Introduction: Armed Groups and Multi-layered Governance

Abstract

In this special issue we broaden the academic debate on rebel governance by examining additional armed actors-militias, police and foreign intervenors, and the 'layers' of governance they add. We develop the notion of 'multi-layered' governance to capture the complexity of these cases. We consider 'mediated stateness' as a special case of multi-layered governance. We discuss 'polycentricity' as an equivalent concept, but deem multi-layered governance more appropriate. The following articles discuss rebels' legitimation strategies, armed opposition factions, auxiliary armed forces, mediated stateness and intervention by foreign powers to highlight the roles of different actors and the resulting impacts on governance.

Voting for Militants: Rebel Elections in Civil War

“…As rebels gain organizational sophistication or conquer territory, they must make decisions about how to contend with civilians in their milieu. 8 Because rebels compete with the state not only for military power but also for political authority, they must find ways to entice civilian cooperation and compliance while preventing defection (Kalyvas 2006, chapters 4 and 5; Mampilly 2011, 55; McLauchlin 2015, 1421; Kasfir, Frerks, and Terpstra 2017, 269). Rebel groups face the additional pressure of needing to find material resources with which to wage war, including funding, weapons, recruits, food, and shelter.…”

“…Rebel groups can accrue significant political and material benefits by assuming the role of a ruler, claiming authority over populations, and meeting some of the basic needs of a community through the provision of public goods such as health services, education, dispute adjudication, and local order (Olson 1993; Mampilly 2011; Kasfir, Frerks, and Terpstra 2017; Arjona 2016; Huang 2016b; Stewart 2018). Rebel governance has been defined broadly as “the set of actions insurgents engage in to regulate the social, political, and economic life of non-combatants during war” (Arjona, Kasfir, and Mampilly 2015, 3).…”

“…Recent scholarship has made important advances in our understanding of rebel governance of civilians during civil war, especially as it pertains to social service provision (Heger and Jung 2017; Kasfir, Frerks, and Terpstra 2017; Mampilly 2011). However, few works focus on popular elections as an integral part of rebel groups’ repertoire of behaviors and tactics.…”

Disaster risk reduction amidst armed conflict: informal institutions, rebel groups, and wartime political orders

“…While an investigation of these topics is essential for rethinking state‐building and peacebuilding practices, it is a challenging task methodologically given the scarcity (and sensitivity) of data on these relations. New research on the concept of ‘multi‐layered governance’ is a promising effort to account for the complexity of governance during armed conflict (Kasfir, Frerks, and Terpstra, ). Like any mapping exercise or typology, this paper is a simplification of reality, but its advantage is that it allows for systematic comparisons between different countries and sub‐regions.…”

“…Instead, armed groups and other informal actors may provide some sort of governance and create a tacit social contract with a particular segment of the population. The nature of interactions among armed oppositions factions, armed auxiliary forces, rebels, the state, or external powerful actors may be conflictive, cooptive, or cooperative (Kasfir, Frerks, and Terpstra, ). Civil wars can be fought in very different ways.…”