Coercive Brokerage: Paramilitaries, Illicit Economies and Organised Crime in the Frontiers of Afghanistan, Colombia and Myanmar - Working Paper II
January 2024
Research Paper 28
Professor Jonathan Goodhand, SOAS University of London
Dr Patrick Meehan, SOAS University of London
Camillo Acero, London School of Economics
Jan Koehler, Independent
SOC ACE Project: Para-statal armed groups, illicit economies and organised crime
PUBLICATION SUMMARY
This research paper is the second in a three-part series analysing the nexus between paramilitaries, illicit economies and organised crime in borderland and frontier regions. This research challenges the idea that paramilitaries are symptomatic of state breakdown, flourishing in marginal spaces suffering from ‘governance deficits’; and that they can primarily be understood as apolitical, predatory self-enriching actors, driven by economic motives, and operating outside formal political systems.
In this research paper, a set of detailed case studies are presented that explore coercive brokerage in Afghanistan, Colombia and Myanmar that seek to address these ideas, drawing upon data and analysis generated by a four-year Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project, Drugs & (Dis)order (https://www.drugs-disorder.soas.ac.uk), and other relevant research.
In Afghanistan, the case study focuses on Nangarhar, on the eastern border with Pakistan, and the north-eastern province Badakhshan which borders Tajikistan, Pakistan and China, where in both cases government-backed militias were deployed as anti-Taliban counter-insurgency forces.
In Colombia, research focuses on Putumayo, in southern Colombia, on the international border with Peru and Ecuador, where paramilitaries played a similar counter-insurgency role in relation to leftist guerrillas and over time became key players in the legal and illegal economies.
In Myanmar, we present case studies from northern Shan State close to the China border, and Karen State bordering Thailand, where army-backed militias were an important counter-insurgency force, whilst providing security for businesses in contested, resource-rich borderlands, as well as carving out a role in the country’s booming heroin and methamphetamine trade