Government and International Relations

Diverging dramatically from the path taken by the Federal Republic of Somalia over the past two decades, the case of the unrecognized ‘Republic of Somaliland’ provides a powerful natural experiment for exploring political violence and institution-building within the contemporary global context. Having emerged from six years of intermittent violent conflict (between 1991 and 1996), Somaliland constitutes an example of peace and relative order in the absence of a government with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Throughout its formative period (considered here to be roughly its first decade, 1991–2001), foreign support of any kind was negligible, and the lack of any external power attempting to end (or prolong) its civil wars dramatically limited belligerents’ access to external revenue. Somaliland, therefore, presents a case in which the domestic drivers of peace and development may be examined in the absence of aid and other forms of international​ intervention as significant variables.

The two regions with the greatest incidence of maritime piracy in Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, are also known for the low quality of the institutions underlying their political economies. This article investigates how institutions in these areas shape and constrain the sophisticated maritime piracy syndicates and their behaviour. Engaging with the literature on state failure and maritime piracy, we argue that norms and institutions constrain even criminal organizations like piracy groups, which often mimic and are embedded in the licit economy. In the Horn of Africa, pirates take structural and ideational cues from the licit economy and are constrained by the informal regulations that govern clan groups, rent-based economic activities, and collective security arrangements in Somalia. In West Africa, sophisticated piracy both preys upon and arises from the formal economy, specifically the international oil industry. As a result, piracy networks often mirror and draw from both the formal institutions in Nigeria used to regulate and protect oil production, and those engaged in oil production, processing, distribution, and transportation. THE PERSISTENCE AND HIGH INCIDENCE of maritime piracy in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea are widely attributed to the weakness or even failure of state institutions in both regions. We suggest that the prevalence of the failed states narrative in explaining the drivers of piracy has diverted attention from more important factors that shape pirate behaviour across time and place, namely the configuration of local norms and institutions that pirates interact with on a daily basis. The failed states narrative casts the weakness of formal state institutions as creating the incentives and opportunity for criminal behaviour but fails to account for the often wide variations in pirate behaviour, either within the same state or between states

Oman's developmental trajectory is a 'positive outlier' to most post-colonial states, particularly those with significant natural resource reserves. Its trajectory confounds many of the usual expectations surrounding the impact of rentier incomes on conflict and inclusive development. This piece attempts to disentangle the threads of Oman's apparent good fortune to reveal characteristics of its political settlement that may (and may not) have salience elsewhere. This paper spotlights the influence of narrative and the non-domestic factors that played pivotal roles in the formation and evolution of the political settlement, suggesting that both have generally been understated within the literature to date.

This paper (published in early 2011) looks behind the scenes at the Yemeni regime’s opaque internal politics and at the nature of the neo-patrimonial system that it has entrenched over the past 32 years. Yemen is at a critical juncture, and the calculations and strategies of the country’s key actors may shift rapidly and on the basis of unpredict- able factors, but it is important to keep in mind that deeply patrimonial systems are not transformed overnight.

There aren't many foreigners traveling to Sanaa these days, but one group of outsiders is getting a lot of attention: an FBI forensics team, which reportedly arrived last week to investigate the attempted assassination of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is now convalescing in Saudi Arabia. Evidence from the scene indicates that the explosion may have been caused by a device that was planted inside the mosque on the presidential compound, and not by a mortar shell or rocket, as was initially reported. If true, this means that someone with close access to the president was involved, which raises the question of why members of the Yemeni regime's inner circle-set to mark its 33rd anniversary in power next month-now appear intent on destroying each other? To answer this question, it is necessary to look beyond the protests that have called for Saleh's resignation and instead look at the premises of the political settlement that has held the inner circle together for so long.

Oman's developmental trajectory is a 'positive outlier' to most post-colonial states, particularly those with significant natural resource reserves. Its trajectory confounds many of the usual expectations surrounding the impact of rentier incomes on conflict and inclusive development. This piece attempts to disentangle the threads of Oman's apparent good fortune to reveal characteristics of its political settlement that may (and may not) have salience elsewhere. This paper spotlights the influence of narrative and the non-domestic factors that played pivotal roles in the formation and evolution of the political settlement, suggesting that both have generally been understated within the literature to date.

Why did America’s counter-terrorism strategy in Yemen fail to contain al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula in the years prior to the Yemeni government’s collapse in 2015? Moreover, why did the US administration think that its strategy was successful? This article draws from field research in Yemen and a diverse array of other Yemeni sources to argue that the answer lies in the fact that there are two broad, but ultimately irreconcilable, ontologies of what al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula ‘really is’: one legible, organisationally rational and thus governable; and one not entirely so. I argue that by targeting tangible elements of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (such as its leaders, sources of revenue and bases) in partnership with the Yemeni state security apparatus, the strategy strengthened the group’s less coherent aspects. As a result, Western counter-terrorism practices target a stripped-down, synoptic version of the group while missing, even empowering, the shadowy append...

