Suchergebnisse

Sociologists, political scientists, and economists have long emphasized the benefits of monopolizing violence and the risks of failing to do so. Yet recent research on conflict, state failure, genocide, coups, and election violence suggests governments cannot or will not form a monopoly. Governments worldwide are more risk acceptant than anticipated. They give arms and authority to a variety of nonstate actors, militias, vigilantes, death squads, proxy forces, paramilitaries, and counterbalancing forces. We develop a typology based on the links of the militia to the government and to society as a device to capture variations among these groups. We use the typology to explore insights from this emerging literature on the causes, consequences, and puzzling survival of progovernment militias and their implications for security and human rights, as well as to generate open questions for further research.

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.

"Conceptualizing Militias in Africa" published on by Oxford University Press.

Militias are an empirical phenomenon that has been overlooked by current research on civil war. Yet, it is a phenomenon that is crucial for understanding political violence, civil war, post-conflict politics, and authoritarianism. Militias or paramilitaries are armed groups that operate alongside regular security forces or work independently of the state to shield the local population from insurgents. We review existing uses of the term, explore the range of empirical manifestations of militias, and highlight recent findings, including those supplied by the articles in this special issue. We focus on areas where the recognition of the importance of militias challenges and complements current theories of civil war. We conclude by introducing a research agenda advocating the integrated study of militias and rebel groups.

Corinna Jentzsch, Stathis N. Kalyvas, and Livia Isabella Schubiger, Militias in Civil Wars 755-769. - Paul Staniland, Militias, Ideology, and the State 770-793. - Ben Oppenheim, Abbey Steele, Juan F. Vargas, and Michael Weintraub, True Believers, Deserters, and Traitors: Who Leaves Insurgent Groups and Why 794-823. - Jonathan Filip Forney, Who Can We Trust with a Gun? Information Networks and Adverse Selection in Militia Recruitment 824-849. - Sabine C. Carey, Michael P. Colaresi, and Neil J. Mitchell, Governments, Informal Links to Militias, and Accountability 850-876. - Dara Kay Cohen and Ragnhild Nordås, Do States Delegate Shameful Violence to Militias? Patterns of Sexual Violence in Recent Armed Conflicts 877-898. - Jessica A. Stanton, Regulating Militias: Governments, Militias, and Civilian Targeting in Civil War 899-923. - Kristine Eck, Repression by Proxy: How Military Purges and Insurgency Impact the Delegation of Coercion 924-946