Hybrid Actors

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Influential armed groups continue to confound policymakers diplomats and analysts decades after their transformational arrival on the scene in the Middle East and North Africa. The most effective of these militias can most usefully be understood as hybrid actors which simultaneously work through with and against the state.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>This joint report from The Century Foundation identifies the factors that make some hybrid actors persistent and successful as measured by longevity influence and ability to project power militarily as well as politically. It finds that three factors correlate most closely with impact: constituent loyalty resilient state relationships and coherent ideology. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The authors of this report examined cases in Lebanon Syria and Iraq drawing on years of fieldwork to distinguish between hybrid actors classic nonstate proxies and aspirants to  statehood-all of which merit different analytical and policy treatment. The report demonstrate the ways that groups can shift along a spectrum as they adapt to changing conditions.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>This report was written by Thanassis Cambanis Dina Esfandiary Sima Ghaddar Michael Wahid Hanna Aron Lund and Renad Mansour.</span></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>