Rebel Consolidation

The O/R Lab is working with a research team from the University of Washington and the Naval Postgraduate School to evaluate the process of rebel consolidation in civil conflict. While numerous studies have evaluated the process of rebel fragmentation, no comprehensive analysis of the causes and process of rebel consolidation (both cooperative and conflictual) has yet been conducted. We are in the early phases of addressing this research gap.

Dr. Michael Gabbay (UW Applied Physics) is the project lead on this effort, while Dr. Mohammed Hafez is spearheading the case-study research. The O/R Lab is responsible for one part of the broader project: building a cross-national dataset to evaluate whether the dynamics which appear to result in differing patterns of rebel consolidation at the sub-national level hold across cases. Keep your eye out as new positions related to this research team will be available in the summer and fall!

This work is supported by a grant from the Minerva Initiative/U.S. Army Research Office Award #75193-LS-MRI, ``Rising to the Top: Armed Group Consolidation in Civil Wars and Fragile States," (Michael Gabbay, Principal Investigator, with co-PIs Emily K. Gade and Mohammed Hafez, 2019-2022).

Publications:

Special Issue in Studies of Conflict and Terrorism: “Consolidation of Nonstate Armed Actors in Fragmented Conflicts: Introducing an Emerging Research Program,” by Mohammed M. Hafez, Michael Gabbay & Emily K. Gade

Working papers:

“Thickly descriptive quantitative data: a call for a paradigm shift in data collection." Emily K. Gade, Marcella Moriss, Chonlawit Sirikupt, Ava Sharifi, and the O/R Lab Rebel Consolidation Team (Gabe Samuels, Leah Bader, Ben Lefkowitz, and Sidratul Muntaha).