Militias in Civil Wars

Corinna Jentzsch, Stathis N. Kalyvas and Livia Isabella Schubiger

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2015, vol. 59, issue 5, 755-769

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: civil war; political violence; insurgency; militias; paramilitaries; recruitment; violence against civilians; armed groups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/59/5/755.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:59:y:2015:i:5:p:755-769

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().