Unpacking the Causes and Catalysts of Insurgencies in Africa

Abstract

Abstract In the 20th and 21st centuries, insurgency has emerged as a mechanism for violently reconstituting the post-colonial state in Africa. Yet, despite its enduring influence on the politics of Africa, insurgency continues to present with intriguing dynamics. Existing literature tends to split the origins of insurgencies on this continent into underlying and immediate causes. Also, with the upsurge in Islamist terrorism in the Post-Cold War era, there has emerged a tendency to treat Islamist insurgencies as different from non-Islamist insurgencies in terms of the contradictions that trigger these phenomena. This article asserts that the fluid dynamics in the onset of insurgency blur the imaginary line separating causes from catalysts of insurgencies in Africa. Equally, the causes and catalysts of Islamist insurgencies are not significantly different from those that precipitate non-Islamist insurgencies.