Abstract:
            This paper leverages micro-level variations in changes associated with the spread of organized religion to examine the effect of the social context of rebel recruitment. To this end, it uses rare and unique data on rebel recruitment comprising of information on the entire universe of recruits in an ethnic insurgency in India. Drawing upon a combination of archival research, ethnographic work, satellite imagery, and statistical analysis, the paper demonstrates that social transformation associated with the spread of Christianity played a powerful role in shaping rebel recruitment.

Three manifestations of this transformation -- increased social homogeneity, enhanced network of social ties and heightened socio-religious mobilization -- all helped bolster insurgent recruitment. The dampening effect of the famine, frequently associated with the outbreak of the insurgency, suggests that, in the context of subsistence farming, the availability of agricultural surplus is critical to determining the supply of labor for the rebel cause.

Although the oft-suspected positive connection between military mobilization associated with the Second World War and civil conflicts in Southeast Asia is validated, the effect is substantively marginal. The findings also demonstrate that the unavailability of information on rebels lost due to attrition resulting from injury, death, desertion, purges, etc. warrants a serious concern from scholars.


About the Speaker:
                                  Dr.Anoop Sarbahi is Assistant Professor, Political Science Department at University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Anoop Sarbahi has held pre-and post-doctoral positions at Stanford University, UCLA and Harvard University. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in December, 2011. His research interests include ethnicity, civil wars, counter insurgency, post-conflict transition and state rebuilding and political economy of inter-group and inter-regional disparities. His expertise is in geospatial analysis involving satellite imagery and geographical information systems. He also holds an M.Phil. in Planning and Development from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

Sarbahi's on drone strikes in Pakistan, co-authored with Patrick Johnston at RAND, has been widely cited in academic, policy and media publications. His other projects involve investigating: the determinants of rebel recruitment; the effects of the post-World War II occupation and division of Germany (with Stanford�s Jeremy Weinstein); the impact of development on conflict dynamics in India; spatial interdependence of civil conflicts; and intrastate economic disparities.

Sarbahi's research has received recognition and support from multiple sources, which include the United State Institute of Peace (USIP), Harvard University�s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) at the University of California, San Diego, the UCLA International Institute, the UCLA Asia Institute, and the US Department of Defense Minerva Initiative.