Rebel governance and kinship groups in the Middle East and Africa

ABSTRACT

Since the 2010s, the Middle East and Africa have witnessed a sharp proliferation of insurgent proto-states – territorial enclaves controlled by insurgent groups. Gathering six ethnographic accounts from these regions, this volume seeks to answer the following: How do rebel governments and kin-based forms of socio-political organisation shape and influence one another? When rebels establish territorial control, their emerging proto-states will be shaped by processes of negotiation with pre-existing social forces. Therefore, sociopolitical organisation in rebel-held areas can only be understood by analysing the interactions between “the preexisting” and “the incoming” orders. Nonetheless, as we emphasise in this introduction, the study of kinship groups in conflict areas and rebel governments have developed as two distinct research fields. The aim of this volume is to bring them together and seek a deeper understanding of how kin-based loyalties, networks, institutions, and social conventions may shape and influence rebel governance practices. The volume features many examples of insurgent groups meticulously crafting “tribal administrations” to curtail civilian resistance. Yet, it also shows that the various rebel groups described face far greater difficulties in reforming society culturally, than asserting military dominance over tribal actors. For the rebels, social revolutions are harder earned than political domination.

KEYWORDS:

• Rebel rule
• kinship
• islamism
• middle east

Introduction

When we first began working on this special volume of Third World Thematics, we did so based on the observation that two significant developments in the Middle East region had largely gone under the academic radar. The first was the sharp proliferation of insurgent proto-states, which are territorial enclaves controlled by rebel groups, both jihadist and non-jihadist. The second was the resurgence of tribalism and kinship-based social institutions. These two phenomena were obviously interconnected. Both resulted from the weakening or, in some cases, collapse of state power in substantial parts of the region brought about by the Arab uprisings from 2011 and onwards. Yet, the relationship between the two – the tribal-insurgent interfaces – had rarely been studied. The present volume thus seeks to answer two guiding questions. How do rebel governments and kin-based forms of socio-political organisation shape and influence one another? What influences their relationship and power balance, and what consequences do different bargains have for civilians in rebel-held areas? Each article in the issue is an attempt to answer these questions from different angles and places.

Rebel governance

Rebel governance can be understood as how territorially based rebel groups interact with and govern civilian populations. It is a relatively small academic field that emerged from conflict studies, international relations, and political science in the 2000s, and attracted little attention until the 2010s. It marked a departure from the established way of investigating civil wars. Scholarly forays into the latter had up until that point tended to constitute macro-level or large N-studies with little to say about the intricate dynamics taking place inside ongoing insurgencies. Although counterinsurgency studies devoted more attention to the subject, its main contributions tended to conceptualise rebel-held territories as “black holes”, anomalies with perilous consequences for international security (e.g. Korteweg and Ehrhart 2006).

As Mampilly (2011) argues, this state centrist approach has not been conducive for unpacking the social order in places where the state is absent or weak, nor in terms of understanding which socio-political forces rebel rulers find themselves vying against (or cooperating with) when they establish territorial control. Although a given territory is outside of state control, it does not mean that it is not governed. Wherever rebel-held areas are inhabited by a civilian population, remnants of the old order will often be in place, ranging from civilian bureaucracies, religious institutions, merchant associations, local militias, and tribal mediation councils. Building on these insights, detailed, ethnographically grounded explorations of the relationship between civilian infrastructure and rebel groups came to play a far bigger role in the new rebel governance literature, which Mampilly and others played a pioneering role in developing (Mampilly 2011; Arjona, Kasfir, and Mampilly 2015).

