This article examines how the civilian constituencies of rebel groups affect their use of violenceagainst civilians. While past research has acknowledged the importance of rebel constituencies,they are primarily seen as only having an indirect effect on rebel behavior. In this study, I conceptualizerebel constituencies as central political opportunity structures for rebel groups providingincentives and imposing restraints on their use of strategic violence and the violent behavior ofindividual rebel fighters. In particular, I hypothesize that a constituency overlap between rebelsand the government of a state acts as a restraint making large-scale violence against civilians lesslikely. In contrast, high levels of constituency fractionalization and polarization induce strategic violenceand predatory behavior, increasing the chances of large-scale civilian victimization. I conducta statistical analysis of rebel one-sided violence in sub-Saharan Africa using newly collected dataon rebel constituencies to test these hypotheses. The results only provide limited empirical supportfor the hypothesized relationship between constituency overlap and rebel violence againstcivilians. There is clear empirical evidence, however, that heavily fractionalized and polarized rebelconstituencies are associated with higher levels of violence against civilians.
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