This book addresses a key dynamic of opposition movements that seek their own nation-state: the distribution of power within these movements and its effects on the chance of victory. Rebel Power brings together theoretical insights about intermovement dynamics, as well as detailed analyses of four national movements: the Palestinian national movement, the Zionist movement, the Algerian national movement, and the Irish national movement.

The central argument Peter Krause makes is that the distribution of power among actors within a national movement impacts where resources are used (whether to fight off internal challengers or to pursue their primary goals against the state), and thus plays a key role in determining which national movements will succeed in gaining their own state. This work builds upon several recent contributions in the area of conflict studies, notably Wendy Perlman’s Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (2011), Fotini Christia’s Alliance Formation and Civil Wars (2012), and my own Inside the Politics of Self-Determination (2014). Each of those works addresses the internal dynamics of similar movements and centers on the role that competition plays within them. What Krause adds to this growing literature on fragmentation is a direct focus on the role of power. While other studies have focused on internal dynamics, few have tackled the challenge of attempting to discern whether and how hegemony within a movement impacts conflict dynamics empirically.

Krause offers a typology of movements based on distinctions related to power. He suggests that hegemonic movements have one clear organization that is vastly more powerful than any other organizations within the movement. In contrast to this, other movements that have two or more organizations can be either united (where there is an alliance among organizations) or fragmented (where there is open competition among them). When movements are not hegemonic, there are strong incentives for the dominant organization (which the author calls a “leader”) and any strong but not yet the strongest organization (which he calls “challengers”) to fight among themselves in order to maintain their role in the movement and to benefit from their position when victory is achieved. Krause not only identifies these new “types” but offers novel hypotheses about how changes in movement hierarchy impact conflict dynamics. He presents a set of hypotheses about specific types of actors based on their power profile, as well as predictions about the potential for overall success.

The author advances a fairly “realist” understanding of power, though his detailed analyses in the cases allow him to look at a number of dynamics beyond military might. This approach is in some ways reminiscent of power transition theory (both the global and regional variants) as advanced by A. F. K. Organiski, Jacek Kugler, and Doug Lemke. Yet an examination of power dynamics among nonstate actors remains fundamentally different from an examination of power among recognized states. Here, Krause has utilized insights from international relations scholarship to help unpack relatively complicated dynamics of internal nationalist politics, but refrains from assuming that nationalist groups or specific organizations are statelike. A promising extension of this work would be an exploration of the degree to which the hegemons mimic states in form and behavior.

One of the key takeaways from the empirical analysis that Krause provides is the degree to which hierarchies of power change over time within the same movement. While he identifies an eventual transition to hegemony among all four movements (Algerians, Zionists, Irish, and Palestinians), all four movements also included periods of fragmentation and unity, as well as hegemony. Algeria, for example, alternates between united and fragmented between 1944 and 1957, before becoming hegemonic. The Zionist movement is identified as fragmented from the 1920s to the early 1940s, when it became hegemonic and achieved success. One of the interesting dynamics that becomes apparent with Krause’s careful coding of power dynamics is that success (when limited or moderate) is followed by fragmentation (as we see in the Irish and Palestinian cases). As he notes, this is consistent with the idea that governments work to co-opt “moderates” when they can, and that divisions in the movement presents opportunities for states.

Krause works to clearly define the scope conditions of his project. Indeed, a figure in the introduction shows where nationalist movements exist in reference to self-determination movements, insurgencies, revolutions, and social movements. He also acknowledges that he begins collecting data on a national movement only “once a majority of its groups support political autonomy, so as to only assess the ability of a movement to achieve a goal it actually seeks” (p. 36). Empirically, there is a great diversity among national movements in terms of the goals they pursue, and the means through which they do so. Krause captures a great deal of variation across four national movement projects, and for the purposes of his analysis, he identifies 44 campaigns by 40 significant organizations within these movements. The evidence is very persuasive across his set of cases, which we might identify as poised for independence despite their varying outcomes. A question remains, however, about the extent to which his theoretical approach, centered on coercive power dynamics, will travel to a multitude of different types of movements, including those that have no real chance of obtaining independence.

Following much of the literature, Krause centers on victory as a key outcome, identifying this as “success.” Total success is independent statehood, but he also allows that movements achieve limited success (which is defined as recognition by the United Nations or League of Nations) and moderate success (defined as control of territory). There is nothing inherently wrong with this definition, but it again impacts the potential scope conditions of the argument. By most accounts, the vast majority of national movements will not succeed in gaining their own states. While many of them still root their claims in a right to statehood, organizations within these movements often work to achieve more practical aims, such as self-rule that may or may not entail actual “control” of territory. This raises some questions about how to evaluate success and whether success should be equated with “victory.”

All in all, Rebel Power is an excellent addition to a growing body of work that takes internal fragmentation of nonstate actors seriously. It is the first book to fully address the dynamics of power relations among factions within these movements. As such, it has much to offer both on the theoretical and empirical fronts. Krause offers a novel way to examine power dynamics, and provides a multitude of evidence to show the impact of this factor.