Peter Krause
Associate Professor of Political Science, Boston College
Research Affiliate, MIT Security Studies Program
"Rebel Power allows us to understand why the search for ideological moderates, such as our efforts in Syria, can lead to notable setbacks, and shows us how the objectives of ending the violence, achieving victory, and establishing democracy can require an array of often conflicting approaches." -Fotini Christia, MIT
"Rebel Power makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of when and why national liberation movements succeed and use violence."
-Tanisha Fazal, University of Minnesota
"The combination of theoretical sophistication and empirical richness makes this a particularly valuable book." -William Quandt, U Virginia
Data
Group Strength Appendices for Rebel Power: Palestinian, Zionist, Algerian, Irish
Media
Book Talk with Aroop Mukharji on "Snack Break"
Interview with Marc Lynch, Director of POMEPS, link
Interview with Chelsea Daymon on the Loopcast, link
Book Talk and discussion with Professor Roger Petersen in MIT Starr Forum
Reviews
Parameters (2019)
"Krause’s scholarship is impeccable. He looks at four well-known national movements through an analysis of 40 groups in 44 campaigns over 140 years of nationalist aspirations and struggle. The result is well-documented and articulated support for his theory of rebel organizational prowess and power known as Movement Structure Theory. He relies upon a comprehensive blend of fieldwork that includes interviews with members of the nationalist movements."
—Jonathan Sullivan, Senior Fellow, Small Wars Journal-El Centro
H-Diplo ISSF Roundtable (2018)
Introduction by James McAllister, Williams College
Reviews by:
Kristin M. Bakke, University College London
Adria Lawrence, Johns Hopkins University
Wendy Pearlman, Northwestern University
William B. Quandt, University of Virginia, Emeritus
Author's Response by Peter Krause, Boston College
Perspectives on Politics (2018)
"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."
—Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, University of Maryland
The Journal of Politics (2018)
"Ultimately, Rebel Power offers a theoretically powerful and empirically vibrant understanding of the dynamics of nationalist movement behavior, one that makes a significant contribution to the literature on civil wars and peace."
—Stacie Goddard, Wellesley College
Political Science Quarterly (2018)
"In sum, this book is a rare combination of elegant theorizing and rich empirical analysis, which will no doubt influence scholars’ and policymakers’ thinking for years to come."
—Costantino Pischedda, University of Miami
International Journal of Middle East Studies (2018)
"While others acknowledge differences in power structures, no other work to date has offered a clear typology of power dynamics. Of particular strength in this study is Krause’s ability to hypothesize about the behavior of specific organizations. Because he identifies hegemons, leaders, and challengers, he can explore the different incentives that these actors face and show how their place in the power structure dictates their behavior. As such, the book speaks not only to scholars of fragmentation and the Middle East, but also to a broad set of scholars focused on coercive power (whether in international politics or the domestic realm). This book will be a great resource to scholars of nationalism, civil war, and social movements.
—Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, University of Maryland
Comillas Journal of International Relations (2018)
"It is an interesting and important contribution. Interesting for the nationalisms it compares (Palestinians, Zionists, Algerians and Irish) and important because it undermines some popular theories of the discipline, demonstrating other possibilities... This concept, "probably as old as Plato," as Rufus Miles put it four decades ago, which arose from American bureaucratic politics, Krause applies creatively to national movements to analyze and predict their behavior."
—Hutan Hejazi, Universidad Pontificia Comillas ICAI-ICADE
Choice (2017)
"Empirically rich and logically rigorous, Krause’s original approach will attract a lot of attention from scholars of nationalism and insurgency. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty."
—Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University
Mediterranean Politics (2017)
"In Rebel Power, Peter Krause is not satisfied merely with Pearlman’s insistence that the movement achieve organizational unity; he demands hegemony. Whereas unity within a national movement may imply nothing more than a dubious alliance between a leader group (like Fatah) and ‘challenger’ groups (like Hamas or, historically, PFLP), hegemony implies that the leader group’s strength significantly outweighs that of all the others, so that challenging the hegemon’s status is futile."
—Alexei Abrahams, Princeton University, Niehaus Center