Atlas / Organisations / Al-Shabaab
Al-Shabaab
2006– · Somalia · Jihadist · Movement · coding confidence low
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
An insurgency that governs substantial rural territory, taxes it more effectively than the recognised government, and enforces a severe legal code.
Economic model
Checkpoint taxation, extortion of businesses and charcoal exports; it collects revenue in areas it does not militarily hold.
Organisation of powers
No elections, no institutions independent of the leadership, courts applying corporal and capital punishment.
Reading note
Included because non-state armed governance is a real and common form of political order that party-based datasets do not record at all.
Check a claim about Al-Shabaab. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored −01
Coded −1: checkpoint taxation and extortion, collected even where it does not hold ground.
- ScholarshipIt taxes businesses in the capital that the recognised government also taxes.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +10
At the ceiling: a severe legal code applied to social life.
- Documented act or statuteAmputations and stonings have been carried out publicly in areas under its control.
AU · Organisation of power · scored +10
At the ceiling: no elections and no institutions independent of the leadership.
- ScholarshipGovernance is by appointed governors and courts answerable to the emirate.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +04
Coded +4: rural territorial control across south-central Somalia.
- ScholarshipIt administers substantial rural districts continuously.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +09
Coded +9: clan and confessional exclusion enforced by violence.
- Documented act or statuteAttacks have repeatedly targeted specific clan and religious communities.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +10
At the ceiling: mass violence as the constitutive method.
- Documented act or statuteThe October 2017 Mogadishu bombing killed around 600 people.
Where it came from, and what came after
- succeededIslamic State
Separate organisations in the same current; Al-Shabaab pledged to al-Qaeda rather than to the caliphate.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.