Georgios Kolliarakis

Networks as Organizational Formof Terrorist and Criminal Groups

Challenges for current Post Conflict Peace Building:

Are the motives/interests/strategies of criminal and terrorist organizations intermeshing?Are criminal and terrorist organizations localized outside society?How to prevent such organizations from turning into spoilers during the PCPB process?Do peacemaking/-keeping and peacebuilding have competing agendas?

Why Networks?

Conflict actors traditionally conceptualized as blocs, territorially defined, with stable identities, motives, interests, strategies, and goals, interacting with each other along a single front (cleavage)

The network approach allows for multiplicity of interactions, unexpected outcomes, and the dynamics of actors´ transformation

The Components of a Conflict Actor:

Identity (motives-interests)

Strategy Capability(opportunity structures) (organization)

Capabilities: Organization in Networks

Composition out of Nodes / ChannelsNot a rigid structure; The quality of connections amongnodes rather than nodes themselves determine thecharacter of the network Interregional, transnational range; Variable topologydepending upon selective couplings-decouplings of nodes

Quantitative Measures: Density (Frequency)DurabilityDirectionalityCentrality

Example (a):Chechnya Actors´ Network with conflictive interactions, centrality, and cut-points

Example (b):Chechnya Actors´ Network with cooperative interactions, centrality, and cut-points

The nodes of a network can be:

State institutions (ministries, law-enforcement agencies)Broadcasting MediaPrivate military organizations, militia recruiting poolsPolitical parties, ethno-separatist groups, warlordsRegional and transnational trade partnersDiaspora (remittances, cover)NGOs, IOs, neighbouring statesReligious institutionsCivilians

Hard cores with strong ties (trust, commitment, solidarity);soft peripheries with weak ties (task-oriented, opportunist)

No singular centre of the network; emerging clusters (MIS)

Networks facilitate expertise transfer; adapt faster to shifting contexts; are more resilient against attacks than hierarchies

Type of System

SystemProperties

Totally Random without pattern

Chaotic Complex(Zone of

emergent complexity)

Hierarchical Mechanistic

Controlling Mechanisms

None Strange Attractors

Largely self-organization

Command and control

Tight rigid controls

Nature of relationships between agents

Independent agents no detectable relationships

Random Networked and highly connected

Formally dictated by top down directives

Fixed and prescribed

Nature of interactions

Random and totally irregular

Some detectable regularities & patterning

Fluid and interdependent

Mostly dependent

Fully dependent

Outcome Random changes and outcomes. Disintegration certain.

Instability -unpredictable changes and outcomes Disintegration possible.

Flexible new order involving radical and/or incremental changes.

Stability -Incremental changes. Ossification possible.

Stability -Systems are resistant to change. Ossification certain.

Identity (motives-interests)

Strategy Capabilities(opportunity structures) (organization)

Strategies:

Covert (illegal) networks, unlike overt (legal) ones, face a strategic dilemma between security and efficiencyPressure through better intelligence and law enforcement by GOs and IOs forces terrorist groups to decentralizeAutonomous terrorist cells seek funding by cooperating with criminal ones; Criminal groups cooperate with terrorist ones in order to fulfill certain operational aimsIncreasingly blurred boundaries between terrorist and economic crime networks through convergence and hybridization

A small sample:

Al Qaeda with Liberian warlords (diamonds);with Central Asian and North Caucasian groups (heroin)PKK and Balkan countriesAlbanian Mafia and UCKFARC and Mexican cocaine trafficking

Identity (motives-interests)

Strategy Capabilities(opportunity structures) (organization)

Identities:

Discrepancy between criminal and terrorist agendas?

Protracted low-intensity conflicts (LICs); Resource looting and illicit trade may not be the initial conflict motive but it is essential for its perpetuation (lock-in, stalemate)The dichotomy between “Greed” and “Grievance” seems to be rather impracticable when it comes to policy design; Motives and interests change with shifting connections in networks

Criminal Terrorist

Motives Economic Ideological/politicalInterests Maintenance of the status-quo Subversion of the status-quoActivities Tactical use of terrorism Revenues as financing means

Outlook:Methodology: Networks as problems > Search for solution; Networks as solutions > Which problems do they solve? (institutional weakness in failed states, coping strategies,...)Challenge for policy implementation: embeddedness of networks into post-conflict-settlement societiesNon-intended and non-anticipated outcomes of peacekeeping / peacebuilding: Stability at the cost of destroying recovery potential? Punishment or political reintegration?How to reverse the trade-off in stalemated networks of LIC / crime? Should we negotiate with spoilers? What incentivesshould be given in order to disengage them?

Selected References:Andersen, R. 2000: How Multilateral Development Assistance Triggered the Conflict in Rwanda. Third World Quarterly

21, 441-456.Arquilla, J. and Ronfeldt, D. (eds.) 2001: Networks and Netwars. RAND Report No. 278, Santa Monica. Brams, S. J. et al. 2006: Influence in Terrorist Networks: From Undirected to Directed Graphs. Studies in Conflict &

Terrorism 29, 703-718.Carlisle, Y. and McMillan, E. 2006: Innovation in Organizations from a Complex Adaptive Systems Perspective.

Emergence, Complexity, and Organization 8, 2-9.Dishman, C. 2005: The Leaderless Nexus: When Crime and Terror Converge. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 28,

237-252.Greenhill, K. M. and Major, S. 2007: The Perils of Profiling Civil War Spoilers and the Collapse of Intrastate Peace

Accords. International Security 31, 7-40.Greig, J. M. and Diehl, P. F. 2005: The Peacekeeping-Peacemaking Dilemma. International Studies Quarterly 49, 621-

645.Hämmerli, A. et al. 2006: Conflict and Cooperation in an Actors´ Network of Chechnya Based on Event Data. Journal of

Conflict Resolution 50, 159-175.Jackson, P. 2003: Warlords as Alternative Forms of Governance. Small Wars and Insurgencies 14, 131-150.Kemp, W. 2004: The Business of Ethnic Conflict. Security Dialogue 35, 43-59.King, C. 2001: The Benefits of Ethnic War. Understanding Eurasia´s Unrecognized States. World Politics 53, 524-552.Marten, K. 2007: Warlordism in Comparative Perspective. International Security 31, 41-73.Menkhaus, K. 2007: Governance without Government in Somalia. Spoilers, State Building, and the Politics of Coping.

International Security 31, 74-106.Newman, E. and Richmond, O. 2006: Peace Building and Spoilers. Conflict, Security & Development 6, 101-110.Nitzschke, H. and Studdard, K. 2005: The Legacies of War Economies: Challenges and Options for Peacemaking and

Peacebuilding. International Peacekeeping 12, 222-239.Raab, J. and Milward, H. B. 2003: Dark Networks as Problems. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

13, 413-439.