Description
Civil war is a process of intense socio-political change. In instances of rebel victory, this process produces new political orders where former rebels occupy the seat of state power. Even though specific characteristics of postwar political orders have been the subject of vibrant scholarships, such as research on postwar stability, democratization, and authoritarianism, few attempts have been made to offer a comprehensive analytical framework that accounts for variation in the exercise of state power by rebel victors. In this paper, we identify the factors that explain the way power is wielded under rebel state rule. We argue that rebels’ exercise of power after victory is a function of legacies of civil war and legacies of the prior state. Within the context of a prewar political order, what takes place during the war generates opportunities and constraints for the different actors of an internal war. When rebels reach state power, prewar and wartime legacies interact to shape rebel victors’ use of state power. We build on four case studies that illustrate four different trajectories of rebel exercise of state power and pave the way for future research projects on rebel victory.
