Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War-2016

Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War
Author(s): Reyko Huang

Source: International Security, Vol. 40, No. 4 (SPRING 2016), pp. 89-126
Published by: The MIT Press
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Rebel Diplomacy in Reyko Huang
Civil War
^^iolent rebels are of-

ten active diplomats. While opposition forces fought against the Syrian regime
of Bashar al- Assad, the head of the Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad al-Jarba,
made his first official American tour in May 2014.1 During his visit, the coali-
tion achieved a major feat when the State Department recognized the rebels'
Washington office as a foreign mission, thus conferring the group diplomatic
status in the United States.2 Such events are far from unique in civil wars.
While fighting a notoriously brutal civil war against the Sri Lankan govern-
ment, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) established foreign offices,
dispatched political counselors, and engaged in active lobbying in a number of
states.3 The rebel group further operated a foreign headquarters, called Eelam
House, located at 202 Long Lane in London, to serve as a clearinghouse for all
LTTE overseas political activity.4 In El Salvador, the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN) created a Political Diplomatic Commission - its own
foreign ministry - in 1981 in the midst of its civil war. The Commission posted
scores of rebel "ambassadors" around the world to shore up support from
governments, political parties, and international organizations.5 In the early
1990s, the Kurdistan Front office in London "played the media buzz for all it
was worth" while its representatives made appearances at policy think tanks
in Washington and New York.6 In the Congolese civil war of the late 1990s, the
Reyko Huang is Assistant Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M
University.
For valuable comments and discussions, the author thanks Bridget Coggins, Rex Douglass, Jesse
Driscoll, Tanisha Fazal, Carlos Fierros, Page Fortna, Hyeran Jo, Benjamin Jones, Morgan Kaplan,
Douglas Lemke, Eleonora Mattiacci, Larry Napper, Idean Salehyan, Jack Snyder, Mohammad
Tabaar, the anonymous reviewers, and participants at the various venues at which she presented
earlier drafts of this article. Jacob Brahce, Breanna Irvin, and Emily Mullins provided excellent re-
search assistance. Replication material and coding notes are available at http://dx.doi.org/
10.7910/DVN/39DFOI.
1. "Syrian Opposition Will Have Foreign Mission in U.S./' BBC News, May 5, 2014, http: //www
.bbc.com / news / world-us-canada-27287650.
2. U.S. Department of State, "Daily Press Briefing" (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State,
Mav 5, 2014), http://www.state.gOv/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/05/225613.htm.
3. Daniel Byman et al., Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND Corporation, 2001), p. 47.
4. Dushy Ranetunge, "London LTTE Chief Arrested/' Asian Tribune , June 22, 2007.
5. Tommie Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador: From Civil Strife to Civil Peace (Boulder,
Colo.: Westview, 1995), p. 114.
6. Quii Lawrence, Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq and the Middle
East (New York: Walker, 2008), p. 44.
International Security , Vol. 40, No. 4 (Spring 2016), pp. 89-126, doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00237
© 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
International Security 40:4 | 90
Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) hired lobbying firms to make its politi-
cal appeals in Washington.7 Even in a "forgotten struggle" that was the Free
Papua Movement (OPM), fighting for secession from Indonesia in the 1960s,
the rebels opened offices in Dakar and The Hague in an effort to gain interna-
tional recognition.8 And lest these examples give the impression that rebel
diplomacy is a contemporary phenomenon, the Continental Congress dis-
patched representatives such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas
Jefferson across Europe to seek aid and recognition during critical phases in
the American Revolution.9 Likewise, during the American Civil War the
Confederacy dispatched "commissioners" to Paris and London to shore up ex-
ternal support.10
On the face of it, this flurry of rebel diplomatic activity across time and
conflicts may be unsurprising. Many rebel groups seek and receive foreign
support during civil war; dispatching representatives, opening offices abroad,
lobbying in foreign capitals, and creating foreign affairs departments would
seem logical steps toward gaining international sympathy At the same time,
the great lengths to which many rebel groups go to present a political face
to the world in the midst of a bloody conflict begs an explanation. The puzzle
here is twofold. First, studies of external intervention in civil wars show that
foreign governments provide support based on their own strategic calcula-
tions, little of which have to do with how diplomatically active a rebel group
has been. Why, then, would rebels shuttle around the world, when they could
be focusing on making military and political gains right at the front lines?11
And second, why do some rebel groups conduct active diplomacy in wartime
whereas others do not?
I define "rebel diplomacy" as a rebel group's conduct of foreign affairs dur

ing civil war for the purpose of advancing its military and political objec
tives. It should be understood as a rebel group's wartime political tact -
7. Denis M. Tuli, 'The Democratic Republic of Congo: Militarized Politics in a 'Failed State/" i
Morten Boas and Kevin C. Dunn, eds., African Guerrillas: Raging against the Machine (Boulde
Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2007), p. 120.
8. Kwasi Nyamekye and Ralph R. Premdas, "Papua New Guinea-Indonesian Relations over Iria
Jaya," Asian Survey, Vol. 19, No. 10 (October 1979), pp. 927-945, at p. 943; and Peter Savage and
Rose Martin, "The OPM in West Papua New Guinea: The Continuing Struggle against Indonesia
Colonialism," Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1977), pp. 338-346, at p. 338.
9. George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008).
10. William C. Davis, The Secret History of Confederate Diplomacy Abroad (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 2005).
11. On the difficulty and resource-intensity of transnational contention, see Victor Asal, Justin
Conrad, and Peter White, "Going Abroad: Transnational Solicitation and Contention by
Ethnopolitical Organizations," International Organization, Vol. 68, No. 4 (September 2014), pp. 945
978.
Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War | 91
"rebelcraft" - in the same way that diplomacy is a form of statecraft in interna-

tional relations. I limit the focus of this study to rebel diplomacy aimed at se-
curing political or material advantages for the rebels' armed struggle, leaving
aside diplomacy aimed at negotiating an end to the conflict. In focusing on re-
bels' overseas diplomatic engagements, this article offers an analysis of one
prominent way in which violent nonstate actors seek their standing in interna-
tional politics. I show that rebel diplomacy is a common feature of contempo-
rary civil wars. Because rebel organizations seek formal state power and
because states operate in an international system, the former are concerned
not only with local battlefield outcomes but also with the international poli-
tics of a civil war. Diplomacy represents one dimension of a broader effort by
rebel groups to attain visibility, credibility, and acceptance on the world stage.
Through it, rebel groups aim to signal to international audiences that they are
serious political contenders for state power, can adopt state-like behavior,
are amenable to peaceful talks, and champion causes that may have wider
international appeal.
Yet, not all rebel groups place equal value on diplomatic engagement. In
what is to my knowledge the first systematic cross-national analysis of rebel
diplomacy, I show that rebels for whom domestic and international political
support is particularly crucial for the attainment of their goals - secessionist
groups and groups concerned with domestic political organization - are more
likely to become wartime diplomats. Although one might expect militarily
weak or resource-poor rebels to resort to diplomacy, I find no evidence to
support this notion. This finding suggests that rebel diplomacy is not a
weapon of the weak, but a tactical choice for rebel groups seeking political
capital within an international system that places formidable barriers to entry
for nonstate entities.
The study of rebel diplomacy holds important implications for both scholar-
ship and policy. First, it provides insights into the broader interplay between
violent rebellion and international politics. While existing studies show that
internal conflicts often have significant international dimensions - as put into
stark relief by the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya -
most focus on the decision calculus of external states, especially when they
choose to intervene in civil wars and through what means.12 But states alone
12. Patrick M. Regan, "Conditions of Successful Third-Party Intervention in Intrastate Conflicts/'

Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 40, No. 2 (June 1996), pp. 336-359; Dylan Balch-Lindsay, Andrew
J. Enterline, and Kyle A. Joyce, "Third-Party Intervention and the Civil War Process/7 Journal of
Peace Research , Vol. 45, No. 3 (May 2008), pp. 345-363; David E. Cunningham, Kristián Skrede
Gleditsch, and Idean Salehyan, "It Takes Two: A Dyadic Analysis of Civil War Duration and Out-
come," Journal of Conflict Resolution , Vol. 53, No. 4 (August 2009), pp. 570-597; David E.
do not shape internal conflicts, and rebel groups are not mere passive recipi-
ents of assistance. In examining rebel diplomacy, this article takes squarely
into account the agency of rebel groups and their strategic calculations
about whether and how to engage with external politics. More broadly, the
study aims to establish the international relations of rebel groups as an impor-
tant research agenda. Rather than the outside looking in, the analysis here has
internal nonstate actors looking out at a state-centric world, trying to gauge
how to act.13
Second, the study of rebel diplomacy adds an international dimension to the
growing literature on rebel organization and governance, which shows that
rebel groups engage in a gamut of activities intended to cast themselves as po-
litical organizations that are capable of governing territories and populations,
creating order, and administering laws in the midst of armed conflict.14 This
literature has so far paid scant attention to rebels' international activism,
this aspect of warfare having been overshadowed by a dominant scholarly fo-
cus on rebels' domestic organization, local governance, and violent strategies.
This article shows that many rebel groups demonstrate as much concern for
overseas diplomatic campaigns as they do for domestic and local political or-
ganization. Just as through local governance rebels seek to secure popular sup-
port, so through diplomacy rebels seek external support that would help them
advance their cause on the global stage. Civil wars may be fought internally,
but any group fighting for state power must also navigate the international po-
litical system within which states operate.
Cunningham, "Blocking Resolution: How External States Can Prolong Civil Wars/' Journal of Peace
Research , Vol. 47, No. 2 (March 2010), pp. 115-127; Kristián Skrede Gleditsch, "Transnational Di-
mensions of Civil War," Journal of Peace Research , Vol. 44, No. 3 (May 2007), pp. 293-309; and Idean
Salehyan, Rebels without Borders: Transnational Insurgencies in World Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 2009). For an important exception, see Idean Salehyan, Kristián Skrede Gleditsch,
and David E. Cunningham, "Explaining External Support for Insurgent Groups," International Or-
ganization , Vol. 65, No. 4 (Fall 2011), pp. 709-744.
13. In this I am joined by several recent works that specifically examine rebel diplomacy, includ-
ing Bridget L. Coggins, "Rebel Diplomacy: Theorizing Violent Non-State Actors' Strategic Use of
Talk," in Ana Arjona, Nelson Kasfir, and Zachariah Mampilly, eds., Rebel Governance in Civil War
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 98-118; Morgan L. Kaplan, "Strategies of In-
surgent Diplomacy: Evidence from the Middle East and North Africa," University of Chicago,
2014; and Benjamin T. Jones and Eleonora Mattiacci, "A Manifesto, in 140 Characters or Fewer: So-
cial Media as a Tool of Rebel Diplomacy in the Libyan Civil War," paper presented at the Interna-
tional Studies Association annual conference, Toronto, Canada, 2014.
14. See, for instance, Sta this N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006); Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Abdulkader H. Sinno, Organizations at War: In Afghani-
stan and Beyond (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008); Zachariah Cherian Mampilly, Rebel
Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
2011); Paul Staniland, Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 2014); and Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Warlords, Strongman Governors , and the
State in Afghanistan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Third, the study of rebel diplomacy provides a more complete profile of vio-
lent and nonviolent instruments available to rebel groups. Recent studies have
examined a range of political tactics adopted by rebel groups as part of their
armed campaigns, including civilian governance, propaganda, alliance forma-
tion, and compliance with international law.15 Further, studies show that many
of these tactics are directly linked to their violent strategies. Likewise, the
study of rebel diplomacy is important on its own terms as a form of rebel en-
gagement with external actors, but it can also be extended to new analyses of
the ways in which rebels' international political interests might affect local-
level patterns of violence.
In terms of policy, if diplomacy is a tool used by rebel groups seeking do-
mestic and international support, then external states may be able to leverage
the offer of diplomatic engagement to influence the behavior of such groups.
Diplomacy is a form of communication, but states and international organiza-
tions can use the promise of diplomacy itself to shape rebel behavior, quite
apart from the content of that communication. Although diplomatic interac-
tion with rebel groups can be a politically sensitive issue for third-party states,
it is less politically costly than the offer of overt military or financial support. It
can be used to pressure rebel groups toward the lawful treatment of civilians
or to keep their behavior otherwise aligned with the strategic interest of the ex-
ternal patron. Furthermore, this study can shed light on which types of rebel
groups are likely to be more responsive to diplomatic overtures. Groups that
demonstrate concern for domestic popular mobilization and those that deem
international support indispensable to success are more likely to respond posi-
tively to offers of diplomatic engagement. In contrast, those that show few
such concerns may require external states to employ other instruments of
statecraft, such as sanctions or military support for the government fighting
against the group.
The next section uses a new dataset of rebel diplomacy and its qualitative
supplement to provide a descriptive account of the phenomenon in the
127 major civil wars that ended between 1950 and 2006. 1 then lay out a theory
of rebel diplomacy and identify testable hypotheses on why some rebel
groups conduct diplomacy and others do not. Using the dataset, I conduct sta-
tistical tests of the hypotheses while presenting accompanying examples
from a range of cases. For further descriptive and causal analysis, the ensu-
ing section examines rebel diplomacy of the National Union for the Total
15. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers ; Reyko Huang, The Wartime Origins of Democratization: Civil War , Rebel
Governance , and Political Regimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); Clifford
Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion : Insurgents, Media , and International Activism (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005); and Hyeran Jo, Compliant Rebels: Rebel Groups and International Law
in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
International Security 40ģ.4 | 94
Independence of Angola (UNITA) in the 1975-2002 Angolan civil war. Within

