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Geopolitics of Violent Non-State Actors

Class at Faculty of Social Sciences |
JPM715

Syllabus

1)    Introduction

2)    Terminology, typology (state, quasi-state, non-state actors, types of violent non-state actors)

3)    Post-Cold War system and the non-state actors (importance of VNSAs in the post-Cold War system)

4)    Warlords – Afghanistan, Somalia, LRA (warlords and the state failure, self-interest in governance, cases of 1990s Afghanistan and Somalia and Lord´s Resistance Army)

5)    Proxy warfare (Yemen, Afghanistan) (definition of proxy warfare, relevance and impacts of proxy warfare in the 21st century, cases of Yemen, Afghanistan)

6)    Jihadist groups, pt. 1 – global struggle (AQ Central x Daesh) (globalist jihadist groups, networking x territorial approach, grand strategies of Al-Qaeda and Daesh)

7)    Jihadist groups, pt. 2 – local groups (Hezbollah, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Hamas) (jihadist groups and territory, nationalism vs. Islamism, affiliation to global movements, cases of Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram)

8)    Syrian war (application of the previous findings on Syrian and Iraqi civil wars)

9)    Narco gangs – Latin America (VNSAs and organized crime, crime and violence, narco-terrorism, Colombia and Central America)

10) From ideology to profit – FARC, Taliban (ideological-criminal nexus, turn from ideology to business, cases of Taliban and FARC)

11) Ethno-nationalist groups – LTTE, Kurds, Myanmar (ethno-nationalism in the post-Cold War world, militias vs. State, cases of Tamil Tigers, Kurds, and Myanmar minorities)

12) Countering the violent non-state actors (Chechnya, Iraq 2006/7) (strategies to counter VNSAs, state-building and out-governing vs. violence, return of VNSAs, cases Chechnya, Iraq (AQI 2006/7), Daesh)