AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	36. Between customs and state law: The dynamics of local law in sub-Saharan Africa
Paper ID	338
Author(s)	Renders, Marleen C.M.
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	The paper deals with a peculiar case of hybridisation in the sphere of law and institutions in Africa. Somaliland is a self-declared independent republic which seceded from civil war-ridden Somalia in 1991. The Somaliland secession seems to have been instigated by ‘traditional’ clan leaders. The clan leaders were also responsible for several instances of political reconciliation between groups competing for power an resources in the region. The political weight of these clan leaders in the new polity had important repercussions for its institutional make-up. Somaliland started out as a clan-based politico-institutional arrangement, with an important role for ‘traditional’ clan leaders, albeit in a ‘modern’ framework: a ‘state’. Therefore, contrary to the classic reading of other African cases where ‘state’ institutions and authority have competed with ‘traditional’ institutions and authority, the ‘state’ of Somaliland started out as a hybrid as such, wit both ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ components. The paper (based on extensive fieldwork in Somaliland) examines the dynamic between these ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ components and the evolution it underwent from Somaliland’s declaration of independence in 1991 up to present. It will discuss ways and means in which ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ institutions and personnel co-exist, overlap and become reinvented in the context of the newly founded ‘state’. Ultimately, the paper aims to contribute to the discussion as to whether ‘traditional’ law and institutions should or could in some way compensate for the perceived lack of efficiency or legitimacy enjoyed by ‘modern’ imported state law and institutions in Africa.

‘Traditional’ leaders and institutions in the building of the republic of “Somaliland”.