State making in the Horn of Africa: notes on Eritrea and prospects for the end of violent conflict in the Horn

Abstract

This paper looks at the Eritrean state-making process in light of the 1998–2000 Eritreo-Ethiopian war and its aftermath. Three historical layers are discussed as determining the workings of the present Eritrean state. Their most important legacies are concerns around territorial integrity coupled with a deep mistrust of the international community, and a political system based on mobilisation coupled with authoritarian control. The war had two major consequences for the Eritrean polity: It led to many ruptures within the state, and it re-enforced deeply held suspicions towards the main international actors engaged in finding a sustainable solution. The latter's involvement has resulted in a stalemate. Looking into the future, in a best-case scenario, pressure will be put on Ethiopia to accept once and for all its boundary with Eritrea as defined by international law. At the same time, this could open the way for domestic change towards constitutional government in Eritrea. At present, lacking a base for mutual engagement, future prospects for both countries, but more so for Eritrea, look bleak.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to David O'Kane for a valuable exchange of ideas on the concept of ‘biopolitics’. I also wish to thank the two anonymous referees for the additional issues they raised in their comments. I took some up where it seemed feasible in the context of this paper, others I will keep in mind for future endeavours.

Notes

 1. Iyob, ‘The Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict,’ 659–682; Jacquin-Berdal, ‘Introduction,’ ix–xxi; Ottaway, Africa's New Leaders; Reid, ‘Old Problems in New Conflicts,’ 369–401.

 2. Abbink, ‘Ethiopia-Eritrea: Proxy Wars’, 407–425; Jacquin-Berdal and Plaut, Unfinished Business; Woodward, The Horn of Africa.

 3. Tønnesson, ‘The Layered State of Vietnam’, 236–268.

 4. Jackson and Rosberg, ‘Why Africa's Weak States Persist’, 1–24; see also the examples of Somaliland and Western Sahara as discussed in Adam, ‘Formation and Recognition of New States’, 21–38; Shelley, Endgame in the Western Sahara; and White and Cliffe, ‘Matching Response to Context’, 314–342.

 5. Historically, different parts of what is now Eritrea were ruled by different outside powers, including Abyssinian, Ottoman and Egyptian rulers. The establishment of Italian colonial administration (1890–1941) brought Eritrea as a unified entity into existence. From 1941 until 1952, because of Italy's defeat in the course of WWII, Eritrea was under British Military Administration. In 1952, it was decided by the United Nations that Ethiopia and Eritrea should become a federation. Ethiopia dissolved that federation unilaterally in 1962 and annexed Eritrea as its fourteenth province. For further details, see Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence; Pateman, Eritrea. Even the Stones are Burning; and Sorenson, Imagining Ethiopia.

 6. For such a discussion see Firebrace and Holland, Never Kneel Down; Gebremedhin, Peasants and Nationalism in Eritrea; Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle; , ‘The Eritrean Economy’, 91–118; Historical Dictionary of Eritrea; Levine, Greater Ethiopia; Longrigg, A Short History of Eritrea; Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa; Pool, From Guerrillas to Government; and Trevaskis, Eritrea. A Colony in Transition.

 7. Bereketeab, Eritrea. The Making of a Nation 1890–1991, 88; see also Iyob, ‘The Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict,’ 659–682; Sorenson, Imagining Ethiopia.

 8. Sorenson, ‘Discourses on Eritrean Nationalism and Identity’, 301–317; for a broader discussion of the issues involved see Cahsai, Un Peuple en Marche; Eikenberg, ‘Nachkriegsentwicklungen am Horn’, 249–279; Gayim, The Eritrean Question; Habteselassie, Eritrea and the United Nations and Other Essays; and Yohannes, ‘The Eritrean Question: a Colonial Case’, 643–668.

 9. Imperial Ethiopian Government, The Handbook for Ethiopia; Permanent People's Tribunal, The Eritrean Case; Pool, Eritrea: Towards Unity in Diversity; United Nations Commission for Eritrea, The Final Report.

10. Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle, 88.

11. Habteselassie, Eritrea and the United Nations; Johnson and Johnson, ‘Eritrea: The National Question’, 181–195.

12. See Gilkes, Eritrea: Historiography and Mythology, 623–628.

13. Dorman, ‘Narratives of Nationalism in Eritrea’, 203–222; Dorman, ‘Past the Kalashnikov’, 189–204; Müller, The Making of Elite Women; ‘Now I am Free’, 215–229.

