Fratricide in rebel movements: A network analysis of Syrian militant infighting
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| Author | Michael Gabbay,Mohammed M Hafez,Emily Kalah Gade |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343318806940 |
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Regular Articles
Fratricide in rebel movements: A network
analysis of Syrian militant infighting
Emily Kalah Gade
Department of Political Science, University of Washington
Mohammed M Hafez
Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School
Michael Gabbay
Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington
Abstract
Violent conflict among rebels is a common feature of civil wars and insurgencies. Yet, not all rebel groups are equally
prone to such infighting. While previous research has focused on the systemic causes of violent conflict within rebel
movements, this article explores the factors that affect the risk of conflict between pairs of rebel groups. We generate
hypotheses concerning how differences in power, ideology, and state sponsors between rebel groups impact their
propensity to clash and test them using data from the Syrian civil war. The data, drawn from hundreds of infighting
claims made by rebel groups on social media, are used to construct a network of conflictual ties among 30 rebel
groups. The relationship between the observed network structure and the independent variables is evaluated using
network analysis metrics and methods including assortativity, community structure, simulation, and latent space
modeling. We find strong evidence that ideologically distant groups have a higher propensity for infighting than
ideologically proximate ones. We also find support for power asymmetry, meaning that pairs of groups of disparate
size are at greater risk of infighting than pairs of equal strength. No support was found for the proposition that
sharing state sponsors mitigates rebels’ propensity for infighting. Our results provide an important corrective to
prevailing theory, which discounts the role of ideology in militant factional dynamics within fragmented conflicts.
Keywords
civil war, fragmentation, ideology, infighting, social network analysis, Syria
A revolutionary’s worst enemy is often another revolutionary.
Lichbach (1995: 203)
Introduction
Infighting among rebels is a common feature of civil wars
and insurgencies. Rebel movements are usually divided
into brigades that fight under several factional banners
with varying degrees of coordination.
1
This fragmentation
generates a competitive landscape in which violent
infighting occurs frequently. The history of civil conflicts
is replete with dramatic instances of rebel-on-rebel fratri-
cide (Bakke, Cunningham & Seymour, 2012).
2
The
Corresponding author:
ekgade@uw.edu
1
Of 181 insurgencies since 1946, more than half involved multiple
insurgent groups. Since the 1980s, 64% involved multiple rebel
factions (Jones, 2017: 168).
2
Iconic episodes of interrebel fratricide include Stalinists against
Trotskyists during the Spanish Civil War (May 1937); Yugoslavian
Communist Partisans against the Nationalist Chetniks during World
War II; the Algerian National Movement against the National
Liberation Front during their war of independence from France
(1954–62); and Al-Qaeda against Iraqi Islamists and nationalists
during the US occupation of Iraq (2003–11).
Journal of Peace Research
2019, Vol. 56(3) 321–335
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343318806940
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