Pro-government Anti-government Armed Groups? Toward Theorizing Pro-government “Government Challengers”

ABSTRACT

This study challenges the presentation of non-state armed groups as divided into anti-government rebels and pro-government proxies and proposes that some pro-government armed groups maintain explicit anti-government rhetoric. It is this anti-government agenda that enables “pro-government” groups to successfully recruit their members and to advance their interests. From Iraq’s Shiite militias to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Afghan Uzbek warlords, there are numerous armed groups which, on the one hand, officially maintain pro-government stance and, on the other hand, explicitly criticize, oppose and challenge the state. On a theoretical level, this study seeks to demonstrate that a “pro-government anti-government” group is a distinct category of non-state armed groups that neither directly engages in armed confrontation with the state nor complies with its agenda and policies or fully accepts its legitimacy. On an empirical level, this paper explores why individuals mobilize for pro-government anti-government armed groups. Unique micro-level interview data with members of volunteer militia battalions in Ukraine are employed to provide insights into the functioning of pro-government anti-government militants. Drawing upon its empirical findings, this study proposes that pro-government “government challengers” emerge and persist because these groups are more efficient than the government in the provision of security and in promoting the incumbent’s ideology.

KEYWORDS:

• Armed groups
• intrastate conflict
• East Ukraine conflict
• pro-government

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. Anthony Vinci, Armed Groups and the Balance of Power (New York, NY: Routledge, 2009); Tobias Böhmelt and Govinda Clayton, “Auxiliary Force Structure: Paramilitary Forces and Progovernment Militias,” Comparative Political Studies 51, no. 2 (2018): 197–237; Kimberly Marten, “Warlordism in Comparative Perspective,” International Security 31, no. 3 (2007): 41–73.

^2. Paul Collier, “Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity,” Journal of Conflict resolution 44, no. 6 (2000): 839–53.

^3. Ami Pedahzur, Leonard Weinberg and Arie Perliger, Political Parties and Terrorist Groups (London, UK: Routledge, 2000); Richard English, Irish Freedom: A History of Nationalism in Ireland (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2008); Diego Muro, Ethnicity and Violence: The Case of Radical Basque Nationalism (London, UK: Routledge, 2013).

^4. Govinda Clayton and Andrew Thomson, “The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend … The Dynamics of Self-Defense Forces in Irregular War: The Case of the Sons of Iraq,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 37, no. 11 (2014): 920–35.

^5. Shane Barter, “State Proxy or Security Dilemma? Understanding Anti-Rebel Militias in Civil War,” Asian Security 9, no. 2 (2013): 75–92.

^6. Ellen Lust-Okar, “Divided they Rule: The Management and Manipulation of Political Opposition,” Comparative Politics 36, no. 2 (2004): 159–79; Kay B. Warren, The Violence Within: Cultural and Political Opposition in Divided Nations (London, UK: Routledge, 2018).

^7. Stephen M. Saideman, “When Conflict Spreads: Arab Spring and the Limits of Diffusion,” International Interactions 38, no. 5 (2012): 713–22.

^8. This study distinguishes “government challengers” as a broader category than PGMs, which includes, but not limited to, all organized armed groups that at least temporarily maintain pro-government position. Examples of such groups, along with militias, are pro-government warlords, armed wings of political parties, tribal factions and ethno-sectarian activist groups.

^9. Bohmelt and Clayton, “Auxiliary Force Structure” (see note 1); Neil J. Mitchell and Sabine C. Carey, “Pro-Government Militias and Conflict,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2016); Sabine C. Carey, Michael P. Colaresi and Neil J. Mitchell, “Governments, Informal Links to Militias, and Accountability,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 5 (2015): 850–76.

^10. Bohmelt and Clayton, “Auxiliary Force Structure” (see note 1); Carey et al., “Governments, Informal Links to Militias, and Accountability” (see note 9).

^11. Mitchell and Carey, “Pro-Government Militias and Conflict” (see note 9), 8.

