Conflict Resolution and Rebel Leader Selection

The international community frequently calls for negotiations when civil wars break out, encouraging combatants to come to the table to resolve their differences. Despite the critical role that getting to the table plays in the negotiated settlement of civil conflicts, little attention has been paid to the question of which rebels get negotiated with in the first place. We argue that the character of rebel leadership plays a key role in determining which rebels get to the table. Specifically, the election of rebel leaders provides a signal to the state of the legitimacy of the leader and coherence of the rebel group. Consequently, these leaders are better equipped to make promises on behalf of rebel constituents and are more likely to be negotiated with than leaders who came to power through other means. Using an original dataset on rebel leadership from 1989-2011 and two-stage modeling, we demonstrate empirically that elected rebel leaders are more likely to be negotiated with in the first place and that, in turn, these negotiations are more likely to lead to successful conflict termination. Survival analysis shows that leaders that are selected through some democratic process see negotiations and conflict end sooner than all other types of rebel leaders.