Micro-ideologies and rhetorical shifts: Understanding ideological evolution in rebel groups

This thesis explores the micro-ideological configurations and rhetorical transformations in rebel groups through three interrelated journal-style articles. It examines why and how rebel organisations transform their ideology over time, how rebel groups frame conflicts, define goals, and establish normative constraints resulting in micro-ideologies, and how peace agreement negotiations influence the rhetorical strategies of non-participating rebel groups. The first article investigates the mechanisms of ideological change in rebel groups. Using process tracing, interviews, and archival data analysis of the 19th of April Movement (M-19) in Colombia, it argues that ideology is a dynamic category that evolves through the mechanisms of legitimisation and differentiation. Groups within the same ideological family face continuous pressure to distinguish themselves while maintaining legitimacy among internal members and external supporters. The second article examines the micro-ideologies of rebel groups, which emerge from the interaction between conflict framing, conflict goals, and normative constraints. Building on existing literature on ideology in civil wars, the concept of micro-ideologies demonstrates how groups within the same ideological family develop distinct ideological positions. Through interviews, case studies, archival research, and machine learning techniques, specifically supervised classification and cluster analysis, applied to 6,056 documents from 59 guerrilla groups in Latin America, this study empirically establishes that a group’s definition of its enemies and its self-representation are the main elements of micro-ideological differentiation. The third article analyses the impact of peace negotiations on the rhetorical transformation of non-participating groups. Using unsupervised Wordfish estimation, the findings suggest that peace negotiations influence the rhetoric of both participating and non-participating groups due to the increased salience of peace. The study also finds that groups with formal political institutions are more likely to moderate their rhetoric, whereas splinter groups tend to radicalise. The findings of this thesis underscore the necessity of unpacking the concept of ideology and understanding it as a dynamic category. By moving beyond broad ideological classifications, this research highlights the importance of a more granular analysis of ideological variations within and across rebel groups.