Maandeeq: The Dilemma of the Post-Colonial State in Somalia

Abstract

Since its inception in 1960, the Somali Republic has had two main missions: socio-political unification of the Somalis in the Horn of Africa and socio-economic development of the new nation and, accordingly, these were the key issues to be addressed by post-colonial state in Somalia. However, neither of the two objectives was achieved by the civilian regime in power during the first decade of post-colonial Somalia. By employing the contract theory of the state, I will investigate why the civilian regime failed to achieve meaningful national goals. Using the literature and surveying historical archives and oral traditions, I will compare the post-colonial state in Somalia with the ideal liberal democratic state developed in the social science literature. The article shows that the post-colonial state in Somalia was a distorted version of the liberal democratic state and the failure of the civilian regime could be associated with these distortions.