Global Politics and Violent Non-State Actors by Natasha Ezrow

Author:Natasha Ezrow [Ezrow, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, Security (National & International), Terrorism, General
ISBN: 9781526421555
Google: lWYCDgAAQBAJ
Publisher: SAGE
Published: 2017-03-13T09:38:14+00:00

Political Ideology and Objectives

Warlords do not have political motivations, though they sometimes may pretend to. Their main motivation is self-enrichment, not state-building or any sort of collective interest. Jean-Germain Gros writes that they have the ‘emotional immaturity of teenage fighters’ (Gros, 1996: 459). Other scholars concur that warlords are one-dimensional and mostly engage in indiscriminate violence against the population under their control (Lezhnev, 2006). They are devoid of any ideology and, unlike leaders of insurgencies, they do not have to constantly reinforce some sort of ideology.

Because the warlord controls some territory, they sometimes provide some governance structures, but they do not have anything that even comes close to resembling a bureaucracy. The warlord organization has no distinction between the political and military organizations. The militia intervenes in all aspects of political life and the civilian/military balance is dysfunctional (Rich, 1999: 6).

Warlords usually do not provide any sort of public good or service, and if they do, the recipients are carefully chosen. The most they usually offer as a public good are distributions of cash, gifts and arms to their supporters. Any goods that the warlord provides only cement their clientelistic networks (Giustozzi, 2004). In the rare cases in which a warlord has provided some public goods, the net benefits are still low. One example is Mutiullah Khan, a warlord who operated in the Oruzgan Province of Afghanistan. He built 70 mosques on his territory and provided scholarships to local students to study in Kabul (Filkins, 2010). However, the highway in his territory was unsafe to pass, making trade on the highway limited. Moreover, very little economic growth was allowed to take place outside of businesses that he controlled. In general, warlords do not care if the territory they control deteriorates.

In contrast, the insurgent has no interest in the decline of the area that they are operating. Insurgencies are also not always overthrowing a collapsing state. The motivation of the insurgent is political, not commercial. The insurgency also actually wants to govern. The warlord wants to maintain a low-intensity conflict, while the insurgent wants to attain power to provide a political good. Insurgents may seek to replace an existing government, gain more autonomy or secede from a state. For example, the Chechens wanted to secede from Russia. Though they committed terrible atrocities against the Russians (and vice versa), some of the Chechen violent non-state actors had a legitimate political agenda.

In spite of their lack of ideological agenda, most warlords operate under the pretence of having a political agenda. In fact, many warlords pretend to helm some sort of political organization, such as Charles Taylor in Liberia, Joseph Kony in Uganda and Foday Sankoh in Sierra Leone. They only aim to control territory and defy the state. The militia that works under their command may not operate under the assumption that they are fighting on behalf of a political movement, however.

In spite of this lack of political interest, nearly all warlords in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo and Liberia held high office at one point prior to emerging as warlords.

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