Insurgent groups tend to create parallel proto-state administrations to contest incumbent political regimes or seize power (Lia 2015). Not unlike recognised states, insurgent proto-states might feature elaborate political administrations that vie for sovereignty and, in some cases, even international recognition. Their arenas of struggle, nonetheless, differ considerably from conventional governments in that they operate in a terrain where power balances are in flux and where no central authority (yet) exists. Proto-states’ ability to assert territorial and political control hinges on a number of factors. Scholars have underlined the importance of spatial dimensions of insurgencies in particular, the degree of territorial control by rebels, the role of resources available to rebel movements during the initial phases of an insurgency, as well as the impact of rebel rivalry in the conflict area (Kalyvas 2006; Weinstein 2006; Metelits 2010). Others have highlighted the importance of pre-existing social networks for insurgent cohesion (Staniland 2014) and the relevance of transnational dynamics in civil wars (Checkel 2013; Gleditsch 2007), including the role of external sanctuaries and diaspora support networks (Shain and Barth 2003: Fair 2005; Brynen 1990; Lia 2006; and Kjøk 2001).

Most accounts note, in one way or another, that the act of running a rebel government is inherently a struggle for legitimacy. According to Ledwidge, rebel rulers gain advantage vis-à-vis competing structures not by being more violent, but by offering a “better deal” than the incumbent regime pertaining to protection, stability, and establishing a predictable rule of law (Ledwidge 2017). In other words, brutally oppressing or uprooting the local order comes at a cost. Disregarding civilian needs for stability can lead to resistance and mass disobedience – particularly if the given territory features robust pre-existing civilian institutions or social conventions (Arjona 2017; Aarseth 2021; Svensson et al. 2022). Following the establishment of territorial control, the emerging rebel proto-state will be shaped by processes of negotiation between remaining societal forces and the insurgents. Hence, sociopolitical organisation in rebel controlled areas can only be understood if the interactions between “the preexisting” and “the incoming” orders are properly explored, including the encounter with kinship-based groups.

The rebel governance literature has by and large favoured cases from Africa, Latin-America and Asia (Stokke 2007; Heitz 2009; Hansen 2013, 83–95; Menkhaus 2007; Sabates-Wheeler and Verwimp 2014; Keister 2011). The Middle East has been included to a lesser degree, although there are a few notable examples. The Hamas government in Gaza (Berti 2015; Brenner 2017) and jihadi proto-states in Syria and Iraq (Khalaf 2015; Al-Tamimi 2015; Lia 2017; Revkin 2020; Aarseth 2021; Bamber-Zryd 2022) have received some attention. We believe the region has a lot more to offer in terms of exploring the relationship between rebel governments and civilians. This is due to the prevalence of kin-based institutions and tribal culture existing both in contention to, and overlapping with, political structures in several places in the Middle East. Why, one might ask, has kinship mostly been absent from the study of contemporary explorations of socio-political life in the region? One explanation may be that this has to do with changes in anthropological epistemology and how the study of politically relevant kinship studies, once among the most prestige fields of anthropology, is today a barren research field within the discipline.

Kinship

It can be argued that anthropological research of kinship-based socio-political organisation did not survive the fundamental critique of anthropological kinship studies by the Chicago professor David Schneider (1968/1980). With Schneider’s new cultural paradigm relationships between persons based on descent or marriage were no longer considered grounded in nature and “founded on blood.” Relationships had rather been misrepresented by anthropologists who failed to recognise that kinship was a cultural construction, shaped by ideologically laden systems of symbols and meanings, which reflected indigenous cultural values and ideology (Stone 2014, 266). The debate following Schneider’s new paradigm was adopted within Middle Eastern and African anthropology. It was accepted that one of the most prestigious theories, that of segmentation theory on the “ordered anarchy” of tribal areas outside state or colonial control (Gledhill 2000, 2) – “homo segmentarious” in Abu-Lughod’s wry wording (Abu-Lughod 1989) – had largely reflected indigenous ideology rather than constituting an analytical model based on empirical facts. However, as Patricia Crone (Crone 1993, 358) remarked, the fact that a model was a social construct did not make it devoid of reality – all models are in fact social constructions. The debate nevertheless increased awareness of the importance of observing practices and actual social manoeuvring rather than taking norms and ideology, based on what people said, as reflecting social realities.