14. Clapham, ‘Boundary and Territory in the Horn of Africa’, 242. The imperial government in Ethiopia ended with the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in a coup led by Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1974. The new leadership, the ‘Derg’, aspired to carry out a Marxist revolution and remained in power until its overthrow by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in 1991.

15. Bariagaber, ‘The politics of cultural pluralism’, 1056–1073.

16. See, for example, Connell, Against All Odds; Davidson et al., Behind the War; Firebrace and Holland, Never Kneel Down; Frankland and Noble, ‘A Case of National Liberation with Feminist Undertones’; Papstein, Revolution at Dusk; and Pateman, Even the Stones are Burning.

17. Pool, From Guerrillas to Government, 106; for a detailed discussion of crises and dissent within the EPLF and the working of the clandestine ‘vanguard party’ see ibid.

18. Dickinson, ‘Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy’, 1–48; Müller, The Making of Elite Women.

19. Agamben, Homo Sacer. Agamben grounds modern sovereignty in the classical Greek distinction between bare life (zoë) and the form of living proper to an individual or a group (bios), a distinction salient in the modern history of many nations; for an example of the latter see Farquhar and Zhang, ‘Biopolitical Beijing’, 303–327.

20. Zelinsky, Nation into State, 7; in contrast to a state, whose existence depends on empirical and juridical statehood as discussed above, being a nation is regarded here as a form of ‘social consciousness, and the nation is only born when enough people … believe in its existence’, see ibid., 6.

21. Hoyle, ‘The Eritrean National Identity’, 384; see also Taddia, ‘Post-Twentieth-Century Eritrea’, 7–29, on Eritrea as a state beyond the postcolonial state. Another prime example is the state of Israel and indeed, many similarities do exist between those two polities.

22. Ofuho, ‘Discourses on Liberation’; Pool, From Guerrillas to Government.

23. Both quotes from Tronvoll, ‘Borders of Violence’, 1044.

24. Clapham, ‘War and State Formation’, 9.

25. Iyob, ‘The Ethiopian-Eritrean Conflict’, 659–682; and Smith, Theories of Nationalism, 217.

26. Smith, Theories of Nationalism, 219; see also Anderson, Imagined Communities; and Sorenson, ‘Discourses on Eritrean Nationalism’, 301–317.

27. Al-Ali et al., ‘The Limits to ‘Transnationalism’’, 585; and Bernal, ‘Eritrea Goes Global’, 3. ‘Transnationalism’ is defined here as the processes by which immigrants sustain social and political relations that link their societies of origin and settlement over time and across national borders; for further discussion see Basch et al., Nations Unbound; Portes et al., ‘The study of transnationalism’, 217–237; and Sorenson and Matsuoka, ‘Phantom Wars and Cyberwars’, 37–63.

28. After the fall of the Derg in 1991, the EPRDF took power in Ethiopia while the EPLF proclaimed a two-year transitional period which culminated in a referendum on independence in April 1993; see Peters, Das Gebietsreferendum in Völkerrecht, for further discussion.

29. Makki, ‘Nationalism, State Formation and the Public Sphere’, 475, 491. The Eritrean experience here is not so different from what we have seen in other settings where liberation movements became governments in terms of the political culture that evolved. To discuss such comparisons in more detail is beyond this article, but see for example, Melber, ‘From Liberation Movements to Governments’, 161–172.

30. See Müller, ‘Towards Understanding’, for a detailed discussion.

31. Iyob, ‘The Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict’, 659–682; Trivelli, ‘Divided histories’, 257–289; Tronvoll, ‘Borders of Violence’, 1037–1060; and Young, ‘The Tigray and Eritrean Peoples Liberation Fronts’, 105–120.

32. Institutionalization and consolidation are two different things: institutionalization refers to the establishment of domestically and internationally recognized state structures, and includes issues such as rules of political succession and rules of diplomacy. Consolidation refers to the process by which the majority of the population comes to support the political project of the newly governing elite and make it their vision for the future; see Selbin, Modern Latin American Revolutions.

