Non-state Actors Research Articles

Hybrid security in Nigeria–Benin borderlands: Formal and informal security actors’ collaboration and implication for cross-border security (2010–2023)

ABSTRACT In the borderland of Nigeria and the Republic of Benin there are both formal and informal security actors operating to curb trans-border crimes that extant literature is yet to adequately consider. Most empirical studies on the relations between security actors have largely focused on the nature of relations between formal security agencies and the implications of their relations for border security governance. This study fills the gap in the knowledge by investigating the nature of relations between formal and informal security actors. Utilising mixed-method research design and drawing on primary and secondary sources of data, the study contends that non-states security actors of different nomenclature such as Kelebe, Smugglers Association, Night Guards and Aja Custom, Social Safety Orientation Corps (So Safe Corps) exist in the borderland areas of Seme and Idi Iroko between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. It is also argued that functional, dynamic and interest-based cordial relations between state and non-state security actors significantly contribute to curbing smuggling, drug trafficking, illegal migration with the exception of human trafficking. Thus, the study recommends that the Nigerian government should re-organise the border security order to include non-state security actors in the governance of borders between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin.

Russian Business and the Authoritarian Welfare State

Authoritarian regimes widely involve non-state actors in social welfare to increase output legitimacy and regime stability. Despite the volume of corporate social investments, the role of private companies in authoritarian welfare is still poorly understood. This study analyzes the functioning of corporate social programs in the Russian authoritarian welfare state by focusing on corporate grant competitions and corporate volunteering as means of engaging both the local population and the companies’ employees in the regions. Drawing on stakeholder theory, it investigates how companies position themselves as welfare providers and how they legitimize their role with regard to key stakeholders, including state officials, employees, and the local population. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with company representatives and key stakeholders in four Russian regions: Kemerovo, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, Tiumen′, and Volgograd. In addition, corporate social reports from 2018 and information for beneficiaries were evaluated to identify program guidelines, motivations, and stakeholder assessments. The study argues that companies play an important role as welfare providers through the financial support of social organizations and employee initiatives at the regional and the local level. By providing social investments in geographically defined “territories of presence,” Russian companies pursue a double legitimation strategy, both demonstrating their social responsibility and loyalty toward the regime and strengthening authoritarian welfare provision through private social investments. With a detailed analysis of corporate social programs, this study contributes to our understanding of the specific conditions and mechanisms of social policy in authoritarian regimes and the place that companies occupy within it.

The Role of Media Diplomacy in Shaping the State’s International Image

The article attempts to determine the role of media diplomacy in shaping the state's image in the international arena. Media diplomacy under the conditions of globalization transformed geopolitical relations and changed the hierarchical system of foreign policy decision-making, highlighting the competition among states for the opportunity to influence public opinion. The information policy of the state involves not only the dissemination of positive information about it in the international information space, but also the integration of politicians, state government structures, non-state actors, famous personalities, and opinion leaders into the brand management system of the state's national policy. At the same time, the use of social media platforms in the implementation of diplomatic activities has led to the fact that any user of a social network today is not only a consumer of information, but also a direct supplier and distributor of it, meaning they have the opportunity to influence the adoption of certain decisions at the state level and shape in this way the image of the state. The article analyzes the use of media diplomacy mechanisms in the formation of Ukraine's image, identifies positive and negative aspects, and discusses prospects for its development.

Gaza Crisis and the Arabic Press: A Discourse Analysis

The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli military response have been widely covered in the Arabic press, reinforcing the popular narrative of a strong and aggressive Israeli state and the victimized Palestinians. The coverage underlines the wide support for Palestinians in the Arabic press. Broadly, one can divide the Arabic press into state-aligned and independent media, with the former’s coverage reflecting the opinions of the respective governments, while the latter showcases the views of non-state actors. A key trend that emerges is the strong anti-Israel sentiments prevailing in the Arab countries and the increased support for Palestinian statehood. Notably, there are serious discussions about the possibility of a two-state solution and the role Arab governments can play in convincing the two warring sides. There are some nuanced and veiled criticisms of Hamas’s actions that triggered the current spate of violence. A closer reading of select international Arabic-language media (print and online) reveals the nuanced shifts in their coverage toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Crypto-Enabled Espionage: The Growing Threat to National Security