Following the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, “tribes” became a topic of intense interest among Western military policymakers as they grappled with the challenges of co-opting traditional powerholders in rural areas in both countries. This resulted in an increased interest in classic anthropological studies on tribal societies (González 2009, 15). Segmentation theory then re-emerged as an explanatory model but without consideration of the internal debates that had fundamentally questioned some of its structure-functional basic assumptions – much to the dismay of many anthropologists. Think tanks and researchers with military backgrounds came to dominate studies on Middle East tribalism, González observed. While they based their analyses largely on references from the 1960s, by the 2000s anthropologists generally shunned the term “tribe” as an analytical concept (González 2009, 15). As a result, anthropological investigations of the political role of kinship in the Middle East were on the verge of dying out. A review study found that by 2012 anthropological studies of tribalism were practically non-existent (Deeb and Winegar 2012, 540).

The lukewarm academic interest in the topic notwithstanding, since the 1990s the Middle East has witnessed a resurgence of tribal forms of social organisation (Wien 2021; Alon 2021; Schmitz 2021). This is especially the case in Iraq and Syria (Chatty 2010; Al-Mohammad 2011; Carroll 2011; Dukhan 2014, 2021), where both Baathist regimes courted and empowered loyalist tribes. As Al-Muhammed observed from Basra in Iraq: “It just so happens that tribes are an integral part of everyday life in the urban setting of Basra” (2011:19). Territorial tribes (Arabic: ‘ashira/qabila) are distinguished by Bedouin (desert) origin and collective identity. Historically, they controlled the peripheries (sayba), outside state control (Bonte 2003, 59). In more recent years, the phenomenon of “tribalism without tribes” or “cultural tribalism” (Jabar 2003, 77–78) has endured where tribal principles of identity and organisation operate where other kinship formations than tribes dominate. First and foremost, this refers to clan-like patrilineal groups within historical peasant communities where clans dominate quarters of villages and towns (Bates and Rassam 1983, 276). The prevalence of these primary solidarity groups may be considered an indicator of the conditions of state institutions. While most scholars have today accepted that kinship systems are social constructions of reality, there is also an inter-disciplinary understanding that kinship constitutes a cultural system than invokes strong sentiments and group solidarity in the Middle East. Fukuyama notes that one of the constants of Middle Eastern politics is an inverse correlation between the strength of centralised states and the strength of kinship groups (Fukuyama 2011, 45). Earlier conceptualisations of tribal-state relations tended to frame these interactions primarily as competition over territorial control. Such understandings have increasingly been challenged and replaced by narratives that dwell less on conflicting loyalties (the state vs. the kinship group) but highlight the state’s inability to provide security and stability for the citizenry (Hudson, Bowen, and Nielsen 2015, 537). Hence, strong kinship networks and identities should be seen as symptoms, rather than the cause, of state failure. In the Middle East, kin-based cultural norms and patriarchal moral codes continue to thrive, while the state finds itself challenged. This can be observed in the perseverance of endogamous marriage patterns in Palestine (abstaining from marrying females outside of the patrilineal descent group) (Todd 1985, 133; Holy 1989; Tuastad 2009), the importance of ‘asabiyya (strong internal ties of solidarity) in urban spaces in Iraq (Jabar 2003, 73), the rise of kin-based welfare institutions in Jordan and Lebanon (Baylouny 2010) and in the widespread appeal of tribal conciliation rituals (‘urf) throughout the region (Weir 2007; Isser 2011). To summarise, kin-based forms of organisation tend to emerge as the only possible provider of a basic modicum of security and welfare in spaces where the state is fractious, ineffective and largely absent.

Insofar as the rebel governance literature places emphasis on ethnographically grounded studies of civilian infrastructure and conventions, it has, to our knowledge, not made a focused effort to include the concept of kinship as an analytical concept. As a result, the study of kinship groups and tribal culture in conflict areas, on the one hand, and rebel governments, on the other, constitute two distinctly separate research fields. The aim of this volume is to bring these fields together, and seek a deeper understanding of how kin-based loyalties, networks, institutions, and social conventions may shape and influence rebel governance practices. We believe the “tribal” lens is a useful angle with which to investigate how political movements espousing transnational or national ideologies become entangled in sub-national, local struggles. It also provides a point of departure for understanding how self-ascribed revolutionary actors take part, at least to some degree, in shaping practices and systems that are considered traditional and based on primordial narratives.

