Why has statebuilding in Somalia failed so often? This journal article from International Security suggests that the problem lies in the type of state that both external and local actors have so far sought to construct. Somalia needs to develop a mediated state in which a central government with limited power and capacity relies on a range of local authorities to execute core functions of government and mediate between local communities and the state.
Somalia has been without a functional central government since 1991, making it the longest-running instance of complete state collapse in postcolonial history. Two political trends have emerged in Somalia since then. The first is the failure of repeated external efforts to revive a conventional central government in the country via a top-down process of power sharing among Somalia’s political elites.
The second trend is the rise of local, informal polities that have increasingly provided many Somali communities with variable levels of governance, public security, and even social services. This development is being driven by the evolving role of coalitions of business groups, traditional authorities, and civic groups.
The problem with this mosaic of informal polities is that it does not add up to anything resembling a conventional state and these polities do not appear capable of serving as the building blocks for an organically developed state. There are several reasons for this:
- Local polities in Somalia have remained local;
- Subnational governance cannot perform the functions of an internationally recognised state, such as the issuing of passports or the securing of loans from international financial institutions;
- Informal systems of governance have played a minimal role in external efforts to revive a conventional state; and
- Local, informal systems of governance are generally seen as short-term coping mechanisms despite the fact that aid agencies have built the capacity and promoted greater involvement of professional organisations and non-state authorities.
However, local systems of governance may have a role to play in statebuilding. The top-down project of building a central government and the organic emergence of informal polities could be harmonised in a negotiated division of labor. In Somalia, this type of mediated state may be the only viable route to state building under present circumstances. In this approach:
- The central state should limit itself to a few tasks not provided by local, private sector or voluntary sector actors. Central state authorities should not take control over social and political realms and entire communities.
- Local mediators would gain recognition from the state by providing core functions of public security or other services demanded by local communities.
- Somali citizens would retain the services already provided by local authorities, while gaining the advantages afforded by a functional central government.
- A thin central government would reduce the threat it poses to opponents of the government in power, thereby reducing the likelihood of spoilers.
- The Somali authorities should work out how the formal, top-down state structure should coexist with structures of informal governance on a town by town basis.
- External actors should not import fixed statebuilding project templates and could not insist on standardised judicial and other systems. They would have to work with local polities on their own terms.
