State, Resources and Violence in Wagner Group's Mercenary Activities in Africa

• In Event: Militas and Mercenaries at War

Abstract

The privatization of security, evolving from a public good to a private commodity, is an increasingly observable global trend. In this paper, I explore the dynamic interaction between the demand side (the state) and the supply side (armed groups). I argue that a violence supplier here can behave as a hybrid bandit – an actor that combines both short- and medium-term perspectives and uses its coercion capital as a comparative advantage to exploit deficits in state capacity for opportunistic purposes. This theoretical framework is used to explain patterns of violence that go beyond this agency agreement, implying that a hybrid bandit commits more violence (1) when involved in natural resource extraction and (2) when its principal can lose power. I test this prediction using the geocoded data on acts of violence towards civilians committed by the Wagner Group private military company in the Central African Republic from 2018 to 2023 and find that it tends to kill more civilians closer to resource deposits or facilities, and during the election campaign when the incumbent is more susceptible to losing power.

Author

• Georgy Tarasenko, Cornell University