Spinning Multiple Plates Under Fire: The Importance of Ordering Processes in Civil Wars

ABSTRACT

Order informs an actor’s context, studying order and accounting for the rules and relationships underpinning that order can tell us a great deal about how power and authority is constructed, renegotiated and contested. Order represents a promising prism and field of study for understanding civil wars. This article begins by assessing the ‘order turn’ in the literature over the past decade. From this basis we identify four key areas that represent important elements within the new ordering agenda that promise to add significantly to the study of order within the discipline. These include: 1) Mapping order(s) to better account for their complexity, especially by disaggregating internal orders within institutions and organisations; 2) Recognising civilians as individual and collective agents, moving beyond the civilians-as-victims paradigm to demonstrate how civilian action shapes order, forcing both rebel groups and governments to adapt; 3) Exploring the social mechanisms that reinforce order, thus moving the discussion beyond violence and political orders and towards a more holistic perspective; 4) Understanding that all orders are mutually constituted and thus understanding not only how order is expressed or acted upon but also how order is understood, how assumptions about order influence action, and crucially, how each group’s actions are shaped by the generation of knowledge about the order they inhabit. Using these we highlight both the promise of the concept of order for the study of civil wars and attempt to begin the development of a coherent research agenda to unify existing insights and lay the foundations for further advances.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alex Waterman

Alex Waterman is a Research Fellow in Security, Terrorism and Insurgency at the University of Leeds and a 2020–2021 non-resident Fellow at the Modern War Institute, US Military Academy West Point. His doctoral research (2014–2018) focused on counterinsurgency and the negotiation of order in Northeast India, and was awarded the Global Policy North Outstanding PhD Thesis Prize 2020.

James Worrall

James Worrall is Associate Professor in International Relations and Middle East Studies in the School of Politics & International Studies at the University of Leeds. The thematic focus of his work explores Western relations with the Arab World, Gulf Politics and Security, Regional International Organisations, Counterinsurgency, Civil Wars, Post Conflict Reconstruction (especially Security Sector Reform), and Regime Stability and Legitimacy in non-democratic states. He has published widely on these themes in journals such as International Migration Review, Third World Quarterly, Middle Eastern Studies, Small Wars & Insurgencies and Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.