This book analyses the strategies and narratives of Non-State Armed Actors (NSAAs), principally relying on primary material and interviews conducted by the author. The book develops a simple model based on goals and means, which allows us to increase our understanding and comprehension of organisations and individuals that decide to take up arms in the name of a political cause. One of the key arguments is that statehood plays a critical role for NSAAs, irrespective of their military capabilities, ideological aspirations and geographic origins. They are non-state not by choice but because they are unable to be a state actor. In other words, their stateless status is a matter of lack of power, not lack of will. With the aim of shedding light on the intimate relationship between NSAAs and statehood, the book examines 25 cases from around the globe. These armed actors use violence in order to attain divergent political aims, which are segmented into two macro categories, namely territorial change (secessionists) and regime change (Marxists-Leninist, Salafi-Jihadists and far-right).

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Jaume Castan Pinos is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark (SDU), and Visiting Associate Professor at Sciences Po Strasbourg. He holds a Ph.D. in International Politics (Queen's University Belfast, 2011). He is the Head of the International and Regional Politics Section at SDU. His academic interests are framed by ethno-territorial conflicts, geopolitics, and political violence. He is the author of Kosovo and the Collateral Effects of Humanitarian Intervention (Routledge, 2019) and co-author of Lawfare: New trajectories in Law (Routledge, 2023).