Replication Data for "Control, Coercion, and Cooptation: How Rebels Govern after Winning Civil War"

This article examines how rebels govern after winning civil war. During war, rebels and their rivals form ties with civilians to facilitate rebel governance and establish control. To consolidate power after war, the new rebel government engages in: (a) control through their civilian ties in their wartime strongholds; (b) coercion in rival strongholds, where rivals retain ties; and (c) cooptation by deploying loyal bureaucrats to oversee development in unsecured terrain, where ties are weak. These strategies then explain subnational differences in post-war development. I analyze Zimbabwe’s Liberation War (1972-1979) and post-war politics (1980-1987). I use a difference-in-differences identification strategy leveraging large-scale education reforms to show that development increased most quickly in unsecured terrain and least quickly in rival strongholds. Qualitative evidence from archival and interview data confirms the theorized logic. Findings deepen our understanding of transitions from conflict to peace, revealing important insights about how wartime experiences affect post-war politics.