Description
Book SynopsisCan ‘traditional’ leaders and institutions help to build more legitimate, accountable and effective governments in polities or ‘states’ under (re)construction? This book investigates the case of “Somaliland”, the 20-year old non-recognized state which emerged from Somalia’s conflict and state collapse. A careful analysis of Somaliland’s political history, it outlines the complex and evolving institutional and power dynamics involving clan elders, militia leaders, guerrilla movements, as well as politicians and civil servants in its emerging state structures. While showing the great potential of endogenous processes, it clearly demonstrates the complexity and the politics of those processes and the necessity to think beyond one-size-fits-all state-building formulas.
Trade Review'Renders (Ghent Univ., Belgium) is as comfortable in explaining the (in) applicability of the Weberian theory of the state in this context as she is in elucidating the role of clan elders in the complex governance of the present state-like entity. She labels Somaliland a "hybrid political order (HPO)." Although densely argued, the book makes an important contribution to empirical political theory and comparative Afiican studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections'. H. Glickman, emeritus, Haverford College, In: Choice, August 2012 'This book is a timely contribution to the discourse on 'stateness' - the concept of becoming a state - in Somali Studies. Renders has produced an elegantly written book that adds fresh insight into statebuilding in fragile and failing states'. Mohamed Haji Ingiriis in 'Journal of the Anglo-Somali Society', Spring 2013, Issue 53, pp. 56-58
Table of ContentsCONTENTS List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................... xi List of Illustrations .................................................................................................xiii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ xv A Note on Somali Orthography and Transliteration ...................................xvii Introduction: Places That Do Not Exist ............................................................... 1 A. State-Making in Somaliland......................................................................2 B. Data Collection .............................................................................................5 C. Plan of the Book .......................................................................................... 9 I Challenging Received Notions of Statehood, State Failure and State-Building ..... 13 A. Defijining a State: Somaliland’s Claim to Statehood .......................... 15 B. Failing What? .............................................................................................. 17 C. Persistent Anachronisms ......................................................................... 21 D. Anachronisms as Patches for State Failure ....................................... 22 E. Invented Traditions and the Making of African States: A Two Way-Process ... 25 F. State-Making Reconsidered: Bringing Politics Back in .................. 27 G. Concluding Remarks: Concepts, Discourse and Politics ............... 29 II The Failing State. What Has Clan Got to Do With It? ........................... 33 A. The Somaliland Protectorate and the Introduction of the Modern Nation State ........... 35 B. Colonial Administration and State Building ..................................... 42 C. Clanship Mediated Politics in Cold War Somalia ............................ 45 D. Concluding Remarks: Failed State Building? .................................... 57 III The Emergence of the Somali National Movement as a Clan-Supported Opposition Force .... 59 A. Growing Oppositions in the Northwest .............................................60 B. Becoming Isaaq ......................................................................................... 72 C. SNM Fighting in the Northwest ............................................................ 79 D. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................ 85 IV Clan Elders and the Forging of a Hybrid State ...................................... 87 A. The Role of Clan Elders in the Undoing of the SNM .................... 87 B. SNM Heartland: Clan Elders’ Negotiating Power over State Resources ....96 C. Peace, Governance and State Outside the Isaaq Heartland ......104 D. Conclusion ...............................................................................................115 V “At the Centre of Peace and War”: Pragmatic State Building Under the Egal Government, 1993–1997 .....117 A. Somaliland and UNOSOM II ...............................................................117 B. The Airport War ....................................................................................126 C. Regime Consolidation Via War … and ‘Traditional’ Peace Making ....140 D. Concluding Remarks ............................................................................150 VI Looking Like a Proper State .......................................................................153 A. The Hargeysa ‘Clan Conference’ and the End of Clan-Based Representation ......154 B. Undoing Local Governance Arrangements While Outsourcing Security and Public Order. .................159 C. Centralising Symbolic and Material Resources ............................168 D. Concluding Remarks ............................................................................174 VII Claiming the Eastern Borderlands ..........................................................177 A. The Dhulbahante and Somaliland ...................................................178 B. Competing State Claims ...................................................................... 181 C. Shifting Sands and Loose Ends ..........................................................190 D. Concluding Remarks ............................................................................194 VIII Egal’s Political and Institutional Tailpiece ............................................197 A. The Referendum on the Draft Constitution and the Introduction of the Multi-Party System ....198 B. The Opposition Sultaans....................................................................204 C. Toward the First Election ....................................................................211 D. Conclusion ..............................................................................................221 IX Somaliland as a Model for Building Proper States? ........................... 225 A. Transitioning into the Post-Egal Era ............................................... 228 B. The Elections: Clan Politics Through the Back Door .................236 C. Somaliland after the First Round of Elections under the Multi-party System ........ 255 D. Conclusion .............................................................................................263 Bibliography ...........................................................................................................267 Index......................................................................................................................... 283