33. Castells, ‘Four Asian Tigers’, 55; and Mkandawire, ‘Thinking about Developmental States’, 290.

34. Bernal, ‘Eritrea Goes Global’, 3–25; Connell, ‘Eritrea: Starting from Scratch’, 29–39; Fengler, Politische Reformhemmnisse; Luckham, ‘Radical Soldiers’, 238–269; World Bank, Eritrea: Options and Strategies for Growth.

35. Makki, ‘Nationalism,’ 482.

36. Hirt, Eritrea zwischen Krieg und Frieden; Luckham, ‘Radical Soldiers’, 238–269.

37. It is hard to entangle myth from reality here. Eritreans like to picture themselves as innocent victims of geopolitical dynamics, a view used strategically by the present political leadership. This notion has recently been reinforced by a contemporary history of Eritrea (subtitled: ‘How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation’) written by a British journalist who regularly features as ‘Eritrea-expert’ on the BBC, see Wrong, I Didn't Do It For You. Not only is this notion not very helpful in understanding the underlying dynamics behind the Eritrean polity, it also, rather un-historically, ignores the Janus-faced nature of power; see Foucault, Power/Knowledge.

38. Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe, 4.

39. See Forrest, ‘The Quest for State Hardness’, 423–442.

40. For further discussion see Naty, ‘Environment, Society and the State’, 569–597.

41. Ottaway, Africa's New Leaders, 62; see also Luckham, ‘Radical Soldiers’, 238–269. This propensity to sacrifice own aspirations for the common good could be observed in many different ways. Those include for example the initial enthusiasm for the national service campaign—for the second round of recruitment 30,000 Youth had registered, even though the training centre could only accommodate a maximum number of 20,000 at a time, see UNICEF, Eritrea: Frontlines of a Different Struggle; or a willingness by many university graduates to forgo a lucrative career abroad in order to develop their country, see Müller, ‘Now I am Free’, 215–229.

42. This exchange took place in July and August 1997. The author has copies of two letters written by Issayas Afewerki and one response letter written by Meles Zenawi. Extracts from those three letters can also be found in the appendix section of Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War, 115–116. For a comprehensive overview of the dynamics behind the war, see also Gilkes and Plaut, War in the Horn; Jacquin-Berdal and Plaut, Unfinished Business.

43. In October 1997, Ethiopia produced a new map, which shows the borders of the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray altered at various locations, including around the Badme region, which is firmly marked as Ethiopian territory. In due course, Ethiopian troops occupied several villages in the area and replaced the Eritrean administration.

44. See Clapham, ‘War and State Formation’; Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War; Sorenson and Matsuoka, ‘Phantom Wars and Cyberwars’. Some observers see economic reasons as the major force behind the war. And indeed Eritrea's growing economic independence from Ethiopia, which reached new heights when the former adopted an independent new currency, the Nakfa, in 1997, triggered economic tensions between the two states, as did the fact that with Eritrean independence Ethiopia had become a landlocked country. But those tensions should not have led to a war which, even if considerably more so for Eritrea, has proved detrimental to economic development on both sides; for further discussion see Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War, 30–45; and Styan, ‘Twisting Ethio-Eritrean economic ties’, 177–200.

45. Human Rights Watch, Eritrea & Ethiopia; Milkias, ‘Ethiopia and Eritrea at War’, 33–71.

46. During the course of the war, fighting took place in short but extensive cycles of military confrontation, alternated with periods of lull in which only occasional skirmishes took place. The last bout of fighting occurred in May 2000, when Ethiopia launched an attack that reached deep into uncontested Eritrean territory; for further details see Human Rights Watch, Eritrea & Ethiopia; and Jacquin-Berdal and Plaut, Unfinished Business.

47. See also Hoyle, ‘The Eritrean National Identity’, for a discussion of the importance of the map as a national and state symbol; she describes the map as ‘the visible, even tangible, product of [the] thirty year struggle’, ibid., 410.

