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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 January 2025
Research on civil war termination typically classifies conflict outcomes into homogeneous categories. Civil wars are conventionally described as ending in ‘victory’ for one side, ‘negotiated settlement’, or ‘stalemate’. However, each of these common categories conceals a significant degree of unexplored variation. Not all peace processes are the same, nor should we assume equivalence between all ‘victory’ outcomes. Ignoring the variability in outcomes obscures our understanding of how civil wars actually end and can undermine efforts to examine how this may influence the sustainability of the ensuing peace. This article focuses on the concept of rebel victory and argues that it has been used to describe a wide range of civil war outcomes that share some features but that also differ along three dimensions: (i) the residual threat posed by the defeated regime; (ii) the role of external actors in enabling victory; and (iii) rebel fragmentation. The article describes these dimensions and the influence that they can exert on the likelihood of continued political instability in the aftermath of rebel victories. The examples of rebel victories in the Central African Republic (2003 and 2012) are used to demonstrate the analytical utility of this novel conceptualisation of rebel victory.
1 Depending on how rebel victory is conceptualised, there are varying estimates as to the proportion of civil wars that have ended in rebel victory. According to Phayal, Mason, and Gurses, since 1945, rebel victories have accounted for approximately 10 per cent of civil war outcomes. Analysis of the Upsalla Conflict Data Programme dataset supports this estimate. The Correlates of War (Sarkees and Wayman 2010) dataset suggests that 21 per cent of civil wars that ended since 1945 terminated in rebel victory. Martin, by contrast, reports that up to one-third of civil wars have ended in rebel victory. See the discussion below on different conceptualisations of rebel victory. Anup Phayal, T. David Mason, and Mehmet Gurses, ‘Who wins, who loses, who negotiates peace in civil wars: Does regime type matter?’, Journal of Global Security Studies, 4:4 (2019), pp. 482–98; Joakim Kreutz, ‘How and when armed conflicts end: Introducing the UCDP Conflict Termination dataset’, Journal of Peace Research, 47:2 (2010), pp. 243–50; Philip A. Martin, ‘Insurgent armies: Military obedience and state formation after rebel victory’, International Security, 46:3 (2022), pp. 87–127 (p. 87); Meredith Reid Sarkees and Frank Wayman, Resort to War: 1816-2007, CQ Press, Washington DC (2010).
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19 We are not arguing that the three dimensions highlighted herein can account for all variation in the levels of political stability and instability experienced by states in the aftermath of rebel victories. There are, evidently, multiple other factors that may influence variation in this outcome, including, for instance, the characteristics (intensity, duration, etc.) of the war itself, the trajectory of post-war governance and economic development, or external intervention. Such variables can and should be controlled for in future studies aiming to empirically test the influence of the three dimensions discussed in this paper. Here, we focus on variables that relate specifically to the nature of the rebel victory itself, given our interest in exploring the heterogeneity of the concept of ‘victory’ in civil war.
20 Adrian Florea, ‘Authority contestation during and after civil war’, Perspectives on Politics, 16:1 (2018), pp. 149–55.
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23 See Kristin M Bakke, Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, and Lee J. M. Seymour, ‘A plague of initials: Fragmentation, cohesion, and infighting in civil wars’, Perspectives on Politics, 10:2 (2012), pp. 265–83; Christia Fotini, Alliance Formation in Civil Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Wolfram Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation: Structure and Process in Violent Conflict (London: I.B. Tauris, 2020).
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26 For Howard and Stark, for example, the decline in the proportion of wars ending in complete victory for one side is attributable to the ‘rise of a norm of negotiated settlement’. Lise Morjé Howard and Alexandra Stark, ‘How civil wars end: The international system, norms, and the role of external actors’, International Security, 42:3 (2018), pp. 127–71 (p. 127).
27 Quinn, Mason, and Gurses, Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence, Toft, Securing the Peace.
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32 Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation.
