Course introduces students to a research agenda on armed groups that operate in the context of intra-state armed conflict or organized crime. Primary focus lies on how political and criminal armed groups interact with state agents and with civilian populations; how they recruit and maintain control over their members; how and why their internal institutions and their strategies of violence vary; and what the consequences of these patterns are. Also explore the role of the state, particularly when it comes to the effects of wartime repression, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs.
