‘Legitimacy is the Main Objective’: Legitimation in Population-Centric Counterinsurgency

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of the role of legitimacy and different forms of legitimation in population-centric counterinsurgency. An analysis of the logic underlying this counterinsurgency concept sheds a light on the former as it identifies legitimacy as the crucial mechanism through which a collaboration strategy seeks to obtain control over the local population. An exploration of Weber’s primary types of legitimate authorities provides the insight that counterinsurgents might operationalize legitimation through either rational-legal ways or by co-opting local power-holders who hold a position as traditional or charismatic leaders. The exact choice of strategy depends on the pattern of legitimacy in the target society and therefore so-called cultural legitimation is pivotal.

Keywords:

• Collaboration
• counterinsurgency
• legitimacy
• (cultural) legitimation

Notes

1. See Kitzen, “The Course of Co-option.” This article contains edited material from my dissertation.

2. Department of the Army, FM 3–24, Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, 1–19. It has to be mentioned that in comparison with the original 2006 manual, the 2014 edition of FM 3–24 pays more attention to legitimacy. Yet, both the concept as well as the practice of legitimation remain poorly described.

3. Trinquier, Modern Warfare, A French View, 6, italics in original. It should be noted that the original work was published in 1964, so modern warfare does not refer to twenty-first-century warfare, but to counterinsurgency in the 1960s.

4. Kilcullen, “Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency,” 3, italics by author.

5. For Kalyvas’ theory of irregular war and its meaning in the context of counterinsurgency warfare see also Kitzen, “Close Encounters of the Tribal Kind,” 714–5.

6. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence, 111. See also Kalyvas, “Promises and Pitfalls of an Emerging,” 417–8.

7. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence, 145, italics by author.

8. Kilcullen, “Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency,” 3, italics by author.

9. Based on Kalyvas’ work Kilcullen has formulated a theory of competitive control which describes the way insurgencies seek to establish and maintain control. See Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains, 125–54. On counterinsurgency and authoritarian regimes see Ucko, “The People are Revolting,” 29–61. With regard to the Western preference for a collaboration-first strategy see Kitzen, “The Course of Co-option,” 34–9.

10. Matheson, “Weber and the Classification of Forms of Legitimacy,” 200.

11. Aoi, Legitimacy and the Use of Armed Force, 13.

12. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 124. Weber uses the term Herrschaft, which was translated by N.S. Timacheff as imperative control. As Weber mostly is meaning legitime Herrschaft, the term authority can be considered a more appropriate translation, Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 152.

13. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 830.

14. McFate, and Jackson, “The Object Beyond War,” 22.

15. United States Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual, 14–1.

16. Galula, Counter-insurgency Warfare, 128.

17. Pecency, and Stanley, “Counterinsurgency in El Salvador,” 87.

18. Valeriano, and Bohannan, Counter-guerrilla Operations, 85–6. Magsaysay first acted as the Philippines’ Secretary of Defence, and in 1953 became President of the country.

19. Campbell, Guerrillas, a History and Analysis, 133.

20. Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 267, see also Parsons, “Evolutionary Universals in Society,” 345–6.

21. Saward, “Co-option and Power,” 593.

22. Tilly, and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 215. Tilly and Tarrow use the term co-optation for the mechanism that produces incorporation of a previously excluded actor into some centre of power.

23. Marten, Enforcing the Peace, 8.

24. Robinson, “Non-European foundations.”

25. Lammers, Vreemde Overheersing, Bezetten, 19.

26. Porch, “Bugeaud, Galliéni, Lyautey,” 390.

27. Quoted in Asprey, War in the Shadows, 151. Italics in original. This quote originates from Lyautey, Lettres du Tonkin, 71.

28. Kilcullen, The Political Consequences of Military, 63–8.

29. Green, “The Fallujah awakening,” 595.

30. Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 22–7.

31. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, wars, 10–12.

32. Study of social movements suggests that charismatic authority in general is very efficient for mobilizing the population against bureaucratic institutions. This stresses the need for firm governmental leadership in order to contain charismatic claims. See Andreas, “The Structure of Charismatic Mobilization.”

33. Pye, Warlord Politics, Conflict, 37.

34. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, 304.

35. Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 16.