Building Peace and the State in Somaliland: The Factors of Success

Abstract

Somalia has not had a central state apparatus since 1991 and is generally viewed as anarchic and war-torn. This assertion is only true for central and southern Somalia, however. In the northwest, Somaliland declared independence in 1991 and set about building what has become a genuine democracy that enjoys relative peace and stability. The country arrived at its current point through a prolonged peace-building process that was accompanied by measures aimed at strengthening the state. Its peacebuilding process during the 1990s was successful because of five key factors: shared identity, leadership, inclusiveness, local ownership, and innovation rooted in tradition. We can extrapolate several important lessons about how postconflict societies can return to peace and stability from Somaliland's experience.

KEYWORDS:

• democratization
• Ibrahim Egal
• (Mohamed) Siad Barre
• peace-building
• Puntland
• Somali National Movement
• Somalia
• Somaliland
• state-building

Notes

¹See Hamsa Omar, “Somalia Swears in Parliament, Misses Deadline for Presidency,” Bloomberg, August 21, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-21/somalia-swears-in-parliament-misses-deadline-for-presidency.html (accessed September 20, 2012); Mohammed Ibrahim, “Somalia Selects an Activist as Leader,” New York Times, September 10, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/world/africa/parliament-selects-mohamud-as-somalias-president.html?_r=0 (accessed September 20, 2012).

²See J. Peter Pham, “State Collapse, Insurgency, and Famine in the Horn of Africa: Legitimacy and the Ongoing Somali Crisis,” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 2, no. 2 (July–December 2011): 153–87.

³Michael Walls, “The Emergence of a Somali State: Building Peace from Civil War in Somaliland,” African Affairs 108, no. 432 (May 2009): 380.

⁴Iqbal Jhazbhay, “Somaliland: Africa's Best Kept Secret, A Challenge to the International Community?” African Security Review 12, no. 4 (2003): 79.

⁵Janina Dill, “Puntland's Declaration of Autonomy and Somaliland's Secession: Two Quests for Self-Governance in a Failed State,” in Asymmetric Autonomy and the Settlement of Ethnic Conflicts, ed. Marc Weller and Katherine Nobbs (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 280.

⁶For more on Somalia's ethnic composition, see Markus Hoehne and Virginia Luling, eds., Peace and Milk, Drought and War: Somali Culture, Society and Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); Ken Menkhaus, “Bantu Ethnic Identity in Somalia,” Annales d'Éthiopie 19 (2003): 323–39; Christian Webersik, “Differences that Matter: The Struggle of the Marginalised in Somalia,” Africa 74, no. 4 (2004): 516–33.

⁷The basic text for understanding Somali clan structure remains the landmark study by I. M. Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). For more contemporary treatments, see Lee V. Cassanelli, The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600–1900 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982); Bernhard Helander, “Rahanweyn Sociability: A Model for Other Somalis?” African Languages and Cultures 3 suppl. (1996): S195–204; Hoehne and Luling, eds., Peace and Milk.

⁸Asteris Huliaras, “The Viability of Somaliland: Internal Constraints and Regional Geopolitics,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 20, no. 2 (July 2002): 158.

⁹Cabdiraxmaan Jimcaale, “Consolidation and Decentralization of Government Institutions,” in Rebuilding Somaliland: Issues and Possibilities, ed. WSP International (Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press, 2005), 60.

¹⁰Hussein Adam, “Formation and Recognition of New States: Somaliland in Contrast to Eritrea,” Review of African Political Economy 21, no. 59 (March 1994): 32.

¹¹Ibid.

¹²Mark Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 91.

¹³Walls, “Emergence of a Somali State,” 377–78.

¹⁴Ibid., 380.

¹⁵Mark Bradbury, Adan Yusuf Abokor, and Haroon Ahmed Yusuf, “Somaliland: Choosing Politics over Violence,” Review of African Political Economy 30, no. 97 (2003): 459.

¹⁶Ibid.

¹⁷Walls, “Emergence of the Somali State,” 382–83.

¹⁸Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 86.

¹⁹Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 460.

²⁰Seth Kaplan, “The Remarkable Story of Somaliland,” in Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat, 2nd ed., ed. Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 253.

²¹Jimcaale, “Consolidation and Decentralization,” 63.

²²Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 460.

²³Michael Walls and Steven Kibble, “Beyond Polarity: Negotiating a Hybrid State in Somaliland,” Africa Spectrum 45, no. 1 (2010): 40.

²⁴Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 99–100.

²⁵Ismail Ahmed and Reginald Green, “The Heritage of War and State Collapse in Somalia and Somaliland: Local-Level Effects, External Interventions and Reconstruction,” Third World Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1999): 124.

²⁶Matt Bryden, “The Banana Test: Is Somaliland Ready for Recognition?” Annales d'Éthiopie 19 (2003): 352.

²⁷Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 116.

²⁸Jimcaale, “Consolidation and Decentralization,” 67.

²⁹Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 125.

³⁰Ibid., 126.

³¹Walls and Kibble, “Beyond Polarity,” 39–40.

³²Matt Bryden, “The Banana Test,” 346.

³³Academy for Peace and Development (APD) and Interpeace, Local Solutions: Creating an Enabling Environment for Decentralisation in Somaliland (Hargeisa, Somaliland: APD, September 2006), 6.

³⁴Bryden, “The Banana Test,” 352.

³⁵Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 194–95.

³⁶Ibid., 208–09.

³⁷Rakiya Omaar, “Somaliland: One Thorn Bush at a Time,” Current History 93, no. 583 (May 1994): 233–34.

³⁸Ian Spears, “Reflections on Somaliland and Africa's Territorial Order,” Review of African Political Economy 30, no. 95 (March 2003): 93–94.

³⁹Matt Bryden, “State-Within-a-Failed-State: Somaliland and the Challenge of International Recognition,” in States-Within-States: Incipient Political Entities in the Post-Cold War Era, ed. Paul Kingston and Ian Spears (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 172.

⁴⁰Dawn Brancati, Peace by Design: Managing Intrastate Conflict through Decentralization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 12–17.

⁴¹Walls, “Emergence of a Somali State,” 383.

⁴²I. M. Lewis, Blood and Bone: The Call of Kinship in Somali Society (Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1994), ix.

⁴³Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 136.

⁴⁴Omaar, “Somaliland: One Thorn Bush,” 236.

⁴⁵Kaplan, “Remarkable Story of Somaliland,” 261.

⁴⁶For more on this phenomenon, see Nicholas Eubank, “Peace-Building without External Assistance: Lessons from Somaliland” (CGD Working Paper 198, Center for Global Development, Washington, D.C., January 2010).

⁴⁷Omaar, “Somaliland: One Thorn Bush,” 235.

⁴⁸Walls and Kibble, “Beyond Polarity,” 54.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timothy A. Ridout

TIMOTHY A. RIDOUT is a 2011 graduate of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has published numerous articles on international security issues and sits on the advisory board of the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.