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34 Daniel Brunstetter, ‘Justice after the use of limited force’, in Andrew R. Hom, Cian O’Driscoll, and Kurt Mills (eds), Moral Victories: The Ethics of Winning Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), ; Amy E. Eckert, ‘Cui Bono: Moral victory in privatized war’, in Andrew R. Hom, Cian O’Driscoll, and Kurt Mills (eds), Moral Victories: The Ethics of Winning Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Dominic Tierney, ‘The ethics of unwinnable war’, in Andrew R. Hom, Cian O’Driscoll, and Kurt Mills (eds), Moral Victories: The Ethics of Winning Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 123–39.
35 Toft, Securing the Peace, p. 10.
36 Joakim Kreutz, ‘How and when armed conflicts end: Introducing the UCDP Conflict Termination dataset’.
37 Meredith Reid Sarkees, ‘The COW typology of war: Defining and categorizing wars (version 4 of the data)’, Note with version 4 of the Correlates of War Data (2010), p. 60.
38 Terrence Lyons, ‘The importance of winning: Victorious insurgent groups and authoritarian politics’, Comparative Politics, 48:2 (2016), pp. 167–84; Terrence Lyons, ‘From victorious rebels to strong authoritarian parties: Prospects for post-war democratization’, Democratization, 23:6 (2016), pp. 1026–41.
39 Martin, ‘Insurgent armies’.
40 Kai Thaler, ‘From insurgent to incumbent: State building and service provision after rebel victory in civil wars’, PhD diss., Harvard University (2018).
41 Howard and Stark, ‘How civil wars end’, p. 132.
42 Brunstetter, ‘Justice after the use of limited force’, p. 216.
43 Toft, Securing the Peace, p. 41.
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46 Caroline A. Hartzell, ‘Setting civil wars: Armed opponents’ fates and the duration of the peace’, Conflict Management and Peace Science, 26:4 (2009), pp. 347–65.
47 Shelly Liu, ‘Control, coercion, and cooptation: How rebels govern after winning civil war’, World Politics, 74:1 (2022), pp. 37–76 (p. 36).
48 Toft, Securing the Peace, p. 33.
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55 Fred Gooloba-Mutebi, ‘Collapse, war and reconstruction in Rwanda: An analytical narrative on state-making’, Crisis States Working Papers Series No.2 (2008), p. 19.
56 Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 133.
57 Barfield, Afghanistan, pp. 183–4.
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61 Gebru Tareke, The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 307–8.
62 Salil Tripathu, The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and Its Unquiet Legacy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), p. 178.
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64 Gleditsch, ‘Transnational dimensions of civil war’, p. 295.
65 Sandie Holguín, ‘How did the Spanish civil war end? … Not so well’, The American Historical Review, 120:5 (2015), pp. 1767–83 (p. 1771).
66 Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History.
67 David E Cunningham, ‘Blocking resolution: How external states can prolong civil wars’, Journal of Peace Research, 47:2 (2010), pp. 115–27; Douglas Lemke and Patrick M. Regan, ‘Interventions as influence’, in Paul F. Diehl (ed.), The Scourge of War: New Extensions on an Old Problem (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), pp. 123–46; Martin, ‘Insurgent armies’.
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72 Lyons, ‘Victorious rebels and postwar politics’, p. 161.
73 Talatbek Masadykov, Antonio Giustozzi, and James Michael Page, ‘Negotiating with the Taliban: Toward a solution for the Afghan conflict’, Crisis States Working Paper Series No. 2 (2010), p. 8.
74 Sean M Zeigler, ‘Competitive alliances and civil war recurrence’, International Studies Quarterly, 60:1 (2016), pp. 24–38 (p. 24).
75 Bakke et al., ‘A plague of initials’; Henning Tamm, ‘Rebel leaders, internal rivals, and external resources: How state sponsors affect insurgent cohesion’, International Studies Quarterly, 60:4 (2016), pp. 599–610.
76 Rene Lemarchand, ‘A precarious peace breaks out’, The Africa Report (1982).
77 Bakke et al., ‘A plague of initials’, p. 268.
78 Azevedo, Roots of Violence.
79 Lidwien Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013); Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe, Laying the Past to Rest: The EPRDF and the Challenges of Ethiopian State-Building (London: Hurst Publishers, 2020).
