Returning to realities

A building-block approach to state and statecraft in Eastern Congo and Somalia

Bibliographic Data

ID5680754
AuthorsMorten Bøås (0000-0002-8417-5582, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume10
Issue4
Pages443-464
Publication date2010-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueConflict Security and Development (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1467-8802 • E-ISSN: 1478-1174
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14678802.2010.500519
OpenAlexW2035145625
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited29

For years, the international community has been involved in state-building exercises in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. The positive effects from these efforts are, however, not easily observed on the ground. The conventional approach to state-building that seeks to rebuild so-called ‘failed states’ from the capital area towards the hinterland is therefore still in dire need of rethinking. What both these cases display, albeit in different ways, is the need for a building-block approach that actively engages with realities on the ground; building the state from the hinterland towards the capital and not the other way around. In the case of Somalia, this is based on the observation that the breakaway ‘state’ of Somaliland is a much more stable and state like entity than the rest of Somalia. Even if this is less easily observed in Eastern Congo, the argument is attractive as it draws our attention to local configurations of power. Such an approach would therefore be more context specific and sensitive, recognising that states are the outcome of relatively unique historical and social processes, and that international interventions must be fine-tuned to these realties. Notes Morten Bøås is Research Director and Senior Researcher at Fafo's Institute for Applied International Studies. He has written extensively about African politics and conflict, and global development. Bøås' work has been published in journals such as Third World Quarterly Journal of Modern African Studies Politique Africaine and Global Governance. His most recently published books include African Guerrilla: Raging Against the Machine (Lynne Rienner, 2007, co-edited with Kevin Dunn) and International Development Vol. I-IV (Sage, 2010, co-edited with Benedicte Bull). 1. CitationDuffield, Global Governance and the New Wars; CitationBøås and Jennings, ‘Failed States and State Failure’; CitationBøås and Jennings, ‘Insecurity and Development’. 2. CitationMilliken and Krause, ‘State Failure, State Collapse, and State Reconstruction’, 753. 3. Bøås and Jennings, ‘Insecurity and Development’, 388. 4. CitationParis, At War's End, 5. 5. See CitationHuman Rights Watch, You Will be Punished. 6. See CitationBøås, ‘Pirates of Somalia’. 7. CitationSpears, ‘Reflections on Somaliland’, 92. 8. See also CitationMehler, ‘Peace and Power Sharing in Africa’; CitationLemarchand, ‘Consociationalism and Power Sharing in Africa’. 9. CitationBradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 2. 10. The International Rescue Committee estimated a total of 5.4 million excess deaths for the period of August 1998 to April 2007. An estimated 2.1 million of these deaths have occurred since the formal end of the war in 2002, and almost 1.4 million people are internally displaced and about 344,000 live as refugees in other African countries (see CitationIRC, Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo). These figures are contested (see CitationLambert and Lohlé-Tart, ‘DR Congo's Excess Death Toll’), but, still, in comparison the Sudanese civil war is believed to have produced 2 million deaths in 22 years. The Rwandan genocide may have involved one million deaths. The tsunami of 2004 killed about 300,000 people and 9/11 about 3,000. See CitationTurner, The Congo Wars. 11. The background for the UN mission is the 1999 Lusaka Accord and the 2002 Sun City Agreement. 12. As noted by the Carter Center, this means that abuses of electoral procedures were committed in favour of both candidates in equal measures and therefore did not impact significantly on the outcome of the presidential elections. (See CitationCarter Center, Post-Election Statement No. 3). 13. See Bøås and Jennings, ‘Failed States and State Failure’, 476. 14. See CitationRoitman, Fiscal Disobedience. 15. See CitationReno, ‘Congo’. 