Rebel Governance in Civil War

Description

This is the first book to examine and compare how rebels govern civilians during civil wars in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Drawing from a variety of disciplinary traditions, including political science, sociology, and anthropology, the book provides in-depth case studies of specific conflicts as well as comparative studies of multiple conflicts. Among other themes, the book examines why and how some rebels establish both structures and practices of rule, the role of ideology, cultural, and material factors affecting rebel governance strategies, the impact of governance on the rebel/civilian relationship, civilian responses to rebel rule, the comparison between modes of state and non-state governance to rebel attempts to establish political order, the political economy of rebel governance, and the decline and demise of rebel governance attempts.

Ana Arjona is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, Illinois. She has conducted research in Colombia and Kosovo, and has published several articles in edited books and in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. She is the author of Social Order in Civil War (forthcoming), a book on the emergence of order and disorder in war zones. Her work has been funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Social Science Research Council, the United States Institute of Peace, Yale University, and Columbia University in the US; the International Development Research Centre in Canada; the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden; and the Department for International Development and the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK. Nelson Kasfir is Professor of Government Emeritus at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. He has written extensively about African politics, agency, ethnicity, civil society, democratization, constitution-making, and political economy. He is preparing an international dataset comparing selected cases of rebel governance of civilians during civil war. He is also writing a book comparing rebel governance by two insurgent groups in Uganda - the National Resistance Army in the 1980s and the Rwenzururu Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s. Zachariah Mampilly is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Vassar College, New York. He has published numerous essays and articles about African and South Asian politics and culture. He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War (2011) and co-author of Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (2015). During 2012-13, he was a Fulbright Visiting Research Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

'This imaginative, diverse, and highly readable book, with chapters grounded in particular cases, guides attention to civilians living under varied conditions of rebel rule. While the problem of effective governance by weak states has consumed the attention of policy makers for several decades, those governed by rebels merit equal public concern. The intriguing essays in this volume do just that, constituting a book that teaches us when and how insurgent organizations seek to govern.' David D. Laitin, James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, California 'How do rebels interact with non-combatants in regions under rebel control? Why does rebel governance vary across time and space? This bold and insightful collection addresses these questions through an interdisciplinary lens that enables us to see beyond the state-rebel dyad and into the lives of ordinary people in wartime. Challenging common wisdoms with evidence from original fieldwork, this is an enlightening effort that deserves a broad audience.' Nancy Bermeo, Nuffield Professor of Comparative Politics, Nuffield College, Oxford 'If rebels want to learn how to govern, or scholars and policy makers to appreciate the various ways in which rebels have tried to orchestrate and win civil wars, this is the key book.' Robert I. Rotberg, Harvard University, Massachusetts and author of When States Fail and On Governance 'Rebel Governance in Civil War is a captivating book. It makes significant theoretical advances, and it includes fascinating case studies written by some of the leading authors in the field. It will be of great interest to scholars of civil wars, as well as to area-study experts.' Severine Autesserre, Barnard College, Columbia University