Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines state recourse to paramilitary force and its consequences for the security apparatus using the case of the janjaweed militias in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Advancing a model of weak and failed state behaviour, it is suggested that a threatened regime wishing to maintain its hold on power may turn to paramilitary groups to shore up domestic influence and conduct counterinsurgency operations thus neglecting or shutting out state security forces. This approach, while often successful in suppressing domestic insurrection where the regular military has failed, is also used as a means to sideline internal opposition and prevent the rise of competing elites within the government structure. Having committed to such a strategy, however, the regime is forced into its perpetual use in order to keep newly promoted client militias as well as internal and external opponents weak and unable to challenge its authority. This condition of chronic paramilitarism therefore leads to the disintegration of state institutions, traditional patronage networks, and domestic human security as government accountability falls to the wayside and the remnants of the state function only to perpetuate the power of the regime. The evidence shows that regimes become locked into path-dependencies when they forsake traditional security mechanisms for a more diffuse system of support in the form of largely unaccountable semi-autonomous militias. Effective resolution of this problem, therefore, must not only aim to halt violence, but also seek substantial change ranging from security sector reforms to regime transition.