The Research On International Intervention And The State Reconstruction Of Somalia (1991-2017)

After the Cold War,state collapse and state failure became prominent features of African politics.Post-conflict reconstruction has become an important historical task of African politics,external intervention is one of the extremely important factor.Its role and influence on the reconstruction of the African countries is an important research topic in African political studies.This paper uses Somalia as a case to conduct a historical and theoretical study,and to sort out the process of state reconstruction in Somalia after Siad Barre fell.The United Nations,the African Union,the United States,as well as the neighboring countries are all deeply involved.In this paper,the reconstruction will be divided into three phases in the light of participants and time sequence to explore the role of external intervention in Somalia's reconstruction:1991-1995 was the first stage of the reconstruction process in Somalia.After the collapse of the Siad regime,there was no strong political power to control the domestic situation,Power struggles have plunged Somalia into a long-term civil war,and state reconstruction has been delayed time and again.The UN's inaction on Somali has sparked international discontent.After that,UN participated in Somalia issues through humanitarian intervention and bring the United States into it.Although the two sides reached a consensus on promoting reconciliation and humanitarian assistance,they were not consistent in ultimate goals.The shift in their later goals has also made them lose their politically neutral position.As intervenors,the UN and the US supported one faction to suppress the other,disturbed the formation of endogenous Somali.Failure to achieve political ambitions,both parties have quickly withdrawn from Somalia.The discarded external intervention undermined the emerging power system,Somalia has further plunged into a chaotic war between the warlords.1995-2012 is the second phase of the reconstruction process in Somalia.After the withdrawal of the US and UN,Political forces within somalia have lost their intermediate mediators.The Islamic Courts once rose and gained control of most of southern and central Somalia.Under the joint attack of external forces,the main forces of Islamic courts almost vanished.One of the extremist forces gradually developed into Al-Shabaab,bringing great threats to Somalia's subsequent state construction.Meanwhile,African regional organizations and neighboring countries have gradually joined Somalia's reconstruction process.Unlike the first phase,African regional organizations and neighboring countries have set the transitional government as the main objective,and have used peace talks to organize several reconciliation meetings.Despite setbacks,African regional organizations and neighboring countries have maintained their patience and made long-term efforts to establish a transitional government.The transitional national government is an effective attempt to rebuild the country.However,because of the disagreement among the interveners,the first transitional government has not received wide support from the outside world.With the intervention of IGAD,Somalia has re-established the Transitional Federal Government.During this period,regional organizations and neighboring countries have achieved certain results in their intervention However,because of the interests of the interveners,there has been violent intervention.Compared with the US and UN in the previous period,Regional organizations and neighboring countries have demonstrated their sense of responsibility.They have made many efforts and attempts,and finally established a transitional government and achieved a peaceful transition.2012-2017 is the third stage of the national reconstruction process in Somalia.The transitional government has achieved a peaceful transition and the international community has also begun to help Somalia form a federal government.In the previous stage,the intervention countries cooperated with political forces in Somalia for the sake of interests.Although they played a role in promoting peace talks,they also formed the situation of“international armed separatism”.When the federal government was established,various political forces were still highly regarded within the scope of their own "territory." The establishment of the federal government was inseparable from the support of African regional organizations and neighboring countries.At this time,external intervention has begun to consider from somalia itself,made efforts to help reconcile and win popular support.After a number of national debates,the federal government was finally established.After that,external intervention forces were also trying to give more autonomy back to the government and provided technical support to the federal government where necessary.Finally,this paper will summarize and reflect on the external interventions in Somali's reconstruction process.In the initial period,external interventions ignored the problem of the Somali people's vague sense of national identity.The mere involvement of violence only antagonized Somalis.In the medium term,interventions based on humanitarian assistance and peace talks were difficult to receive the effect.The disagreement on Somali's reconstruction led to military intervention,which incited the public's resistance to the interventionist country.Although the late-shifting position has achieved good results,the issue of weak government remains difficult to resolve.