Rethinking asymmetric
conflicts: beyond the “clash of civilizations”
By Valentin
Golbert
Senior Research Officer, Sociological
It’s
economy, stupid! (Bill Clinton)
It’s political economy, stupid! (Slavoj Zizek)
The departure
point of the analysis is a neat classification of asymmetric (degenerated, postmodern, postclassical) conflicts by Stefan Mair (2003). These are low intensity wars of long duration
between states and different kinds of subgovernmental
actors. These actors are challenging the economic, institutional, political
order and sovereignty of the established states, their monopoly in some
functional fields. Mair distinguishes four forms of
such conflicts and their actors: warlordism,
organized crime, terrorism and rebels (Figure 1).The concrete cases are
categorized on the base of some criteria like economic vs. political
objectives, the main target groups of violence, the geographical scope of the
use of violence and the attempts to replace the state monopoly (ebd.: 12). In my analytical framework, the distinguishing between
economic incentives of the warlordism/organized crime
on the one hand, and the political ones of the terrorism/guerrillas on the
other hand is of crucial significance.
Though of a great conceptual and
didactical value, the scheme of Mair is a pure
analytical one. He considers his categories as ideal-typical ones, never present
in their pure form. Each concrete case contains some features of the whole
spectre of the distinct forms, while the symptoms of any of them could only
prevail but by no means exclude the symptoms of the alternative ones. Besides,
there exists a close logistical and other interrelationship and cooperation
between concrete actors that could be specified as the representatives of
respectively different forms. They supply each other with weapons, economic
infrastructure, ideological legitimacy, access to the international markets and
so forth. Mair suggests some abstract examples of
such interrelationship, and this is where his analysis stops, and where mine
should start.
Figure 1.
Classification of the subgovernmental actors of low
intensity conflicts (Stefan Mair 2003: 11-12)
|
Ideal types of actors |
Organized criminals |
Terrorists |
Warlords |
Rebels |
|
Distinguishing criteria |
|
|
|
|
|
Objectives |
economic |
political |
economic |
political |
|
Target groups |
other organs of force – official security forces (police,
the military), or competing rebel groups and criminal gangs |
unarmed civilians |
unarmed civilians |
other organs of force – official security forces
(police, the military), or competing rebel groups and criminal gangs |
|
The geographic scope of the use of
violence |
acting on a global scale with a limited territorial
base (transnational organized crime) |
acting on a global scale with a limited territorial
base (international terrorism) |
limited, aims at the consolidation of control over a
certain territory |
limited, aims at the consolidation of control over a
certain territory |
|
Relation to the state monopoly on the
use of force |
coexists with the state monopoly or rather requires
it |
coexists with the state monopoly or rather requires
it |
trying to replace the state monopoly on the use of
force by their own monopoly |
trying to replace the state monopoly on the use of
force by their own monopoly |
Firstly, it
makes sense to extend the issue of the relations between different kinds of conflicts
and actors beyond the analytical framework which has been outlined by Stefan Mair. The empirical task here is to reveal some stable
patterns of such relations. For instance, what are the usual forms of
cooperation and symbiotic service exchange between terrorism and organized
crime (more complex, between all the mentioned forms of the non governmental
military and paramilitary actors, including corrupted state officials and
agencies in particular cases)? What are the preconditions for the development
of this or that form of such cooperation? What are the most promising ways of
preventing, troubling or destroying such cooperation?
Secondly, the
analysis should be unfolded in the temporary dimension. That is to trace the
inner dynamics of the development of a concrete conflict case between a state
actor and its non-state challengers in the course of some years. Low and high
intensity wars should be considered not so much as mutually discrete entities
or processes but rather as different phases or aspects of the same conflicts.
There are some general presuppositions for such an analysis: