Publication Date
2022
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Liam Anderson, Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Carlos Costa, Ph.D. (Committee Member); Vaughn Shannon, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Abstract
Despite the pervasive trend in civil war of multiple sponsors backing rebels or the government, there is surprisingly minimal analysis on how the balance of support influences conflict duration. Building on the research of Sawyer et al. (2017), who find that the “fungibility” of external support leads to longer civil war, this thesis contributes a new scoring method for analyzing the balance of “fungible” (hereafter “convertible”) support among combatants (rebels versus government), discovering that a balance of convertibility contributes to shorter conflict. Convertible resources are those that combatants manipulate to enhance their warfighting capacity, such as funding, while troops or territory are less convertible since combatants can only use them in a specific context. A balance of convertible forces likely contributes to shorter conflict because both sides recognize the reduced likelihood of victory. Policymakers should thus carefully evaluate the support given to the opposition of the recipient they are backing.
Page Count
53
Department or Program
Department of Political Science
Year Degree Awarded
2022
Copyright
Copyright 2022, all rights reserved. My ETD will be available under the "Fair Use" terms of copyright law.
ORCID ID
0000-0003-3912-1240
