This is my 1.5 page contribution to “Un Monde en Crises“, an analytical digest of the world today written by researchers of the Centre de Recherches Internationales. It argues that the Somali state is not a failure for Somali elites, who distribute international funding to their clan constituencies. Since all clans are represented in the current make-up of the Federal State, this maintains some stability in the country.
Continue readingrevised on 28/06 01.00 am
I participated in a workshop on academic publishing in peer-reviewed journals, given by the editors of a journal based in Central Europe. This journal has become part of the Palgrave-Springer conglomerate.
While nearly all journal editors, all reviewers and authors work for free, and authors that want to publish ‘open access’ with one of those journals need to pay a fee of typically 1500-3000 USD (so their article does not appear behind a paywall), the journals themselves make whopping profit margins of 40% on average by selling subscriptions and individual articles for very high prices.
Continue readingThis article, based on recent fieldwork by Somali researchers and the insights they have kindly provided me with, and on interviews I conducted in Mogadishu and Beled Weyne in 2020, examines how Al Shabaab exerts its rule over the southern and central regions of Somalia. The movement depends on local support, as it receives practically no international support, and thus needs to gain legitimacy through its governance. The opposite is true of the federal government of Somalia, which receives most of its funding from abroad. The insurgents outgovern the federal government of Somalia in practically all aspects. They also govern the population in Mogadishu and other areas supposedly under government control.
To explain Al Shabaab’s staying power despite the international community’s continuous efforts to militarily defeat it, the insurgency is examined as an expression of what once was a successful social movement, as a nationalist resistance movement, and through the lens of rebel governance. Its political project, to supercede fractious Somali clan identities by imposing an Islamist state, is shared by many Somalis, even if they dislike Al Shabaab’s religious fervour and would prefer to live in an open society accepted by the rest of the world.
What seems practically sure is that when international support for the dysfunctional Somali state wanes, the group will sweep to power as swiftly as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.
Following is first the summary of the article, then a link to the full text (24 pages + 3 pages bibliography
Abstract: Viewing the Somali Islamic insurgency movement Al Shabaab as a terrorist or criminal organization strips it of the very possibility of legitimacy. Foreign experts commonly assume that it rules through fear, violence, propaganda and the manipulation of the population’s needs. Recent studies however show that Al Shabaab’s rule is largely tolerated and that the movement, through tight and predictable governance and a nationalist discourse, has garnered some popular legitimacy. This article places these findings within a critical ‘rebel governance’ discourse that examines the movement not from a counter-insurgency perspective but through the lens of evolving socio-cultural relations between the population and the insurgents. How does Al Shabaab respond to the demands of the population while accomplishing its social transformation project: replacing fractious clan identities with a nationalist Islamic one? Considering that the main long-term problem facing the Somali people is climate change, while in the short term peace is the most urgent issue, I argue that the international intervention in Somalia should take into account existing local governance arrangements, including Al Shabaab rule, instead of trying to replace them with liberal democracy.
Download the full article here.
This text covers my experience writing a PhD in a mid-career phase of my life. The experience is of course specific to me, but it might help other people contemplating this move. I sometimes sought such reflections online, when I felt lost, and rarely found anything useful.
I have not yet defended my dissertation (that will happen on 26 January 2023) so it may be a bit premature to share this experience, but whatever the result of my defence, the trajectory leading to it will remain the same.
Continue readingAbstract
To understand the interplay between international hegemony and the apparent loss of state sovereignty, it is necessary to reintroduce the transnational elite as a global actor. Hegemony, meaning leadership, is based on values. The transnational elite embodies these values and adapts them to the changing global context, integrating counter-hegemonic tendencies and establishing a consensus. That consensus is transmitted through the transnational elite members to domestic societies whose consent – active or passive – is required for socioeconomic reforms which benefit the transnational elite. The role of states as sites for political contestation and debate has decreased, as policy-making, supposedly of a technical/expert nature, is shifted to the inter-state level, leading to an increase in international regulatory regimes which are dominated by the transnational elites. Instead, the state is increasingly becoming an instrument to transmit and enforce the transnational consensus. While transnational values remain largely liberal and elite membership is accessible to anyone sharing them, the manner of establishing consent is increasingly authoritarian. This article retraces the concept of the transnational class in international relations theory and, through a case study of the Trilateral Commission, looks at how the transnational elite has evolved since the 1970s, and how it is integrating counterhegemonic pressures today, becoming increasingly powerful – as the rapidly growing income gap between rich and poor underscores.
