Date of Award
Fall 1-6-2012
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Dr. John Duffield
Second Advisor
Dr. Carrie Manning
Third Advisor
Dr. Michael Herb
Abstract
This paper presents a theory of insurgency-state strategic interaction based on the insurgency’s mode of survival. The theory postulates that, ceteris paribus, illegal resources discourage the insurgents from desiring to control the state and the state from regaining control of the insurgent territory, whereas legal lootable resources “force” the insurgency to embrace the suboptimal strategy of trying to topple the government, while causing the state to desire full control of the insurgent territory. Intensity, the number of combatant deaths over time, will be used to test the theory. Civil conflicts involving insurgencies that rely on illegal resources for most of their revenue should be of low intensity. The opposite should hold true for civil wars in which the insurgency’s livelihood is a legal lootable resource.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/2227241
Recommended Citation
Rangel, Andres, "Sleeping with the Enemy, or Putting the Enemy to Sleep? A Theory of Insurgency-State Interaction." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2012.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/2227241