^12. Carey et al., “Governments, Informal Links to Militias, and Accountability” (see note 9), 851.

^13. Mitchell and Carey, “Pro-Government Militias and Conflict” (see note 9), 4.

^14. Ibid., 817.

^15. Geraint Hughes and Christian Tripodi, “Anatomy of a Surrogate: Historical Precedents and Implications for Contemporary Counter-Insurgency and Counter-Terrorism,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 20, no. 1 (2009): 1–35.

^16. Ana Arjona and Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Recruitment into Armed Groups in Colombia: A Survey of Demobilized Fighters,” in Understanding Collective Political Violence, edited by Yvan Guichaoua (London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 143–71; Clayton and Thomson, “The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend … The Dynamics of Self-Defense Forces in Irregular War” (see note 4); Metin Gurcan, “Arming Civilians as a Counterterror Strategy: The Case of the Village Guard System in Turkey,” Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict 8, no. 1 (2015): 1–22; Mario Fumerton, “Rondas Campesinas in the Peruvian Civil War: Peasant Self‐defence Organisations in Ayacucho,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 20, no. 4 (2001): 470–97.

^17. Julie Mazzei, Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces? How Paramilitary Groups Emerge and Challenge Democracy in Latin America (Chapel Hill, NC: Univ of NC Press, 2009), 99–125.

^18. An edited volume by Berman and Lake is one of the few studies to demonstrate the complexity of relations between principals and local proxies. See Eli Berman and David A. Lake, Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence through Local Agents (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019).

^19. It must be noted that incompatibility between the “government challengers” and government often emerge not at the level of governmental institutions’ structure, but against individuals leading these institutions. If this is the case, and if new governmental leadership emerged that was more closely aligned with the political interests of the challenger groups, and resulted in a lower willingness by the “government challengers” to criticize and delegitimize it, then the group could be expected to cease functioning as a “government challenger.”

^20. Bohmelt and Clayton, “Auxiliary Force Structure” (see note 1).

^21. Yet not all “government challengers” are bottom-up groups. For example, in contrast to the Ukrainian battalions, Hezbollah challenges the basic distribution of power in the confessional Lebanese regime that discriminates against Shiite Muslims who make at least a plurality of the population, but only entitled to the third most powerful position in the country. In this regard, it is qualitatively different from the PMF in Iraq which serves to protect the status quo (i.e., the political supremacy of the Shiite majority). Nevertheless, all of these and many other similar armed organizations share similar “government challenger” characteristics.

^22. Susannah George, “Breaking Badr,” Foreign Policy, November 6, 2014, https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/06/breaking-badr/.

^23. Carey et al., “Governments, Informal Links to Militias, and Accountability” (see note 9).

^24. Andrew England, “Iraq’s Shia Militias: Capturing the State,” Financial Times, July 31, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/ba4f7bb2-6d4d-11e8-852d-d8b934ff5ffa.

^25. Mitchell and Carey, “Pro-Government Militias and Conflict” (see note 9).

^26. Similar dynamics within principal-agent model were identified by Max Abrahms in relations between leader and rank-and-file members of insurgent groups. See Max Abrahms, Rules for Rebels: The science of Victory in Militant History (Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2018).

^27. Isabel Coles and Ghassan Adnan, “Iraq Kingmaker’s Daunting Task: Lift the Poor of Sadr City,” The Wall Street Journal, June 03, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/iraq-kingmakers-daunting-task-lift-the-poor-of-sadr-city-1528023600.

^28. Rhys Dubin, “Iraq’s Militias Set Their Sights on Political Power,” Foreign Policy, January 30, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/iraqs-militias-are-setting-their-sights-on-power/; Tamer El-Ghobashy and Mustafa Salim, “Iraqi Election Seen as a Contest between Iran’s Challenger and America’s Incumbent,” The Washington Post, May 11, 2018, www.washingtonpost.com›middle_east›2018/05/10.

^29. El-Ghobashy and Salim, “Iraqi Election Seen as a Contest between Iran’s Challenger and America’s Incumbent”  (see note 29).

