Abstract Rebel groups govern significant parts of territory worldwide. They often deliver crucial public goods and services to populations under their control. Scholarship on rebel governance commonly explains this with the need for armed generate local international legitimacy. We argue that understanding as an instrumental means power is insufficient. Instead, we propose a novel conceptualiza...

In this comparative study of two water basins in the Middle East, we examine the hydro-political construction of scale as central to state and nation building, and their territorial consolidation. We argue that scalar negotiations and constructions of freshwater became central to the very consolidation of both Turkey and Israel. The examples we offer also illustrate the usefulness of a performa...