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Engaging Non State Armed Groups in Security Sector Stabilization
Security sector stabilization enables the necessary minimum security and justice conditions to prepare for longer-term security sector reform. CSO’s security sector stabilization programs seek to prevent the recruitment and radicalization of potential terrorists and encourages defections and re-integration of combatants. Examples of this work include disengaging and reintegrating former combatants, mapping non-state armed groups (NSAGs), and reintegrating other groups such as war veterans into society. |
Case Studies by Geography
https://gld.gu.se/media/1926/gld-working-paper-34.pdfCote D'Ivoire
The Political Legacies of Rebel Rule: Evidence from Cote d’Ivoire
Philip A. Martin, Giulia Piccolino, Jeremy S. Speight
Millions of civilians live under occupations by non-state armed groups during civil wars. Yet little is know about the effects of exposure to rebel occupations on citizens’ relationship with the state after conflict ends. In this article, we study the political legacies of a rebel occupation in northern Cote d’Ivoire from 2002 to 2011. We combine original survey data with a natural experiment based on the arbitrary location of a ceasefire boundary to estimate the effects of exposure to occupation by the Forces Nouvelles (FN) rebellion on a number of civic attitudes and behaviors. We find that individuals in communities occupied by the FN held more negative attitudes about local state institutions seven years after the re-unification of the country, and were less likely to feel strong civic obligations. However, exposure to rebel governance does not appear to decrease local collective action. We find consistent effects across sub-groups in treated communities, suggesting that the negative political legacies of rebel governance are widespread among occupied populations.
Commander–community ties after civil war
Philip A Martin
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343320929744
Ex-rebel military commanders play a central role in peacebuilding after civil war. Yet the influence and mobilization power of these actors is not uniform: in some areas commanders retain strong ties to civilian populations after war’s end, while in other areas such ties wither away. This article analyses a novel dataset of former rebel-occupied localities in Côte d’Ivoire to investigate why commander–community linkages endure or decline after post-conflict transitions. The findings support a theory of political accountability: commanders retained political capital and access to networks of supporters in areas where insurgents provided essential goods to civilians during war. By contrast, where insurgents’ wartime rule involved abuse and coercion, commanders were less likely to sustain strong ties. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that violent warlordism explains the persistence of rebel commanders’ power in peacetime. Rather, effective wartime governance may create regionally embedded strongmen who can in turn disrupt postwar state-building.
Keywords accountability, Côte d’Ivoire, post-conflict reconstruction, rebel governance, warlords
Reconceptualising Rebel Rule: The Responsiveness of Rebel Governance in Man, Côte d’Ivoire
Sebastian van Baalen
https://gld.gu.se/media/1926/gld-working-paper-34.pdf
This study considers the concept of rebel governance responsiveness by the Forces Nouvelles (FN) in Côte d’Ivoire. Responsiveness refers to the degree to which a government’s political decisions correspond to its citizens’ desires. The concept of responsiveness is vital for assessing regime types and constitutes an essential metric of democracy. However, the idea is rarely invoked in analyses of how rebel groups relate to civilian preferences in how they govern citizens in rebel areas. The study makes three contributions. First, it develops a conceptualisation of rebel responsiveness across four domains: representation, security, taxation, and welfare. Second, it demonstrates the concept’s usefulness through a case study of two ethnic communities in Man, Côte d’Ivoire, using unique interview and archival data. The study shows that while the FN governed both ethnic communities, rebel responsiveness differed in significant ways. This finding highlights that focusing on the mere existence, rather than the responsiveness, of rebel governance is insufficient for capturing the nature of civilian life under rebel rule. Third, the study shows how focusing on rebel governance’s responsiveness can uncover new insights about civil war. Keywords: Civil war, rebel governance, responsiveness, Forces Nouvelles, Côte d’Ivoire
The Political Legacies of Rebel Rule: Evidence from Cote d’Ivoire
Philip A. Martin, Giulia Piccolino, Jeremy S. Speight
Millions of civilians live under occupations by non-state armed groups during civil wars. Yet little is know about the effects of exposure to rebel occupations on citizens’ relationship with the state after conflict ends. In this article, we study the political legacies of a rebel occupation in northern Cote d’Ivoire from 2002 to 2011. We combine original survey data with a natural experiment based on the arbitrary location of a ceasefire boundary to estimate the effects of exposure to occupation by the Forces Nouvelles (FN) rebellion on a number of civic attitudes and behaviors. We find that individuals in communities occupied by the FN held more negative attitudes about local state institutions seven years after the re-unification of the country, and were less likely to feel strong civic obligations. However, exposure to rebel governance does not appear to decrease local collective action. We find consistent effects across sub-groups in treated communities, suggesting that the negative political legacies of rebel governance are widespread among occupied populations.
