Governance Interrupted: Rebel Governance and Pro-Government Militias

Although the existing literature on Pro-Government Militias (PGMs) is rife with studies on various aspects of government-militia relations, not much is known about specific approaches that governments employ to ensure loyalty of their semi-formal proxies. Lessons from recent civil war in Sudan and other cases of PGMs turning their arms against their former patrons further enhance the importance of understanding which mechanisms (if any) incumbents deploy to prevent militias from “going rogue.” In this study, we examine three mechanisms employed by governments to guarantee loyalty of their militia allies. We emphasize the importance of personal, sectarian and other ideological fractionalization within rebel groups; deployment of extreme violence by PGMs against co-ethnic civilians; and formation of rival militias as the most effective PGM loyalty assurance tools available to the incumbents. We test these theoretical assumptions on the case study of the Second Chechen War to elucidate how each of these mechanisms was implemented in practice during the decades-long counterinsurgency campaign waged by Moscow.

In the following chapters, I conduct quantitative and qualitative tests of the book's main hypotheses on the effects of rebel governance on postwar political regimes. Before doing so, I devote this chapter to examining the theory's main explanatory concept, rebel governance, and the two variables I use to capture it quantitatively, namely, rebel income sources and rebel institution-building. While the outcome variable, democratization, has been the subject of generations of theoretical and empirical research, rebel governance – that is, rebel groups’ efforts to build political relations with civilians during civil war – has until recently escaped the kind of abiding attention needed to bring an issue to intellectual light. In this chapter, and indeed in this book as a whole, I aim to contribute to the budding research agenda on what actors – in this particular case, the rebels and civilians – do during internal conflict. Civil war is a continuation of politics and, as I will show, actors expend ample efforts on political organization, mobilization, contention, and legitimation in its course. Rebel governance is a significant force in civil war, with a potential to change its dynamics, outcomes, and even subsequent developments once the war has ended. In this chapter, I first reflect on the state of rebel governance in scholarly works. Defining the term, I argue for the usefulness of serious theoretical and empirical work on the subject. The main material with which I explore the empirical nuts and bolts of rebel governance is an original dataset documenting rebel governance for all major civil wars that ended between 1950 and 2006. I describe the dataset and its variables; importantly, I also discuss some of the challenges of constructing a dataset of this sort. I use this dataset first to descriptively examine the various sources of rebels’ wartime income, then to analyze what factors lead rebels to rely on civilian contributions as opposed to other funding sources. I then turn to rebel “statebuilding” during civil war. I examine what rebels do with their funds in terms of political organization and governance of civilians, and how prevalent rebel statebuilding has been in the civil wars since 1950. Note that the chapter's aim is by and large empirical; I document variation in rebel governance but do not develop a theory to account for it, drawing instead on existing works to identify some hypotheses.

A growing line of research examines causes and consequences of militant group competition. However, empirical work on these topics has limitations. Most quantitative research uses relatively rough proxies for competition, such as counts of groups in a country. Other work uses dichotomous indicators, ignoring the intensity or degree of rivalries. Additionally, many studies examine either terrorist organizations or rebel groups, overlooking cross-type rivalry (e.g., terrorist vs. rebel). We address these issues by introducing time-varying dyadic rivalry data on hundreds of groups – rebels, terrorists, and pro-government militias – in Africa and Asia, 1990-2015. Rivalry levels include denouncements, threats, and violence. After presenting the data, we test the “outbidding” hypothesis: the notion that inter-organizational competition leads to more terrorism. This argument has found support in qualitative analyses, but quantitative tests using rivalry proxies show mixed results. Using our data we find support for the hypothesis. We conclude with research questions that could be addressed with the data.

Why do some countries harbor pro-government militias (PGMs), while others do not? We assert that the deployment of PGMs depends on topographic, social, and political structures within which governments and rebels operate. Drawing on the concept of opportunity structures, we postulate that structural conditions within which governments are embedded in constitute a contributing factor to the existence and multiplicity of PGMs. Data from the Pro-Government Militia Dataset along with a two-stage hurdle model reveal that personalist regime type and civil wars increase the likelihood of PGM emergence. In contrast, ethnic fractionalization, onshore oil fields, drug production, number of rebel groups, and military prowess influence the number of PGMs.

