Jumping on the Bandwagon: Differentiation and Security Defection during Conflict

• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002720904763
• Author: Christoph Dworschak
• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Jumping on the

Bandwagon:

Differentiation and

Security Defection

during Conflict

Christoph Dworschak

1

Abstract

When confronted with mass uprisings, governments deploy their security forces

for crowd control or repression. However, sometimes security agencies choose

to side with the opposition movement. Recent work shows that “fragmentation”

contributes to defection: fragmenting the security forces into parallel units leads to

oversight problems and grievances among soldiers, which raises the risk of

members of the security forces defecting to the opposition movement. However, I

argue that the effect on defection is strongly moderated by the circumstances

under which states choose to fragment their military: fragmentation for the pur-

pose of security specialization, called “differentiation,” even decreases its risk.

Employing Bayesian multilevel modeling, the findings corroborate this distinction.

The study contributes to the fundamental discussion on civil–military relations,

shedding light on why some conflict situations see security defections while others

do not. Understanding this phenomenon is a pivotal element to explaining how

conflicts develop, escalate, and end.

Keywords

defection, fragmentation, military effectiveness, civil–military relations

1

Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Christoph Dworschak, Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester

CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom.

Email: c.dworschak@essex.ac.uk

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(7-8) 1335-1357

ªThe Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002720904763

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

“Loyalty” is paramount for military success (see Chenoweth and Stephan 2013;

Nepstad 2011; Stephan and Chenoweth 2008; Peaty 2002; Brinton [1938] 1965),

which is why insubordination and desertion are persecuted and severely pun-

ished—this was the case centuries ago and remains true today. Despite harsh

countermeasures, disobedience is a recurring phenomenon in all militaries, which

is why an identification of the conditions under which soldiers are more likely to

defect is as relevant as ever. In addition, these cases of secession cause more than

“just” military ineffectiveness: they pose a threat to the underlying command

structure as a whole, and therefore to the fundamental civil–military relations

within a state.

Especially, governments that take extensive measures to ensure their military’s

allegiance (“coup-proofing”) have to expect an increased likelihood of military

defections during (non)violent uprisings (Dahl 2016b; Lutscher 2016). One of these

coup-proofing measures refers to a fragmentation of the security apparatus and is

called “counterbalancing”: a government that fears a coup d’´etat to happen frag-

ments its security forces into multiple independent command structures, hence if one

unit turned rogue, other loyal units could be deployed to “counterbalance” it. In their

pioneering work, Dahl (2016b) and Lutscher (2016) find that such counterbalancing

induces frustration, oversight problems, and ineffectiveness in the security appara-

tus, leading to more defections. I extend their work by arguing that features like

frustration and ineffectiveness stem from the government’s desire to coup-proof and

not from “fragmentation” itself. There are many cou ntries maintaining a highly

fragmented security apparatus without any coup-proofing intentions. Such fragmen-

tation instead aims at a spec ialization of individual force segments in different

security tasks (e.g., counterinsurgency vs. conventional warfare) and is herein called

“differentiation.” In contrast to counterbalancing, differentiation bears positive

implications for effectiveness and capacity (Dworschak 2019). Consequently, while

previous studies shed light on the link between coup-proofing measures and defec-

tion, I inquire “how does military differentiation influence the likelihood of defec-

tions during (non)violent uprisings?”

This article proceeds as follows. First , I conceptualize m ilitary defect ion and

review different causes. Second, I explain the two types of fragmentation,

“counterbalancing” and “differentiation,” and develop an argument explaining

how the latter yields opposite implications for defection during internal conflict.

Security forces that are divided into multiple parallel units, each specifically

trained and equipped to conduct a distinct security task, are expected to experience

a lower likelihood of defection. This is because grievances among soldiers are

lowered, and civil unrest is effectively countered without it posing a threat to the

government’s survival. Third, the hypothesis that higher di fferentiation leads to a

lower propensity of defection is evaluated using a Bayesian multilevel logistic

analysis, which yields results in line with my theory. Subsequent robustness checks

provide further corroboration. I conclude with a summary of my findings and

avenues for further research.

1336 Journal of Conflict Resolution 64(7-8)