Abstract
<jats:p>Existing accounts of return after forced displacement emphasize current security conditions. Yet present violence is a poor predictor of returnees' future prospects. This paper investigates the relationship between the institutions responsible for security provision and return. I argue that prospective returnees rely on the responsiveness and military capacity of local security providers as signals of future stability. In ethnic conflicts, this relationship is moderated by the geographical distribution of ethnic groups and by control over the central state. I test this theory using granular administrative and survey data from South Sudan. I show that security provision by community-based militias–in-group responsive actors with high military capacity–is associated with more permanent return. Difference-in-differences estimates demonstrate that their effect is concentrated in ethnic borderlands inhabited by the state-controlling group, a pattern consistent with evidence of state repression of minority militias. In line with the theory, shifts in local control to community-based militias also drive economic recovery and changes in security conditions.</jats:p>