Consider Somaliland : state-building with traditional leaders and institutions / / by Marleen Renders.

• Superior document: African social studies series, v. 26
• Author: Renders, Marleen.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: African social studies series ; v. 26.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (311 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Can ‘traditional’ leaders and institutions help to build more legitimate, accountable and effective governments in polities or ‘states’ under (re)construction? This book investigates the case of “Somaliland”, the 20-year old non-recognized state which emerged from Somalia’s conflict and state collapse. A careful analysis of Somaliland’s political history, it outlines the complex and evolving institutional and power dynamics involving clan elders, militia leaders, guerrilla movements, as well as politicians and civil servants in its emerging state structures. While showing the great potential of endogenous processes, it clearly demonstrates the complexity and the politics of those processes and the necessity to think beyond one-size-fits-all state-building formulas.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Places that do not exist -- Challenging received notions of statehood, state failure and state-building -- The failing state: What has clan got to do with it? -- The emergence of the Somali national movement as a clan-supported opposition force -- Clan elders and the forging of a hybrid state -- 'At the centre of peace and war': pragmatic state building under the Egal government, 1993-1997 -- Looking like a proper state -- Claiming the eastern borderlands -- Egal's political and institutional tailpiece -- Somaliland as a model for building proper states?.