this case, I leverage variation in UNITA' s diplomacy over time, using both ar-
chival and secondary sources. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical
and practical implications of this work for understanding rebel behavior and
conflict dynamics.
Rebel Diplomacy since 1950
How common is rebel diplomacy in contemporary civil wars? To answer this

question and to enable both descriptive and causal analysis, I systematically
collected data on rebel diplomatic activities for the main rebel group in each of
the 127 major civil wars ending between 1950 and 2006.16 Actors engage in di-
plomacy in a variety of ways, as discussed below. The opera tionalization of re-
bel diplomacy in this study parallels states' practice of traditional (as opposed
to public or cultural) diplomacy as commonly understood. Specifically, for the
purpose of this study a rebel group conducts diplomacy when it engages in
any of the following acts during an armed conflict against the state: (1) opens a
political office abroad; (2) sends representatives abroad on political missions;
or (3) creates a political body devoted to the conduct of foreign affairs. This
operationalization identifies rebel groups that demonstrate their commitment
to, and investment in, managing foreign affairs; it helps to distinguish them
from groups that may engage in propaganda or strategic talk but which fall
short of these clear indications of intentional diplomatic engagement. To col-
lect the data, I conducted an extensive search of open sources for each civil
war, in addition to consulting with area experts for certain cases. To maximize
transparency and facilitate future research, a qualitative supplement to the
data documents all sources used to arrive at each coding decision, as well as
coding notes and direct excerpts of relevant texts.
There are limitations to the data. As is clear from other existing civil war
datasets, many conflicts have involved multiple rebel groups fighting against
the state.17 The dataset used here includes information only on the main rebel
16. For a full list of cases as well as values of the dependent and key independent variables used
below, see the online appendix. The list of civil wars is adapted from Michael W. Doyle and Nicho-
las Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 2006). Doyle and Sambanis use a relatively high threshold of deaths:
500-1,000 deaths in the first year, or at least 1,000 cumulative deaths in the first three years. For
wars they coded as ongoing in 1999, 1 consulted the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset v.4-2010
to determine the wars' end dates. See Doyle and Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace ; and
Nils Petter Gleditsch et al., " Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset/7 Journal of Peace Research ,
Vol. 39, No. 5 (September 2002), pp. 615-637.
17. See, for instance, the non-state actors data in Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan, "It Takes
Two/'
group in each conflict.18 Furthermore, the data impart no information about

variation in diplomacy over time within each rebel group. These limitations
stem from the difficulty of collecting data on rebel diplomacy, which necessar-
ily involves consulting multiple sources for indications of the relevant activity.
Even where basic facts are available, further details - such as the precise
mission of a foreign office, its dates of operation, the nature of its staffing or
funding, its mode and frequency of communication with the rebels' core lead-
ership, and whether the office had been extended a formal invitation by the
host state or instead operated in the shadows - tend to be paltry.
Several consequences follow from these limitations. First, the data may be
selecting on rebel group strength: it is those groups that rose to relative promi-
nence and managed to inflict greater casualties that are included in the dataset,
whereas many smaller rebel groups are omitted. This can bias analysis if group
strength is correlated with an independent variable, such as rebel groups with
a legal political body. Second, even for those rebel groups that are included in
the dataset, the scarcity of documentation on rebel diplomacy may have given
rise to false negatives.19 Again, bias can result if the false negatives systemati-
cally correlate with some feature of the conflict, such as its scale or amount of
media reporting. Third, because the data do not code variation in diplomacy
within conflicts over time, they are unable to assess whether certain wartime
covariates, such as rebels' battlefield losses, affect their diplomatic behavior.
Finally, the focus on the main rebel group in each war precludes an analysis of
whether competition among multiple rebel groups might affect diplomacy.
Despite these challenges, there is both sufficient documentation and suf-
ficient variation on rebel diplomacy among groups to lend confidence that the
variation is real, and not an artifact of data availability or coding biases.
The data limitations necessarily make this a study of diplomacy among major
rebel organizations. But even among this set, the discussion below shows that
some rebel groups engaged in diplomacy and others did not, and that among
those that did, rebels used diplomacy in varied and often inventive ways. The
puzzle motivating the study therefore stands, and the empirics offered here
can begin to provide answers. Where feasible I report ways some of the biases
noted above might have affected findings.
18. In most cases, the main group was easily identified (e.g., Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
Colombia [FARC]; UNITA in Angola; and Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda
[FLEC] in Angola). In less clear-cut cases (e.g., the Algerian civil war of 1992-2002), the main
group was identified by consulting secondary sources: in most of these wars, studies tend to con-
verge on identifying one or two groups as being the dominant actors. Coding notes are contained
in the supplementary material.
19. Note, however, that a coding of 0 could be based on reliable evidence that the group did not,
or could not, conduct diplomacy.
Turning to the data itself, I find that diplomacy has been a common form of
rebelcraft in the major civil wars ending between 1950 and 2006: 39 percent
of rebel groups engaged in diplomacy, as operationalized. The range of rebel
groups that used diplomacy is notably diverse. The Mozambican National
Resistance (RENAMO) reportedly maintained offices in Heidelberg, Lisbon,
Nairobi, and Washington.20 It further boasted an external relations department
and had a secretary for foreign affairs who resided in West Germany.21 The
Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD), active in Djibouti
in the early 1990s, sent its leaders abroad to meet with various heads of
state, in addition to operating an office in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.22 The
Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) had Herbert Chitepo, the chair-
man of its high command, take a series of trips across the socialist world, in-
cluding Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia, as well as to Australia, India, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, and Sweden.23 ZANU offices in London, New
York, and Stockholm were actively engaged in garnering supporters.24
The Maoists of Nepal, the Workers' Revolutionary Party of Argentina dur-
ing the "Dirty War," the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East
Timor (FRETILIN), the Fedeyeen of Jordan, and the Dhofari rebels of
Oman all had foreign affairs departments operating under various names 25
The purpose of the Nepalese Maoists' "International Department," for in-
stance, was to expand party organization by recruiting expatriates and estab-
20. Alex Vines, Renamo: Terrorism in Mozambique (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991),
p. 77.
21. David Hoile, Mozambique: A Nation in Crisis (London: Claridge, 1989), p. 85; and Carrie L.
Manning, The Politics of Peace in Mozambique: Post-Conflict Democratization , 1992-2000 (Westport,
Conn.: Praeger, 2002), p. 93.
22. Mohamed Kadamy, "Djibouti: Between War and Peace/7 Review of African Political Economy ,
Vol. 23, No. 70 (December 1996), pp. 511-521, quotation at p. 250; and Peter J. Schraeder, "Ethnic
Politics in Djibouti: From 'Eye of the Hurricane' to 'Boiling Cauldron/" African Affairs , April 1993,
pp. 203-221, at p. 214.
23. William Cyrus Reed, "International Politics and National Liberation: ZANU and the Politics of
Contested Sovereignty in Zimbabwe," African Studies Review, Vol. 36, No. 2 (September 1993),
pp. 31-59, at p. 42.
24. Fay Chung, Re-living the Second Chimurenga: Memories from the Liberation Struggle in Zimbabwe
(Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2006), pp. 103-104.
25. On the Maoists, see International Crisis Group, "Nepal's Maoists: Their Aims, Structure, and
Strategy" (Kathmandu: International Crisis Group, 2005), p. 8; and Sudheer Sharma, "The Maoist
Movement: An Evolutionary Perspective," in Michael Hütt, ed., Himalayan People's War: Nepal's
Maoist Rebellion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), p. 40. On the Workers' Revolution-
ary Party, see Paul H. Lewis, Guerrillas and Generals: The " Dirty War" in Argentina (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger, 2002), p. 45. On FRETILIN, see Geoffrey C. Gunn, Historical Dictionary of East Timor
(Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2011), p. 94; and John G. Taylor, East Timor: The Price of Freedom (New
York: Zed, 1999), p. 77. On the Fedeyeen, see Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organisa-
tion: People , Power, and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). On the Dhofaris,
see J.E. Peterson, Oman's Insurgencies: The Sultanate's Struggle for Supremacy (London: Saqi, 2007),
p. 350.
lishing international contacts, as well as fundraise, purchase weapons, and

arrange training.26
Qualitative evidence shows that rebel groups use a number of channels to
facilitate diplomatic engagement. One common tactic is to hire a public rela-
tions (PR) firm to stage-manage the group's appearances abroad. The Biafran
secessionist rebels in Nigeria had a Geneva-based PR firm called Mark Press,
and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) a Washington-based firm,
each working to further the respective rebel group's cause abroad.27 Another
common diplomatic tactic is to make use of a rebel group's diaspora popula-
tion to run foreign offices and lobby foreign legislatures, as did the Free Aceh
Movement (GAM) of Indonesia and the LTTE.28 A less common form of diplo-
macy is for a group to create its own international organization in an effort to
gain prominence and strengthen solidarity. The Sikhs of India did this in 1987
in forming the Council of Khalistan, which was to serve as the Sikh rebels' for-
eign policy organ.29
Explaining Rebel Diplomacy
Why do rebel groups conduct diplomacy? And why do some groups do so

whereas others do not? Given that rebel groups are usually at a resource dis-
advantage relative to states,30 it is possible that groups that are particularly
resource-poor or militarily weak relative to the state are more likely to conduct
diplomacy. I visit this hypothesis based on rebels' material needs below. But
given the particularities of the international system, I propose that there is an
important political logic to rebel diplomacy.
THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS OF REBELLION
Key to understanding rebel behavior beyond the battlefield

notion that the military contest is only one dimension of
26. International Crisis Group, "Nepal's Maoists/' p. 8.

27. Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography (Bloomington: Indiana
p. 146; Roy M. Melbourne, 'The American Response to the Nigerian Confli
nal of Opinion, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer 1973), pp. 33-42, at p. 34; and Bob, The
p. 26.
28. Edward Aspinall, Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia (Stanford, Calif.: Stan-
ford University Press, 2009), p. 105; and Neil DeVotta, Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional
Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 156.
29. Paul Wallace, "Political Violence and Terrorism in India: The Crisis of Identity," in Martha
Crenshaw, ed., Terrorism in Context (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995),
pp. 352-409, at p. 395.
30. David E. Cunningham, Kristián Skrede Gleditsch, and Idean Salehyan, "Non-State Actors in
Civil Wars: A New Dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. 30, No. 5 (November 2013),
pp. 516-531.
confrontations do not take place in a vacuum, but rather in specific domestic

and international political contexts, and these contexts have significant bearing
on war dynamics and outcomes. Rebel groups are political actors who seek the
status and power of states, whether by taking over the capital or founding a
new state of their own. As such, they wish to be taken seriously as political en-
tities that are worthy of formal status in international politics - they seek de
jure, not just de facto, state authority.31 Thus, as they fight militarily, rebel
groups face strong pressures to simultaneously fight a political contest over al-
lies, endorsement, and legitimacy both at home and abroad. The contest, fur-
thermore, is often a zero-sum game: an external state's offer of material aid
to the rebels is typically an act of open hostility against the incumbent regime;
a state's decision to confer formal recognition on the rebels is a decision to
delegitimize the incumbent government entirely
The stakes of this contest are high, as the attainment of international support
can confer on the rebel group a range of benefits. The most significant from an
international political and legal standpoint is the granting of formal recogni-
tion. Should a sufficient number of states, including, crucially, the great pow-
ers, grant a rebel group recognition, the group can obtain legal state status in
international politics and all its attendant benefits, such as representation
in world bodies and capitals, access to global markets, foreign aid, and official
bilateral relations.32 Although shy of achieving formal state status, Polisario, a
group fighting for the independence of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
from Morocco, has, through both violent and nonviolent means, secured diplo-
matic recognition from scores of states in Africa and beyond.33 Political sup-
port may also come in the form of the granting of membership in an
international body. The Organization of the Islamic Conference recognized the
Moro National Liberation Front of the Philippines as the "sole legitimate rep-
resentative of the Bangsamoro people" in the late 1970s and granted it ob-
server status in the body.34 Although the practical benefits of such offers may
be small, these acts of political recognition by international actors can have
major symbolic significance for nonstate entities - they indicate that the group
31. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers ; and Tanisha M. Fazal, "Secessionism and Civilian Targeting/' paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois,
August 29-September 1, 2013.
32. Bridget L. Coggins, Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century: The Dynamics of
Recognition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Tanisha M. Fazal and Ryan D.
Griffiths, "Membership Has Its Privileges: The Changing Benefits of Statehood/' International
Studies Review , Vol. 16, No. 1 (March 2014), pp. 79-106.
33. Suresh C. Saxena, The Liberation War in Western Sahara (New Delhi: Vidya, 1981), p. 85.
34. Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, Back to War in Mindanao: The Weaknesses ot a Power-Based Ap-
proach in Conflict Resolution," Philippine Political Science Journal , Vol. 21, No. 44 (2000), pp. 99-126.
is one step closer to formal acceptance into an international system that

heavily guards against entry by nonmembers. Political support may certainly
lead to the offer of material aid for the ongoing conflict, such as funding,
weapons, logistical assistance, training, intelligence, sanctuary, and troops. It
may also come in the form of expressions of sympathy without overt promises
of assistance. In international politics, the perception of political legitimacy -
the idea that a group is a viable political entity - can be consequential for rebel
groups' survival and success.35
All told, should a rebel group obtain preponderant international support
for its cause, it can overcome even severe limitations in its military capability
vis-à-vis the state and achieve its ultimate political objective. As it fought a
decades-long guerrilla war against the formidable Indonesian military, for in-
stance, the Timorese resistance successfully marshaled overwhelming interna-
tional support for secession and secured East Timor's independence in 2002 -
an unthinkable turn of events if civil war outcomes were determined through
military contests alone. Such a configuration of the international system helps
explain why the U.S. State Department's conferral of foreign mission status to
the Syrian National Coalition in 2014 was politically significant for the latter,
even if its practical benefits were rather slim: according to a Coalition rep-
resentative, it was a "clear sign" of legitimacy from the United States.36
Appealing to the political interest of potential external backers is therefore a
first-order concern for rebel groups seeking any combination of the bundle of
goods - formal recognition, money, weapons, international organization
membership, political sympathy, and so on - that can come with interna-
tional support.
For rebel groups, furthermore, the need to campaign for international
support can often surpass the need to attract domestic support. Domestically,
much of what a rebel group might seek in wartime, such as war taxes, terri-
tory, intelligence, or logistical aid from local populations, could be attained as
much through coercion as through persuasion - in fact, rebel groups usually
use a combination of the two.37 Popular legitimacy could facilitate the attain-
ment of these goods, but it is not a prerequisite because rebels could resort
to coercion and extortion.38 In contrast, in the state-centric international system
35. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers , p. 247; Fazal, "Secessionism and Civilian Targeting"; and Jo, Compliant
Rebels.
36. Karen De Young, "Syrian Opposition Coalition Offices in U.S. Given 'Foreign Mission' Status,"
Washington Post, Mav 4, 2014.
37. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, and Mampilly, Rebel Rulers.
38. Mancur Olson, "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Re-
view, Vol. 87, No. 3 (September 1993), pp. 567-576.
rebel groups lack the power to forcibly extract support from external states.39
Instead, they need to convince international players to come to their aid
through both words and actions. More than in domestic politics, then, in inter-
national politics rebel groups have incentives to watch what they do and say.
THE FUNCTIONS OF REBEL DIPLOMACY
Given the importance of seeking international support

helps rebel groups enhance their political appeal in severa
macy allows rebel groups to present a political face to the
munity. Through diplomacy, rebels can assure states that t
violent military organization, are politically organized an
ate, can mingle with policymakers and diplomats, and are
peaceful talks. Diplomacy, in this sense, is consistent w
rebelcraft, such as rebels operating their own radio station
flags and insignia, or, more recently, establishing an onlin
websites and social media such as Twitter.40
Diplomacy, however, is not mere show; it is also abo
groups can use diplomacy - and the crafted rhetoric that b
engagements - to persuade actual or potential foreign spo
espouses goals and interests that align with theirs and
group is in their best strategic interest. Diplomacy is a wa
municate, sincerely or otherwise, their intentions and pr
audience and thereby win its support. Thus, East Timor's
at the United Nations made concerted efforts to persuade
support first formal discussions of, then a move toward,
East Timor from Indonesia.41 Once political support has b
groups that seek material aid can use diplomatic platform
peals for specific wanted items, as the Syrian Coalition le
ing antiaircraft weapons as they made their rounds in W
groups are self-consciously strategic in how they "marke
tential supporters.43 Diplomacy is one way through wh
39. When they attempt to do so, by extorting money from states throug
for instance, they face further isolation and lose political credibility.
40. On rebel diplomacy using Twitter, see Jones and Mattiacci, "A Manif
Fewer/'
41. Awet lewelde Weldemichael, intra world Colonialism ana strategies of Liberation: tritrea ana
East Timor Compared (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 207-209.
42. byrian Opposition Leader ISIot (jiving Up on Appeal ror Anti- Aircraft Weapons, Al-Monitor,
May 9, 2014, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/syrian-opposition-anti-air-
congress.html#.
43. Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion.
Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War | 'oi
tempt to disseminate tailored messages, shape their international image, and

ultimately win credibility and support on the world stage.
Second, diplomacy is what states "do." As actors vying to control a state,
rebel groups wish to show that they, too, are capable of conducting an impor-
tant act - foreign affairs - that is typically understood to be the preserve of rec-
ognized states. Indeed, beyond diplomacy, a broader argument can be made
that support-seeking rebel groups will emulate all sorts of behavior associated
with "good citizenship" in the international system. For instance, in the realm
of international law rebel groups sometimes go out of their way to showcase
their compliance with international humanitarian law.44 In the realm of rheto-
ric, rebels often readily, and strategically, adopt the international jargon of the
day. The Dhofari rebels of Oman changed their group name from the Dhofar
Liberation Front to the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied
Arabian Gulf in 1968 to signal a closer alignment with the communist bloc;45
Acehnese rebel leaders, upon entering the peace process, "borrowed whole-
sale" the jargon of international development agencies and made commit-
ments to a cleaner government and transparency.46 In the realm of institutions,
rebels' wartime governance of civilians - reflected in the establishment of rebel
schools, hospitals, laws, and courts - can be seen both as an attempt to control
a population and attract its support and as an instance of deliberate mimicry of
the basic institutions associated with statehood. Likewise, externally, rebels
conduct diplomacy out of a calculated belief that aspiring states can reap
benefits by adopting state-like behavior.
Governments fighting against violent oppositions are often themselves con-
ducting extensive diplomacy in efforts to secure foreign allies. Rebel diplo-
macy is therefore often counter-diplomacy aimed at discrediting the state
against which the group is fighting, a political battle fought in the interna-
tional arena. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government of Joseph
Kabila as well as the Rally for Democracy rebels both "embarked on a race for
international support that clearly demonstrated the superseding of domestic
agendas by strategies of extraversion."47 When civil war broke out in Libya
following the Arab uprisings of early 2011, representatives of both Muammar
44. Fazal, "Secessionism and Civilian Targeting"; and Hyeran Jo and Catarina P. Thomson, "Legit-
imacy and Compliance with International Law: Access to Detainees in Civil Conflicts, 1991-2006,"
British Journal of Political Science , Vol. 44, No. 2 (April 2014), pp. 323-355.
45. Geraint Hughes, "A 'Model Campaign' Reappraised: The Counter-Insurgency War in Dhofar,
Oman, 1965-19 75," Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2 (April 2009), pp. 271-305, at pp. 279-
280.
46. Aspinall, Islam and Nation , p. 239.
47. Denis M. Tuli, The Reconfiguration of Political Order in Africa: A Case Study of North Kivu (Ham-
burg: Institut für Afrika-Kunde, 2005), p. 123.
al-Qaddafi's government and the opposition Transitional National Council