This paper examines the growing threat of crypto-enabled espionage and its impact on national security. The research addresses the central questions on how cryptocurrencies facilitate espionage, and what the implications for national security are. Using a qualitative approach, the study draws on existing literature, case studies, and intelligence reports to explore how cryptocurrencies are increasingly being leveraged by state and non-state actors for covert operations. The findings reveal that the key features of cryptocurrencies—such as anonymity, decentralization, and the lack of regulation make them highly attractive to espionage actors. Specific cases, including the use of cryptocurrencies by North Korean and Russian state sponsored espionage networks, demonstrate how these actors bypass financial surveillance systems. The study concludes that while cryptocurrencies offer significant advantages for espionage, they pose severe challenges for national security agencies, especially in terms of monitoring and preventing illicit activities. To address these threats, stronger international cooperation, regulatory reforms, and advancements in blockchain surveillance technology are necessary. The paper recommends further research into counterintelligence strategies that incorporate blockchain technology and artificial intelligence for monitoring crypto-enabled espionage.

IndoGovBERT: A Domain-Specific Language Model for Processing Indonesian Government SDG Documents

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires collaboration among various stakeholders, particularly governments and non-state actors (NSAs). This collaboration results in but is also based on a continually growing volume of documents that needs to be analyzed and processed in a systematic way by government officials. Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing (NLP) could, thus, offer valuable support for progressing towards SDG targets, including automating the government budget tagging and classifying NSA requests and initiatives, as well as helping uncover the possibilities for matching these two categories of activities. Many non-English speaking countries, including Indonesia, however, face limited NLP resources, such as, for instance, domain-specific pre-trained language models (PTLMs). This circumstance makes it difficult to automate document processing and improve the efficacy of SDG-related government efforts. The presented study introduces IndoGovBERT, a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT)-based PTLM built with domain-specific corpora, leveraging the Indonesian government’s public and internal documents. The model is intended to automate various laborious tasks of SDG document processing by the Indonesian government. Different approaches to PTLM development known from the literature are examined in the context of typical government settings. The most effective, in terms of the resultant model performance, but also most efficient, in terms of the computational resources required, methodology is determined and deployed for the development of the IndoGovBERT model. The developed model is then scrutinized in several text classification and similarity assessment experiments, where it is compared with four Indonesian general-purpose language models, a non-transformer approach of the Multilabel Topic Model (MLTM), as well as with a Multilingual BERT model. Results obtained in all experiments highlight the superior capability of the IndoGovBERT model for Indonesian government SDG document processing. The latter suggests that the proposed PTLM development methodology could be adopted to build high-performance specialized PTLMs for governments around the globe which face SDG document processing and other NLP challenges similar to the ones dealt with in the presented study.

Global Climate Governance: Evaluating Policy Responses in an Era of International Cooperation and Competition

This research paper provides an in-depth analysis of how the global community is working to address climate change through international cooperation and competition. It highlights dual forces that shape global climate governance, focusing on the Paris Agreement as a key framework. The article focuses on the fact that although international cooperation. Most countries fail to achieve the targets they set forth as part of their pledges; the gap between the pledging and the actual reduction of emissions is huge. International competition, especially in the area of renewable energy, would spur innovation and progress. China and the United States have invested heavily in green technologies; these investments have economically and strategically benefited those respective nations. This competition creates unequal disadvantages, especially for developing countries that cannot compete because they do not have sufficient resources. Non-state actors, including cities, corporations, civil society organizations, are also increasingly crucial to filling out national efforts.

Unpacking the Impact of External Support on Rebel Groups: Does it Fuel or Quell Violence Against Civilians?

