The Elitism of Armed Rebellion
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Date
2012-09
Authors
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Publisher
Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics & Public Policy
Abstract
Description
The global fame—or ignominy—of rebel leaders is often determined by the degree of violence and upheaval they and their armed organizations generate. Names like Joseph Kony, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Jonas Savimbi are inseparable from the violent political projects of the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Islamic State, and UNITA, which these individuals led, respectively. But are these men representative of rebel leaders as a class of political actors in international politics? Though civil wars are the most common form of warfare today, we have little systematic information on the leaders of rebel organizations. This article reveals a new research tool that helps fill that gap and also describes why the information is important.
Keywords
rebel leaders database, rebel biographies, Rebel Organization Leaders (ROLE) dataset