The articles of the issue are all, except one, based on original fieldwork. The cases include jihadist and secular rebel rulers. Four of the articles deal with the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank) and two are about African cases (Mali and Somalia). The two case studies from regions adjacent to the Middle East contribute to the comparative value of the topic as the kinship group-rebel ruler interaction is highly relevant in the African context. Mali and Somalia have also historically been closely connected to the Arab world and the Middle East region. While it is for the reader to further reflect upon commonalities and comparative aspects of the cases, some tentative conclusions may be drawn.

Main findings and overview of articles

We suggest that three main findings might be drawn from the papers presented in the issue. These are that:

1. Rebels meticulously craft “tribal administrations” to curtail civilian resistance.

2. Cultural similarities between insurgents and kinship groups facilitate stable alliances.

3. Rebel-tribal alliances transform both types of organisation.

Each of these findings is explained in more detail below.

Rebels meticulously craft “tribal administrations” to curtail civilian resistance

“If the mujahideen deal well with the tribes, the tribes will for the most part side with them.” These words belong to Usama bin Laden and were, according to author Vidar Skretting (Skretting 2022, this volume, 7), a piece of advice that he passed on to a local leader of al-Qaida in Islamic Maghrib (AQIM), when the latter was in the process of establishing a new jihadist proto-stated, dubbed “The Islamic Emirate of Azawad” in northern Mali (2012–13). Famously, al-Qaida’s violent rule in Iraq had by 2006 resulted in a tribal uprising against the insurgents. In his article, Skretting explores how AQIM-affiliated jihadists, based on these lessons, approached kinship groups in Mali in a far more pragmatic way, which, at least initially, avoided extreme violence or offending cultural values.

Although the rebel proto-states described in this volume differ considerably in their ideological outlook, they all have one thing in common: they unilaterally forge strategies to curtail civilian dissent and cater to local community leaders. Many expend considerable resources crafting “tribal administrations” with a view to include indigenous authority figures in governance and prop up their own rule. Most of the actors described also move to institutionalise customary justice – an efficient measure in terms of alleviating social tensions and unburdening their developing proto-state judiciaries.

Such tribal administrations seldom aim to bolster tribal elites per se. The intent is to coopt and undermine their influence in the short term, and transfer their power to the insurgent leadership in the long term. On occasion, this might involve manipulating pre-existing hierarchies, such as siding with second-tier kinship groups against the most influential actors. Thus, Brynjar Lia describes how The Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), at the height of its conquest skilfully manipulated tribal divisions and cleavages by enlisting supporters from most kinship groups and weakening “the status and authority of traditional tribal shaykhs” (Lia 2022, this volume: 14). Striking a balance between cooptation and coercion is also a recurring theme Michael Skjelderup’s article about the relationship between clans and Islamist militants in Somalia’s Lower Jubba province. While the al-Shabab insurgents instilled fear through violence and moral policing, Skjelderup finds that they also displayed significant local knowledge, sensitivity and pragmatism towards local institutions, which allowed them to strike a delicate balance between “divisive ‘clan politics’ and the risk of alienating local power constellations” (Skjelderup 2022, this volume: 1).

Cultural similarities between rebels and kinship groups facilitate stable alliances

Many of the rebel-tribal interactions described in this volume are fuelled by mutual pragmatism and a shared bid to establish a sense of law and order. In this order-making, rebels who share a common cultural ground with the pre-existing tribal order have a clear advantage. Therefore, revolutionary groups that seek to radically transform the social order are less likely to be seen as desirable partners in the long run.

Pinar Tank’s article about Rojava, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which is a de facto autonomous region controlled mostly by Syrian Kurdish rebels, describes the governing Democratic Union Party (PYD) straddling between the commitment to radical socialist, gender-inclusive reforms and the political necessity of including local Kurdish and Arab tribal elites in governance (Tank 2022, this volume). As some of PYD’s nascent tribal allies are apprehensive about the call for full female participation in politics, the Kurdish nationalists are forced to reconsider their approach to prevent kinship groups from defecting to political rivals. Tank explores how the PYD pursues its social revolution by negotiation in a laborious and slow-moving process, which challenges the worldviews of both tribal elites and young revolutionaries.

