Armed non-state actors and the politics of recognition

Figures

9.1 Levels of analysis regarding the sources of recognition-granting and -seeking (source: the author)

9.2 Levels of analysis, recognition acts (source: the author)

10.1 Signature of the main parties in the Preamble in the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (source: United Nations Peacemaker, available at: https://peacemaker.un.org/node/2676)

Tables

1.1 Case-study chapters by analytical category

3.1 Recognition matrix for Boko Haram, Niger Delta, IPOB and Fulani militia

6.1 Practices of recognition by IOs of the world political system

10.1 Ideal-type links among norms, inclusivity and ANSA recognition in mediation

10.2 Summary of empirical findings

11.1 Homicide rates per 100,000 people per year, 1999–2017

Contributors

Dr Jan Boesten is Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung Research Fellow at the CONPEACE Programme of the Changing Character of War Centre, Department of Politics and International Relations, Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He is also Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. His work has appeared in Latin American Research Review and Colombia Internacional.

Dr Chien-peng Chung is Professor of Politics in the Department of Political Science at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He received his PhD in political science from the University of Southern California and also holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Toronto.

Dr Maéva Clément is a senior lecturer in International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Osnabrück. She received her PhD in political science from Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research interests include international politics, interdisciplinary emotion research, (armed) non-state actors in world politics, and political violence and terrorism research.

Dr Véronique Dudouet is Senior Advisor at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin, where she coordinates collaborative research on resistance and liberation movements, civil resistance, negotiations and mediation in asymmetric conflicts, and inclusive post-war governance. She also gives policy advice and capacity-building support to conflict and peacebuilding actors. She has published three books and numerous articles on conflict transformation and non-violent resistance, and holds a PhD in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford.

Dr Anna Geis is Professor of International Security and Conflict Studies at Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg. In 2018 and 2019, she was a visiting researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Her research interests include theories of peace and war, security governance, conflict transformation, transitional justice and international political theory (democracy, legitimacy, recognition).

Dr Carolin Görzig leads the independent research group ‘How Terrorists Learn’ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale). She and her team have conducted field research in Palestine, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Niger, Egypt, Spain, Great Britain and Northern Ireland with the aim of generating insights on learning processes of terrorist groups.

Dr Christoph Günther is the Principal Investigator of the junior research group ‘Jihadism on the Internet: Images and Videos, their Dissemination and Appropriation’ in the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Mainz. Christoph's research interests include religio-political movements in the modern Middle East, visual cultures and iconography, and the sociology of religion.

Dr Stephan Hensell is Senior Researcher at the Research Centre for International Relations, European Politics and Political Theory at the University of Bremen and a visiting researcher at the Institut d’Études Européennes, Université libre de Bruxelles. He holds a PhD from Humboldt University Berlin and has held positions as a researcher and lecturer at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy and at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Hamburg.

Dr Annette Idler is Director of Studies of the Changing Character of War Centre, Pembroke College; and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. She is also Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Her work has appeared as a monograph with Oxford University Press and in journals such as World Politics and Journal of Global Security Studies.

Dr Tom Kaden is a sociologist of religion working in the Department of Cultural Sciences at the University of Bayreuth. Previously, he worked as a research associate at York University (Toronto) in the ‘Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum’ project. His research interests include fundamentalism, the relationship between science and religion, and creationism.

Dr Michael Nwankpa is Founding Director/Director of Research at the Centre for African Conflict and Development. He holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Roehampton, London. His main research area is the nexus between conflict and development, including the concept of a human rights-based approach to development, as well as counterinsurgency and counterterrorism.

Dr Hanna Pfeifer is Professor of Political Science, with a Special Focus on Radicalisation and Violence Research, at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and Goethe University Frankfurt. She is also the head of the terrorism research group at PRIF. Her research focuses on the Middle East and North Africa, in particular Islamist and jihadist actors, state and non-state violence, and global and regional politics of order.

Dr Jamie Pring is a visiting post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at Freie Universitàt Berlin. Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, she is conducting a comparative study of regional conflict prevention institutions in the Global South. Her PhD at the University of Basel examines the promotion of inclusivity in the mediation process led by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in South Sudan from 2013 to 2015.

Dr Klaus Schlichte is Professor of International Relations and Politics in the World Society at the Research Centre for International Relations, European Politics and Political Theory at the University of Bremen. His main research fields are the sociology of war and states, and the historical sociology of international relations. He has conducted field research in Mali, Senegal, Uganda, France and Serbia.

