Territorial Control and Jihadist Rebel Governance in Central Mali

• In Event: Political Order in Rebel Governance

Abstract

Territorial control is a bedrock concept in the literatures on civil war and rebel governance. Influential studies posit that territorial control is a necessary condition for rebel governance. More recent literature has begun to explore ways in which Weberian models of governance may not always apply to rebel governance. We extend this line of theory on “hybrid” and “multilayered” governance with a focus on emergent forms of rebel rule in Central Mali, where jihadist rebels engage in what many call “shadow governance.” These insurgents establish authority and govern even while maintaining a remote presence in the context of fluid control. The insurgents tax, oversee resource management, regulate education, manage disputes, and provide security and justice, while sometimes seeking co-optation, compromise, or co-governance arrangements with local authorities, including formal authorities. This rebel strategy emerged after more classic extirpating strategies of zero-sum governance failed and engendered international and state armed interventions, as well as pushback from local elites. Marshaling original data collection through survey research and combining those data with secondary sources from this hard-to-access zone of conflict, this paper makes three interventions. First, the paper develops an index for measuring territorial control, examining taxation, resource management, schooling, elections, courts, police, and military presence, thereby making a conceptual and measurement intervention in the work on territorial control. Second, the paper collects evidence on these indicators to show empirically how variations in what we call “exclusive” and “overlapping” forms of governance exist in Central Mali. Third, the paper intervenes theoretically in the rebel governance literature, showing how that literature has underspecified jihadist forms of rebel governance. We seek to name forms of jihadist governance and build theory to explain variation in those forms.

Authors

• Scott Straus, University of California, Berkeley

• Tim Weedon