shuttled around Europe with the aim of securing or keeping external support.
The intensity and significance of this political contest magnified once France,
and then a host of other states, began to recognize the Council as Libya's legiti-
mate government.48
Third, diplomacy helps support-seeking rebels by enabling them to boost
their image domestically. Even if the primary targets of diplomacy are the
rebels' actual or potential foreign patrons, rebels' international diplomatic ac-
tivism can have feedback effects domestically. Rebel diplomacy can attract
headlines. It imparts the message that the group is politically active not only at
home but also internationally, that it can secure tête-à-têtes and photo-ops with
foreign heads of state and maintain overseas branch offices, and, crucially, that
the group is not fighting alone but has the backing of foreign allies. Because re-
bel groups must fight against the state for popular loyalty and support and
prevent defections, these overseas feats should serve them domestically as
well. Dennis Tuli goes as far as to posit, in the Congolese setting, that outreach
to external states is "nowadays a distinct precondition to acquire and maintain
domestic constituencies."49 Domestic legitimacy, in turn, can have its own
feedback effect on rebels' international politics, enhancing their image abroad
as a group that enjoys local support.
EXPLAINING VARIATION IN REBELS' DIPLOMATIC ACTIVISM
Given that international support can confer a range of political and material
benefits on rebel groups and that diplomacy is one means of seeking it, what
explains why some rebel groups become active diplomats in wartime and oth-
ers do not? There is significant evidence to suggest that rebel groups place dif-
ferent value on the pursuit of international support.50 Following the political
logic of diplomacy, one would thus expect those groups with greater concern
for winning the political contest for international support and its attendant
benefits to be more likely to conduct diplomacy. This expectation leads to four
testable hypotheses.
First, a number of recent works show that a particular type of rebels -
48. Liz Sly and Karen De Young, "Libyan Rebels Get Diplomatic, Military Boost/' Washington Post,
April 4, 2011.
49. Tuli, The Reconfiguration of Political Order in Africa , p. 286.
50. Bridget L. Coggins, "Friends in High Places: International Politics and the Emergence of States
from Secessionism," International Organization, Vol. 65, No. 3 (July 2011), pp. 433-467; Coggins,
Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century, Fazal, "Secessionism and Civilian Tar-
geting"; Trace Lasley and Clayton Thyne, "Secession, Legitimacy, and the Use of Child Soldiers,"
Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. 32, No. 3 (July 2014), pp. 289-308; and Jo, Compliant
Rebels.
secessionists - have the greatest incentive to pursue the most extensive and
politically significant type of status to which a nonstate actor could aspire: for-
mal recognition.51 For secessionist groups, international legitimacy, granted
through de jure recognition of the rebels by the great powers, is a sine qua non
for success; without formal recognition, these rebels will be unable to achieve
the ultimate goal of statehood.52 Studies show that these groups attempt to
boost the perception of legitimacy among powerful states through strategic
battlefield choices: secessionists are less likely to use violence against civilians,
less likely to use child soldiers, and more likely to allow the International
Committee of the Red Cross access to detainees.53 Beyond their military tactics,
I hypothesize that secessionists are also more likely to engage in overseas ac-
tivism in the form of diplomacy. Nonsecessionists may certainly seek interna-
tional recognition when recognition itself is contested, as illustrated by the
Syrian and Libyan examples above and the case study of Angola's UNITA, be-
low. But across the universe of cases, one should expect secessionists to have
stronger incentives to bring their cause to the international stage, for the sim-
ple reason that independent statehood is unobtainable without explicit en-
dorsement by the great powers and a great number of other states. By allowing
rebel groups to exhibit state-like behavior, present a political face, network
with powerful leaders, and make the case for their cause, diplomacy can serve
as a critical tool in the politics of secessionism. Thus in Sri Lanka, the LTTE,
fighting for an independent Tamil nation, engaged extensively in wartime di-
plomacy to seek overseas support while the Janathā Vimukthi Peramuņa
(JPV), violently fighting for formal participation in national politics during
much of the same period, did not, choosing instead to focus on urban insurrec-
tions supported by unemployed youth.54 If the international system is a social
place, with explicit and implicit codes of "acceptable" behavior,55 secessionist
rebels should be particularly keen to use diplomacy to publicize internation-
ally that they have the competence to assume statehood and are hence worthy
of membership in the exclusive club of recognized states.
HI: As groups seeking formal international recognition , secessionist rebel groups are
more likely to engage in diplomacy than are nonsecessionist groups.
51. Ibid.
52. Fazal, "Secessionism and Civilian Targeting"; and Coggins, Power Politics and State Formatio
in the Twentieth Century.
53. Fazal, "Secessionism and Civilian Targeting"; Lasley and Thyne, "Secession, Legitimacy, an
the Use of Child Soldiers"; and Jo, Compliant Rebels.
54. Mick Moore, "Thoroughly Modern Revolutionaries: The JVP in Sri Lanka," Modern Asian
Studies, Vol. TI, No. 3 (July 1993), pp. 593-642.
55. Coggins, "Friends in High Places."
International Security 40'ś4 | 104
Second, rebel groups that demonstrate concern for domestic political organi-
zation may be more likely to engage in diplomacy This hypothesis rests on a
two-sided logic. On the one hand, seeking external support often requires re-
bel groups to demonstrate their domestic political competence. Studies show
that rebels often undertake measures, such as compliance with international
humanitarian law, not as part of a coherent military strategy but to please ex-
ternal audiences.56 One the other hand, rebel groups seeking domestic support
often do so not only by demonstrating that they can bring political order and
govern populations locally, but also by taking their political missions abroad in
efforts to signal to local constituents that the group has acquired external
states' support. This appears to have been the strategy of ZANU. The group
built up a sophisticated political organization and governance structure locally
while conducting extensive overseas diplomacy, realizing that it needed to se-
cure both empirical sovereignty at home and juridical sovereignty abroad and
that the two fronts worked in tandem.57 When the humanitarian wing of the
Eritrean People's Liberation Front distributed relief supplies to people within
their territories, the rebel group made sure to broadcast to beneficiaries
that these supplies came from Western donors: doing so could provide the
people a "psychological boost" from knowing that their fight for Eritrean inde-
pendence had international attention while also giving the rebel group itself a
boost of political legitimacy.58 Domestic political organization and diplomatic
activism can thus comprise a two-pronged strategy of violent rebellion, with
mutually reinforcing feedback effects between the two realms. In contrast, the
Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, a group characterized by the lack
of concrete programs of social change and efforts to win popular support,
demonstrated no interest in wartime diplomacy Its predominant tactic, in-
stead, was terror campaigns against local civilians.59
H2 : Rebel groups that engage in domestic political organization are more likely to en-
gage in diplomacy.
56. Fazal, "Secessionism and Civilian Targeting"; Jo, Compliant Rebels ; and Reed, "International
Politics and National Liberation."
57. Reed, "International Politics and National Liberation/7 On empirical and juridical sovereign
see Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rösberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical
the Juridical in Statehood/' World Politics , Vol. 35, No. 1 (October 1982), pp. 1-24.
58. Mark Duffield and John Prendergast, Without Troops and Tanks: The Emergency Relief Desk a
the Cross Border Operation into Eritrea and Tigray (Lawrenceville, N.J.: Red Sea, 1994), p. 28.
59. Ibrahim Abdullah, Bush Path to Destruction: I he Origin and Character or the Revolutiona
United Front/Sierra Leone/' Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (June 1998), pp.
235, at pp. 223, 224.
Third, rebel groups fighting against more repressive governments may have
greater incentive to use diplomacy to gain international support, for at least
two reasons. First, they may turn to diplomacy because successful domestic
political mobilization is difficult, given multiple constraints in highly auto-
cratic settings. In the conflict in the South Moluccas in Indonesia in the 1950s,
rebel leaders believed that international diplomacy would be more effective
than negotiations with the central government.60 Likewise, early in the
Acehnese conflict, leaders of the Free Aceh Movement saw "internationaliza-
tion ... as the only way to level the playing field with Indonesia."61 Where do-
mestic obstacles to successful rebellion are paramount, actors may turn
overseas. Second, rebels in these states may be more inclined to use diplomacy
to delegitimize the incumbent regime. Genuine or not, the rhetoric of violent
rebellion has been replete with references to peace, liberation, democracy, free-
dom, and elections; as mentioned, rebel groups' diplomatic messages often di-
rectly serve as rhetorical weapons against the incumbent regime. Diplomacy
can thus become a tool in an international delegitimization campaign against
the home government, and the impetus for such campaigns is likely to be
greater in authoritarian contexts.
H3: Rebel groups fighting against more authoritarian regimes are more likely to en-
gage in diplomacy.
Finally, apart from the political logic laid out above, there may be a straight-
forward material logic to rebel diplomacy. If one motivation for rebels to prove
their worth internationally is to secure military or financial support from pa-
trons, then rebel groups with greater need for material aid should be more
likely to engage in diplomacy. It is possible that for such rebels, diplomacy is
mere "cheap talk" - that is, a way to simply achieve the ultimate goal of mate-
rial support. The need for external resources may be most acute for those
groups whose military capability vis-à-vis the state is particularly weak. If
prospects on the battlefield are bleak, rebel groups should be especially keen to
turn to external patrons for warfighting resources. Diplomacy, in this sense,
may be a favored weapon of the weak. Militarily strong rebels, in contrast,
60. Richard Chauvel, Nationalists, Soldiers, and Separatists: The Ambonese Islands from Colonialism to
Revolt , 1880-1950 (Leiden, Netherlands: KITLV, 1990), pp. 376-378.
61. Kirsten E. Schulze, "Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency: Strategy and the Aceh Conflict,
October 1976-May 2004/' in Anthony Reid, ed., Verandah of Violence: The Background to the Aceh
Problem (Singpapore; Seattle: Singapore University Press / University of Washington Press, 2006),
pp. 225-271, at pp. 236-237.
should be able to garner external support without having to appeal for it, be-
cause states are more willing to sponsor such rebels to begin with.62
H4 : Rebel groups that are weaker relative to the state are more likely to engage
in diplomacy.
The Role of External Supporters
The theoretical discussion above focuses almost entirely on rebel incentives.

Diplomacy, however, involves interaction between at least two parties. Al-
though rebel groups may create ministries of foreign affairs at will, opening
consular offices and making high-level visits to foreign capitals would seem to
require that the host states abroad first extend their hands to the rebels. Yet,
there are empirical and theoretical reasons why an explanation for rebel diplo-
macy can stand without explicitly incorporating the incentives of foreign host
states. First, empirically, rebel diplomacy can and does occur without formal
invitations from abroad. When rebel leaders meet with foreign heads of state
and make headlines, what is being observed is typically the culmination of
years of diplomatic groundwork in which rebel leaders tour abroad to expand
their often very personal network of sympathizers. In the Acehnese conflict,
for example, GAM rebel leader Hasan di Tiro sought over several decades to
foster international support for Acehnese independence, starting with his
American contacts from his graduate school days.63 After years of feeble sup-
port, a breakthrough came around 1985 when di Tiro met the Libyan ambassa-
dor to Sweden, an old acquaintance from his time in business. The ambassador
quickly arranged for di Tiro to visit Libya, where he secured Muammar
al-Qaddafi's agreement to train the Acehnese fighters.64 In other words, diplo-
macy had been from the outset a core part of GAM's strategy of rebellion, long
before heads of state, embassies, the United Nations, and other international
actors began to make "official" contacts with the group. Likewise, in the
Namibian conflict members of the South West Africa People's Organization
(SWAPO) were positioned in the United States, various parts of Europe and
Africa, and the United Nations, and "were able to establish, most often from
scratch, effective networks of contacts and support in the countries in which
they worked."65 Rebel representatives were thus conducting diplomacy long
62. Salehyan, Gleditsch, and Cunningham, "Explaining External Support for Insurgent Groups/'
63. Aspinall, Islam and Nation.
64. Ibid.
65. Colin Leys and John S. Saul, Namibia's Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword (Lond
ens: J. Curry / Ohio University Press, 1995), p. 41.
before external states reciprocally showed interest in formally supporting

the group.
The overseas posting of rebel representatives aside, what of the opening of
rebel offices abroad? Surprisingly, this, too, often occurs through "unofficial"
channels - that is, without formal invitations - as the Angolan case study be-
low discusses in depth. Certainly, rebel "consular" offices may at times enjoy
official status as such in friendly states, as with the Syrian National Coalition
offices not only in Washington and New York but also in Ankara, Berlin,
London, Paris, and elsewhere.66 More often than not, however, and especially
in Western democracies, rebel offices easily register as quasi-think tanks,
lobbying groups, youth organizations, and cultural centers, thus bypassing
any need for formal invitations from host states.
Theoretically, thinking about rebel diplomacy as an interplay between
rebels' and host states' political incentives in fact confounds the research ques-
tion, turning it into one about effectiveness. When rebel diplomacy is success-
ful, external states respond by extending the rebel group invitations to open
embassies and meet with heads of state, granting recognition to the group, and
so on. This study, however, is about why rebels conduct diplomacy, not about
the effectiveness of their efforts. Just as diplomatic success can motivate fur-
ther diplomacy, so might diplomatic failures. Examining the behavior of exter-
nal states vis-à-vis rebel diplomats is therefore interesting, but neither reveals
the full extent of rebel groups' diplomatic activism nor is theoretically neces-
sary for explaining why some groups conduct diplomacy and others do not.
When strategically meaningful, rebel groups will attempt diplomacy regard-
less of whether a formal invitation has been extended by external states.
Data and Research Design
Having provided a range of examples and some initial evidence of the causal
arguments, in this section I use statistical analysis based on cross-national data
to conduct a systematic test of the hypotheses. Above, I described the depend-
ent variable, rebel diplomacy, a dichotomous variable that has been coded
for each of the 127 major civil wars ending between 1950 and 2006. The inde-
pendent and control variables are summarized in table 1 and described below.
To test Hl, I use a dichotomous variable for "secessionist rebels," which dis-
tinguishes rebel groups that sought territorial autonomy or independence
from those that aimed to take over the central government. Thirty-five percent
66. See Coalition website, http://en.etilaf.org/.
Table 1. Summary Statistics of Independent and Control Variables
Standard
Variable Mean Deviation Minimum Maximum Sources
Secessionist 0.35 0.48 0 1 Fearon & Laitin 2003,

rebels extended by Fortna &
Huang 2012
Schools 0.30 0.46 0 1 Huang, forthcoming
Legal political 0.20 0.40 0 1 NSA dataset
wing (Cunningham, Gleditsch,
& Salehyan 20
Prewar Polity -3.18 5.29 -10 10 Polity IV (Marshall &
score Jaggers 2005)
Mobilization 0.65 0.48 0 1 NSA dataset
capacity
Contraband 0.15 0.36 0 1 Fortna 2008
External 0.61 0.49 0 1 NSA Dataset

support
Cold War 0.68 0.47 0 1 Doyle & Sambanis 2006,

conflict UCDP/PRIO Armed
Conflict Dataset v. 4
(Gleditsch et al. 2002)
War duration 3.69 1.45 0 6.17 Doyle & Sambanis 2006,

