DIIS workingDIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:18paper No Easy Way Out: Traditional Authorities in Somaliland and the Limits of Hybrid Political Orders Markus Virgil Hoehne DIIS Working Paper 2011:18 WORKING PAPER 1 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:18 MARKUS VIRGIL HOEHNE is post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany. e-mail:
[email protected] DIIS Working Papers make available DIIS researchers’ and DIIS project partners’ work in progress towards proper publishing. They may include important documentation which is not necessarily published elsewhere. DIIS Working Papers are published under the responsibility of the author alone. DIIS Working Papers should not be quoted without the express permission of the author. DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:18 © The author and DIIS, Copenhagen 2011 Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS Strandgade 56, DK-1401 Copenhagen, Denmark Ph: +45 32 69 87 87 Fax: +45 32 69 87 00 E-mail:
[email protected] Web: www.diis.dk Cover Design: Carsten Schiøler Layout: Ellen-Marie Bentsen Printed in Denmark by Vesterkopi AS ISBN: 978-87-7605-463-2 Price: DKK 25.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk 2 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:18 CONTENTS Abstract 4 Introduction 5 Ideal-types of authority and the resurgence of traditional authorities in Africa 6 Traditional authorities in Northern Somalia 8 Case 1: Traditional authorities within the state apparatus 10 Sheekh Ibraahim – a “pillar of freedom and peace” 10 Boqor Buurmadow – from being a national peace maker to being accused of high treason 11 Case 2: Traditional authorities at the margins 14 Two leaders for one lineage 16 Different types of traditional authorities 21 Conclusion 27 References 30 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2011:18 ABSTracT Somalia has been without effective state institutions since 1991.