^30. Mona Alami, “Iraq’s Shiite Militias Hope Battlefield Wins Secure Electoral Victory,” Al-Monitor, April 27, 2018, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/iraq-election-shiite-militias-iran.html; The New Arab, “Iraq Report: Elections without Participation is no Democracy,” The New Arab, May 10, 2018, https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2018/5/10/the-iraq-report-elections-without-participation-is-no-democracy.

^31. See Berman and Lake, Proxy Wars (see note 18).

^32. Huseyn Aliyev, “End to Informality? Examining the Impact of Institutional Reforms on Informal Institutions in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine,” Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 24, no. 3 (2016): 207–21.

^33. Mitchell and Carey, “Pro-Government Militias and Conflict” (see note 9), 9.

^34. Clayton and Thomson, “The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend … The Dynamics of Self-Defense Forces in Irregular War” (see note 4).

^35. Al-Jazeera, “Shia Militias Using Arms from 16 Countries: Amnesty,” Al-Jazeera, January 5, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/shia-militias-arms-16-countries-amnesty-170105081540036.html.

^36. Priyanka Boghani, “Iraq’s Shia Militias: The Double-Edged Sword Against ISIS,” PBS.org., March 21, 2017, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/iraqs-shia-militias-the-double-edged-sword-against-isis/.

^37. Huseyn Aliyev, “‘No Peace, No War’ Proponents? How Pro-Regime Militias Affect Civil War Termination and Outcomes,” Cooperation & Conflict 54, no. 1 (2018): 64–82.

^38. Coles and Adnan, “Iraq Kingmaker’s Daunting Task“ (see note 28).

^39. Lionel Beehner, “Shiite Militias and Iraq’s Security Forces,” Council on Foreign Relations, November 30, 2005, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/shiite-militias-and-iraqs-security-forces.

^40. Montana Hunter, “Crowdsourced War: The Political and Military Implications of Ukraine’s Volunteer Battalions 2014–2015,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 18, no. 3 (2018): 96–97.

^41. Thomas Howes-Ward, “Libya’s Foreign Militias,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 10, 2018, https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/76034.

^42. Patrick Cockburn, “Violence Erupts in Basra as Iraqi Forces Battle Mehdi Army,” The Independent, March 26, 2008, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/violence-erupts-in-basra-as-iraqi-forces-battle-mehdi-army-800588.html.

^43. Huseyn Aliyev, “When Neighbourhood Goes to War. Exploring the Effect of Belonging on Violent Mobilization in Ukraine,” Eurasian Geography and Economics. Online first. doi:10.1080/15387216.2020.1756366.

^44. A former “Azov” commander, Serhiy Korotkykh, is a top-ranking official in the Police Department. Another former “Azov” colonel, Wadim Troyan, served as the chief of Kyiv police.

^45. See for example karyera, “Karyera” (in Ukrainian), http://azov.org.ua/karyera/.

^46. See Anatoly Shariy, “Ya khochu rasskazat o tom, chto delal DUK tri goda nazad” (in Russian), Anatoly Shariy YouTube Channel, July 7, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYvoPs8-uCglist=WLt=1sindex=127.

^47. Natsionalny Korrespondent, “Zayava Andiya Biletskogo z privodu Natsionalnoi Gvardii,” Natsionalny Korrespondent, January 01, 2017, https://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/bileckyj/587a3805370f5/.

^48. See Karpenko Maksim, “Glavnyi 'pravosek' obvinyl Poroshenko - voruyet esche bolshe Yanukovicha!“ (in Russian), Politnavigator, June 20, 2015, https://www.politnavigator.net/glavnyjj-pravosek-obvinil-poroshenko-voruet-eshhe-bolshe-yanukovicha.html.

^49. See NewsOne, “Semenchenko obvinyl Poroshenko, Groysmana i Gritzaka v finansirovanii terrorizma“ (in Russian), NewsOne, January 27, 2017, https://newsone.ua/news/politics/semenchenko-obvinil-poroshenko-grojsmana-i-gricaka-v-finansirovanii-terrorizma.html.

