State Collapse, Al-Shabaab, Islamism, and Legitimacy in Somalia

Abstract

Al-Shabaab, an Islamist non-state armed actor, is gaining legitimacy by adopting a variety of strategies under conditions of state collapse in Somalia. This article examines some of the strategies it is implementing to solicit community support and hence gain legitimacy. Using the political process approach as an analytical framework, the article argues that state collapse in Somalia has created political opportunities for Al-Shabaab to adopt the deployment of Somali nationalism and xenophobia, the use of propaganda, social transformation, and the provision of social services as strategies to acquire legitimacy. The findings demonstrate that there is a relationship between the local-level governance void created by state collapse and Al-Shabaab's use of Islamism as a political ideology to execute these strategies to legitimise itself. By doing so, it has in the process delegitimised the country's Transitional Federal Government, portraying itself as providing alternative local-level governance in Somalia. Al-Shabaab's legitimacy in Somalia is, therefore, largely a function of state collapse and Islamism.