The term insurgency group refers to armed groups that engage in insurgency – a military strategy aimed at disrupting and replacing the state. These groups are characterized by their secrecy, lack of state sponsorship (although they may receive support from transnational terrorist networks), and the nesting of insurgency within more complex conflicts associated with state weakness or failure.
Typically, insurgency groups do not aim to control large territories; instead they seek to exert their coercive power in areas of peripheral state challenge. They do so through what Gutierrez Danton has called armed advocacy, wherein insurgent groups can utilise their position of clandestinity to leverage the provision of services – such as education or health facilities – that improve, quantitatively and qualitatively, on the State’s provision of such services (see below).
As a result of these limitations, insurgency is unlikely to be a useful model for future conflict. Insurgents are likely to be organised as a network of loosely connected, self-organising sub-groups able to draw on local grievances, a shared ideology, and an insurgent leadership that can mobilise them.
Unlike movements, many insurgents inherit organisational weaknesses and divisions from the fragmented social milieus in which they have their origins. Moreover, even when movement origins are adapted to the demands of armed struggle, insurgents often face challenges in urbanising and building constituencies. This article examines these dynamics through detailed case studies focusing on Cali (Holguin Pedroza, 2014) and Bogota (Medellin Perez, 2018). These comparative cases show within-case variation in insurgent mobilisation and urban constituency building, and highlight the importance of exploring the contextual complexities of rebel governance and urban constituency formation.
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