This article is concerned with the relationship between the quality of a country's governance institutions and the degree of civil order it experiences. Using evidence from Somaliland, it argues that order and peaceful cohabitation can be sustained not only when, but even partly because, governance institutions are incapable of reliably controlling violence. It suggests that Somaliland's postconflict peace is less grounded in the constraining power of its governance institutions than in a powerful discourse about the country's structural, temporal, and physical proximity to war. Through its sensitivity to the ease with which peace gives way to war, this discourse indirectly harnesses an apparent propensity to disorder as a source of order. This case challenges the “common sense” causal relationship between institutions and order. If either the strength or the weakness of institutions can offer foundations for order, then neither quality can be assigned as its cause witho...

How integrated are agricultural markets in conflict-affected states? We answer this question by examining the dynamics of monthly price series of rice, maize and sorghum across eleven cities (markets) of Somalia. Using conflict as a source of transaction costs between spatially connected markets, we examine its role in price transmission between the markets in a panel smooth transition regression framework. We find that in the case of rice—an imported cereal grain—conflict tends to reduce the speed of price transmission between markets. By contrast, we find no evidence of conflict-related transaction costs in the case of maize and sorghum—commodities that are locally produced, particularly in the central and southern parts of Somalia. In all instances, we find that there is some degree of spatial integration among cereal markets around the country, perhaps partly due to informal institutions that can bridge the divides created by conflict, distance and internal political fragmentati...

This article explores how counterterrorism knowledge practices affect the groups they study. We argue that these practices typically construct terrorist groups as ontologically stable and organizationally rational, which makes them appear familiar to, and so governable by, counterterrorism organizations. We show that by excluding prevalent local knowledge, Western counterterrorism policy discourses assign the power to construct the category of “terrorist” to those without daily lived experience of the “terrorists” in question. This undermines different ways of knowing what sustains these groups, what might eradicate them and, more importantly, what might make their ability to pose a serious threat seem unlikely, or even absurd, to those whose support they purportedly need to survive as terrorists. Using evidence from Yemen, we show that groups labelled as “terrorists” do not fit into the stable categories that counterterrorism organizations require to produce actionable targets. We argue that while imposing such categories helps counterterrorists find targets that reflect their assumptions, it also generates pathways for violent actors to evolve and reproduce.

The aim of this article is to understand why, in the aftermath of the 1998 Sydney water contamination crisis, policy and institutional reform was comparatively minor—despite intense scrutiny and criticism of the framework of water policy in New South Wales (NSW). The article should be of serious interest to scholars interested in crisis and policy change, rather than simply those with a particular interest in water policy in Australia. It frames the Sydney case as a disconfirming one but finds that an understanding of the stability/change relationship in NSW water policy can only partially be understood through applying key contemporary institutional, actor, and interest-centered explanations. Therefore, it probes the plausibility of an additional explanation and develops the rudiments of a new “policy configuration” approach to help explain policy stability and change. It concludes by suggesting that there is potential for a policy configuration perspective to be tested against other cases.

Abstract: This study explores whether and how policy changes in the aftermath of a crisis. The authors ask why pre-existing regulatory regimes that are identified as contributory factors to “failure” are not necessarily reformed in the wake of a crisis. The investigation adds to the literature that addresses the classic tension between reformism and conservatism in post-crisis periods. Regulatory failure is identified as being largely responsible for two crises – the tainted drinking-water tragedy in Walkerton, Canada, and the collapse of a banquet hall in Jerusalem, Israel. Despite similarities in the nature of media coverage, institutional procedures for investigation and commission findings, these two tragedies differ dramatically in policy change outcomes. A policy streams prism is used to identify, characterize and analyse reasons for very different policy responses to crises associated with regulatory failure.Sommaire: Cette étude examine si et comment les politiques changent à la suite d'une crise. Les auteurs se posent la question de savoir pourquoi des régimes de réglementation préexistants qui sont identifiés comme étant des facteurs contribuant à l'«échec » ne sont pas nécessairement réformés à la suite d'une crise. L'enquête apporte des éléments à la documentation portant sur la tension classique qui existe entre le réformisme et le conservatisme au cours des périodes postérieures à une crise. L'échec de la réglementation est identifié comme étant largement responsable de deux crises : la tragédie de l'eau potable contaminée à Walkerton, au Canada, et l'effondrement d'une salle de réception à Jérusalem, en Israël. Malgré des similarités dans la nature de la couverture médiatique, dans les procédures institutionnelles de l'enquête et les résultats des commissions, ces deux tragédies diffèrent radicalement dans les résultats des modifications de politiques. Un prisme des courants de politiques est utilisé pour identifier, caractériser et analyser les raisons des réactions très différentes en matière de politiques à des crises associées à l'échec de la réglementation.