Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005–2012 by Stig Jarle Hansen (review)

Stig Jarle Hansen is to be lauded as an expert on Somalia who gets beyond the echo chambers of conferences and the agendas of websites, wading instead into the real world of Somali society and the critical role that Al-Shabaab plays in it. The product of his hard work provides the reader with a superb analysis of Al-Shabaab’s ideological and operational mainsprings and the effect that this organization has had on Somalia and the region.

The author paints a picture of an armed group that at once is remarkably successful at the same time that it falls prey to repeated failures. The detailed description of how Al-Shabaab actually governed in areas that it controlled by 2009 provides concrete details about what kinds and how much taxation sustained the organization, the services and security that it offered communities, and its mechanisms for ensuring the control and discipline of members and the wider society. In this respect, Al-Shabaab emerged as the most coherent, well-organized, and extensive administration that southern Somalia had known in the past two decades. Hansen repeatedly notes the ways in which the organization’s record of governance was superior to that of the several internationally sponsored authorities.

At the same time, Hansen paints a picture of fragmentation and contention. In numerous examples, Al-Shabaab confronts clan politics through a conscious strategy of incorporating clan leaders who also share ideological and personal connections to Al-Shabaab’s leaders. This enabled the organization to direct the strengths of clan loyalties for easy victories. But his practice also imported clan conflicts that, once embedded, also could fragment the organization.

These two pictures remain in tension with one another throughout the book and raise broader questions for the reader about the nature of Islamic thought and political action in the Somali context. Most scholars appear to believe that identity is socially constructed. Therefore, if Al-Shabaab really could organize society so effectively in areas that it controlled, one would imagine that the idea of clan-based politics—an idea already widely blamed for many of Somalia’s woes—would be vulnerable. What then explains the resilience of the clan logic? One might imagine that Somalia should be especially hospitable to an Islamist internationalist message, given the successes of Al-Shabaab governance and the appeal as an alternative to the old status quo. Hansen indeed shows the durability of an Islamist internationalism among key Al-Shabaab leaders; but again, with a relatively limited effect on the overall tempo of politics.

In a sense, this book about the successes of Al-Shabaab is also a book about its failures. The dedicated Al-Qaeda-inspired internationalists succeed in attracting supporters but fail to overcome the instrumental calculations of the local political figures that they must absorb into their organization if they are to fight and govern effectively. In old-fashioned terms, Al-Shabaab never succeeds in mobilizing the masses directly. Their “liberated zone” still depends upon deals with local intermediaries who provide ultimate protection and can tap the loyalties of members of their communities.

These challenges facing Al-Shabaab’s internationalists raise questions about the capacity of this brand of Islamic thought to shape a society’s grand narratives in ways that challenge the parochialisms of Somali politics and society. As Hansen notes in his conclusion, this weakness is not unique to Al-Shabaab. All revolutionary groups struggle to sort out issues of governance and to manage existing local authority structures. But perhaps Somali politics presents special challenges to broad ideological agendas that may be related to the consequences of the collapse of centralized state authority and the proliferation of multiple armed groups. Thus those who wonder about the fates of Islamist internationalists in other places where central state authority has collapsed will benefit from reading Hansen’s excellent book.

This book...