Competition and the Institutional Choices of Rebel Governance
Abstract
Why do rebel groups establish governance institutions? What motivates their institutional choices of governance? This dissertation advances an institutional choice theory to explain why rebel groups establish governance and the particular institutional arrangements they make. Existing research explains variation in rebels’ governance provision and institutional differences by often emphasizing group-level explanations. At the same time, the literature highlights rebels’ resource constraints which limit the set of possible actions. The institutional choice theory of rebel governance provides a unified framework that answers why rebels establish governance institutions and why they make particular institutional choices by arguing that rebels establish governance to reap material and non-material benefits in response to their competitive environment. The empirical strategy employs quantitative and qualitative methods to test the theory and illustrate the causal mechanism. The quantitative analysis examines rebel groups from all around the globe between 1960 and 2012, while the qualitative analysis is a case study of the Taliban between 1994 and 2021.
In the analysis, I find support for the assertions of the institutional choice theory and show that rebels become less likely to establish governance institutions if their existential threat in form of their competition increases. I further show that, when rebel groups establish governance institutions, greater existential threats motivate the creation of specific subsets of governance institutions. The subset of institutions depends on the type of competition. Rebels in competition with the state are more likely to establish governance that emulates the looks of the state without assuming any of its functions. This is unless rebels’ compete with a weaker state. Rebels in inter-rebel competition establish immediately beneficial governance as they try to reap more material and non-material resources in the immediate term to secure their survival.
In conclusion, the institutional choice theory of rebel governance as presented in this dissertation explains rebels’ governance creation as well as their institutional choices. The findings of this dissertation have vast implications for the literature of rebel governance, civil war, and policies of state-building, counterinsurgencies, and the work of relief organizations.
Citation
Appeldorn, Niels Henrik (2022). Competition and the Institutional Choices of Rebel Governance. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /197325.