The Propagandistic Use of Rebel Governance: The Case of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq

The main aim of the chapter is to understand how the Islamic State used rebel governance as an instrument of internal and external propaganda. Against this backdrop, I argue the Islamic State has created a rebelocracy for three different reasons: funding, ideology, and legitimation. First of all, the totalitarian and violent ideology of IS made it unable to obtain external funding legally, resulting in necessary financial and logistic support from the local population. Secondly, the IS aimed at re-creating a borderless caliphate in Syria, Iraq, and throughout the MENA region, and that a rebel governance was the first step towards that goal. Finally, rebelocracy created the necessary legitimation to expand its borders and it has been used as a propagandistic tool towards local civilians and foreign individuals.