School of Public Policy Assistant Professor Alec Worsnop has received the 2024 Charles Moskos Prize for his article, “The Rebel and the Politician: Developing a Typology of Insurgent Civil–Military Relations.” The award honors the best work by an emerging scholar in the field of civil-military relations and is named after the late Charles C. Moskos, a pioneering sociologist renowned for his studies of military institutions.
“It's certainly an honor to win this prize,” Worsnop said. “Charles Moskos is a central figure in military sociology and civil-military relations. Importantly for my work, he took seriously what these civil-military dynamics meant for rank-and-file members of the military during times of peace and war.”
Worsnop’s article lays out a new way to think about how insurgent groups organize themselves—specifically, how their political and military branches work together. By creating a typology based on how involved political leaders are in military decisions and how well-trained the armed side is, Worsnop shows that some groups have done a surprisingly effective job aligning their military actions with political goals. And this success, he argues, isn’t just about ideology or location. It is about how these groups build their institutions over time.
“Despite our focus on the importance of ideology and regional context, the article finds that similar patterns persist across very different places,” said Worsnop. “The Taliban faced the same challenges as the People's Liberation Armed Forces (also known as the Viet Cong) and tended to address them in similar ways.”
Worsnop’s findings have broad implications for public policy, especially when it comes to how the U.S. helps build or train military forces in fragile or post-conflict states. He challenges the assumption that keeping politics out of the military is always the right move. In some cases, especially in unstable or post-conflict settings, bringing political leaders into the military structure—when done carefully—could make those forces more effective.
“In Iraq and Afghanistan, an ongoing worry was that the military could be politicized by sectarian and ethnic divisions,” he explained. “But the attempts at de-politicization failed, introducing pathological forms of politicization throughout the command structure of the armies.”
Worsnop’s work builds upon his forthcoming book, “Rebels in the Field,” and marks the start of a new research agenda. He hopes future scholars will continue to explore how internal power dynamics shape insurgent adaptability and strategy—insights that could also inform how state militaries evolve.
“Understanding variation in the types and stability of power dynamics is a necessary first step to explaining their origin,” explained Worsnop. “Further research can turn to why those configurations occur in the first place—and why some may be stickier than others. In doing so, researchers may be able to draw lessons from rebels that can deepen our understanding of insurgency and further inform our understanding of state-based civil–military relations.”
