All Counterinsurgency is Local: Counterinsurgency and Rebel Legitimacy

Abstract

Although the concept of legitimacy is central to Western counterinsurgency theory, most discourse in this area black-boxes the concept. It hence remains under-specified in many discussions of counterinsurgency. Fortunately, recent research on rebel governance and legitimacy contributes to our understanding of the problems faced by counterinsurgents who want to boost state legitimacy while undermining that of the rebels. Taken together, this research illustrates that a rational choice approach to legitimacy is simplistic; that micro-level factors ultimately drive legitimacy dynamics; and that both cooption of existing legitimate local elites and their replacement from the top-down is unlikely to succeed. Western counterinsurgency doctrine has failed to grasp the difficulties this poses for it.

Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) from an Insurgent Group to a Local Authority: Emergence, Development and Social Support Base

“…By that, local peoples have been perceived by both Galula and Trinquier as a crucial factor when endeavoring to comprehend the dynamics of insurgencies and the involvement and role of NSAGs. However, they both avoid discussing the concept of legitimacy, whether local or international, and its application concerning state entities and NSAGs 14 .…”

Concepts of Legitimacy: Congruence and Divergence in the Afghan Conflict

“…A third group has pointed towards the theoretical flaws inherent in US counterinsurgency doctrine and thought, inviting a rethinking of intervention practices (Fitzsimmons 2008, Egnell 2010, Ucko 2013, Gventer et al 2015, Gawthorpe 2017, Greene 2017. Scholars have argued that the statebuilding and counterinsurgency efforts were essentially unidirectional, with the intervention forces considering Afghan people merely as 'recipients of democracy rather than the driving force behind it' (Tadjbakhsh and Schoiswohl 2008, p. 253).…”

“…Within this debate, the concept of legitimacy has received increasing attention (Egnell 2010, Nachbar 2012, Gawthorpe 2017, Weigand 2017. Scholars have commonly acknowledged that establishing legitimacy, the 'moral obligation' to comply with a power relationship (Hurd 1999, p. 387), is a key element for the success of any actor.…”

Legitimacy in Internal Conflict: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

“…The 'Western' discourse on counterinsurgency has rarely examined the concept of local legitimacy in the eyes of the populace (Gawthorpe, 2017, p. 840). Recently, only a few pieces of literature (Duyvesteyn, 2017;Gawthorpe 2017) have emerged after the Western country's experience in Iraq and Afghanistan focusing on the bottom-up approach, but not developing the required framework for empirical discussion.…”