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.

Abstract 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.

This article presents version 2.0 of the Pro-Government Militias Database (PGMD). It is increasingly clear that it is untenable to assume a unified security sector, as states often rely on militias to carry out security tasks. The PGMD 2.0 provides new opportunities for studying questions such as when states rely on militias, how they chose among different types and the consequences for stability and peace. We detail how the PGMD 2.0 provides new information on the characteristics, behaviour, life cycle and organization of 504 pro-government militias across the globe between 1981 and 2014.

Separatists and Spoilers: The UAE’s Way of Proxy Warfare

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.

Abstract Scholars increasingly call for documentation and analysis of specific forms of conflict-related sexual violence. Moreover, accountability for crimes is stronger when specific patterns of victimization are documented. This article introduces the Repertoires of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (RSVAC) data package, which assembles reports from 1989 to 2015 of forms of sexual violence by government/states forces, insurgent/rebel organizations, and pro-government militias for each conflict and year. RSVAC compiles the reported prevalence of eight forms of sexual violence – rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage, forced prostitution, sexual mutilation, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization and abortion, non-penetrative sexual torture, and sexual abuse (as well as that of multiple-perpetrator reports of each form). It includes extensive qualitative notes on reported incidents, as well as ‘conflict manuscripts’ that include the relevant portions of source documents. Disaggregating ‘sexual violence’ into its distinct forms enables analysis of the reported presence of forms of sexual violence across time, conflicts, and organizations. We illustrate its usefulness by highlighting hitherto neglected global patterns it suggests, and also discuss limitations, potential biases and underreporting that users need to take into account. We outline several research questions that the data can help answer and suggest how the data package could inform policy efforts to address sexual violence and its consequences.

ABSTRACT 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.

ABSTRACT Along with Iraqi security forces, pro-government militias, known as Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF, also “Hashd al-Shaabi” in Arabic), played a significant role in defeating ISIS. Iraq's engagement with these armed groups during the fight against ISIS empowered and legitimised them within the country. Yet, they often committed human rights violations and were involved in violent activities against the United States embassy, personnel, and military bases. However, since 2014, these groups have been acting as pro-government militias and are legally part of the Iraqi security forces. Yet, some of them have declared loyalty to Iran and act as proxy forces for Tehran. This article argues that pro-government militias in post-ISIS Iraq have negative impacts on security and human rights in the country because most of these groups were previously established based on sectarian factors and proximity to Iran. It also argues that while they are largely regarded as having had an essential role in defeating ISIS, their presence in a post-ISIS Iraq will threaten Iraq's stability.

ABSTRACT Ethnic defection and pro-government militias are two recurring features of ethnic conflicts. There is a strong connection between these two elements, with incumbents using militias to absorb defectors from rebel constituencies into their ranks. However, relatively little work has been carried out on this link. Most works exploring ethnic defection have treated these defector militias, as the article refers to them, as the result of ethnic defection. This research offers an alternative hypothesis: Rather than tools for administrating and controlling defection, governments in ethnic civil wars often view militias as a tool for enhancing and facilitating ethnic defection. The socio-political functions of militias may triumph over military ones in governments’ consideration to form and sustain such defector militias. The article employs two case studies to support this hypothesis, these of the ethnic conflicts in northern Iraq and southern Sudan.

The militia as an informal pro-government irregular force helps government forces through a range of asymmetric security threats. Since 9/11, the employment of militia forces has been on the rise. Although the informal Pro-Government Militias (PGMs) operate in juxtaposition with the regular land forces, they are loosely aligned with them. Given the nativity of its members to the battlefield, a militia is best suited to comprehend the operational and tactical situation and, making itself a viable option for state-led forces both from the perspective of low-cost force or its flexibility to deal with irregular threats. Most informal PGMs maintain a stronger ideological and political base, they do not often care about the limitation of their sponsoring state's sovereignty and the legitimacy of their actions. They may even develop linkages with the terrorist outfits for their immediate goals. This puts national security in grave danger. Given the risks, weaker states become vulnerable at the hands of their sponsored militants. Still, the state-led forces will remain inclined to exploit such paramilitary forces to let them shoulder the burden of national security against asymmetric threats.

ABSTRACT Exploring the role of foreign-sponsored pro-government militias in counter-insurgency efforts, this article shows how the proxy war concept maps onto the Syrian conflict as we demonstrate both its contributions and limitations. Drawing on rare access to Syrian and foreign security actors inside Syria, we argue that the Syrian war, while rightly labelled a proxy war, sits uneasily with and at times even contradicts a set of scholarly assumptions and emphases on proxy wars when looked at from a counter-insurgency perspective. Accordingly, proxies were relevant not just as rebels but also as counter-insurgents. Sponsors included state and non-state actors alike, were manifold, and did not necessarily have exclusive relations to their proxies. They were also much more intensely involved with their proxies than generally expected from a war at arm’s length. Principal–agent relations this way ceased to be dyadic and hierarchical. What emerged was a heterarchical order, with parallel hierarchies tying proxies to their sponsors fiercely in competition with one another. This allowed and encouraged proxies to carve out leverage and agency of their own just as it fed into the Syrian regime’s resilience in averting a ‘double crisis of sovereignty’. Given the scale and success of its counter-insurgency efforts, the Syrian case calls for reconsidering proxy wars of the past while it may constitute a watershed development for how proxy wars are to be waged in the future.

