States, the security sector, and the monopoly of violence

Abstract

This article introduces the global Pro-Government Militias Database (PGMD). Despite the devastating record of some pro-government groups, there has been little research on why these forces form, under what conditions they are most likely to act, and how they affect the risk of internal conflict, repression, and state fragility. From events in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria and the countries of the Arab Spring we know that pro-government militias operate in a variety of contexts. They are often linked with extreme violence and disregard for the laws of war. Yet research, notably quantitative research, lags behind events. In this article we give an overview of the PGMD, a new global dataset that identifies pro-government militias from 1981 to 2007. The information on pro-government militias (PGMs) is presented in a relational data structure, which allows researchers to browse and download different versions of the dataset and access over 3,500 sources that informed the coding. The database shows the wide proliferation and diffusion of these groups. We identify 332 PGMs and specify how they are linked to government, for example via the governing political party, individual leaders, or the military. The dataset captures the type of affiliation of the groups to the government by distinguishing between informal and semi-official militias. It identifies, among others, membership characteristics and the types of groups they target. These data are likely to be relevant to research on state strength and state failure, the dynamics of conflict, including security sector reform, demobilization and reintegration, as well as work on human rights and the interactions between different state and non-state actors. To illustrate uses of the data, we include the PGM data in a standard model of armed conflict and find that such groups increase the risk of civil war.

Civilianizing Civil Conflict: Civilian Defense Militias and the Logic of Violence in Intrastate Conflict

“…We contribute to the emerging body of literature centered on the effects of progovernment militias (Ahram 2011;Carey, Mitchell and Lowe 2013;Mitchell 2011, 2015;Peic 2014;Stanton 2015). We offer one of the first systematic investigations into the effects that militias exert on the dynamics of civil conflict.…”

“…Some groups comprise off-duty military or police, which should offer no distinct advantage for gaining information. Recent literature makes some in-roads in discussing pro-government militia heterogeneity, but still fails to delineate the varied nature of these actors and their impact on civil-war dynamics (Ahram 2014;Barter 2013;Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe 2013). This article contributes towards a better understanding of the impact of pro-government militias on civil-war dynamics by focusing on the effects of one particular sub-set of militias: civilian defense forces.…”

“…Non-civilian defense forces operate in a variety of contexts with diverse operational parameters, ranging from personal guards, to security forces operating in non-civil war settings. For example, the "Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps" protected business interests in China and the "White Eagles" in Serbia-a militarily organized state-led group-conducted various attacks during the dissolution of former Yugoslavia (Mitchell, Carey, and Lowe 2013). In other words, while civilian defense forces exhibit particular characteristics in a counterinsurgent context, the non-civilian defense force category captures a variety of pro-government militias.…”

“…We use the pro-government militia database to operationalize civilian defense forces (Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe, 2013). This cross-national database captures the presence of progovernment militias by applying a uniform coding scheme to publically available news sources.…”

“…We relied primarily on the news sources within the Pro-Government Militia online relational database in order to code civilian defense forces (Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe 2013). …”