Search

This is a study of rebel political orders and the degree of governance rebels can install in their liberated areas. It studies the ways in which force came to be transformed into authority under the rule of two military organisations fighting asymmetrical wars in highly divided societies. Wartime rebel states are by nature an exercise in control and power, in projecting authority and symbolism, in managing contradictions and shortcomings, but are also deeply revealing of the characteristics of rebel movements, their motivations, survival strategies and organisational capacity. This thesis on the rebel governance of União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) is a study on how two very different reform rebel movements, fighting two of Africa’s deadliest and recurrent civil wars, devised and designed institutions to govern civilian populations in the stable liberated areas of Jamba in Angola and Yambio in South Sudan. Existing governing strategies were reformed after both faced critical junctures that exposed the fragilities of their organisations, the insufficient coordination of structures and leadership, and the need to reformulate an ideology to rally widespread support across constituencies. Their parallel states emerged as a key pillar to survive and win their second liberations. The Free Lands of Angola embodied UNITA’s centralised and totalitarian state project. The New Sudan embodied the SPLM/A’s decentralized approach to governance and its pragmatism of local alliances. This comparison is structured around four internal agentic elements of these two movements: their leadership, ideology/political program, organisation and approach to civilians. This allows for mutually reinforcing explanations of what informed their parallel states and contextualizes strategies and motivations by exposing a ‘rebel-system’ as a theory of operation accounting for change and highlighting elements that powered the movements and their liberation struggles.