Traditional authorities as both curse and cure: the politics of coping with violent extremism in Somalia

ABSTRACT

This paper explores community perceptions about traditional authorities’ roles during the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants. We have selected the case of Somalia, where both government institutions and traditional authorities have partnered with international actors and institutions, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE). International actors have related to traditional authorities based on the assumption that these actors wield a kind of social power that facilitates the reintegration of former members of the violent extremist organisation al-Shabaab. Based on mixed methodology research we explain social reintegration in Somalia from the community perspective, and find that P/CVE programmes are expressive of co-optation of traditional authorities. We make the case that ‘risk coping’ helps explain why a majority of civilians prefer the government-led formal reintegration pathway of ex-combatants to the traditional authorities pathway. We conclude by discussing the implications that this has for NGOs/INGOs active in this P/CVE sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Traditional authorities
• non-state armed groups
• NGOs/INGOs
• P/CVE
• DDR
• social reintegration
• formal and informal disengagement pathways

Acknowledgement

We are thankful for the excellent field survey implementation by our regional research teams. Both authors also wish to thank all our interlocutors for valuable insights as well as the Folke Bernadotte Academy and our University institutions for presentation opportunities. We have received very valuable feedback from practitioners and policymakers as well as academics. We are also grateful for constructive comments from two anonymous reviewers. Any remaining errors are our sole responsibility. This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council [Grant Number 2015-03476].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Blair and Kalmanovitz, ‘On the Rights of War-Lords’.

2. Blair and Kalmanovitz, ‘On the Rights of War-Lords’; Kitzen, ‘Legitimacy is the Main Objective’.

3. Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’, 94.

4. Schlichte and Schneckener, ‘Armed Groups’.

5. Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’; Hansen, ‘Horn, Sahel and Rift’.

6. The Ministry of Internal Security of the Somali government leads a ‘defector rehabilitation programme (DRP)’, but the international research field that we also want to engage would refer to activities and actors linked to this as DDR. The government has requested the assistance and partnerships with UN actors, as well as others, and the international staff officers that work with the DRP are placed in the DDR section of UN Mission in Somalia (UNSOM). In DDR research several generations of DDR have been identified and we might say that with the strong presence of non-state armed groups in contemporary conflict, a new ‘era’ of experimenting with DDR tools in ‘asymmetrical’ contexts has dawned, Felbab-Brown, ‘DDR in the Context’.

7. Federal Government of Somalia, ‘National Strategy and Action Plan for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism’.

8. Gelot and Hansen, ‘CVE Brokerage’.

9. Suurmond, Jeannine, ‘Assessing Psychosocial Conditions’; Berdal and Ucko, ‘Reintegrating Armed Groups’. See also the guidelines about community-based reintegration in the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS) https://www.unddr.org/the-iddrs/

10. Parry and Aymerich, ‘Re-integration of ex-combatants’; UN, ‘Community Violence Reduction Programs’.

11. Blair et al., ‘Trusted authorities’; Sonrexa et al., ‘Perspectives on violent extremism’.

12. Hoehne, ‘Traditional authorities’.

13. Ibid., see also Englebert, ’Patterns and Theories’; van Dijk and van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal, ‘Introduction: the domestication of chieftancy’; Jackson and Albrecht, ‘Power, Politics and Hybridity’.

14. Hoehne, ‘Traditional authorities’.

15. Ibid; Bakonyi, ‘War’s Everyday’.

16. Traditional leader, email conversation on file with authors, November 2020. Menkhaus refers to this as a category of statebuilding spoiler, that can nonetheless support peacebuilding.

17. In Somali Studies, we have drawn inspiration from the attention to specificity and historicity among ‘transformationalist’ scholars, and for indepth work on this we recommend Kapteijns, ‘Clan cleansing’; Samatar, ‘Destruction of State and Society’; Besteman, ‘Primordialist blinders’; Luling, ‘Genealogy as Theory’; Gaas, ‘Primordialism vs Instrumentalism’.

18. Felbab-Brown, ‘DDR in the Context’; Nagai, ‘Reintegration of Al-Shabaab’s’.

19. Gundel, Omar Dharbaxo, ‘The predicament of the ‘Oday’.

20. Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’.

21. Gaas, ‘Primordialism vs Instrumentalism’. Sociopolitical identities are also constituted based on family and communal values, production model, class, religion and race.

22. Specialist in DDR work with insights into the Baidoa centre, November 2016; Somali DDR expert, Zoom-based 20201208.

23. Gaas, ‘Primordialism vs Instrumentalism’, 14.

24. Gundel, Omar Dharbaxo, ‘The Predicament of the ‘Oday’; On their conservative character and gendered effects, see Ubink and Rea, ‘Community Justice or Ethnojustice?’ On how al-Shabaab’s violent enforcement of laws differed from previous ‘normalised’ clan-based violence, see Bakonyi, ‘War’s Everyday’.

