Small-arms proliferation and mercenaries enlarged African civil war feasibility after 1990

Evidence

War machines emerged in Africa during the last quarter of the twentieth century in direct relation to the erosion of the postcolonial state’s capacity to build the economic underpinnings of political authority and order. This capacity involves raising revenue and commanding and regulating access to natural resources within a well-defined territory. In the mid-1970s, as the state’s ability to maintain this capacity began to erode, there emerged a clear-cut link between monetary instability and spatial fragmentation. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 132 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Let’s take Africa as an example. Here, the political economy of statehood dramatically changed over the last quarter of the twentieth century. Many African states can no longer claim a monopoly on violence and on the means of coercion within their territory. Nor can they claim a monopoly on territorial boundaries. Coercion itself has become a market commodity. Military manpower is bought and sold on a market in which the identity of suppliers and purchasers means almost nothing. Urban militias, private armies, armies of regional lords, private security firms, and state armies all claim the right to exercise violence or to kill. Neighboring states or rebel movements lease armies to poor states. Nonstate deployers of violence supply two critical coercive resources: labor and minerals. Increasingly, the vast majority of armies are composed of citizen soldiers, child soldiers, mercenaries, and privateers. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 127 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Global terrorism actually declined steadily from its 1987-88 peak until 2004 — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 858; Ethnic and religious fragmentation weakly predict civil war; feasibility of insurgency does — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 809; Civil war and terror are causally heterogeneous across regimes, defying single theories — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 789 (+3 more)

Related

• Eroded state revenue capacity gave rise to African war machines (similarity 0.84)
• Ethnic and religious fragmentation weakly predict civil war; feasibility of insurgency does (similarity 0.80)
• Civil war and terror are causally heterogeneous across regimes, defying single theories (similarity 0.78)
• African statehood fragmented into markets where coercion and violence are bought and sold (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Eroded state revenue capacity gave rise to African war machines #corroborates (0.82) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 132
• African statehood fragmented into markets where coercion and violence are bought and sold #corroborates (0.80) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 127
• Armies composed of mercenaries and marginals predate modern states #expands (0.75)