Rivalry, insurgency, and pro-government militias in authoritarian states

With an increased focus on the role of pro-government militias in understanding intra-state conflict, scholars have primarily argued that states use militias as a proxy of the government because of low capacity or as a means of avoiding responsibility for violence against civilians. However, states with both high capacity and a willingness to commit violence against civilians have also relied upon pro-government militias in counterinsurgency operations. This paper argues that states involved in enduring interstate rivalries are more likely to use pro-government militias in order to reserve conventional military forces for potential conflict with their rival. Based on a case study of India’s Kashmir insurgency and logit analysis of pro-government militia data from 1981 to 2001, the findings provide empirical support for this theory and are robust to alternative measures and model specifications.

How do ethnic links between governments and pro-government militias (PGMs) affect the abusive behaviour of PGMs? PGMs may recruit irrespective of ethnic group (Non-Ethnic PGMs), from the ethnic group that controls the government (Dominant PGMs), from quiescent groups not in control of the government (Peripheral PGMs), and from ethnic groups actively rebelling against the government (Defector PGMs). PGMs recruited on ethnic lines tend to have informal relationships with the government, so they often help the government avoid accountability for civilian targeting. Examining ethnic relationships rather than whether the relationship is informal or semi-official, however, reveals important nuances. Defector PGMs are both able to target selectively and are deterred from being too abusive. Peripheral PGMs can target civilians more frequently, but they tend to lack the capacity to carry out large-scale massacres. Dominant PGMs can and do carry out large-scale massacres, but they target civilians less frequently because they only act when government accountability is not a concern. Regression analysis of a global group-year dataset of PGM abuses (1989–2007) supports these expectations. Our analysis demonstrates the value of considering PGM ethnic relationships with the government.

ABSTRACTIt is puzzling why leaders delegate authority to pro-government militias (PGMs) at the expense of professional armed forces. Several state-level explanations, ranging from low state capacity to blame evasion for human rights violations have been proposed for the establishment of PGM linkages. These explanations lack focus on the individuals making decisions to form PGMs: national leaders. It is argued that leaders create linkages with PGMs to facilitate leaders’ political survival in the event of their deposition. Threats to leaders’ survival come from the military, foreign powers, or domestic actors outside the ruling coalition. As costs of leader deposition are low for the state, leaders facing threats from one or all of these sources must invest in protection from outside of the security apparatus. The argument is tested through data on PGM linkage formation and threats to political survival. Results show that leaders under coup threat are more likely to form PGM linkages, while threats from foreign actors make leaders particularly more likely to form linkages with ethnic or religious PGMs. The findings strongly suggest that PGM linkage formation is driven by leader-level desire for political survival, rather than a host of state-level explanations.

Examining militia relationships with the government and civilian populations can help scholars and policymakers better assess differences in militia form, function, and behavior. In this article, we examine the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU), a pro-government militia in the Philippines, to better understand how militia participants view insurgents, politicians, state security forces, and civilians based on their experiences serving in the group. We argue that analyzing these beliefs is critical to understanding how militias influence civilian security and the risk of political violence in conflict-contested areas, as well as the trajectory of civil conflict in states like the Philippines that rely on militias to perform core security functions. We base the analysis on surveys and interviews with CAFGU members and civilians living in the Eastern Visayas, a region of active and ongoing conflict, where insurgents and other armed militants advance their aims through acts of violence and terrorism. In doing so, we contribute to a growing literature on the role that militias play in civil war, as well as the implications that follow when states choose to arm “civilians” to aid in counterinsurgency and conflict suppression.

ABSTRACTThis paper introduces the African Relational Pro-Government Militia Dataset (RPGMD). Recent research has improved our understandings of how pro-government forces form, under what conditions they are most likely to act, and how they affect the risk of internal conflict, repression, and state fragility. In this paper, we give an overview of our dataset that identifies African pro-government militias (PGMs) from 1997 to 2014. The data set shows the wide proliferation and diffusion of these groups on the African continent. We identify 149 active PGMs, 104 of which are unique to our dataset. In addition to descriptive information about these PGMs, we contribute measures of PGM alliance relationships, ethnic relationships, and context. We use these variables to examine the determinants of the presence and level of abusive behavior perpetrated by individual PGMs. Results highlight the need to consider nuances in PGM–government relationships in addition to PGM characteristics.

This study analyzes whether climate disasters and climate-induced food scarcities influence individuals’ willingness to fight for the state in a pro-government militia in the Philippines. We find that experiencing a disaster or subsistence loss corresponds to an increased willingness to join, even when accounting for other prominent explanations in the literature. This outcome, we argue, reflects the impact of climate change on the opportunity costs of conflict participation, especially in regions dependent on agriculture for income and food production, as diminished livelihood opportunities and subsistence resource access increase the viability of conflict participation as a strategy for livelihood diversification.

Why do some countries harbor pro-government militias (PGMs), while others do not? We assert that the deployment of PGMs depends on topographic, social, and political structures within which governments and rebels operate. Drawing on the concept of opportunity structures, we postulate that structural conditions within which governments are embedded in constitute a contributing factor to the existence and multiplicity of PGMs. Data from the Pro-Government Militia Dataset along with a two-stage hurdle model reveal that personalist regime type and civil wars increase the likelihood of PGM emergence. In contrast, ethnic fractionalization, onshore oil fields, drug production, number of rebel groups, and military prowess influence the number of PGMs.

