Insurgencies as Gendered Organisations in the Syrian Civil War.

Despite increased scholarly attention to insurgency, key questions remain about the internal dynamics that shape their success, particularly with regards to their instrumentalisation of gender. This thesis attempts to fill this lacuna by proposing a novel synthetical framework that breaks down insurgent gender relations into four processes (gender ideology, policy, divisions of labour and practice) that occur at three levels of analysis (culture, structure, and agency). In doing so, I demonstrate that gender is deeply embedded in insurgent strategy at all levels, and enables groups to address competing political priorities in the process of establishing, consolidating and losing control.