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Armed Groups: Theory and Classification
 
PIIS013122270005621-4-1
DOI10.20542/0131-2227-2019-63-6-84-92
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Andrei Miroiu 
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Department of Security Studies and Criminology
Australian Hearing Hub
Address: 16 University Ave, Macquarie Park NSW 2109, Australia
Journal nameMirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia
EditionVolume 63 Issue 6
Pages84-92
Abstract

This paper argues in favor of a theory and classification of armed groups that sets them at the center of political and social sciences. By starting with the problem of order, it posits that without armed groups one cannot understand how stable societies form, function and reproduce themselves. It challenges the preeminence of concepts such as class and gender, which are seen as depicting later-formed social structures. It proposes a classification of armed groups based on their permanent or impermanent character, and the reasons for using violence, which are considered to be mostly extractive and ideological. Extraction could be internal and external, permanent or nonpermanent. Ideological armed groups are taken here to include religiously-motivated groups as well. The article also discusses armed groups operating within the state. The central argument is that the armed group is a fundamental unit of politics, order and functioning of a society. This essentially establishes that other forms of power are either derived from, rest on or at least suppose the support of armed groups. They transcend “normal” politics understood as peaceful periods in life of constituted communities. They can be outsiders, existing before and between the states. Armed groups precede classes and governments and do not need them to exist in order to continue their functioning. In this, they are to be understood as an elementary social structure. If so, consequences for social theory are substantial, as armed groups should in this case achieve the prominence that concepts such as state, class, social division of work or even kinship had until now.

Keywordsarmed groups, states, political science, social sciences, violence, social order
Received25.06.2019
Publication date25.06.2019
Number of characters39623
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Table of contents

The problem of armed groups
Understanding armed groups
Classifying armed groups
Armed groups within the state
Conclusions
1

The problem of armed groups
2 It is perhaps natural in an age when new technologies and gadgets emerge almost on a daily basis to assume that unexpected social events are also new. Both theorists and practitioners reacted this way in recent years when armed groups (AGs) contested with remarkable success governmental structures in the Horn of Africa, the mountains of Hindu Kush, Northern Mesopotamia and Eastern Syria, on the upper banks of the Niger or in the area of the Great Lakes of Africa [1; 2; 3; 4]. Because these groups did not necessarily aim at the usurpation of political power and often did not try to establish state-like structures, they were assumed to be part of a new set of social phenomena unleashed by the end of the Cold War, globalization and the breakdown of post-imperial order in Africa or the Middle East [5; 6].
3 Considerable theoretical effort was spent in understanding the new movements from this perspective, as an effect of contemporary historical, economic and social processes. The character of novelty was presumed and seldom justified. At most, these movements were sometimes assumed to be part of the historical process of contestation of the Western hegemonic order begun by regional movements during and after the Second World War [7]. In this case, a certain historical method was used in understanding them, but even when this perspective was embraced they were considered fundamentally a modern phenomenon [8; 9; 10]. More often than not, however, they are assumed to be extremely new, products of recent developments and therefore necessitating novel, innovative approaches, both theoretical and practical [11; 12]. Enormous energies and sums of money were spent on mostly sociological and anthropological surveys and research trips. In most of these cases the efforts only served to highlight the diversity of the research subjects [13; 14]. The result was hardly unexpected given the methodology of these social science approaches and the hypothesis of novelty underlining present-day research.
4 However, an alternative perspective, grounded in political theory and the long-term historical study of human political communities, points out in a different direction and leads to other theoretical and practical consequences. This perspective assumes that the basis of community and politics is order. Without order and relatively peaceful internal interactions of a personal, economic and cultural nature, a community, no matter its size, cannot function. This is not to say that violence cannot permeate the life of a community. All communities witness at the very least some degree of verbal, symbolic or physical violence between its members [15]. However, community life and the existence of a society is threatened, if not made impossible when the level of violence threatens the order necessary for the continuation of the basic social interactions. This is the reason why order is the essence that underpins any stable, long-lasting groups of humans and, as a matter of fact, groups of many other animals.
5 But who underpins order? Who creates it and guarantees it at a fundamental level? Laws, political parties, economic elites, social norms and mores, cultural practices – all reinforce and support order and the continuation of communities. They do create the conditions for the perpetuation of order, but by themselves they do not create order, nor can they defend it against strong, determined groups meaning to defy it. It is armed force and armed superiority that creates order, and ultimately the strongest armed groups are the defenders of order in any human community [16]. This is less of a moral statement and more of a statement of fact. As societies grow more complex and peaceful, as prosperity permeates large categories, and vital problems such as access to shelter, food, water, clothing and sexual partners become less stringent, as social and cultural norms become accepted or imposed into acceptance by large categories of the population, the reality that order is created and underpinned by brutal force is often obfuscated. Social complexity seems to breed complicated, sometimes arcane social and political explanations, ascribing the formation of order to human nature, the divine laws, or inherent, deep social and economic structures [17]. To a certain extent, some of these theoretical concepts can explain the reality of complex societies, but they fail to explain the basis on which all communities are formed and fundamentally rest: fear of the power and violence of an armed group.
6 If this perspective holds water, it would throw an entirely different light on the AGs that pose so many challenges to the continuation of politics as we know it in many areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America. At its fundamental level, order does not necessarily imply a continuous historical process towards state formation. A society can easily exist being ruled not by a central government extracting taxes and providing common goods, but by multiple layers of symbolic and practical power. The sacredness of the king, the complete cultural dominance of the Catholic Church, the economic power of the great magnates and urban guilds ruled medieval Western Europe [18; 19]. Order, as much as it existed, was guaranteed by the armed retainers of the feudal lords, sometimes gathered under the banners of a king, pope or emperor. The Native American societies of the Great Plains or Texas were ruled by complex groups of wise members of the tribes, collections of legends and rituals and the specific economic rules of exchange. Order was, however, guaranteed by the bands of young warriors [20; 21]. There is nothing to say that these societies, or others, should have necessarily evolved in the direction of nation states. Indeed, some of them never underwent the process until forcefully occupied. Even when this happened and these communities became notionally subjected to a foreign overlord, in many of them armed groups continued to assert their claim in creating order in certain areas or in segments of society. The case of India’s northwestern frontier during the times of the British Raj is a notorious example in this regard, but non-western empires such as the Ottomans also had entire regions under their nominal control that were actually ruled by local AGs, especially in North Africa [22; 23; 24].

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