Implausible sovereigns and their organizational logic: violent non-state actors’ response to COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The havoc and disarray among governments and societies caused by the COVID-19 outbreak also invited opportunities for violent non-state actors to exploit for their advantage governments’ failure to provide an adequate public health response or their denigration of security apparatuses due to the outbreak. Focusing on the early months of the outbreak, this study examines three courses of actions taken by those actors and the potential explanation for the variation in responses. The responses examined are actors offering COVID-related public health response as a surrogate for the state, the extension of hostilities, and the request for a ceasefire. Looking at a sample of 72 groups we suggest that the actors’ governance levels, which dictate their organizational logic and behavior, are strong predictors for the likelihood of them offering public health support, conduct attacks, or pursues a ceasefire during the period examined.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance
• violent non-state actors
• COVID-19
• legitimacy
• organizational logic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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62. The list of organization is available on Appendix A.

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65. We explored twelve types of ideologies but incorporated only those that were significant in the analysis.

66. See note 54 above.

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86. We picked ordered logistic regression given two of our independent variables (public health response and adversarial response) are ordinal. For the third independent variable (ceasefire), which is a dummy variable, we run logistic regression instead.

87. See note 54 above.

88. Flanigan and Abdel‐Samad, “Hezbollah’s social jihad”; Flanigan, “Motivations and implications”; and Grynkewich. ‘Welfare as warfare.’

89. see note 59 above.

90. Ackerman and Peterson, “Terrorism and COVID-19”; Khalaf, “Governing Rojava”; MOSECON, “Terrorism and Covid-19”; Nicholson, “COVID-19 an opportunity for terrorists”; and Simons and Cristina, “The specter of terrorism.”

91. see note 7 above.

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94. Arjona et al., Rebel governance in civil war; Flanigan, “Service-seeking behavior; Flanigan, “Nonprofit service provision by insurgent organizations”; and Grynkewich, “Welfare as warfare.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ori Swed

Ori Swed is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Texas Tech University (www.oriswed.com). He is also the director of the Peace, War, & Social Conflict Laboratory at Texas Tech (www.pwscl.com). Ori is a former special forces and reserve captain in the Israeli Defense Forces as well as a former private security contractor. Ori’s scholarship has been focusing non-state actors in conflict setting; and technology and society. He wrote about violent non-state actors and the relations between technology and institutions in the context of security. Those include multiple publications in peer-review journals and an edited volume on the topic. His recent work on violent non-state actors’ utilization of drone technology include the three paper projects, three datasets on drones and terrorist organizations, and several academic conferences presentations on the topic. Beyond his scholarship, Ori gained broad field experience in the field of counter terrorism, security, and intelligence over the span of 12 years. He served in combat roles in the Israeli Defense Forces during the Second Intifada and the Second Lebanon War. Ori work as a consultant on advance technologies in the Israeli hi-tech industry and as a private security contractor.