The Dynamics of Illicit Governance Abstract Increasingly armed actors, such as criminal groups, insurgents, and paramilitaries, not only engage in violence but also provide governance at the local level in some countries. This project therefore seeks to explain why, which, and where organized criminal groups develop illicit governance structures over local economic, social, and political activities. To examine illicit governance structures, the project will use online-expert surveys to collect data as well as comparative subnational fieldwork. The findings of this project will contribute to U.S. national security by advancing an understanding of the causes of illicit governance in countries where the U.S. seeks to support national governments, maintain political stability, and contain civil conflicts. The project?s analytical framework explains how the degree of labor/capital intensity of different illicit markets and their territorial concentration/diffusion shape the dynamics of violence and illicit governance. This framework also takes into consideration criminal-state relationships and interactions between rival criminal groups. To empirically examine illicit governance structures, the project will utilize an online-expert survey to collect data from hundreds of security experts. Data collected from the expert surveys and other sources will then be statistically analyzed in order to test the empirical implications of the theoretical framework. The quantitative analyses will employ a variety of quasi-experimental identification strategies to strengthen causal inference. Comparative subnational qualitative case research will be conducted to illustrate and assess causal mechanisms suggested by the statistical results. The findings of this project will advance scholarly literatures in areas such as failed states, non-state actor governance in conflict-affected countries, criminal organizations and corruption, and democratic back-sliding. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.