A Nigerian Youth Corps worker (beige cap) counts ballots as security officers, polling agents and voters watch in the populous Ebute Metta district of Lagos, April 9, 2011. (Daniel Wallis/Courtesy Re…

Vigilante groups usually arise in weak states with deteriorating security situations in which locals feel compelled to take their security into their own hands. The state will often try to co-opt these militias, who are afforded a level of legitimacy in their communities that the military is not, at least initially, and thus have a distinct advantage in counterinsurgency operations.

Benjamin Zawacki is a senior program specialist with the Asia Foundation’s office in Thailand, focused on regional security and cooperation, and the author of Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US…

Below is a guest post by Mark P. Lagon, adjunct senior fellow for human rights at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Solutions to gl…