48. In July 2002, the OAU was replaced by the African Union (AU).

49. The June 2000 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement led to the establishment of the UNMEE as adopted by Security Council Resolution 1312 (2000) on 31 July 2000. The Council in due course authorized up to 4200 troops including up to 220 military observers for UNMEE in September 2000 (Security Council Resolution 1320 (2000) on 15 September). By late October 200 UNMEE military observers took positions along both sides of the disputed border, and on 18 April 2001 UNMEE declared the establishment of the TSZ, an action that marked the formal separation of the parties' military forces. On 12 December 2000, the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a comprehensive peace agreement in Algiers in which both sides committed themselves to the full implementation of the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities and to terminate permanently military hostilities between themselves. The three key issues addressed were delimitation (establishing the course of the border on maps by reference to treaties and other evidence) and demarcation (physical identification of the border on the ground by laying marker stones and similar means) of the border; compensation; and investigations into the origins of the conflict. The agreement thus provided for the establishment of (a) a Boundary Commission; (b) a Claims Commission mandated to decide on all claims of loss, damage or injury from either side; and (c) a commission to conduct an independent and impartial investigation into the origins of the conflict, see http://www.unmeeonline.org, accessed 2 June 2006, copy on file.

50. Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, Decision.

51. Agence France Press (17 April 2002) ‘Badme at Centre of Eritrea-Ethiopia War of Words’, copy on file; British Broadcasting Corporation (16 April 2002) ‘Analysis: Horn Border Town Still Disputed’, copy on file; UN-Integrated Regional Information Network (23 May 2002) ‘Eritrea-Ethiopia: Sides Called to The Hague for Border Talks’, copy on file.

52. Associated Press (28 March 2003) ‘Boundary Commission Rules Key Border Town in Eritrea’, copy on file; International Crisis Group, Ethiopia and Eritrea: Preventing War; see also http://www.un.org/NewLinks/eebcarbitration/, accessed 2 June 2006.

53. International Crisis Group, Preventing War, 2.

54. International Crisis Group, Ethiopia and Eritrea: War or Peace?

55. Agence France Press (30 October 2003) ‘Setback for Peace As Ethio-Eritrea Border Demarcation Delayed Again’, copy on file; Reuters (24 September 2003) ‘Ethiopia Asks UN to Help Solve Eritrea Border Row’, copy on file; Reuters (12 May 2004) ‘Ethiopia Urges Talks to End Dispute With Eritrea’, copy on file; UN-Integrated Regional Information Network (3 October 2003) ‘UN Tells Ethiopia to Implement Border Ruling’, copy on file.

56. Scholars are divided on the Boundary Commission's ruling, which in particular in traditionally pro-Ethiopian circles is regarded as deeply flawed, see for example Clapham, ‘Notes on the Ethio-Eritrean Boundary Demarcation’ and Gilkes, ‘Violence and Identity’. However flawed the ruling may be, it is consistent with the terms of reference for the Commission that both parties had agreed upon at the time—those terms specifically do not include delimitation based primarily upon military facts on the ground or desires of local communities, see also International Crisis Group, Preventing War.

57. International Crisis Group, Preventing War, 8; see also England and Turner, ‘Eritrea and Ethiopia sliding into war’, Financial Times, (24 October 2005); and Reuters (4 October 2005) ‘Eritrea Tells UN to Stop Overflights Now’, copy on file.

58. Until 31 May 2006, the UN Security Council had continuously extended UNMEE's mandate (SC/RES/1344, 15 March 2001 to SC/RES/1678, 15 May 2006, which extended UNMEE's mandate until 31 May). In addition, SC/RES/1430 was passed on 14 August 2002, by which the Council decided to adjust the mandate of UNMEE in order to assist in the implementation of the Delimitation Decision; and SC/RES/1640 was passed on 23 November 2005 in which the Council deplored Eritrea's imposition of restrictions on the freedom of movement of UNMEE and demanded that Ethiopia accept fully and without delay the binding Delimitation Decision. On 31 May the Council with SC/RES/1681 (2006), while extending the mission's mandate for another four months until 30 September 2006, for the first time reduced its numbers to a maximum of 2300 troops, see http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unmee/resolutions.html, accessed 2 June 2006. This move shows the exasperation of the UN with the enduring stalemate and aims to concentrate minds, while demarcation teams are being recruited to ensure progress is being made before the current mandate expires in September.

