How do emerging states obtain international recognition and secure membership of
international organisations in contemporary world politics? This book provides the first in …

De facto states, functional on the ground but unrecognized by most states, have long been
black boxes for systematic empirical research. This study investigates de facto states' …

Recent work in international relations has problematized state-centric assumptions of
governance to explore variations in authority by a range of nonstate actors (eg …

On 17 March 2016 the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (Partîya Yekîtî ya Dêmokrat, PYD)
unilaterally proclaimed the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria in three cantons, Afrin …

How do international audiences evaluate the legitimacy of secessionist insurgencies?
Although secessionists often propagate their behavioral choices, such as state-building and …

Contemporary conflict studies often cite actor “legitimacy” as a key mechanism linking rebel
actors to a variety of outcomes, including civilian targeting, recruitment practices, and war …

Empirical research shows that armed groups may provide governance services to civilians
where they have established some form of control over a territory or population. At the same …

Why do warring parties turn to United Nations peacekeeping and peacemaking even when
they think it will fail? Dayal asks why UN peacekeeping survived its early catastrophes in …

This article sheds light on the partisan involvement of non-state networks in secession
conflicts. Building on the patron–client relations framework, it develops a concept of civil …

Rebel judicial systems are often portrayed as an attempt to usurp the legitimacy of the state
in their ability to make and enforce the rules under which civilians live. Yet, not all groups …