Classifying Armed Non-State Actors in National Security Governance: A PRISMA-Based Systematic Literature Review of Competing Classification Frameworks

Abstract

This study systematically examines how armed non-state actors (ANSAs) are classified within national security governance and what legal and policy consequences follow from competing classification frameworks. A Systematic Literature Review was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 protocol, using the Scopus database and a three-block Boolean search that combined actor terms, classification terms, and governance terms. Eligibility was restricted to English-language, peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2010 and 2026 that explicitly analyze armed non-state actors in relation to at least one of five dimensions: governance practices, institutionalization, criminalpolitical hybridization, securitization, or state capacity. Of 451 records identified, 85 were retained for retrieval, 74 were assessed in full text, and 63 articles were included in a theory-informed narrative synthesis. The findings reveal no dominant or unified classification model. The literature is instead distributed across five competing frameworks: governance-oriented or quasi-state actor approaches (28.6%), terrorism-based approaches (23.8%), criminal or hybrid criminal models (19.0%), non-international armed conflict or IHL-based perspectives (15.9%), and state-capacity or limited-statehood frameworks (12.7%). These frameworks differ not in the empirical behavior they observe but in their classificatory criteria, normative foundations, applicable legal regimes, and institutional consequences: governanceoriented studies privilege de facto authority and institutionalization; terrorism and criminal frameworks privilege threat prevention and prosecutorial mechanisms; IHL-based approaches privilege the organization threshold and the legality of force; and state-capacity models treat classification as relationally conditioned by areas of limited statehood. On this basis, the study proposes a multidimensional governance-sensitive framework structured along four analytical dimensions, namely organizational institutionalization, exercised governance capacity, the nature of the articulated political claim, and state capacity as a contextual moderator. Read jointly rather than sequentially, these dimensions generate a classificatory profile rather than a single label, allowing legal qualification and institutional response to be derived from observable attributes instead of from the disciplinary entry point of the analyst.