80 Lombard, State of Rebellion, p. 141.
81 Martin, Piccolino, and Speight develop a typology of ex-rebel authority along two dimensions of ex-rebels’ power: (a) local ties with civilians; (b) national ties with capital-based elites. This typology produces four distinct outcomes: ‘predation; benevolent warlordism; state capture; and, rebels-into-statesmen’. The ‘conditions’ of rebel victory typology developed in this article complements the framework proposed by Martin, Piccolino, and Speight. Philip A. Martin, Giulia Piccolino, and Jeremy S. Speight, ‘Ex-rebel authority after civil war: Theory and evidence from Côte d’Ivoire’, Comparative Politics, 53:2 (2021), pp. 209–32.
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84 Prunier, ‘Somalia’, p. 46.
85 Willian Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 190.
86 Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing, pp. 159–79. Martin argues that internal competitors to rebels represent a key source of external security threat. He suggests that environments of high security threats are likely be conducive to the consolidation of the victorious rebel regime because ‘intense security threats’: (a) ‘spur winning rebels to create inclusive leadership bodies’ and, thus, ensure the loyalty of field commanders; and, (b) ‘stimulate postwar military obedience because they reduce the opportunities for field commanders to develop strong local ties in rebel-ruled territory’. See Martin, ‘Insurgent armies’, pp. 97–101.
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91 UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Central African Republic and activities of the United Nations Peace-Building Support Office in the Central African Republic’ (2003).
92 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’.
93 UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-General’.
94 Lombard, State of Rebellion.
95 ICG, ‘Central African Republic’, pp. 15–6.
96 UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-General’.
97 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’, p. 37.
98 ICG, ‘Central African Republic’, p. 19.
99 UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-General’, p. 2.
100 UNSC, ‘The situation in the Central African Republic and the activities of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in the Central African Republic’ (2004), p. 3.
101 ICG, ‘Central African Republic’, p. 21.
102 Lombard, State of Rebellion, p. 113; Smith, ‘CAR’s history’.
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104 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’, p. 42.
105 Lombard, State of Rebellion, p. 15.
106 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’, p. 42.
107 Alexis Arieff, ‘Crisis in the Central African Republic’, Congressional Research Service 7-5799 (2014), p. 6.
108 Lombard, State of Rebellion, p. 16.
109 United Nations Security Council, Letter dated 26 June 2014 from the Panel of Experts on the Central African Republic established pursuant to the Security Council resolutoin 2127 (2013) addressed to the President of the Security Council, United Nations Security Council, (2014), p. 41.
110 Isaacs-Martin, ‘The Seleka and anti-Balaka rebel movements’, pp. 147–8.
111 ICC, ‘Situation in the Central African Republic II’, International Criminal Court (2014), pp. 32–3.
112 UNSC, Letter dated 26 June, p. 31.
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114 ICC, ‘Situation in the Central African Republic II’, p. 19.
115 Lombard, State of Rebellion, p. 16.
116 CORI, CORI Country Report, Central African Republic (CORI, 2013), p. 19.
117 International Crisis Group, ‘Central African Republic: Priorities of the transition’, pp. 6–7.
118 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’.
119 ICG, ‘Avoiding the worst in Central African Republic’, International Crisis Group (2017), p. 8.
120 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’, p. 43.
121 Lombard, State of Rebellion, p. 177.
122 ICC, ‘Situation in the Central African Republic II’, p. 8.
123 ICC, ‘Situation in the Central African Republic II’, p. 37.
124 UNSC, Letter dated 26 June, p. 11.
125 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’, p. 43.
126 Isaacs-Martin, ‘The Seleka and anti-Balaka rebel movements’, p. 152.
127 ICC, ‘Situation in the Central African Republic II’, p. 8.
128 Ralph Sundberg and Erik Melander, ‘Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event dataset’, Journal of Peace Research, 50:4 (2013), pp. 523–32.
129 BBC, ‘UN warning of Central African Republic genocide risk’, BBC News (2013).
130 Smith, ‘CAR’s history’, p. 45.
131 ICG, Making the Central African Republic's Latest Peace Agreement Stick, International Crisis Group (2019).
132 Al Jazeera, ‘CAR ex-President Francois Bozizé takes charge of rebel alliance’, Al Jazeera (2021).