Dr Mitja Sienknecht is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Münster and a guest researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center. She received her PhD from the European University Viadrina, where she also had a position as a post-doctoral fellow at the Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION. Her research fields include Peace and Conflict Studies, world society theory, and global responsibility relations between global and regional institutions.

Arrliya Sugal is an MA candidate in Peace and Conflict Studies in a joint award degree with the University of Kent and Philipps University Marburg. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to conflict analysis and peacebuilding processes in the Horn of Africa region. It specifically emphasises the role of diaspora involvement in conflict resolution processes. She has a background in political science, sustainability sciences and global migration studies.

Dr Harmonie Toros is a reader in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent. She investigates conflict resolution and transformation approaches to terrorism and advises governments and intergovernmental organisations on the potential for negotiations with non-state armed groups. She has increasingly adopted an autoethnographic approach to research as she focuses on the experience of researching war and political violence.

Dr Harold Trinkunas is a senior research scholar and Deputy Director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. His recent research focuses on the role of armed non-state actors in local governance in territories where the state is weak or absent.

Acknowledgements

As theorists of recognition have argued so convincingly, experiencing recognition is a vital human need. It is a great delight for us as editors of a volume on recognition practices to acknowledge the fantastic support and collaboration of many people and institutions that rendered the conception and production of this book such a pleasure.

The motivation to produce a volume on the (non-)recognition of armed non-state actors (ANSAs) was inspired by the observation that recognition-related studies have been growing in International Relations since the early 2000s but that they predominantly deal with inter-state relations. An edited volume focusing systematically on ANSAs and the role of mis-recognition of such actors in violent conflicts has been missing in this burgeoning field at the intersection of International Political Theory, International Relations, and Peace and Conflict Studies.

The volume draws on an international workshop which was held at Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg, Germany in June 2018. We are especially grateful to the German Foundation for Peace Research for funding the event, and to Lennard Eccarius, Jennifer Franke, Susanne Latzel and Jonas Nawrath for supporting us in preparing and implementing the workshop.

The fantastic discussions with the participants – experts on armed non-state actors and/or peace processes and conflict transformation in specific regions of the world – motivated us to create this volume. For all contributors, it was an innovative endeavour to apply a recognition perspective to their case studies and empirical data, and discuss the merits of this concept. We wish to thank all the participants for their continuous commitment throughout this project and the great collaborative spirit that made this book possible. Special thanks goes to Véronique Dudouet who held a public key note speech in Hamburg, providing us with many thought-provoking insights on the highly political and changing nature of the ‘labelling’ of ANSAs. We are also very grateful to Harold Trinkunas, who accepted our invitation to write a concluding chapter which, despite a tight deadline, provides a very insightful reflection on the book, its merits and future trajectories for research. We also thank Christopher Daase whose role as a critical discussant and observer during the workshop allowed us to detect broader patterns across our case studies. Finally, we received very constructive comments and encouragement from the reviewers – thanks to them, the book has grown further!

We are very grateful to the editorial staff at Manchester University Press, especially Jonathan de Peyer and Robert Byron, for their excellent support.

Finally, we thank our student research assistants Friederike Uhl, Pascal du Hamél, Lena Wiggers and Nils Worbes for helping us in the final – and thus most critical – production phase of the volume.

Anna Geis, Hamburg

Maéva Clément, Osnabrück

Hanna Pfeifer, Frankfurt am Main

Abbreviations

I

Recognition of armed non-state actors: concepts, theory, history

1

Recognising armed non-state actors: risks and opportunities for conflict transformation

Maéva Clément, Anna Geis and Hanna Pfeifer

Introduction

Internal wars are the prevalent contemporary type of violent conflict (Sarkees and Wayman 2010). Many violent conflicts involve armed non-state actors (ANSAs) such as insurgents, rebels, guerrillas, warlords, militias, paramilitaries and private security companies. In addition, the so-called ‘global war on terrorism’ indicates that transnational terrorist networks are considered to be one of the major security threats today. Whatever label is used for a certain armed actor by a government, official authorities are usually hesitant to enter into informal talks and negotiations with ANSAs, especially with those they have labelled ‘terrorists’ (Podder 2013: 16). However, in many violent conflicts, such (often secret) ‘talks’ are initiated at some point (Görzig 2010; Toros 2012). Some of the groups involved may have gained such relevance in the course of a protracted armed conflict that governments face increasing pressure to negotiate with them; some ANSAs may have suffered military losses and seek such talks out of weakness; and sometimes third parties intervene and exert pressure on both state and non-state conflict parties to start negotiations.

