The Return of the Franchise: Resurgence in the Domestic Insurgencies of al-Qaeda Affiliates
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2014
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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Thesis
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The Herman M. Somers Prize in Political Science
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
Despite a large number of analysts arguing that al-Qaeda is in decline, al-Qaeda affiliates (AQAs) have been surprisingly active over the course of the last five years. In theaters like Yemen, Iraq, Mali, and Somalia, despite organizational setbacks, AQAs have carved out significant operational space for themselves and proven their status as noteworthy non-state actors. While success may be too strong of a term to describe AQA campaigns, a number of AQAs have recently demonstrated notable increases in activity after periods of significant setbacks. Given the aforementioned observation, the work presented in my thesis seeks to answer the question, what accounts for resurgence in the domestic campaigns of al-Qaeda affiliates? To elaborate, the analysis in this thesis examines the efforts of AQAs as domestic insurgencies and presents a causal explanation for the resurgence of AQA insurgencies. It tries to explain resurgence in AQAs insurgencies by employing a qualitative methodology that relies on case study analyses. In order to execute such a study, I begin with a basic conceptual overview of insurgency and the concept of resurgence, the dependent variable of this thesis. Then, I discuss the unique nature of AQA insurgencies and the specific challenges they typically face. Next, I examine the relevant literature on insurgencies, civil warfare, and terrorism in order to determine the most theoretically impactful mechanisms on jihadi-insurgent campaigns conducted by AQAs. Afterwards, I present a research design that consists of a number of hypotheses, each presenting an explanation for resurgence based on the impact of an independent variable. Using the aforementioned methodology, I attempt to determine the most impactful variables on resurgent activity as demonstrated by three different AQAs: al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and al-Shabaab. In the end, I identified three variables as being the most impactful on AQA resurgence in the cases analyzed. These variables were Emergent Conflict, Organizational Adaptation, and Economic Factors.