How Have Structural and Precipitant Factors Contributed to the Expansion of the Baloch Insurgency Over Time?
Keywords:
Baloch Insurgency, Structural and Precipitant Factors, Political Marginalization, Resource Mobilization, State Repression, Insurgent ResurgenceAbstract
The fact that the Baloch insurgency has so far refused to go away and that it has intensified in Pakistan on many occasions is a paradoxical enigma to scholars of internal conflict and insurgency studies. Insurgent violence in Balochistan has manifested incredible resilience despite massive military actions, development activities, and political reforms, and an apparent increase in its rate since 2019. This paper discusses the interaction between long-lasting structural conditions and short-term precipitant processes to support the growth of the Baloch insurgency in the medium term. Based on structural violence, relative deprivation, and resource mobilization theories, the study posits that whereas structural factors, including political marginalization, economic exclusion, extractive resource governance, and weak institutions of the state, constitute a sustainable pool of grievances, organizational consolidation, tactical innovation, state repression, and changes in geopolitics of a region, represent the trigger factors of insurgent growth. Relying on qualitative process tracing and an analysis of peer-reviewed literature, datasets of conflict, and plausible institutional reporting, the article reveals that the resurgence of Baloch militancy after 2019 is a result of the interaction of unfixed structural inequities with enabling conditions of precipitancy, especially the dynamic of the security environment in the region and the coalescence of insurgency alliances. The results highlight the need to have a two-pronged policy response to the structural causes of conflict as well as the immediate precipitants of violence.
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