Ms Political Science (International Politics)

Conflict and Cooperation

Research Outline

What is the correlation between the support of the state to a rebel organisation and

the length of a conflict? A case study on the UK and the Ulster Loyalist

Paramilitaries

Jokin de Carlos-Sola (s3121232)

Dr Roos van Haar
Introduction

Should states sponsored terrorism? Normally the answer would be very easy but

there have been many cases when state institutions have found themselves in the

situation of providing funding, resources, and weapons for rebel groups, sometimes to

fight another state, sometimes to fight another non-state actor that might be fighting

another state in question. This is an issue that many countries have faced during the last

decades. Since the beginning of the Cold War the methods of conventional warfare have

normally been discouraged or simply the issues of modern warfare seem normally less

costly than the traditional ones. The idea of supporting rebel organisations to fight a

rival state in some cases or to fight other groups has the advantage of going to extremes

that in some cases a state would not like to be implicated with.

This research text will have the intention of analysing how the support of a rebel

group by a state impacts the length of a conflict. In order to do that the text will use

qualitative means and a case analysis focusing on the support of the British authorities

during the Troubles to paramilitary organisations with the objective of fighting Irish

republicans. Since the conflict of the troubles lasted for over 30 years and that some of

its reminiscent are still seen to this day I believe this would be the best case to see how

state support affects the length of a conflict

Theory and Hypothesis

The idea of supporting non-state actors in order to win a conflict has existed for

a long time. Normally this is done to either weaken a rival state or fight against another

non-state actor. There has been quite some literature about this issue, one of the few

authors to offer a clear definition of what is state aid is Byman (Byman, 2005), who in

his study of foreign government assistance to terrorist organisations calls it ‘a

government’s intentional assistance to a terrorist group to help it use violence, bolster its

political activities, or sustain the organization’. However, as Quint Hoekstra in his work

about foreign support of rebel groups explains that this is a very limited definition since

there are more than those cases by which a country would support a rebel group.

Hoekstra also mentions three main characteristics of foreign support to a rebel group:

intentionality, coming in any form and being given either directly or indirectly.

(Hoekstra, 2019)

Other author of relevance for this topic in particular is Idean Seleyhan with texts

that try to answer why some rebel groups receive support while other do not. (Salehyan,

Gleditsch, & Cunningham, 2011) This paper in particular will be of importance to

mention since the fact that some groups do get financed might also be related to their

effectiveness which, depending on the situation could end up affecting the length of a

conflict.

Among most of the literature the research done by Hoekstra is the one that

resembles the most at what the research paper intends to reproduce. However unlike

Hoekstra I would like to propose a different perspective respective to my case selection.

In the paper of Quint Hoekstra he uses examples of states that support rebel groups to

fight another state (UNITA in Angola and the Contras in Nicaragua). (Hoekstra, 2019)

However in my research case pretends to talk about a case in which a state supports a

non-state actor to fight another non-state actor, which to my view is not something that

has been done that much often in previous literature. I believe that this issue has not

normally been that tackled since in most cases research focuses on black-ops or secret

state apparatus but the organisations that this text is going to mention are fully

independent groups that nevertheless receive support from state institutions.

 My theory regarding how the state support for a conflict affects its length is that

it influences it positively, meaning that a high support of a state to a non-state actor

would most likely increase the conflict in question. The reasons for this I believe is that

since paramilitary organisations are mostly formed by ideologically more extreme

elements these would most likely have a lesser interest in compromising which would

extend the conflict period. There is also the issue that once an organisation has become

strong thanks to its state support it could eventually don’t needed anymore which

inherently takes out of the states control increasing the chances for an escalation of the

conflict.

Case Analysis

For this case in particular I intend to research about the Troubles in Northern

Ireland and about the support that the British Government and the Royal Ulster

Constabulary gave to Ulster Loyalist Paramilitary organisations with the specific task of

fighting the Provisional IRA and other Irish republican organisation. The selection of a

case is a particularly complicated issue when it comes to the topic of state supported

rebel organisations. This is because even decades after conflicts ended the cases of state

sponsored terrorism or rebel activity are mostly kept in secret and the most unknown

cases are in most cases based on speculation or accusations by foreign countries which

intern, makes it difficult to not only get data but also talk about the validity of the

independent variable. However, the case of the support of the British government to

ULPs has actually been confirmed by many investigations and inquiries although most

of the data has not been so far revealed.

