Militias and the Challenges of Post-Conflict Peace Silencing the Guns

Militias have proven to be a consistent and enduring challenge to achieving peace in war zones around the world. Bringing together the lessons learned from four intensively-researched case studies -- the Democratic Republic of Congo, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and Sudan -- the book argues that the overly rigid "cookie-cutter" approach to demilitarization, developed and commonly implemented presently by the international community, is ineffective at meeting the myriad of challenges involving militias. In doing so, the authors propose a radical new framework for demilitarization that questions conventional models and takes into account on-the-ground realities.

Chris Alden is a Reader at the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics.  Monika Thakur is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Canada. Matthew Arnold graduated from the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics. He is currently working as a freelance journalist.

Preface * Introducing Militias and Demilitarisation * Conceptualising Militias: A Framework of Analysis * The South Sudan Defence Force * The White Army Militias of South Sudan * The Mutineers of Timor-Leste *  Militias in the eastern DRC  * Afghanistan's Long and Ongoing Experience with Militias  *  Conclusion: Militias and the Search for Local Security * Bibliography * Notes