ABSTRACT In civil conflicts, the relations of rebel groups with civilians are largely influenced by the rebels’ capabilities. Seeking external resources to enhance their military efforts and resilience, rebel groups’ access to those resources shapes their war strategies, including violence against civilians. Unlike the extant research drawing on highly aggregated designs, we argue that not every form of support affects rebels’ violent behaviour in the same direction. In this study, we test whether different forms of external support are associated with the level of rebel violence against civilians by using comprehensive data on foreign support to rebel groups in intrastate conflicts between 1989 and 2017. The findings support the need for disaggregation of foreign support to understand better the dynamics in this relationship. The results show that external support in the forms of access to infrastructure, from both state and non-state actors, and troops from non-state actors are associated with a decrease in civilian victimisation.

Militarized elections and citizens’ support for democratic rights: evidence from India

ABSTRACT Across the world, many citizens go to the polls amidst armed threats from both state and non-state actors. How do militarized elections affect citizens’ willingness to accept restrictions on democratic rights? We argue that when forming opinions about appropriate limits to state powers, citizens navigate competing threats from state and non-state actors. The display of state coercive force should make citizens more protective of civil and political rights. Yet, if it occurs in the context of threat posed by non-state actors, citizens may become more likely to accept that rights are restricted. We embed a vignette experiment with a selective information prime in a 2019 post-election survey of 1,080 Indian citizens across two states affected by armed insurgency. We find that being primed on a heavy state-military presence makes citizens more reluctant to accept restrictions on civil and political rights, but the effect is only found among politically marginalized groups. In the presence of violent non-state threats, however, citizens become more likely to support policies that curtail democratic rights.

Quandaries of Trying to Do Good-The Adequacy of the WHO FENSA Regulations.

The World Health Organization's (WHO) Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA), established in 2016, is designed to enhance transparency, impartiality, and conflict-of-interest safeguards by setting rigorous guidelines for WHO's interactions with private entities, particularly those in high-risk industries such as tobacco, alcohol, and arms. This paper briefly reviews the implementation and impact of FENSA, observing that, despite these safeguards, its application in academic contexts poses specific challenges. Universities, often reliant on diverse funding sources, may find the rules restrictive and misaligned with independent funding needs. The creation of the WHO Foundation in 2020 further complicates this landscape by enabling engagements with previously restricted private sector entities through an "arm's length" model. The authors advocate for a reassessment of FENSA to resolve inconsistencies and support essential academic collaborations, while upholding WHO's commitment to ethical standards.

Unraveling proxy wars: A comparison of state sponsorship decisions in Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen

This study aims to explain the pattern of state sponsorship of civil wars in Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Recent studies have improved our scholarly understanding of decisions regarding intervention and sponsorship. Yet, our understanding of state sponsorship decision in conflict that precedes an escalation remains limited. Herein, I develop a multicausal framework to analyze state sponsorship decisions, employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to account for state support. The results suggest novel insights into how strategic interests drive states to influence civil war dynamics for desired benefits. Contrary to conventional wisdom, bilateral rivalry alone does not guarantee a sponsorship decision. States tend to support when they perceive opportunities that are aligned with their economic interests or when countering transnational threats from violent non-state actors who are backed by another state. These findings elucidate how initial state sponsorship decisions might relate to conflict escalation over time.

Power Dynamics of Cross-Border Conflict in Lebanon and Syria

This paper identifies the main conflict actors in cross-border conflict across Lebanon and Syria as being Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, and highlights the power hierarchies between those actors as well as between them and ordinary people in those border regions. The paper shows that in those two countries, both state and non-state actors (de factor authorities) are the main conflict actors who are invested in the conflict status quo that they profiteer from—the state is therefore also part of the problem. The paper additionally argues that there is a need to understand hierarchies of power among conflict actors and how they position local communities at the bottom of the conflict economy pyramid. The paper shows that local communities end up entangled in the conflict economy for the sake of economic coping and survival. Often, both conflict actors and local communities act pragmatically rather than ideologically for the sake of economic survival or gain, but conflict actors trap local communities in the coping economy by removing alternatives, cultivating relationships of dependency by coping communities on major conflict actors. The paper uses these conclusions to present recommendations for conflict response policies. The paper is published as part of the Cross-Border Conflict, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme funded by UK International Development.