In contrast, Dag Tuastad argues that the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip has created stable alliances with local kinship groups. Bringing order and stability after years of violent chaos and putting an end to clan-based turf wars was Hamas’s largest success and “was in fact a widely popular policy in Gaza”, the author writes (Tuastad 2022, this volume). Although on assuming control in 2007 the Palestinian Islamists went on to suppress the strongest clans with force, they also made efforts to revamp a number of kinship institutions. Rather than deeming tribal culture a threat to Islamic values, Hamas increasingly acknowledged the similarities between the two. This two-tier strategy of political de-tribalisation and cultural re-tribalisation has produced stability, as Tuastad shows.

Rebel-tribal alliances transform both types of organisation

Although the rebel groups in this volume – from Rojava, to Mali, to Palestine – integrate tribal structures into their proto-state administrations for instrumental purposes, their organisations are inherently impacted by these interactions. As alluded to above, revolutionary actors tend to become more conservative when negotiating with traditional and non-revolutionary constituencies. Sub-national and parochial tribal groups are similarly transformed when they are invited to join ongoing revolutionary struggles for national sovereignty. In the process, the lines between incoming and pre-existing orders become blurred. Meanwhile, institutions, customs, and social orders that are considered traditional or primordial, take on novel shapes and functions.

This is a central theme in Erling Lorentzen Sogge’s article about the Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank (Sogge 2022, this volume). Delving deep into the camp’s political history, the article offers an up-close account of how the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)’s administration of customary justice has evolved over time under the constraints of occupation and contested state-building. The author argues that the present-day Palestinian leadership has challenged the autonomy of local customary conciliation committees by embedding them in its proto-state structures. On an institutional level, Sogge finds, “tribal law” has increasingly become synonymous with the rule of Fatah, the dominant PLO faction. As a result, it has also become subsumed into its internal power struggles.

Conclusion: Tradition trumps revolution

Rebel governments tend to be short-lived affairs but this is far from the case with kin-based forms of social organisation. Although kinship institutions constantly evolve, the cultural appeal of tribal identities (the narrative of) primordial roots, and traditional ways of organising society remain near constant. This is particularly the case in situations of civil war, state failure, and radical societal upheaval. During and following periods of unrest, kinship groups and institutions often remain the only groups and systems trusted to maintain social order and justice. As a consequence, the insurgent proto-states described in this volume often face far greater difficulties in reforming society culturally, than asserting military dominance over tribal actors. Social revolutions are harder earned than political domination. Rebel groups that do not adapt will face harsh competition from rival states or insurgents with a better rapport with civilian populations. A lesson from the cases presented in this volume is, in short, that tradition trumps revolution.

Acknowledgements

The guest editors would like to thank all contributing authors and anonymous peer reviewers for their efforts. We would also like to thank Third World Thematics editorial team, Madeleine Hatfield and Siri Nylund, for their input and their patience with us, and for believing in this project.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This volume grew out of the research project “Rebel Governance in the Middle East: The role of kinship groups in the socio-political organisation of insurgent proto-states” (RebelGov), conceived in 2015 at the University of Oslo and funded by The Research Council of Norway (FRIPRO Grant no. 263017)

Notes on contributors

Dag Tuastad

Dag Tuastad is a senior lecturer at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. His book Palestinske utfordringer (Palestinian Challenges) was published in 2014. His publications include articles on topics varying from kinship and rebel rule, to football and Islamism.

Erling Lorentzen Sogge

Erling Lorentzen Sogge is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He is the author of The Palestinian National Movement in Lebanon (I.B. Tauris 2021). His research explores social movements among refugees, and the post-Oslo dynamics of the Palestinian national movement.

Brynjar Lia

Brynjar Lia is a professor of Middle East Studies at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He has published extensively on Islamist and jihadist movements over the past two decades and is the author of several books on these topics.