It's funny to me how what I'm reading all day every day now has given me a sort of cookie cutter approach to state building in vacuums of power. It's only funny because I have a bitter sense of humor, just to warn you.
The pattern:
1. Locate area without much government control
2. Exhibit power through excessively violent and public activities
3. Establish difference between your regime and the previous or supposedly present one, insist yours is the better, more liberating one
4. raise money to fund yourself: extort the population because you are protecting them from outside forces and need to fund your troops, and develop a sort of "nationalized" industry. For the Paramilitaries and the guerillas, this means export and sell drugs.
5. Keep up the monopoly of power until you cant. You may be able to reinvent yourself along the way if you are smart.
Now... am I talking about subversive groups, or the government? Depends on the country. The time period. And the situation. But it's not clear now, is it?