Identifying and developing the roles of private business actors in international regime complexes

Abstract Business actors play increasingly important roles in global governance and international regulation. This paper considers how regime complexity influences the roles of businesses and impacts opportunities for business influence on international regulatory regimes. We conducted a scoping literature review of 243 articles from the International Regime Complexity (IRC) theory literature to explore if and how complexity affects the roles of businesses and their influence on international regulation. We found that complexity presents opportunities for businesses to regime shift and exploit knowledge asymmetry in order to influence international regulation. Further, IRC theory illustrates how the roles of businesses interact and leverage one another in order to create better opportunities for influence in specific international regulatory regimes. This paper contributes to IRC theory by building on the existing non-state actor discussions and offering specific theorization of business behavior, thus starting to bridge the gap between the empirical and theoretical understanding. Second, it contributes to existing discussions in business and politics literature by developing existing knowledge on the roles of businesses in global governance to better reflect the added dimension of complexity.

Value-driven Contention in China: Forms, Tactics and State Responses

Abstract This research challenges the conventional wisdom that value-driven protests in China are exceedingly rare and face harsh state repression. Drawing on a hand-coded, multi-source dataset of over 3,100 protests in three Chinese megacities from 2014 to 2016, we identify 67 protests that reveal a hitherto unknown underbelly of everyday, value-driven contention. Qualitatively, we identify three main forms of contentious performances. Quantitatively, we show how value-driven protesters combine non-disruptive tactics with ambitious targets and virtually never extract concessions. Surprisingly, we find that such protests are less often policed and repressed than other protests. They are also never met with violence from non-state actors. We provide three interpretations for the counter-intuitive finding on repression. This study shows that the Chinese state coexists with a non-negligible amount of explicitly regime-critical contention. It adopts a containment strategy, tolerating a certain extent of value-driven performances when the risk of spill-over into wider society is limited.

The Pacific Islands and Chinese power as presence, influence, and interference

Abstract Dominant debates about China’s growing presence in the Pacific Islands – through infrastructure, aid, trade, and investment – suggest that Chinese material power directly translates to influence and effective interference in Pacific states’ domestic and foreign affairs. These perspectives fail to clarify the causal link between Chinese economic statecraft and Pacific governments’ alignment with Beijing’s interests. They also deny Pacific people agency, overlooking how power relations are mediated by Pacific state and non-state actors operating across complex political and socio-economic structures. We challenge such rationalist conceptualisations of Chinese power by developing a constructivist taxonomy of power as presence (dormant capability), influence (socialisation), and interference (incentives), and applying it to the Melanesian subregion. We argue that Chinese power is not merely material, causal, and unidirectional. Chinese power can also (re)shape the identities and interests of Pacific elites and publics in a constitutive manner, potentially aligning their ideas about substantive norms, rules, and practices guiding their foreign relations with Chinese ‘core interests’ and perspectives on regional and global politics.

Electoral Incentives and Negotiated Settlements: Legislative Deliberation on the Mindanao Conflict in the Philippines

Some conflict‐experiencing countries undergo both violent and electoral competitions. In other words, electoral competition evolves while nonstate actors struggle to realize their political and cultural demands by arms. Although increasing attention has been paid to the interplay between domestic political dynamics and violent conflict, we still know little about how the electoral calculations of legislators shape their response to negotiated settlement, possibly influencing conflict processes. By examining the congressional records of the House of Representatives in the Philippines, this study conducts quantitative text analyses to assess the impacts of electoral incentives—shaped by executive popularity, district ethnic composition, and the occurrence of conflict‐related violence—on legislators' response to negotiated settlement. The results demonstrate that legislators are sensitive to constituents' views on conflict settlement by showing support or opposition to negotiated settlement, anticipating their electoral fortunes in the next election.

