Description
This research explores how mercenary groups organize and compete in intrastate conflicts, focusing on their roles as non-state armed groups that financially gain from direct combat. Despite the literature on mercenarism, the organizational ecology and impact of mercenary groups on civil war dynamics remain understudied. Drawing on organizational ecology theory, this study proposes three hypotheses to address the relationship between mercenary groups and other armed actors, the structure of the market for force, and the impact of conflict intensity on organizational strategies. Using a qualitative research design combining semi-structured interviews, social network analysis, and process tracing, the study analyzes data from Colombia, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone. The research challenges assumptions about increased demand for private military services due to Western interventions, disentangles the overlooked dynamics of mercenary groups engaging in direct combat, contests the state-centric model of the market for force by proposing the resource partitioning model, and offers a novel application of organizational ecology theory to private violence in post-Cold War settings. By comparing cases with varying conflict intensities and market structures, this study generates insights into the conditions under which different organizational strategies emerge and succeed.
