Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa
Cambridge University Press, 2/15/2018
EAN 9781108423250, ISBN10: 1108423256
Hardcover, 330 pages, 23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
When insurgent organizations factionalize and fragment, it can profoundly shape a civil war: its intensity, outcome, and duration. In this extended treatment of this complex and important phenomenon, Michael Woldemariam examines why rebel organizations fragment through a unique historical analysis of the Horn of Africa's civil wars. Central to his view is that rebel factionalism is conditioned by battlefield developments. While fragmentation is caused by territorial gains and losses, counter-intuitively territorial stalemate tends to promote rebel cohesion and is a critical basis for cooperation in war. As a rare effort to examine these issues in the context of the Horn of Africa region, based upon extensive fieldwork, this book will interest both scholarly and non-scholarly audiences interested in insurgent groups and conflict dynamics.
Part I. Theory and Concepts
1. Organized rebellion and its intractable problem
2. A theory of rebel fragmentation
Part II. Rebellion in Ethiopia and Eritrea
3. The Eritrean Liberation Front
'Jebha' in action, 1960–1982
4. The Eritrean People's Liberation Front
'Shaebia' in action, 1972–1991
5. The second wave of rebellion
Tigrayans, Oromos, Afars, and Somalis, 1975–2008
Part III. Rebel Fragmentation in the Broader Horn
6. The long war in Somalia
the Somali National Movement, Islamic Courts Union, and Harakat al-Shabaab al Mujahidin, 1981–2013
7. Concluding thoughts.