Between Selective and Indiscriminate Human Rights Violations: How Rebel Groups Origins Shape Pattern of Abuses

Existing studies often focus on why some rebel groups engage in selective and indiscriminate abuses. In this study, I advance the narrative explaining which rebel groups lean more towards selective (discriminatory) abuses and which ones lean more heavily towards indiscriminate abuse. I argue that rebel organizational origins shape violence repertoires before conflict dynamics fully unfold. Rebel groups with non-violent origins, particularly those that emerge from political parties or civil society groups. These groups inherit community networks, local knowledge, and high political costs that constrain broad civilian victimization and facilitate more selective targeting. By comparison, groups that originate from violent parent organizations may lack such embeddedness and face lower political costs against indiscriminate coercion. Using data from the FORGE dataset, the Non-State Actor dataset, and the Rebel Human Rights Violations dataset (1990–2018), findings suggest that pre-war organizational legacies significantly shape how rebel groups treat civilian populations during armed conflict.