The limits to state failure : armed non-state actors and the maintenance of social order in Afghanistan and Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of the role of armed sub-state actors in situations where the state is weak or failing. There is a substantial body of literature on state failure and on the role of warlords. For the most part there are considerable problems with the definitions of both concepts and also strongly negative assumptions about the consequences of state failure and the role of warlords. It is suggested in this study that warlordism can be a type of transitional leadership for traditional societies, especially those where institutional structures are weak or even non-existent. For these traditional societies a transitional leader may emerge when the traditional community is threatened, a figure that might otherwise be described as a warlord. This thesis proposes to these two hypotheses. First, this thesis contends that rather than warlords being solely the product of state failure or collapse, those armed sub-state actors so labelled as "warlords" are also the result of the disruption to traditional society caused by the expansion of state power. The second hypothesis of this research project is that the focus on the apparent institutional weaknesses of the central government, and thus the mechanisms judged necessary for the functioning of the state, particularly in the delivery of essential public goods, overlooks other more enduring localised sources of legitimacy and control within countries with otherwise weak or non-existent national governmental institutions. The case studies analysing the types of warlordism in Papua New Guinea and Afghanistan highlight how state disruption distorted traditional elite structures leading to warlordism emerging quite distinctive forms in both countries. An assessment of the conduct of warlordism in both cases studies illustrates how these warlords have taken on on part of the traditional habits of leadership in their societies. The distortions attributable to the state have altered their behaviour, though, to the extent that the inclination and ability to provide public goods is severely constrained. Show more