Suchergebnisse

Borders are central to cooperation and conflict between communities and states in the Somali inhabited Horn of Africa. Often overlooked because of their peripheral location, borders in the Somali territories are crucial sites of revenue and state-making. The political and economic significance of these borders can hardly be overstated. As in other parts of the region, cross-border commodity trading between Somalia, Somaliland and their neighbours constitutes a lifeline for local livelihoods. Taxation of cross-border trade is the main source of income for various Somali state entities—whether national or sub-national. Trade politics in the Somali borderlands brings to the fore the competitive nature of state-building in the Somali territories. Political and commercial interests influence commodity flows and profits across these trading borders. All of these dynamics shape both cooperative and antagonistic relations across internal and external borders, including between neighbouring state administrations. Considering how Somali trading borders work not only provides important insights into the relations between trade, taxation and state-building. It also allows for a better grasp of conflicts at the border, as trading borders—in particular checkpoints where various authorities tax goods—are often strongly contested. While the physical extent of territorial states and aspiring administrations are defined by their borders, as the Somali case shows, they are also largely financed by economic transactions across the border. Livestock and commodity trading are most salient for revenue generation and state intervention when they cross state and social or clan boundaries. It is at these border crossings, whether a formal border post, an informal 'bush' border or checkpoints along main roads, where state and state-like entities seek to govern and capture revenues from passing goods. This paper argues that there is a need, and indeed an opportunity, for policy-makers to pay greater attention to trading borders in the Somali territories. Borders are both sites where state-building can be supported and where conflicts, in particular over revenues and trade corridors, can be defused. As federalization and state-building in Somali territories continue, Federal Member States (FMSs) and the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland seek to develop their trade corridors by extending them to new goods and services. These trade corridors, in particular seaports, serve as main sources of public income and bolster the legitimacy of these (sub-)national administrations. Negotiated trade and customs policies, fiscal federalism and economic integration are thus of major concern to avoid state-driven competition over trade revenues at Somali borders. As this paper demonstrates, assisting Somali public administrations to move from antagonistic to more cooperative trade relations is an integral part of state-building. This process starts at the border where commodity trading occurs.

Can a book be both inspiring and disappointing? The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa might just fall into this rare category. Alex de Waal's writing is theoretically original and empirically rich, but it is also reductionist and, in the case of Ethiopia, biased. The book makes sense of the Horn of Africa's complex contemporary politics through the prism of three elements. Firstly, de Waal proposes an innovative theory centered on the idea of the 'political marketplace'. Secondly, as the title suggests, the book sets out to explain the Horn of Africa's 'real politics', i.e. the actors, interests, practices and dynamics that dominate political life. Individual chapters are devoted to Darfur, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, leaving only Djibouti out from the region. De Waal writes eloquently and with great wit, offering the reader many insights. Thirdly, The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa captures three decades of research and policy involvement in the Horn of Africa by the author.

Past and present attempts to stabilize war-torn Somalia through military, diplomatic and humanitarian interventions highlight the entanglements and interplay between local and foreign elites in policies and practices that have frequently and effectively undermined statebuilding in south-central Somalia. Existing analyses have focused predominantly on local actors and internal dynamics to account for the continuous political disorder in the former Somali Democratic Republic since 1991. In contrast, this study highlights the role of external aid in dysfunctional statebuilding efforts in Somalia. Rather than assuming that foreign actors are outside the local and national political settlements, such actors should rather be seen as an integral part of these processes. Consequently, the power and interests of both Somali and international actors must be taken into consideration in order to understand the shortcomings of stabilization policies. Persistent tactics by Somali elites—mobilizing, appropriating and redirecting foreign resources and agendas—have been at the core of failed statebuilding. Such tactics form part of what French Africanist Jean-François Bayart has described as 'extraversion'. Because Somali elites have regularly turned their participation in transitional governments into a resource appropriation tactic, statebuilding has become an end in itself rather than the outcome of a more profound process of actual state formation that would have entailed the centralization of coercion, the generation of public revenue or the building up of popular support. ; Past and present attempts to stabilize war-torn Somalia through military, diplomatic and humanitarian interventions highlight the entanglements and interplay between local and foreign elites in policies and practices that have frequently and effectively undermined statebuilding in south-central Somalia. Existing analyses have focused predominantly on local actors and internal dynamics to account for the continuous political disorder in the former Somali Democratic Republic since 1991. In contrast, this study highlights the role of external aid in dysfunctional statebuilding efforts in Somalia. Rather than assuming that foreign actors are outside the local and national political settlements, such actors should rather be seen as an integral part of these processes. Consequently, the power and interests of both Somali and international actors must be taken into consideration in order to understand the shortcomings of stabilization policies. Persistent tactics by Somali elites—mobilizing, appropriating and redirecting foreign resources and agendas—have been at the core of failed statebuilding. Such tactics form part of what French Africanist Jean-François Bayart has described as 'extraversion'. Because Somali elites have regularly turned their participation in transitional governments into a resource appropriation tactic, statebuilding has become an end in itself rather than the outcome of a more profound process of actual state formation that would have entailed the centralization of coercion, the generation of public revenue or the building up of popular support.

Since the 1990s, war in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia has claimed thousands of lives. The conflict between the Government of Ethiopia and the insurgent Ogaden National Liberation Front has impoverished the communities of Ethiopia's Somali Regional State, swollen the refugee population in Kenya, and added to insecurity in the Somali territories of the Horn of Africa. Talking Peace in the Ogaden is the outcome of extensive research in Ethiopia, East Africa and the global Ogaadeeni diaspora. It analyses the evolution of the conflict, the changing balance of forces, and the current prospects for peace.

In this article, I will first draw attention to the surprising, but ultimately problematic trajectory of peace studies from the period of the Cold War to the present day. This is a trajectory from 'peace' as a critique of dominant geopolitics to one of 'peace' that has become part of the very dominant geopolitics it initially set out to criticise. Secondly, I will map – undoubtedly in cursory and incomplete fashion – the scholarly communities and literatures dealing with questions of peace and conflict. Rather than a literature review or an attempt at synthesis, my purpose is to highlight the broad variety of existing units of analysis, motivations, theories and methodologies of peace and conflict studies. Thirdly, I will propose a number of suggestions for a research attitude that, in absence of a better word, I subsume under the heading of 'critical peace and conflict research', striving to understand peace and conflict as concomitantly subjective and objective, as critique and hegemony, as normative and value-free, as local and global.