When Counterinsurgent Institutions Persist: Unpacking Local Wartime Legacies

What is the relationship between counterinsurgency and institution-building? When do wartime institutions persist once conflict has ended? Classic theories examine how war spurs new institutions within the central state, while extensive research on rebel governance examines how insurgent actors forge new rules to garner civilian compliance and cement control. However, the legacies of armed conflict for state institutions in the theater of war remain relatively neglected. We theorize the process of local counterinsurgent institution-building and the drivers of institutional endurance following counterinsurgency. By analyzing two local counterinsurgent institutions in Nicaragua and a shadow case drawn from Indonesia, we find that while state leaders may generate new institutional arrangements to elicit information and garner resources, institutional persistence is driven by local reappropriation as communities pursue their own postwar governance and development goals. Overall, this paper contributes a new understanding for the divergent postwar paths of local institutions generated amid counterinsurgency.