Rebels regularly provide public services, especially legal services, but the consequences of such programs are unclear. We argue that rebel courts can boost civilian support for insurgency and augment attack capacity by increasing the legitimacy of the rebellion, creating a vested interest in rebel rule, or enabling rebel coercion of the civilian population. We study the impact of the Taliban's judiciary by leveraging cross-district and over-time variation in exposure to Taliban courts using a trajectory-balancing design. We find that rebel courts reduced civilian support for the government and increased it for the Taliban, and were associated with more attacks and more coalition casualties. Exploring mechanisms, we find that courts resolved major interpersonal disputes between civilians but also facilitated more insurgent intimidation of civilians, and that changes in public opinion are unlikely to have been driven solely by social desirability bias. Our findings help explain the logic of rebel courts and highlight the complex interactions between warfare and institutional development in weak states.

中文翻译：

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冲突期间讨好平民：来自阿富汗塔利班法官的证据

叛乱分子定期提供公共服务，尤其是法律服务，但此类计划的后果尚不清楚。我们认为，叛乱法庭可以通过增加叛乱的合法性、在叛乱统治中创造既得利益或使叛乱能够对平民进行胁迫来增强平民对叛乱的支持并增强攻击能力。我们通过使用轨迹平衡设计，利用塔利班法院暴露的跨地区和随时间的变化来研究塔利班司法机构的影响。我们发现，叛军法庭减少了平民对政府的支持，增加了对塔利班的支持，并且与更多的袭击和更多的联军伤亡有关。通过探索机制，我们发现法院解决了平民之间的重大人际纠纷，但也助长了叛乱分子对平民的更多恐吓，而且公众舆论的变化不太可能仅仅由社会期望偏见驱动。我们的研究结果有助于解释叛乱法庭的逻辑，并强调弱国战争与制度发展之间复杂的相互作用。