Perspectives on the rebel social contract: Exit, voice, and loyalty in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

•This article considers the concept of the rebel social contract by examining the case of the Islamic State.•The rebel social contract is often assumed to exist, but is rarely evaluated empirically.•Civil wars provide opportunities to observe the construction and negotiation of new social contracts.•This article adopts Hirschman’s exit/voice/loyalty typology to develop an empirical method for evaluating the rebel social contracts.•Applying this method to the case of IS, we conclude that while IS wanted to gain voluntary assent, its social contract was highly authoritarian. This article considers the concept of the rebel social contract by examining the case of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. The concept of the social contract is a cornerstone of political theory and is increasingly invoked in discussions of civil war and authoritarian regimes, when prospective rulers offer political protections and social benefits in return for the allegiance of citizens. The social contract is often assumed to exist, but is rarely evaluated empirically. It remains difficult to distinguish between political stability derived from consent and stability derived from coercion and domination given their observational equivalence. Civil wars, in which rebel groups seek to supplant the state, provide opportunities to observe the construction and negotiation of new social contracts. The article uses Hirschman’s exit/voice/loyalty typology to develop a qualitative empirical method for evaluating evidence of the rebels’ “offer” of a social contract to civilians and their acceptance or rejection of that offer. We demonstrate this method by applying it to the case of IS using evidence including official IS documents, social media posts from within IS-controlled territory, and interviews with individuals who have personally experienced IS governance. We conclude that while IS leadership wanted to gain voluntary assent, most of the civilian response to IS rule suggested domination and authoritarian forms of social-contract building. This finding is illustrative of the analytical and methodological challenges involved in studying the social contract in rebel governance and the importance of considering domination, not just reciprocity, as the foundation for political order.