The recent – very fragile – peace agreement between the US and the Taliban, signed on 29 February 2020 in Doha, Qatar, is a striking example of how engagement with a violent actor can change over the years. The Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001 by the US-led military intervention after being blamed for providing a safe haven for al-Qaeda, which was accused of having committed the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. While many actors have rejected negotiations with the Taliban despite the protracted violent conflict in Afghanistan, a reconsideration has come about since 2018. Several attempts to initiate talks failed, for example after the opening of a Taliban office in Doha in 2013 (Bell 2014: 264). The start of the US–Taliban peace talks in 2018 – excluding the Afghan government from the negotiation table, as the Taliban refused to negotiate with what it regards as a ‘puppet regime’ – was a major step. While the negotiations were being conducted, the Taliban continued to use violence, mainly against Afghan forces and government officials, but also resulting in civilian casualties. As this book is being written, the controversial peace pact is being met by resistance from the Afghan government and has also failed to stop the Taliban's violence (Allen 2020).

Talking and negotiating usually imply gradual steps of recognising the counterpart. Engaging with ANSAs is thus considered risky by governments (Miller 2011; Toros 2012). In successful cases, armed non-state actors can be transformed into non-violent political parties and their legitimate goals can be incorporated into state policy. In unsuccessful cases, armed non-state actors might escalate their violent struggle, which often results in governments being perceived as weak. With regard to international humanitarian law and humanitarian issues in general, any kind of engagement with ANSAs is often difficult to avoid, leading to similar concerns of (in-)directly recognising or legitimating armed groups through engagement (Barbelet 2008; Herr 2015; Jo and Thomson 2014; MacLeod et al. 2016).

When dealing with armed non-state actors, the complex role of recognition merits far greater attention than it has received so far from researchers in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies. Only few researchers have dealt with the issue of the (non-)recognition of ANSAs and sought to analyse the kinds of consequences recognition has on conflict dynamics (Aggestam 2015; Bell 2014; Biene and Daase 2015; Herr 2015). This is surprising, given that ‘recognition’ is a crucial concept in Social Science and Philosophy which has recently gained more attention in the discipline of International Relations (IR) (Hayden and Schick 2016: 1–2). Experiencing recognition in private and public life is considered a vital human need (Taylor 1994: 26). Mis-recognition, which individuals or collective actors experience as humiliation, disrespect or false representations of their identity, is seen as a major cause of political resistance and as a significant factor in the escalation of potentially violent conflicts.

Scholars have thus argued that recognition can have positive consequences on conflict dynamics in inter-state conflicts and in domestic conflicts, in which minority groups struggle for the recognition of their rights and identities.¹ The present volume seeks to address the research gap in the scholarship on armed non-state actors and to advance both recognition research and Peace and Conflict Studies by analysing which impacts – positive or negative – practices of (non-, mis-)recognition have on conflict dynamics in the short and long term. The application of analytical-conceptual tools from recognition research informs the theoretical frameworks of the case studies of the book, which cover (i) a broad range of ANSAs from different regions, as well as transnationally operating actors; and (ii) a broad range of political objectives for which ANSAs claim to fight, including ethno-political, politico-religious and ‘revolutionary’ ones. The introductory chapter first outlines different concepts of (mis-)recognition that have been developed in Political Theory and IR and discusses their merits and challenges for studying armed non-state actors. In the subsequent section, the focus is shifted to the armed non-state actors themselves, stressing different types and characteristics of ANSAs, and problematising the complex interplay of seeking and granting recognition in asymmetric violent conflicts, that is, conflicts in which actors of different status (state, non-state) are involved as conflict parties. The final section discusses the (ambivalent) short-term and long-term effects of recognition in processes of conflict transformation.

Recognition concepts in Political Theory and International Relations

‘Recognition’ is a prominent concept in several disciplines such as Social Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology and International Law, with the latter focusing on law-based acts of formal recognition of states. Political ‘struggles for recognition’ (Honneth 1995) have also received growing attention from empirical Political Science, as well as Peace and Conflict Studies.² The most intensive debates on social recognition started in social philosophy and Political Theory in the late 1980s and 1990s. The increase in different forms of ‘identity politics’ and struggles for recognition by minorities and social movements in liberal societies at that time stimulated attempts at theorising these phenomena (Fraser 2000; Fraser and Honneth 2003; Taylor 1994).

