Non-State Armed Actors, War Economies and Postwar Violence: Examining the Connections
Sabine Kurtenbach / Angelika Rettberg / Gabriel Rosero / José Salguero
Non-State Armed Actors, War Economies and Postwar Violence: Examining the Connections
World Development | 2025
Abstract
In the context of war, states and non-state actors alike need resources to fund their armed activities. While states can use taxes to this end, non-state actors often need either territorial control to mimic the taxing abilities of a state or to participate in the trade of legal and illegal resources. After a war ends, these activities have no clear-cut end, but they may continue to fund other manifestations of postwar violence. We therefore ask: How do non-state war economies or rebels’ access to economic resources matter for understanding postwar violence? More specifically, what conditions might reinforce or mitigate these legacies after the termination of hostilities? In this paper, we challenge the general assumption that war economies thwart postwar transformations and peacebuilding. Motivated by scattered empirical evidence suggesting significant variation on the ground, we apply a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) research design to examine a sample of 42 postwar episodes. We focus on how the access of rebels and non-state groups to economic resources shape postwar violence. Due to the poor quality of comparable quantitative data across countries, we use a two-step approach. We first identify clusters of postwar societies based on the existence or absence of non-state armed actors’ access to resources and the level of postwar violence. Drawing from these findings, we validate the clusters with illustrative case studies in a second step. Our results show no linear pathway from the actors’ access to resources to postwar crime and violence. In fact, our findings suggest that the characteristics and depth of postwar crime and violence depend on specific and dynamic combinations of political regime and economic state capacities, which operate as intermediating factors fostering violence when weak or mitigating/counteracting violence when strong. Our findings caution against fatalistic—even deterministic—views of war economies shaping postwar societies. Far from being doomed, countries emerging from war find opportunities to strengthen democratic participation and diversify state presence. This confirms long-held notions that peacebuilding, as well as postwar crime and violence, amount largely to a question of building strong, capable, and inclusive institutions.
Once hailed as the “Turkish model” for its successful merging of Islam and democracy, Turkey has morphed into a global cocaine hub. Turkish students and holidaymakers are denied Schengen visas, yet the country’s mafias and narcotics cross Europe’s borders with ease.
After the asasination of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, Colombia needs a minimum consensus on non-violent politics and not incfreasing polarisation.
Does the fall of Assad in Syria mean the end of the drug known as Captagon? No. While the Islamist interim government has destroyed drug laboratories and pills, demand for cheap drugs remains strong in Syria and in its neighbouring countries. Captagon production and smuggling are transnationalising.
War economies are neither a new phenomenon nor a specific feature of the Global South. After the formal end of confrontations, war economies do not necessarily cease to exist. The chapter describes different types of war economies and discusses their implications for building lasting peace in transitional societies.
US-Präsident Trump hat nach der Militäraktion in Venezuela weiteren lateinamerikanischen Staaten offen gedroht. Wie gefährlich ist Trumps Lateinamerika-Hinterhof-Politik? Prof. Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach erläutert geopolitische Interessen und Risiken für Venezuela, Kolumbien und Kuba.
After the US intervention in Venezuela, the relation between Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump became tense again. A phone call decreased the crisis but the political risks remain in place.
Trump’s ultra-aggressive claim to South America as the United States’ exclusive zone of influence changes the region’s political coordinates. The GIGA analyses the ongoing stand-off in Venezuela, the role of China, Latin America’s upcoming elections, and other key events and trends to watch in 2026.
Once hailed as the “Turkish model” for its successful merging of Islam and democracy, Turkey has morphed into a global cocaine hub. Turkish students and holidaymakers are denied Schengen visas, yet the country’s mafias and narcotics cross Europe’s borders with ease.
After the asasination of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, Colombia needs a minimum consensus on non-violent politics and not incfreasing polarisation.
Does the fall of Assad in Syria mean the end of the drug known as Captagon? No. While the Islamist interim government has destroyed drug laboratories and pills, demand for cheap drugs remains strong in Syria and in its neighbouring countries. Captagon production and smuggling are transnationalising.
War economies are neither a new phenomenon nor a specific feature of the Global South. After the formal end of confrontations, war economies do not necessarily cease to exist. The chapter describes different types of war economies and discusses their implications for building lasting peace in transitional societies.
US-Präsident Trump hat nach der Militäraktion in Venezuela weiteren lateinamerikanischen Staaten offen gedroht. Wie gefährlich ist Trumps Lateinamerika-Hinterhof-Politik? Prof. Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach erläutert geopolitische Interessen und Risiken für Venezuela, Kolumbien und Kuba.
After the US intervention in Venezuela, the relation between Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump became tense again. A phone call decreased the crisis but the political risks remain in place.
Trump’s ultra-aggressive claim to South America as the United States’ exclusive zone of influence changes the region’s political coordinates. The GIGA analyses the ongoing stand-off in Venezuela, the role of China, Latin America’s upcoming elections, and other key events and trends to watch in 2026.
Once hailed as the “Turkish model” for its successful merging of Islam and democracy, Turkey has morphed into a global cocaine hub. Turkish students and holidaymakers are denied Schengen visas, yet the country’s mafias and narcotics cross Europe’s borders with ease.
After the asasination of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, Colombia needs a minimum consensus on non-violent politics and not incfreasing polarisation.
Does the fall of Assad in Syria mean the end of the drug known as Captagon? No. While the Islamist interim government has destroyed drug laboratories and pills, demand for cheap drugs remains strong in Syria and in its neighbouring countries. Captagon production and smuggling are transnationalising.
