Pro-Government Militias and the Repertoires of Illicit State Violence

Ariel I. Ahram

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2016, vol. 39, issue 3, 207-226

Abstract: Most studies of pro-government militias (PGMs) take a narrowly functionalist approach. This article sees PGMs as the product of broader processes of state formation and regime dynamics that generate distinctive repertoires of violence. The article uses a cross-national dataset to shows that low state capacity is singularly correlated with the appearance and activity of all forms of PGMs. Once militias are active, they tend to endure even after initial conditions change, suggesting a strong measure of path dependence in how states PGMs evolve. Democracy curbs the activity of semi-official PGMs but not informal ones. Different authoritarian regime sub-types have varying propensities for militia activity. These findings have major implications for efforts to address state frailty.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1057610X.2015.1104025 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:uterxx:v:39:y:2016:i:3:p:207-226

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uter20

DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2015.1104025

Access Statistics for this article

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism is currently edited by Bruce Hoffman

More articles in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().