Paramilitaries, Militias, and Self-defense Groups: The Fluid Boundary between State and non-state Armed Actors

Abstract

Paramilitaries, Militias, and self-defence groups often represent the unseen but widely experienced distinction between the state's legitimate authority and its capacity for extra-legal violence. In authoritarian democracies they often serve as the concealed infrastructure of coercion. However, notwithstanding their integration as part of the state's security apparatus, they can also often develop autonomous logics which eventually pose a substantial threat to their former benefactors.