Existing research suggests that rebel groups seeking international legitimacy avoid practices that harm their reputation. This study argues that such logic does not extend to forced recruitment. Unlike other coercive practices, recruitment is not a mere tactical choice but a foundational requirement for organizational survival. This compels rebels to balance recruitment needs for survival against potential international backlash. I argue that pre-war organizational origins condition the recruitment practices of legitimacy-aspiring rebels by boosting both voluntary and materially-motivated recruitment. Pre-war ties to civilian-led organizations provide groups with networks for disseminating ideological appeals and cultivating collective convictions that favor violent mobilization, enhancing voluntary recruitment. Voluntary recruitment demonstrates rebels’ organizational capacity and offers humanitarian justifications for external supporters. External support, which can be used for monetary incentives, can enhance materially-motivated recruitment. Thus, rebels best able to avoid forced recruitment are those with legitimacy aspirations and pre-war ties to civilian-led organizations. Using cross-national data on 115 rebel organizations, I find support for this hypothesis. My work builds on research on rebels’ engagement with international audiences, highlights the role of pre-war origins in shaping rebel behavior, and suggests that constraints in galvanizing domestic support limit legitimacy-aspiring rebels’ adherence to international humanitarian laws.

Why do some militant groups that appeal to the same constituency cooperate, while others descend into violent rivalry? I develop a theoretical framework that distinguishes between shared constituencies-the broader social groups on whose behalf militants claim to fight and shared recruitment pools-the specific social networks from which they draw members. I argue that shared constituencies facilitate cooperation only when groups recruit from distinct social bases, whereas overlapping recruitment pools pose existential threats, fueling infighting. I test these expectations using Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (TERGMs) on an original temporal network dataset of 53 militant organizations active in India between 1981-2021. To operationalize recruitment pool overlap, I introduce a novel behavioral proxy based on documented cases of rank-and-file defections across groups. The results are consistent with the proposed theory. These findings advance our understanding of militant behavior and speak to broader debates on representation and competition in contentious politics.

Rebel groups often engage in performative governance acts that mimic the symbolic repertoires of sovereign states (e.g., printing currency, holding funeral rites, or building mausoleums). How do these acts shape rebel-constituency ties and civilian participation in rebellion? Extending constituency-centric theories of conflict, I conceptualize performative rebel governance as a legibility-oriented strategy for mapping civilian loyalties in harder-to-reach communities---those beyond the rebels’ immediate networks. By observing voluntary participation in these symbolic acts, rebels can identify potential supporters who would otherwise be unlikely to mobilize, such as women, non-activists, and individuals without familial ties to the rebel movement. Yet, these same acts also increase the legibility of rebellion to the state, exposing pro-rebel civilians to surveillance and repression, raising the personal costs of radicalization and deterring individuals who might have otherwise mobilized in a lower-risk environment. Thus, performative rebel governance paradoxically trades off the ability to expand rebels' mobilization base beyond their traditional networks for an overall decline in mobilization due to heightened state repression. I provide evidence for this theory using a difference-in-differences framework, combining original spatial event data on the funeral rites of PKK fighters in Southeast Turkey with microdata on PKK recruitment. The findings substantiate the dual effect of symbolic governing acts on recruitment. While funeral rites increase the recruitment of women and individuals with no history of political activism or family ties to the rebel movement, overall recruitment declines, indicating that the suppressive effects of state surveillance and repression outweigh the mobilizing impact of symbolic governance. These results reveal an inherent dilemma in rebel governance in contested spaces: while governance helps insurgents overcome informational deficiencies by eliciting civilian agency to reveal allegiances, it simultaneously renders the social landscape of war more legible to the enemy.

What kinds of counterterrorism policies do populist individuals in the United States prefer in the aftermath of terrorist attacks? We theorize that these preferences are shaped by attitudes toward liberal institutions, social outgroups, and conspiratorial beliefs. To test this, we conducted an original survey of 1,940 subjects living in the United States. We found that subjects exhibiting populist attitudes were more likely to support unilateral, militarized counterterrorism policies in response to terrorist attacks but were less supportive of cooperative, or multilateral counterterrorism policies. We also found greater support among these individuals for restrictive domestic security measures, including immigration and border controls, and expanded government authority related to surveillance, detention, and arrest. To understand more about these patterns, we also conducted mediation tests and found that support for strongman rule, perceived threats from outgroups, and conspiratorial thinking patterns are strong and substantive mediators for the relationship between populism and counterterrorism preferences.

