Governments, Informal Links to Militias, and Accountability

• Published date: 01 August 2015
• Date: 01 August 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002715576747
• Author: Michael P. Colaresi,Sabine C. Carey,Neil J. Mitchell
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Governments, Informal

Links to Militias,

and Accountability

Sabine C. Carey

1

, Michael P. Colaresi

2

,

and Neil J. Mitchell

3

Abstract

From Syria to Sudan, governments have informal ties with militias that use violence

against opposition groups and civilians. Building on research that suggests these

groups offer governments logistical benefits in civil wars as well as political benefits in

the form of reduced liability for violence, we provide the first systematic global

analysis of the scale and patterns of these informal linkages. We find over 200

informal state–militia relationships across the globe, within but also outside of civil

wars. We illustrate how informal delegation of violence to these groups can help

some governments avoid accountability for violence and repression. Our empirical

analysis finds that weak democracies as well as recipients of financial aid from

democracies are particularly likely to form informal ties with militias. This rela-

tionship is strengthened as the monitoring costs of democratic donors increase.

Out-of-sample predictions illustrate the usefulness of our approach that views

informal ties to militias as deliberate government strategy to avoid accountability.

Keywords

civil wars, conflict, internal armed conflict, human rights

1

School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

2

Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

3

Department of Political Science, University College London, London, UK

Corresponding Author:

Sabine C. Carey, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Parkring 47, Mannheim 68159,

Germany.

Email: sabine.carey@uni-mannheim.de

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2015, Vol. 59(5) 850-876

ªThe Author(s) 2015

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/0022002715576747

jcr.sagepub.com

During the Sudan civil war, reports alleged that government helicopter gunships

dropped supplies in remote locations, not to supply uniformed government military

personnel but rather the armed gangs of the Janjaweed militia (Vasagar 2004). Sub-

sequent testimony from Janjaweed commanders explained the Sudanese govern-

ment’s role in sponsoring and working with the militia in unofficial capacities,

despite government denials (Meo 2008). In this article, we examine the enduring

attraction of armed non-state actors for governments.

A government clandestinely delivering weapons to groups outside the state secu-

rity apparatus is at odds with the idea of consolidating a monopoly on violence.

Despite the conventional view, there is no necessary process of monopolization (Sta-

niland 2015). Evidence suggests that armed groups, like the Janjaweed, often operate

in vague and informal concert with the state. Yet, with the exception of Ahram’s

(2011a) analysis of data from the 1970s and Bates’ (2008) work on state failure in

Africa, there is a lack of quantitative research in this area, while there is a rich case

study literature for Latin America (Mazzei 2009; Stanley 1996), Indonesia (Cribb

2001), Africa (Alvarez 2006; Kirschke 2000; Roessler 2005), and elsewhere (Camp-

bell and Brenner 2000; Kalyvas 2008; Mitchell 2004).

A new database includes global information from 1981 to 2007 on pro-

government militias (PGMs) and defines informal relations between the government

and a militia as those ‘‘not officially or formally acknowledged’’ by the government

(Mitchell and Carey 2013, 11). There are 218 of these relationships in over sixty

countries (Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe 2013).

1

Militia–government cooperation is

most likely in but not limited to episodes of armed conflict, as 42 percent of our

country-year observations with informal PGMs occur outside of armed conflict,

using the threshold of twenty-five battle-related deaths (Gleditsch et al. 2002). These

informal links can be found in a heterogeneous group of countries around the globe.

They are present in poor states, such as Sudan and Haiti, and in more developed

states, such as South Africa and Chile, as well as in autocracies such as Zimbabwe

and Burma, and in more democratic India, Spain, and Turkey.

Why delegate violence to armed groups instead of using the official security

apparatus? Why supply the Janjaweed when the Sudanese military itself lacked sup-

plies (‘‘Country Profile: Sudan’’ 2004)? We identify logistical and political incen-

tives for governments to informally collaborate with militias despite—and

because of—the limited control they have over them (see also Jentzsch, Kalyvas,

and Schubiger 2015). As a means to increase force numbers, to lower deployment

costs with likely information advantages in insurgencies, there are logistical incen-

tives to use these groups. Eck (2015), using a fine-grained subnational analysis,

explains delegation to militias as compensation for intelligence disruptions condi-

tional on military purges and civil war threat. In addition, such delegation carries the

political benefit of shifting responsibility (Fiorina 1985). Building on research on the

influence of accountability on government repression (e.g., Landman 2005; Sim-

mons 2009) and the case literature (e.g., Alvarez 2006; Kirschke 2000; Roessler

2005), we explain militias as an option for evading the accountability costs facing

Carey et al. 851