Insurgency Success Factors and Rebel Legitimacy
networks, and resources. This categorical organization allowed for a pointed analysis into
different aspects of rebel group functioning. For example, legitimacy awarded through
organizational management holds vastly different implications for obtaining resources,
diplomacy, and the means by which a group can achieve success, then legitimacy achieved
through civilian support.
It is important to note the challenges of identifying, measuring, and defining legitimacy
on a mass scale. This assessment attempts to evaluate the opinions and public standpoints of
civilians, elites, institutions, foreign actors, and Islamist supporters, among others. The
descriptions in this assessment are by no means a complete understanding of all attitudes
amongst all groups that were active in the rebellion. Rather the assessment relies on public
rhetoric, political activity, and the sources availability to deduce the perceptions of majority
populations and public figures that can provide insight into these contributions.
It is also important to define success in the context of this framework. Conceptualizations
of success were derived from academic literature, COIN manuals, and development reports.
Non-academic assessments were incorporated into these definitions, as they provide a more
detailed, measurable assessment of factors that indicate rebel success and failure. The framework
evaluates rebel success as an intended outcome of rebel activity, and achievement of the intended
goal to assume political rule over military, social, political, and economic activity in a given
territory. Success is understood to be a process, in which achievements of territorial, social,
economic, and military gains support the process of achieving full political control.
The framework builds on definitions of both legitimacy and success to assess a causal
relationship between levels of legitimacy; access to resources, networks, and relations produced
by heightened legitimacy; and successes achieved as a result of accessing these resources. The
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