Hybrid Governance and Political Violence: Violent Nonstate Actors and their Variegated Modes of Warfare

In recent years, scholars have increasingly questioned the value of labeling militant organizations based on the prevailing tactic that they employ to achieve their objectives. Conflict scholars, for example, increasingly avoid the use of labels such as “terrorist organization” or “guerrilla movement,” instead preferring broader labels such as “insurgencies” or “violent non-state actors.” Such broader labels, these advocates argue, are helpful in that they do not attribute greater importance to one tactic over others. Scholars increasingly suggest that many militant groups are hybrid actors, in two senses. First, they employ a broad array of tactics, oftentimes combining terrorist and guerrilla activities, along with other violent modes of warfare. Secondly, proponents of the “hybrid actor” approach argue that such broader labels serve to acknowledge that these groups typically combine militant tactics with political agitation and the provision of social services.

This project examines the question to what extent contemporary militant actors indeed merit more inclusive labels such as hybrid actors or armed non-state actors. To that end, we explore the degree to which militant groups that are commonly referred to as “terrorist organizations” rely on other tactics in addition to terrorism. To answer this question, we conduct an analysis of the predominant mode of warfare among all groups that are listed as “terrorist organizations” in the Global Terrorism Database of the University of Maryland’s START Consortium - the most widely used database of its kind. Our study examines data from all organizations in the period between and 1970-2018. The study makes a highly valuable contribution to the rapidly evolving field of hybrid governance and political violence.