25. Gundel, Omar Dharbaxo, ‘The Predicament of the ‘Oday’; Gardner, el-Bushra, ‘The impact of War’.

26. Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’, 82.

27. Ahmad, ‘The Security Bazaar’.

28. Menkhaus, ‘Elite Bargains and Political Deals Project’. See also Berdal and Keen, ‘Violence and Economic Agendas’; Fearon and Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’.

29. Jackson and Albrecht, ‘Power, Politics and Hybridity’.

30. FGD with youth leaders conducted by a human rights organisation in Baidoa, March 2017.

31. Gelot and Hilowle, ‘Research Collaboration’.

32. Clan elder, Baidoa, December 2016; see for a similar observation Skjelderup, ‘Like a chicken in a cage’, 91.

33. Hansen, ‘Horn, Sahel and Rift’; Skjelderup, ‘Jihadi governance’.

34. Skjelderup, ‘Jihadi governance’.

35. Ibid.

36. An important caveat is that there isn’t extensive public surveys or gender-disaggregated data on this. We cannot purport to know how different social groups and men vs women rank quality of governance by provider. See Stern, ‘Al-Shabaab’s Gendered Economy’; European Union Agency for Asylum, ‘Somalia’.

37. Kaplan, ‘Resisting War’; Krause et al, ‘Civilian Protective Agency’.

38. Skjelderup, ‘Like chicken in a cage’.

39. Hainmueller et al., ‘Causal Inference’.

40. The longest running and most well known centres have been situated in Mogadishu (Serendi), Baidoa, and Kismayo and have all formed part of the Somali government’s DRP and have been implemented thanks to large degrees of donor support and strategic overseeing by implementing partners such as IOM, ASI. In these towns, as well as elsewhere, there have also been other smaller centres, of various types and sometimes operated by NGOs. We are aware that there have been other centres in other towns and that these fall outside of our data collection. Most of these have been operational during shorter time periods, such as a smaller centre in Galmudug overseen by Accept International.

41. Dafoe et al., ‘Information Equivalence’.

42. In designing our study, we have conformed with the ‘Principles and Guidance for Human Subjects Research’, approved by the American Political Science Association Council in April 2020. The authors have an approved IRB from his/her University dated 201,010 ETH20210163. Participation in the research was completely voluntary. We sought participant’s active and informed consent, and took precautions to select a consent procedure in order for this principle not to conflict with that of participant privacy. As detailed in our IRB, ensuring active consent in communities where literacy levels are low has some distinct challenges. Before subjects participated in this research the responsible enumerator read a consent statement to each of our respondents in their native language: Somali. We asked subjects to give their consent verbally and recorded their digital signature in our tablets with a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’. We did not want them to sign a paper consent form to further ensure them of their anonymity. We vetted our consent statement with local experts in each locale to ensure that our subjects understood it. At any point, all participants had the opportunity to ask questions and/or opt out of the study. The enumerators made sure that participants had understood the nature of the research, and what participation entailed, and also that participation was voluntary. While precautions to seek active consent in appropriate ways are crucial, we also want to mention that when a data collection has been well planned and grounded in local realities, human subjects understand more than is sometimes thought and take rational decisions about their participation.

43. Gelot and Hansen, ‘CVE Brokerage’.

44. European Union Agency for Asylum, ‘Somalia’.

45. Felbab-Brown, ‘The Limits of Punishment’.

46. Confidential interview with NGO practitioner active in P/CVR, April 2017. This person had also observed the disappearance of large numbers of people that have been collected by security forces meaning that they did not reach any collection site for the DRP, which adds to the challenge that unknown numbers of ex-combatants go through some form of informal pathway.

47. Kaplan and Nussio, ‘Community Counts’; Stedman 1997; Hartzell Hoddie and Rothchild, ‘Stabilizing the peace’.

48. FGD#8.

49. Blattman, Hartman and Blair, ‘How to promote order’.

50. Young, ‘The psychology of state repression’.

51. Hartzell, Hoddie and Rothchild, ‘Stabilizing the peace’.

52. FGD#2, 8.

53. Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’.

54. Hansen et al., ‘Countering violent extremism’.

55. Berrebi and Klor, ‘Are voters sensitive to terrorism?’; Getmansky and Zeitzoff, ‘Terrorism and voting’. A similar point has been made in natural disasters and crisis management literatures.

56. Spilerman and Stecklov, ‘Societal Responses’.

57. Ghosn et al., ‘The journey home’, 982.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. Hewstone, Rubin and Willis, ‘Intergroup bias’.

61. This means that mere contact with the ‘out-group’ does not reduce pre-existing intra-group prejudices; instead this would require specific conditions, Condra and Linardi, ‘Casual contact and ethnic bias’.

62. Huddy et al., ‘Threat, Anxiety and Violence’; Hall et al., ‘Exposure to Violence’.

63. Nussio and Howe, ‘When protection collapses’.

64. Gilligan, Pasquale and Samii, ‘Civil war’, 605.

65. This helps explain why ex-combatants and their dependents often point out that an important reason for wanting to leave the group was its brutal treatment of the local populations under its control, FGD with religious leaders conducted by a human rights organisation in Baidoa, March 2017; Heide-Ottosen et al, ‘Journeys Through Extremism’.

66. Somali DDR expert, Zoom-based 20201208.

67. Kalyvas, ‘The Logic of Violence’.

68. Heide-Ottosen et al., ‘Journeys Through Extremism’.

69. Greenhill and Oppenheim, ‘Rumor has it’.

70. Collective sense-making and world-view meant to enhance local security, rumours ascribe actors/practices with specific meanings. This is interactional (a display of meaning) and unverified communication.

71. Somali DDR expert, Zoom-based 20201208.

72. Oppenheim and Söderström, ‘Citizens by Design?’.

73. FGD with youth leaders conducted by a human rights organisation in Baidoa, March 2017.

74. Clan elder, Baidoa December 2016.

75. Ibid.

76. Specialist in DDR work with insights into the Baidoa centre, November 2016.

77. Focus-group discussion with elders, April 2017.

78. Traditional leader, email conversation on file with authors, November 2020.

79. Gordon, ‘The legitimation of extra-judicial violence’.

80. We raise here the need to disentangle the public opinions about interventionism, that it is possible for civilians to have broad support for UN DDR while at the same time have low support for military operations.

81. Felbab-Brown, ‘DDR in the Context’.

82. Jackson and Stratfor-Tuke, ‘Whose Security?’

83. Hansen et al., ‘Countering violent extremism’.

84. Svensson and Nilsson, ‘The Intractability of’.

85. FGDs with traditional authorities, March 2017; See similar point raised by Ware et al, ‘Development NGO Responses.

86. Heide-Ottosen et al., ‘Journeys Through Extremism’.

87. Senior UNSOM DDR official, November 2016; Annan, ‘Civil Society’, argues that peacebuilding NGOs overall face high risks of stigmatisation and surveillance from both state actors and militant groups.

88. Hansen et al., ‘Countering violent extremism’.

89. We are grateful to one of our reviewers for bringing this to our attention. The challenge for programming is that generally the rehabilitation time for low risk individuals is shorter, but some persons from less influential clans may wish to benefit from a longer rehabilitation time based on their socio-economic position more so than their ideological sympathies for the group.

90. Ibid.; DDR official, December 2016.

91. Stern, ’Al-Shabaab’s Gendered Economy’.

92. NGO founder now active in P/CVE, November 2016.

93. Ibid.

94. Nagai, ‘Reintegration of Al-Shabaab’s’; Khalil et al., ‘Deradicalisation and Disengagement’.

95. Somali DDR specialist November 2016.

96. Hansen, ‘Concepts and Practices’; An influential study has found that when analysing the effectiveness of the various types of DDR programs, the UN-led DDR had poor outcomes, Humphreys and Weinstein, ‘Demobilization and Reintegration’.

97. Blair et al., ‘Trusted authorities’.

98. Traditional leader, email conversation on file with authors 201211.

99. For more work that challenges the treatment of ex-combatants as a monolithic group, see Suarez and Baines, ‘”Together at the heart”’; McMullin, ‘Integration or Separation’; Shire, ‘Dialogue and Negotiation with Al-Shabaab’.

100. Heide-Ottosen et al., ‘Journeys Through Extremism’.

101. Young, ‘The psychology of state repression’.

102. Gordon, ‘The legitimation of extra-judicial violence’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Vetenskapsrådet [2015-03476].

Notes on contributors

Linnéa Gelot

Linnéa Gelot is Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Swedish De¬fence University (SEDU). She previously worked as Associate Professor of Peace and Development Studies at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University. She received her Ph.D. in International Politics from Aberystwyth University in 2009. Gelot leads the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA)-funded project Peacekeeper performance and mission-host society interactions (2023-2025). She is also a co-investigator in the Protection Complexity (PROTEX) project based at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). She is a member of the International Peacekeeping editorial board and a member of the FBA research working groups. Her work has appeared in Contemporary Security Policy, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Conflict, Security & Development, Security Dialogue, and African Security, among others.

Prabin B. Khadka

Prabin B. Khadka is Lecturer at the University of Essex. He received his Ph.D. from New York University and a MA from Georgetown University. Prabin uses field experiments to study social cohesion in peacekeeping, countering violent extremism, and development efforts with a particular focus on Somalia and South Sudan. Prabin’s research work has been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly and Defense and Peace Economics. Prabin is also a Research Fellow with the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), University of California and the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) in Nepal. Also a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Prabin served in the Nepal Army as a Combat Engineer and during the Maoist conflict, he switched to bomb disposal operations involving the removal of IEDs. Prabin also served as a UN peacekeeper twice, in the Congo in 2003 and 2008.