A group of individuals who organize, train and fight against the established government and occupy territories. A key to success in insurgency is a strong local presence and deep embeddedness, and an ability to generate and sustain popular support.
The insurgent groups FARC, ELN and Jabhat al-Nusra are currently considered the most well-armed, trained and organised insurgents in their respective regions. Their armed forces have the potential to be several times larger than the current number of soldiers in each group, and their arsenals include MANPADS.
But, despite their considerable resources and capabilities, insurgents face serious challenges that undermine their efforts at mobilisation. For example, it is difficult for vanguard groups to reorganise themselves from parochial structures into integrated ones. They are hampered by the fact that indiscriminate state violence often creates disloyal local units and destroys deep ties of trust between commanders. It is also hard to change factional structures when they have become entrenched, as insurgents like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar found out when the Taliban absorbed his disloyal local units.
Moreover, the clandestine nature of most armed movements means that there is a tension between the need to operate in secrecy to maintain operational capacity and the need to engage in broader public activities to build legitimacy. Achieving a high level of credibility requires intensive and prolonged socialisation, or “politicisation,” processes that involve extensive cross-checking of the own accounts of insurgents with those of nonparticipants. This socialisation process enables insurgents to develop shared identities with a broader public beyond their personal networks and, thereby, increase the likelihood that their actions will be regarded as legitimate.
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