Parallel session
Rebel governance

This session brings together leading scholars and policy experts to discuss the nature of rebel governance and its ramification. It will address why we observe different forms of governance across actors and world regions, what we know about how social order is established during war and why some groups seek to govern as well as which role civilians play in shaping governance or resisting rebels. Panelists will also delve into the important question of how different patterns of governance shape post-conflict trajectories and lay the ground for future state-building endeavors.

Session videos

Siobhan O'Neil | Marta Furlan | Ana Arjona | Marine Gassier | Discussant and Q&A

COLLABORATORS

Mika Aaltola | Chair

Dr. Mika Aaltola is the Director of FIIA. He is also a tenured professor of International Relations and European Union Affairs at Tallinn University (part-time), Estonia, and holds the rank of docent at Tampere University. He has been a visiting fellow at Cambridge University, Sciences Po (CERI), and Johns Hopkins as well as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota. His areas of expertise include the U.S. global role, dynamics of major power politics, democratic vulnerability, pandemic security, and Finnish foreign policy.

Siobhan O'Neil | Presenter

Siobhan leads UNU-CPR’s Managing Exits from Armed Conflict (MEAC) initiative. Previously, she managed UNU’s children and extreme violence and (DDR) in contemporary conflicts projects. Siobhan has worked for UNMAS, the RAND Corporation, the NY State Office of Homeland Security, and the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Siobhan O’Neil holds a PhD in International Relations from UCLA.

Marta Furlan | Presenter

Marta Furlan holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews. Her doctoral dissertation studied governance by Salafi-Jihadist armed groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen from a comparative and multi-dimensional perspective. Her research focuses on violent non-state actors, rebel governance, civil wars, the Middle East. She is currently a consultant on Syria and Yemen for Geneva Call and a postdoctoral researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Ana Arjona | Presenter

Ana Arjona (PhD, Yale University) is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. Her research investigates institutional change and civilian agency in contexts of organized violence. She is the author of the award-winning book Rebelocracy: Social Order in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2016), co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and author of several articles and book chapters.

Marine Gassier | Presenter

Marine Gassier is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at Sciences Po Paris. She holds a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins University - SAIS (2012). Her dissertation project investigates the determinants of the evolution of insurgent movements, with a particular focus on conflicts in the Horn of Africa. She is also a consultant for the World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab, working on several experimental studies assessing the impact of youth employment and entrepreneurship programs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Yvan Guichaoua | Discussant

Dr. Yvan Guichaoua is Senior Lecturer at the Brussels School of International Studies at the University of Kent. He is also a former teaching fellow at Yale University and a research officer at the University of Oxford. His focus is the dynamics of insurgency formation, rebel governance, and state responses in Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Niger since 2004. Since 2007, Yvan Guichaoua has been studying recurring rebellions in Niger and Mali and the rise of Jihadism in the Sahel as well as foreign interventionism.