Governing for Revolution by Megan Stewart joins a burgeoning literature on rebel governance, one that has started to convincingly show that there is significant variation in the strategies that rebel groups pursue regarding the population they control in the context of an armed territorial conflict. The book starts with a fascinating puzzle: the significant variation in simultaneous rebel governance attempts by different groups in Raqqa in the recent civil war in Iraq. Because preexisting local institutions cannot explain this variation, the author argues that the explanation must lie in group-level characteristics, in particular the nature of their political goals. Indeed, this book departs from the existing literature in arguing that the different strategies of rebel governance result from the nature of the claims that armed organizations make—and not from natural resources or the initial endowments of groups. Stewart argues that rebel governance strategies can be more or less close to the “Chinese model” honed by Mao Zedong and implemented by the Chinese communist party (CCP) during the two-decade civil war in the mid-twentieth century, depending on how transformative or revolutionary the organizations’ goals are. The more transformative the goals, the closer to the Chinese model is rebel governance likely to be.

The book displays a combination of qualitative and quantitative evidence from five case studies and a large-n dataset on rebel groups and their corresponding rebel governance strategies (covering the 1945–2003 period). This is a neat research design, which I argue draws inspiration from some of the most influential books in conflict studies published in the last decade. Stewart combines archival research (e.g., for the ELF and EPLF in Ethiopia) with fieldwork interviews (e.g., for Hezbollah in Lebanon). For the case studies, Stewart compares the ELF and the EPLF in Ethiopia; the EPLF had more transformative goals and adopted the Chinese model, with more intensive and extensive governance. She also analyzes within-rebel group variation in the case of the SPLM/A (Sudan): this rebel group adopted more transformative goals over time, which she argues led to more intensive and extensive governance strategies. To these African cases, she adds FRETILIN in East Timor and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The FRETILIN was a national liberation movement, and Hezbollah is a jihadist group chiefly inspired by leftist revolutionaries (p. 206).

It is important to emphasize that the argument in this book is historical; it is not that all rebel groups with transformative goals are equally influenced by the Chinese model. For example, such a model did not have much influence on revolutionary actors in the Spanish civil war (1936–39) perhaps because the Chinese civil war still ongoing and the Stalinist Soviet Union was involved in the Spanish conflict. In addition, the Chinese model is less likely to affect revolutionary groups fighting contemporary civil wars because of ideological distancing: even though these organizations have transformative goals, these are unlikely to match the CCP’s objectives (p. 53). Stewart puts emphasis on organizational goals, not ideology, which she defines as two different concepts (p. 50). However, organizational goals are very much intertwined with ideology. Her focus on goals also conveys some implausible observable implications such as that anarchist rebels would want to follow the example of the Chinese communists.

The international system has a huge impact on ideology, quite particularly during the Cold War when not only did clear-cut alternatives to capitalism exist but they also lifted revolutionary insurgents around the world. The author argues that individual leaders have a more critical role than the international system in shaping forms of rebel governance (p. 23). Still, individual leaders (and their enemies) are constrained by the international system and its consequences on transnational networks, flows of people and information, and external military support. That is why the Chinese model is likely to have had an impact predominantly on leftist rebels with transformative goals—and not on groups with other ideologies (i.e., right-wing). In this regard, it is not shocking that rebels’ incentives to pursue the Chinese governance model significantly decreased with the end of the Cold War (p. 71).

Interestingly, Stewart discusses other models of rebel governance (e.g., Marighella’s and Guevara’s), but these do not seem to play a critical role in her theory, which revolves around the Chinese model. Rebel governance (or alternative state-building) in the context of irregular warfare belonged to a military doctrine prevalent during the Cold War that did not only pertain to the CCP or China. Stewart convincingly documents that China had a crucial role in the incubation, development, and international promotion of this model, but other states and organizations such as Cuba, Libya, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), also played an important role in providing training and support to revolutionary insurgencies during the Cold War.

The combination of qualitative and quantitative data emboldens the empirics of the book, although the core of the analyses is qualitative. A key question regarding its causal identification is whether we can separate rebels’ goals from their strength and capacity. We know from previous research that when groups are weak (particularly regarding the state and other rebel groups fighting the same conflict), they might have modest goals, but they might revise their goals and become more transformative as they gain strength. Stewart is aware of and discusses this issue but somewhat dismisses it in arguing that groups rarely deviate from their goals (p. 38). And although the process tracing in the case studies supports her hypothesis and causal mechanisms, she does not fully tackle the causal identification issue in the large-n statistical analyses—though her checks for the existence of a spurious relationship between revolutionary goals and rebel governance do assuage some concerns. Given the historicity of the theoretical argument, it would have been interesting if the statistical analyses had dug into the heterogeneity of different historical periods (e.g., before, during, and after the Cold War; post–911) and various technologies of rebellion (the Chinese model was intertwined with the concept of irregular war).

One of the book’s key contributions is its examination of the variation in rebel governance across groups depending on their stated goals. Yet groups can be more or less capable of establishing extensive and intensive forms of governance, depending on regional or local factors (i.e., they can face more or less local resistance to control). Hence, there can also be geographic variation at the subgroup level. Further research on rebel governance should probably attempt to bridge the meso-level insights from this book with those in micro-level research.

Overall, this is an important and ambitious book that contributes to the literature on revolutions, civil wars, and rebel governance, and it is likely to inspire further work in these areas. One relevant pattern uncovered in the book is that groups implementing more intensive and extensive forms of rebel governance are not more likely to emerge victorious. Thus, the investment in governance might bring benefits in the short and medium run to insurgents, but not necessarily in the long run regarding their ultimate goal; namely, to win the war. This raises some inevitable questions. Why aren’t revolutionary groups updating their preferences in light of others’ defeats? Or, put differently, why do rebel groups keep investing in such costly forms of governance even when they do not probe their success beyond particular cases? After reading this book, additional questions come to mind. How do these forms of rebel governance affect conflict resolution processes and postconflict settlements? Are postconflict institutions affected by the nature of wartime governance (p. 271)? Again, there is a growing literature on these issues, but it will be exciting to see future scholarship taking on some of the avenues of research opened up by this excellent book.