Replication Data for: Rebel Command and Control, Time, and Rebel Group Splits

Fractious splits of rebel groups debilitate the military capacity of these organizations which increases their vulnerability to anti-rebel operations. Despite the risks of disunity and the battleeld advantages of remaining cohesive, our new global sample of rebel groups (1980- 2014) reveals that two-fifths of these (but not the remaining) groups have split into distinct, competing factions. Why and when do some rebel groups split, while other groups remain cohesive? Unlike previous research on rebel fragmentation, we argue that the extent of centralization of the rebel groups command-and-control structure together with the group's "age" influences the propensity of rebel group splits. The organizational features of rebel groups with high command-and-control centralization lead to internal blame-game politics when these groups age, which encourages the supreme leader to amass power and curtail the other leaders' decision-making authority. This induces the alienated leaders to split the parent rebel organization to form a new rebel group. In contrast, the organizational structure of moderate and weakly centralized rebel groups promotes mutual interdependence among leaders as well as between these leaders and sub-commanders over time. This reduces the likelihood of splits of these groups. Results from our new rebel-group-year data provide robust statistical support for these predictions.