WHY REBELS COLLIDE: FACTIONALISM AND FRAGMENTATION IN AFRICAN INSURGENCIES, a 2011 Ph.D. dissertation by Michael H. Woldemariam
Abstract
A common feature of modern civil wars is the tendency of rebel organizations to factionalize and fragment. Yet how can we explain patterns of factionalism and fragmentation in civil wars? How do normal, private disagreements within rebel organizations become full-fledged disputes that lead to a complete collapse of cooperation in war? Given the importance of rebel factionalism and fragmentation to civil wars' scale, duration, and outcomes, such questions warrant careful consideration. This dissertation uses case studies of seven Ethiopian rebel organizations nested within a statistical analysis of an original dataset of Ethiopia’s civil wars to develop an argument about the dynamics of factionalism and fragmentation within rebel organizations. The argument is then tested more broadly, using statistical data analysis on militant organizations in the Middle East. The project relies on over two years of fieldwork in Ethiopia, Somaliland, and African refugee communities in Europe and North America.
The evidence suggests that rebel factionalism and fragmentation are caused by territorial gains and losses, as battlefield shifts alter the incentives that rebel elites have to cooperate with one another. Counter-intuitively, territorial stalemate promotes cohesion and is the only sustainable basis for organizational stability in war. The core argument, along with several corollaries, contributes to a small but growing literature on the internal politics of rebel organizations and offers lessons for policymakers who seek to influence the dynamics of today’s civil wars.
The thesis can be downloaded at:
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