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Rebels have become the most prolific users of landmines but still display significant variation in how they employ and restrict the weapon’s use. This article argues that how rebels exercise restraint on landmine use depends on which audiences they rely on most. In a comparative case study of three Philippine rebel groups—the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Abu Sayyaf Group, and the New People’s Army—this article highlights three main findings. First, rebels reliant on voluntary compliance from local communities are more likely to limit the effects of landmines on their perceived constituency. Second, when rebels have conciliatory relations with the government, they are more likely to comply with national law, reciprocate government behavior, and limit the effects of landmines on the government’s constituents. Finally, rebels seeking legitimacy from human-rights-conscious foreign sponsors are more likely to comply with international law related to landmine use. 

How do armed groups manage the trade-off between securing and accessing support from civilian populations and minimising the risk of exposing them to violence? While rebels often depend on local communities, their proximity exposes civilians to significant risks. This article addresses this dilemma by examining the use of landmines by Colombian guerrilla groups. Although landmines are expected to offer an effective and low-cost means to offset asymmetries in civil wars, their indiscriminate nature threatens the very communities on which rebels rely. I argue that while rebels are more likely to lay minefields where they enjoy greater local support, they should also attempt to reduce risks to civilians in these areas, especially when faced with stronger resistance from local communities. Using cross-sectional, subnational data from Colombia’s national mine action programme, I show that guerrilla groups indeed laid more landmines in more supportive municipalities. However, while such support does not appear to correlate with restraint in landmine use, higher levels of community organisation are associated with minefields being laid further from populated areas and with fewer civilian mine accidents. The findings contribute to research on civilian victimisation, rebel governance, and restraint in wartime violence, with implications for mine clearance and civilian protection.

What explains the choice of means and methods of warfare by armed groups? Conversely, why would some groups choose not to use certain weapons? Beyond the legitimacy- and reputation-based explanations common in existing literature, this article highlights the role of tactical utility, inherent costs, and normative biases of specific means and methods in shaping these decisions. Through a combination of congruence analysis and comparative methods, the article examines why the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), while employing a wide range of brutal forms of violence, generally avoided using landmines, contrasting this restraint with the behavior of other Colombian armed groups. Although the lack of tactical utility seems to be the primary driver of the non-use of landmines, the costs and stigma associated with using mines influence how the AUC perceived their utility. The findings underscore the importance of context-specific factors in the decision-making processes of non-state armed groups and contribute to broader discussions on the disaggregation of violence in civil wars. 

What is restraint in armed conflict, why is it exercised, and how does it vary? While existing scholarship has advanced the study of restraint, it tends to conflate deliberate self-limitation with observed reductions in violence, and has difficulty capturing embedded and material limits on violence. This article offers a two-dimensional framework that distinguishes among different rationales for limiting violence and the degree to which those limits are socially and organisationally embedded. Doing so clarifies what restraint is, what drives it, and how it can be identified more precisely across actors, repertoires, and contexts. Drawing on strategic theory, international law, and scholarship on political violence, it conceptualises restraint not only as a deliberate choice, but also as the product of institutional arrangements and societal processes that may inadvertently circumscribe violence. Throughout the article, theoretical discussions are illustrated through empirical examples ranging from Ancient Greece to the war in Gaza, from landmines to nuclear weapons, and from state militaries to jihadist movements. By integrating strategic, normative, and material explanations within a unified analytical framework, the article provides conceptual tools for explaining and measuring how violence is limited in practice.