Peace Processes and the Integration of Pro-Government Militias: The Case of Village Guards in Turkey

Date01 January 2022
AuthorMurat Yüksel,Evren Balta,Yasemin Gülsüm Acar
Published date01 January 2022
DOI10.1177/0095327X20910769
Subject MatterArticles
2022, Vol. 48(1) 205 –227
Peace Processes and the
Integration of Pro-
Government Militias:
The Case of Village
Guards in Turkey
Evren Balta
1
, Murat Yu
¨ksel
2
and Yasemin Gu
¨lsu
¨m Acar
3
Abstract
Militia groups have only recently started to attract scholarly attention in the liter-
ature 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 pre-
vented militia groups from acting as spoilers. It then argues that the permanent
integration of wartime militia systems is a consequence of two factors: militia net-
working and a lack of comprehensive peace-building structures.
1
Department of International Relations, O
¨zyeg
˘in University, _
Istanbul, Turkey
2
Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Adana Science and Technology University,
Turkey
3
Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, United Kingdom
Corresponding Author:
Evren Balta, Department of International Relations, O
¨zyeg
˘in University, _
Istanbul, Turkey.
Email: evren.balta@ozyegin.edu.tr
Armed Forces & Society
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20910769
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Article
206 Armed Forces & Society 48(1)
Keywords
pro-government militias, village guards, peace process, Turkey
On May 4, 2009, masked assailants with grenades and automatic weapons attacked
an engagement ceremony in southeastern Turkey, killing 44, including 6 children
and 17 women. The attack was acknowledged by the Turkish government authorities
to be one of the bloodiest involving civilians in Turkey’s modern history. State
authorities initially presented it as a manifestation of archaic identities and customs,
of tribes and blood feuds (Retrieved October 4, 2019, from https://www.reuters.com/
article/us-turkey-attack/family-rivals-kill-44-over-bride-feud-in-turkey-idUS
TRE5436CD20090505). It was soon discovered, however, that both the attackers
and the attacked belonged to the village guard forces, which is a semiofficial, locally
recruited (and active) armed group linked to the government, but whic h remain
outside the regular military apparatus. The village guard system was originally set
up by the Turkish state in the mid-1980s to protect southeastern towns and villages
from the attacks and reprisals of the armed militant organization, the Kurdista n
Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkere
ˆn Kurdistan [PKK]). It is an example of a pro-
government militia that is locally recruited and organized under the government to
support the regular military.
Pro-government militias in various forms have become important and sometimes
powerful actors in intrastate conflicts, especially in counterinsurgency efforts. They
were present in 81%of intrastate conflict zones between 1981 and 2007, and more
than half of these groups emerged during civil wars (Carey et al., 2015; Carey et al.,
2013). In all cases, ironically, after the military conflict is over or the intensity of the
conflict decreases, controlling or dissolving these groups becomes a new issue for
state control and sustaining peace-building processes. Indeed, some peace-building
perspectives focus on the importance of dismantling all types of militia systems that
have emerged throughout the conflict and warn against the possible permanent
integration of former militias into the state’s regular military apparatus (Alden
et al., 2011).
The case of the village guard system in Turkey confirms the pattern of permanent
integration of militias into the state’s regular military apparatus during peace pro-
cesses. Turkey’s village guards were established in 1984 as a temporary security
measure to increase the tactical performance of the Turkish military against the
PKK. Based on the two-dimensional typology of militia systems developed by Carey
and Mitchell (2017), we classify village guards as a pro-government militia that is
semiofficial and locally recruited/active. During the conflict, the Turkish govern-
ment recruited militias from the local population and established semiofficial links
with them. Over time, however, the recruitment and use of village guards has
become a channel to transform the one-dimensional space of ethnic identity
2Armed Forces & Society XX(X)

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