Publication

How should we understand the phenomenon of modern-day warlords, who are often associated with state failure and trans-border criminality? This roundtable discussion on Kimberley Marten’s “Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States” provides new answers to this old question. It adopts an explicitly inductive approach to theory-building through the study of four important cases of warlordism: Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); Georgia’s strongmen in Ajara and the Kodori Gorge; the Sons of Iraq; and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s creation in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.