Consider Somaliland ─ State-Building With Traditional Leaders and Institutions

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.

Marleen C.M. Renders, Ph.D. (2006) in Political Science, Ghent University, is a research associate at the Human Rights Centre of the same University. She was Fellow at the Somaliland Academy for Peace and Development in Hargeysa and has published several articles on state formation in Somaliland. She currently lives and works in Nairobi.