There is nothing "simplistic" about the nature of the relationship between any government and all of the many diverse and distinct popualces such organizaitons seek to govern. But it is a simple fact that insurgency is about discontent within such relationships between those who govern, and those who are governed. If it is about criminal profits or some other non-political goal, then it is not insurgency, no matter how much it might grow to threaten government.

I am not sure why that concept scares the holy hell out of so many. Perhaps because it drops the primary onus for the existance of insurgency, for the causation of insurgency, squarely in the lap governments everywhere. So much more convenient to blame external factors beyond one's control, like "malign actors" or "ideology" or some other "not my fault" bogey man. Or to blame local powerbrokers

Certainly when conditions of insurgency exist between some populace group and their government, all of these things emerge. Leaders will certainly emerge who are willing to break the law to seek change. Some will be truly selfless and for positive change, most will be selfish exploiters who see and opportunity to advance their own personal cause or agenda. Smart leaders will craft a narrative that speaks to their target populace, and they will craft it in terms that the state is unlikely to feel it can adopt or co-opt; with the result being the state resorting to the poor strategies of "competing" less effective messages that reinforce an approach to governance already deemed unacceptable by their target audiance.

"Poor Governance" is a very broad family of complex human emotions. At the end of the day, it is not the type of government, the state of the economy or any of a thousand other possible drivers that move a populace to insurgency. It is how that populace feels about those things and who they blame. When they feel strongly and blame government, one has the conditions for insurgency. Once one has those conditions it only takes some spark to set things in motion. It may build slowly or explode all at once, it might be very violent and look a lot like warfare, or it may be very non-violent and look like civil unrest. The key is to appreciate and treat the causation and not simply throw blame at various sticky problems and attack the symptoms. Sadly that is the approach most governments take. That is why most governments suck at COIN, because good governments generally don't have to deal with insurgency to begin with.