Examinations of substate security and everyday peace in hybrid political orders are mostly limited to single-case studies or statistical analyses. Seldom are qualitative methods applied with a comparative aim that can unveil patterns of security production. I attempt such an approach by studying 12 cases across the Central African Republic, Haiti, Somaliland, and South Sudan. I investigate (1) where hybrid interactions take place, (2) how they happen and (3) what this means for people’s security. I argue, first, that hybrid ordering shapes socio-geography by separating a rigorously controlled inner from a securitised outer circle. Second, I find that actors clash over the use of contrasting ordering principles on a spectrum from stable to fluid. Third, measured security indices, paradoxically, often diverge from how safe people feel depending on public support for the socio-geographical shape and ordering principles applied. These cross-case patterns of hybrid political orders underscore the importance of comparing political ordering processes.

Rebel governance assumes a symbiotic relationship between coercion and public goods provision. However, in the rebel-held town of Ndélé, Central African Republic, we find that governance happens in rebel-held territory, but rarely by rebels. Rebels allowed other actors to provide services for the people only when this did not hinder rebels extracting political clout and economic benefit from the people and their lands. We show how rebels’ extractive ambitions and governance discourses evolved during successive stages of rebellion through a diachronic comparison rooted in multimethod fieldwork from 2018 to 2022. We ask, why were rebel groups able to set up their rule, then rule for seven years, before ultimately losing power? Rebels evoked public goods at the onset of rebellion to justify the use of coercive means. After rebel rule was established, rebels outsourced public goods to international and state actors allowing for governance in rebel-held territory while focussing their own efforts on extraction. When their rule was challenged, rebels targeted governance actors and spaces in their territory in pursuit of economic gain and political dominance. Our findings call for a re-evaluation of existing rebel governance studies and the ways in which rebel groups are engaged with.