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Recent Trends in Pro-government Militias in Africa: A Useful Tool or a Threat?
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Despite the benefits of rebel governance such as increased legitimacy and resource extraction, providing governance is also costly for rebel groups, as it entails constant investment of time and money as well as the need to protect their properties and territories. Rebels, therefore, weigh the costs of providing governance against the benefits in their decision to provide governance. In this paper, we explore the impact of pro-government militias (PGMs) on the cost-benefit analysis of rebel governance. We argue that governance becomes a suboptimal strategy for rebel groups in the presence of semi-official PGMs but not informal PGMs. This is because semi-official PGMs’ relationship with the government makes them more formally accountable to the government, which effectively bolsters the counterinsurgency capabilities of the state (and thereby weakens rebels) through providing credible and timely intelligence and undermining civilians support for the rebels, and even allowing rebel defection. We test our argument using data on rebel governance and PGMs and indeed find that semi-official—but not informal—PGMs decrease the likelihood of rebel governance.
Why do some countries harbor pro-government militias (PGMs), while others do not? We assert that the deployment of PGMs depends on topographic, social, and political structures within which governments and rebels operate. Drawing on the concept of opportunity structures, we postulate that structural conditions within which governments are embedded in constitute a contributing factor to the existence and multiplicity of PGMs. Data from the Pro-Government Militia Dataset along with a two-stage hurdle model reveal that personalist regime type and civil wars increase the likelihood of PGM emergence. In contrast, ethnic fractionalization, onshore oil fields, drug production, number of rebel groups, and military prowess influence the number of PGMs.
This paper introduces the African Relational Pro-Government Militia Dataset (RPGMD). Recent research has improved our understandings of how pro-government forces form, under what conditions they are most likely to act, and how they affect the risk of internal conflict, repression, and state fragility. In this paper, we give an overview of our dataset that identifies African pro-government militias (PGMs) from 1997 to 2014. The data set shows the wide proliferation and diffusion of these groups on the African continent. We identify 149 active PGMs, 104 of which are unique to our dataset. In addition to descriptive information about these PGMs, we contribute measures of PGM alliance relationships, ethnic relationships, and context. We use these variables to examine the determinants of the presence and level of abusive behavior perpetrated by individual PGMs. Results highlight the need to consider nuances in PGM–government relationships in addition to PGM characteristics.
Governments often supplement the regular military with paramilitaries and pro-government militias (PGMs). However, it is unclear what determines states' selection of these auxiliary forces, and our understanding of how auxiliary force structures develop remains limited. The crucial difference between the two auxiliary types is their embeddedness in official structures. Paramilitaries are organized under the government to support/replace the regular military, while PGMs exist outside the state apparatus. Within a principal-agent framework, we argue that a state's investment in a particular auxiliary force structure is shaped by available resources and capacity, accountability/deniability, and domestic threats. Our results based on quantitative analysis in 1981-2007 find that (1) state capacity is crucial for sustaining paramilitaries, but not PGMs, (2) PGMs, unlike paramilitaries, are more common in states involved in civil conflict, and (3) although both paramilitaries and PGMs are associated with regime instability, there is no significant difference between them in that context.
Many governments worldwide make use of unofficial armed groups. This practice substantially increases the risks for civilians, as the activities of such pro-government militias (PGMs) are usually accompanied by a higher level of human rights violations, including killings, torture and disappearances. Examples are the Shia militias in Iraq, the Shabiha militia in Syria and the Imbonerakure in Burundi.
Better knowledge about these groups is essential, given the extreme suffering, violence and instability they are linked to. This briefing paper shows that PGMs exist not only in failed states, poor countries or those engulfed in civil war and armed conflict. They can also be found in more or less democratic governments and are most common in semi-democracies.
Governments outsource security tasks to irregular forces because they provide efficiency gains when leaders perceive themselves to be under threat in an uncertain environment. PGMs are attractive to governments because they are cheaper, more flexible and often better informed than regular forces. They complicate lines of accountability for the violence committed, and therefore lower the political costs for governments when there is a controversial use of violence. These aspects make PGMs particularly attractive to governments that intend to use violence against a domestic opponent but fear national and international repercussions for excessive human rights violations. Although these groups make conflict more feasible financially and are perceived to lower political costs, they may bring – sometimes unintended – consequences, such as increased suffering and violence for civilians, as well as greater instability and crime in the medium- and long term.
