In the Shadow of Civil War: The interdependence of civil wars and conflicts between informal armed groups

Abstract

The complexity of contemporary armed conflicts has been widely acknowledged. Not least, the concurrence of civil wars and conflicts involving informal armed groups, such as militias, vigilantes, and communal groups, poses a serious challenge to peacemaking. Overlooking how conflicts are interwoven can render peacemaking interventions ineffective and complicate the conclusion of stable and comprehensive peace agreements. However, empirical research on internal armed conflicts has yet to produce an integrated theoretical and methodological approach to address the interdependence between different types of armed conflict. One impediment is that complexity is predominantly perceived as a given state rather than the sum of multiple interacting and non-linear processes. This study adopts a network analytical framework and sets out to answer the question of how civil wars and conflicts between informal armed groups influence each other. In so doing, the network perspective contributes to the integration of macro-level and micro-level research in conflict studies. To shed light on the interdependence between different types of conflicts, the study conceptualizes armed conflicts within the same country as integrated into one overarching conflict network. The network consists of the state's security agencies as well as formal and informal non-state armed groups that are connected through relationships of conflict and cooperation. The distinction between formal and informal armed groups is based on their organizational characteristics. This conceptualization captures key sources of heterogeneity among non-state armed groups while keeping the framework theoretically and empirically tractable. Focusing on short-term ripple effects, the main argument posits that a civil war outbreak sets in motion spatially contingent processes that mutually reinforce each other and, in sum, empower the formal and informal armed groups while constraining the government. The civil war forces the government to prioritize resources, leading to countervailing effects on conflicts between informal armed groups depending on their location relative to the civil war conflict zone. Inside the civil war conflict zone, conflicts between informal armed groups remain limited due to the disruption or regulation of everyday life. Outside the civil war conflict zone, the weakened state presence creates a power vacuum, contributing to the escalation and fragmentation of these conflicts. These developments alter the conflict network structure, generating feedback effects across conflicts. Specifically, the developments increase the resource pressure on the government and offer expansion opportunities for the formal armed groups involved in the civil war. The study employs a mixed-methods social network analysis of the Nigerian case, combining a quantitative analysis of the network structure with a qualitative analysis tracing the underlying processes. Mixing methods thereby illuminates the co-constitution of structure and agency in conflict networks. The qualitative analysis draws from 118 interviews including participatory network drawings conducted during fieldwork in northern Nigeria and a variety of secondary sources from libraries in Nigeria, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. To avoid confirmation bias and idiosyncrasy, the study assesses seven alternative explanations and probes the transferability to other cases. The study contributes to the emerging third wave of civil war research by introducing a classification of non-state armed groups as formal and informal and a novel theoretical argument on the interdependence of civil wars with other types of collective violence. Integrating existing armed group typologies, the parsimonious distinction between formal and informal groups seeks to facilitate the accumulation and integration of knowledge on the plethora of groups operating in the shadow of civil war. Methodologically, this study demonstrates the value of mixed-methods social network analysis in conflict studies and introduces a new technique to identify specific informal armed groups in readily available quantitative conflict data based on spatial event clusters. Empirically, it offers a unique and comprehensive perspective on the Nigerian armed conflicts as one integrated network, building on original primary data.