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In this new of publications, (HCRI, University of Manchester) and (SOAS) explore policy approaches and responses to paramilitaries and organised crime in war-to-peace transitions. The research offers policymakers, practitioners and others working in or on contexts affected by the paramilitary-organised crime nexus insights and tools to better understand the phenomenon and to move beyond template-based responses towards context-specific, politically informed strategies. Such strategies recognise paramilitaries as durable political actors, take account of their ‘holding power’, prioritise harm reduction, and remain attentive to the distributional consequences of policy choices.

The publications draw on extensive fieldwork, and insights generated by the Policy Lab, ‘Addressing paramilitary violence and organised crime in war-to-peace transitions’, convened by the Centre for the 91Ö±²¥ of Illicit Economies, Violence and Development () at SOAS University of London and supported by though the overarching research project, ‘’. The Lab brought together senior practitioners and policymakers explore new approaches to addressing the nexus and how better to integrate responses.

In many post-war transitions, the end of large-scale conflict does not signal the end of violence. Paramilitary groups - armed actors separate from, but often connected to, the State – can often be a key source of post war violence and instability linked to battles over control of illicit economies and organised crime. The research discusses policy responses and trade-offs found in four primary approaches used by actors to address the nexus; 1) Avoidance - Prioritising short-term stability by ignoring the paramilitary-organised crime nexus, 2) Co-option - Integrating paramilitaries into official state structures, 3) Criminalisation - Treating groups primarily as criminal actors through law enforcement, and 4) Transformation - Addressing the structural drivers, such as inequality and exclusion, that sustain these groups.

There are tensions and trade-offs between these approaches, which are often pursued simultaneously in post war transitions. Though transformation offers the most promise in bringing about a more inclusive peace, often the structural conditions are not in place to pursue such a strategy.

The full series of publications provides in depth specialised analyses across different policy sectors and offers resources to help policymakers manage the difficult trade-offs between immediate security and long-term stability, prioritising harm reduction where the immediate dismantling of these networks is not feasible, whilst remaining attentive to distributional consequences of policy choice.

The Addressing the Paramilitary-Organised Crime Nexus in War-to-Peace Transitions publication series includes:

• SOC ACE Research Paper 42: , offers a foundational synthesis exploring global trends and the "fragmentation of violence" in the 21st century.
• SOC ACE Briefing Notes 43: , provides guiding questions that can be integrated into conflict analysis to better understand the paramilitary-organised crime nexus, and sets out starting points for engaging with it.
• SOC ACE Briefing Note 44: recognises that peace emerges through iterative bargains and offers insights on how paramilitaries should be included in processes.
• SOC ACE Briefing Note 45: offers insights on how DDR/SSR in paramilitary affected contexts required tailored strategies, improved intelligence and analysis, conditionality for inclusion and cross-government coordination.
• SOC ACE Briefing Note 46: offers five insights for consideration when designing and delivery development programming in contexts affected by the paramilitary-organised nexus.
• SOC ACE Briefing Note 47: demonstrates how organised crime analysis needs to be integrated into conflict and governance assessments to improve understanding of political-criminal networks and support responses to extend beyond national borders to target transnational dynamics.
• SOC ACE Briefing Note 48: provides a diagnostic tool for practitioners to conduct political economy analysis of the nexus.
• SOC ACE Briefing Note 51: , shows that militias are central components of the Myanmar military’s borderland governance system, highlighting the need for responses that address their structural role in organised crime, counterinsurgency, and transnational illicit economies.

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