Commander–community ties after civil war
Philip A Martin
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343320929744
Ex-rebel military commanders play a central role in peacebuilding after civil war. Yet the influence and mobilization power of these actors is not uniform: in some areas commanders retain strong ties to civilian populations after war’s end, while in other areas such ties wither away. This article analyses a novel dataset of former rebel-occupied localities in Côte d’Ivoire to investigate why commander–community linkages endure or decline after post-conflict transitions. The findings support a theory of political accountability: commanders retained political capital and access to networks of supporters in areas where insurgents provided essential goods to civilians during war. By contrast, where insurgents’ wartime rule involved abuse and coercion, commanders were less likely to sustain strong ties. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that violent warlordism explains the persistence of rebel commanders’ power in peacetime. Rather, effective wartime governance may create regionally embedded strongmen who can in turn disrupt postwar state-building.
Keywords accountability, Côte d’Ivoire, post-conflict reconstruction, rebel governance, warlords
Reconceptualising Rebel Rule: The Responsiveness of Rebel Governance in Man, Côte d’Ivoire
Sebastian van Baalen
https://gld.gu.se/media/1926/gld-working-paper-34.pdf
This study considers the concept of rebel governance responsiveness by the Forces Nouvelles (FN) in Côte d’Ivoire. Responsiveness refers to the degree to which a government’s political decisions correspond to its citizens’ desires. The concept of responsiveness is vital for assessing regime types and constitutes an essential metric of democracy. However, the idea is rarely invoked in analyses of how rebel groups relate to civilian preferences in how they govern citizens in rebel areas. The study makes three contributions. First, it develops a conceptualisation of rebel responsiveness across four domains: representation, security, taxation, and welfare. Second, it demonstrates the concept’s usefulness through a case study of two ethnic communities in Man, Côte d’Ivoire, using unique interview and archival data. The study shows that while the FN governed both ethnic communities, rebel responsiveness differed in significant ways. This finding highlights that focusing on the mere existence, rather than the responsiveness, of rebel governance is insufficient for capturing the nature of civilian life under rebel rule. Third, the study shows how focusing on rebel governance’s responsiveness can uncover new insights about civil war. Keywords: Civil war, rebel governance, responsiveness, Forces Nouvelles, Côte d’Ivoire
Guatemala
Civil War, Institutional Change, and the Criminalization of the State: Evidence from Guatemala
Rachel Schwartz
Abstract: The relationship between war and state formation is a central topic in the social sciences. While scholarship on interstate war posits that conflict triggers extractive processes that build the state, research findings on the effects of intrastate war are more mixed, often suggesting that civil war inhibits extraction and induces state decay. This study, however, posits that the negative relationship between civil war and revenue extraction is not underpinned by institutional destruction but by the wartime introduction of undermining rules that structure behavior in ways that subvert taxation. To illustrate this claim, it traces the evolution of undermining rules within the customs administration at the height of the Guatemalan armed conflict. As the perceived escalation of the insurgent threat created institutional ambiguity, newly empowered political-military elites implemented alternative procedures for capturing customs rev
enues, which systematically undermined the state’s extractive capacity. Comparing this case with one of reinforcing rules that bolster extraction, I posit that the broad or narrow nature of the rule-making coalition explains divergent paths of wartime institutional development. Overall, this study uncovers the inner workings of the counterinsurgent state and illustrates how civil war dynamics induce processes of institutional change that can have long-term effects on state performance.
