Going underground
| Author | Margherita Belgioioso |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343318764795 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Going underground: Resort to terrorism
in mass mobilization dissident campaigns
Margherita Belgioioso
Department of Politics and History, Brunel University London
Abstract
When and why do groups participating in mass dissent choose to initiate terrorist campaigns? I argue that groups
involved in civilwars and mass civil resistancemight face similar organizational pressures,which encourage the initiation
of terrorism due to higher tactical effectiveness. Internal organizational pressure might depend on leaders’ expectations
of a decline in followers’ commitment with protracted use of mass tactics. This is likely to motivate leaders to initiate
terrorist campaigns to secure organizational survival. External organizational pressures might depend on increasing
dissident campaigns’ fragmentation. This intensifies competitionmaking leaders more likely to initiate terrorismso as to
establish themselves at the forefront of their movements. The findings provide empirical support consistent with my
claims and indicate no significant difference between civil wars and mass civil resistance movements with regards to
these effects. Contrary to the common idea that the use of conventional violence should entail a higher willingness
to engage in illegal violence against non-combatants, this finding suggests that conflict dynamics affect the decision to
initiate terrorism and that terrorist campaigns have a coherent strategic logic across different types of mass dissent.
Keywords
civil resistance, civil war, mass dissident campaigns, terrorism onset
Introduction
Existing research on terrorism and conflict has argued
that a number of different structural factors and conflict
dynamics strategically motivate non-state actors to use
terrorist tactics (e.g. Bloom, 2004; Bueno de Mesquita
& Dickson, 2007; Crenshaw, 1981; Kydd & Walter,
2006; Kalyvas, 2003; Eubank & Weinberg, 1994; Li,
2005; Piazza, 2012; Piazza & Walsh, 2010; Schmid,
1992). Also, social movement literature has investigated
whether conflict dynamics motivate dissidents’ tactical
choice (e.g. McAdam, 1982; Reinhart, 2013; Tarrow,
1989; Tilly, 1978; Jenkins & Eckert, 1986; Kriesi
et al., 1995). However, these works consist largely of
theoretical accounts with illustrative examples or unique
case studies and/or consider empirically only dissident
groups that use terrorism without an explicit comparison
with dissident groups that do not use terrorism.
Therefore, on one hand, we know little about relative
causal effects or the generalizability of the various expla-
nations they invoke. On the other hand, we are left
without ground to comprehend which factors affect dis-
sident organizations’ choice of terrorism versus another
dissident strategy. In other words, we cannot infer
whether the strategic logic of terrorist attacks differs from
the strategic logic of other types of collective dissent. A
more consistent empirical test for a rationalist explana-
tion of terrorism must do more than show why terrorism
might appear as an attractive option to a rational non-
state actor under some circumstances – it must take into
account why non-state actors are unable to locate alter-
native dissident strategies or outcomes that they would
prefer to terrorism (see Fearon, 1995). This is the first
aim of this article.
An expanding body of work points to the existing
variation in the use of terrorism by rebel groups – where
‘terrorism’ is defined as the use of indirect attacks
by non-state actors against a government targeting
Corresponding author:
Margherita.Belgioioso@brunel.ac.uk
Journal of Peace Research
2018, Vol. 55(5) 641–655
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343318764795
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