The roots of loyalist Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland are very long. The first

group were the Ulster Volunteers formed in 1913 to oppose the home rule of Ireland

within the United Kingdom at was formed mostly by Protestant in the North of the
island, the region also called “Ulster”. They were disbanded in 1920. From then on

loyalist paramilitarism would not be present until the 1960s. (Juffermans, 2018)

The conflict of the Troubles was a very long and whose ramifications can still be

seen to this day. After the partition of Ireland, the Northern Irish Counties formed

Northern Ireland or Ulster, that had a Protestant majority and self-rule from the

Parliament at Stormont. The political system was completely controlled by the Ulster

Unionist Party. Under this political system the catholic minority was systematically

discriminated and segregated from society, specially in issues such as jobs, housing or

voting rights. This lead to the civil rights movement of the 1960s which was itself

answered by counter protests by Protestant lead by reverend Ian Paisley. This at the

same time lead to the creation of the Ulster Volunteer Force a paramilitary organisation

that started attacks against Irish Republicans and members of the IRA, after 1968

violence would escalate and in response to IRA attacks the Ulster Defence Association

was born in 1971 to combat them. During the conflict known as “The Troubles” these

two groups together with other paramilitary organisation such as the Red Hand

Commando or the Ulster Resistance would participate in violent attacks against Irish

Republican groups and against catholic civilians. (Juffermans, 2018)

During the conflict there had been accusation of collusion between the Royal

Ulster Constabulary and Ulster paramilitary organisations and later also by the British

Government and military. However unlike other cases where governments are accused

of collaborating with rebel or paramilitary organisations, when things difficulty go

further than simple accusations by either other countries or civil society in this case

there were many investigations and reports that I believe would give a lot of vailidity

for the report in question. For example the report done by Sir Desmond da Silva about

the murder of Irish lawyer Pat Finucane, during the 1980s, 85% of the intelligence
loyalists used to target people came from the security forces, who in turn also had

double agents and informers within loyalist groups who organised attacks on the orders

of, or with the knowledge of, their handlers. (da Silva, 2012) Other reports done at the

time of the conflict like the 1973 Subversion of the UDR, (that was undisclosed in

2004) suggested that 5–15% of the soldiers recruited in Northern Ireland by the British

army were members of loyalist paramilitaries. (BMI, 1973) Overall however the biggest

piece of investigation for these issues were the Steven Inquiries specifically done to find

out about the collaboration between Ulster Paramilitary and British government. These

inquiries certified that there had been collusion between the groups and that the British

forces had actually participated in the targeting of civilians and other non-violent

sections of the Irish republican world. As previous reports had shown the inquiries also

showed that many of the agent recruited by British forces were also members of

paramilitary organisations. Most importantly for this research work, the Stevens

investigations concluded that the support of Ulster paramilitaries by British forces had a

crucial role in guaranteeing the length of the conflict. (Stevens, 2003)

Method & Operationalisation

In this text I will conduct the analysis through qualitative means in a way of

process tracing, similar to what Mr Hoekstra did in his own work. Meaning that I will

use process tracing and try to follow the different events and aspects about the case in a

chronological manner. For that I also intend to use the different reports and inquiries

done about this issue in order to find the correct set of events that are relevant to this

topic. In that regard I would also list the different ideological aspects that characterise

the groups that are being studied as part of the case. The aim of this would also

determine the role that ideologies play in the event of the actions of these particular

non-state actors.
 The two main variables in this text would be the state support of rebel groups

and the length of a conflict on the other. I believe that qualitative methos fit better for

this type of case since it would be very difficult to find a complete set of data bases on

the issue of support since many of these actions were not recorded or if there are records

some of them are still undisclosed by British and Northern Irish authorities.

Results

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BMI. (1973). Subversion in the UDR (Ulster Defence Regiment). British Armed Forces.

Byman, D. (2005). Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism. Cambridge

University Press.

da Silva, S. D. (2012). The Report of the Patrick Finucane Review. London, United

Kingdom: House of Commons.

Hoekstra, Q. (2019). How Foreign State Support for Rebel Groups Affects Conflict.

Department of Politics, University of Manchester.

Juffermans, I. (2018). Does the end justify the means? Examining the relationship

between the Ulster Defence Association and the British Government. Utrecht

University, Faculty of Humanities.

Salehyan, I., Gleditsch, K., & Cunningham, D. (2011). Explaining External Support for

Insurgent Groups. International Organization Foundation.

Stevens, S. J. (2003). Stevens Inquiries: Overview and Recomendations. London,

United Kingdom: Metropolitan Police Service.