Introduction

Paramilitary or non-state political violence has been omnipresent across the developing world in the era of globalization. Yet, scholarly advances have remained limited to theses about ‘failed’ or ‘weak’ states and the changing nature of warfare, with studies mostly focused on regional specifics. This book makes an argument for acknowledging the universality of paramilitary violence in our times. Drawing on the most diverse collection of case studies, we underline the dynamic and fluid nature of paramilitary violence and argue for analytically separating the process of violence from the actors who embody it in a given place and time. We expose the variety of ways in which paramilitary violence has served as an effective tool wielded by socio-economic and political elites – both national and global – to consolidate their power by targeting a range of real or perceived enemies. Our aim is to offer an empirically informed and theoretically valuable perspective on the relationship between the state and violence in the age of neoliberal globalization.