New research paper out now - Coercive Brokerage: The Paramilitary-Organized Crime Nexus in Borderlands and Frontiers Working Paper I

This research paper is the first of a three-part series exploring the nexus between paramilitaries, illicit economies and organised crime.

The paper advances a conceptual framework for analysing the nexus in borderland and frontier regions and outlines how this concept advances the growing body of recent literature on militias and paramilitaries.

Two dominant policy narratives around paramilitaries are challenged: first, the idea that these organisations are symptomatic of state breakdown and flourish in marginal spaces suffering from ‘governance deficits’. Second, the idea that paramilitaries can primarily be understood as apolitical, predatory and self-enriching actors, driven by economic motives, and operating outside formal political systems.