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The phenomenon of armed group fragmentation has given rise to substantial research. Consolidation in previously fragmented conflicts has attracted far less attention. This article charts armed group consolidation as a new field of inquiry. It conceptualises armed group consolidation as occurring both at the conflict level – the increasing concentration of power within a set of armed groups – and the group level. It proposes two ways of approaching consolidation: examining the mechanisms and conditions of consolidation processes; and comparing diverging outcomes of consolidation processes across different dimensions: territorial control, social control, command-and-control and access to finance.
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Wolfram Lacher (2026) studied this question.
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