State Breakdown and the Rise of Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia:Understanding the Organizing Principles and Dynamics of Nationhood

This study offers a critical examination of the breakdown of a state and its consequences for the rise of Somaliland, Puntland and other autonomous regional states and the failure to establish a centralized state in Somalia for the last twenty years. Focusing on the events that lead to the breakdown of the Republic of Somalia in 1991 to the attempt of establishing Transitional Federal Government, three research questions are analyzed in this study. The first question is what are the factors that led to the breakdown of the state. The second question is what are the factors that contributed to the rise of Somaliland, Puntland, other autonomous regions and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia. The third question is whether the model followed for the rise of Somaliland be adopted to establish a republic of Somalia. It is hypothesized that the breakdown of the Republic of Somalia is associated with bad governance, external interference and the failure to adapt the traditional system of governance with the modern system of government. Using qualitative methods of gathering data, the main finding is that the absence of good governance, rivalry between super powers, proxy wars, and clan based liberation fronts led to endless civil war and eventually to the collapse of the state. Atrocities carried out against the Isaaq family clan by the Siad Barre regime and failure of the clan based Liberation Fronts to form a united front and the interference of the external actors resulted in the breakdown of the state and the rise of de-facto Somaliland and the regional autonomous states of Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. The failure to establish a strong central government contributed to the depletion of national resources, dumping of toxic materials and the rise of radical Islamist groups and pirates. The breakdown of the state of Somalia has caused the rise of war lords and radical Islamists such as al-Shabab which led to civil war and interference of external actors which hindered the Somali people from solving their own problems. In the self-declared independent state of Somaliland the ability to integrate traditional and modern institutions of governance has brought relative peace and stability. Based on the finding of the research it is recommended that a solution to the problem of Somalia is to follow the model of Somaliland. Peace and development in the Horn of Africa is subject to peace and cooperation between states and thus it is recommended to have a comprehensive peace strategy for the whole of the Horn of Africa.