Legitimizing Power: Anarchy vs. Hierarchy in Rebel Governance

Recent scholarship has studied rebel-to-civilian interactions related to the effect they have on governance capacity of rebel groups. This study extends the literature on rebel governance by looking at the interactions between armed group(s) and their target state(s). In this paper, we analyze the effects of wartime interactions between insurgents and their target states on rebel governance. The minimum condition of rebel governance is territorial control and it is expected that states would fight harder with rebels, which have or try to obtain territorial control. We argue that the interactions among rebels and their target states are not always conflictual; but also involve negotiations and bargaining. Whether a rebel group has leverage over its target state in bargaining is a function of its ability to legitimize its power over its domestic constituency. We argue that in a democratic or semi-democratic setting, rebels are better able to legitimate their power in the eye of public, if they develop a hierarchical relationship with their target states. On the other hand, they are more likely to do so in authoritarian settings if they manage to develop such relations characterized by anarchy. Considering that rebels with territorial claims are competing their target state for the provision of basic collective good, i.e. security, anarchy refers to parallel existence of rebels as security providers whereas hierarchy means that rebels exist in cooperation with the central government and does not necessarily compete against it. We use large-N and case study analysis to test these propositions.