Sponsorship relationships in proxy wars

Organised by

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

Abstract:

All proxy wars are not the same, because the actors involved, states and proxies, forge different types of relationships and use a combination of various means to achieve a desired effect. Sponsorship relationships are centred on the control that states have over their proxies. However, the aspects that determine the type of relationship have to do more with the circumstances under which these relationships are forged. In some cases, proxies receive external support from states for a long time while in others for a limited amount of time. In other cases, we have proxies that compete with each other, and they might have to compete on how many supporters they can have. This means, that despite the connection with the sponsor, the group is much more autonomous, and will not allow the sponsor to determine their relationship. This difference does not have to do with the military effectiveness of a proxy but rather the general position of the proxy in the civil war. This empirical observation leads to the question: How does the kind of sponsorship relationship that a state forges with a proxy affects its overall strategy in the proxy war?

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