Nonstate Actors in Intrastate Conflicts

Introduction

Introduction Dan Miodownik and Oren Barak with Maayan Mor and Omer Yair Intrastate armed conflicts, whether of low or high intensity, are the most pronounced form of organized violence in the world today. Thousands of people are killed, wounded, or displaced every year in intrastate conflicts that range across the globe, from Sudan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Intrastate conflicts are often viewed as stemming from, and revolving mainly around, domestic factors and issues. To the extent that scholars and policymakers explore the involvement of external actors in domestic disputes , most attention is devoted to states (including the immediate neighbors of the disrupted state and other states) and to international organizations (especially the UN), examining their stabilizing or destabilizing role in these contexts. Less attention, however, is given to the role of external nonstate actors— which are neither sovereign states nor international (that is, interstate) organizations—in intrastate conflicts. This volume addresses this critical void and focuses on the role of external nonstate actors—particularly foreign volunteers and members of diasporas—in intrastate conflicts. Although the focus is on the contemporary Middle East, we argue that the book’s findings are relevant to other regions of the world and to earlier periods in history. Before proceeding farther, however, let us explain why the Middle East is especially relevant for this discussion. First, several intrastate conflicts in the region, beginning with the Palestinian Arab revolt against the British Mandate and the Jewish community in Palestine (1936–1939) and the First ArabIsraeli War (1947–1949), attracted foreign volunteers and members of 2 Introduction diasporas. The apex of this phenomenon was the conflict in Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s, when foreign volunteers (mostly Muslims) came to fight alongside the Afghan mujahidin (guerrillas) against the Soviet Army and its local allies. Some of these volunteers, who came from Arab countries and hence became known as “Afghan Arabs,” later founded Al Qaeda, the organization that carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and other armed operations against Western and non-Western states. The intrastate conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq—which followed the U.S.-led invasions of these countries in 2001 and 2003 respectively—also became a lodestone for foreign volunteers. Finally, the “Arab Spring,” a wave of popular uprisings that engulfed several states in the Middle East from late 2010, resulted in, among other things, intrastate conflicts (especially in Syria), which also attracted foreign volunteers (Agence France Presse, March 7, 2012) and led to protests by diaspora members outside the region. In this introductory chapter, we first discuss the concept of nonstate actors generally. We then present the major types of external nonstate actors, which are examined in depth through the chapters of this book. For each type of actor, we discuss the existing literature, the contribution of the current volume, and the gaps that still remain for future research. We conclude with a summary of the book’s main contributions regarding the role of external nonstate actors in intrastate conflicts. Nonstate Actors and Their Roles in Intrastate Conflicts Intrastate conflicts present one of the most critical challenges to world peace today. Over the last decade, these conflicts have received increasing attention from policymakers and scholars (especially political scientists, sociologists, economists, and students of International Relations), who have explored their causes, duration, and possible resolutions. As a result of these efforts, a considerable body of literature has accumulated on various aspects and dimensions of internal armed intrastate conflicts.1 What are nonstate actors, how do they differ from sovereign states (and other “statist” actors, such as international organizations), and what are their general characteristics when they resort to violence? Studies on the process of state formation and the emergence of the modern international system have examined the attempts made by sovereign states, and especially by the Great Powers, to restrain, co-opt, and even physically eliminate a host of nonstate Introduction 3 actors (for example, pirates and terrorist organizations). These actors were perceived as challenging the state’s claim to a monopoly over use of legitimate force within, and from, its territory and, ultimately, to its hegemony both in the coercive and ideational senses.2 Drawing on these pioneering works, as well as on other contributions, a number of conclusions can be drawn. Nonstate actors are not sovereign states and do not act in their name (Arts...