Security Consolidation in the Aftermath of Civil War: Explaining the Fates of Victorious Militias

Policymakers and peacebuilding research often focus on rebel groups when studying demobilization and integration processes, but post-war governments must also manage the non-state militias that helped them gain or maintain power. Why do some post-war governments disintegrate their militia allies, while others integrate them into the military? We argue that when a salient ethnic difference exists between the (new) ruling elite and an allied militia, a process of mutual uncertainty in the post-war period will incentivize governments to disintegrate the group. However, governments will be most likely to integrate their militias when the military has sufficient coercive capabilities but few organizational hindrances to re-organizing. Using new data on the post-war fates of victorious militias across all civil conflicts from 1989 to 2014, we find robust support for these claims. The results suggest that a government’s optimal militia management strategy is shaped by both social and organizational constraints during the post-war period.

The Early Republic and Santa Anna

When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, it inherited a declining silver economy, and an ever-expanding northern neighbor that already had begun its industrial revolution with an abundance of immigrants eager to seize the future. Mexico struggled to stay independent. When Spanish troops invaded in 1829 and in 1838 when French sailors seized the wealthy port of Veracruz, General Antonio López de Santa Anna defeated them and became a national hero even though he lost part of his leg battling the French. He could not defeat, however, the better-equipped volunteers from the north. By the conclusion of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) and a subsequent land sale, Mexico had lost 55 percent of the territory it had possessed in the 1820s. Internally, Mexico limped along with an underfunded treasury and enormous debts. Although Santa Anna was the most successful of all Mexico’s generals, he was not the only one eager for power and glory. Generals and politicians wanted Mexico to protect the Church and the army as the colony had, or construct a more secular government with Church funds and a variety of state militias. Of course, women benefitted little from any of this. Until railroads were built in the 1880s, Mexico continued as a democratic republic funded by moneylenders risking their fortunes to support the government and perhaps make huge profits for themselves.

The Puzzle of Militia Containment in Civil War

In most contemporary civil wars, governments collude with non-state militias as part of their counterinsurgent strategy. However, governments also restrict the capabilities of their militia allies despite the adverse consequences this may have on their overall counterinsurgent capabilities. Why do governments contain their militia allies while also fighting a rebellion? I argue that variation in militia containment during a civil war is the outcome of a bargaining process over future bargaining power between security or profit-seeking militias and states with time-inconsistent preferences. Strong states and states facing weak rebellions cannot credibly commit to not suppressing their militias, and militias with sufficient capabilities to act independently cannot credibly commit to not betraying the state. States with limited political reach and those facing strong rebellions, however, must retain militia support, which opens a “window of opportunity” for militias to augment their independent capabilities and future bargaining power. Using new data on pro-government militia containment and case illustrations of the Janjaweed in Sudan and Civil Defense Patrols in Guatemala, I find evidence consistent with these claims. Future work must continue to incorporate the agency of militias when studying armed politics, since these bargaining interactions constitute a fundamental yet undertheorized characteristic of war-torn states.

The Old Northwest, 1890s–1930s

This chapter investigates the development—particularly by the police—of white opposition to mob violence against blacks in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio from the 1890s to the 1930s. At the outset it details the methods deployed by local authorities to protect prisoners threatened with violence and the conditions required to trigger their appeals to state authorities for support, including the use of state militias (National Guard). Next it explores the responses of “ordinary” whites to these efforts. It then traces the efforts of state governments to curtail mob violence with legislation and of local authorities, especially the police, to offset their success in mitigating mob violence by appropriating mob tactics to control blacks themselves. Finally, it assesses the implications of its findings for the historiography of police violence (police brutality).

Credible Commitments and the Right to Bear Arms: Viewing the Second Amendment from a Game-Theoretic Perspective

For most of its existence, the Second Amendment was largely ignored by Constitutional scholars. Recently, a veritable cottage industry has developed in which two distinct camps have surfaced: so-called “Standard Modelers,” who argue that individuals have a right to bear arms for self-defense, the defense of the state, and, in the most extreme examples, to overthrow the government should it become tyrannical, and those who view the Second Amendment as a collective right vested in the state militias for the purposes of law enforcement, to protect against foreign aggression, to quell domestic insurrection, and as a check against federal overreach. Despite the enormous gulf between them, both sides agree that the right to bear arms provides a counterbalance against the federal government. This paper uses insights from game theory to shed new light on the adoption of the Second Amendment. The states suffered a commitment problem. They wished to cooperate with each other by founding a new republic, but feared the consequences of doing so: losing their freedom to a powerful government. The Second Amendment militated against the need for a large federal army, acted to counterbalance federal forces, and created the offensive means with which to confront a tyrannical government.

Carrying Guns in Public: Legal and Public Health Implications

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Until recently, no federal appellate court had ever struck down any gun law as a violation of the Second Amendment. In fact, even laws outlawing most handgun possession, or restricting other types of firearms, had been upheld, in part, because the laws did not interfere with the functioning of state militias.Then, in 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court — for the first time in nearly 70 years — decided a case squarely addressing the meaning of the Second Amendment. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court concluded that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to own handguns in the home, invalidating a Washington, D.C. law.But Heller left many issues undecided, including the precise scope of the Second Amendment.