Critical barriers to joint production

Datu politics and insurgent fragmentation in Southern Philippines

Bibliographic Data

ID11186643
AuthorsCheng Xu (0000-0001-9436-0880, Political Science, University of Toronto, Canada, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume41
Issue5
Pages881-897
Publication date2020-05-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThird World Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0143-6597 • E-ISSN: 1360-2241
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01436597.2020.1723411
OpenAlexW3011043046
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited50

In understanding how groups overcome collective action problems of mass mobilisation in civil wars, a joint-production explanation was put forth in the civil war literature. According to this explanation, collective action can be successful when leaders at the centre tie the public good – violence towards the overall goal of the movement – inextricably to private interests of actors at the peripheral levels of the conflict. It is through this logic of joint production that we can understand the failures of the Islamic insurgencies in Southern Philippines and the spiralling levels of violence. Where other movements cohered under a common identity, the Islamist insurgency in Southern Philippines saw high degrees of fragmentation. In this paper, I argue that cleavages of regionalism created by colonial disruptions of land and social relations became a critical barrier for insurgent joint production. Furthermore, interactions between these identities and the state can pose further collective action problems. In Southern Philippines, insurgent leaders are unable to cut across these cleavages, resulting in increasingly fragmented movements and protracted conflict. Therefore, I argue that a joint-production approach to understanding civil wars can be especially promising when culturally and historically situated to explain why collective action often fails in civil war

Development economics · Economics · Fragmentation (computing · Geography · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Production (economics · Sociology · Asian Studies and History · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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