From the monthly archives: October 2013

Orienting question: How can we understand the violence in the Jubba Valley in relation to questions of political authority and violence more broadly in Somalia’s recent history? Was the violence in the valley during and since 1991 a new form, distinct from pre-1991 experience, or is it a continuation of the type of violence imposed […]

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Having enjoyed relative peace and stability since it unilaterally declared independence in 1991, Somaliland’s state-making project has been accorded the status of ‘Africa’s best kept secret’ (Jhazbhay, 2003). Past attempts to disclose its mystery referenced processes of ‘traditional reconciliation’ (Bryden, 1995; Jhazbhay, 2007; Walls, 2009), ‘grassroots democracy’ (Adam, 1995; Othieno, 2008; Forti, 2011), the combination […]

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My main argument is that the Somali state, along with a number of other countries in Africa and the greater Middle East, underwent a profound structural transformation in the 1980s, and that we have been living with the under-recognized consequences ever since. At the time, this change had two particularly striking features. One was economic crisis, which meant that—in the words of Bob Bates—meant that “things fell apart.” The levels of finance available to governments meant that they simply could not sustain the basic functions of government, let alone build institutional states. The second was the beginning of the end of the Cold War, which meant that—as David Laitin observed—that the coup maker could not count on automatic security backing from one or other superpower. Common to both of these changes was a sharp reduction in the discretionary budgets that rulers used to pay their armies and security services and to pay off intermediate elites. I suggest that this (unmeasured) collapse in the “political budget” (the term is Sudanese political vernacular) was the cause of state crisis in many African countries, of which Somalia was an extreme and illuminating case.

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Before looking in more detail at the patterns of state-sponsored violence during the period in which Siyad Barre’s held power (October 1969 to January 1991), I would like to make some general comments about political violence an other useful concepts in the Somali context.

A) Some Preliminary Notes on Violence, Clan and Politics in Somalia

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The World Peace Foundation is pleased to introduce the Occasional Paper series, through which we will feature research on topics related to conflict and peace. Our first Occasional Paper series publication is devoted to Gender, Conflict, and Peace. Dr. Dyan Mazurana, Associate Research Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Research Director […]

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In the coming weeks, Reinventing Peace will feature a number of reflections on patterns of violence in Somalia that stemmed from our recent seminar on the topic. We kick off this series of memos with the feature below by Lidwien Kapteijns.

History of the Project: Stage One
This project started as research into Somali […]

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