(In) UCDP/PRIO Armed
Conflict Dataset v. 4
Marxist rebels 0.24 0.42 0 1 Kalyvas & Balcells 2011
SOURCES: James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,"
American Political Science Review ; Vol. 97, No. 1 (February 2003), pp. 75-90; Virginia Page
Fortna and Reyko Huang, "Democratization after Civil War: A Brush-Clearing Exercise,"
International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 4 (December 2012), pp. 801-808; Reyko
Huang, The Wartime Origins of Postwar Democratization: Civil War, Rebel Governance ,
and Political Regimes (Cambridge, : Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); David E.
Cunningham, Kristián Skrede Gleditsch, and Idean Salehyan, "Non-State Actors in Civil
Wars: A New Dataset," Conflict Management and Peace Science , Vol. 30, No. 5 (Novem-
ber 2013), pp. 516-531; Monty G. Marshall and Keith Jaggers, Polity IV Project: Political
Regime Characteristics and Transitions , 1800-2004 (Arlington, Va.: Center for Global
Policy, George Mason University, 2005); Virginia Page Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?
Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
2008); Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace: United
Nations Peace Operations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006); Nils Petter
Gleditsch et al., "Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset," Journal of Peace Research,
Vol. 39, No. 5 (September 2002), pp. 615-637; and Stathis N. Kalyvas and Laia Balcells,
"International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War
Shaped Internal Conflict," American Political Science Review, Vol. 104, No. 3 (August
2010), pp. 415-429.
NOTE: NSA stands for the Non-State Actors in Armed Conflict Dataset, and UCDP/PRIO
stands for Uppsala Conflict Data Program/Peace Research Institute Oslo.
of rebel groups in the dataset had separatist aims, whereas 65 percent aimed
for regime overthrow. I use two alternative measures of rebel groups con-
cerned with domestic political organization and support (H2) to ensure results
are not variable-specific. The first is a dichotomous variable for whether or not
a rebel group established its own schools in the midst of conflict. The variable
is taken from the Rebel Governance Dataset, which contains data on rebel
groups' wartime governance of civilians and funding sources for the major
post-1950 civil wars.67 Studies show that rebel groups provide social services
such as education to demonstrate their commitment to civilians, secure their
consent, and achieve a degree of popular legitimacy.68 According to the data,
30 percent of rebel groups - including the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front
of Ethiopia, the Pathet Lao of Laos, and Polisario of Western Sahara - opened
and operated their own schools during conflict. The second measure for
domestic political organization is a dichotomous variable for rebel groups with
a legal political wing (20 percent of the cases), taken from the Non-State Actors
in Armed Conflict Dataset (NSA).69 Having a political body that has been
granted legal status in the state should be a strong indicator of rebel groups
seeking domestic organization and even participation in formal politics.
To measure the degree of autocracy of the regime in power in the conflict
state (H3), I take the average of the state's Polity IV scores from the three years
prior to the start of the war. For rebels' relative capability vis-à-vis the govern-
ment (H4), I use a measure for the rebel group's ability to mobilize popular
support relative to the government. The variable is coded 1 if mobilization ca-
pacity is coded "moderate" or "high" in the NSA, and 0 if coded "low."70 As
the authors of the NSA data point out, rebel groups that can mobilize greater
numbers of personnel should pose greater military threats to governments.71
To ensure results are not dependent on this particular measure, in alternative
models I also include two variables that jointly measure rebels' financing capa-
bility, which is arguably a significant dimension of rebels' overall capacity to
67. Huang, The Wartime Origins of Democratization.

68. Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley, 'The Rise (and Sometimes Fall) of Guerrilla Governments in
Latin America," Sociological Forum , Vol. 2, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 473-499; Weinstein, Inside Re-
bellion; and Mampilly, Rebel Rulers.
69. Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan, "Non-State Actors in Civil Wars/'
70. The NSA dataset contains a composite indicator for rebels' relative capability. Sixteen cases in
my dataset, however, do not appear in the NSA dataset, and using the measure would thus lead to
the exclusion of those cases from analysis. I therefore use one of the component measures of rela-
tive capability - rebels' mobilization capacity - and code the 16 missing cases with my own re-
search on whether or not the rebels mobilized civilians (see coding notes for details). The other
component measures - rebels' fighting capacity and ability to procure arms - would have been
more difficult to code for the 16 cases, given ambiguity as to how these are defined and
operationalized in the NSA data. Note also that the regression results reported in table 2, models 1
and 2 are robust to the exclusion of those 16 cases.
71. Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan, "Non-State Actors in Civil Wars," p. 522.
fight. These are rebels' dependence on contraband and rebels' receipt of for-
eign material support.72 Rebel groups with revenue from the illicit extraction
or sale of drugs, minerals, and other resources or from external sponsors
should have greater capacity to fight compared to those without these sources
of war-financing.73 Inclusion of the foreign support variable also addresses the
concern that diplomacy may be contingent on the rebels already having re-
ceived some external support, as well as the possibility that some of the other in-
dependent variables, such as rebel schools, may be endogenous to rebel groups'
overall capability.
The regression models include several control variables. A variable for
"Cold War conflict" marks wars that began before 1989. The two superpowers'
engagement in proxy wars during the Cold War decades meant that extensive
material aid flowed to various states and rebel groups in accordance with their
ideological leanings. Wartime statecraft and rebelcraft may have been less con-
sequential at this time, given that the superpowers proved willing to dole out
aid so long as their recipients were ideological allies. After the Cold War
ended, the granting of both resources and legitimacy by external states may
have become much more conditional on rebels (and states) exhibiting behav-
ior deemed appropriate by the foreign sponsor. It is thus possible that diplo-
macy, as a means through which states and rebels broadcast their missions
and obtain external support, has become a more critical tool in the post-Cold
War period.
I also control for the "duration of the war," counted in months and logged,
as longer wars provide more time and opportunities for rebels to conduct di-
plomacy.74 Finally, in some of the models I control for "Marxist rebel groups"
to test an alternative argument based on rebel ideology. Marxist rebel groups
typically claim to be fighting a "people's war" and place importance on
garnering popular support. These organizations also tend to have a clear hier-
archical structure and a strong leadership. They often create "people's gov-
ernments" and provide social services while emphasizing domestic and
international propaganda work. Thus, it is plausible that rebels' Marxist ideol-
ogy is an omitted variable driving support-seeking motives both domestically
and internationally.
72. Data on contraband are from Virginia Page Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerent
Choices after Civil War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008). Data on rebel receipt of
foreign material support are from the NSA dataset. For each variable, I supplemented the data
with my own research and coding to fill in the missing observations. See coding notes for all
documentation.
73. Jennifer M. Hazen, What Rebels Want: Resources and Supply Networks in Wartime (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 2013).
74. Diplomacy might also be correlated with longer wars if it leads to greater external interven-
tion. See Cunningham, "Blocking Resolution/' pp. 115-127.
Table 2. Determinants of Rebel Diplomacy, 1950-2006
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Alternative
Measure of
Controlling for Controlling Domestic
Base Model Ideology for Finances Legitimacy
Secessionist 0.99** 1.05** 1.05** 0.95*
(0.489) (0.507) (0.529) (0.539)
Schools 1.29*** 1.22** 1.20**
(0.479) (0.487) (0.482)
Legal political wing 1.00*

(0.542)
Prewar Polity -0.07* -0.07* -0.06 -0.05

(0.040) (0.040) (0.044) (0.043)
Mobilization capacity -0.54 -0.54 -0.50 -0.40

(0.464) (0.465) (0.477) (0.482)
Cold War -0.08 -0.16 -0.11 -0.03
(0.405) (0.401) (0.417) (0.395)
War duration (In) 0.35** 0.32** 0.28* 0.44***
(0.139) (0.160) (0.161) (0.154)
Marxist 0.35 0.39 0.82
(0.583) (0.568) (0.567)
Contraband 0.32 0.35
(0.871) (0.830)
External support 0.13 0.14

(0.516) (0.485)
Constant -2.41*** -2.31*** -2.35*** -2.91***
(0.667) (0.710) (0.728) (0.797)
Observations 126 126 126 126
NOTE: Robust standard errors a
Empirical Results
Table 2 presents the results

diplomacy. Cases are cluste
the same state may not b
base model; variations are introduced in models 2-5.
The results provide consistent evidence that rebel groups that seek political
support, whether internationally or domestically, are more likely to conduct
diplomacy. Both the secessionist variable (HI) and that for rebel schools (H2)
are consistently positive and statistically significant. Further analysis of sub-
stantive effects shows that a switch from a nonsecessionist to a secessionist

group increases the likelihood of diplomacy by 19 percent,75 and that rebel
groups that build schools are 26 percent more likely to engage in diplomacy
than those that do not.76 The alternative indicator of rebels' domestic political
organization, rebels with a legal political wing, is also statistically significant,
as shown in model 4; such groups are 20 percent more likely to conduct diplo-
macy than those without.77 These findings lend support to the argument that
diplomacy is a wartime tactic used by those rebel groups for whom acquiring
support and endorsement, be it among local populations or among external
states, is deemed critical to the attainment of their political goals.
H3 on repressive regimes finds only weak and inconsistent support in the
data. The negative correlation indicates that rebel groups operating in more
authoritarian states are more likely to conduct diplomacy than those operating
in less authoritarian contexts, but the variable is statistically significant in only
some of the models.78 This finding suggests that irrespective of the nature of
grievances or level of domestic repression, rebels that seek to attract internal
and external support are more likely to use diplomacy to do so.
Surprisingly, rebel groups' relative fighting capacity, measured by their
ability to mobilize fighters relative to the government, has no bearing on their
diplomatic engagements (H4). The coefficients are consistently negative, sug-
gesting that weaker rebels are more likely to conduct diplomacy, as hypothe-
sized, but the variable is not statistically significant. Models 3 and 4 include
the two measures of rebels' financing capability (rebels' access to contraband
and to foreign material aid for the war), which are meant to capture another
dimension of rebel groups' fighting strength. Again, I find no correlation be-
tween rebels' financing capability and their engagement in diplomacy, and in-
clusion of the financing variables does not affect other substantive results.79
75. The 90 percent confidence interval is at 3 to 36 percent. The analysis was conducted using
Clarify and is based on table 2, model 1. Discrete variables were set at their median and continu-
ous variables at their mean, with K = 1000 simulations. The same setting applies to subsequent
analyses of substantive effects. See Gary King, Michael Tomz, and Jason Wittenberg, "Making the
Most of Statistical Analysis: Improving Interpretation and Presentation," American Journal of Politi-
cal Science , Vol. 44, No. 2 (April 2000), pp. 347-361.
76. Ninety percent confidence interval at 10 to 42 percent.
77. Ninety percent confidence interval at 1 to 40 percent. The joint inclusion of the rebel schools
and legal political wings variables yields the same substantive results, with both variables statisti-
cally significant.
78. The substantive effect is also fairly small: going from the 90th to the 10th percentile or the pre-
war Polity measure (i.e., going from a highly democratic state to a highly autocratic one) increases
the likelihood of rebel diplomacy by only 13 percent; this is statistically significant at the 90 per-
cent level.
79. The results remain the same when the mobilization capacity variable and the two financing ca-
pability variables are separately included in the model.
Simply put, the idea that diplomacy is a weapon of the weak finds no support
in the data.80 One explanation is that there is a mutually reinforcing relation-
ship between resource needs and diplomatic activism. Weak rebel groups with
acute needs for external support may be more likely to conduct diplomacy, but
once they receive aid, they may then be compelled to continue diplomatic en-
gagements to maintain the strategic partnership. If this were the case, H4
would be supported in the early stages of a war, but in later stages resource
needs would not correlate neatly with diplomacy as both the cash-strapped
and the cash-endowed engage in diplomacy, though for different reasons.
Longitudinal analysis would be needed to test the validity of this claim, but
the case of UNITA below provides initial evidence consistent with this logic.
As for the control variables, the argument that rebels became more diplo-
matically active with the end of the superpower rivalry is not supported by the
data. Indeed, when models 1 and 2 are run for the Cold War cases only
(N=86), substantive results remain unchanged (not shown) - even during
those decades rebels concerned with domestic and international political sup-
port were more likely to be diplomats. Again, the case of UNITA below, one of
the most prominent proxy wars of the Cold War period, demonstrates the re-
bels' heavy investment in diplomacy despite the backing of a powerful ally in
the form of the United States.
Models 2-5, which control for Marxist rebels, provide further evidence to
support HI and H2 while offering no support for the Marxist ideology argu-
ment. The control variable is not statistically significant, and the measures for
secessionists and rebel schools remain significantly associated with diplomacy
Finally, as expected I find that rebel groups are more likely to engage in diplo-
macy in longer-lasting wars.81
In sum, quantitative analysis provides evidence that rebel diplomacy is
driven by a political logic: groups that seek international support and its atten-
dant benefits, such as recognition, legitimacy, material aid, and local support,
are more likely to engage in diplomacy. Secessionist rebels, for whom inter-
national recognition is essential to success, as well as those that seek to orga-
nize political authority locally, are more likely to engage in diplomacy than are
groups that are more narrowly focused on military gains or those with little
80. One potential bias arising from using a set of civil wars that excludes smaller conflicts, as I do
here, is that because the dataset may be selecting on rebel strength, the effect of rebel capacity may
be underestimated. There is, however, wide variation in rebel capacity within mv set of cases.
81. In a further analysis, I used receiver operator characteristics curves to assess the relative im-
portance of the variables in terms of their in-sample predictive value. This analysis showed that al-
though all of the included variables help explain rebel diplomacy, measures for rebel schools and
secessionists carry the greatest explanatory weight. Full results are available from the author.
International Security 40'ś4 | 114
concern for domestic organization. At the same time, diplomacy is neither a