Civil War, Institutional Change, and the Criminalization of the State: Evidence from Guatemala
Rachel Schwartz
Abstract: The relationship between war and state formation is a central topic in the social sciences. While scholarship on interstate war posits that conflict triggers extractive processes that build the state, research findings on the effects of intrastate war are more mixed, often suggesting that civil war inhibits extraction and induces state decay. This study, however, posits that the negative relationship between civil war and revenue extraction is not underpinned by institutional destruction but by the wartime introduction of undermining rules that structure behavior in ways that subvert taxation. To illustrate this claim, it traces the evolution of undermining rules within the customs administration at the height of the Guatemalan armed conflict. As the perceived escalation of the insurgent threat created institutional ambiguity, newly empowered political-military elites implemented alternative procedures for capturing customs rev
enues, which systematically undermined the state’s extractive capacity. Comparing this case with one of reinforcing rules that bolster extraction, I posit that the broad or narrow nature of the rule-making coalition explains divergent paths of wartime institutional development. Overall, this study uncovers the inner workings of the counterinsurgent state and illustrates how civil war dynamics induce processes of institutional change that can have long-term effects on state performance.
Iraq
Competitive Governance and Displacement Decisions Under Rebel Rule: Evidence from the Islamic State in Iraq
Mara Redlich Revki
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022002720951864
Abstract: When rebel groups with state-building ambitions capture territory, who stays and why? Through semi-structured interviews and an original household survey in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which was controlled by the Islamic State for more than three years, I conduct a multi-method descriptive comparison of the characteristics of “stayers” against “leavers.” I test and find some quantitative and qualitative support for a theory of competitive governance: Civilians who perceived improvements in the quality of governance under IS rule—relative to the Iraqi state—were more likely to stay under IS rule than those who perceived no change or a deterioration, but displacement decisions are multi-causal, influenced by many factors including economic resources, social networks and family structures, information, threat perceptions, and ideology. These findings suggest that historical experiences with weak rule of law and bad governance by states may affect the attitudes and actions of civilians living under rebel governance.
Competitive Governance and Displacement Decisions Under Rebel Rule: Evidence from the Islamic State in Iraq
Mara Redlich Revki
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022002720951864
Abstract: When rebel groups with state-building ambitions capture territory, who stays and why? Through semi-structured interviews and an original household survey in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which was controlled by the Islamic State for more than three years, I conduct a multi-method descriptive comparison of the characteristics of “stayers” against “leavers.” I test and find some quantitative and qualitative support for a theory of competitive governance: Civilians who perceived improvements in the quality of governance under IS rule—relative to the Iraqi state—were more likely to stay under IS rule than those who perceived no change or a deterioration, but displacement decisions are multi-causal, influenced by many factors including economic resources, social networks and family structures, information, threat perceptions, and ideology. These findings suggest that historical experiences with weak rule of law and bad governance by states may affect the attitudes and actions of civilians living under rebel governance.
Mali
From the “tuareg question” to memories of conflict: In support of Mali's Reconciliation
Adib Bencherif
https://www.academia.edu/36299379/From_the_Tuareg_question_to_Memories_of_Conflict_in_support_of_Malis_reconciliation_Adib_Bencherif_A_Stabilizing_Mali_Project_Report_MARCH_2018
The following report is an analysis of the « Tuareg question » by Adib Bencherif, PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa. On the basis of exhaustive field research, the author puts into perspective an interpretative framework which focuses on the Tuareg rebellions to explain the Malian conflict. His analysis of the rebellions memories is indeed essential to better understand the dynamics of the conflict between the Tuareg and the Malian state as well as those between the various Tuareg communities
Alliances of convenience: assessing the dynamics of the Malian insurgency
Adib Bencherif &Aurélie Campana
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13629395.2016.1230942
Abstract: This article analyses the precarious alliances concluded between insurgent groups in the context of the conflict in Northern Mali that began in 2012. Building on the literature on civil wars and social movements, it develops a mechanism-based approach that intends to shed light on the processes of alliance formation and disintegration that are taking place at the meso- and micro-levels of analysis. It shows that the solidity and durability of alliances in a civil war context strongly depend on the interplay of three intra-organizational and inter-organizational mechanisms (brokerage, competition and shifting alliance), which contribute to the shaping of complex local power games. While ideological compatibility facilitates alignment and organizational collaboration, alliances are first and foremost cemented or fissured through the changing short- and mid-term personal interests of a variety of actors, who try to adapt to a volatile context.
