Ken Menkhaus

Governance without Government in Somalia: Spoilers, State Building, and the Politics of Coping

Zones of state failure are assumed to be anarchic. In reality, communities facing the absence of an effective state authority forge systems of governance to provide modest levels of security and rule of law. Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in Somalia, where an array of local and regional governance arrangements have emerged since the 1991 collapse of the state. The Somalia case can be used both to document the rise of governance without government in a zone of state collapse and to assess the changing interests of local actors seeking to survive and prosper in a context of state failure. The interests of key actors can and do shift over time as they accrue resources and investments; the shift from warlord to landlord gives some actors greater interests in governance and security, but not necessarily in state revival; risk aversion infuses decisionmaking in areas of state failure; and state-building initiatives generally fail to account for the existence of local governance arrangements. The possibilities and problems of the mediated state model, in which weak states negotiate political access through existing local authorities, are considerable.

State collapse in Somalia: second thoughts

Somalias protracted crisis of complete state collapse is unprecedented and has defied easy explanation. Disaggregating the Somali debacle into three distinct crises – collapse of central government, protracted armed conflict, and lawlessness – helps to produce more nuanced analysis. Significant changes have occurred in the nature and intensity of conflict and lawlessness in Somalia since the early 1990s, with conflicts becoming more localized and less bloody, and criminality more constrained by customary law and private security forces. These trends are linked to changing interests on the part of the political and economic elite, who now profit less from war and banditry and more from commerce and service business that require a predictable operating environment. The prolonged collapse of Somalias central government cannot be explained as a reflection of local interests. The countrys elite would profit greatly from the revival of a recognized but ineffective ‘paper’ state. The inability of Somalias leaders to cobble together such a state is best explained as a product of risk aversion. Political and economic actors in collapsed states fear a change in the operating environment which, though far from ideal, is one in which they have learned to survive and profit.

Vicious circles and the security development nexus in Somalia

The metaphor of the vicious circle is deeply embedded in analysis of protracted conflicts. Yet in at least some instances conflicts that appear to be self‐reinforcing in the short term are in the longer run producing conditions out of which new political orders can emerge. These protracted conflicts are thus dynamic, not static, crises and require post‐conflict assistance strategies that are informed by accurate trend analysis. The case of Somalia is used to illustrate the dramatic changes that occur over time in patterns of armed conflict, criminality, and governance in a collapsed state. These changes have produced a dense network of informal and formal systems of communication, cooperation, and governance in Somalia, helping local communities adapt to state collapse, manage risk, and provide for themselves a somewhat more predictable environment in which to pursue livelihoods. Crucial to this evolution of anarchy in Somalia has been the shifting interests of an emerging business community, for whom street crime and armed conflict are generally bad for business.

International peacebuilding and the dynamics of local and national reconciliation in Somalia

From a survey of the numerous reconciliation strategies in Somalia, the most successful were at local level, using traditional Somali socal mechanisms, except where new clans had conquered regions. The centrifugal social, political and economic forces in Somalia undermined the prospect for achieving national‐level peace accords.

Somalia: ‘They Created a Desert and Called it Peace(building)’

This article documents the humanitarian, political and security dimensions of the current Somali crisis and assesses the external policies that are playing an increasingly central role in the conflict. It advances the thesis that in 2007 and 2008 external Western and UN actors treated Somalia as a post-conflict setting when in fact their own policies helped to inflame armed conflict and insecurity there. As a result there was no peace for peacekeepers to keep, no state to which state-building projects could contribute, and increasingly little humanitarian space in which aid agencies could reach over 3 million Somalis in need of emergency relief. The gap between Somali realities on the ground and the set of assumptions on which aid and diplomatic policies toward Somalia have been constructed is wide and deep.

Local Security Systems in Somali East Africa

The Somali case offers a unique opportunity to analyze the evolution of local security arrangements and political orders in environments which are chronically insecure and in which the state is either weak or absent. Over the past several decades, Somalis living in Somalia, Somaliland, eastern Ethiopia, and northern Kenya have had to cope with a wide array of failed, weak, emerging, and predatory state structures, each of which has posed special challenges to communities seeking to create a safe environment.

State Failure, State-Building, and Prospects for a “Functional Failed State” in Somalia

Over two decades of external efforts at institution-building in Somalia have failed to revive a functional central government there. There are many reasons for this, not least of which are powerful local interests in perpetuating weak government institutions, facilitating corruption and other illicit activities. But some notable successes have occurred at the local level, both with formal and informal governance mechanisms. Municipalities have been particularly effective sources of formal governance in Somalia’s failed state, providing basic security and services via legitimate and responsive local authorities. In addition, informal hybrid governance arrangements, drawing on a combination of customary authority, sharia courts, business leaders, women’s market groups, and professionals, have been a critical source of routinized, legitimate governance and rule of law in Somalia. External actors have struggled to understand these arrangements and their place in wider state-building efforts. Where external aid has helped with local and informal governance in Somalia, it has been carefully calibrated and based on close contextual knowledge, not template-driven projects.

SOMALIA: WHAT WENT WRONG?

Abstract After almost two ignominious decades as the worlds foremost failed state, Somalias prospects had seemed brighter at the start of 2009. Only a few months later, the country is once more in the grip of despair as an emboldened insurgency and a feeble government together frustrate national reconciliation.After almost two ignominious decades as the worlds foremost failed state, Somalias prospects had seemed brighter at the start of 2009. Only a few months later, the country is once more in the grip of despair as an emboldened insurgency and a feeble government together frustrate national reconciliation.

Conflict prevention and human security: issues and challenges

In the conduct of diplomacy, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of intervention. Intervening in advanced conflicts is exceptionally difficult, costly, and prone to failure. Conflict prevention—as policy, strategy, or paradigm—has much greater moral and political appeal. Successful preventative measures spare at-risk populations from the scourge of war, displacement, and death; they save the international community the cost, risk, and political controversy of direct humanitarian intervention and peace operations; and they shield the international community from the many dangers of spillover from intrastate wars, including refugee flows, arms trafficking, trans-national criminality, and the unchecked spread of disease. Preventative strategies are therefore appealing from both a liberal humanitarian ethos and a realpolitik, national security, logic. Moreover, though preventative strategies are themselves a form of intervention, they have the potential to be somewhat less mired in perplexing questions regarding intervention and sovereignty. As Michael Lund concludes preventative diplomacy ‘presents a proactive middle course between an unrealistically overreaching interventionism and a blanket isolationism’ (Lund, 1996). Thus, conflict prevention as a general principle has been repeatedly endorsed in international forums, national security documents, and academic analyses. ‘There is near-universal agreement that prevention is preferable to cure,’ noted UN Secretary-

Calm between the storms? Patterns of political violence in Somalia, 1950–1980

This article explores the uses of organized violence in Somali politics from the late colonial period up to 1980, an era that – on the surface, at least – appears relatively free of political violence compared to both previous and ensuing decades. After considering critical historical and contextual background, the analysis proposes a typology of political violence in Somalia. It then maps the trends in political violence from 1950 to 1980, looking for patterns of continuity and change, and offering possible explanations for these patterns.