Who Can We Trust with a Gun? Information Networks and Adverse Selection in Militia Recruitment.

How do the leaders of nonstate armed groups recruit new members? Most studies of recruitment of combatants focus on explaining the supply of fighters—who fights and what kinds of people volunteer to fight depending on the incentives offered. We know comparatively little about how the leaders of armed groups manage influxes of volunteers to ensure their quality. This article examines the questions of who recruits fighters, and how the capacities of recruiters affect the quality of the individuals who they recruit. The histories of three understudied civil militias in Sierra Leone are used to develop and refine a theory of screening in nonstate armed groups. Evidence from intensive fieldwork suggests that access to civilian information networks can allow the leaders of armed groups to successfully screen recruits and exclude low-quality types even when the pool of volunteers is flooded with opportunists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]