Nearly half of all countries emerging from civil conflict relapse into war within a few years of signing a peace agreement. The postwar trajectories of armed groups vary from organizational cohesion ...to dissolution, demilitarization to remilitarization. In Organized Violence after Civil War, Daly analyzes evidence from thirty-seven militia groups in Colombia, demonstrating that the primary driving force behind these changes is the variation in recruitment patterns within, and between, the warring groups. She documents the transition from war to peace through interviews with militia commanders, combatants and victims. Using rich ex-combatant survey data and geo-coded information on violence over fifty years of war, Daly explains the dynamics inside armed organizations and the strategic interactions among them. She also shows how the theory may be used beyond Colombia, both within the region of Latin America and across the rest of the world.
Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork ...in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch's Violent Resistance explains the timing, location and process through which communities form militias. Jentzsch shows that local military stalemates characterized by ongoing violence allow civilians to form militias that fight alongside the government against rebels. Militias spread only to communities in which elites are relatively unified, preventing elites from coopting militias for private gains. Crucially, militias that build on preexisting social conventions are able to resonate with the people and empower them to regain agency over their lives. Jentzsch's innovative study brings conceptual clarity to the militia phenomenon and helps us understand how wartime civilian agency, violent resistance, and the rise of third actors beyond governments and rebels affect the dynamics of civil war, on the African continent and beyond.
The political turbulence, the power vacuum, and the security challenges that emerged in post- ISIS Iraq changed and shifted the state's power structure. Iraqi security apparatus and military ...institutions in 2014 almost collapsed and could not resist the challenges they faced from ISIS. Simultaneously, Grand Shia cleric Sistani issued a fatwa, called to arms for Shiites, and fought for their survival. In this disordered situation, an increasing number of Iran-backed armed groups have started to manage security challenges, most of which operate independently outside Iraq's national security agencies. The most important group was the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), from Iraq's Shia community. PMF is gradually convoluted in Iraq's financial affairs and political system and wields tremendous influence. There are two consequential types of militias in Iraq: Al-Atabat al-Muqadasa paramilitary (AAMP) and Loyalist militias (LM). In May 2021, four divisions of (AAMP) decided to integrate into the Iraqi army, while (LM) has almost 70 different divisions and has not integrated into the government’s institutions. In this paper, we look at the possibility of implementing the DDR model for post-war societies such as Iraqi and the obstacles that faced it. Integrating these armed groups became a complicated task for the Iraq Post-ISIS state. First, we look at the history of the state-building process. Then, we develop a conceptual framework for the article. Third, we identify the factors that shape DDR outcomes, define the role of Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and analyze how their activities became an obstacle to rebuilding the Iraqi state in the post-ISIS era. La turbulencia política, el vacío de poder y los desafíos de seguridad que surgieron en Irak posterior a ISIS modificaron la estructura de poder del estado. El aparato de seguridad y las instituciones militares iraquíes por poco colapsan en 2014 y no pudieron resistir los desafíos que tuvieron que enfrentar desde ISIS. De manera simultánea, el gran clérigo chiita Sistani emitió una fatwa, llamó a los chiitas a las armas y luchó por su supervivencia. En esta situación desordenada, un número cada vez mayor de grupos armados respaldados por Irán han comenzado a manejar los desafíos de seguridad, la mayoría de los cuales operan de forma independiente por fuera de las agencias de seguridad nacional de Irak. El grupo más importante fue el de las Fuerzas de Movilización Popular (FMP), de la comunidad chiita iraquí. Las FMP se enredan gradualmente en los asuntos financieros y el sistema político de Irak y ejercen una tremenda influencia. Hay dos tipos de milicias relevantes en Irak: las milicias paramilitares Al-Atabat al-Muqadasa (MPAA) y las milicias leales (ML). En mayo de 2021, cuatro divisiones de MPAA decidieron integrarse al ejército iraquí, mientras que las ML cuentan con casi 70 divisiones diferentes y no se han integrado a las instituciones del gobierno. En este artículo, exploramos la posibilidad de implementar el modelo DDR para sociedades de posguerra como la iraquí y los obstáculos que enfrentaron. La integración de estos grupos armados se convirtió en una tarea complicada para el estado de Irak Post-ISIS. En primer lugar, examinamos la historia del proceso de construcción del Estado. Luego, desarrollamos un marco conceptual para el artículo. En tercer lugar, identificamos los factores que dan forma a los resultados de DDR, definimos el papel de las Fuerzas de Movilización Popular (FMP) y analizamos cómo sus actividades se convirtieron en un obstáculo para reconstruir el estado iraquí en la era posterior a ISIS.
This article introduces the global Pro-Government Militias Database (PGMD). Despite the devastating record of some pro-government groups, there has been little research on why these forces form, ...under what conditions they are most likely to act, and how they affect the risk of internal conflict, repression, and state fragility. From events in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria and the countries of the Arab Spring we know that pro-government militias operate in a variety of contexts. They are often linked with extreme violence and disregard for the laws of war. Yet research, notably quantitative research, lags behind events. In this article we give an overview of the PGMD, a new global dataset that identifies pro-government militias from 1981 to 2007. The information on pro-government militias (PGMs) is presented in a relational data structure, which allows researchers to browse and download different versions of the dataset and access over 3,500 sources that informed the coding. The database shows the wide proliferation and diffusion of these groups. We identify 332 PGMs and specify how they are linked to government, for example via the governing political party, individual leaders, or the military. The dataset captures the type of affiliation of the groups to the government by distinguishing between informal and semi-official militias. It identifies, among others, membership characteristics and the types of groups they target. These data are likely to be relevant to research on state strength and state failure, the dynamics of conflict, including security sector reform, demobilization and reintegration, as well as work on human rights and the interactions between different state and non-state actors. To illustrate uses of the data, we include the PGM data in a standard model of armed conflict and find that such groups increase the risk of civil war.
