Rebel Reputation and Violent Resistance in Civil Wars

Community-based militias have received increasing attention in the literature. However, research on why civilians choose violence over nonviolence against rebels remains limited. This article argues that communities are more likely to organize a militia when they face an insurgency with a negative reputation for its arbitrary use of violence, unresponsiveness, and incapacity to protect the population from state repression. The empirical test uses original data on resistance campaigns in Colombia and exploratory factor analysis to model rebel reputation as a latent construct. Both aggregated and individual measures of negative reputation, such as rebel massacres, are robustly associated with civilian choice for violent resistance. Competing explanations do not find support. These findings contribute new knowledge on how rebel governance and administration of violence against civilians shape the emergence of militias in civil wars.