‘Recognition’ is a fuzzy term that is used quite differently by authors and speakers. Three interrelated usages can be distinguished (Ikäheimo and Laitinen 2011: 8–11). First, the term can be used as a synonym for ‘identification’; secondly, it is roughly synonymous with ‘acknowledgement’; this implies recognition having ‘evaluative or normative entities or facts as its objects, so that we can acknowledge something as valuable, as valid, as giving reasons, and so forth’ (Ikäheimo and Laitinen 2011: 8). The third use of the term is most prominent in Hegel-inspired accounts of recognition and refers to interpersonal recognition, as exemplified by the works of Axel Honneth (Schmitz 2019). Recognition of a specific identity, of rights and/or of a certain status has been regarded as one of the goals of (new) social movements organised around class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion or language. Drawing partly on Hegelian theoretical ideas (Markell 2003), and partly on empirical studies from evolutionary psychology, recognition theorists conceive of recognition by other individuals or by society as a vital human need. It is only when an individual is accepted as having certain qualities that (s)he will be able to develop self-esteem as well as an ‘intact’ personal identity (Taylor 1994: 26–37).

With regard to society, recognition operates as a mechanism that constitutes a normative status (of equals) and allots rights and duties within a society (Fraser 2000; Honneth 1995). The desire for recognition is not only inherent in individuals but also in social groups. For instance, as Alexander Wendt argued: ‘What groups want is for Others to recognize them, not necessarily to recognize Others. Nor does it mean that groups are forever unchanging. Group identity is a process not a thing, and its transformation into larger collective identities is precisely what begins to happen through mutual recognition’ (Wendt 2003: 516).

According to recognition theorists, acts of mis-recognition constitute acts of injustice in so far as they violate personal integrity and impede people from becoming full members of a social collective. Experiences of mis-recognition can provoke strong responses, including violent resistance, on the part of affected individuals or social groups (Heins 2010: 150). Despite its relative importance, mis-recognition has attracted less conceptual debate than recognition (Martineau et al. 2012: 3). Axel Honneth identified ‘the core of all experiences of injustice in the withdrawal of social recognition, in the phenomena of humiliation and disrespect’ (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 134). Nancy Fraser developed an alternative approach to identity-based forms of mis-recognition by conceiving of recognition as a question of social status:

Misrecognition, accordingly, does not mean the depreciation and deformation of group identity, but social subordination – in the sense of being prevented from participating as a peer in social life. To redress this injustice still requires a politics of recognition, but in the ‘status model’ this is no longer reduced to a question of identity: rather, it means a politics aimed at overcoming subordination by establishing the misrecognized party as a full member of society, capable of participating on a par with the rest. (Fraser 2000: 113)

With regard to the study of ANSAs in violent conflicts, Heins aptly points out that one should keep in mind a blind spot of Hegel-inspired accounts of recognition: disrespected and marginalised groups might not necessarily struggle for inclusion into the community from which they were excluded. He stresses: ‘They might as well struggle for inclusion into an altogether different community yet to be created’ (Heins 2016: 79).

In contrast to conceiving of recognition as a single act (Agné 2013: 100–102) or as a thing which one ‘has’ more or less of, we regard recognition as a process, as a social interaction ‘that can go well or poorly in various ways’ (Markell 2003: 18). Similarly, we think of struggles for recognition as an ‘ongoing activity rather than as a project with a fixed goal’ (Markell 2003: 16; Tully 2000: 477). Recognition in real-world politics can thus be based on single formal or symbolic acts of recognition (such as being officially invited to peace negotiations or being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize) but it can also unfold as a gradual process and, as such, can also be ‘stopped’ or (gradually) ‘reversed’. Recognition and non-recognition, that is, the deliberate withholding or denial of recognition, occur in complex and entangled forms. They constitute two poles on a continuum of policies and outcomes, ranging from highly formalised to very informal modes of recognition. This notion of gradual recognition implies that recognition is not only granted or withheld among actors of equal legal/social status, but also within asymmetric power relations (Daase et al. 2015; Wendt 2003: 511–514). With regard to ANSAs, one can distinguish between several types of act: formal acts (e.g. putting an actor on or removing it from ‘terror lists’, letting a group run in elections, etc.); symbolic acts (e.g. invitation to a negotiation, hand-shaking, etc.); discursive/speech acts (e.g. changing the discourse on an actor, changing conflict narratives); and material acts of recognition (e.g. redistribution of resources).

