Militarized groups like Hamas function as civil-society responses to state collapse under aggressive neoliberalism.

Evidence

I think it more compelling to understand both as representing robust, organized responses from the realm of civil society to the sort of state demise and destruction that an aggressive, militarized neoliberalism has come to signal for those state formations not passing the latter’s test for legitimacy. Here, such organizations are as much complements as competitors to states shirking their longerstanding caretaker commitment in favor overwhelmingly of their purely state repressive functionalities. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 652

Categorization

• DEFINE: Reinterprets ‘states within states’ framing: these organizations are civil-society complements to, not just competitors with, failed states.