From the “tuareg question” to memories of conflict: In support of Mali's Reconciliation
Adib Bencherif
https://www.academia.edu/36299379/From_the_Tuareg_question_to_Memories_of_Conflict_in_support_of_Malis_reconciliation_Adib_Bencherif_A_Stabilizing_Mali_Project_Report_MARCH_2018
The following report is an analysis of the « Tuareg question » by Adib Bencherif, PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa. On the basis of exhaustive field research, the author puts into perspective an interpretative framework which focuses on the Tuareg rebellions to explain the Malian conflict. His analysis of the rebellions memories is indeed essential to better understand the dynamics of the conflict between the Tuareg and the Malian state as well as those between the various Tuareg communities
Alliances of convenience: assessing the dynamics of the Malian insurgency
Adib Bencherif &Aurélie Campana
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13629395.2016.1230942
Abstract: This article analyses the precarious alliances concluded between insurgent groups in the context of the conflict in Northern Mali that began in 2012. Building on the literature on civil wars and social movements, it develops a mechanism-based approach that intends to shed light on the processes of alliance formation and disintegration that are taking place at the meso- and micro-levels of analysis. It shows that the solidity and durability of alliances in a civil war context strongly depend on the interplay of three intra-organizational and inter-organizational mechanisms (brokerage, competition and shifting alliance), which contribute to the shaping of complex local power games. While ideological compatibility facilitates alignment and organizational collaboration, alliances are first and foremost cemented or fissured through the changing short- and mid-term personal interests of a variety of actors, who try to adapt to a volatile context.
Nicaragua
Rewriting the Rules of Land Reform: Institutional Change in Wartime in Nicaragua
Rachel A. Schwartz
APSA 2020 Draft
How does civil war shape state administrative institutions? While scholarship on interstate war posits that conflict triggers processes of centralization and mobilization that build the state apparatus, the findings from research on intrastate conflict are more mixed. Though internal conflict can have a “state-making” effect, the divided sovereignty associated with civil war is largely thought to produce institutional decay and breakdown. This paper examines the effects of internal armed conflict on state administrative institutions through the lens of agrarian reform and land tenure institutions during Nicaragua’s Contra War (1980-1990). Though the Sandinista led counterinsurgent campaign did induce heightened mobilization and extraction to “squeeze” the means of war from the population, it also remade the rules of land redistribution, legalization, and titling in ways that ultimately undermined the state’s ability to regulate land tenure. As the perceived threat posed by the Contra insurgency deepened and large numbers of peasant producers defected to rebels’ side, the narrow and centralized FSLN coalition in power devised and implemented alternative rules structuring land provision—rules crafted with the counterinsurgent objective of recovering peasant support and preserving Sandinista political power. The introduction of these new rules, which permitted the individual and provisional titling of unregistered parcels, subverted the state’s ability to regulate land ownership. The case thus illustrates that, while civil war often does build the state, it sometimes does so on the basis of perverse institutional logics, which ultimately undermine critical state functions.