It is puzzling why leaders delegate authority to pro-government militias (PGMs) at the expense
of professional armed forces. Several state-level explanations, ranging from low state
capacity to blame evasion for human rights violations have been proposed for the establishment
of PGM linkages. These explanations lack focus on the individuals making decisions to form
PGMs: national leaders. It is argued that leaders create linkages with PGMs to facilitate leaders’
political survival in the event of their deposition. Threats to leaders’ survival come from
the military, foreign powers or domestic actors outside the ruling coalition. As costs of leader
deposition are low for the state, leaders facing threats from one or all of these sources must
invest in protection from outside of the security apparatus. The argument is tested through data
on PGM linkage formation and threats to political survival. Results show that leaders under
coup threat are more likely to form PGM linkages, while threats from foreign actors make
leaders particularly more likely to form linkages with ethnic or religious PGMs. The findings
strongly suggest that PGM linkage formation is driven by leader-level desire for political
survival, rather than a host of state-level explanations.
Although overt repression has been studied extensively (e.g., mass arrests), there have been no rigorous investigations of covert repressive action (CRA; e.g., electronic and physical surveillance). To better under-stand the latter behavior, the author uses new data about U.S. domestic intelligence activity directed against a Black Nationalist organization in Detroit, Michigan, during the late 1960s and early 1970s (N = 3,136, by neighborhood-month). In line with existing research, evidence reveals that CRA responds to dissent, lagged repression, and the level of economic development within a neighborhood. Differing from existing litera-ture, however, results also disclose that CRA responds to where dissidents live and, most important, in accor-dance to the racial characteristics of the neighborhood within which potential targets are located. Wiretaps and tails are thus prompted by numerous factors, but the identity of challengers (i.e., political "profiling") proves to be an essential part of the explanation. Most people are aware that governments use covert repressive action (CRA) 1 to col-lect information about social movement organizations (SMOs) that challenge their authority as well as suspected sympathizers of these movements for the purpose of general awareness, preparing overt repressive activity, legal prosecution, and black-mail. These acts of "domestic intelligence" include numerous techniques: 1. This phrase must be clearly defined. Drawing on the work of Arthur Zuehlke (1980), one could divide the subject of covert repressive action into four topic areas: collection, analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action. Within the intelligence literature, covert action refers to directly influencing events within a target group (e.g., through propaganda, political action, paramilitary action, or intelligence assistance). In this article, I use the phrase in the more popularly understood manner (i.e., the collection of information).
This edited volume provides a critical overview of the new stabilization agenda in international relations.
Content analysis is a widely used qualitative research technique. Rather than being a single method, current applications of content analysis show three distinct approaches: conventional, directed, or summative. All three approaches are used to interpret meaning from the content of text data and, hence, adhere to the naturalistic paradigm. The major differences among the approaches are coding schemes, origins of codes, and threats to trustworthiness. In conventional content analysis, coding categories are derived directly from the text data. With a directed approach, analysis starts with a theory or relevant research findings as guidance for initial codes. A summative content analysis involves counting and comparisons, usually of keywords or content, followed by the interpretation of the underlying context. The authors delineate analytic procedures specific to each approach and techniques addressing trustworthiness with hypothetical examples drawn from the area of end-of-life care.
In an era when the global community is confronted with challenges posed by violent nonstate organizations—from FARC in Colombia to the Taliban in Afghanistan—our understanding of the nature and emergence of these groups takes on heightened importance. This book offers an analysis of the dynamics that facilitate the organization and mobilization of one of the most virulent types of these organizations, paramilitary groups (PMGs). It reconstructs in historical context the organization of PMGs in Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico, identifying the variables that together create a triad of factors enabling paramilitary emergence: ambivalent state officials, powerful military personnel, and privileged members of the economic elite. Nations embroiled in domestic conflicts often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when global demands for human rights contradict internal expectations and demands for political stability. The book elucidates the importance of such circumstances in the emergence of PMGs, exploring the roles played by interests and policies at both the domestic and international levels.
Ethnic defection and pro-government militias are two recurring features of ethnic conflicts. There is a strong connection between these two elements, with incumbents using militias to absorb defectors from rebel constituencies into their ranks. However, relatively little work has been carried out on this link. Most works exploring ethnic defection have treated these defector militias, as the article refers to them, as the result of ethnic defection. This research offers an alternative hypothesis: Rather than tools for administrating and controlling defection, governments in ethnic civil wars often view militias as a tool for enhancing and facilitating ethnic defection. The socio-political functions of militias may triumph over military ones in governments’ consideration to form and sustain such defector militias. The article employs two case studies to support this hypothesis, these of the ethnic conflicts in northern Iraq and southern Sudan.
