5 - Raqqa’s Caliphal Social Contract

Summary

As the Syrian uprising took a violent turn, armed fighters and civilian leaders alike carved out insurgent micropolitical economies across the country’s contested territories. Raqqa City was the first provincial capital to fall from the regime’s control into the hands of opposition forces. The city elected its first opposition council, the Raqqa city council, in early 2014, but the council proved short-lived. By mid-2014, a zealous band of foreign fighters had consolidated control over the city with the aim of establishing a caliphate that would transcend the Westphalian state system and manifest an extreme vision of Islamic rule. These aspiring governors quickly established a monopoly over coercion and availed themselves of a range of capital assets through access to natural resources, looting, and various forms of taxation in the service of their state-building effort. Our close reading of accounts from the city of Raqqa between 2014 and 2016 revealed the corresponding emergence of tight forms of social control as well as the demonstrated capacity to deliver a wide array of key services. In these ways, the so-called Islamic State proved to be a paragon of rebel governance, mobilizing key forms of material power to erect a robust new political order.