In your recent article, ‘Tribalocracy: Tribal Wartime Social Order and Its Transformation in Southern Syria’, you present the theory of tribalocracy as a framework for understanding social order and its transformation in tribal warzones. Could you introduce the theory and its key components?
The theory of tribalocracy focuses on tribal regions. It provides a nuanced account of wartime social order and explains its transformation in tribal warzones. At the heart of this theory are two key concepts. The first, rebel endogeneity, explains how social norms of collective responsibility and self-help compel the ‘sons of the soil’ to congregate in rebel groups and engage in large-scale violence against external challengers. The second concept, order in reserve, refers to a pre-existing, sticky, and resilient order that functioned in tribal regions. This order, though it co-existed and interacted with state order, remains ready to assume prominence when the state order weakens or erodes.
When civil war breaks out, endogenous rebels are more likely to refrain from establishing a new form of order in the territory they capture. Instead, they co-opt, reassert, and operate under order in reserve. In this way, rebel groups rule minimally, delegating much of the daily affairs to civilian actors, who remain under the watchful eye of tribal shaykhs. For many rebel leaders, the benefits derived from this arrangement are comparable to, or potentially greater than, the advantages gained through extensive rebel intervention in civilian affairs. Tribal shaykhs play a crucial role in supporting rebel rule by enhancing rebel legitimacy, resolving recruitment challenges, facilitating resource distribution, managing justice, and serving as intermediaries between the local population and rebel leaders.
However, the theory acknowledges the ever-changing and fluid nature of wartime social orders, particularly in long and protracted conflicts. It shows how the scarcity of economic resources, the presence of rival rebel groups, fragmentation within the rebel organisation, and shifts in ideological preferences constituted pivotal ‘shocks’ that transformed the wartime social order toward a broader rebel involvement in civilian affairs.
Your fieldwork was conducted in the Hauran region of southern Syria at a time when the war was ongoing. Could you share more about your fieldwork experience?
Tribalocracy relies heavily on qualitative original data collected through fieldwork. I implemented an innovative, multi-method empirical approach, encompassing more than 320 in-depth and semi-structured interviews conducted between 2016 and 2018 with respondents living in southern Syria. The diverse participant pool included clan shaykhs, rebel leaders, rebel soldiers, local activists, and ordinary civilians. Alongside the interviews, I gained rare access to a private archive constructed by local activists, containing both published and unpublished documents, images, and videos produced by the state, rebel groups, and local civilian institutions. Archival research has been instrumental not only in suggesting evidence but also in cross-checking and verifying the accuracy of some of the information gathered from interviews.
Being a native of Syria, my fluency in Arabic and profound understanding of local customs, traditions, and culture significantly facilitated effective communication with respondents. This cultural competence enabled me to build trust with participants and create an environment where they felt respected, understood, and at ease sharing their experiences openly. It is noteworthy that throughout the research period spanning from 2016 to 2018, the war in Hauran was ongoing. Conducting the fieldwork at that time allowed me to capture the first-hand perspectives of individuals living under rebel rule. It served to mitigate the potential for bias that can inadvertently affect studies heavily reliant on memories and recollections for the construction of a cohesive narrative.
In your research, you present the differences in the evolution of social order in the Syrian cities of Busra al-Sham and al-Shajarah, where the interplay between shaykhs, locals, and rebel organisations followed different paths. Why and how did the practice of tribalocracy differ in these two cases?
The analysis is embedded in two case studies, the towns of Busra al-Sham and al-Shajarah. In Busra al-Sham, rebels limited their aspirations to rule and largely refrained from direct involvement in civilian affairs. While they focused on managing the security sphere, rebel forces left the management of local affairs to civilian actors supervised by clan shaykhs. Similar arrangements were initially observed in al-Shajarah. However, a slow shift unfolded over time, whereby the rebels expanded their involvement in local affairs and encroached upon domains that were once entrusted to ordinary civilians and clan shaykhs. The scarcity of economic resources, the presence of rival rebel groups, fragmentation within the rebel organisation, and shifts in ideological preferences are core factors that pushed the rebels to sideline tribal shaykhs and eradicate any remaining trace of civilian participation.
How does tribalocracy apply in contexts beyond Syria, and what implications does your research have for future scholarly investigations on wartime social order?
Tribalocracy is expected to apply to all irregular civil wars taking place in Arab countries characterised by prominent tribal structures. The scarcity of data presents a significant obstacle to validate the theory and its findings in other cases, especially in countries like Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. Comparative data on social order in tribal regions in the Arab world where civil war has occurred, or is ongoing, is quite scarce.
However, based on the qualitative evidence that I was able to uncover in a number of cases, I can assert that the theory travels across many cases in two significant ways. First, I found that the endogeneity dimension not only applies to rebel groups but also to the broader category of non-state armed groups, including armed groups fighting against foreign occupation and pro-government militias, in countries like Iraq, Libya, and Yemen. This dimension highlights the broader notion of traditional, localised, and family-based forms of solidarity in times of war, which is observed in rural regions in general.
Second, tribalocracy highlights the independent and unique civilian agency possessed by tribal shaykhs. Although there are existing examples in other contexts showcasing the various roles played by tribal shaykhs in civil wars —especially in the formation of non-state armed actors, the supervision of the provision of services, and the resolution of disputes through traditional justice—future research is warranted to assess the explanatory power of the theory beyond Syria. While a sub-national research design cannot address external validity on its own, in future studies, the theory and findings presented in this article can be compared with similar projects conducted in other contexts.
Overall, the theory and empirical results expand our understanding of the localised and kinship-based forms of solidarity, the origins of rebel organisations, the source of wartime social order, civilian agency, and the roles played by tribal shaykhs under rebel rule.
Abdullah al-Jabassini is an EUI CIVICA Fellow at Central European University and a Fellow at the Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent, Canterbury. His main research interests include political violence and civil war, rebel governance, peacebuilding and reconciliation processes, rebel-military integration, authoritarian conflict management, and local governance in areas of limited statehood.