Existing research reveals many of the ways pro-government militia (PGM) shape civil violence but overlooks how the ethno-political ties between the state and a PGM might influence these effects. We argue that co-ethnic militia (i.e., groups composed of the ruling elite’s ethnic kin) are relatively loyal irregular forces that multiply state military capacity. The greater loyalty of co-ethnic groups mitigates principal–agent problems but further polarizes ethnic communities, and as a result, co-ethnic PGMs are likely to be associated with longer and more intense civil conflict. We test this argument on a global sample of cases from 1989 to 2007 using new data capturing the ethnic ties of all PGMs. The results support our claims that co-ethnic militia are associated with more intense and longer civil conflict.
“Paul R. Kan offers an authoritative assessment of the increasingly important role that militias play in global security. Kan’s book fills a critical gap in the literature, and is highly recommended for scholars and policymakers attempting to understand the diversity of violent non-state actors.”
—Colin P. Clarke, Senior Research Fellow, The Soufan Center, USA
“This work sets a new standard with regard to analysis of the impact of militias and paramilitaries—both understudied groups in contemporary conflict—on global stability and state fragility.”
—Robert J. Bunker, former Minerva Chair, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, USA
This book describes militias as significant and prevalent actors in today’s international security environment. To separate them from other types of violent non-state groups, such as terrorists, guerrillas and insurgents, the author describes militias as local guardians that use violence to fill a variety of political, social and security gaps, which have created vulnerabilities for their particular constituencies. Although militias are local in orientation, their effects are not contained to particular countries and have only added to the instability in the international system. This book explores how militias contribute to international security issues by furthering state fragility, undermining human rights and democratization, enabling illicit trafficking, prolonging internal conflicts and fostering proxy wars.
Paul Rexton Kan is Professor of National Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College, USA. His work has been cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes and featured on the websites DefenseOne and Freakanomics.
This article challenges the well-established presentation within conflict studies of paramilitary organizations as state-manipulated death squads or self-defence groups, and argues that some present-day militias extend their functions well beyond the role of shadowy pro-regime enforcers. Drawing its empirical insights from Ukrainian pro-government volunteer battalions and supporting its findings with empirical observations from other parts of the world, the article posits that the rise of powerful militia organizations acting in parallel with the state makes it imperative to revisit the theory and typology of paramilitary violence. The key theoretical argument of the article is that ‘state-parallel’ militias differ qualitatively from the ‘state-manipulated’ paramilitaries that are typical of the Cold War period. The article shows that although ‘state-parallel’ paramilitaries are not a new phenomenon, they have thus far remained critically understudied and undertheorized.
Is "paramilitary" the appropriate term for such diverse groups as the Tontons Macoutes of Haiti, the Irish Republican Army, and China's People's Armed Police? In examining the proliferation around the globe of groups that cannot be described accurately as military, police, or civilian, this study determines that "paramilitary" is an appropriate and useful term. The authors formulate a definition and develop a typology of paramilitary groups from Haiti, Northern Ireland, and China. The analysis highlights the existence of a gray area in civil-military relations: while civil and military spheres are conceptualized as separate and distinct from one another, the subject of paramilitarism underscores the reality that the civil-military difference is often blurred and indistinct.
All too often government lacks the skill, the will, and the wallet to meet its missions. Schools fall short of the mark while roads and bridges fall into disrepair. Health care costs too much and delivers too little. Budgets bleed red ink as the cost of services citizens want outstrips the taxes they are willing to pay. Collaborative Governance is the first book to offer solutions by demonstrating how government at every level can engage the private sector to overcome seemingly insurmountable problems and achieve public goals more effectively. John Donahue and Richard Zeckhauser show how the public sector can harness private expertise to bolster productivity, capture information, and augment resources. The authors explain how private engagement in public missions--rightly structured and skillfully managed--is not so much an alternative to government as the way smart government ought to operate. The key is to carefully and strategically grant discretion to private entities, whether for-profit or nonprofit, in ways that simultaneously motivate and empower them to create public value. Drawing on a host of real-world examples-including charter schools, job training, and the resurrection of New York's Central Park--they show how, when, and why collaboration works, and also under what circumstances it doesn't.