Why do civilians comply with a rebel group? When rebel groups hold military control over a geographical territory, they have to decide on how to interact with the civilian population in that territory. The rebels can become predatory, they can try to recruit civilians, ignore them, or govern them. This dissertation focuses on instances in which rebels govern, ranging from minimal regulation and informal taxation, to the creation of bureaucracies, police offices, courts, schools, and health clinics. More specifically, it investigates how rebel governance affects civilian compliance. Two cases of rebel governance have been studied in-depth: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka and the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. This dissertation adds new insights to the existing literature on civil wars and rebel governance, with a focus on: rebel symbolism; rebel legitimation and civilian compliance; longitudinal perspectives on rebel governance and legitimacy; and the relation between contentious politics and rebel governance. The findings are based on historical and social qualitative research, which included eight months of field research in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. The data collection and analysis combined forms of document research, interviews, and observations. The study carries policy and societal relevance by revealing parts of the social and political life in rebel-held zones that had remained less visible or hidden for the public and policy-makers.

Insurgent groups vary in how they interact with civilians. Some insurgent groups perform government functions to further their political objectives during civil war, whilst other rebel groups use solely violent means. Why do some insurgent groups perform governance functions to further their political objectives, whilst others interact very little with the local population? I seek to explain the variation in rebel governance, which I argue is motivated by the objective of the insurgency. More specifically, I argue that secessionist insurgencies are more likely to implement governance structures than non-secessionist insurgent groups. Using an in-depth case study analysis, I found varying results that both support and contradict the hypothesis. This underscores the importance of addressing variations in rebel governance in future research.

Conventional and tired characterizations of civil wars invoke images of endless chaos and relentless violence perpetuated by armed groups. In reality, civil wars are defned by unique forms of wartime social and political order, and are anything but chaotic.1 This study focuses on ‘rebel governance’ as a specifc rebel-civilian sociopolitical relationship in which rebel groups participate in the administration of civilian afairs. Using disaggregated data on rebel governance in 122 civil wars, I examine the relationship between the character of rebel governance used by rebel groups and the use of violence against civilians. Contrary to existing characterizations of rebel governance, the results of the large-N analysis show rebel governance, particularly the provision of social services, to be positively related to confict violence. Through further qualitative analysis of governance in the case of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), I point to the necessary role of violence in the administration of rebel governance and rebel group capacity as two preliminary explanations for the observed relationship.

Rebel groups often develop governance during war by establishing administrative structures, engaging in taxation, and providing social services to the local population. Rebel governance structures, however, vary depending on the extent to which they include participatory arrangements. Some rebel groups allow civilian participation in their governance during the war, while others have highly hierarchical structures strictly limiting civilian participation. This paper examines whether and how the governance activities of rebel groups and participatory arrangements and institutions that they adopt during the war affect the durability of peace. I argue that participatory rebel governance can be particularly effective in establishing durable peace after the war. Civilian participation under rebel governance facilitates civilian political participation after conflict ends, which, in turn, discourages the use of political violence in response to grievances. Using rebel governance data between 1945 and 2012, I find strong empirical support for my argument. I then demonstrate the plausibility of the causal mechanism in the case of Indonesian and the Philippine civil wars. By establishing a strong positive empirical relationship between rebel wartime governance and the durability of peace, this paper identifies another important effect of rebel governance on conflict processes and outcomes in addition to its demonstrated effect on negotiations between warring parties and post-war democratization.

In the course of civil war, it is not unusual for armed rebels, who are fighting to either take control of a state or create a new one, to create state-like governing institutions. For example, nearly 64% of rebels between 1945 and 2012 created at least one governing institution. One challenge to moving the literature on rebel governance forward is getting data on the many possible institutions that comprise rebel governance. I introduce new data, the Rebel Quasi-State Institutions dataset, which covers 235 rebel groups and codes annually for 25 institutions during the entire existence of the group. I demonstrate the usefulness of this new dataset by exploring a relationship important to scholars: that of rebel strength and rebel governance institutions (Stewart, 2020). These analyses show two things. First, there is value in disaggregating rebel governance and looking at institutions separately because not all governance institutions are correlated with strength in the same direction. Second, taking into account the time dimension is important. Since rebel conventional capability increased as a result of the end of the Cold War (Kalyvas & Balcells, 2010) and rebel institutions became more prevalent, there is an important time component to rebel governance that correlates with events in the international system.

What is the relationship between natural resources and rebel governance? Previous studies have argued that resource rich groups have fewer incentives to provide social services. We argue, however, that even well-funded rebels may have incentives to provide some social services to civilians. Specifically, rebel groups profiting from the extraction of natural resources should be more likely to offer health care services as a means of ensuring a dependable civilian workforce than groups who do not profit from natural resources. Using data on both the extraction of natural resources and social service provision by rebel groups, we find strong empirical evidence to support our argument. We conclude with implications for scholars and policymakers.

