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I study a model of mobilization and rebel tactical choice. Rebel leaders choose between conventional tactics that are heavily reliant on mobilization, irregular tactics that are less so, and withdrawal from conflict. The model yields the following results, among others. Increased nonviolent opportunity has a nonmonotone effect on the use of irregular tactics. Conflict has option value, so irregular campaigns last longer than the rebels' short-term interest dictates, especially in volatile military environments. By demonstrating lack of rebel capacity and diminishing mobilization, successful counterinsurgencies may increase irregular violence. Conflict begets conflict by eroding outside options, thereby increasing mobilization. . Adapted from the source document.

I study how a revolutionary vanguard might use violence to mobilize a mass public. The mechanism is informational—the vanguard uses violence to manipulate population member's beliefs about the level of antigovernment sentiment in society. The model has multiple equilibria, one equilibrium in which there may be revolution and another in which there is certain not to be. In the former, structural factors influence expected mobilization, whereas in the latter they do not. Hence, the model is consistent with structural factors influencing the likelihood of revolution in some societies but not others, offering a partial defense of structural accounts from common critiques. The model also challenges standard arguments about the role of revolutionary vanguards. The model is consistent with vanguard violence facilitating mobilization and even sparking spontaneous uprisings. However, it also predicts selection effects—an active vanguard emerges only in societies that are already coordinated on a participatory equilibrium. Hence, a correlation between vanguard activity and mass mobilization may not constitute evidence for the causal efficacy of vanguards—be it through creating focal points, providing selective incentives, or communicating information.

I present a model of interactions between voters, a government, and a terrorist organization. The model focuses on a previously unexplored conceptualization of counterterrorism as divided into tactic-specific observable and general unobservable tactics. When there is divergence between voters and government preferences, strategic substitution among different modes of attack by terrorists and agency problems between the voters and government create a situation in which the politically optimal counterterrorism strategy pursued by the government in response to electoral and institutional incentives is quite different from the security maximizing counterterrorism strategy. In particular, in response to electoral pressure, the government allocates resources to observable counterterror in excess of the social optimum. This problem is particularly severe when governments put great weight on rent-seeking or care less about counterterror than do voters and when terrorists have a large set of tactics from which to choose. Voters can decrease the magnitude of the agency problem by increasing the benefits of reelection by, for example, slackening requirements for nonsecurity related public goods. Adapted from the source document.

I present a model of the interaction between a government, a terrorist organization, and potential terrorist volunteers in which, as a result of an endogenous choice, individuals with low ability or little education are most likely to volunteer to join the terrorist organization. However, the terrorist organization screens the volunteers for quality. Consequently, the model is consistent with two seemingly contradictory empirical findings. Actual terrorist operatives are not poor or lacking in education. And yet lack of economic opportunity and recessionary economies are positively correlated with terrorism. The model also endogenizes the effect of government counterterrorism on mobilization. Government crackdowns have competing effects on mobilization: they decrease the ability of terrorists to carry out effective attacks (making mobilization less attractive), and they foment ideological opposition to the government and impose negative economic externalities (making mobilization more attractive). This provides conditions under which government crackdowns increase or decrease mobilization.

The author models the relationship between a government and former terrorists as a game with both moral hazard and learning. The government is uncertain about both the former terrorists' ability and skill at providing counterterrorism aid. The government has the option—after observing the success or failure of counterterrorism—of replacing the former terrorist leadership with a new negotiating partner. This study demonstrates that the threat of replacement, in addition to promised concessions, provides incentives for former terrorists to exert counterterrorism effort, particularly when the potential replacements are of moderate ability. Furthermore, the author identifies conditions under which governments are likely to replace the former-terrorist leadership with which it has been negotiating. The model also has implications for the effect of counterterrorism successes on future concessions and the impact of the government's ability to consider replacing the former terrorists on concessions and counterterrorism.