Intrinsic Social Incentives in State and Non-State Armed Groups

How do non-state armed groups (NSAGs) survive and even thrive in situations where state armed groups (SAGs) collapse, despite the former’s often greater material adversity? We argue that, optimizing under their different constraints, SAGs invest more in technical military training and NSAGs invest m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American political science review 2023-02, Vol.117 (1), p.22-41
Main Authors: GILLIGAN, MICHAEL J., KHADKA, PRABIN, SAMII, CYRUS
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adversity
Armed forces
Credibility
Field Instruction
Group Behavior
Group dynamics
Incentives
Laboratories
Military personnel
Military training
Mobilization
Norms
Political science
Predictor Variables
Preferences
Research Design
Socialization
Soldiers
Validity
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Summary:How do non-state armed groups (NSAGs) survive and even thrive in situations where state armed groups (SAGs) collapse, despite the former’s often greater material adversity? We argue that, optimizing under their different constraints, SAGs invest more in technical military training and NSAGs invest more in enhancing soldiers’ intrinsic payoffs from serving their group. Therefore, willingness to contribute to the group should be more positively correlated with years of service in NSAGs than in SAGs. We confirm this hypothesis with lab-in-the-field and qualitative evidence from SAG and NSAG soldiers in Nepal, Ivory Coast, and Kurdistan. Each field study addresses specific inferential weaknesses in the others. Assembled together, these cases reduce concerns about external validity or replicability. Our findings reveal how the basis of NSAG cohesion differs from that of SAGs, with implications for strategies to counter NSAG mobilization.
ISSN:0003-0554
1537-5943
DOI:10.1017/S000305542200020X