59. From the outset of the war, the US played a key role in mediation, visible, for example, in the (failed) US-Rwanda Peace Plan of 4 June 1998 and in behind the scenes diplomacy aimed at bolstering OAU conflict resolution endeavours, see Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War, 53–83; Prendergast and Roessler, ‘The Role of the United States’; the text of many of those proposals are reprinted in the appendices in Negash and Tronvoll. As a reason why those early proposals failed to prevent all-out war a ‘misreading of the dynamics between Eritrea and Ethiopia’ has been made out, a misreading that has ultimately led to ‘the hardening of stances of the antagonists’ visible to this day, see Iyob, Re-Configuring Identities, 6.

60. Power and Interest News Report (PINR). ‘Washington's Long War and Its Strategy in the Horn of Africa’ (9 November 2005), copy on file; The Economist, ‘Backing the Favourite. Ethiopia Defies an International Ruling and Its Western Allies Do Nothing’ (29 October 2005): 48. Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, was a member of Tony Blair's ‘Commission for Africa’.

61. International Crisis Group, Preventing War, 14; see also Hedru, ‘Eritrea: Transition to Dictatorship’, 435–444; The Economist, ‘Backing the favourite’, 48.

62. Similar ruptures, albeit based on different dynamics, have occurred in Ethiopia, most visible in political unrest within the ruling party and growing support for political opposition movements. Both have been met with an at times violent crackdown and a curtailment of civil and political liberties—to discuss those in detail is beyond this article, but see Abbink, ‘Discomfiture of democracy?’, 173–199.

63. For details see ERREC, When Civilians Become Targets; ERREC, The Betrayed; Hirt, Eritrea zwischen Krieg und Frieden; Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War; Plaut, ‘The conflict and its aftermath’; and Styan, ‘Twisting Ethio-Eritrean Economic Ties’.

64. Hirt, Eritrea zwischen Krieg und Frieden, 121.

65. In Eritrea's official discourse, the end of the military phase of the war is not interpreted as a military defeat, but in fact a victory over Ethiopian aggression. While it is true that Eritrea in the course of this new war lived through the threat of being overrun by an enemy army with an apparently infinite supply of soldiers, and that at some point in the military campaign the Ethiopian command (though this was never official Ethiopian government policy) openly spoke about marching onto Asmara and changing the Eritrean leadership (see J.-L. Péninou, ‘Ein Grenzkrieg wird zur Strafaktion’, Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2000), it is hard to see (also for many Eritreans) how one can claim victory in the face of an official Eritrean casualty figure of 19,000 men and women and Ethiopian troops having occupied large parts of Eritrean territory.

66. Bernal, ‘Eritrea Goes Global’, 3.

67. This is particularly the case in the recent political climate, where since the 1998–2000 war with Ethiopia started, people who are called for National Service are not allowed back after the required 18 months, but are made to stay in service indefinitely, until the war situation is fully resolved—in fact making National Service a ‘permanent condition’ for the nation's Youth, see also Dorman, ‘Past the Kalashnikov’. At the same time, National Service obligations are enforced with a rigour not seen before: Having started on an irregular basis in 2000 mainly in Asmara, the authorities have meanwhile mounted a nation-wide campaign to identify men and women who did not fulfil their service obligations. National service recruits are either stationed along the border outside the TSZ, or involved in reconstruction activities.

68. Krasner, ‘Approaches to the State’, 238.

69. For details see Al-Ali, et al., ‘The Limits to Transnationalism’, 578–600; Amnesty International, Eritrea: Arbitrary Detention of Government Critics; Jayasekera, ‘Under Cover of Elsewhere’, 100–111; Müller, The Making of Elite Women; Plaut, ‘Briefing: The Birth of the Eritrean Reform Movement’, 119–124; and Reporters Sans Frontiers, www.rsf.org, accessed 3 June 2006.

70. Hardt and Negri, Empire; see also Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy; De Sola Pool, Contemporary Political Science.

71. Clapham, ‘Eritrean Independence’, 115–129.

72. Iyob, Re-Configuring Identities, 21.

73. Sorenson and Matsuoka, ‘Phantom Wars and Cyberwars’, 37–63.

74. Agence France Press (1 June 2006) ‘Eritrea, Ethiopia Trade Blame for UN Force Reduction’, copy on file; Reuters (2 June 2006) ‘Eritrea calls UN peacekeepers scaledown unjust’, copy on file; www.unmeeonline.org, accessed 3 June 2006.

