The core findings for Competing for Legitimacy focus on insurgency contracting in contexts of tenuous state-society contracts and related political violence based on the novel case studies of the Union for Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) in the northeast region in the Central African Republic (CAR), and the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) in Darfur, Sudan. The findings are presented through the analytical lens of the Comprehensive Social Contract (CSC) Framework and the Grievance Driven Pathway as a causal mechanism. Findings confirm the unique aspects of the CSC Framework, such as perceptions of effectiveness and appropriateness. In finding that the state matters, the chapter explores how differences in the tenuous state-society contracts, the pre-conflict social bases, and the governments’ relative deterrence affected the formation of the reformist insurgency-society contracts. In analyzing the sources of legitimacy, the societies’ shared values and mandates—of the people, by the people, and for the people—proved to be the most important. Regarding the societal groups’ prioritization and sequencing of the sources of legitimacy, security was prioritized over providing social services and developing exchange processes. Lastly, territorial influence, rather than control, was operationalized by the insurgent organizations and was sufficient for a reformist insurgency-society contract.