Rewriting the Rules of Land Reform: Institutional Change in Wartime in Nicaragua
Rachel A. Schwartz
APSA 2020 Draft
How does civil war shape state administrative institutions? While scholarship on interstate war posits that conflict triggers processes of centralization and mobilization that build the state apparatus, the findings from research on intrastate conflict are more mixed. Though internal conflict can have a “state-making” effect, the divided sovereignty associated with civil war is largely thought to produce institutional decay and breakdown. This paper examines the effects of internal armed conflict on state administrative institutions through the lens of agrarian reform and land tenure institutions during Nicaragua’s Contra War (1980-1990). Though the Sandinista led counterinsurgent campaign did induce heightened mobilization and extraction to “squeeze” the means of war from the population, it also remade the rules of land redistribution, legalization, and titling in ways that ultimately undermined the state’s ability to regulate land tenure. As the perceived threat posed by the Contra insurgency deepened and large numbers of peasant producers defected to rebels’ side, the narrow and centralized FSLN coalition in power devised and implemented alternative rules structuring land provision—rules crafted with the counterinsurgent objective of recovering peasant support and preserving Sandinista political power. The introduction of these new rules, which permitted the individual and provisional titling of unregistered parcels, subverted the state’s ability to regulate land ownership. The case thus illustrates that, while civil war often does build the state, it sometimes does so on the basis of perverse institutional logics, which ultimately undermine critical state functions.
Sierra Leone
Sexual violence in Sierra Leone's civil war: ‘Virgination’, rape, and marriage 2013
Zoe Marks
https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/113/450/67/48462?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Abstract: Rape and sexual violence loom large in the study of civil war in Africa. Sierra Leone has been one of the most prominent cases for establishing rape as a ‘weapon of war’, yet little is known about how sexual violence was understood by commanders or combatants within the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Mainstream analyses of armed groups and civil war rarely engage with gender dynamics, despite their centrality to war making, power, and violence; and research that does focus on sexual violence tends to overlook the complex internal dynamics of the groups responsible. This article examines the internal gender dynamics of the RUF from the perspective of male and female members in seeking to understand the perpetration of sexual violence. It shows that both formal and informal laws and power structures existed to regulate gender relations and control sexual behaviour within the group. It identifies four categories of women – non-wives, unprotected wives, protected wives, and senior women – and shows that women's interests and experiences of sexual violence were not homogeneous, but were instead shaped by their status within the group. In this way, sexual violence, examined in social context, provides an entry point for understanding how power, protection, and access to resources are brokered in rebellion.
Sexual violence in Sierra Leone's civil war: ‘Virgination’, rape, and marriage 2013
Zoe Marks
https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/113/450/67/48462?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Abstract: Rape and sexual violence loom large in the study of civil war in Africa. Sierra Leone has been one of the most prominent cases for establishing rape as a ‘weapon of war’, yet little is known about how sexual violence was understood by commanders or combatants within the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Mainstream analyses of armed groups and civil war rarely engage with gender dynamics, despite their centrality to war making, power, and violence; and research that does focus on sexual violence tends to overlook the complex internal dynamics of the groups responsible. This article examines the internal gender dynamics of the RUF from the perspective of male and female members in seeking to understand the perpetration of sexual violence. It shows that both formal and informal laws and power structures existed to regulate gender relations and control sexual behaviour within the group. It identifies four categories of women – non-wives, unprotected wives, protected wives, and senior women – and shows that women's interests and experiences of sexual violence were not homogeneous, but were instead shaped by their status within the group. In this way, sexual violence, examined in social context, provides an entry point for understanding how power, protection, and access to resources are brokered in rebellion.
Sahel
Informal Governance of NonState Armed Groups in the Sahel
https://thesouthernhub.org/resources/site1/General/NSD-S%20Hub%20Publications/Informal_Governance_of_non_state_armed_groups_in_the_Sahel.pdf
Informal Governance of NonState Armed Groups in the Sahel
https://thesouthernhub.org/resources/site1/General/NSD-S%20Hub%20Publications/Informal_Governance_of_non_state_armed_groups_in_the_Sahel.pdf
- Key Findings: Non-state armed groups, including violent extremist organizations, self-defense militias, and criminal gangs, are governance providers to local populations in the Sahel to a much greater degree than previously reported in the so-called “ungoverned spaces.”
