STATE-NAGCOOPERATION · COOPERATION BETWEEN STATES AND NON-STATE ARMED GROUPS: SYTEMATIC OR RANDOM PARTNERSHIPS?

COOPERATION BETWEEN STATES AND NON-STATE ARMED GROUPS: SYTEMATIC OR RANDOM PARTNERSHIPS?

Dr. Belgin San Akca, the researcher in charge of the project EU-FP7 IRG 268486 (with acronym State-NAG Cooperation), wishes to express her gratitude to the European Commission for their support. The grant facilitated the reintegration of the researcher by helping her develop collaborations in the host institution, Europe and North America. It increased the odds of securing a long-term position for the researcher in the host institution since many publications from the project have appeared or been accepted at highly respected international publication outlets. The final product, a book, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. The extensive data collection and data portal site construction initiative undertaken by the researcher and her research team have been carried out in three steps: (1) training the research team; (2) data collection and coding; and (3) data and empirical findings dissemination including publications and construction of a data portal site. The research team included 13 undergraduate and graduate students, who contributed to various parts of the project. The data is available in the following site: http://nonstatearmedgroups.ku.edu.tr. For visualization purposes, a map of the world is presented coloring target and supporter states differently. Furthermore, for each NAG, there is a profile page including information on a NAG’s foundation year, religious, political or ethnic identity, objective, name of supporter states and the news and academic sources from which data coded. In total, thousands of sources are shared for all the NAGs included in the dataset. This is especially pioneering if academics would like to use these sources for additional data coding. Overall, the product is a time-series cross-sectional data containing information on around 10,000 observations. The academics and policymakers could make use of the following findings about the relations between states and non-state armed groups: (1) Threats from NAGs are to a great extent states’ own making. NAGs emerge and sustain their presence in the context of inter-state conflict. In 71% of protracted interstate rivalries, at least one rival ended up supporting a NAG targeting its enemy. (2) The distinction between active and passive support leads to interesting findings about state-NAG interactions. Active support emerges when a government intentionally creates direct channels for NAGs to acquire funds, weapons, training, and safe havens. On the other hand, passive support emerges when a government does not create any channels for these groups, yet also does not or fails to take measures to prevent the activities and operations of such groups within their borders. A striking finding is that there is a dramatic increase in passive support to NAGs in the post-Cold War period. This could be attributed to the rise of newly emerging democracies in the post-Cold War period. Democracies, especially when they are trying to consolidate, have a challenge of dealing with NAGs operating within their borders. Since they are not repressive regimes, this might undermine their immediate ability to control such groups within their borders. (3) States provide support to groups with which they share some ethnic, religious and ideological ties. The modern nation-state system is under a significant challenge by NAGs. The endurance of such groups depends on their ability to acquire human and material resources. Frequently, they do so by exploiting the vulnerabilities of various states around the world. In uniting against common threats from other states, states form alliances with each other. Yet they have been failing to do so against threats from NAGs. Academics and policymakers should act together in building a sustained road map in handling these new global actors whose influence on world politics has been in the rise recently. Researcher: Dr. Belgin San Akca International Relations Koc University, Istanbul bakca@ku.edu.tr nonstatearmedgroups.ku.edu.tr

Data: CORDIS, © European Union