ABSTRACT

Why do militant groups turn on each other? This behavior is somewhat puzzling, since such groups are often on the same side of a conflict. A growing body of literature seeks to understand political violence by looking at cooperative and competitive relationships among non-state actors. Debates continue about the sources of militant group rivalry. We argue that shared motivations, especially ethnic motivations, along with power differences among groups should help explain inter-group fighting. Our analysis uses new dyadic data on rivalry among the militant groups of Africa and Asia since 1990. Unlike some previous studies, we analyze both terrorist and insurgent organizations. Results suggest that pairs of groups with a shared ethnic identity are more likely than others to have rivalrous relationships. Power asymmetry is also somewhat associated with rivalry, but interaction models indicate that the association is only statistically significant in the presence of shared ethnic motivations.

摘要

为什么激进组织会互相攻击？这种行为有些令人费解，因为这些团体通常处于冲突的同一边。越来越多的文献试图通过研究非国家行为者之间的合作和竞争关系来理解政治暴力。关于激进组织竞争的来源的争论仍在继续。我们认为，共同的动机，尤其是种族动机，以及群体之间的权力差异应该有助于解释群体间的斗争。我们的分析使用了自 1990 年以来非洲和亚洲激进组织之间竞争的新二元数据。与之前的一些研究不同，我们同时分析了恐怖组织和叛乱组织。结果表明，具有共同种族身份的成对群体比其他群体更有可能建立敌对关系。