ABSTRACT Scholars have increasingly disaggregated domestic terrorism from transnational terrorism and sought to understand the causal factors of the former by focusing on endogenous features of the state and the actions of the government that either provoke or create opportunities for the occurrence of domestic terrorist attacks, especially repressive actions of the government. These arguments are implicitly framed by a unitary view of the state within intra-state conflict. The conflict literature, however, has increasingly looked beyond this unitary view and examined the role and impact of pro-government militias (PGMs) as a tactical means of increasing the state’s ability to wage violence. Using negative binomial analysis of data on domestic terrorism and PGMs, this article demonstrates that PGM activity that serves as a force multiplier for official security forces increases the likelihood of an increase in domestic terrorism, an argument that is robust to various model specifications.

ABSTRACT 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.

Abstract Researchers have identified naming and shaming as a strategy used by the international community to reprimand state leaders for their repressive actions. Previous research indicates that there is variation in the success of this tactic. One reason for the heterogeneity in success is that leaders with an interest in repressing opposition but avoiding international condemnation have adapted their behavior, at least partially, to avoid naming and shaming. For instance, some states choose to create and utilize alternative security apparatuses, such as pro-government militias (PGMs), to carry out these repressive acts. Creating or aligning with PGMs allows leaders to distance themselves from the execution of violence while reaping the rewards of repression. This analysis explores this dynamic. In particular, I examine how naming and shaming by Amnesty International and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights influences the creation of PGMs to skirt future international condemnation by the offending state for all states from 1986 to 2000. I find that countries are more likely to create PGMs, especially informal PGMs, after their human rights abuses have been put in the spotlight by the international community.

Within a year, the Syrian uprising in March 2011 developed into a civil war that gradually escalated and within 9 years killed over half a million people, displaced half the country’s prewar population, devastated the economy, and destabilized the entire region, and even the world. The Syrian civil war split the country into four factions that were continuously at war with each other with intermittent, unstable ceasefires: the Assad regime, the various rebel groups, the Kurds, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Assad regime was responsible for the bulk of the violence against civilians, qualitatively and quantitatively. Its violent crackdown on the mass protests in Syria became more extensive and intensive throughout the first years of the conflict. A key aspect of the regime’s repression against the population was its use of paramilitary forces, the so-called “ Shabbiha,” a catch-all category for irregular, pro-government militias dressed in (semi-)civilian gear and linked organically to the regime. From 2012 onward, they gradually became formalized, first in the Popular Committees (اللجان الشعبيه), and then in the National Defense Forces (قوات الدفاع الوطني) (NDF). Their violence strongly polarized sectarian relations in Syria, and therefore the Shabbiha are vital to understanding the broader conflict. This article will look at the mobilization and violence of the Shabbiha in the city of Homs. It is based on a combination of sources including ethnographic research, interviews with Shabbiha members, social media content, video clips, leaked documents, and testimonies of victims and other eye witnesses.

Militia groups have only recently started to attract scholarly attention in the literature on internal conflicts. This attention is mostly focused on either the causes of their emergence or their functions and performance during the conflict. The role of militia groups in post-conflict processes, however, has not been adequately addressed. This article intends to fill this gap by analyzing the case of village guards, a type of pro-government militia system in Turkey, based on qualitative evidence from field research. While the dominant narrative in the literature identifies militia groups as spoilers in peace processes, the article shows that militias do not act as spoilers under certain conditions. In the case of the village guard system in Turkey, the permanent integration of militias into the state’s regular military apparatus prevented militia groups from acting as spoilers. It then argues that the permanent integration of wartime militia systems is a consequence of two factors: militia networking and a lack of comprehensive peace-building structures.

How do wartime legacies affect repression after the conflict ends? Irregular forces support the government in many civil wars. We argue that if this link continues after the war, respect for human rights declines. As “tried and tested” agents they are less likely to shirk when given the order to repress. Governments might also keep the militias as a “fall-back option”, which results in more repression. Analyzing data from 1981 to 2014 shows that pro-government militias that were inherited from the previous conflict are consistently associated with worse repression, but newly created ones are not. Wartime pro-government militias target a broader spectrum of the population and are linked to worse state violence. New militias usually supplement wartime ones and use violence primarily against political opponents. This study highlights the detrimental impact of war legacies.

ABSTRACT State security forces have been locked in an ongoing struggle with the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army (NPA) for nearly fifty years. Over the course of the conflict, thousands of civilians across generations have taken up arms and participated in the counterinsurgency campaign. Citizen Armed Force Geographical Units (CAFGU) and other pro-government militias have played a key auxiliary role in combatting the insurgency and providing community security. This article draws on survey and interview data collected from CAFGU participants to examine the factors that influence decisions to join, as well as their implications for sustained participation and counterinsurgency strategy. Existing research on joining armed groups recognizes how environmental conditions, group processes, and individual motives interact to help explain participation. We shift our focus to the realm of the household and highlight how considerations related to that site affect participation. Our findings suggest that the need to avoid economic disaster and ensure a secure subsistence can have a notable influence on decisions to enlist and individual experiences as CAFGU. These effects, in turn, have implications for how the Philippine government carries out its counterinsurgency.

ABSTRACT Scholars have argued that governments rely on pro-government militias forces due to low state capacity or international pressure that limits how they use military force within the context of civil wars. This article argues that governments also strategically use militias both inside and outside of civil wars to support the political legitimacy of local systems of governance in developing states, especially in peripheral areas with limited government control. This suggests that long-term political motivations need to be considered alongside short-term tactical goals for a comprehensive understanding of militia support. This theory is supported by case studies of Pashtun tribal militias in British India and Pakistan based on archival research, interviews, and relevant secondary sources.

Local Partners for Local Problems: When Does Foreign Intervention Build Civilian Support?