Legal identity and rebel governance: a comparative perspective on lived consequence of contested sovereignty

This chapter opens up a new research agenda by suggesting that the conferral
of and contestation over legal identity in the context of civil war comprises a highly significant but vastly understudied field of inquiry. It reviews contextual differences related to the nature of the insurgent movement, the nature of the state, and the trajectory of conflict. It provides suggestions for a methodological lens through which the contested landscape of legal identity in rebel territory can be studied from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. It argues that the study of legal identity issued by non- state armed movements requires us to combine three conceptual lenses to capture the coercive, the performative, and the legal aspects of this phenomenon. Its conclusions raise conceptual, empirical, and humanitarian questions that are relevant to both practitioners and academics.