How do rebel victors govern When They are in power?
Post-war politics is a continuation of war: although violence has formally ceased, the victor seeks to prevent civil war recurrence by consolidating power and eliminating armed rivals. This means engaging in internal conquest, carefully making choices about governing strategies and resource allocation towards development and violence in different parts of the state. Where does the victor choose to use which strategy, and why? And what are the implications for ultimately consolidating power?
Governing After War explores how rebel governance affects post-war state-building and regime stability. During war, rebel groups establish control over communities by forming ties with civilians and implementing rebel institutions. Once in power, these wartime experiences then explain how—and how successfully—rebel victors exert control, state-build, and eliminate support for rivals. Ultimately, greater breadth and depth of wartime rebel governance help to clear the victor’s path towards consolidating power—resulting in a more stable but also more authoritarian regime.
The book marshals mixed-methods evidence from Zimbabwe and Liberia to provide an in-depth examination of subnational variation in wartime rebel governance and post-war state-building efforts. A comparison of these two cases alongside Burundi, Rwanda, Côte d'Ivoire, and Angola further highlight how rebels’ wartime activities lay the groundwork for post-war rebel party survival and the consolidation of power. Governing After War’s central insights point to war and peace as part of a long state-building process and argues for the need to pay attention to subnational political constraints that new governments face. These findings offer implications for recent rebel victories and, more broadly, for understanding the termination, trajectories, and political legacies of such conflicts around the world.