Rebel Governance, Alternative Orders, and Contested Sovereignty

Abstract

Over the course of violent insurgencies and civil wars, armed groups seek to – and are often able to – gain some degree of control over certain geographic areas or parts of a population. Under favorable conditions, armed groups may succeed in building and institutionalizing forms of local “rebel-governance” or even quasi-states. The panel examines how militant movements and armed groups act as alternative ources of order, but also at the interplay of legitimacy, coercion, and control and the role of territorial contestation in shaping different patterns of political violence.