ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine armed groups in detail in order to determine if we can consider them like units which are motivated by survival. The nature of the armed group as a unit will be examined, including the territory or organization it is autonomous over, its governance, ability to motivate, economic system and military power. The point here will be to argue that armed groups are functionally undifferentiated like units that are autonomous from the state. Next the chapter will examine the nature of sovereignty and argue that armed groups are empirically sovereign, although not juridically sovereign. The chapter will then move on to examine the motivations of armed groups. It will be argued that armed groups are not primarily motivated by greed or grievance. Instead, it is argued that armed groups are motivated by the more general concept of power and that we can make the assumption that survival is the explanatory motivation.
