States in Disguise provides a rigorous theoretical framework, within which to study the complex and fluid network of relationships between states and nonstate armed groups, including ethnic and religious insurgents, revolutionary groups, and terrorists. The theoretical framework builds on the presumption that the continuing presence of armed rebel groups in world politics, in parallel to modern states, is not coincidental; rather, it is the result of systematic choices by both states and rebels. The state support of rebel groups are shaped, to a great extent, by domestic and international mate ... More

States in Disguise provides a rigorous theoretical framework, within which to study the complex and fluid network of relationships between states and nonstate armed groups, including ethnic and religious insurgents, revolutionary groups, and terrorists. The theoretical framework builds on the presumption that the continuing presence of armed rebel groups in world politics, in parallel to modern states, is not coincidental; rather, it is the result of systematic choices by both states and rebels. The state support of rebel groups are shaped, to a great extent, by domestic and international material and ideational environment within which states and rebel groups interact. By attributing an active role to rebel groups, the state-rebel selection theory identifies two mechanisms through which rebel groups acquire their resources. One is state selection, that is, states make purposive choices to support certain rebels, also referred as intentional support of rebels. The other is rebel selection, that is, rebels pick certain countries from which to acquire resources without the sponsorship of states within these countries, also referred as de facto support. The empirical analysis consists of case studies, descriptive analysis, and multivariate statistical modeling. The analysis of the State-Nonstate Armed Groups Cooperation dataset (NAGs dataset) yields five major findings about state-rebel group relations: (1) states are most likely to support rebel groups when they are confronted with internal and external threats simultaneously; (2) states substitute conventional alliances with other states by supporting rebel groups against their adversaries; (3) when choosing between multiple groups targeting the same state, states prefer the rebels with common ethnic, religious, and ideological ties; (4) rebels are more likely to choose states with common ethnic, religious, and ideological ties; (5) rebels prefer strong states and democracies when seeking outside state support.