Description
State support for rebel groups is a pervasive phenomenon in Africa. This paper’s original dataset shows that 39 out of 47 mainland African states (83%) were sponsors and/or targets between 1960 and 2010. There were more than 200 unique triadic relationships between a sponsoring leader, a sponsored rebel group, and a targeted leader in this period. What explains why many African leaders use pro-rebel support as a foreign policy tool whereas others do not? Existing scholarship on Africa’s international relations typically focuses on personal survival. It sees all leaders as primarily reactive. Using a personal attribute approach, I provide an alternative perspective on African leaders that better explains pro-rebel support. I shift the focus to a subset of leaders that seeks more than just survival: revolutionary leaders—those seizing power by irregular means and implementing radical domestic changes. It is these leaders who, driven by largely ideology-based revisionist foreign policy objectives, are most commonly the first to target other leaders. I use Muammar Gaddafi to illustrate this argument and then systematically assess it employing the first leader-level dataset on pro-rebel sponsorship.