Since recognition is closely linked to the formation of individual or group identities, the concept has in particular attracted the attention of social constructivist scholarship (e.g. Ringmar 2002; Wendt 2003). One of the main questions in recognition-related IR studies is whether and how the mis-recognition of states promotes violent conflict and, vice versa, whether and how recognition fosters peaceful relations. To what extent such insights can also be applied to armed non-state actors is a question that has not been addressed in the scholarship so far. The authors of the present volume thus explore new ground in their case studies. It is a certain challenge to apply recognition concepts from Political Theory to ANSAs in violent conflicts: many armed groups seek to attain political goals and might be willing to refrain from using violence once they have reached these goals – which implies a change of their identity over time (Herr 2015: 92). Thus, in the long term, an armed non-state actor may transform into a political party, be part of the government or become a state-builder (Huang 2016: 91; Podder 2013; Schlichte 2009: 178–202). Hence, in contrast to the more stable collective identities of states, the group identity of an ANSA can change far more quickly, also due to changes in leadership, decreasing or increasing support of followers, or failures and successes in violent conflicts. They can re-group, re-name and develop new narratives and agendas. As several chapters in this volume show, identities are shaped and changed by the very (non-, mis-)recognition experiences with ‘significant others’ over time (see Dudouet; Görzig; Hensell and Schlichte; Pfeifer; Sienknecht in this volume).

It follows that more empirical research is required to analyse the types of political claim or identity trait for which a specific ANSA seeks recognition. It is a plausible assumption that ANSAs with political goals (especially those holding some territorial control) do seek recognition from significant others in order to enforce their agendas – since recognition can increase their legitimacy and help to mobilise material and symbolic support from local and regional actors or the transnational community, resulting in gains of status and reputation (Duyvesteyn 2017: 675; Herr 2015: 84, 95). As Thomas Lindemann (2012: 221) points out, ‘the quest for recognition is often quite strategic and reputation is a resource in the struggle for power’. Some armed groups might also be willing to comply with specific norms of international humanitarian law in order to gain recognition, and the political and material benefits that come with it (Herr 2015: 235–240; Pfeifer in this volume). Insights like these underline that struggles for recognition are not only about identity questions – as social constructivist research in IR often seems to suggest – but also imply material gains and strategic rivalry considerations for social groups. In a similar vein to state-centred IR research on recognition, studies on ANSAs should not be limited to ‘culturalist’ interpretations only (Geis et al. 2015: 5–6).

Given that the application of social recognition concepts in conflict transformation studies is still a research gap, we suggest that concepts which allow for capturing gradual processes and ‘shades’ or gradations of recognition can be especially useful (Geis et al. 2015: 15–18). A well-known conceptual approach is the distinction between ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ forms of recognition, as briefly introduced by Wendt (2003: 511–512) and further developed by Lindemann (2010), Pierre Allan and Alexis Keller (2012) and Lisa Strömbom (2014). ‘Thin’ recognition between conflicting parties refers to recognition of each other ‘as agents, as autonomous entities [that have] the right to exist and continu[e] to exist as an autonomous agent’ (Allan and Keller 2012: 76). ‘Thick’ recognition requires much more than accepting the other as an autonomous agent and negotiating partner; it means that ‘each party needs to understand the Other in terms of essential elements composing its identity’ (Allan and Keller 2012: 77). The quest for a stable and just peace, it is argued, requires ‘thick’ recognition among the conflicting parties, including an understanding of one's own identity. It is evident that this is a demanding challenge for most parties involved in violent conflicts and requires the long-term transformation of narratives, rules and institutions by the actors involved (more in the final section).

