Gig Economy Insurgency
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Abstract
Militant groups delegate operations to contingent, short-term, and freelance agents. Such informal and ad-hoc employment patterns have wide-reaching consequences, yet the academic literature lacks a systematic vocabulary and framework to analyze these practices. Using primary and secondary sources, I introduce a descriptive typology of informal employment patterns in militant groups, contributing to scholarship and practice by establishing a basis for a systematic comparison of variation in militant employment models, particularly highlighting how these practices can have far-reaching implications for conflict and post-conflict settings. Case studies of informal militant hiring practices in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria support the theory.