To Bomb or Stab? The Impact of Ideology and Territorial Control on Rebel Tactics
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This thesis explores how ideology and territorial control can affect the types of violent attacks and tactics insurgent groups choose to employ. Building on existing literature regarding target selection in civil war and insurgency, I develop a model to explain when insurgent groups choose to use violent attacks that are indiscriminate (such as bombings and improvised explosive devices), as opposed to discriminate attacks (such as assassinations and abductions). The claim is tested both qualitatively and quantitatively, focusing on four case studies in the Philippines. Fine-grained data compiled from incident level field reports maintained by the Armed Forces of the Philippines across a 36-year time span provides evidence in support of this model's claim: indiscriminate attacks are more common across groups with weaker ideological commitment and less territorial control of the population. Furthermore, a qualitative examination of changes to the case studies’ ideology and/or territorial control provides support for this model’s mechanistic claims. The results of my analysis can help policymakers link ideology and territorial control – variables that can be associated with a rebel group’s objectives – to tactics used, which helps predict the type of violence expected from a group based on their stated objectives. These findings help government forces employed to combat insurgency prepare for the type of violence predicted, and can potentially aid in the understanding and anticipation of future violent attacks used by different groups.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 6, 2017 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Lum, Jian Yang |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Felter, Joseph |
Subjects
| Subject | Center for International Security and Cooperation |
|---|---|
| Subject | Insurgency |
| Subject | Ideology |
| Subject | Territorial Control |
| Subject | Philippines |
| Subject | Tactics |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Lum, Jian Yang. (2017). To Bomb or Stab? The Impact of Ideology and Territorial Control on Rebel Tactics. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/wq055td5257
Collection
Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses
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- Contact
- jylum@stanford.edu
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