weapon of the weak nor a weapon of the heavily repressed. Regardless of their
fighting capability or the nature of the state's regime, rebels are more likely to
conduct wartime diplomacy if they deem political support from abroad to be
especially vital to their broader campaign against the state.
UNITA's Diplomacy in the Angolan Civil War
To complement the statistical tests of the hypotheses on the determinants of

rebel diplomacy, this section engages in an in-depth study of one case, the
Angolan civil war of 1975-2002. The Angolan war is well suited to both de-
scriptive and causal analysis. First, although UNITA's diplomatic activism is
unexceptional in that the rebel group is just one among many that engaged ex-
tensively in the rebelcraft, the group left a significant paper trail throughout
the war. I am therefore able to use multiple sources, including scholarly stud-
ies, news articles, and archival material, to trace its diplomatic activities and
conduct a descriptive analysis of an understudied phenomenon.
Second, and more important for hypothesis testing, the break in the civil war
created by the peace process in 1991-92 offers two distinct cases within one
long-lasting civil war. The two cases generate variation on the dependent vari-
able: in the first phase of the war UNITA engaged in extensive diplomacy,
whereas in the second phase, starting in 1992, diplomacy notably declined. I
leverage this variation to conduct a causal analysis of the rebel group's use of
diplomacy across time within a single conflict.82 Should my theoretical expec-
tations hold, the positive case of major diplomatic activity should be associ-
ated with significant concerns on the part of UNITA to earn formal and
informal recognition as a viable political entity both domestically and interna-
tionally; the negative case of diplomatic inactivity should correlate with an ab-
sence of such concerns and, consequently, with behavior that would suggest
UNITA's disregard for external and internal support.
Note that although UNITA was not aiming for secession, its pursuit of
international recognition closely resembled that of secessionist groups, for
an important reason: its most powerful and valued foreign sponsor, the
United States, had withheld recognition of the incumbent regime, the People's
Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), as the legitimate government
of Angola. As far as UNITA was concerned, formal international recognition it-
self could be won through victory in the civil war. This political situation al-
82. On this method, see John Gerring, "What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?" American
Political Science Review, Vol. 98, No. 2 (May 2004), pp. 341-354.
lows for a test of the logic behind HI, namely, that groups seeking de jure
international recognition are more likely to engage in diplomacy. The case
study thus offers both an in-depth descriptive account of one group's engage-
ment in a particular rebelcraft, as well as a causal analysis that exploits vari-
ation in the use of that rebelcraft across time.
THE FIRST WAR: UNITA'S EXTENSIVE DIPLOMACY
The Angolan civil war began on the heels of independence from Portugal in
1975.83 It pit the MPLA government, which had seized control of Angola's cap-
ital, Luanda, in August that year, against UNITA, which sought to wrest con-
trol of the capital from it, in what became one of the most internationalized,
bloodiest, and longest-running conflicts of the Cold War. The Marxist-Leninist
MPLA government received significant political, military, and financial sup-
port from the Soviet Union and Cuba throughout the 1980s, while UNITA, de-
claring itself to be an anticommunist group, received substantial backing first
from South Africa, then the United States.84
From the outset, UNITA adopted a strategy of internationalization to coun-
ter Soviet and Cuban support for the MPLA. Its diplomatic tactics were wide
and varied. First, from early in the conflict the group stationed "ambassadors"
in various Western capitals.85 Second, its leaders secured diplomatic pass-
ports from its friends in Africa, including Zaire, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, and
Congo-Brazzaville.86 Third, the group opened numerous overseas offices: in
addition to offices in Dakar, Geneva, Lisbon, London, Munich, Paris, and
Rabat, UNITA had a full-time office in Washington.87 By the mid-1990s, UNITA
maintained twelve offices abroad: two in the United States (Washington and
New York), seven in Europe, and three in Africa.88
How did a violent rebel organization such as UNITA open and operate
branch offices abroad, including in Western democracies? In Washington,
83. For an in-depth account of this conflict, see W. Martin James III, A Political History of the Civil
War in Angola, 1974-1990 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1992).
84. At UNITA' s inception, however, its policies were more Maoist. This might in part explain its
vigorously anti-communist stance once it aligned itself with the United States.
85. For instance, Jorge Sangumba served both as UNITA foreign minister and as its London repre-
sentative in the 1970s, after which Tito Chingunji served in the two roles; Isaias Samakuva served
as UNITA ambassador to Europe from 1998 to 1994 and again from 1998 to 2002; and Jeremias
Chitunda served as the U.S. representative of the group from 1976 to 1986, after which Jardo
Muekalia took over the role. See James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola , 1974-1990; and
Craig R. Whitney and Jill Jolliffe, "Ex-Allies Say Angola Rebels Torture and Slay Dissenters/' New
York Times , March 11, 1989.
öö. Autnor s correspondence witn Martin james, i' o vem Der t>, zuiz.
87. James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola , 1974-1990, pp. 119, 177.
88. " Apathetic Response to New UN UNITA Resolution/7 Africa Analysis, November 14, 1997, p. 6.
UNITA's office was first called the Free Angola Information Service and was
officially registered with the Department of Justice as a representation of
UNITA.89 The office later, in the 1990s, changed its name to the Center
for Democracy in Angola and, at least for a time, was headed by a U.S. na-
tional.90 In addition to representing UNITA interests in the U.S. government
and among influential think tanks, the office issued regular publications relay-
ing the rebel group's political views. The UNITA office in Portugal, going by
the same name, appears to also have been run by Portuguese nationals. The
German office, meanwhile, had "no official status/'91 and was entirely funded
by the Hans Seidel Foundation in West Germany.92 The Belgian office operated
as a cultural center; the French office, called Demain l'Angola (Tomorrow
Angola), appears to have officially served as a UNITA representation in Paris;
and the British office operated under the cover of an import-export com-
pany and was run by British staff.93 The formal status of UNITA offices thus
varied by location, and the hiring of national leaders and staff appears to have
been one strategy used to overcome the bureaucratic hurdles involved in creat-
ing these foreign branches.
Fourth, UNITA President Jonas Savimbi himself made diplomatic visits to
many capitals, including six visits to Washington. On his first visit in 1979, he
met with several senators and with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
among others. On the second, in December 1981, he met with senators, held
press conferences, and attended private gatherings, along the way "charm[ing]
his audiences with his speaking style and his message."94 By the third visit, in
January 1986, Savimbi's hosts were welcoming him with the kind of treatment
ordinarily reserved for heads of state. He scored a meeting with President
Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush at the White House, in
addition to making appearances on prominent television programs including
Nightline, 60 Minutes , and the MacN eil /Lehrer NewsHour, as well as on C-Span, a
leading American public affairs television network.95 In a letter written from
89. Library of Congress Name Authority File, http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n88043853

.html. Accordine to this source, the office began operations in 1988.
90. U.S. House of Representatives, Angola's Government of National Unity, 41-594 CC, hearing be-
fore the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on International Relations, 105th Cong.,
1st sess., April 24, 1997.
91 . "International Community Fails to Close UNITA Offices, Angola: Peace Monitor, November 27,
1997, http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Urgent_Action/apic_12497.html.
92. Prexy Nesbitt, "Terminators, Crusaders, and Gladiators: Western (Private and Public) Support
for RENAMO and UNITA/' Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 43 (1988), pp. 111-124,
at p. 114.
93. "International Community Fails to Close UNITA Offices."
94. James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990, p. 155.
95. Ibid. See also "The Selling of Savimbi," Africa Confidential, February 11, 1986.
UNITA headquarters in Jamba, Angola, in March 1986, Savimbi thanked Vice

