21. Pan-Somalism in the Construction and Crisis of the Somali State: Integration and Irredentis
- Author:
- Rafaela Pinto Serpa
- Publication Date:
- 05-2026
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brazilian Journal of African Studies
- Institution:
- Brazilian Journal of African Studies
- Abstract:
- The collapse of the Somali State in 1991 constitutes one of the most emblematic episodes of state disintegration on the African continent, with the country remaining embroiled in a civil war that is still present in some regions today. In this regard, Somalia in the 1990s can be defined as a “Collapsed State”, that is, an extreme version of “Failed State”. According to Rotberg’s (2003) classification, the State in collapse is characterized by a complete authority vacuum within its borders, resulting in the division of sub-regions under the control of substate actors that privatize the security apparatus, markets, trade and external political-economic relations. These actors became known as Warlords.The literature on this process (and on the African statehood in gene-ral) has been marked by interpretations that privilege identitary aspects of the Somali society — the idea that permanent clan fragmentation has made the construction of a modern nation-state impossible (Lewis 1988). There-fore, at times as the cause, at times as the effect, the debates about “Failed States” and “identitary disputes” are majorly present on the analysis about the post-colonial states crisis. Conversely, this work starts from an idea of broad identity that exis-ted in the region — the somallitude3. The existence of both identitary forms, though conflicting (fragmented on one side and cohesive on the other), does not explain the matter in itself, and demonstrates the necessity of shifting the analytical focus. Therefore, this article maintains that the state collapse must be understood based on the inherent contradictions of the State-building process in Somalia amid the underdevelopment condition.In this sense, it is argued that the pan-somalism — understood as the political project of reunification of the territories inhabited by Somali popula-tions in the Horn of Africa — constituted the ideological axis of the formation of the Somali State, simultaneously operating as the national cohesion vector and the structural fragilization factor. The central hypothesis of this article is that pan-somalism assumed a contradictory character throughout the State formation process. If, at its origin, it acted as a nation-building mechanism, by providing a common political horizon and legitimizing the nascent state, its transformation into an irredentist project by the Somali elite shifted the priority from internal construction to external territorial projection. This shift not only exceeded the material capacities of the Somali State, but also reconfigured the very content of the national interest. In this manner, pan--somalism, by binding itself to the territorial reunification agenda, ceased to express a collective project of integration and development, reflecting instead the interests of elite fractions that used nationalism as an instrument of political legitimacy.The objectives of this article consist, therefore, in analyzing pan-so-malism in its dual dimension — as a national integration project and as an irredentist project —, highlighting how the tension between these dimen-sions contributed, dialectically, to the construction and crisis of the Somali State. To this end, this article examines, firstly, the origins of pan-somalism in Somali politics following the Second World War, emphasising its role in the formation of a relatively cohesive national identity, which oriented the process of unification between the British and Italian Somalilands, from 1960 onwards. Subsequently, it analyzes the external projection of this pro-ject, evidenced by the tensions and conflicts with neighboring states, such as Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya, in the context of the irredentist agenda. Finally, it seeks to demonstrate how the prioritization of this expansionist dimension, to the detriment of the internal construction, contributed to the fragilization of the State and its subsequent crisis, as reflected in the Ogaden War and its consequences.From the methodological point of view, this article adopts a hypothe-tico-deductive approach, drawing on a historical and materialist analysis, and therefore qualitative. The analysis is structured in three levels — national; regional; and systemic —, which overlap in concentric circles of mutual dependency. It is understood that the articulation of the three levels of analysis (systemic, regional, and national) can contribute to the perception, on the one hand, of the constraints offered by the structure, while simultaneously, on the other, allows for the observation of the states’ (and of social forces that compose them) capacity for agency in face of these restrictions (Pereira and Serpa 2024).In that regard, pan-somalism’s development and its implications for Somali politics are understood as products of this interaction: at the regional level, the territorial disputes and power asymmetries in the Horn of Africa imposed limits and intensified its conflictive character; at the systemic level, the Cold War reconfigured alliances and expanded the Somali state’s room for maneuver. Thus, pan-somalism’s trajectory is situated at the intersection of these dynamics, which conditioned both its possibilities and its destabi-lizing effects.
- Topic:
- Politics, State Building, Identity, and Pan-Somalism
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Somalia