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Lately, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has managed to control large parts of Syria and Iraq. To better understand the roots of support for ISIS, we present a study using Twitter data. We ...collected a large number of Arabic tweets referring to ISIS and classified them as pro-ISIS or anti-ISIS. We then analyzed the historical timelines of both user groups and looked at their pre-ISIS period to gain insights into the antecedents of support. Also, we built a classifier to ‘predict’, in retrospect, who will support or oppose the group. We show that ISIS supporters largely differ from ISIS opposition in that the former referred a lot more to Arab Spring uprisings that failed than the latter.
Polarization, populism, and animosity amongst political parties, movements, and societies across Europe and North America has led to an increase in violent extremism in recent years. Groups and ...individuals motivated by extremist ideology have launched violent attacks against democratic institutions, murdered elected representatives, and bombed government buildings. Militia organizations with a pro-state orientation have also been involved in anti-government extremist violence and terrorism against their own governments. Despite being pro-nation-state, some of these militias now have an anti-government agenda leading to an awkward relationship with the state as a diverse actor encompassing both the government and other state institutions. How can we explain the shift in pro-nation-state militias from pro to anti-government extremism? Using contemporary case studies from both the United States of America and Ukraine, this article will propose that ideological de-alignment between the government and the militia group leads to pro-state militias becoming anti-government. Furthermore, the article will argue that bargaining processes relating to power and control between pro-state militias and governments can lead to these militias exhibiting anti-government extremist behaviour.
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Ethnic defection has been identified as a potential game changer in conflicts. However, the factors that enable this process require further study. One factor that has been often overlooked is that ...of social identity and, more particularly, identity leadership. Ethnic defection is a social as much as it is a political process. Incumbents who can utilize this element may be more successful in encouraging a continuous and more persistent process of ethnic defection. A particularly useful tool for counterinsurgency (COIN) leaders to function as identity leaders is that of militias. Traditionally perceived in the literature as ad hoc outcomes of defection, this article demonstrates how militia recruitment can serve as a platform for recruiters to serve as identity leaders and create among recruits a distinct sense of identity that further distances them from other group members and strengthens their group identity. Success in enabling this group categorization could pave the way for more defectors to switch to the government side in a way less relevant than material incentives. The article illustrates this process by employing the case of Israel's recruitment of Shi‘a defectors into pro‐Israel militias in South Lebanon and the Security Belt during the 1980s and 1990s.
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How nonstate military strategies overturn traditional perspectives on warfare Since September 11th, 2001, armed nonstate actors have received increased attention and discussion from scholars, ...policymakers, and the military. Underlying debates about nonstate warfare and how it should be countered is one crucial assumption: that state and nonstate actors fight very differently. In Nonstate Warfare, Stephen Biddle upturns this distinction, arguing that there is actually nothing intrinsic separating state or nonstate military behavior. Through an in-depth look at nonstate military conduct, Biddle shows that many nonstate armies now fight more "conventionally" than many state armies, and that the internal politics of nonstate actors—their institutional maturity and wartime stakes rather than their material weapons or equipment—determines tactics and strategies.Biddle frames nonstate and state methods along a continuum, spanning Fabian-style irregular warfare to Napoleonic-style warfare involving massed armies, and he presents a systematic theory to explain any given nonstate actor's position on this spectrum. Showing that most warfare for at least a century has kept to the blended middle of the spectrum, Biddle argues that material and tribal culture explanations for nonstate warfare methods do not adequately explain observed patterns of warmaking. Investigating a range of historical examples from Lebanon and Iraq to Somalia, Croatia, and the Vietcong, Biddle demonstrates that viewing state and nonstate warfighting as mutually exclusive can lead to errors in policy and scholarship.A comprehensive account of combat methods and military rationale, Nonstate Warfare offers a new understanding for wartime military behavior.
The early French Wars (1689-1748) in North America saw provincial soldiers, or British white settlers, in Massachusetts and New Hampshire fight against New France and her Native American allies with ...minimal involvement from England. Most British officers and government officials viewed the colonial soldiers as ill-disciplined, unprofessional, and incompetent: General John Forbes called them a gathering from the scum of the worst people. Taking issue with historians who have criticized provincial soldiers' battlefield style, strategy, and conduct, Steven Eames demonstrates that what developed in early New England was in fact a unique way of war that selectively blended elements of European military strategy, frontier fighting, and native American warfare. This new form of warfare responded to and influenced the particular challenges, terrain, and demography of early New England. Drawing upon a wealth of primary materials on King William's War, Queen Anne's War, Dummer's War, and King George's War, Eames offers a bottom-up view of how war was conducted and how war was experienced in this particular period and place. Throughout Rustic Warriors, he uses early New England culture as a staging ground from which to better understand the ways in which New Englanders waged war, as well as to provide a fuller picture of the differences between provincial, French, and Native American approaches to war.
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