President Bush for the "warm reception" and for "[speaking] most inspiring
words about me and my people."96 In June 1988 Savimbi toured New York,
Washington, and a number of southern cities. So comfortable was Savimbi in
conservative circles in Washington that by his fifth visit in October 1989, he
was declaring to an audience at the Heritage Foundation that visiting the think
tank was "like coming back home."97 Savimbi's final visit to the White House
took place in October 1990, when Bush expressed continued support despite
mounting domestic criticism.98
A final diplomatic tactic was that, like a number of other well-financed rebel
movements, UNITA relied heavily on public relations and lobbying firms to
choreograph its overseas appearances. The most well-documented instance is
Savimbi's 1986 visit to the United States, for which UNITA reportedly paid
$600,000 to a Washington-based public relations firm called Black, Manafort,
Stone, and Kelly to arrange its access to senior government officials, the public,
and the media.99 Notably, in a diplomatic counterattack the MPLA govern-
ment followed suit by hiring Gray & Company, another public relations firm,
to orchestrate its own political maneuvers in the United States.100
Certainly, UNITA' s wartime diplomacy would not have been as extensive or
successful had Washington not done its own part to encourage and facilitate it.
For instance, a secret 1987 White House document on its Angola policy main-
tained that the United States would not only ensure that its support is "respon-
sive to UNITA' s needs"; it would also "explore means of increasing UNITA's
stature within Angola and internationally."101 The "warm reception" men-
tioned in Savimbi's letter to Vice President Bush had been but a small part of a
substantial (and controversial) U.S. backing of the rebel group through covert
and overt assistance throughout the Reagan and Bush administrations. Never-
theless, UNITA consistently employed diplomacy as a part of its warfighting
96. Letter, Jonas Savimbi to George Bush, March 2, 1986, OA /ID # 19813-005, Donald P. Gregg
Files Series, Bush Presidential Records, George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, College Station,
Texas.
97. Jonas Savimbi, 'The Coming Winds of Democracy in Angola," Heritage Lectures No. 217
(Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 1989).
98. "Savimbi Says Bush Backs U.S. and Soviet Role in Angola Peacekeeping," Associated Press,
October 2, 1990.
99. R.W. Apple, "Red Carpet for a Rebel, or How a Star Is Born," New York Times, February 7, 1986.
For a list of other lobbyists and PR firms that worked with UNITA, see Nesbitt, "Terminators, Cru-
saders, and Gladiators," p. 122.
luu. Apple, Kea carpet tor a Kebei, or Mow a btar is Born ; and W. Martin James ill, Historial
Dictionary of Angola (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2004), p. 135.
101. White House, "United States Policy toward Angola," National Security Decision Directive
274, May 7, 1987, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.
strategy. Although its diplomatic activism may have been in part a response to
U.S. invitations and aid, UNITA had stressed the importance of diplomacy
from the war's outset, even before Washington had turned into the staunch
ally that it was soon to become.
Why, then, did UNITA go to such lengths to conduct overseas diplomacy
while fighting an intractable civil war domestically? If my theoretical argu-
ment holds, one should expect to find evidence of significant concern on the
part of UNITA to gain international and domestic support and build up its po-
litical capital during this phase. Multiple sources suggest this was the case.
First, the rebel group made it widely known from the war's outset that above
all, it sought international legitimacy as a serious contender against the "totali-
tarian" MPLA regime.102 Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, UNITA consistently
cast itself as a liberation movement fighting for national unity, freedom from
colonialism and communism, and for "Western values of democracy, freedom
of religion, freedom of speech, the right to own one's home and some land."103
UNITA's volumes of writings, domestic and overseas speeches and state-
ments, emphasis from its inception on political organization and development,
and existing accounts of its ideology and behavior cumulatively point to the
group's overriding concern to gain legitimacy and acceptance, both at home
and abroad, as a political movement capable of bringing democratic gover-
nance to Angola.104
As mentioned, although UNITA was not a secessionist rebel group, the po-
litical circumstances in which it found itself arguably replicated the exigencies
faced by secessionist organizations: key international players, including the
United States, had withheld diplomatic recognition of the MPLA as the legiti-
mate government of Angola, primarily because of concerns about the presence
of Cuban troops in the country and their involvement in regional conflicts.105
Both the MPLA and UNITA thus saw international recognition as a prize of
victory in the civil war, and this gave both parties strong incentives to appeal
to external states in efforts to rally support. The Angolan case therefore lends
102. Savimbi, "The Coming Winds of Democracy in Angola."

103. Jonas Savimbi, "Fighting for the Future of Angola/' Insight, January 20, 1986, pp. 74-79, at
p. 79.
104. See especially James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola , 1974-1990. The fact that
UNITA was fighting in a newly independent, autocratic, and highly unstable state likely helped
lend credibility to its claims.
105. Chester A. Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1992), pp. 172-173. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had declared in
1976 that "there is every prospect of our dealing with the MPLA in Angola once it is clear that they
are indeed an African government and not totally beholden of foreign input." Quoted in Stefan
Talmon, Recognition of Governments in International Law, Oxford Monographs in International Law
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 39.
support to the argument that it is the value rebels place on the contest for inter-
national recognition, rather than secessionism per se, that drives diplomatic
activism (HI). That the MPLA government itself was conducting its own of-
ficial diplomacy - touring European capitals as well as Cuba in the mid-1980s,
opening its own foreign offices, and consistently engaging with Washington to
gain formal recognition - added to the impetus and urgency of rebel counter-
diplomacy.106 In addition to the war's military and ideological dimensions, for
UNITA the diplomatic arena was another crucial battleground, one in which
the belligerents wrestled for formal recognition and support from major inter-
national players.
Second, UNITA had a clear, expressed desire for resources from abroad.
When South African sponsorship ended in the mid-1980s, and in light of per-
sistent Soviet and Cuban aid to the MPLA, U.S. backing became critical to
UNITA's survival. Thus, as Savimbi appealed to Washington for moral and po-
litical support, he also made overt pleas for material aid, with "antiaircraft
weapons, the Red-eye missile and Stinger missile, and antitank weapons" top-
ping his list of wanted items for a time.107 Even after U.S. assistance began
flowing to UNITA, the rebel leadership was aware that continued aid was far
from guaranteed, given significant opposition in Congress and even within the
Reagan administration.108 UNITA was not a militarily weak rebel group;109
consistent with the statistical analysis above, it was not its degree of fighting
capacity, which was already fairly strong at the height of U.S. aid to the group,
but rather its persistent desire for political backing and, along with it, sophisti-
cated weapons, that motivated the rebels to use diplomacy throughout this pe-
riod of the war. Consistent with the statistical results, then, the case lends no
support to H4 on rebels' relative strength. UNITA's increasing military capa-
bility did not lead to any corresponding decline in its diplomatic efforts, but
rather to sustained diplomacy as rebels sought to ensure continued aid.
Third, UNITA used successes in international diplomacy to enhance its do-
mestic legitimacy (H2). For all its brutality, during the height of the war
UNITA demonstrated significant concern for establishing itself as a viable po-
106. Ned Temko, "As Angolan War Grinds On, Foes Take Battle to Diplomatic Arena/' Christian
Science Monitor, October 8, 1987, http://rn.csmonitor.com/1987/1008/oango.html. See also James,
A Political History of the Civil War in Angola , 1974-1990 , p. 92.
107. Savimbi, "Fighting for the Future of Angola/' p. 79. See also James, A Political History of the
Civil War in Angola , 1974-1990, pp. 148-181.
108. Peter W. Rodman, More Precious Than Peace: Fighting and Winning the Cold War in the Third
World (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994), chap. 14; and James M. Scott, Deciding to Inter-
vene: The Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996),
chap. 5.
109. The NSA codes as "moderate" during this period UNITA's mobilization capacity, ability to
procure arms, and fighting capacity relative to the government.
liticai organization and gaining popular support at home. A journalist visiting

UNITA's "liberated" territories in 1989 wrote, "Unitaland in southern Angola
is perhaps the most impressive guerrilla zone anywhere."110 UNITA func-
tioned as a well-organized sovereign administration in the territories it con-
trolled, engaging with the public through the building of schools, hospitals,
and roads and providing electricity, in addition to circulating its own publica-
tions, operating a radio station in several Angolan languages, and even issuing
its own internationally recognized postage stamps.111 By all accounts, UNITA
was a sophisticated organization with "modern bureaucratic institutions" con-
sisting of a president; a congress; a political bureau; central, regional, and vil-
lage committees; a number of ministries; and a constitution.112
According to reports, UNITA saw to it that foreign visitors recognized the
full scope of these local accomplishments. Its headquarters, Jamba, "became
the public relations face of UNITA shown to journalists and Western backers of
all sorts flown in for a day or two and impressed by a well-supplied bush hos-
pital, schools, a stadium, traffic lights and an airport with UNITA immigration
facilities."113 UNITA took such visitors "on tour after tour which were de-
signed as much to show the world what they had, controlled, and could do" as
they were to impress their immediate guests.114 In turn, UNITA's successive
overseas achievements may have served as a significant boon to its domestic
image and credibility, doing much to reassure the populace that this was not
an isolated movement but one with the backing of powerful international al-
lies. Thus, according to a 1988 journalistic account, "thousands" of prints of
the photos of Savimbi with President Reagan and Secretary of State George
Schultz taken during his 1986 White House visit "now cover virtually every
village entrance, community center, hospital and workshop in all of what
UNITA calls Liberated Angola"115 - the group was clearly using its overseas
accomplishments for domestic consumption. These pieces of evidence suggest
that UNITA was fully capitalizing on the reinforcing feedback effects between
domestic and international support.
110. Radek Sikorski, "The Mystique of Savimbi/' National Review, August 18, 1989, p. 35.
111. See Jutta Bakonyi and Kirsti Stuv0y, "Violence and Social Order beyond the State: Somalia
and Angola/' Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 32, Nos. 104-105 (June /September 2005),
pp. 359-382, at p. 370; James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990, pp. 98-99,
119-120; Sikorski, "The Mystique of Savimbi/' p. 35; and John Marcum, "Government-in-Exile ver-
sus Government-in-Insurgency: The Case of Angola," in Yossi Shain, ed., Governments-in-Exile in
Contemporary World Politics (New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 42-51, at p. 47.
112. Bakonyi and Stuv0y, "Violence and Social Order beyond the State," p. 370; and James, A Polit-
ical History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990, pp. 91-101.
113. Victoria Brittam, Death of Dignity: Angola s Civil War (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World, 1998), p. 11.
114. Gary van Staden, Correspondent Describes Conference m Jamba, btar, June 9, 1985, p. 1U.
115. David Zucchino, "Savimbi: A Revolutionary Who's Full of Contradictions," Philadelphia In-
quirer, July 1, 1988.
Finally, and again consistent with the quantitative analysis, the Angolan
case shows that even in the context of the Cold War, diplomacy proved vitally
important for the rebels' international relations. UNITA engaged in extensive
diplomacy in the 1980s in part to demonstrate to Western governments that
the rebels were on their side in the Cold War, and hence could be a trusted
partner in fighting against the Soviet-backed MPLA. Cold War politics did not
obviate the need for diplomacy; to the contrary, it all but dictated its content.
THE SECOND WAR: DIPLOMACY SIDELINED
The 1992 presidential and parliamentary elections in An

