Law and Order in Counterinsurgency: The Link between Insurgent Group Characteristics and the Use of Domestic Law Enforcement

Modern-day insurgencies are adaptive, enduring, and increasingly intertwined with criminal elements, and therefore pose serious threats to regional and global security. In response, counterinsurgency strategies have become more diversified. One of the strategies that states can employ toward insurgencies is the use of domestic law enforcement, which includes operations by police and intelligence agencies. Given the predominant focus on military approaches, however, there is little empirical work that examines the use of domestic law enforcement in counterinsurgencies. To address this, we investigate the underlying reasons behind a government’s decision to deploy domestic law enforcement against insurgencies. We argue that specific attributes of insurgent groups significantly shape this decision. Using the BAADI2 dataset, our analysis shows that insurgent groups that participate in cooperative alliances and engage in criminal activities are most likely to motivate a state’s decision to deploy domestic law enforcement as a counterinsurgency strategy against them.