The remarkable story of Somaliland

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 143-157

  Kaplan, Seth ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 49149120486     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (20)

1. See www.cfr.org/publication/10781/somalias_terrorist_infestation. html.
2. My description of the clan system of governance owes much to Virginia Luling, "Come Back Somalia? Questioning a Collapsed State," Third World Quarterly 18 (June 1997): 292.
3. Ken Menkhaus, "Somalia: Political Order in a Stateless Society," Current History, May 1998, 220.
4. Roland Marchai and Ken Menkhaus, Somalia Human Development Report 1998 (Nairobi: UN Development Programme, 1998), 12.
5. There is no census data for either Somaliland or Somalia, but Somaliland's population is generally estimated at between 2.5 and 3.5 million. See International Crisis Group (ICG), "Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership," Africa Report, No. 110, 23 May 2006, 4.
6. Asteris Huliaras, "The Viability of Somaliland: Internal Constraints and Regional Geopolitics," Journal of Contemporary African Studies 20 (July 2002): 158.
7. This last point was mentioned repeatedly in interviews conducted by the author in Hargeysa in September 2006. See also Matt Bryden, "The Banana Test: Is Somaliland Ready for Recognition?" (unpubl. ms.), 6;
8. and Mark Bradbury, Adan Yusuf Abokor, and Haroon Ahmed Yusuf, "Somaliland: Choosing Politics over Violence," Review of African Political Economy 30 (September 2003): 462.
9. Academy for Peace and Development (APD), "A Self-Portrait of Somaliland: Re-building from the Ruins" (unpubl. ms., APD, Hargeysa, 2000).
10. Carolyn Logan, "Overcoming the State-Society Disconnect in the Former Somalia: Putting Somali Political and Economic Resources at the Root of Reconstruction," USAID/REDSO, September 2000, 20.
11. Huliaras, "The Viability of Somaliland," 162.
12. Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, "Somaliland: Choosing Politics over Violence," 475.
13. For a specific list of how this might be done, see APD and International Peace-building Alliance (Interpeace), A Vote for Peace: How Somaliland Successfully Hosted Its First Parliamentary Elections in 35 years (Hargeysa: APD, 2006), 49-52.
14. See www.state.gov/p/af/rls/fs/2007/96359.htm. This was in response to an article in the Washington Post indicating that "the escalating conflict in Somalia is generating debate inside the Bush administration over whether the United States should . . . shift support to the less volatile region of Somaliland. . . . The Pentagon's view is that 'Somaliland should be independent.'" Ann Scott Tyson, "U.S. Debating Shift of Support in Somali Conflict," Washington Post, 4 December 2007, A17.
15. Author's interview with Somaliland's foreign minister, Abdillahi M. Duale, Hargeysa, 17 September 2006.
16. Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, "Somaliland: Choosing Politics over Violence," 458.
17. This discussion borrows from ICG, "Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership," 19-21.
18. African Union Commission, "Resume: AU Fact-Finding Mission to Somaliland, 30 April to 4 May 2005," Addis Ababa, 2005.
19. Eduardo Porter, "The Divisions That Tighten the Purse Strings," New York Times, 29 April 2007.
20. Ian Spears, "Reflections on Somaliland and Africa's Territorial Order," Review of African Political Economy 30 (March 2003): 94.