Description
Existing scholarship on rebel mobilization frequently focuses on political exclusion, state repression and material inequality (Gurr, 1970; Wood, 2003; Collier and Hoeffler 2004), arguing that a collective sense of injustice can fuel recruitment into insurgent movements. Others emphasize the role of pre-existing networks (Parkinson, 2013) providing both rebels and recruits with mutual trust and security during the recruitment process.
Yet these frameworks offer limited insight into why—and when—privileged actors dismantle the very structures that sustain their advantage. Focusing on the recruitment of white South Africans into the armed wing of the African National Congress, this paper identifies both the "push" and the "pull" factors which led the insurgency to pursue and attract white recruits. Employing archival work, process‐tracing and elite interviews, I demonstrate how white recruits played a strategic role within the organization, helping to secure external support and build new domestic coalitions. This analysis contributes to the literature on insurgent recruitment, rebel governance and elite defection under authoritarian regimes.