Sudan has never experienced peace since it attained its independence from Britain in 1956. Most of the causes of the conflicts in Sudan are related to political domination, economic deprivation, and Islamization. The regime of former President Omar al Bashir since it took power from 1989-2019, it adopted a counter-insurgency strategy of using militias in the peripheral areas to confront alongside its army on the rebellious activities. The review literature on pro-government militias in the context of the unstable Sudan provides debates pertains violent atrocities committed by militias against innocent civilians in the name of counterinsurgency. The 2003 crisis in Darfur region clearly outlines the state strategy of employing the Janjaweed militia who later metamorphosed into Rapid Support Force, a paramilitary group who committed genocide and crime against humanity in the name of fighting the two rebel groups: the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The RSF has grown a powerful paramilitary force that are now battling the State Army for the takeover of the government militarily. The militia group which was once built up by the state now turning a real danger to the transitional democracy. This paper argues that the RSF are the direct beneficiary of the state and are closely linked to its structures, its people, its wealth, and foreign partners. This paper draws a conclusion that amicable solution ought to be sought for the benefit of the marginalized peripheral areas of Darfur, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile or Sudan with this unstoppable conflict risks to fragment into different autonomous states.

How is rebel governance gendered, and how does women's participation in rebellion affect the development and execution of governance programs? The author develops a framework for evaluating and explaining rebel governance's gendered dynamics, identifying four areas where attention to women and to gender helps us better understand these institutions: recruitment and internal organization, program expansion, development of new projects, and multi-layered governance relationships. They explore the context and significance of these dynamics using cross-conflict data on rebel governance institutions and women's participation as well as qualitative evidence from three diverse organizations. They suggest that it is not only the fact of women's participation that matters but the gendered nature of social and political relationships that help explain how rebels govern during civil wars. They show how women's involvement can shape governance content and implementation and how their participation may help rebel groups expand projects and engage with civilian communities.

The scholarship on rebel governance has largely focused on understanding how rebels govern during conflict. However, little is known about how rebel governance influences long-term state reconstruction after conflict. The main objective of this research is to address this gap. The research also explores governance activities of rebel groups within two main periods: during conflict, and when groups transitioned to rulers, with a focus on the provision of public goods. Without delving too deeply into a discussion on goods, as this is not the focus of the dissertation, and without discussing every type of good, although they should be observed holistically, the research instead looks at the provision of health services. The research investigates rebel group cooperation with vaccination campaigns focusing on the selected cases during the periods indicated above as an indicator of “interest in governance”.1 The analysis is based on documented empirical evidence.

This article explores the potential for mainstreaming wartime rebel governance structures into post-conflict state-building efforts. Through a study of the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement's (SPLA/M) efforts at state-building in South Sudan (1994–2011), it examines the oft-neglected linkages between rebel governance and post-conflict legitimacy. Findings highlight three pitfalls of mainstreaming non-state roles without sufficient analysis of the sources of legitimacy underlying rebel governance frameworks. First, by drawing upon the functions and legitimacy of other non-state actors rather than the rebel group itself, an artificial image of state-building can be projected. Second, due to the fragmented and dispersed nature of legitimacy, the ‘bottom-up’ logic of state-building can prove dubious. Third, weak capacity in governance, and subcontracted sources of legitimacy, are likely to undermine the ability to develop independent structures and functions. Conclusions offer four case specific insights that can assist policy-makers in applying a more critical framework to the legitimacy of armed groups, before incorporating them into post-war governance arrangements.

Since the 2010s, the Middle East and Africa have witnessed a sharp proliferation of insurgent proto-states – territorial enclaves controlled by insurgent groups. Gathering six ethnographic accounts from these regions, this volume seeks to answer the following: How do rebel governments and kin-based forms of socio-political organisation shape and influence one another? When rebels establish territorial control, their emerging proto-states will be shaped by processes of negotiation with pre-existing social forces. Therefore, sociopolitical organisation in rebel-held areas can only be understood by analysing the interactions between “the preexisting” and “the incoming” orders. Nonetheless, as we emphasise in this introduction, the study of kinship groups in conflict areas and rebel governments have developed as two distinct research fields. The aim of this volume is to bring them together and seek a deeper understanding of how kin-based loyalties, networks, institutions, and social conventions may shape and influence rebel governance practices. The volume features many examples of insurgent groups meticulously crafting “tribal administrations” to curtail civilian resistance. Yet, it also shows that the various rebel groups described face far greater difficulties in reforming society culturally, than asserting military dominance over tribal actors. For the rebels, social revolutions are harder earned than political domination.