Civil wars, by their nature, are inherently complex political phenomena and have attracted the attention of numerous scholars. A major vein of research is focused on understanding how these conflicts end, driven in part by policymakers desiring insights into the conditions that make for a durable peace in societies torn apart by civil war. In The Fates of African Rebels: Victory, Defeat and the Politics of Civil War, Christopher Day makes a valuable policy-relevant addition to the field.

The book broadens our understanding of civil war outcomes from simple categorization of win/lose/negotiated settlement to one that better explains the fates of rebel groups in Africa’s contemporary conflicts by shifting the unit of analysis from the conflict itself to the trajectories of rebel organizations over the course of the conflict. From this point of departure, Day argues that the principal factor that explains rebel group trajectories—from the latent stages of a civil war through the conflict’s termination—is the degree to which these groups were rooted in prewar authority structures. This notion of “political embeddedness” highlights the ability of rebel leaders to stake a claim for political legitimacy, bring in resources, and organize their rebellion. By bringing in existing political networks needed for mobilization, along with greater technical and military skills that enable strong leadership and organization of a rebellion, rebel leaders with high degrees of political embeddedness set themselves up with a strong chance of victory against the state. In contrast, those rebel groups with low political embeddedness are often political outsiders, possessing smaller patronage networks and having a limited appeal to the broader society, diminishing their probability of victory. Not only does political embeddedness point to how rebel groups grow and operate, but it also explains the strategies that incumbent regimes take in response. Combining this logic with an analysis of military capacity between rebels and regimes, Day presents four possible outcomes for African rebellions. Embedded rebels can either attain “victory by domination” if evenly matched with the state or achieve “victory by incorporation” into the state’s power structures. On the other hand, outsider rebels can attain “victory by domination” if they can overcome the state militarily, “defeat by elimination” if unable to overcome the state, or “defeat by disintegration” as the group yields to internal fragmentation.

The bulk of the book is devoted to several case studies of contemporary rebellions in Africa to expand on the theory, leveraging considerable fieldwork in postconflict situations. The case of independent Uganda is used to demonstrate the four theoretical outcomes. The study provides a fine-grained qualitative analysis on how the political embeddedness of the nine rebellions under examination lead to each rebellion’s outcome, demonstrating the applicability of the theoretical framework across a range of political embeddedness levels. The cases of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and Côte d’Ivoire’s Forces Nouvelles—two politically embedded rebel groups—are used to examine the fates of rebellion by political insiders in symmetrical, irregular conflicts. Using process-tracing techniques, Day demonstrates how the notion of political embeddedness gave rebel leaders organizational and leadership endowments to establish their rebellions as well as pathways toward a victorious outcome against regimes with similar military capabilities. To evaluate the outcomes of nonembedded rebel groups, the cases of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front and the Central African Republic’s Séléka rebels are presented. With these cases, Day shows how outcomes of defeat by disintegration or victory by domination can result from a lack of political embeddedness. The Revolutionary United Front’s lack of political embeddedness contributed to limited organizational cohesion, which set the group up for internal factionalization over time and its eventual disintegration. In contrast, the Séléka initially achieved victory by domination by seizing Bangui; but lacking endowments deriving from political embeddedness, the group was unable to consolidate its military victory into a political one. Pointing to future areas of research, the book concludes with a brief examination about how the theory might explain cases where nonembedded rebels continue to persist on the fringes (i.e., the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Allied Democratic Front) and the impact of proxy sponsorship on the theory.

For policymakers and conflict analysts looking at ways to end ongoing noninternational armed conflicts, the theory presented in the book should be thoroughly considered. Understanding the degree of political embeddedness of rebel groups in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan will give critical insights into what strategies may be effective in mediation efforts. By highlighting the political nature of rebellion and the important connection between the political networks used by rebels and their ultimate ends, The Fates of African Rebels makes a significant contribution and provides a welcome addition to the peacemaker’s toolkit and to those researching the phenomenon of civil wars.