Protection of Human Rights in the Global Garment Industry

Considerable expansion of the global garment industry, which in recent decades has become one of the largest employment sectors worldwide, has intensified scrutiny of states’ and businesses’ responsibilities, especially as production increasingly shifts to countries with less strict labour regulations. Analysis of the landscape reveals that, significant progress notwithstanding, world dialogue on business responsibilities has still not arrived at a solution. The complex network of stakeholders in the garment industry brings particular challenges to enforcing human-rights protection in this domain. The article explores the intersection of business practices and human rights within the garment sector, focusing on Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, three countries which play a pivotal role in global fashion exports. Examining the legal obligations of state and non-state actors under various UN instruments by analysing the Universal Periodic Review mechanism and the concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it identifies critical issues in protecting human rights in these countries and briefly also reviews recent advances in the EU in the realm of business and human rights. The paper presents evidence that the growing influence of non-state actors calls for extending the obligations from traditional approaches’, which have focused on state responsibilities. Among the solutions proposed are reforming wage systems and imposing direct human-rights requirements on corporations, supported by more vigorous enforcement.

A scoping review of street homelessness: What can Papua New Guinea learn from South Africa?

Homelessness is a global social issue that has affected various nations around the world, including South Africa. The instances of homelessness began during the apartheid era in South Africa and have since risen to alarming levels in provinces such as Gauteng, Western Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal, as reported in the 2022 census. Despite the lack of comprehensive research on homelessness in South Africa, this study conducted a scoping review to evaluate research completed on homelessness from independence to 2020 in the country. The scoping review followed the Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and involved a systematic search of the Development Southern Africa and Urban Forum databases. A total of 72 research articles were identified, with 10 meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the review, which were then analyzed using thematic analysis. The study identified several key themes, including homelessness as a reflection of patriarchal systems, gender-based conflicts leading to homelessness, proactive and reactive interventions by non-state actors for homeless individuals, and the quantitative focus of research on homelessness in South Africa from independence to the present day. The study presents the applicability of these findings to tackle homelessness in Papua New Guinea and recommends the use of mixed methods approaches to research homelessness in South Africa to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the various dimensions of homelessness in the country.

Liberal Democracy Promotion and the Observation of Democracy

ABSTRACT This article suggests that the observation of democracy is at the core of liberal democracy promotion. Broadly conceived, the observation of democracy is evident in the democracy reports published by international organisations and non-state actors and common meaning making about “target” states in democracy promotion. Based on an historical inquiry focused on developments in the Permanent Mandates Commission, Trusteeship Council and, to lesser degree, Freedom House, I argue that the observation of democracy stems from practices invented in colonial contexts and includes long-lasting epistemic and political hierarchies. Though organisations develop varying styles, observations of democracy show similar components and a common orientation towards Western understandings of representative democracy. My argument contributes to research on how contemporary practices are enabled by and reproduce (post-) colonial patterns and historical reflection on epistemic and political hierarchies in democracy promotion.

Actor-specific adaptation objectives shape perceived roles and responsibilities: lessons from Mumbai’s flood risk reduction and general considerations

Adaptation efforts need to be advanced significantly, involving multiple actors and a diverse portfolio of options. Despite this being well established, there is little understanding of different actors’ perceptions of adaptation goals and their associated expectations regarding roles and responsibilities to achieve them. In this analysis, we seek to address this gap by elucidating the diverging viewpoints held by various actor groups concerning adaptation objectives, target beneficiaries, and the distribution of roles and responsibilities for adaptation. Here, we use the case study of flood risk in Mumbai, drawing upon qualitative interview data collected through key informant interviews with diverse stakeholders including state, civil society, and academic actors. Interviews revealed stark disparities between state and non-state actors, in particular on the objective of efficiency, largely emphasized by state actors for physical infrastructure measures. Other contested objectives included ecosystem protection and fairness for vulnerable populations. The findings showed consensus on the importance of planning. Non-state actors heavily debated the lack of planning and implementation of institutional changes and ecosystem-based measures. They called for a stronger role of the state in caretaking and fairness for vulnerable populations, mainly through deeper institutional changes. Overall, the findings point to the urgent need for understanding how actors navigate competing priorities, make trade-offs, and negotiate conflicting viewpoints on the distribution of roles and responsibilities. This paper makes an empirical and conceptual contribution to the debates on “social contracts” for adaptation, offering an operationalization of the concept and application to a real-world example through an actor lens.