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.
AcemogluDRobinsonJSantosR (2013) The monopoly of violence: Evidence from Colombia. Journal of the European Economic Association11: 5–44.
2.
AliyevH (2016) Strong militias, weak states and armed violence: Towards a theory of “state-parallel” paramilitaries. Security Dialogue47(6): 498–516.
3.
AliyevH (2020) Pro-Regime militias and civil War duration. Terrorism and Political Violence32(3): 630–650.
4.
ArnsonC., ed. (2005). The Peace Process in Colombia with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia—AUC. Number 13, Woodrow Wilson Center.
5.
AutesserreS (2007) D.R. Congo: Explaining peace building failures, 2003–2006. Review of African Political Economy 34: 423–441.
6.
BakkeKMCunninghamKGSeymourLJM (2012) A plague of initials: Fragmentation, cohesion, and infighting in civil wars. Perspectives on Politics10: 265–283.
7.
BengioO (1985) Shi’is and politics in ba’thi Iraq. Middle Eastern Studies21(1): 1–14.
8.
BoisvertM-A (2015) Failing at violence: The longer-lasting impact of pro-government militias in northern Mali since 2012. African Security8(4): 272–298.
9.
BolchCChuHJarosekS, et al. (2017) Inverse probability of treatment-weighted competing risks analysis: An application on long-term risk of urinary adverse events after prostate cancer treatments. BMC Medical Research Methodology 17: 93.
10.
CareySCMitchellNJ (2016) Pro-Government militias and conflict. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, October.
11.
CareySMitchellNJLoweW (2012) States, the security sector, and the monopoly of violence: A new database on pro-government militias. Journal of Peace Research50(2): 249–258.
12.
CareySColaresiMPMitchellNJ (2015) Governments, informal links to militias, and accountability. Journal of Conflict Resolution59(5): 850–876.
13.
CohenDKNordåsR (2015) Do states delegate shameful violence to militias? Patterns of sexual violence in recent armed conflicts. Journal of Conflict Resolution59(5): 877–898.
14.
CunninghamD (2006) Veto players and civil War duration. American Journal of Political Science50(4): 875–892.
15.
DegregoriI.1998. Harvesting storms: Peasant rondas and the defeat of Sendero Luminoso in Ayacucho. In SternS. (ed.) Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995. Duke University Press, pp. 128–157.
16.
DeVottaN (2011) Sri Lanka: From turmoil to dynasty. Journal of Democracy22(2): 130–144.
17.
DowdleAJ (2007) Civil wars, international conflicts and other determinants of paramilitary strength in Sub-Saharan Africa. Small Wars & Insurgencies18(2): 161–174.
18.
EckK (2015) Repression by proxy: How military purges and insurgency impact on the delegation of coercion. Journal of Conflict Resolution59(5): 924–946.
19.
EstanconaCBirdLHinkkainenK, et al. (2019) Civilian self-defense militias in civil war. International Interactions 45(2): 215–266.
20.
FineJPGrayRJ (1999) A proportional hazards model for the subdistribution of a competing risk. Journal of the American Statistical Association94: 496–509.
21.
FortnaVP (2015) Do terrorists win? Rebels’ use of terrorism and civil war outcomes. International Organization69: 519–556.
22.
GleditschKWardM (1999) Interstate system membership: A revised list of the independent states since 1816. International Interactions25: 393–413.
23.
JentzschCKalyvasSNSchubigerLI (2015) Militias in civil wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution59(5): 755–769.
24.
KalyvasSNBalcellsL (2010) International system and technologies of rebellion: How the end of the Cold War shaped internal conflict. The American Political Science Review104(3): 415–429.
25.
KammenD. (2001). The trouble with normal: The Indonesian military, paramilitaries, and the final solution in East Timor. In O’G. AndersonBR (ed.) Violence and the State in Suharto’s Indonesia. Cornell University Press, pp. 156–188.
26.
KaplowJ (2016) The negotiation Calculus: Why parties to conflict refuse to talk. International Studies Quarterly60: 38–46.
27.
KorenO (2017) Means to an end: Pro-government militias as a predictive indicator of strategic mass killing. Conflict Management and Peace Science34(5): 461–484.
28.
KreutzJ (2010) How and when armed conflicts end: Introducing the UCDP conflict termination dataset. Journal of Peace Research47(2): 243–250.
29.
LyallJ (2010) Are coethnics more effective counterinsurgents? Evidence from the second Chechen war. American Political Science Review104(1): 1–20.
30.
MarshallMGurrTJaggersK (2015) Polity IV. https://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.htm
31.
McGregorA (2012) The Sons of the Land: Tribal challenges to the tuareg conquest of northern Mali. Terrorism Monitor10: 8.
32.
MitchellNJCareySButlerCK (2014) The impact of pro-government militias on human rights violations. International Interactions40: 812–836.
33.
PeicG (2014) Civilian defense forces, state capacity, and government victory in counterinsurgency wars. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism37: 2.
34.
RobinsonG (2001) People’s war: Militias in East Timor and Indonesia. South East Asia Research9(3): 271–318.
35.
SaabBTaylorA (2009) Criminality and armed groups: A comparative study of FARC and paramilitary groups in Colombia. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 32(6):455–475.
36.
SegalD (1988) The Iran–Iraq war: A military analysis. Foreign Affairs66(5): 946–963.
37.
SmithMike. (2015)Boko Haram: Inside Nigeria’s Unholy War. London: I. B. Tauris.
38.
StanilandP (2015) Militias, ideology, and the state. Journal of Conflict Resolution59(5): 770–793.
39.
StantonJ (2015) Regulating militias governments, militias, and civilian targeting in civil War. Journal of Conflict Resolution59(5): 899–923.
40.
SteinertCVSteinertJICareyS (2018) Spoilers of peace: Pro-government militias as risk factors for conflict recurrence. Journal of Peace Research 56(2): 249–263.
41.
WalterB (1997) The critical barrier to civil War settlement. International Organization51(3): 335–364.
42.
WangGAbanI (2015) Application of inverse probability weights in survival analysis. Journal of Nuclear Cardiology 22: 611–613.
43.
ZartmanI. William. (1989). Ripe for Resolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
44.
ZartmanI. William. (2001). The timing of peace initiatives: Hurting stalemates and ripe moments. The Global Review of Ethnopolitics1(1):8–18.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
