Changing Commitments: Shifts in External State Support to Rebels

Abstract

The provision of external state support to non-state armed groups in civil wars is a dynamic process. While we know much about the initiation of external support and its effects, we know less about why state sponsorship changes over time. Based on a within-case analysis of the United States’ support commitment to the armed opposition in Nicaragua in the 1980s, this article demonstrates the utility of focusing on shifts in leaders’ perceptions and domestic attribution processes rather than structural features of the international system or rebel behaviour to understand temporal variation in external support.