Numerous jihadist organizations competing with local armed groups for resources in conflicts worldwide have pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda (AQ) or the Islamic State (IS). How do transnational jihadist rivals (AQ/IS affiliates) shape the behavior of local groups? Scholars argue that heightened competition in violent political markets encourages armed groups to escalate violence against civilians--known as outbidding--to distinguish their "brand." However, existing research has largely overlooked how the type of actor involved in conflicts, rather than the quantity of groups, shapes competitive dynamics. We argue that transnational jihadists, with their legacy of brutality and high levels of international scrutiny, reshape militant competition, making escalatory violence ineffective and counterproductive for local groups seeking brand differentiation. Instead, we propose a theory of restrained competition, where local groups moderate civilian harm to distinguish themselves, thereby bolstering their local support and international appeal. We posit that this reputational calculus intensifies when groups maintain greater ideological distance from transnational jihadists and have credible prospects for enhancing their international standing through restrained behavior. Using original data on pledges to AQ and IS, and leveraging their sudden emergence as a quasi-experimental treatment, we apply a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) analysis. Aligning with our restrained competition theory, we find that armed groups---particularly those with non-religious ideologies and that are not designated as terrorist organizations by the United States---reduce violence against civilians in response to transnational jihadist competitors. Our findings challenge assumptions about escalation in fragmented conflicts, offering new insights into armed group behavior.

This study develops a principal-agent theory of why/how armed groups engage in high-end cooperation involving training, intelligence, and logistical support among each other. While such cooperation enhances operational capacity, it also redistributes power and creates downstream military/strategic and political risks. Principals mitigate these risks by selecting agents that are skill-wise complementary, but militarily subordinate, and politically non-substitutable. Using original temporal network data on 53 groups in Northeast India (1981-2021) and Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (TERGMs), I show that high-end cooperation is more likely in asymmetric dyads that do not share civilian constituencies. The findings recast militant alliances as products of competitive threat perception and carry broader implications for multiparty conflicts and the delegation of violence in civil wars.

This study examines how the nature of alliances shapes militant groups’ capacity to adopt tactics that demand organizational change. Challenging the view that tactical diffusion is an automatic byproduct of alliances, I argue that only alliances involving joint training, rather than those limited to arms, funds, or rhetorical support, facilitate the mindset shifts, socialization processes, and skill acquisition needed for adopting new tactics from allies. Joint training fosters not only elite-level exchanges but also fighter-level interactions that build shared norms, understandings, and practices. I test this argument with an original cross-sectional time-series dataset on 53 militant groups in Northeast India (1980–2021), focusing on the diffusion of kidnapping-a tactic that requires normative reorientation toward restraint and non-combat skills. Evidence from split-halves tests, staggered difference-in-differences analyses, panel vector autoregression models, and additional analyses leveraging placebo tests and exogenous shocks shows that alliances involving joint training with kidnapping-proficient allies significantly increase adoption, whereas other alliance forms do not. Once adopted, kidnapping persists, consistent with a complex contagion process in which norms and practices are reinforced within a community of interacting groups. By linking tactical diffusion to organizational learning, the findings show how specific inter-militant interactions can drive organizational change, opening avenues for research on whether similar mechanisms transmit norms and practices beyond violence, including governance, diplomacy, and transnational campaigning.

Why do armed groups use extreme forms of violence such as beheadings, despite their significant costs? This study argues that leadership transitions create authority crises that incentivize successors to adopt extra-lethal violence as a tool of internal consolidation and external signaling. These pressures are particularly acute for successors with prior leadership experience in other armed groups: having previously lost power, these leaders face additional reputational deficits and are especially likely to view extra-lethal violence as a useful instrument of authority consolidation. Drawing on an original dataset of 206 leaders from 108 jihadist groups active between 1976 and 2023, we find that organizations are significantly more likely to use beheadings under successor leaders than under founders. This effect is most pronounced among those with prior rebel leadership experience. We also find that these patterns are more consistent with successors’ strategic use of beheadings to address short-term authority deficits than with alternative explanations such as ideological extremism, technical skill, transnational network ties, or unsanctioned violence by subordinates. By shifting attention from organizational incentives to leader-level dynamics, this study contributes to research on militant leadership, succession in armed groups, and the strategic logic of extra-lethal violence.