The Role of Non-State Actors in Post-Conflict State-Building

Abstract

Efforts to understand Middle Eastern conflict by many analysts have adopted a largely primordial approach, based on the notion that sectarian tensions are ancient and unchangeable. Through this lens, conflict in countries like Lebanon and Iraq are assessed by some as being further expressions of centuries-old religious tensions. Yet this theoretical framework fails to explain intra-sectarian conflicts. Nor can a strictly instrumentalist approach help explain the puzzle of conflict and competition among same-sect actors. Consequently, this thesis takes up this puzzle by examining ongoing intra-Shia conflict in Iraq among various factions of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs). In so doing, the thesis questions the value of adopting primordialism as the most adequate framework to explain conflict in the Middle East. Instead, the thesis explores alternative, non-essentialist questions: Does this competition have ideological, sectarian undertones, or is it motivated by local and regional political dynamics and struggles? In so doing, the thesis applies a Bourdieusian framework to explain the puzzle of conflict among Iraq’s PMUs, situating this conflict within the competition over a nation’s political field.