- NSAGs provide four key forms of governance: security; justice; political and economic administration; social support and enforcement of social rules, across large sections of Mali, but also in Burkina Faso and Niger. Through this informal governance, NSAGs garner support and legitimacy from local leaders and communities at large.
- Current Responses: State and international responses have overall ignored this NSAG informal governance and have pursued: 1. a counter-terrorism strategy that is hampered by its failure to take into account the deeply embedded nature of NSAGs in local communities; and 2. a central statebuilding strategy that has so far largely failed to replace or even undermine NSAG legitimacy as governance providers.
- Relevance to NATO: Any involvement of international organizations in the Sahel needs to go beyond a strict counter-terrorism understanding of NSAGs, including VEOs. Furthermore, local and international actors on the ground warned that any additional involvement should avoid duplicating and undermining existing activities.
- Thus, any international involvement in the Sahel needs to take a broader vision of NSAG activities –beyond simply seeing them as “terrorists” or “criminal gangs” – and needs to be carefully coordinated with national and international partners.
Uganda
Military Culture and Restraint toward Civilians in War: Examining the Ugandan Civil Wars
Andrew M. Bell
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2016.1195626
Abstract: What explains armed-group conduct toward civilians in war? The National Resistance Army (NRA) of Uganda demonstrated notable restraint toward civilians during its wars in northern Uganda in the 1980s, restraint that is puzzling given the overdetermined predictions for mass atrocity under rationalist, identity, and regime-type theories. Instead, the NRA case demonstrates that military culture—the organizational norms underlying combatant socialization—is a primary determinant of armed-group behavior, influencing combatant conduct in ways not conceptualized under existing theories of victimization. This review of the NRA case, based on field interviews with Ugandan military officers and examinations of Ugandan documentary archives, reveals three key points regarding the role of military culture in effecting restraint. First, the NRA case shows that organizational factors like military culture can determine military behavior toward civilians. Second, it reveals that theories of military culture, incorporating both formal and informal mechanisms of combatant socialization, can provide a more complete theoretical account than existing theories of armed-group conduct. Finally, the NRA provides potential hypotheses for mechanisms through which culture influences military behavior. I analyze the effect of culture on the NRA's conduct as a plausibility probe, generating inductive insights drawn from detailed field research to shed light on the organizational drivers of armed-group restraint. The NRA case thus points the way to a reconceptualization of military culture and the role of organizational factors that influence conflict behavior.
Military Culture and Restraint toward Civilians in War: Examining the Ugandan Civil Wars
Andrew M. Bell
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2016.1195626
Abstract: What explains armed-group conduct toward civilians in war? The National Resistance Army (NRA) of Uganda demonstrated notable restraint toward civilians during its wars in northern Uganda in the 1980s, restraint that is puzzling given the overdetermined predictions for mass atrocity under rationalist, identity, and regime-type theories. Instead, the NRA case demonstrates that military culture—the organizational norms underlying combatant socialization—is a primary determinant of armed-group behavior, influencing combatant conduct in ways not conceptualized under existing theories of victimization. This review of the NRA case, based on field interviews with Ugandan military officers and examinations of Ugandan documentary archives, reveals three key points regarding the role of military culture in effecting restraint. First, the NRA case shows that organizational factors like military culture can determine military behavior toward civilians. Second, it reveals that theories of military culture, incorporating both formal and informal mechanisms of combatant socialization, can provide a more complete theoretical account than existing theories of armed-group conduct. Finally, the NRA provides potential hypotheses for mechanisms through which culture influences military behavior. I analyze the effect of culture on the NRA's conduct as a plausibility probe, generating inductive insights drawn from detailed field research to shed light on the organizational drivers of armed-group restraint. The NRA case thus points the way to a reconceptualization of military culture and the role of organizational factors that influence conflict behavior.
