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When Counterinsurgent Institutions Persist: Unpacking Local Wartime Legacies

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Abstract

What is the relationship between counterinsurgency and institution-building? When do wartime institutions persist once conflict has ended? Classic theories examine how war spurs new institutions within the central state, while extensive research on rebel governance examines how insurgent actors forge new rules to garner civilian compliance and cement control. However, the legacies of armed conflict for state institutions in the theater of war remain relatively neglected. We theorize the process of local counterinsurgent institution-building and the drivers of institutional endurance following counterinsurgency. By analyzing two local counterinsurgent institutions in Nicaragua and a shadow case drawn from Indonesia, we find that while state leaders may generate new institutional arrangements to elicit information and garner resources, institutional persistence is driven by local reappropriation as communities pursue their own postwar governance and development goals. Overall, this paper contributes a new understanding for the divergent postwar paths of local institutions generated amid counterinsurgency.

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Notes

  1. Nonetheless, even lower intensity conflicts can incentivize elites to support statebuilding under certain conditions (See Flores-Macías 2014).

  2. These conditions are also relevant following rebel victory (See Lewis 2022).

  3. Following Brinks, Levitsky, and Murillo (2019, 8), we define a formal institution as “a set of formal rules structuring human behavior and expectations around a statutory goal by (1) specifying actors and their roles; (2) requiring, permitting, or prohibiting certain behaviors; and (3) defining the consequences of complying or not complying with the remaining rules.”.

  4. Mahoney and Thelen (2009, 15–6) define these terms as follow: “Layering: the introduction of new rules on top of or alongside existing ones … Conversion: the changed enactment of existing rules due to their strategic redeployment.”.

  5. Kurasawa, who was a member of the women’s section of her RT when she lived in Indonesia, witnessed firsthand how the RT head obtained funding from the Project for Eradication of Poverty in Urban Sector for a local road. The RT head also convinced residents to contribute financially, which was a requirement to obtain the funding.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Dipali Mukhopadyay, Dan Slater, and the participants in a 2023 ISA panel on “Statebuilding, Conflict, and Counterinsurgency in Comparative Perspective” for their thoughtful feedback on this paper.

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Matsuzaki, R., Schwartz, R.A. When Counterinsurgent Institutions Persist: Unpacking Local Wartime Legacies. St Comp Int Dev (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-024-09427-1

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