Rebel governance as a post-conflict survival strategy: The impact of wartime rebel state-building on post-conflict power-sharing

Recent studies in civil war literature showed that insurgent groups engage in a rival institution-building process on rebel-held territories. They establish governing institutions and provide services for civilians in the fields of education, health, adjudication, and security. Previous research on rebel governance explains the variance in rebel groups' capability of governing the conflict zone. However, the literature still lacks studies evaluating the implications of rebel governance on the post-conflict order such as power-sharing between the government and the insurgent groups. This thesis aims at analyzing the relationship between the insurgent state-building and post-war power-sharing. In this study, I develop a theoretical framework to explain why some rebel groups are better than others in receiving a share of state power in the post-civil war order. First, I discuss the logic of the bargaining process among the warring parties and the challenges it creates in front of peaceful power-sharing. Further, I present my theory explaining the rebels' strategy of using wartime state-building as leverage in the bargaining process to convince the states to share power. I test my argument using logistic and OLS regression models based on two existing large-N datasets of rebel governance and power-sharing. The results indicate a statistically significant and positive impact of rebel governance on the likelihood and the level of power-sharing among former combatants.