Download pdf full text here
Submitted to Millenium Journal of International Studies
This article was reposted by the International Humanitarian Studies Association
This morning I spoke with an evidently motivated and capable, but thoroughly disheartened foreigner working on Somalia for an international agency. She had made great plans for the development of the sector she was entrusted with, but these had mostly come to nothing because of the non-cooperation of local authorities. Her activities were blocked by the national counterpart of her agency, which was a domestic institution which she herself had helped set up and fund. Protocol within her own organization made it mandatory for her to work through that agency which was blocking any chance for her to reach out to other prominent actors that she found worthy of support.
I’m currently staying in Mogadishu, Somalia, outside the heavily fortified airport – known as ‘MIA’ for Mogadishu International Airport by foreigners, and ‘Halane’ by Somalis – where foreigners invariably remain cloistered. I’m having conversations with artists, youth, cultural producers, local and national authorities and visiting the cultural sites of the capital. This is a particularly nice consultancy: a scoping study for a small European donor intent on spending its money smartly. Mogadishu is bursting with energy and full of promise. Because few foreigners leave MIA, and donors generally don’t place much confidence in what Somalis tell them, I’m enjoying being an observer with privileged access to my field of study, which is the same as that of the disillusioned international agency worker, whose access is barred by mostly bureaucratic reasons (no, it is not so unsafe in Mogadishu today). Here I will try to elucidate the nature of the problem she faces, which is encountered today by many aid workers; the roots of the problem lie in what I call an expectations gap.
Continue readingThis is part of my PhD draft chapter containing the theoretical framework for my thesis. Asking why some countries intervene in other countries, it examines the ancient history of intervention and the ethical or moral grounds given until recently.
As a legal concept, the use of forceful intervention has a long history. The Mahabharata (probably dating from the 8th or 9th century before the Common Era) contains a long discussion of dharmayuddha, or ‘righteous war’. The principles agreed on include proportionality, just cause, just means and fair treatment of prisoners[1].
Continue readingThis is a synthesis of my presentation on Wednesday 15 January to fellow doctoral students at the Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI)/Sciences Po Paris.
Recently Sciences Po University announced it will impose restrictions on the travels of all doctoral students outside France. Students will need to obtain a ‘Mission Order’ which will probably be a mere formality for travels within Europe but will present difficulties when going to conflict areas. In general, the advice of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be followed. I presented my own research activities in Somalia to a group of doctoral researchers of the CERI and we then discussed the impact these and other legal compliance measures might have on academic research activities.
Background on my research activities in Somalia
I enrolled in the PhD program at Sciences Po with as research subject the impact of international state-building interventions in Somalia in 2016, at the same time as I started a full-time job as head of research and analysis at an NGO working in Somalia. The job allowed me to develop a deep understanding of Somalia (and Somaliland, where I was stationed) and to build a network of Somali contacts; but I didn’t find time to do much research. After letting my first two precious years of PhD time slip through my hands I resigned. I was living with my family in Ethiopia and had to find ways to return to Somalia to accomplish my field research.
Continue reading(this is the concluding section of the first chapter of my doctoral thesis in preparation, “International Intervention and State-Building in Somalia”, 45 pages. The entire chapter can be downloaded here).
The historic survey of international interventions in Somalia provides us with some interesting insights:
In short, it seems Somalis never aspired to building a state and the international efforts to create one and then support it have met with overall failure. From a study of the internal dynamics of Somali society over the past hundred years, it seems clear that the less intervention in Somalia, the better. It also appears Somali systems of self-governance have been resilient and overall effective, although skewed toward the powerful clans. Why then is the international community still engaged in external state-building in Somalia? After having discarded internal reasons to do so, it is time to consider possible reasons external to the Somali context.
Today, on February 8, 2017, the most corrupt and least democratic polls I’ve ever witnessed unexpectedly delivered victory to the least corrupt and most popular presidential candidate in the race: Farmajo. How did that happen?
