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| Title: | Beyond polarity: negotiating a hybrid State in Somaliland |
| Authors: | Walls, Michael Kibble, Steve |
| Year: | 2010 |
| Periodical: | Africa Spectrum |
| Volume: | 45 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 31-56 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Somaliland |
| Subjects: | State formation nation building democracy |
| External link: | https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/247 |
| Abstract: | Many African States struggle to reconcile traditional social institutions with the precepts of nation-State democracy within colonially defined borders. Since the 1991 fall of the dictatorial Somali regime of Siyaad Barre, Somaliland has gradually pieced together what appears to be a durable peace and an increasingly sophisticated, constitutionally based nation-State democracy. It is still negotiating the relationship between identity, nation and territory in which there is a differential commitment to democracy between the political elite and the wider population. Accommodation between a clan-based social structure and a representative democracy has been enabled by local sociocultural traditions. External intervention, while minimal, has on occasion proved fruitful in providing a way out of crises. The territory has escaped the violence and political breakdown experienced in Southern Somali areas. This contribution argues that the remarkable resilience of the present sociopolitical system in Somaliland is challenged by present and forthcoming problems in the fields of democratic representation (inter alia of women), delivery of public goods, a fragile subregional context and foreign investment. Bibliogr., sum. in English and German. [Journal abstract] |
