Legitimising rebel rule: justifications of violence and authority in the Colombian conflict

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This International Relations Working Group session features a presentation by Wolfgang Minatti (University of Potsdam) on some draft chapters from his book on rebel rule, violence and authority in the Colombian conflict.

Conventional accounts of civil war explain the legitimacy of armed actors through service provision or procedural fairness. Yet across many conflict zones, civilians hold divergent beliefs about rebel legitimacy—even where governance appears similar. This book addresses a key but underexplored puzzle in civil war studies: how and why the legitimacy of rebel groups varies across local contexts. It develops a theory of legitimation as harmonisation, emphasising the relational processes through which civilians and combatants co-construct notions of rightful violence. Drawing on immersive fieldwork in Colombia, alongside historical and archival research, the book traces the FARC’s legitimation efforts at the micro level. It reveals how competing authority structures shape civilians’ evolving beliefs about legitimate violence during wartime. By uncovering the microfoundations of rebel justification and variation in legitimacy perceptions, this study offers new insights into civil war dynamics, rebel governance, and the politics of authority under conflict.

Speaker: 

Wolfgang Minatti, a researcher working on legitimation and governance in international politics and civil war, currently works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Potsdam and visiting researcher at the Social Science Research Centre Berlin. He works and publishes on issues of conflict research, in particular on non-state armed groups, and on theories of international relations, in particular on questions of legitimacy and authority in international politics. Additionally, he is interested in qualitative methods, in particular research ethics and field research. He has conducted field research in Colombia, where he worked with former rebels and peasant communities. Wolfgang completed his PhD in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in 2024 and holds a Master's degree in International Relations from Leiden University. Prior to his work in Potsdam, he was a visiting researcher at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and at the Cluster of Excellence SCRIPTS at the FU Berlin.

The Zoom link will be sent upon registration.