Disaggregating Opportunities: Opportunity Structures and Organisational Resources in the Study of Armed Conflict

Abstract

In studies of armed conflict and civil war, it is common to distinguish between explanations that focus on the motives of insurgents and accounts that examine opportunities for rebellion. But what do scholars actually mean by 'opportunities'? Some invoke the concept when referring to contexts in which states cannot suppress rebellion. For others, opportunities exist where insurgents have access to resources that facilitate the realization of collective violence. And a third group refers to 'opportunities' when discussing both of the above contexts. Across the field, then, the concept is used inconsistently. Consequently, I propose two conceptual clarifications. Drawing on insights from sociological literature, I argue that 'opportunities' should be disaggregated into two, more finite concepts: opportunity structures, understood as arrangements that inform externally-imposed constraints on insurgency; and organizational resources, understood as means that shape the internal capacity of armed groups. Second, I suggest that conflict scholars should consider both material/institutional and social/normative dimensions of each disaggregated concept. To illustrate the heuristic benefits of the proposed framework, I use it as a basis for exploring variation in collective violence in Albania during the 1990s. That variation appears puzzling when seen through aggregated lenses but is explicable when examined through disaggregated lenses.Acknowledgements: Kind thanks to Sashenka Lleshaj for her invaluable research and translation assistance while I was collecting data for this article. I also thank Ariel Ahram, Shane Barter, Jörg Friedrichs, Ian Madison, James Pettifer, Oisín Tansey, anonymous reviewers, and the editors for their comments on earlier drafts of the study. All views, along with any unintended errors, omissions, or misrepresentations are, of course, my own.

The Social and Political Life of Latin American Infrastructures

“…Menkhaus' (2007) analysis of mediated states identifies more pragmatic engagements of the state that allow it to govern alongside non-state actors, just as Boege et al (2009) argue that the state is merely one actor among many offering services and that hybrid political orders can emerge between the state and informal authorities. There does not have to be a monopoly of authority by one group over all the functions of governance for some form of governance to exist; as long as they enact non-contradictory rules on different functions of governance, multiple agents of authority can exist (Zanker et al, 2014;Gledhill, 2018). When there is an absence of direct threat and neither governance actors are able or willing to extract direct benefit from the other, both the state and the non-state are left with few additional resources in their arsenal.…”