Civilian Rebels: Explaining Noncombat Participation inside Boko Haram

• In Event: Identity and Narrative as Conflict Process

Abstract

When individuals join a rebellion, why do some become fighters whereas others serve as nurses, wives, accountants, or bomb-makers? Research shows that rebel recruitment tactics and individual motivations influence mobilization, but neglects how role differentiation affects, and is affected by, individuals and the organization. In this article, I argue that pre-war social status shapes both insurgents’ recruitment preferences and individuals’ options for the type of roles they occupy within rebellions. However, insurgencies are dynamic, offering altered social relations and mobility. I show that shocks at the individual and group level translated into opportunities and pressures for civilians to move in and out of specific (non-)combat roles. The paper draws on more than 100 in-depth interviews with former Boko Haram associates collected in Nigeria over the course of eleven months between 2018 and 2020. By tracing mobilization trajectories in the context of the insurgency’s evolution, it demonstrates that pre-war status and organizational needs interact in role allocation, but that neither forms of participation nor the civilian-combatant divide are static. This shifts attention from political voluntarism toward participation as a dynamic and negotiated process underpinned by constraints for civilian – and armed group – survival, which remains underexamined in counterterrorism and post-conflict interventions.

Author

• Antonia Juelich, Harvard Kennedy School