Insurgent Rulers in the Age of the Internet: The Emergence and Impact of Rebel Digital Governance in the Syrian Civil War Open Access

Abstract

How do rebel organizations govern online? As insurgent groups increasingly exploit the internet and social media platforms, scholars suggest their digital behaviors constitute governance. Yet, little has been done to formally define and study rebel governance online. This thesis presents a novel conceptualization of digital rebel governance as well as investigates its effect on rebel territorial-bound governance outcomes. I argue that digital governance reduces insurgents' costs while still enabling them to accrue the same benefits that they had traditionally obtained from their territorial-bound governing operations. Moreover, by replacing rebels’ reliance on the local population with external entities and donors, I contend that digital governance alters rebels’ incentives to use violence against civilians. Focusing on evidence from the Syrian civil war, I use a mixed-methods approach to test these assumptions. I employ a ‘reducing uncertainty’ analysis on an original dataset (Thomas 2022), as well as, rely on observations from the Syrian Armed Groups, Alliances, and Actions (SAGAA) dataset (Gade et al. 2021) to conduct a case study of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). However, both quantitative and qualitative findings did not support the proposed logic of digital governance and point to an alternative causal mechanism instead. Evidence indicates that fluctuations in insurgent digital, territorial-bound, and coercive governance are all better explained by rebel group capacity.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Section 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Significance ..................................................................................................................................... 2 

1.2 Contributions .................................................................................................................................. 3

Section 2: Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 4     

2.1 Understanding Rebel Governance ..................................................................................................... 4     

2.2 Why do Rebels Govern? ................................................................................................................... 5     

2.3 Insurgent Behavior in the Digital Age ............................................................................................... 6     

Section 3: Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 8     

3.1 Conceptualizing Digital Governance ................................................................................................ 8     

3.1.1 Fundraising ................................................................................................................................. 9     

3.1.2 Recruitment ............................................................................................................................... 10    

3.1.3 Organization .............................................................................................................................. 11     

3.1.4 Propaganda .............................................................................................………………………….…. 12     

3.1.5 Symbolic Expressions ...............................................................................…………………………..… 13

3.2 The Logic of Digital Governance ..................................................................................................... 14     

Section 4: Case Selection ..................................................................................................................... 16            

4.1 Why Syria? .................................................................................................................................... 16    

4.2 Why Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)? .................................................................................................. 17    

Section 5: Research Design and Methods .............................................................................................. 18    

5.1 Operationalizing Key Concepts ....................................................................................................... 19    

5.1.1 Dependent Variables ................................................................................................................... 19    

5.1.2 Independent Variables ................................................................................................................ 20    

5.1.3 Additional Variables and Measures .............................................................................................. 23    

5.2 Quantitative Tests ........................................................................................................................ 25

5.2.1 Design ...................................................................................................................................... 25

5.2.2 Results ..................................................................................................................................... 26

5.3 Qualitative Tests ......................................................................................................................... 29

5.3.1 Design ..................................................................................................................................... 29

5.3.2 Results .................................................................................................................................... 29

Section 6: Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 42    

Section 7: References ........................................................................................................................ 45

Section 8: Appendices ....................................................................................................................... 54

8.1 Appendix A: Digital Governance Examples (Table 1) …………………………………................................ 54

8.2 Appendix B: Syrian Conflict Context ............................................................................................. 56

8.3 Appendix C: Syrian Rebel Governance Dataset ............................................................................... 59

8.4 Appendix D: Syrian Rebel Governance Coding Manual ………………………………................................ 60

8.5 Appendix E: Syrian Armed Groups, Alliances, and Actions (SAGAA) Dataset ..................................... 65    

8.6 Appendix F: Syrian Digital Governance Coding Manual ................................................................... 66    

8.7 Appendix G: Reducing Uncertainty Results (Tables 2 - 8) ................................................................. 67

8.8 Appendix H: Inductive Digital Governance Observations ................................................................. 71

 

List of Tables and Graphs

 

Figure 1: HTS Number of Digital Governance Claims ............................................................................. 30 

Figure 2: HTS Number of Digital Governance Claims by Component Type ............................................... 31

Table 1: Examples of each Digital Governance Component .................................................................... 54

Table 2: Results from “Reducing Uncertainty” Analysis of Coercive Governance ...................................... 67             

Table 3: Results from “Reducing Uncertainty” Analysis of Exclusive Governance ….................................. 68

Table 4: Results from “Reducing Uncertainty” Analysis of Civilian Participation ..................................... 68

Table 5: Results from “Reducing Uncertainty” Analysis of Territorial-Bound Governance ……………...…... 69

Table 6: Results from “Reducing Uncertainty” Analysis of Extractive Governance .................................... 69

Table 7: Results from “Reducing Uncertainty” Analysis of Redistributive Governance .............................. 70

Table 8: Results from “Reducing Uncertainty” Analysis of Institutional Governance …………………........... 70

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Middle Eastern Studies Political Science, International Law and Relations
Keyword	Syrian Civil War Rebel Social Media Insurgents Rebel Governance Online Conflict Civil War Rebel Group Internet
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Emily Gade, Emory University
Committee Members	Danielle Jung, Emory University Sam Cherribi, Emory University

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