Armed Conflict Beyond Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: Comparative Evidence from Latin America and South Asia
Abstract
Violent conflicts in the 21st century involve an increasingly diverse array of armed groups, from drug cartels and prison gangs to warlords, militias, and armed political parties. Conflicts, whether in Mexico, Iraq, or northwestern Pakistan, have not followed the standard dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency; instead, non-state groups both clash and cooperate with governments. Some groups pose dire threats to state-building, democratic stability, and rule of law; others act as useful local partners in areas of unrest; still others slowly corrupt state institutions from within. This has direct implications for national defense and that of our allies, because policies that neutralize or co-opt one type of armed actor may empower others; indeed, classic militarized interventions have often proved tragically counterproductive. Yet there is remarkably little research that compares how different types of armed groups form, fund themselves, and interact with state power. Does a reliance on criminal activities and systematic police corruption have similar implications for fighting the Haqqani network in Pakistan as it does for MexicoÕs drug cartels? Could the spread of prison-based criminal networks in Brazil be a harbinger of prison-based radicalization in South Asia? There is simply no systematic basis for answering questions such as these. This leaves decision-makers, protecting U.S. strategic interests against novel threats, with weak theory and scant comparative evidence to inform government strategy and develop effective policy. Our project is a 3-year program of basic research, bringing a rigorous, empirically intensive, cross-regional perspective to these questions. The project has two components: first, we will conduct field and archival research on a wide range of armed groups in Latin America and South Asia, producing a series of narrative case studies of over two dozen groups. Second, we will use the accumulated qualitative material to produce quantitative datasets of armed groupsÕ key characteristics and their interactions with states. This mix of evidence will allow us to systematically categorize, compare, and develop predictive theories of how different types of armed groups react to and interact with states. Both our qualitative and quantitative data will go beyond extant datasets that focus on conflict as a dichotomous variable by measuring a much broader and richer range of armed-group relationships to states. As these novel armed groups propagate, often below the radar of policy analysts focused on todayÕs immediate crises, our project will provide a scientific basis for defense analysts to address new threats decision-makers are likely to face in the years to come. The same factors that make Latin America and South Asia strategically important regions make them especially apt for this study: both feature an astonishing range of armed-group types, from ideological to purely criminal, many financed by drug-trafficking and other illicit activities, and many engaged in electoral politics. These groups and their varied relationship to state forcesÑfrom corruption and collusion to outright combatÑpose new threats to allied governments and new challenges for policymakers and advisors, but also an opportunity for generating new knowledge through systematic study. Our project leverages each investigatorÕs distinct regional expertise and experience in the field to create innovative data for basic research on contemporary armed conflict: extensive historical narratives on armed groups and their interactions with governments, and a cross-regional quantitative data set of armed-group state relations. Both sources of data will become a public resource for future researchers and policymakers...
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 14, 2019
- Source ID
- W911NF1710044
Entities
People
- Paul Staniland
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- University of Chicago