External Support to Non-State Armed Groups and Blowback 1980-2017: (Version 1.2)

UQ eSpace ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Solhdoost
Author(s):  
Niklas Karlén ◽  
Vladimir Rauta ◽  
Idean Salehyan ◽  
Andrew Mumford ◽  
Belgin San-Akca ◽  
...  

Abstract This forum provides an outlet for an assessment of research on the delegation of war to non-state armed groups in civil wars. Given the significant growth of studies concerned with this phenomenon over the last decade, this forum critically engages with the present state of the field. First, we canvass some of the most important theoretical developments to demonstrate the heterogeneity of the debate. Second, we expand on the theme of complexity and investigate its multiple facets as a window into pushing the debate forward. Third, we draw the contours of a future research agenda by highlighting some contemporary problems, puzzles, and challenges to empirical data collection. In essence, we seek to connect two main literatures that have been talking past each other: external support in civil wars and proxy warfare. The forum bridges this gap at a critical juncture in this new and emerging scholarship by offering space for scholarly dialogue across conceptual labels.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Obado-Joel

Nigeria faces immense internal security challenges, including the Boko-Haram crisis in the northeast and violent farmer-herder conflicts in the southwest and north-central states. Across the Nigerian federation, pockets of violent clashes have sprung and escalated in new locales in the last decade. Community responses to these violent crises have been diverse and included the establishment of armed groups to supplement or act in parallel to the security efforts of the Nigerian state—in some cases with backing from federal or state governments. These local security assemblages, community-based armed groups (CBAGs), are on the one hand contributors to local order, and normative conceptions of peace and security. On the other hand, these groups are often a pernicious actor within the broader security landscape, undermining intercommunal peace and drivers of violence and human rights abuses. This Policy Note focuses on the characteristics, challenges, and opportunities of Amotekun, a recently formed CBAG in Southwest Nigeria. Drawing from the experiences of similar Nigerian groups, the Note details recommendations that may facilitate greater success and lessen poten al risk associated with Amotekun’s formation. These recommendations are aimed primarily at Nigerian government and civil society actors and describe areas where external support could potentially improve local capacity to conduct oversight of Amotekun and similar groups.


Author(s):  
Markus Krüger ◽  
Horst Krist

Abstract. Recent studies have ascertained a link between the motor system and imagery in children. A motor effect on imagery is demonstrated by the influence of stimuli-related movement constraints (i. e., constraints defined by the musculoskeletal system) on mental rotation, or by interference effects due to participants’ own body movements or body postures. This link is usually seen as qualitatively different or stronger in children as opposed to adults. In the present research, we put this interpretation to further scrutiny using a new paradigm: In a motor condition we asked our participants (kindergartners and third-graders) to manually rotate a circular board with a covered picture on it. This condition was compared with a perceptual condition where the board was rotated by an experimenter. Additionally, in a pure imagery condition, children were instructed to merely imagine the rotation of the board. The children’s task was to mark the presumed end position of a salient detail of the respective picture. The children’s performance was clearly the worst in the pure imagery condition. However, contrary to what embodiment theories would suggest, there was no difference in participants’ performance between the active rotation (i. e., motor) and the passive rotation (i. e., perception) condition. Control experiments revealed that this was also the case when, in the perception condition, gaze shifting was controlled for and when the board was rotated mechanically rather than by the experimenter. Our findings indicate that young children depend heavily on external support when imagining physical events. Furthermore, they indicate that motor-assisted imagery is not generally superior to perceptually driven dynamic imagery.


Author(s):  
Ana Maria Ibanez

The article describes the magnitude, geographical extent,  and causes of forced population displacements in Colombia. Forced migration in Colombia is a war strategy adopted by armed groups to strengthen territorial strongholds, weaken civilian support to the enemy, seize valuable lands, and produce and transport illegal drugs with ease. Forced displacement in Colombia today affects 3.5 million people. Equivalent to 7.8 percent of Colombia's population, and second worldwide only to Sudan, this shows the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis the country is facing. The phenomenon involves all of Colombia's territory and nearly 90 percent of the country's municipalities expel or receive population. In contrast to other countries, forced migration in Colombia is largely internal. Illegal armed groups are the main responsible parties, migration does not result in massive refugee streams but occurs on an individual basis, and the displaced population is dispersed throughout the territory and not focused in refugee camps. These characteristics pose unique challenges for crafting state policy that can effectively mitigate the impact of displacement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-151
Author(s):  
Denis Sokolov

In the 2000s, Al-Qaeda, represented by the Caucasus Emirate, took over the first Chechen resistance, as well as local Islamist armed groups in Dagestan and other republics of the North Caucasus. However, a decade later, the Islamic State won the competition with Al-Qaeda, by including the involvement of women in its project. Hundreds of Russian-speaking Muslim women followed men to live by the rules of Islam. Some joined their husbands or children. Others travelled to the Islamic State in pursuit of love and romance with future husbands they had met on the internet. Based on exclusive interviews done with women detained in the Roj detention camp in the Kurdish territories in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, this article analyzes some of the trajectories that has pushed young North Caucasian women to the Syrian war theater in the name of love.


Author(s):  
Katharine Fortin

This chapter presents and explains the evaluative framework that the study employs when analysing armed groups and legal personality. In doing so, the chapter provides a short historical account of the manner in which international legal personality has been understood and theorized and explains how the evaluative framework will be utilized in the subsequent chapters.


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