16. Other regional and transregional authorities in Somalia include Puntland (a semi-autonomous non-secessionist state in the northwest); the Rahanweyn Resistance Army's administration of the Bay and Bakool regions (1998–2002); and the Benadir Regional Authority (1996). 17. See CitationPrunier, From Genocide to Continental War. 18. Congo has vast natural resources. Among the most important are bauxite/aluminium, cadmium, cassiterite, coal, cobalt, copper, coltan, diamonds, gas, gold, iron ore, lead, manganese, oil, silver, timber, uranium and zinc. 19. CitationBøås, ‘New Nationalism and Autochthony’. 20. CitationBryden, ‘New Hope for Somalia’; see also CitationMenkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’. 21. See CitationBakonyi and Stuvøy, ‘Violence and Social Order Beyond the State’; CitationEnglehart, ‘Governments against States’; CitationLewis, Blood and Bone; CitationLewis, History of the Somali; CitationLittle, Somalia; CitationKapteijns, ‘Disintegration of Somalia’; CitationSamatar, ‘Somali Catastrophe’. 22. Samatar, ‘Somali Catastrophe’; Kapteijns, ‘Disintegration of Somalia’. 23. Little, Somalia. 24. See Lewis, Blood and Bone; CitationHaakonsen, ‘Somalia’. 25. See Samatar, ‘Somali Catastrophe’; CitationHelander, ‘Who Needs a State?’; CitationWorld Bank, From Resilience towards Recovery. 26. The exact structure of these clan-families is contested and always open to debate among the Somalis. 27. Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’. Xeer has been and still is the most far-reaching and effectively enforced ‘legal’ system in Somalia. It is a set of rules and obligations used to mediate between clans and sub-clans. 28. See CitationLaitin and Samatar, Somalia. 29. See CitationHansen, ‘Civil War Economies’. 30. Samatar, ‘Somali Catastrophe’. 31. See CitationMøller, ‘Somali Conflict’. 32. Lewis, History of the Somali. 33. Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’. 34. The independent Somali Republic was formed by the union in 1960 of former British Somaliland in the north and Italian Somalia in the south. 35. See CitationJhazbhay, ‘Islam and Stability in Somalia’; Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland. 36. See CitationICG, Somaliland. 37. CitationJackson, ‘Congolité’. 38. The RCD problem was that even if they were relatively strong in military terms, they could not transform their military might into electoral strength. In the 2006 elections, it won about six per cent of the seats in the different legislatures, and its presidential candidate, Azarias Ruberwa, only obtained approximately two per cent of the votes in the presidential elections. 39. See also CitationVlassenroot and Huggins, ‘Land, Migration and Conflict in Eastern DRC’. 40. CitationLemarchand, Dynamics of Violence; CitationVansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda. 41. Jackson, ‘Congolité’, 104. 42. Vlassenroot and Huggins, ‘Land, Migration and Conflict in Eastern DRC’. 43. See Vansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda. 44. Lemarchand, Dynamics of Violence. 45. CitationRaeymaekers, ‘Sharing the Spoils’. 46. This observation is based on a household survey on belonging and land rights carried out in North Kivu in November and December 2006 by the author and a team of local researchers. More than 200 households were randomly selected and interviewed in this operation. The questionnaire included sections on the household, land and land tenure, cattle, hunting and a savings and economic self-assessment section. See CitationBøås, ‘Just Another Day’. 47. See Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience. 48. See CitationBayart, Ellis and Hibou, Criminalization of the State. 49. The figures are of course only rough estimates and should not be viewed as anything else. The most important thing to take note of is the discrepancy they suggest between the real economy and what is recorded. For example, gold is without doubt mined and exported from Ituri, but this is not shown at all in official figures and statistics. CitationTegera and Johnson, Rules for Sale. 50. See also Raeymaekers, ‘Sharing the Spoils’. 51. The informal economics of survival through inventively ‘fending for yourself’. See also CitationJackson, ‘Making a Killing’; CitationBoeck, ‘Domesticating Diamonds and Dollars’; CitationMacGaffey, Real Economy of Zaire. 52. See Bøås, ‘New Nationalism and Autochthony’. 53. See also CitationRichards, ‘New War’. 54. See also CitationGarrett and Mitchell, Trading Conflict for Development. 55. See Bøås, ‘Pirates of Somalia’

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