elections in Angolan history and held in accordance wit
accords - put UNITA's declared commitment to freedom
rectly to the test. When the results favored the governing
move signaling its abandonment of the rhetoric of democra
preceding seventeen years, rejected the election results and
the bush, plunging the country back into war. In response
of the end of the Cold War, a change to the Democratic ad
Clinton, and UNITA's continued intransigence in peace
quickly distanced itself from its erstwhile proxy. With the
tions imposed against UNITA in 1993, the shift from ex
the rebel group to ensuring its political isolation seemed co
If my theoretical logic holds, the decline in diplomacy in
conflict should correspond with evidence of diminished in
UNITA in acquiring the political benefits that could be accr
national support. Indeed, UNITA actions at this time gave l
it still cared for international or domestic legitimacy or for
from abroad. There were overlapping reasons for the rebel
after 1992. First, just as the United States was withdrawing
in the early 1990s, the rebel group turned to the minin
monds as a substantial source of funding. By 1994 UNITA h
trol" of the country's diamond trade,116 worth $400 milli
annually.117 Although regression analysis yielded no signifi
tween rebels' dependence on contraband and diplomacy, in
the newfound income from the diamond trade likely playe
decreasing the tactical utility of diplomacy. Even so, there
reason for the rebels to discount diplomacy at this time
UNITA, in May 1993 the United States formally recogni
116. Bakonyi and Stuvoy, "Violence and Social Order beyond the State/
117. Assis Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers: Violence in Post-Colonial Angola
Institute, 2007), pp. 85, 109-110.
International Security 40ģ.4 | 122
legitimate government of Angola. The rebels had lost the battle for interna-
tional recognition altogether. There are grounds to believe that this did more to
convince UNITA of the futility of further diplomacy than did the new wealth
from diamonds. Even as their profits from the diamond trade were rapidly in-
creasing, on the eve of U.S. recognition of the MPLA, UNITA representatives
made last-ditch attempts to dissuade the United States from taking that step,
not least by writing a letter to the New York Times warning that all efforts to-
ward peace and democracy in Angola would be frustrated should Washington
use that "most potent policy tool" of recognition.118 At this eleventh hour, and
despite its diamond wealth, UNITA still sought to salvage the fight for de jure
legitimacy by preventing the United States from throwing its full weight be-
hind their erstwhile shared enemy. Once the MPLA had been granted recog-
nition, however, UNITA had few reasons to continue shuttling around the
globe making entreaties for foreign aid, approval, or acceptance. Newly self-
sufficient and having lost the battle for recognition, UNITA found little use for
diplomacy as a warfighting tool.
Indicatively, UNITA instead turned inward at this time. It ramped up its mil-
itary operations at home and, in the process, began to acquire what one scholar
calls "a uniquely criminal character."119 Whereas it had emphasized the impor-
tance of local popular support in the 1980s, once the 1992 elections results had
dashed its aspirations UNITA turned against civilians and employed terror
tactics such as indiscriminate killing, summary executions, and forced dis-
placement.120 According to one observer, the situation at this time was "proba-
bly worse than at any time in the country's history."121 Having betrayed its
rhetoric of freedom and democracy and lost the battle for international legiti-
macy, and awash in diamond profits, UNITA no longer saw the need to invest
in acquiring domestic popular support. Consistent with this logic, UNITA' s ci-
vilian governance efforts also declined at this time.122 Domestic consumption,
too, had ceased to be a motive for overseas diplomatic activism. Neither did
UNITA make efforts to present a set of coherent political objectives in this
phase, having "abandoned the strategy of creating an intimate and reciprocal
118. Marcos Samondo, "Letter to the Editor: Don't Reward Angola with U.S. Recognition/' New
York Times , February 10, 1993. Samondo was UNITA' s representative to the UN.
119. Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, p. 104.
120. Ibid.
121. Quoted m Scott, Deciding to Intervene , p. 146. The hypothesis regarding authoritarian regime
is difficult to explicitly test through the UNITA case. Angola's Polity score at the start of the firs
conflict in 1975 stood at -7, but is coded as missing from 1991 to 1996 because of the political tur
moil. The degree of repression likely did not change sufficiently to constitute a variable that could
explain the differences in rebel diplomacy between the two conflict phases.
122. Bakonyi and Stuvoy "Violence and Social Order beyond the State," p. 372. These observa
tions are consistent with Weinstein's argument that resource endowments shape rebel relation
with civilians. See Weinstein, Inside Rebellion.
relationship between the political and military aspects of the war/'123 In this
phase of the war, then, UNITA had lost both its international and domestic in-
centives for diplomacy. Gone were the days when UNITA paid hefty sums to
lobbying firms to ensure impeccable appearances on its U.S. tour. The two-
pronged strategy of acquiring domestic and international political support had
turned into a largely one-track military strategy of crushing government ca-
pacity and terrorizing the population.
Perhaps indicative of UNITA' s crumbling control over its overseas arms, its
foreign offices did not shutter entirely after 1992. In fact, while UNITA forces
weakened under government attacks and its administration and leadership
disintegrated, its overseas missions continued to operate relatively unscathed
for a time.124 This, too, however, would change when in 1997 the UN Security
Council passed a tougher set of sanctions on UNITA, one that required of all
states "the immediate and complete closure of all UNITA offices in their terri-
tories."125 Tellingly, states hosting the rebel offices faced difficulties complying
with the resolution: France cited civil liberties concerns over closing down
UNITA's Paris office; Germany claimed the Bonn office had no official status to
begin with; Côte d'Ivoire denied having an office in Abidjan altogether; and
attempts to close the offices in Washington and Lisbon were met with domestic
opposition.126 Nevertheless, by 1998 most UNITA foreign offices had ceased to
function.127 As for the diplomatic passports doled out by friendly African
states to UNITA' s senior leaders in their heyday, at least Côte d'Ivoire declared
the Ivorian passports in the rebels' hands null and void in February 1999.128
UNITA diplomacy thus ended in this phase of the conflict because the rebels
lost the political and financial incentives for it, and because its former patrons
concomitantly took steps to sever diplomatic relations with the rebels. Diplo-
macy was certainly not a weapon of the weak in this case: a weakened UNITA
did not increase diplomatic efforts during this phase, but instead abandoned
diplomacy as a tactic.
SUMMARY
The case of UNITA shows that when the rebel group sought int
ognition, material resources, and both external and internal po
it employed diplomacy extensively as a warfighting tactic. Dipl
123. Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers , p. 104.

124. Ibid., p. 113.
125. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1127, August 28, 1997.
126. "Apathetic Response to New UN UNITA Resolution/' p. 6.
127. Human Rights Watch, Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peac
Human Rights Watch, 1999), p. 207.
128. Ibid.
ism allowed the group to craft a tailored image for itself; spread its political
messages to a wide international audience; "do" as states and statesmen do in
opening foreign offices, visiting capitals, and meeting with heads of state; ap-
peal for military aid; and showcase to its domestic constituents that the group
had the backing of powerful allies abroad. Diplomacy was not determined by
UNITA' s fighting capacity; even as UNITA' s armed strength increased with the
help of U.S. assistance, UNITA maintained its diplomatic activism to ensure
continued aid. When the end of the Cold War, abundant profits from dia-
monds, and defeat in the contest for international recognition eliminated
further need for international or domestic support, rebel diplomacy corre-
spondingly declined. The international community sought more than ever to
use diplomatic means to negotiate a peace settlement with UNITA, but the lat-
ter responded with disinterest and belligerence. The rebels' political about-face
after 1992 was matched by a tactical about-face in the war's diplomatic arena.
Conclusion
Rebel diplomacy is a common feature of civil wars. While fighting against the
government at home, rebel groups use a variety of means to conduct foreign
affairs and rally overseas support. This article has shown that a political logic
drives rebels' diplomatic activism. As actors seeking state power, rebel groups
engage in diplomacy to demonstrate their ability to behave like states, adopt
international norms, gestures, and rhetoric, and be seen in the world's diplo-
matic gatherings and capitals, with the end goal of gaining favor with impor-
tant allies abroad. Diplomacy also boosts rebels' domestic legitimacy by
assuring citizens that the group can attract international attention and aid and
has the political and organizational tact required to implement overseas mis-
sions. Consistent with this logic, evidence offered in this article suggests that
secessionist groups, for whom international recognition is essential for attain-
ing independent statehood, and groups that organize domestically by in-
vesting in social service provision or creating legal political bodies, are more
likely to become wartime diplomats. I found no empirical support for the no-
tion that diplomacy is a weapon of the militarily weak or of the heavily re-
pressed. Rather, it is employed by those groups that calculate that pursuing a
two-pronged strategy of domestic and international legitimation offers the
best chance of attaining their political objectives in the conflict.
Diplomacy, in short, is an important repertoire of contention for rebel
groups. Armed confrontation is one dimension of a civil war; diplomatic con-
frontation is another, one in which states and rebels battle it out for external
support. In an international system in which these issues matter practically for
states' and rebels' very survival, the diplomatic arena can become a major
site of contest between war opponents. Although scholarship has made ma-
jor inroads toward understanding rebel groups' internal organization, rela-
tions with domestic populations, and strategic use of violence, little attention
has been paid to their external strategies and relations with foreign audiences.
This article shows that rebel groups' calculated engagement in international
politics affects their wartime behavior. They internalize international relations
in light of their own perceptions about how external forces interact with their
political objectives. To neglect these international dimensions of rebellion is to
miss a critical component of how nonstate entities conduct armed confronta-
tions against their more formidable state opponents.
One fruitful extension of this research would be to examine the effects of
rebel diplomacy. Does this rebelcraft make third-party intervention on behalf
of the rebels more likely? Are groups that engage in it more likely to win wars
than those that do not? What is the repertoire of state responses to rebel diplo-
macy? A promising avenue for future research is to explore these questions by
addressing some of the empirical limitations of the present study. For instance,
studies could examine the dynamic and interactive effects of foreign support
on diplomacy by examining variation in these variables across time. Another
important extension is to examine the dynamic aspects of rebel groups' politi-
cal tactics in civil wars. Rebel diplomacy, certainly, is not new, but the opening
of overseas offices may be a more recent tactic, one enabled by technological
development. And if maintaining overseas offices is a twentieth-century in-
vention in rebelcraft, then certainly rebels' use of websites, social media, and
the blogosphere is a twenty-first-century phenomenon. Rebel groups have
shown great sensitivity to changes in the international political, economic, so-
cial, and technological context, adapting their tactics accordingly. Beyond di-
plomacy, studying other rebel behavior in light of global developments should
offer new insights into rebel groups' strategies of internationalization.
In addition to these theoretical insights, this article offers an important prac-
tical implication. If support-seeking is a strategy of warfare and it goads rebel
groups to behave in ways that would grant them acceptance into the interna-
tional community, then external actors wield significant leverage vis-à-vis
rebel groups' wartime behavior. External aid, of course, has long been em-
ployed as an instrument of statecraft. Beyond this, states, international organi-
zations, and nonstate actors have at their disposal a range of tools that affect
rebel legitimacy, such as emphasizing the importance of compliance with in-
ternational law or offering a rebel leader reception in a foreign capital as a car-
rot to motivate certain actions. This, in essence, is what diplomacy is all about.
There is growing evidence that when states treat legitimacy-seeking rebel
groups as if they are responsible states, they respond in kind.129 Consequently,

creative thinking on the part of external actors in dealing with support-seeking
rebel groups can have a significant impact on the latter's behavior, such as
their treatment of civilians or their willingness to come to the negotiating table.
In short, when targeted toward groups for whom international support can
make or break their ability to attain their goals, wartime diplomacy can have
payoffs in terms of human welfare and prospects for conflict resolution.
129. Jo, Compliant Rebels.

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Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War-2016

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Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War

Author(s): Reyko Huang

^^iolent rebels are of-

I define "rebel diplomacy" as a rebel group's conduct of foreign affairs dur

"rebelcraft" - in the same way that diplomacy is a form of statecraft in interna-

12. Patrick M. Regan, "Conditions of Successful Third-Party Intervention in Intrastate Conflicts/'

Independence of Angola (UNITA) in the 1975-2002 Angolan civil war. Within

Rebel Diplomacy since 1950

How common is rebel diplomacy in contemporary civil wars? To answer this

group in each conflict.18 Furthermore, the data impart no information about

lishing international contacts, as well as fundraise, purchase weapons, and

Explaining Rebel Diplomacy

Why do rebel groups conduct diplomacy? And why do some groups do so

THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS OF REBELLION

Key to understanding rebel behavior beyond the battlefield

26. International Crisis Group, "Nepal's Maoists/' p. 8.

confrontations do not take place in a vacuum, but rather in specific domestic

is one step closer to formal acceptance into an international system that

THE FUNCTIONS OF REBEL DIPLOMACY

Given the importance of seeking international support

tempt to disseminate tailored messages, shape their international image, and

al-Qaddafi's government and the opposition Transitional National Council

EXPLAINING VARIATION IN REBELS' DIPLOMATIC ACTIVISM

The Role of External Supporters

The theoretical discussion above focuses almost entirely on rebel incentives.

before external states reciprocally showed interest in formally supporting

Data and Research Design

66. See Coalition website, http://en.etilaf.org/.

Table 1. Summary Statistics of Independent and Control Variables

Secessionist 0.35 0.48 0 1 Fearon & Laitin 2003,

External 0.61 0.49 0 1 NSA Dataset

Cold War 0.68 0.47 0 1 Doyle & Sambanis 2006,

War duration 3.69 1.45 0 6.17 Doyle & Sambanis 2006,

Marxist rebels 0.24 0.42 0 1 Kalyvas & Balcells 2011

67. Huang, The Wartime Origins of Democratization.

Table 2. Determinants of Rebel Diplomacy, 1950-2006

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Legal political wing 1.00*

Prewar Polity -0.07* -0.07* -0.06 -0.05

Mobilization capacity -0.54 -0.54 -0.50 -0.40

External support 0.13 0.14

Observations 126 126 126 126

NOTE: Robust standard errors a

Table 2 presents the results

stantive effects shows that a switch from a nonsecessionist to a secessionist

concern for domestic organization. At the same time, diplomacy is neither a

UNITA's Diplomacy in the Angolan Civil War

To complement the statistical tests of the hypotheses on the determinants of

THE FIRST WAR: UNITA'S EXTENSIVE DIPLOMACY

89. Library of Congress Name Authority File, http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n88043853

UNITA headquarters in Jamba, Angola, in March 1986, Savimbi thanked Vice

102. Savimbi, "The Coming Winds of Democracy in Angola."

liticai organization and gaining popular support at home. A journalist visiting

THE SECOND WAR: DIPLOMACY SIDELINED

The 1992 presidential and parliamentary elections in An

123. Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers , p. 104.

groups as if they are responsible states, they respond in kind.129 Consequently,

129. Jo, Compliant Rebels.

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