Anastasia Shesterinina
This is a summary of a typology on mid-level commanders’ trajectories in armed conflict. The article is published in Cooperation and Conflict; the original publication can be read here.
Existing research demonstrates the central role of mid-level commanders as either spoilers or leaders of peace but treats this group as unitary, defined by its communication function in hierarchical non-state armed organizations. Drawing on life history interviews with ‘middle managers’ (mandos medios) of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), this article explores heterogeneity of mid-level commanders.
Heterogeneity of mid-level commander experiences
Existing research sheds light on the multi-directional relations mid-level commanders develop during war and their sustained post-war ties to ex-combatants, civilian communities, and elites. It characterizes these actors as having unique skills and status that differentiate them from both top commanders and rank-and-file combatants. By drawing connections between their wartime and post-war roles, it advances our understanding of these actors’ influence, be it as spoilers or leaders in the peace process. Nevertheless, it defines their wartime roles broadly by their central position in armed organizations without considering distinctions in how mid-level commanders join their organizations, progress within them, and act in these roles. As a result, mid-level commanders are in general presented as a unitary group in the literature.
A closer look at this group suggests major differences in their experiences, however. Individuals follow different trajectories into, in, and out of diverse mid-level commander roles and this shapes the skills, status, and ties they forge over time in their organizations. A processual approach is needed to capture the dynamism of mid-level commander experiences and, thereby, their heterogeneity. This requires a shift from categorical analysis, that is, from ‘the mid-level commander’ as a category, to the examination of a range of individual experiences as they unfold within this group. These experiences can then be aggregated into patterns that are meaningful for understanding mid-level commanders’ varied, and contradictory, influence.
A processual approach to mid-level commander trajectories
Research on civil war identifies key components of a processual approach to individual trajectories in armed organizations. These trajectories set off with the process of joining, which combines individuals’ various backgrounds and prior experiences with recruitment strategies of armed organizations. Once in the organization, individuals undergo the processes of formal and informal socialization into the rules and norms of the organization and where relevant progression within it. While only a small proportion of members move beyond the rank-and-file, members can shift between different, for example, combatant and non-combatant, roles. These aspects of individual trajectories to a large extent depend on the structure, institutionalization, and needs of the organization at any given time.
Research on middle managers in organization and management studies helps extend this approach to mid-level commanders in particular. Debates in this literature have shifted from understanding middle managers in light of their ‘central position in organizational hierarchies’ to appreciating their ‘contradictory subject positions’ (Harding et al., 2014: 1214). In answering the question ‘who is the middle manager,’ this literature has highlighted that middle managers at the same time are controlled by and resist senior management as well as control and are resisted by junior staff (Harding et al., 2014: 1231). Instead of passive transmitters between senior managers and junior staff, they can, therefore, be seen as active mediators who interpret and implement strategic plans in ways that make everyday operations of the organization not a top-down but a bottom-up, ‘emergent and unpredictable process,’ where middle managers reshape, obstruct, and resist senior directives, whether intentionally or not (Balogun and Johnson, 2005: 1574).
Because of this agentic capacity, in the ‘processual view’ advanced in this research, middle managers constitute and reconstitute their identity in a continuous process of ‘becoming,’ drawing on formal and informal discourses to legitimize their shifting roles (Thomas and Linstead, 2002: 75). They do so by moving between their contradictory subject positions in what is called ‘boundary work,’ or ‘dynamic positioning at and across’ boundaries between structures within and beyond their organizations, for example, ‘between ranks and across professional logics’ (Azambuja et al., 2023: 1820, 1822). This is further complicated by ‘a large variety of middle managers from first line supervisors… to very senior managers’ that are included in this category (Gjerde and Alvesson, 2020: 125). The boundaries that middle managers with these distinct roles negotiate differ dramatically, which matters for how and in relation to whom their ‘middle-levelness’ is experienced (Gjerde and Alvesson, 2020: 125). These experiences—the processes of ‘becoming’ and navigating the boundaries of their position—frame the processes of joining, socialization, progression to, and movement between different wartime and post-war roles stemming from civil war studies in ways that are specific to the middle level.
A typology of mid-level commander trajectories
Mapping individual trajectories from mid-level commanders’ process of ‘becoming’ within the organization to their post-war roles allows us to identify not only heterogeneity of their experiences but also differences within this cohort that are meaningful for post-war outcomes. Individuals do not obtain special skills, status, and ties simply by virtue of their central position in the organization. They become mid-level commanders in different ways and, thus, differ in their skills and status. For example, in contexts where commanders are targeted by counterinsurgency, ‘young replacement commanders d[o] not usually have the same skills as their predecessors’ (Giustozzi, 2012: 39). The ties they can develop are also contingent on the centralization and diversification of the organization and the specific position in the hierarchy and character of mid-level commander roles that stem from these aspects of the organizational structure. These roles range ‘[f]rom the squad leader to the front commander,’ or ‘from supervision of fewer than five fellow fighters to command over several hundred in a particular area’ (Giustozzi, 2012: 54; Zyck, 2009: 121).
Hence, who ‘the mid-level commander’ is, whether a mediator transmitting directives down and feeding implementation up the organization or an agent interpreting, shaping, and even obstructing strategic plans, is not a straightforward question as she is likely to occupy and move between different roles. While her typical path along the ranks involves taking on ‘increasingly responsible positions,’ not all mid-level commanders develop ‘portable skills’ that enable them to maintain influence when their organizations transform (Grzymała-Busse, 2002: 65). Because a large variety of mid-level commanders exists between top leaders and the rank-and-file, each role’s ‘middle-levelness’ should be defined relationally—in relation to a given constellation of superiors, subordinates, and other constituencies (Gjerde and Alvesson, 2020: 125). Acting as both superiors and subordinates at any given level of the organization, mid-level commanders cross boundaries between ranks, organizational branches, and internal and external constituencies based on their shifting position within and beyond the organization. The article develops a typology linking these heterogenous wartime experiences to various post-war outcomes previously identified in the literature.