75. Eritrea, which has a total population of about four million, had an estimated 320,000 troops mobilized in 2005 of which 200,000 were regulars and 120,000 reserves, see International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2005–2006. For a more general discussion see International Crisis Group, Preventing War.

76. Human Rights Watch, The Horn of Africa War; , The Uprooted; The Uprooted Part Two; The Uprooted Part Three; Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War.

77. Cliffe, ‘Regional Dimensions’, 89.

78. The IGAD—formerly know as Intergovernmental Agency on Drought and Development (IGADD)—includes the following countries: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda.

79. 2006. Africa Confidential 47(16), 3–4; Associated Press (10 August 2006) ‘Over 150 Ethiopian troops defect to rival Eritrea’, copy on file; Cliffe, ‘Regional Dimensions’; Iyob, Re-Configuring Identities; Klein, ‘The Horn of Turbulence’; Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War; The Economist ‘The path to ruin. A region endangered by Islamists, guns and its own swelling population’ (10 August 2006).

80. In late 1995, tensions between Eritrea and Yemen over the Hanish Islands (situated between the two states, whose territorial status was never clarified after the fall of the Ottoman Empire) culminated in military confrontation and occupation of a number of islands by Eritrean troops. In 1996, both parties agreed to an international court of arbitration. The court handed down its awards (in two stages) in October 1998 and December 1999 respectively, see Antunes, ‘The 1999 Eritrea-Yemen Maritime Delimitation Award’ and Johnson, ‘Permanent Court of Arbitration’.

81. Neethling, ‘Keeping the peace’, 56–64.

82. Christmann, ‘Machterhalt oder Demokratie’, 16–26; EPLF, A National Charter for Eritrea; Fengler, Politische Reformhemmnisse; Harbeson, ‘Rethinking Democratic Transitions’, 39–55; and Riley, The Democratic Transition.

83. The Constitutional Commission of Eritrea (CCE) was established in 1994 with members representing all sections of Eritrean society. The Commission's mandate was to draft a constitution based on ‘a wide-ranging and all-embracing national debate and education through public seminars and lecture series on constitutional principles and practices’, see CCE, Draft Constitution, 1.

84. Ibid.; see also Christmann, ‘Machterhalt oder Demo-kratie’, 16–26; Habteselassie, ‘Creating a Constitution’, 164–174; Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle; and Luckham, ‘Radical Soldiers’, 238–269.

85. The best example is probably Algeria see Roberts, The Battlefield; see also the discussion in Shelley, Endgame in the Western Sahara.

86. International Crisis Group, War or Peace, 3; see also Prendergast, US Leadership in Resolving African Conflict.

87. Addison, From Conflict to Recovery, 27.

88. Thomson, An Introduction to African Politics, 230.

89. Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy; see also Müller, ‘Responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic’, 199–212.

90. This shift from democratic centralism with a genuinely democratic component to merely ‘responding to government dictates’ finds its most concrete expression in the presidential office at the core of executive power. Not only is Issayas Afewerki President, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Chairman of the National Assembly and Secretary General of the PFDJ; he also commands wide ranging powers of appointment (including ministers, provincial governors, high court judges and ambassadors). In addition, the presidential office, including the Office for Macropolicy attached to it, is the ultimate decision making body, often sidelining the relevant ministries and through its own directives undercutting ministerial authority, see Tronvoll, ‘The Process of Nation-Building’, 482; but also Christmann, ‘Machterhalt oder Demokratie’; Hirt, Eritrea zwischen Krieg und Frieden; Luckham, ‘Radical Soldiers’; and Pool, From Guerrillas to Government.

91. Agamben, Homo Sacer; see also Müller, ‘The State and Globalisation’.

92. IMF, IMF Country Report 03/165; Styan, ‘Twisting Ethio-Eritrean Economic Ties’.

93. Hansson, ‘Building New States’; Kibreab, ‘Displaced Communities’; Müller, ‘Responding to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic’.

94. See Joseph, ‘Africa: States in Crisis’, 159–170.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tanja R. Müller

Tanja R. Müller is a Lecturer at the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, where she teaches Development Theory and Comparative Social Policy. She is the author of The Making of Elite Women. Revolution and Nation Building in Eritrea (Brill Publishers, 2005), and recent articles in Development and Change and Progress in Development Studies. Her current research centres on the political economy of AIDS, and geopolitics in the Horn of Africa..