Across African states, militias have become one of the main agents of political violence, accounting for a third of all recent conflict. Militia violence is attributed to cultural reactions to disorder, failing and predatory states, and local cleavages which emerge during civil wars. However, activity largely occurs in democratizing states without civil wars. This article presents a typology of militias based on their local roles and actions and an explanation for the prevalence of “competition militias.” Changes in macro politics ushered in a new era of conflict and fragmentation among political elites; militias operate as private armies for these elites. The goal of this violence is to alter the political landscape, increase power for patrons, protect supportive communities, and hinder opponents. Incentives within African democratic institutions reward the use of force by elites. As a result, African democracies, and states transitioning into democracy, are not likely to be internally peaceful. Futhermore, the dominant type of conflict across African states shifts to accommodate the goals of violent agents within modern political contexts.
In nearly two-thirds of civil wars since 1989, governments have received support in their counterinsurgency operations from militias. Many scholars predict higher levels of violence in conflicts involving pro-government militias because governments are either unable or unwilling to control militias. This article challenges this view, arguing that governments can and do often control militia behavior in civil war. Governments make strategic decisions about whether to use violence against civilians, encouraging both regular military forces and militia forces to target civilians or restraining regular military forces and militia forces from attacking civilians. In some cases, however, government and militia behavior differs. When a militia recruits its members from the same constituency as the insurgents, the militia is less likely to target civilians, as doing so would mean attacking their own community. Statistical analyses, using new data on pro-government militia violence in civil wars from 1989 to 2010, support these arguments.
While the social movement literature recognizes the interactive nature of collective action, models almost uniformly focus
on protestors themselves. Consequently, we know a great deal about how social movement organizations recruit participants,
mobilize resources, and initiate activity, but have considerably less understanding of how authorities allocate repression
in response to (and sometimes in anticipation of) protest events. Here, I use memos from the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) against the New Left between 1968 and 1971 to understand the patterning of
repression against protest groups. COINTELPRO is a unique data source; the program was autonomous from other government agencies
and was organized solely to covertly “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of FBI
targets. The level of tangible threat proxied by New Left groups' size, level of activity, or propensity for violence did
not directly structure FBI activity. Instead, these target group characteristics were mediated by organizational processes
endogenous to the FBI itself. Specifically, central actors in the FBI allocated organizational controls that ensured that
visible (i.e., nonlocal) targets were repressed independent of the targets' local activities.
Bargains, deals, and tacit understandings between states and insurgents are common in civil wars. This fascinating mix of conflict and cooperation shapes patterns of politics, governance, and violence. Building on recent findings about state formation, I offer a conceptual typology of political orders amidst civil war. Wartime political orders vary according to the distribution of territorial control and the level of cooperation between states and insurgents. Orders range from collusion and shared sovereignty to spheres of influence and tacit coexistence to clashing monopolies and guerrilla disorder. Examples from contemporary South Asian conflicts illustrate these concepts, which are scalable and portable across contexts. Scholars need to think more creatively about the political-military arrangements that emerge and evolve during war. A key policy implication is that there are many ways of forging stability without creating a counterinsurgent Leviathan.
Mary Kaldor's New and Old Wars has fundamentally changed the way both scholars and policy-makers understand contemporary war and conflict. In the context of globalization, this path-breaking book has shown that what we think of as war - that is to say, war between states in which the aim is to inflict maximum violence - is becoming an anachronism. In its place is a new type of organized violence or 'new wars', which could be described as a mixture of war, organized crime and massive violations of human rights. The actors are both global and local, public and private. The wars are fought for particularistic political goals using tactics of terror and destabilization that are theoretically outlawed by the rules of modern warfare.
Kaldor's analysis offers a basis for a cosmopolitan political response to these wars, in which the monopoly of legitimate organized violence is reconstructed on a transnational basis and international peacekeeping is reconceptualized as cosmopolitan law enforcement. This approach also has implications for the reconstruction of civil society, political institutions, and economic and social relations.
This third edition has been fully revised and updated. Kaldor has added an afterword answering the critics of the New Wars argument and, in a new chapter, Kaldor shows how old war thinking in Afghanistan and Iraq greatly exacerbated what turned out to be, in many ways, archetypal new wars - characterised by identity politics, a criminalised war economy and civilians as the main victims.
Like its predecessors, the third edition of New and Old Wars will be essential reading for students of international relations, politics and conflict studies as well as to all those interested in the changing nature and prospect of warfare.
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