ABSTRACTThe research to date on pro-governm`ent militias demonstrates that numerous pro-regime militia groups were actively deployed in civil wars over the last half a century. As hundreds of militia groups emerged amid civil warfare, hundreds more were disbanded, integrated into regular military, or transformed into political forces. This study seeks to improve our understanding of global patterns of militia demobilization. In contrast to the growing body of literature that explores the emergence of militias or examines their relationship with the state, studies on the demise of pro-government militias are notable by their absence. Statistical analysis of 220 pro-government militias involved in seventy-five civil wars from 1981 to 2011, based on a recent database of pro-government militias, demonstrates that the disappearance of militias has little to do with the termination of armed conflict. This study is the first to investigate when and under which conditions militias created to assist governments in fighting civil wars disband.

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.

Does the military strength of rebel movements affect conflict-related sexual violence by pro-government militias (PGMs)? Existing studies on PGMs show the significant role that PGMs can have in shaping conflict dynamics and outcomes. What remains understudied is how the variation in power capabilities between conflict actors and the sources of support for PGMs influences civilian victimization by militia groups. We argue that strong rebels tip the balance of power against the state, making the state more susceptible to authorizing or allowing sexual violence by PGMs. In addition, the level of autonomy of PGMs from the government is likely to influence their sexual violence, conditional on rebel strength. When rebels are militarily strong, states are likely to order or tolerate sexual violence by PGMs that they train and/or provide resources to, thereby resulting in sexual violence by state-dependent PGMs. Examining all civil conflicts from 1989 to 2009 and using newly collected data on state-dependence of PGMs, our empirical findings provide evidence that PGMs are associated with higher levels of conflict-related sexual violence when the government faces strong rebels. Results also show that the likelihood of sexual violence by state-dependent PGMs increases when rebels exhibit strong military capabilities.

This article examines how civilian defense militias shape violence during civil war. We define civilian defense forces as a sedentary and defensive form of pro-government militia that incumbents often use to harness the participation of civilians during a counterinsurgency campaign. We argue that civilian defense forces reduce the problem of insurgent identification. This leads to a reduction in state violence against civilians. However, we also claim that these actors undermine civilian support for insurgents, which leads to an increase in rebel violence against civilians and overall intensification of conflict. A statistical analysis of government and rebel violence against civilians from 1981 to 2005 and a qualitative assessment of a civilian defense force operating in Iraq from 2005 to 2009 offer strong support for our theoretical claims. These findings provide further insight into pro-government militias and their effects on violence. They also have wider ethical implications for the use of civilian collaborators during civil war.

Governments often supplement the regular military with paramilitaries and progovernment militias (PGMs). However, it is unclear what determines states’ selection of these auxiliary forces, and our understanding of how auxiliary force structures develop remains limited. The crucial difference between the two auxiliary types is their embeddedness in official structures. Paramilitaries are organized under the government to support/replace the regular military, whereas PGMs exist outside the state apparatus. Within a principal–agent framework, we argue that a state’s investment in a particular auxiliary force structure is shaped by available resources and capacity, accountability/deniability, and domestic threats. Our results based on quantitative analysis from 1981 to 2007 find that (a) state capacity is crucial for sustaining paramilitaries, but not PGMs; (b) PGMs, unlike paramilitaries, are more common in states involved in civil conflict; and (c) although both paramilitaries and PGMs are associated with regime instability, there is no significant difference between them in that context.

Why do governments choose to fund pro-government militias (PGMs) if doing so could extend costly civil conflict? While PGMs are active in a majority of civil wars, their impact on conflict termination remains poorly understood. We argue that the choice to fund PGMs is a strategic one for states and part of their efforts to influence wartime dynamics and conflict termination. We hypothesize that PGMs’ impact on conflict termination is conditional on whether they are government funded. Government-funded PGMs help states to ward off costly negotiations and encourage the rebellion's gradual dissolution. Using competing risks analyses on civil wars ending between 1981 and 2007, we find robust evidence that PGM funding affects conflict outcomes.

In recent years, the relations between weak central governments and armed groups in the periphery have attracted great attention. Rebels, warlords and other actors have not only undermined the authorities' grip on power, but gradually come to shape the nature of governance and political system in their countries. Warlordism, rebelocracies and aliocracies are just a few of the political systems identified by students of conflict and armed groups. However, the literature has generally overlooked one category of armed groups and their implications on political order: pro-government militias (PGMs). As PGMs have become ubiquitous in civil wars, this article identifies a new political order emerging in countries where central governments have become reliant on PGMs in counter-insurgency operations. The article defines this order as a militiatocracy. Unlike armed groups in other political orders, PGMs do not seek to overthrow, undermine or replace the central government. Instead, in militiatocracies, PGMs and central governments develop symbiotic relations, which on the one hand help the government to survive an insurgency, but on the other allow militia leaders to secure an increasing presence in politics. The article illustrates the emergence and nature of militiatocracies by employing the case of Syria during the civil war.

How is service history associated with returning veterans' attitudes about democracy? Existing research predicts pro-government militia veterans have less support for democracy because of political efficacy gained from service and divergent policy preferences from the general population. We test that theory in Ukraine through surveys of both returning veterans and the general population between 2019 and 2022. Our findings differ from predictions. Veterans who joined the armed forces as volunteers were more supportive of democracy as an institution than ordinary Ukrainians. At the same time, Army volunteers, as well as veterans who were drafted into the armed forces and veterans who were rejected from the armed forces and joined pro-government militias were more likely to be dissatisfied with democracy. In-depth interviews reveal both those rejected from the armed forces and army conscripts opposed democracy because they felt rampant draft evasion made civilians unqualified to make political decisions.