Why Factions Switch Sides in Civil Wars: Rivalry, Patronage, and Realignment in Sudan

Summary

Why do armed groups switch sides in civil wars? In weak states with few obstacles to switching sides, groups defect for material gain or to acquire military support in local struggles. Such shifts have implications for how long civil wars will endure, how they will end, and the prospects for state building.

Read: Lee J.M. Seymour's post on the Monkey Cage blog (coauthored with Kristin M. Bakke and Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham), "The problem with fragmented insurgencies."