Recognition of political actors often occurs in gradual steps and is not necessarily an intended result but an eventual outcome of negotiations. In order to grasp such different degrees of ‘recognition as’, Janusz Biene and Christopher Daase (2015: 223–225) suggest the identification of several ‘recognition events’. They assume that armed non-state actors can seek recognition strategically. The gradual granting of recognition could influence their strategic options: the first step is ‘thin’ recognition as a party to the conflict. This is relevant since states often try to deny the existence of a conflict to delegitimise armed non-state actors. The next step is acceptance as a participant in informal talks, indicating their relevance in the present and the future for successful conflict management. The third step is the invitation to participate in formal talks. This move signals that the state government acknowledges the possibility that an ANSA might have legitimate claims to bring to the table (Biene and Daase, 2015: 224). A final degree of recognition is realised if a non-state actor is recognised as a political authority, as a legitimate representative of a collective with the capacity to enforce binding decisions.

Analysing the (non-/mis-)recognition of armed non-state actors and its impact on conflict transformation can also provide insights into related research fields, for instance into the ‘politics of legitimacy’ of armed groups (Duyvesteyn 2017; Schlichte and Schneckener 2015) or ‘rebel governance/diplomacy’ (Arjona et al. 2015; Huang 2016; Mampilly 2011). Such studies examine the agency, the diplomatic and ‘lobbying’ efforts, and strategic calculations of rebel groups vis-à-vis different domestic and external actors. The case studies of this book do not refer to the concept of ‘rebel diplomacy’, given that this volume probes a different conceptual perspective. However, the chapter on the Kurdish PKK (Sienknecht in this volume) clearly identifies such elements of ‘officialisation’ (Hensell and Schlichte in this volume) – for example the professionalisation and institutionalisation of political representation of the PKK in European countries, especially in Brussels and Strasbourg.

‘Recognition’ and empirical-analytical concepts of ‘legitimacy’ are very closely linked (Hensell and Schlichte in this volume; Herr 2015: 98–100), insofar as legitimacy depends on the social recognition of the legitimacy claims of actors:

Political actors are constantly seeking legitimacy for themselves or their preferred institutions and in doing so they engage in practices of legitimation. Because legitimation is a normative process, it is characterized by actors seeking to justify their identities, interests, practices, or institutional designs. … An actor making [such] a legitimacy claim does not mean, however, that she commands legitimacy – only when such claims are recognized as rightful within the political realm in which the actor seeks to act … would this be the case. (Reus-Smit 2007: 159–160; emphasis added)

Some authors seem to conceive of recognition as a kind of precondition for achieving legitimacy: ‘Armed opposition groups may want to achieve recognition as a viable political entity, which is a necessary step towards achieving legitimacy’ (Jo and Thomson 2014: 326). A similar point was made in the context of states’ recognition of states (Mastanduno et al. 1989: 464): for new states ‘external validation involves first and foremost the quest for diplomatic recognition. Gaining the recognition of the international community appears to be an exceptionally powerful means for a nascent state to establish legitimacy in the eyes of its domestic population.’

However, in our view there is empirically no clear-cut causal relationship between legitimacy and recognition in the context of studying ANSAs. A specific armed non-state actor might gain legitimacy by being recognised by a state government – but it might also lose legitimacy in the eyes of some constituencies in society that perceive this government to be particularly corrupt. It is also conceivable that an actor is (normatively) legitimate and finds a high degree of acceptance (empirical legitimacy) among some people, but is not recognised by ‘significant’ interaction partners – that is, it is legitimate both normatively and empirically, but not recognised as and for what it seeks to be recognised. Conversely, significant others may grant recognition to an actor without him/her being legitimate – neither normatively nor empirically. To conclude this section: the extent to which an ANSA enjoys legitimacy and/or recognition is an empirical question, which is dependent on the respective legitimacy- and recognition-granting of ‘others’ and their ‘significant’ relationship to the ANSA.

The complex interplay between recognition-seekers and recognition-granters

Social actors always want to be recognised as and/or for something by other (groups of) actors. Aside from multiple practices of recognition, mis-recognition and non-recognition, diverse actors are involved in such dynamics. The chapters in this volume focus on armed non-state actors as recognition-seekers. As for the actors that grant recognition, the contributions to this volume show that there is a great variety of states, international and regional organisations, as well as non-state actors from which ANSAs may seek recognition. Moreover, several actors may become involved in recognition dynamics as a third party, both as promoters or spoilers of the process. What is often neglected in the recognition-related literature in International Relations, International Law, and Peace and Conflict Studies is the role of domestic populations as potential recognition-granters – not only in democratic governance contexts but also in areas of contested or fragile statehood. Recognition practices are often considered as some kind of ‘(semi-)official’ interactions between organised actors, such as social groups, states and organisations. In our view, this is