Can Rebels Bolster Trust in the Government? Evidence from the Philippines

• Author: Jori Breslawski
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221123319
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Date: 01 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2023, Vol. 67(4) 728–751

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027221123319

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

Can Rebels Bolster Trust in

the Government? Evidence

from the Philippines

Jori Breslawski

1



Abstract

Commitment problems make civil wars diff‌icult to end. Research on overcoming

commitment problems focuses on warring parties, however civilians’perceptions are

central to successful transitions from war to peace. While civilians residing in areas

previously controlled by armed groups may be highly distrustful that governments will

implement peace agreements, I argue that some armed groups are both motiva ted and

capable of improving trust in the state. Using survey data from civilians in the

Bangsamoro, Philippines, I show that civilians that experienced rebel security provision

or rebel justice provision from the MILF are more likely to trust that the Government

of the Philippines will fully implement the peace agreement than civilians that did not

experience rebel governance provision.

Keywords

rebel governance, peace agreement, conf‌lict, trust, broker

One of the primary reasons that civil wars are diff‌icult to end is commitment problems.

That is, neither the government nor rebels can credibly commit to implementing the

negotiated settlement in the future. Concerns surrounding commitment problems are

especially acute for rebels and their constituents, since once rebels lay down their arms,

they are vulnerable to the government reneging on the agreement as it consolidates

power (Walter 1997).

1

Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Jori Breslawski, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.

Email: mtbreslawski@gmail.com

Rebels and their constituents’concerns are not unfounded. Only half of all com-

prehensive peace agreements between 1989 and 2012 were fully implemented, and the

likelihood of conf‌lict recurrence continues to be elevated for as many as ten years

following the signing of peace agreements (Joshi and Quinn 2017,Binningsbø 2017).

Even peace agreements that appear successful initially can fail months or years into the

process. Thus, a crucial step of peace processes is convincing rebels that the gov-

ernment will fully implement their end of the deal. Researchers have identif‌ied various

strategies to address concerns caused by commitment problems, such as the design of

political institutions as well as international involvement and peacekeeping (Walter

1997, 345).

However, rebels are not the only actor that need to be convinced that the government

will implement the peace agreement. Civilians, and specif‌ically rebels’constituents—

the civilians whom rebels claimed to f‌ight for—are important actors in the transition

from war to peace. The f‌ield’s lack of knowledge surrounding civilians’perceptions of

whether the government will implement the peace agreement is rather surprising

because a growing body of literature that recognizes that civilians’engagement with

and acceptance of peace processes is critical for the sustainability of peace (Haass et al.

2022). Indeed, despite the fact that peace agreements are primarily negotiated and

ultimately signed by warring parties, how civilians perceive the peace process is central

to the transition from war to peace (Dyrstad et al. 2021, 607).

The implementation of peace agreements is just as relevant to civilians as it is to

elites. In fact, provisions relating to social groups and civil society are just as common

in peace agreements as provisions that are thought of as being “elite-focused”, such as

amnesties, power sharing, and security sector reform (Haass et al. 2022, 5). Not only

that, but deviations from promises made in a peace agreement serve as a warning to

civilians that the government cannot be trusted on highly important issues, meaning

government implementation of peace agreements can inform civilian political trust

more broadly (Dyrstad et al. 2021). It can be especially challenging for governments to

gain the trust of civilians that lived under the inf‌luence of rebels during the war, since

civilians in these areas typically undergo ideological indoctrination to mobilize support

against the government and may have been victims of state-sponsored violence due to

their assumed relationship to rebels (Arjona et al. 2015). Indeed, Martin (2020) found

that areas controlled by the Forces Nouvelles in Cote d’Ivoire held more negative

attitudes about state institutions after the war came to a close than other areas of the

country.

So what convinces civilians that governments will implement peace agreements? In

this article, I argue that rebels can act as brokers to re-establish civilian trust in the

government. Specif‌ically, rebels that are engaged in negotiations with the government

are motivated to increase civilian trust that the government will implement the peace

agreement for two reasons. First, after years of anti-state propaganda and the fueling of

grievances against the state, armed groups have incentives to re-establish trust in the

government so that the armed group does not lose legitimacy by negotiating and

making concessions to the enemy. In other words, armed groups do not want to be

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