Power politics: Armed non-state actors and the capture of public electricity in post-invasion Baghdad
| Author | Christiana Parreira |
| Published date | 01 July 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343320940768 |
| Date | 01 July 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Power politics: Armed non-state actors
and the capture of public electricity
in post-invasion Baghdad
Christiana Parreira
Department of Political Science, Stanford University
Abstract
Scholars observe that armed non-state actors (NSAs) often provide social services to reinforce their popular support
and legitimacy as guarantors of local order. On the other hand, NSAs usually face funding constraints that make the
independent provision of distributive goods difficult. This article argues that armed NSAs employ an alternative,
more cost-effective tactic to deliver services. It argues that militant groups can leverage their armed capacity to capture
control of and monopolize access to state-sponsored services. As an example, it documents the capture of public
electricity infrastructure that took place in post-invasion Baghdad under the Sadrist Movement, an armed group
formed shortly after the ouster of the Ba’athist state. Using local-level information about the location of Sadrist offices
and remote sensing data, it estimates that Sadrist-affiliated neighborhoods in Baghdad saw an average increase in
access to electricity between 2003 and 2006 that was significantly greater than in other areas of the city. The article
concludes by addressing threats to inference, showing that these differ ences are not alternatively explained by
demographic differences or changes therein due to ongoing conflict. It also discusses how this NSA strategy might
contribute to an equilibrium of low state legitimacy and weak capacity in fragile contexts like that of post-2003 Iraq.
Keywords
distributive politics, electricity, Iraq, Middle East, militant organizations, non-state actors, state capacity
Introduction
A rapidly expanding literature investigates how and why
non-state actors (NSAs) provide a range of social services
(Gough et al., 2004; Helmke & Levitsky, 2004;
Cammett & MacLean, 2014). NSAs involved in the
provision of social welfare range from nongovernmental
organizations and faith-based associations to political
movements and armed groups. The role of NSAs is par-
ticularly pronounced when states neglect, for a variety of
reasons, to assume a proactive role in service provision.
Economic crises and political conflicts often simultane-
ously lower the state’s capacity to distribute goods and
raise the profile of actors operating outside of – some-
times in opposition to – the government itself. As a
result, NSAs often substitute for an absent or crippled
public sector, and may even co-produce goods in colla-
boration with state efforts (Gough et al., 2004; Boege,
Brown & Clements, 2009). Previous scholarly work
demonstrates the role NSAs play in the independent
provision of security (Meagher, 2012), healthcare
(Cammett, 2014), and other infrastructural goods (Lee,
Walter-Drop & Wiesel, 2014; Post, 2014).
This article builds from existing theories of non-state
welfare provision and highlights a different strategy
employed by NSAs. It argues that NSAs also distribute
social welfare by capturing and monopolizing access to
previously extant public services. It argues that, when an
NSA maintains the capacity to enforce order, the infor-
mal acquisition of control over services formally provided
by the state is a cheaper alternative to investing in inde-
pendent service provision. Through the capture of state
resources, NSAs can monopolize local control of the
services in question for the purpose of engendering
Corresponding author:
cparreira@stanford.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 58(4) 749–762
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0022343320940768
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