIPTION & CIVIL CONFLICT from an ethnic/ideological community). Although payments by a non-state actor might exceed payments in civilian life, an individual still would not join if the difference between the non- pecuniary value of civilian life and non-pecuniary value of rebel life exceeds monetary gains from the rebellion.
It is fair to expect that many individuals would attribute very high non-pecuniary costs to armed conflict. An individual might have large opportunity cost of rebellion because of high non-pecuniary benefit he attributes to civilian life. Conscription, however, cancels this non- pecuniary benefit by compelling individuals to participate in the military. More specifically, high benefit attributed to staying away from an armed conflict is taken away by the compulsion to serve in the military, leading to a decrease in opportunity cost of rebellion. The level of decrease in this opportunity cost of rebellion is related to non-pecuniary costs of mandatory military service. If the military service involves living standards close to civilian life and very low risk of involvement in an armed conflict, then the decrease in opportunity cost of rebellion due to non-pecuniary aspects is low. However, if the living standards are bad and military service is very risky, non-pecuniary costs of military service is high, thus leading to a substantial decrease in opportunity cost of rebellion. As conscription often entails the worst practices, it should substantially decrease the opportunity cost.
We can expect this decrease in opportunity cost to have a prolonging effect on conflict duration (Collier and Hoeffler, 1998; Collier, Hoeffler and S¨oderbom, 2004). Everything else being equal, decreasing opportunity cost is associated with increasing rebel recruitment capacity. Therefore, the rebellion becomes more feasible to sustain thanks to lower recruitment costs. As a result, we can expect that conscription should increase conflict duration.