ABSTRACT
Warlords are a leading example of today's state/non-state security hybridity and they are individuals who control small slices of territory using patronage and force. They are militia-leaders who distribute resources at will, based on their own power balancing considerations, rather than being subject to laws or traditional rules. This chapter explores the relative rarity of warlordism as a basis for historical state evolution and development. While warlords often practice some form of 'governance' broadly defined, to keep the surrounding population under minimal control and there is no expectation that they evolve into rule-based practitioners of good governance. In theory it is possible to imagine a case where modern warlords who are tied to a particular territory face a game-changing crisis that leads them to alter their fundamental self-concepts and political identities, to become law-governed state builders. Law-based governance systems have tended to evolve organically from consensus-based traditions, not from the hybrid systems of warlordism.
