How do armed groups that emerge victorious from a multiparty civil war – or that are included in the post-conflict power structure through negotiated settlements – build state authority in the face of competing social and political actors? Although the war has ended and with it the rivalry with other armed actors, the multiparty context does not disappear but rather becomes more complex as new players enter the fray. The project develops a typology of ruling strategies employed by post-conflict authorities in multi-actor settings, where the presence of former armed rivals, ethnic and religious minorities, societal and economic elites, and international actors constrains the options available to aspiring state-builders. I argue that both the characteristics of the new authority that were shaped during and survived the war and the constellation of actors facing it systematically shape which ruling strategies are feasible and likely. In the talk, I present a typology of differentiated ruling strategies varying across violence, security provision, service delivery, development investment, and socialization, and illustrate it with evidence from post-Assad Syria under the HTS-led transitional government. I then situate the Syrian case within a broader medium-N comparative framework encompassing cases of both rebel victory and negotiated settlement. The project contributes to debates on rebel governance, post-conflict state-building, peacebuilding, and the political consequences of civil war termination.

Regine Schwab is a conflict researcher and postdoctoral fellow at the Research Center Transformations of Political Violence (TraCe) and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). A specialist in civil war dynamics and non-state armed groups with extensive fieldwork in Turkey and Syria, she has published in leading journals including the Journal of Conflict Resolution. Her first book entitled Armed Group Constellations: From Battlefield Interactions to Emergent Structures is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

Admission

Admission is free.

Venue

Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Kirchweg 33, 14129 Berlin