Venezuela
Maduro’s Revolutionary Guards: The Rise of Paramilitarism in Venezuela
https://ctc.usma.edu/maduros-revolutionary-guards-rise-paramilitarism-venezuela/
The government of Nicolas Maduro has increased its reliance on armed non-state actors as Venezuela’s political and economic crisis deepens. Paramilitarism developed under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, as a result of the erosion of the military, expansion of corruption and criminal networks in the government, and the devolution of state power to local loyalist groups. Colombian guerrillas have developed ties with the Venezuelan government and armed ‘colectivo’ groups as they expand into Venezuelan territory. As a result, the Colombian guerrillas have taken over state functions in parts of the country and have a vested interest in supporting the Maduro regime. Expansion into Venezuela has enabled the Colombian guerrillas to carry out attacks in Colombia and withstand blows from Colombian security forces, which could undermine future prospects for peace negotiations.
Maduro’s Revolutionary Guards: The Rise of Paramilitarism in Venezuela
https://ctc.usma.edu/maduros-revolutionary-guards-rise-paramilitarism-venezuela/
The government of Nicolas Maduro has increased its reliance on armed non-state actors as Venezuela’s political and economic crisis deepens. Paramilitarism developed under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, as a result of the erosion of the military, expansion of corruption and criminal networks in the government, and the devolution of state power to local loyalist groups. Colombian guerrillas have developed ties with the Venezuelan government and armed ‘colectivo’ groups as they expand into Venezuelan territory. As a result, the Colombian guerrillas have taken over state functions in parts of the country and have a vested interest in supporting the Maduro regime. Expansion into Venezuela has enabled the Colombian guerrillas to carry out attacks in Colombia and withstand blows from Colombian security forces, which could undermine future prospects for peace negotiations.
Yemen
Functional Markets in Yemen's War Economy
Joseph Huddleston, David Wood
Working paper for APSA 2020.
Abstract: Our article explores the economic activities of households operating in Yemen’s protracted conflict. We examine the growth and maturation of what we call the ‘Functional Economy’ in Yemen, in which Yemenis engage in economic transactions away from standard regulatory bodies through agreements of ‘how to do business’ with a range of authorities that are not internationally recognised. We distinguish this from ‘black markets’ and ‘illicit’ economic behaviours because most of the transactions would take place in a controlled environment in normal times or under peacetime governance, but the civil war has displaced them. In Yemen, the functional economy has come to serve Yemeni households providing essential goods and income, and for some activities, such as currency exchange, are preferred to any official regulated markets. On the other hand, alternatively regulated markets may not be functional as they also present opportunities for rent-seeking and, more importantly, can reinforce the political and economic bonds between Yemenis and non-recognised authorities, weakening the internationally recognised central state. Further, such activity has an impact on the potential for peaceful resolution of the conflict. The paper proposes that the ‘good’ of such activity, and hence whether it is considered ‘functional’ should be judged by whether it provides access to essential goods and income, and whether it helps promote peaceful resolution. We use household surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews to explore these developments from several angles.
Functional Markets in Yemen's War Economy
Joseph Huddleston, David Wood
Working paper for APSA 2020.
Abstract: Our article explores the economic activities of households operating in Yemen’s protracted conflict. We examine the growth and maturation of what we call the ‘Functional Economy’ in Yemen, in which Yemenis engage in economic transactions away from standard regulatory bodies through agreements of ‘how to do business’ with a range of authorities that are not internationally recognised. We distinguish this from ‘black markets’ and ‘illicit’ economic behaviours because most of the transactions would take place in a controlled environment in normal times or under peacetime governance, but the civil war has displaced them. In Yemen, the functional economy has come to serve Yemeni households providing essential goods and income, and for some activities, such as currency exchange, are preferred to any official regulated markets. On the other hand, alternatively regulated markets may not be functional as they also present opportunities for rent-seeking and, more importantly, can reinforce the political and economic bonds between Yemenis and non-recognised authorities, weakening the internationally recognised central state. Further, such activity has an impact on the potential for peaceful resolution of the conflict. The paper proposes that the ‘good’ of such activity, and hence whether it is considered ‘functional’ should be judged by whether it provides access to essential goods and income, and whether it helps promote peaceful resolution. We use household surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews to explore these developments from several angles.
