Capitals Under Siege: Why Some Rebel Groups Achieve Victory While Others Fail

Why do some rebel groups defeat the government while so many others fail? Scholars of civil wars note that rebels must often reach the capital to defeat the government. Yet, history is replete with rebels who have lost the war, despite reaching the capital. I offer a theory of rebel capital approach that helps explain why only some rebels are victorious. Introducing novel data on rebel approaches, and accounting for selection dynamics, I find that groups which lay siege to the capital are more likely to achieve victory than those that either blitz the capital from the periphery or form in the city and attempt to divide the government’s power from within. These findings underscore that both strength and wartime decision making are important to the outcome of war.