What Matters Is Who Supports You: Diaspora and Foreign States as External Supporters and Militants’ Adoption of Nonviolence

Abstract

Militant groups are usually committed to violent tactics to pursue their goals. Yet, in certain cases, militants adopt nonviolent tactics and desist from violence. As internal conflict rarely remains isolated from outside influence, I argue that external supporters affect militant groups’ tactical considerations. I expect that different external benefactors will have different effects on the probability of switching to nonviolent tactics. The focus here is on diaspora and foreign states as external supporters, and I conduct a large-N analysis with violent group-level data. I find that external support from diaspora is positively associated with rebels’ adoption of nonviolent tactics, while support from foreign states is not. In fact, foreign states as supporters are not as effective influencers as diaspora. These findings shed light on the important role of nonstate actors in conflict dynamics and present evidence that challenges the notion that diaspora’s involvement prolongs internal conflicts.