^50. See RiaNovosti, “U Rady protestuyut neskol'ko desyatkov chelovek” (in Russian), RiaNovosti, October 27, 2017, https://ria.ru/world/20171027/1507661431.html.

^51. Dmytro Yarosh at the “Right Sector” rally on Kyiv Maidan square on July 21, 2015.

^52. Semen Semenchenko’s interview with Kyiv Post on 24 August 2014.

^53. “Azov” spokesperson in interview to Ukrainskaia Pravda on August 27, 2016.

^54. Hunter, “Crowdsourced War” (see note 39), 89.

^55. Huseyn Aliyev, “The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility and Progovernment Mobilization in East Ukraine conflict,” Comparative Political Studies 52, no. 8 (2019): 1200–31.

^56. By contrast, only 25 percent of the survey respondents indicated that they trust President Petro Poroshenko (68 percent distrust) and only 20 percent of the public expressed their trust to the government (73 percent distrust).

^57. See TsenzorNet, “Prezidentu doveryayut 24,8% ukraintsev, Pravit'elstvu - 19,8%, Verkhovnoy Rade - 13,8% - opros“ (in Russian), TsenzorNet, October 23, 2017, https://censor.net.ua/news/460202/prezidentu_doveryayut_248_ukraintsev_pravitelstvu_198_verhovnoyi_rade_138_opros.

^58. See Aleksandra Gorchynskaya, “Ya poka ne beru avtomat i ne idu s nim v Genprokuraturu“ (in Russian), NV, February 10, 2016, https://nv.ua/publications/malorossija-protiv-ukrainy-semenchenko-rasskazal-ob-arestah-dobrovoltsev-i-o-tom-pochemu-prodolzhaetsja-vojna-96484.html.

^59. Huseyn Aliyev, When Informal Institutions Change. Institutional Reforms and Informal Practices in the Former Soviet Union (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2017).

^60. The founder of “Azov” stated in an interview to Liga.net on August 12, 2015, that “the regiment [‘Azov’] now looks like an army of some Baltic country, or Germany, certainly not like the Ukrainian army.”

^61. See Yan Avseyushkyn, “Po tu storonu polka Azov” (in Russian), Focus, August 5, 2017, https://focus.ua/long/377902/.

^62. Stepan Bayda, “Azov” spokesman in interview to “112” TV channel on August 31, 2015.

^63. See Vsevolod Nekrasov, “Pyat' luchshikh innovatsiy volonterov, prinyatykh na vooruzheniye armiyei” (in Russian), Ekonomicheskaya Pravda, August 2, 2018, https://www.epravda.com.ua/rus/publications/2018/08/2/639236/.

^64. Huseyn Aliyev, “Strong Militias, Weak States and Armed Violence: Towards a Theory of ‘State-Parallel’ Paramilitaries,” Security Dialogue 47, no. 6 (2016): 498–516.

^65. Ilmari Käihkö, “A Nation-in-the-making, in Arms: Control of Force, Strategy and the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions,” Defense Studies 18, no. 2 (2018): 147–66, 154.

^66. For example, “Azov” interprets the usage of runic Wolfsangel symbols on its insignia as representing letters “N” and “I,” which stand for “National Idea.” It employs the symbol in order to appeal to both ultranationalists (“ultras”) and the patriotic membership.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Glasgow [Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Fellowship].

Notes on contributors

Huseyn Aliyev

Huseyn Aliyev is a Lecturer at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. He specializes in armed conflicts and non-state armed groups. Huseyn is an author of When Informal Institutions Change: Institutional Reforms and Informal Practices in the Former Soviet Union (University of Michigan Press, 2017). Huseyn’s most recent publications appeared in Comparative Political Studies (2019), Cooperation & Conflict (2018), Terrorism and Political Violence (2017), Security Dialogue (2016), and International Security (2015).