Tribalocracy: Tribal Wartime Social Order and Its Transformation in Southern Syria

Abstract

This article introduces a new phenomenon in the study of civil war: tribal wartime social order. The proposed theory of tribalocracy, or tribal rule, integrates insights from civil war studies, anthropology, and sociology to provide a nuanced account of social order and its transformation in tribal warzones. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the Hauran region in southern Syria, the proposed theory explains how endogenous rebel groups, seeking to maximize a wide range of benefits rendered by tribal shaykhs, refrain from establishing a new form of order. Instead, they co-opt, reassert, and operate under a pre-existing order in reserve. In so doing, rebels rule minimally, leaving most of the local affairs in the hands of civilian actors closely monitored by tribal shaykhs. Given the fluid and volatile nature of wartime order, the proposed theory offers a compelling explanatory framework to account for the transition in the forms of wartime social order from a civilian model to one dominated by rebels. The theory and empirical results expand our understanding of the localized and kinship-based forms of solidarity, the origins of rebel organizations, the source of wartime social order, civilian agency, and the roles played by tribal shaykhs under rebel rule.