Polarization as Destiny: Tribal Societies and the Coming Storms in “Stable” Nations

By Ismail H. Warsame © 2025 WDM

Introduction: The Permanent Condition

Conventional political science often treats polarization as a systemic anomaly—a pathology to be cured through dialogue and institutional reform. This perspective is not just optimistic; it is fundamentally misguided. In tribal societies, polarization is not a bug but the operating system. It is the essential logic of the political order, dictating the allocation of power, resources, and security. Nations like Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan are not mere examples of state failure; they are archetypes of societies where polarization is the default state, where trust is a finite commodity reserved for kin, and where compromise is perceived as capitulation.

As Lidwien Kapteijns argues in her study of Somalia’s collapse, the civil war was a moment when “moral worlds collapsed,” forcing kinship to become the ultimate arbiter of security and identity (Kapteijns 2013). This is more than historical analysis; it is a predictive framework. When modern state institutions evaporate, human allegiances retract to the oldest and most resilient bonds: those of blood and tribe. The ballot box is a modern convenience; the clan is a permanent reality.

Somalia: The Institutionalization of Division

Somalia’s post-1991 implosion offers a masterclass in polarization’s endgame. Clan-based militias partitioned Mogadishu into sovereign enclaves, converting government ministries into ethnic fortresses and state arsenals into private armories. The ensuing “peace conferences” were less exercises in reconciliation than they were tense negotiations to codify a new clan-based balance of power. The resulting “4.5 Formula”—which allocates political power among four major clans and a coalition of minor ones—is not a tool for unity but the constitutional sanctification of tribal polarization (Menkhaus 2006). It is a system designed to manage perpetual distrust, not to overcome it.

Consequently, the Somali “state” exists as a fragile truce between armed kinship networks. What is called peace is merely the interval between violent contests for resources and dominance.

Yemen: The Vengeance Cycle

Yemen’s conflict, while often framed in sectarian terms, operates on a deeply tribal logic. The war between Houthis and their adversaries is a feedback loop of honor and vengeance, where each drone strike and battlefield loss is registered as a blood debt demanding repayment. The much-lauded National Dialogue Conference, intended to forge a pluralistic democracy, instead served as a catalyst, hardening factional identities and crystallizing polarization into full-scale civil war (Juneau 2016). The process of inclusion, ironically, exposed the irreconcilable fractures it sought to mend.

The West: Manufacturing Tribal Instincts

If tribal societies generate polarization organically, Western nations are now engineering it through demographic and cultural shifts. Driven by economic demand for labor, mass immigration has rapidly created multicultural societies that test the limits of social cohesion. In response, aging native majorities, anxious about cultural displacement and demographic decline, have embraced backlash politics—from Brexit and MAGA to the rise of the AfD in Germany and the National Rally in France.

The complacent assumption that Western democracies are “consolidated” and immune to collapse has proven false. Trust between the cosmopolitan elite and the nationalist populace has eroded to dangerous, Weimar Republic-like levels (Norris and Inglehart 2019). The January 6th insurrection was not an aberration but a prologue: a glimpse of a future where political violence escalates into organized militia activity and secessionist rhetoric, culminating in scenarios once confined to the academic study of civil wars (Walter 2022).

The Future: When the Center Is a Fiction

Western polarization may not be genealogically tribal, but it is psychologically tribal. “Blue” and “Red” factions increasingly inhabit separate informational universes, adhere to contradictory mythologies, and view each other as existential threats. As Barbara Walter’s research confirms, when political groups begin to see their rivals as enemies deserving of neutralization, and when demographic change alters the balance of power, the risk of internal conflict intensifies dramatically (Walter 2022).

The supreme irony is that the analytical models developed for Mogadishu and Sana’a may soon be applied to Minneapolis and Marseille. The scholars who once observed tribal polarization from a distance may find it unfolding in their own communities.

Conclusion: A Satirical Prophecy

Satire converges with prophecy when reality outstrips imagination. The West, having spent decades lecturing failed states on governance, may find itself taking lessons from them. Somalia’s “4.5 Formula” could foreshadow an American “2.5 Formula”—a precarious power-sharing agreement between two irreconcilable nations sharing one geographic space, perpetually on the verge of dissolution over a Supreme Court decision or a contested election.

The future of global politics may not be a unified village but a world of interconnected tribal quarrels, armed with ancient grievances and modern weapons.

References

Kapteijns, Lidwien. Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

Menkhaus, Ken. “Governance without Government in Somalia.” International Security 31, no. 3 (2006): 74–106.

Juneau, Thomas. “Explaining Yemen’s Civil War: The Role of Grievances, Identity, and External Actors.” Middle East Policy 23, no. 4 (2016): 54–69.

Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Walter, Barbara F. How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them. New York: Crown, 2022.

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This paper is based on my recent readings and observations. Ismail H Warsame.