Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa: Rebellions and Its Discontents by Michael Woldemariam (review)

There are many scholarly works that deal with wars in the Horn of Africa over the last three decades. Whereas some emphasized interstate wars (e.g., between Ethiopia and Somalia), or wars between rebels and states, violent encounters between various rebel organizations formed the praxis of other strands of scholarship. More important, this body of literature underwent a significant metamorphosis in terms of purpose and interpretation. Nevertheless, in general the attention paid to “insurgent fragmentation” has been rare. Michael Woldemariam’s Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa: Rebellions and Its Discontents represents a powerful contribution to the literature and reflects bold, empirically grounded theoretical implications to the literature. The work bases its analyses on well-known histories about the Horn and may add little in telling new stories, yet it is the first of its kind: not only because it is a work that comes much later after the “fragmentations” that it examines have been settled, at least in the context of battlefields, but also because its analyses are innovative, insightful, and well-researched.

Woldemariam’s Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa is a sophisticated and complex handling of the subject of wars that explores and unpacks the underpinnings of rebel fragmentations with particular emphasis on the civil wars fought in the Horn of Africa. The underlying argument of the book is that battlefield outcomes create and shape rebel factionalism and fragmentation; turning its gaze on these outcomes it captures how the prevalence of fragmentation and factionalism within rebel organizations can determine the intensity, duration, and postconflict effects of a civil war. Territorial gains and losses trigger fragmentation, Woldemariam argues, but “territorial stalemate . . . counterintuitively” encourages cohesion and, as such, tends to create decisive foundations upon which alliances may be forged in war. In an effort to answer its main research question—why and under what conditions do rebel organizations fragment? —Woldemariam’s study narrates, analyzes, interprets, and contextualizes the “Ethiopian Civil War of 1960–2008,” which it supplements with a diligent examination of neighboring Somalia.

The book is organized into three sections and seven chapters. The first section—Chapters 1 and 2—theorizes the subject of the study and discusses its practical significance. Chapter 1, in particular, draws upon the experiences of rebel fragmentation in the history of African civil wars and introduces the major themes of the book. This chapter firmly and innovatively situates its findings in the recent body of literature. Building on the foundations laid down in the first chapter, Chapter 2 presents the book’s conceptual frameworks. It defines key concepts of this book (“rebel organization” and “rebel fragmentation”), reviews the existing body of literature on the subject, and outlines a set of theoretical arguments for rebel fragmentation. Presenting empirical evidence drawn from the Ethiopian Civil War, the chapter concludes with an analysis of the ways in which the data it presents is linked to other case studies of the history of rebel fragmentation in Africa.

The second section—Chapters 3, 4, and 5—frames persuasive analytical narratives on the origins of rebel fragmentation based on the experiences of the Ethiopian Civil War. In particular, Chapters 3 and 4 present key historical data essential for understanding the book’s overarching argument. Here Woldemariam’s in-depth historical analyses of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF; referred to throughout the book as Jebha) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF; referred to as Shaebia) consolidates the analytical framework of the book. In Chapter 3, Woldemariam argues that Jebha’s fragmentation emanates from “territorial losses” of 1967 that threw it into organizational shambles, which led to deep divisions throughout its structures, ending with Jebha’s fragmentation into three separate factions. Chapter 4 describes how and why factional splinters coalesced to create another rebel organization, Shaebia, in 1972, and discusses Shaebia’s organizational complexities and the process and progress of the War, and narrates...