Agents of Violence: Non-Governmental Armed Forces in Southwest Asia, North Africa and Beyond

The violent conflicts of recent decades in Southwest Asia, North Africa and adjacent regions are often read in terms of the conventional parameters of an international order of sovereign nation states. However, in recent years, non-governmental armed forces have emerged to play an increasingly significant role in the political, social and military fields of the region. These forces are usually analyzed as isolated actors, operating in their respective local or regional spheres, without attention to wider structural commonalities. The aim of this volume is to examine these groups not only as military actors, but also as forces of social significance, indicative of substantial historical shifts relating to notions of sovereignty, beyond the usual prioritization of the state. Comparing the nature, operation and discourses of such forces allows for new understandings of their social impact, beyond common reductionist approaches of securitized worldviews and essentializing lines of inquiry centered on religion.