Turning On a DIME: State and IO Collaboration with Nonstate Actors

• In Event: International Organizations and Cooperation

Abstract

This research asks how international efforts at diplomatic, information, military, and economic (DIME) cooperation with nonstate actors impact patterns of violence. We have sporadic and anecdotal evidence that states and organizations draw on the resources of nonstate actors in times of emergency or crisis. This is because nonstate actors, or organized political actors not directly connected to the state (Pearlman and Cunningham 2011), often have territorial and civilian control in remote regions by taking over various organs of the state (Huang 2016). For instance, following the Global War on Terror in 2001, the U.S. Government gave technical and financial assistance to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to reduce the extremist threat in the southern Philippines. To do so, the GRP leveraged the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an adversarial nonstate actor who governed over remote terrain. As a result of the collaboration, the GRP reduced the influence of extremist cells and MILF revised its violent agenda. Additionally, following the 2004 Tsunami, the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement), a nonstate actor in Indonesia, became a critical player in the Aceh region by granting the American Red Cross access to remote areas, which also paved the way for peace negotiations. What are the effects of this collaboration? Does it create mutually beneficial relationships or does repeated interactions breed long-term resentment? Leveraging novel data on engagement with Southeast Asian nonstate actors (n=299), our findings show that state/international organization diplomatic, information, military, and economic (DIME) engagement reduces nonstate actor violence, particularly state and civilian-targeted terrorism. This paper concludes with the types and patterns of engagement that reduce nonstate actor terrorism most durably.

Authors

• Peggy McWeeney, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies

• Kevin Harrington, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies