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Historical Sociology
of State Formation in
the Horn of Africa
Genesis, Trajectories, Processes,
Routes and Consequences
Redie Bereketeab
Historical Sociology of State Formation
in the Horn of Africa
Redie Bereketeab
Historical Sociology
of State Formation
in the Horn of Africa
Genesis, Trajectories, Processes, Routes
and Consequences
Redie Bereketeab
Nordica Africa Institute
Uppsala, Sweden
ISBN 978-3-031-24161-1 ISBN 978-3-031-24162-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24162-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
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tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
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and institutional affiliations.
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
This book is about the historical sociology of state formation in the

Horn of Africa (HOA). It analyses and examines the genesis, trajecto-
ries, processes, routes and consequences of the complex evolution of
state formation in the region. To that end, the book employs three
analytical and explanatory models in explaining the complicated and
arduous process of state formation in the HOA: proto-state, colonial and
national liberation. These models heuristically and innovatively enable
us to understand, interpret and analyse state formation in the HOA.
While the proto-state model explicates an indigenous historical process
of state formation in Ethiopia, the colonial model refers to an externally
designed and imposed process of state formation. The national libera-
tion model refers to a specific form of state formation conducted under
a movement and ideology of—and within an environment of—national
liberation. The distinct significance of these models is that collectively they
have the power to a sufficient degree analyse state formation in the region.
They are also unique in that they have never been employed as aggregate
analytical and explicative instruments to address the predicament of state
formation in the HOA.
The HOA is the region on the African continent that is most
susceptible to conflict. The region suffers from convoluted and inter-
woven pathologies. These include intra-state and interstate conflicts; state
crisis; underdevelopment; poverty; unemployment; mass migration; envi-
ronmental degradation; drought and famine; external intervention and
v
vi PREFACE
geopolitical involvement; deficiency of democratic governance; authori-

tarianism; mismanagement of diversity; and multiplicity of identities. The
root causes of the pathologies are multiple and complex, but the one that
stands out is the nature and structure of the state.
The state is perceived to be the source as well as the remedy of
the pathologies. While the contemporary nature and structure of the
state undergird the pervasive conflicts, proper and complete state forma-
tion would remedy many of the conflicts of the region. Ultimately,
state formation concerns societal construction, which in a broader sense
stands at the centre of the problem the HOA faces. Societal construc-
tion is primarily conceptualised, in technical terms, as state formation and
nation formation. At its most extreme, the status of the state and the
nation in the HOA and in Africa in general are defined as weak, fragile,
collapsed and absent. Conversely, this also demonstrates that the process
of state formation in the HOA is still in a process of gestation and under
construction.
The incompleteness of the process of state formation to a great extent
explains the prevalence of the pathologies afflicting the HOA. It is also
worth noting that the processes, routes and genesis of state formation in
the HOA vary, justifying the employment of the three models. Gener-
ally speaking, three factors render the HOA distinctive: (1) throughout
the postcolonial era, it has been the most conflict-afflicted region on
the continent; (2) it has withstood the brunt of grave geopolitical inter-
ventions; and (3) it is perhaps the only region on the continent that
has experienced the emergence of new states from existing states as an
outcome of national liberation struggles.
The reason why the nature and structures of the state are perceived
as problematic in the HOA is to be found in states’ failure to tackle the
representativeness of, inclusion, identification with, participation in and
ownership of the state of and by all citizens. Often, the state lacks those
qualities. These are essential qualities and requirements in multiethnic,
multilingual, multifaith and multicultural societies. The current structure
and nature of the state in the HOA are perceived as exclusionary, narrow
in its representation, serving the interests of the few and dominated by
certain groups and personalities.
Social science is still struggling to find a formula of state formation
that commands universal validity and applicability. The general litera-
ture of state formation is fraught with discord and controversy, especially
with reference to the universality of existing state models. The dominant
PREFACE vii
discourse accepts that the epistemic and ontological origin of the state
is in Europe. The question, then, is whether the original Euro-centric
societal setting is amenable for replication in non-European societal
settings.
The narrow and orthodox conception of the genesis of the state has
given rise to the widely held conception that Africa cannot imitate Euro-
pean state formation. Accordingly, political entities in Africa are often
considered as an artificial imposition and a mismatch between the polit-
ical organisation (state) and society. It is often proposed that the solution
lies in the resolution of the mismatch, leading to recommendations that
Africans should go back to their roots. Although there is no doubt that
the mismatch explains state-society conflict, it is not clear where the
source of this conflict comes from or if it is possible to simply extricate
what has been grafted onto it over history.
This book acknowledges the double heritage that characterises post-
colonial states in the HOA. The current states in the HOA contain in their
body politic dialectically intertwined precolonial and colonial elements.
Even the proto-state, through modernisation endeavours, has incorpo-
rated aspects of the European state model. The book contends that the
political entities in the HOA are states, but perhaps of a different genre,
not copycats of the European model.
At the root of the controversy revolving around the form of state in
the HOA concerns definition. The definition of the state is broached from
diverse theoretical and conceptual dimensions, the main ones being func-
tionalist and institutionalist conceptions. The functionalist conception of
the state derives from normatively identified functions a state is supposed
to perform. Whether those normative functions prevail or not determines
the existence of the state. The institutionalist conception, however, stems
from how strong state institutions are, and whether they are capable of
replacing and preventing personalised polity.
Two more dimensions of state formation are perceptions of the state as
processual and evolutionary, and continuum; and the perception of histor-
ical sociology. The first conceptualises state formation as a long process
that cuts across time (past, present and future), governed by a variety
of rhythms, scopes and paces. The second perception understands state
formation through the lens of the historical and sociological transfor-
mation of society. This transformation is dictated by and embedded in
various stages, experiences, setbacks, tribulations and achievements that
viii PREFACE
cumulatively determine the state’s formation, endowing it with its own

specificity and characteristics.
In conclusion, the project of state formation is the essence of peace,
security, stability and development in the HOA. As such, it needs to be
taken seriously. It is also essential to take seriously the historical diversity,
trajectories and specificities of the countries in which the model of state
formation applicable to each one takes account of those factors. From this
derives the rationale behind the three models, which reflect the historical
specificities of the HOA.
Uppsala, Sweden Redie Bereketeab

November 2022
Contents
1 Introduction: Challenges of State Formation 1

2 Theories of State Formation 33
3 Proto-State Formation: Ethiopia 65
4 Colonial State Formation 99
5 The National Liberation State 121
6 State Legitimacy and Government Performance
in the Horn of Africa 157
7 Common Characteristics of the Three Typologies
of State Formation: Synthesis 185
8 Conclusion 199
References 221
Index 241
ix
Abbreviations
ANDM Amhara National Democratic Movement

AU African Union
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement
CS Civil Society
ENLM Eritrean National Liberation Movement
EPLF Eritrean People’s Liberation Front
EPRDF Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front
EPRP Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party
HDI Human Development Index
HOA Horn of Africa
IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development
ILO International Labour Organisation
IMF International Monetary Fund
LM Liberation Movement
MEISON Mela Ethiopia Socialist Neqenaqe (All Ethiopian Socialist Move-
ment)
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NCP National Congress Party
NDF Northeast Frontier District
NLM National Liberation Movement
OAU Organisation of African Unity
OPDO Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation
PDRE People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
PMAC Provisional Military Administrative Council
R2P Responsibility to Protect
xi
xii ABBREVIATIONS
SEPDF Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front

SNM Somali National Movement
SNNPR Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region
SPLM Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
SSLM Southern Sudan Liberation Movement
TFG Transitional Federal Government
TPLF Tigray People’s Liberation Front
UIC Union of Islamic Courts
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
USA United State of America
WB World Bank
WPE Workers Party of Ethiopia
WTO World Trade Organisation
WWII World War II
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Development of the state in the HOA (Source Author’s

own, based on the general literature) 59
Fig. 6.1 Sources of legitimacy (Source Author’s own, based
on the general literature) 162
Fig. 6.2 Government performance (Source Author’s own, based
on the general literature) 171
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Challenges of State Formation
Introduction
The central objective of the book is to examine the historical sociology
of state formation in the Horn of Africa (HOA). It examines interre-
lated trajectories, processes, routes and consequences, and explains briefly
the genesis, trajectory, contours, anatomies, routes and metamorphoses
of state. Its focus is on the routes and models of state formation, rather
than on countries themselves. The HOA countries, based on the routes
and models of state formation, are clustered in three cases in this book.
Accordingly, we identify:
1. The proto-state formation model Ethiopia represents. Ethiopia

has a unique position in Africa. It has never been colonised and,
therefore, is perceived to have followed an indigenous state forma-
tion process, often associated with the first stage of state formation.
Since Ethiopia represents only itself this book treats it as a case in
itself.
2. The colonial model and route of state formation represent the
majority of African countries that are considered to be an outcome
of colonial construction, including countries in the HOA. Since this
is considered to be the standard, I have chosen not to take coun-
tries as individual cases; rather, I deal with the model itself, hence
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
R. Bereketeab, Historical Sociology of State Formation
in the Horn of Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24162-8_1
2 R. BEREKETEAB
the rationale. Of course, this does not mean there was no indige-
nous proto-state formation in the precolonial historical sociology of
state formation; the Mahdiya state formation in Sudan’s pre-British
colonial history is an example.
3. The national liberation state formation model refers to those
cases that went through a liberation struggle to achieve statehood
and includes all the liberation movements in Africa. In the HOA,
the cases of Eritrea, South Sudan and Somaliland are dealt with in a
separate chapter.
These three models, collectively, would enable us to understand, inter-

pret, analyse and explain the arduous and complicate process of state
formation in the HOA. The three models as collective analytical and
explanatory instruments would distinctly address the perennial challenges
the HOA encounters. The rationale behind the adoption of the models
for the HOA could be explained deriving from three factors that make the
region distinct. These are: (i) the region’s predisposition to high degree
of conflicts and wars, (ii) the region’s subjection to flagrant geopolitical
interventions and (iii) the region’s unique characteristics of production
of new states from existing ones. Only the HOA, in the African Conti-
nent, exhibited successful secessionist statehood. This complex history,
divergence of trajectory and suffering demand us to employ heuristic and
innovative methodology, approach and mechanism. The three historical
phenomena and trajectories dictating developments of societies of the
HOA underpin the adoption of the three-model of state formation in
the HOA.
Historical Sociology of Nation Formation differs from other works on
the region in three aspects. Firstly, it employs three models as an aggregate
analytical and explanatory methodological approach. Secondly, does not
simply discard the impact of colonialism, rather it promotes the idea of
striking balance between precolonial and colonial legacies of state forma-
tion. Thirdly, it highlights the evolutionary and continuum process of
state formation connecting past, present and future. In other words, state
formation is not a fixed onetime work. State formation in the HOA is still
a work in progress.
The point of departure of this book is that the origin, nature and struc-
ture of the state are root causes of wars and conflicts that contribute
to state crises. Alleviating the multiple and interconnected pathologies
plaguing the region requires understanding, analysing and interpreting
1 INTRODUCTION: CHALLENGES OF STATE FORMATION 3
the origin, nature and structure of the state. The message the book
attempts to convey is that to understand the complex problems of the
HOA, we need to understand the nature and structure of the state. To
do that requires us to understand the history, genesis, processes, routes,
models and variabilities of the historical sociology of state formation. To
address the multifaceted problems of the region, we need to have a proper
and adequate understanding of the processes, mechanisms, dynamics and
consequences; the state is at the centre of it all.
Societies in the HOA have old civilisations and long histories of
statehood (see El Mahdi 1965; Ullendorff 1973; Levine 2000; Marcus
2002; Fattovich 2010; Schmidt 2009). Indulging in this long history is,
however, beyond the scope and objective of this book. Hence, it primarily
pivots around modern state formation. Nevertheless, a more detailed
treatment of the Ethiopian case is justified due to its proto-state formation
nature.
For comparative purposes, a general overview of the literature on
the origins, evolution, theories and models of states is also provided.
Accordingly, processes, routes and historiographies are explicated without
subscribing to linearity and a teleologically guided end. The book iden-
tifies three distinct but intermittently related models of state formation
in the HOA. The work is an endeavour of explication and analysis of
simultaneous delineation and fusion of three models of state formation.
This assumption is predicated on the inference that in spite of the vari-
ance in routes, trajectories and processes of formation, the three types of
state formation demonstrably illustrate identical performative function-
ality once states are at the top of their power. Irrespective of variance
of modality, origin and historiography, they behave in the same way; the
demonstrated historical variance does not imply functional variance. In
addition, this book briefly looks at the political philosophy, historiog-
raphy, historical sociology, political sociology and anthropology of state
formation.
It also demonstrates overlaps with and transgressions beyond the
boundaries of three forms of state formation, in which surgical delin-
eation between them at times becomes difficult to achieve. This, however,
does not mean historical variance is of no significance to the behaviour,
performance and legitimacy of the state. With regard to the last, for
instance, states extract legitimacy from a variety of sources. While the
proto-state may extract legitimacy from indigenous history, tradition,
culture, institutions and authorities, the colonial state principally extracts
4 R. BEREKETEAB
it from colonially created territoriality and accompanying institutions; and

the national liberation state, from revolutionary performance credentials.
This chapter concerns variables and realities that influence and
constrain the processes and trajectories of state formation in the HOA.
The chapter will, therefore, closely examine some of the factors that
have direct implications for state formation in the region, which will be
elaborated in subsequent chapters.
The HOA—consisting of Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia,
Eritrea and Djibouti—has inherited three models or forms of state
formation, deriving from three sources. Proto-state formation pursued
an indigenous route, process and structure. The actors involved in
state formation are primarily indigenous, though they interact with
external actors in forming and reforming the state. Proto-state forma-
tion in Ethiopia advanced through various stages. The first stage
could be referred to as feudal absolutist state formation, more or less
presumed to be similar to that of Western Europe. This was followed
by self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist Military socialist state formation. The
Marxist-Leninist military socialist state was succeeded by the ethnic feder-
alist state, which was introduced by ethnic nationalist insurgencies. Feudal
state formation could also be discerned at a number of stages.
The second model refers to a type of state formation that was
determined and constructed by colonialism, an outcome of the Berlin
Conference of 1884–1885 where European powers, in their ‘scramble
for Africa’, created political units in Africa that identified the respective
powers’ possessions. The third model refers to states that came into exis-
tence as a result of a protracted national liberation struggle. It is important
to note that a particular state might display features of all three models or
some of them at various periods of its historical evolution and trajectory.
Does this variation in the genealogy of state formation make a difference
to the behaviour and exercise of the power of the state? This is a central
question the book endeavours to answer.
The three models pose their own challenges and opportunities to the
overall state formation enterprise, content, behaviours, structures, institu-
tions, participation, inclusion/exclusion, power relations and exercise of
power. They also pose a veritable challenge to social science discourse,
theory and methodology. State-society relations are also defined by the
type of state, particularly in its capacity for penetration, how it treats the
social contract, etc. In this regard, perhaps, the national liberation state
may display a greater penetrative capacity than the proto- or colonial state.
This penetrative capacity stems from the national liberation state’s genesis
as a rurally based movement, which has already extensively penetrated
rural society, in particular, before ascending to state power. The entry
point to the future national liberation state is through rural areas, where
the state begins as a small guerrilla movement, eventually conquering the
entire nation.
In the genealogy of state formation, the national liberation state is
a phase—as such, a second phase. Both Eritrea and Somaliland are, for
instance, colonial creations and colonial state formations. The decoloni-
sation process, which is a logical culmination of sovereign statehood,
was interrupted—in the case of Somaliland, by a voluntary union; in
the case of Eritrea, by a forced federal marriage—necessitating a war of
liberation as a means to achieve sovereign statehood. Their rebirth is
attributed to their struggle for national liberation rather than decoloni-
sation, which defines the peculiar nature they display. Ethiopia, however,
went through various stages in its trajectory of state formation, which
had institutional, structural, processual, epistemological and ontological
implications; there were no clear boundaries or distinctions as regards to
when and how the three typologies of state formation might merge or
differentiate themselves.
The nature of the state in the HOA, its structure, institutional procliv-
ities, mechanisms of exercising power and external relations dictate the
conflicts and conflict structures devastating the HOA, and which dictate
the nature, structure and performance of the state, alongside ubiquitous
external interventions. The basic premise of the book is that the inter-
play of conflicts and external interventions over the long history of state
formation and related pathologies plays a significant role in the struc-
turation and formation of the state in the HOA. This chapter aims to
provide a brief exposition of the factors that affect the process of state
formation. It argues that the implications of the involvement of convo-
luted factors have resulted in deformed state formation. This deformity
has in turn generated the multiple conflicts, environmental degrada-
tion, poverty, underdevelopment, migration and instability that define the
HOA.
This chapter consists of seven sections: the following section (section
“Pathologies Hampering State Formation in the HOA”) discusses the
pathologies afflicting the HOA; section “Interplay of the Patholo-
gies”, the interplay of the pathologies; section “External Interventions”,
concerted external interventions; section “Conceptual Framework”, the
6 R. BEREKETEAB
conceptual framework; and section “Methodology”, methodological

issues. The final section (section “Theme and Organisation of the Book”)
describes the theme and organisation of the book.
Pathologies Hampering
State Formation in the HOA
This section will briefly analyse the convoluted pathologies hampering
the project of state formation in the HOA. Rampant pathologies define
the region, which is often described as the most conflict-prone on
the continent. The institutional and structural pathologies afflicting the
HOA can, in general, be explained by identity domination, inequality,
coercion, exclusion and marginalisation, poverty and underdevelopment,
democratic deficiency, misgovernance, and skewed representation and
participation. Institutional and structural situations are embedded in
power relations between actors (e.g. individuals, political organisations,
ethnic groups, interethnic relations, centre-periphery relations, regional
environment, global relations, issues). In short, structures, actors, issues,
relationships and environment define the pathologies.
In concrete and specific terms, the pathologies bedevilling the HOA
region can be summarised in five clusters. The first four are of an
internal nature, while the fifth is external: (1) conflict; (2) state crisis;
(3) environmental degradation; (4) poverty and underdevelopment; and
(5) external interventions (Bereketeab 2013; Woodward 2013; Schmidt
2013; Mengisteab 2014; Clapham 2017; Lewis and Harbeson 2016).
These pathologies have a veritable impact on the state formation process
empirically, theoretically, structurally and institutionally; in particular,
because state formation is conceptualised as institution formation and
wars have the tendency to obliterate institutions and hamper their
construction.
In relation to conflicts, they are understood as acts that involve
physical violence which destroys lives and causes material destruction.
In the present work, conflict and war are used interchangeably (Tom
2017: 40–41; Bereketeab 2013; Mengisteab 2014). Conflicts are divided
into intrastate and interstate. Interstate conflicts take place between
internationally recognised or sovereign states. Traditionally, interstate
conflicts have occurred infrequently in the HOA. The prominent inter-
state conflicts are the Ethiopia-Somalia wars of 1964 and 1977–1978; and
the Ethiopia-Eritrea war of 1998–2000 (Bereketeab 2010; Woodward
2013). Compared to their relatively brief duration, however, the devasta-

tion wrought by interstate conflicts is immense. The Ethiopia-Eritrea war
is thought to have cost the lives of more than 100,000 soldiers and mate-
rial destruction estimated in billions of US dollars, and displaced millions
of people (Negash and Tonvoll 2000).
Intrastate conflicts take place within a state’s boundaries. They may
assume a variety of names: civil wars, communal wars, ethnic conflicts,
subnational conflicts, etc. (Mengisteab 2011; Clapham 1995). Intrastate
conflicts are the most common type. In terms of frequency and duration,
they greatly overshadow interstate wars; and because they last a long time,
the material and human cost of intrastate wars is also colossal. Sudan has
gone through consecutive wars since 1955. The longest war in southern
Sudan concluded with the emergence of the Republic of South Sudan
on 9 July 2011. Nevertheless, wars in the restive regions of Darfur, Blue
Nile, South Kurdufan and sporadic conflict in the Kassala region have
continued, putting Sudan in a perpetual state of war (Sorbo and Ahmed
2013; Johnson 2011; Harir and Tvedt 1994; Rolandsen 2005; Deng
2008). South Sudan has also been trapped in a bloody intrastate conflict
since December 2013 (Chol 2021; Bereketeab 2017). The transition
from liberation movement to civic government proved a formidable chal-
lenge for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) (Bereketeab
2014c; Wambugu 2019).
Ethiopia was plunged into intrastate war with the commencement of
the Eritrean struggle for independence in 1961, which lasted for 30 years.
Ethiopia also suffered from ethnic nationalist wars in its Oromo, Somali
and Tigray regions. Multiethnic movements fought the central govern-
ment during the 1970s and 1980s, with the aim of changing state
structures and retuning power relations (Markakis 2011; Tareke 2009;
Bulcha 2002; Leencho 2004). The collapse of the military government
in 1991 brought a coalition of ethnic nationalist movements to power,
yet failed to end the chronic intrastate wars in the country (Gudina 2003;
Tareke 2009; Lata 2004). Old and new ethnic nationalist conflicts, as
well as multinational ones, remained active in Ethiopia, maintaining the
old image of the country as war torn.
Various armed rebel groups challenged the government of Mohamed
Siad Barre in Somalia in the 1980s. When the Barre regime was defeated
in 1991, the Somali state also collapsed, leading to clan wars that continue
in one form or other (Ismail 2010; Elmi 2010; Maruf and Joseph 2018).
8 R. BEREKETEAB
Somaliland unilaterally declared its independence in 1991, while Punt-

land emerged as an autonomous entity in 1998 (Jhazbhay 2009). Today,
there is relative peace and stability in the two breakaway regions (Walls
2014; Hoehne 2015). The rest of Somalia is still marching along a path
of destruction and disintegration, with the mushrooming of autonomous
regional clan states.
State crisis is caused by many factors. Evidently, the two most impor-
tant factors causing state crisis are the origin of the state and concomitant
rampant conflicts. These are two mutually reinforcing factors. The colo-
nial origin of the state engendered structural deformation, primarily seen
in the rural/urban cleavage (Mamdani 1996; Ekeh 1975). It alienated the
postcolonial state from its rural societal foundations, the overwhelming
majority of population located mainly in the rural areas, depriving the
state, dominated by an urban minority, of popular domestic legitimacy.
The absence of legitimacy is at the centre of the state crisis. Rampant
conflicts also contribute to the deformation of the state. State institutions
are either destroyed or cannot evolve. The states suffers from identity-
related conflicts due to its inability to represent the identity groups within
its ambit and ensure their equal participation in the public realm (Keller
2014; Mengisteab and Bereketeab 2012; Deng 2008). This concerns
mismanagement of diversity. A state facing chronic wars is unable to
produce functional and durable institutions that uphold peace, stability,
development and democratic governance.
The third factor constituting the pathologies is environmental degra-
dation. The HOA is suffering from concerted physical and atmospheric
damage, which are the outcome of human and natural causes. Natural
causes are associated with climatic changes that generate deforesta-
tion, desertification, soil erosion and degradation. Recently, the El Niño
phenomenon has also exacerbated climate change-related problems. The
second, human-related set of causes are primarily linked to the rampant
wars, which cause enormous physical and climatic destruction. In addi-
tion to producing toxic emissions resulting from warfare, machines and
weapons, military activities also destroy flora and fauna. Consequently,
the HOA is frequently hit by recurrent droughts and famine. Shortages
of drinking water, and erratic and undependable rainfall, mean that it
is common for people to face difficulties in eking out their livelihoods
(Bereketeab 2014a).
The fourth factor is underdevelopment and abysmal poverty. The

majority of the peoples of the HOA live below the minimum subsis-
tence level. Countries in the HOA consistently rank near the bottom of
the Human Development Index (Salih 2018). The pervasive and abysmal
poverty the region suffers from has multiple causes, the main ones being
war, political instability, mismanagement of diversity, mismanagement of
resources, bad governance and external intervention (Mengisteab 2011;
Bereketeab 2013; Woodward 2013). Poverty is one of the strongest
drivers that pushes people to resort to violence. The old adage that the
poor are readily involved in conflict because they have nothing to lose
seems easily proved in the HOA.
The fifth factor is external interventions. The composite variables of
external interventions include colonialism, the Cold War, the so-called
global war on terror, the fight against piracy and the scramble for
resources (Woodward 2006, 2003; Schmidt 2013; Brosig 2015; Yordanov
2016). The demise of colonialism was succeeded by the Cold War
and neocolonialism. The consequences of superpower blundering were
conspicuous in the HOA. The United States (US) and the Soviet Union
(Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) transformed the HOA into an arena
for proxy wars, the result being chronic intra- and interstate conflicts
(Yordanov 2016; Bereketeab 2013; Markakis et al. 2021).
The end of Cold War provided a temporary respite to the region
when the superpowers retreated. It was not long, however, before the US
returned to the region on the grounds that it was to hunt for alleged
terrorists who were suspected of having found safe haven in Somalia.
Terrorist attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998,
and in the US itself on 11 September 2001, heralded the global war on
terror (Samatar 2013; Möller 2013). This constituted the third stage of
international intervention in the HOA (Yordanov 2016; Sun and Zoubir
2016). The fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia led virtually all
the world’s naval forces to converge on the region, remilitarising the
HOA (Bereketeab 2014b; Melvin 2019). The latest international inter-
vention in the HOA assumed the form of what has come to be known
as the scramble for resources. Minerals, oil and arable land are highly
coveted not only in the West, but also in the East (mainly China, but
also India and the newly rising countries) and Middle Eastern coun-
tries (particularly for arable land) (Eskeziaw 2020: 14; Hules and Singh
2017), with the potential for military confrontation. This development
10 R. BEREKETEAB
has adversely affected the state formation process just as its predecessors—
colonialism, neo-colonialism and Cold War interventions—did, resulting
in the continued deformity of the state.
These features in turn generate state crises that engender various forms
of conflicts. State crises and conflicts render the HOA region the unstable,
poverty-ridden, prone to extremism and radicalism, underdeveloped and
vulnerable to external interventions. This bears testimony to a vicious
circle of mutually reinforcing factors that adversely affect the process of
state formation.
Interplay of the Pathologies

The cumulative effects of the interplay of the pathologies on state forma-
tion are conspicuous. Individually, they may not have a great impact, but
cumulatively they are devastating. Conflicts are defined as either intrastate
or interstate. The interplay between the two forms is primarily expressed
in terms of how easily an intrastate conflict could spill over into interstate
conflict; or an interstate conflict could induce intrastate conflict. In other
words, domestic conflicts have the tendency to drag in neighbouring,
leading to interstate conflict (Touval 2015: 416–417; Bereketeab 2013).
The inherent dialectical reciprocity of the interplay of both types of
conflict makes it difficult to detect, diagnose and resolve potential flash-
points of conflicts. This is exacerbated in a situation where identity groups
are spread across international political boundaries. The politics of identity
in multiethnic societies that are geographically contiguous may be easily
deflect in abutting regions, where shared common identities bestride
borders. But the identity groups share not only identities, but also prob-
lems that can drag states into interstate conflicts (Mengisteab 2014; Keller
2014; Deng 2008). The history of the HOA has shown time and again
how this overlap and interplay have devastated the region.
In terms of the interplay between conflict and state crisis, the two
clearly and decisively affect one another. Conflicts impact on the nature of
the state and state formation process. A conflict-ridden state is certainly
unable to maintain routine functions, including delivering basic services.
A state that is not capable of delivering basic services is devoid of any
form of legitimacy. The nature of the state may thus generate disaffec-
tion, grievances and conflicts. Unambiguously, a society riven by chronic
conflicts faces unsurmountable difficulties in building state institutions
that determine the viability and functionality of the state. The state as
an institutional artefact is very much contingent upon the construction of

its constitutive institutions (Poggi 1978; Kamrava 2000). A state suffering
from festering conflicts is deformed by them, and this deformity in turn
becomes a source of chronic conflicts (Mengisteab 2014; Christensen and
Laitin 2019).
Environmental degradation may in part be caused by war, just as it
may also be the cause of it. Wars that have raged for decades have
contributed to environmental degradation in the HOA; deforestation,
desertification and soil erosion are some of the conspicuous outcomes.
These are contributing factors to resource shortages afflicting the liveli-
hoods of communities with different modes of life. Clashes between
groups generate resource-based conflict, which by extension affects state
functions. The interplay between conflicts and environmental degrada-
tion may also ultimately lead to structural and cultural transformation
(Bereketeab 2014a).
Environmental degradation that generates scarcity of resources leads
to conflicts, particularly when resources are not properly managed.
Resource-based conflicts are at their most acute when they play out
between nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers (Ahmed 2001;
Ahmed and Manger 2006; Mohamed 2009), pitching highlanders against
lowlanders, as well as different ethnolinguistic groups against one another.
Environmental degradation becomes the cause of poverty and under-
development and vice-versa. Poverty and underdevelopment are also
involved in producing conflicts and state crises.
External Interventions
The last dimension in the cluster relates to externality. External inter-
ventions either cause or aggravate conflict, state crisis, environmental
degradation, and poverty and underdevelopment. In turn, state crisis,
fragility and collapse make good excuses for external intervention. The
HOA is probably the region in Africa that has been most affected
by external interventions, as described above. Big power and military
interventions have negative implications for the state formation process,
particularly state-society relations, which define the functionality of state
formation.
State formation, by its very nature, is domestic. In addition, it is polit-
ical, demanding intricate compromises, dialogue, negotiation, bargaining
and public discussion among stakeholders. It is imperative that state
12 R. BEREKETEAB
formation depends on and reflects societal reality through the art of

creating social equilibrium, consensus and balance. External interventions
upset the equilibrium and balance, leading to dissonance, competition,
mistrust, cleavages and disorder, which disrupt the consensus-oriented
culture of the HOA societies.
The historical genealogy of external intervention in the regions can
be traced as far back as the Middle Ages, the inception of which relates
to a confrontation over trade routes through the Red Sea and religious
influence, between the Ottoman Empire, on the side of Muslims, and
the Portuguese in support of Christian Abyssinia in the fifteenth century
(Levine 2000). For the purposes of this book, modern external interven-
tion in the HOA began in conjunction with the genesis of colonialism.
The ideational foundation of colonialism relates to what is commonly
known as the scramble for Africa, when European leaders gathered at
a conference in Berlin, Germany, in 1884–1885 and resolved to partition
Africa among themselves (Brosig 2015; Davidson 1992; Smith 1983).
The rationale behind European imperial penetration in Africa is invariably
depicted as primarily to search for raw materials, markets for their finished
goods and cheap labour (Schmidt 2018: 10–11; Smith 1983: 26–27).
It also concerned geostrategically driven rivalry (Yordanov 2016). This
classical physical colonialism was later replaced by indirect, metaphysical
colonialism, commonly known as neocolonialism (Nkrumah 1970).
The British colonised Sudan and northern Somalia (Ryle et al.
2011; Walls 2014), while Italy colonised Eritrea and southern Somalia
(Lewis 2002; Mesghenna 1988; Negash 1987; Bereketeab 2007); and
France, Djibouti (Abdallah 2012). Ethiopia escaped European colonisa-
tion, though it was briefly occupied by Italy from 1936 to 1941 during
the World War II (Rubenson 1978; Erlich 1996). Nonetheless, it was
involved in its own expansionism and colonisation of peoples and terri-
tories to the south (Zewde 2001; Tareke 1996; Hassen 1990; Markakis
1974; Clapham 2002). This expansion sowed the seeds of future conflict,
the consequences of which are still devastating the country. Ethiopia’s
contemporary problems can to some extent be explained by its expansion
in the nineteenth century.
The Somalis were most affected by the combined European colo-
nial intervention and partition, and Ethiopian expansion. They were
divided and incorporated into five states (Markakis et al. 2021). This
division produced among Somalis the dream of pan-Somalism. Since inde-
pendence and the formation of the Republic of Somalia, Somalis have
pursued a policy of realising this dream and the ambition of uniting

all ethnic Somalis under the umbrella of one state at any cost. Their
desire for unity was symbolically represented by the five-pointed star flag.
This irredentist ambition pitched the Somalis against their neighbours.
Consequently, it has constituted one of the contributing factors to the
pathologies afflicting the region (Lewis 2002).
This indicates that some of the pathologies afflicting the HOA origi-
nated in colonial intervention and territorial expansion. Structures, insti-
tutions and political economy introduced as a result engendered cleavages
based primarily on a rural/urban binary. Small urban-based modern elites
came to dominate postcolonial societies, with all the concomitant social,
political, economic and cultural inequalities, tensions and conflicts. The
overwhelmingly rural majorities were excluded and marginalised, as an
institutional cleavage emerged whereby urban-based institutions gained
primacy over rurally based ones. This rural/urban dichotomy constitutes
a perennial source of conflicts (Ekeh 1975; Mamdani 1996; Herbst 2000;
Englebert 2005). Postcolonial leaders never made a serious attempt to
remedy the state deformation caused by its colonial origins.
Colonialism was replaced by another form of intervention, a fatal
combination of the overlap between neocolonialism and the Cold
War. Decolonisation saw the physical withdrawal of colonial masters,
while their economic, political, cultural and diplomatic domination—and
dependence on them—continued. This coincided with lethal geostrategic
and ideological rivalry that broke out between the US and the Soviet
Union. According to Nkrumah (1970: ix):
The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is,

in theory, independent and has all the outward trapping of international
sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is
directed from outside.
The political economy of the postcolonial state was framed in a way

that allowed the erstwhile masters to perpetuate their dominance. Grad-
ually, with the exception of France, the colonial masters in the HOA
retreated from their ex-colonies and were replaced by the emerging global
superpowers. The Cold War that followed the end of the World War II
converted the HOA into a theatre of proxy war (Brosig 2015; Yordanov
2016). In pursuit of ideological and geostrategic world domination, the
US and the Soviet Union supplied sophisticated modern weapons to their
14 R. BEREKETEAB
client states (Yordanov 2016; Schmidt 2013; Woodward 2003, 2006).

The US foothold in the region began with the establishment of the
Kagnew Station military base in Asmara, Eritrea, in 1953 (Habte Selassie
1989; Yohannes 1991). The Soviet Union began to be involved in the
region following the independence of Somalia in 1960 (Yordanov 2016).
Weapons pumped into the region were employed in settling intrastate
conflicts, suppressing internal rebellion and fighting interstate. As a result,
during the Cold War the HOA was the most unstable and war-torn region
on the African continent (Cliffe 1999; Cliffe and White 2002; Bereketeab
2013). Consequently, this situation seriously distorted the state formation
process in the region. The state, whose cardinal function is to bring peace,
stability, unity and development itself became the source of instability,
disunity and underdevelopment.
The end of the Cold War heralded a new global era. The HOA
suddenly lost its strategic importance and the superpowers quickly
retreated from the region. The new era of retreat also brought benefits
to the HOA region: a halt to some of the chronic, devastating conflicts;
the demise of the most notorious dictators; and respite, albeit temporary,
from the superpower-induced wars. The region, therefore, experienced
profound changes. However, the respite did not last long. Another inter-
vention began to affect the region, the global war on terror, a US-led
war (Schmidt 2013, 2018) that was marketed as being in response to a
threat that affected all nations. In response to its misguided global foreign
policy, the US attracted worldwide terrorist hostility and began to hunt
terrorists, real or imagined, all over the world.
The first indication of US reintervention or reengagement in the HOA
emerged in 1998, following terrorist attacks on its embassies in Nairobi,
Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Hansen 2013: 24–26). The perpe-
trators were thought to be hiding in the lawless country of Somalia. In
its hunt to find them, the US funded, armed and trained warlords who
were creating havoc in society. Accordingly, the US Central Intelligence
Agency created the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-
Terrorism, which further deepened the disintegration of Somali politics
(Samatar 2013; Möller 2013). Finally, spurred by the US position on the
regional threat of terrorism, Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006,
sparking the emergence of militant Islamist, Al-Shabaab (Samatar 2013;
Hansen 2013; Harper 2012; Maruf and Joseph 2018).
In 2003, the phenomenon of piracy off the shores of Somalia
exploded. Piracy constituted a great threat to world trade by disrupting
a strategic waterway through which major world trade is commuted,

pirates hijacked commercial ships and demanded ransoms. The lucra-
tive business increased in momentum and pace until 2011 (Woodward
2013: 100–101; Baniela and Rios 2012; Möller 2013: 187–88; Brosig
2015: 188). This serious threat to a commercial artery galvanised major
world powers to dispatch naval forces to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean
(Bereketeab 2014b; Sun and Zoubir 2016). Within a short time, the
region was littered with sophisticated warfare and surveillance technology,
but without alleviating the plight of Somalia. Piracy in the region was
followed by a new scramble for resources. Transnational corporations and
states began to flock to the region in search of natural resources, throwing
the state formation project into further uncertainty by inserting a wedge
between state and society, as was clearly seen in the popular uprising in
Ethiopia in 2015.
The political implications of flagrant external interventions were a
further deformity of the state and showed dysfunctionality of the state
formation process. As alluded to earlier, this is because state formation is
a domestic affair and political by nature—external intervention disrupts
that. Societies need to construct state institutions at their own pace,
devising their own strategy, stemming from their own roots, history,
culture, and sociopolitical and socioeconomic level of development.
External intervention, therefore, derails this objective.
Conceptual Framework
One of the pathologies afflicting the HOA pertains to the situation of
the state. Pervasive state crisis, fragility and weakness deriving from the
nature, origin, structure and construction of the state are some of the
attributes of the dysfunctionalities of the state in the HOA. In other
words, pervasive and rampant conflicts, and intra- and interstate wars,
are intimately associated with the nature and structure of the state.
The state is par excellence the source and solution of the pathologies.
According to Charles Tilly’s axiom, the state makes war and war makes the
state (Tilly 1975; Fukuyama 2012), but the state also makes peace. The
way the state is constructed, the manner in which it executes its cardinal
functions, the way it relates to society, and its representativeness or lack
thereof, determine the solution to the pathologies.
A challenging question we are confronted with is how we should
conceptualise state formation. Do we conceptualise it according to the
16 R. BEREKETEAB
Western model of state formation? Should we have a specific model of

state formation applicable to the region? Or is there a hybrid model that
accommodates the two? A strand of scholarship that rejects the applica-
bility of the Western model of state formation stems from the conception
of the nation state as a homogeneous population that is a monoethnic
nation constituting its own state (Gellner 1983). Markakis et al. (2021)
argue that the concept of the nation state is not applicable to the HOA:
‘The state and nation are concepts that have evolved along separate lines
but converged (with different levels of success) to form what we now call
the nation-state’ (ibid.: 13). They further note, ‘the marriage of the two
spawned the ideology of nationalism with its ideal of a culturally homoge-
neous society, underpinning the state with legitimacy and loyalty… This
model was transposed to Africa, a vastly different world, without the
slightest concession to its uniqueness and the results have been tragic’
(ibid.). The central thesis of the argument is the homogeneity of the
nation state. Multiethnic societies, which are not homogeneous, there-
fore, cannot form a nation state. The assumption is based on a number
of fallacies:
1. It assumes that Western societies are ethnically homogeneous.

2. It forgets it took Western societies more than 500 years to reach
where they are today, while African societies are a few decades old.
3. It fails to acknowledge territoriality as the foundation for nation
state formation.
4. It glosses over the fact that there were different models of and routes
to nation state formation in the West, too.
5. It ignores the involvement of globalisation in the homogenisation
process of nation state formation.
6. The nation state is not something that is formed once and for all; it
is an unceasing gestation process that takes generations: ‘processes
of state formation are not completed at a certain point in time after
which “the state” exists as a fixed, singular entity’ (Metsola 2011:
50). The process requires constant nurturing.
This book does not attempt to provide answers to these conceptual

questions—that is beyond the scope and purpose of the work. The ques-
tion, however, bears a particular significance, since the cases under study
involve aspects that are intimately related to it. Here, three concep-
tions are identified as the foundation of the historical sociology of state
formation in the Horn of Africa: proto-state, colonial state and national
liberation state. The colonial state formation is a legacy of European
colonisation, whose metamorphosis rests on the European state forma-
tion model. Colonialism constructed states in the image of Western state
formation. The Western historical model of state formation underscores
three variables as the foundation of state formation, notably, institutional-
isation, bureaucratisation and democratisation (Evans 1989; Bratton and
van de Walle 1997; Kohli 2003; Kamrava 2000). The proto-state model
refers to an indigenous process of state formation, wherein the main
actors of state construction are indigenous. The national liberation state,
however, is a construction of a protracted liberation struggle. A national
liberation movement led by liberation fighters assumes responsibility for
constructing the state (Southall 2013; Bereketeab 2018b).
The conception of three forms of state formation this book is based
on is a broad reflection and expression of different types of historical
trajectories, structures and processes configured into variables of political,
cultural, historiographic ensembles and differentialities that distinctively
identify and define the three typologies of state formation in the HOA.
The state in this work is primarily understood as an institutional arte-
fact. In other words, the state in its abstract form is an institutional
edifice or category. Here it is important to make an analytical distinc-
tion between the abstract and concrete natures of state existence. The
abstract nature of the state refers to the general idea of the state, which
is not conspicuous or tangible, yet is omnipotent and omnipresent. State
as a concrete entity, however, entails properties that can be seen, heard
or touched. The latter is concretised through the executive branch of
state, the various ministries, the ministers, their staff, buildings, etc. The
state as an abstract idea assumes concrete form in the embodiment of the
executive, legislative and judicial bodies.
In the institutional conceptualisation of state formation, the trio may
converge on a common focal point. It is also observed that differentiation,
in the sociological tradition, is made between institution and organisation
in what is referred to above as abstract or concrete. While institution refers
to invisible, abstract and general organs, organisation refers to a mani-
festly visible and concrete part of that organ. In the sense of visibility and
concretion, we could further refer to the executive, legislative and judicial
18 R. BEREKETEAB
branches of the state. The three branches, therefore, represent the organi-
sational dimension, while the state, as an overarching body, represents the
institution. In other words, the state as an institution is the overarching
organ, and the three branches make up the component foundations of
the state.
The three processes and routes of the historical sociology of state
formation identified in this book represent constellations of actors, struc-
tures, historical incidents, internal and external interventions and mech-
anisms that determinedly contribute to the specific corresponding state
formation process and model. These variables may explain the distinct
features and characteristics of each model.
Here, it is also worthwhile briefly making the distinction between state
formation and state building as understood in this book. State forma-
tion in its historical sociological evolution usually refers to a gradual,
spontaneous, processual and evolutionary process (without subscribing
to linearity) leading to the genesis of a political entity called the state. It
depicts the transitions and transformations in political, legal, economic,
demographic, cultural, structural and philosophical spheres that pave
the way for the emergence of the state (Fukuyama 2012). It depicts
the unintentional and non-purposive natural political and organisational
configuration that grows from societal transformation and transition,
usually from a small village community to a rather more complex large-
scale society. This is a development along the lines of what classical
sociologists such as Émile Durkheim (1984) designated a transformation
from a simple mechanical solidarity to a complex organic solidarity, or
what the sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies (1887) designated the transfor-
mation from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft . In a nutshell, it depicts the
emergence of the proto-state.
This sociological tradition of the construction of society rests on the
premise of evolutionary transformation from a simple, non-diversified
community to a highly complex, specialised and diversified society. The
variables that generate transformative development include the density,
concentration, growth and adjoining of proximate villages, leading to
their transformation into a larger, highly complex society. This complex
society is then characterised by division of labour, where the different
sections of the society fulfil different and specialised functions.
This development is what Durkheim (1984) depicts as transcendence
from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. The former repre-
sents simple static community where monotonous functions similar to
those of a single-cell organism are conducted. The latter represents a

complex, diversified, specialised society where different sections conduct
different functions, similar to a multicellular organism, the totality of
those different groups and functions constituting society (Durkheim
1984: 132–40). This developmental conception is based on evolutionary
biology. This transformation and formation could provide an overarching
perspective on the process of the history of sociology of state formation,
while simultaneously bearing in mind characteristic differences of level of
development, routes of trajectory, models, etc.
State building, however, is intentional and purposive social engi-
neering. In the trajectory of human history, state building follows and
is the replication of the already existing proto-state model. In this case, it
is a conscious, purposive and intentional elite-driven project. It resembles
the work of an architect who designs a model of a building on paper and
translates their sketch into a concrete house using physical materials. This
second stage of state formation (building) is often referred to as diffusion
(Tilly 1975).
The proto-state typology stipulates a state formation process that is
more or less indigenous. The indigeneity of the formation process is
supposedly based on the conception that external agents and factors
play a minimal, non-decisive role, if at all. The colonial state formation
typology, in contrast, is centred on the conception that the state forma-
tion process is determined by colonial agents and structures, which locates
it in the second historical stage of state building. Colonial state formation
represents a deformed replication of the European state model, with no
tangible contribution by the local population or agency. Western state
structures are simply transplanted from the home country to colonised
societies, without also transferring corresponding benefits and rights.
The replication that took place through exportation and transplan-
tation of a historically limited experience, with politico-culturally ratio-
nalistic, socioeconomically particularistic structures, institutions, practices
and mechanisms constituted a distortion and deformity of the natural
evolutionary formation of state and society in the HOA. The process
is often seen as an interruption of the domestic evolutionary process.
The historical sociological experience of state formation in Ethiopia is
arguably in the first category. Therefore, the burden of transplantation
and consequent state deformity could have been avoided. Yet state forma-
tion in modern Ethiopia is burdened by the very fact that the Abyssinian
state expanded and conquered the southern peoples in the same fashion
20 R. BEREKETEAB
and same period as European powers, which still affects the state forma-
tion project in the country, particularly given its territorially expansionist
perspective.
The conception of national liberation state formation holds that state
formation emerges as a result of a protracted war of liberation. Therefore,
the national liberation state is born out of an emancipatory and libera-
tory movement and struggle guided by national liberation ideology and
agents. Moreover, the process and inception of state formation take place
within the space where the movement carries out the struggle, and the
space it creates affects its future behaviour and performance. A specific
political culture is developed under the liberation struggle that shapes the
post-liberation state formation process.
In some ways, the national liberation state formation model coalesces
around Tilly’s axiom of the state making war and war making the state. It
is born out of and through a war of liberation. The war makes the national
liberation movement (a miniature state), while the national liberation
movement makes a war of liberation and state formation. The third model
or typology is, therefore, by necessity revolutionary and deviates consid-
erably from the liberal state formation process. This deviation becomes
conspicuously clear in its post-liberation behaviour, exercise of power and
how it deals with society.
Overall, in this book the concept of state formation is also elaborated
to include the assumption that state building constitutes a subcategory of
state formation. In other words, the point of departure in this book is
that while state formation could be construed as an overarching histor-
ical, evolutionary, spontaneous, transcendent and encompassing process,
state building is limited, purposive, intentional, and engineered by actors.
Today, however, the distinction is blurred and thus used interchangeably.
Methodology
The methodological approach employed in this book is essentially multi-
disciplinary and multidimensional. The essentiality of the pluralistic
methodological approach is dictated by the fact that many disciplines
are involved in explaining and analysing the process of the histor-
ical sociology of state formation, including history, political science,
economics, sociology, anthropology, international relations, area studies,
cultural studies, etc. This plurality of disciplines, collectively, has adequate
power to explain and analyse the process of state formation. In turn, it
requires a methodological approach encompassing multiple and eclectic

methods. Macro-sociological study imperatively necessitates employing
the sociological tradition of the actor-structure explanatory and analyt-
ical methodological model, which inductively and deductively broaches
the state formation process.
In this sociological tradition of Verstehen (understanding) and
hermeneutics (interpretation), the task is geared towards understanding,
interpreting, examining and analysing. This tradition presupposes accen-
tuation of context, specificity, diversity, historicity of processes, mecha-
nisms and routes. Stemming from this conceptualisation, we, therefore,
deem it appropriate not to adhere to the debate that promotes the non-
viability of the European model of state formation to Africa. Rather, we
deem it appropriate to emphasise state formation in various historical
epochs, contingent on societal setting; socioeconomic, politico-cultural,
institutional and geographic realities; level of development; and stage of
formation process variations on display. Nevertheless, all states basically
tend to display common features, particularly functions, structures and
ambitions. Acknowledgement and acceptance of these facts save us from
the trap of denying the existence of the nation state in Africa or the non-
viability of the European state model. Moreover, methodologically it is
intriguing to align the contemporary African situation of state formation
with the discourse on the post-nation state, in fashion in the West, when
it applies to Africa, where nation state formation is still in its early stages.
This work, then, focuses on the continuous formation and transformation
of societies stemming from internal dynamics and mechanisms.
In this context, the specific interplay of actor-structure correlation in
the evolution, process and structuration of state formation in the three
typologies, in particular, is examined and given extra emphasis. In this
regard, the central question the book grapples with is how factors related
to structures and actors explain the process, evolution and metamorphosis
of the historical sociology of state formation in the HOA. In terms of
traditional structure-actor sociological analysis, the three typologies of
state formation show distinct variability. The categories of structures and
actors active in proto-state formation, for instance, are not the same as
those active in colonial or national liberation state formation. Historical
sociological methodology aids us in unpacking, interpreting, analysing
and synthesising the historical evolution of respective societies’ journeys
towards the arduous and intricate process of state formation.
22 R. BEREKETEAB
A historical analytical approach underpins process tracing that describes

social, political, economic and international phenomena, processes and
developments. ‘Process tracing is a fundamental tool of qualitative anal-
ysis which inherently analyses trajectories of change and causation, hence,
what could be termed as static description in a building block in analysing
the processes being studied’ (Cocodia 2018: 13). Process tracing serves
to infer causal correlation of historical cases, since analysis fails if consecu-
tive phenomena are not rigorously examined in every step of the process.
In following this methodological approach, this book analyses and exam-
ines historiographical trajectories and genealogies that are grounded in
political, economic and cultural processes of the historical sociology of
state formation of the three state models in the HOA. Overall, the work
is framed in the general theoretical, conceptual, historical and discursive
ontologies and epistemologies of the sociology of state formation. This
helps to understand the complexities, specificities, challenges, successes,
failures, modalities, applicability, non-applicability, comparability, scopes,
variabilities, etc. of the sociology of state formation.
In its data collection endeavour, the book draws on a combination of
various sources. It primarily consists of text analysis. Secondary data—
books, articles and official documents systematically gathered over years
of research on the subject—are critically analysed. Further, the work also
benefits from several years of fieldwork in the region.1 I have conducted
several field trips in connection with related work I have published. All
these works, field trips, data, information and experience constitute the
cornerstone of this book.
Theme and Organisation of the Book

The central theme of the book concerns interrelated routes, trajecto-
ries, historiographies and processes of the historical sociology of state
formation in the HOA. In this context, central thematic issues the book
addresses are: (1) what a state is; (2) the genesis, historicity and trajec-
tories of states; (3) types and models of states; (4) theories of state;
1 These include: Eritrea: The Making of a Nation (2007); State-building in Post-

liberation Eritrea: Challenges, Achievement and Potentials (2009); Self-Determination and
Secession in Africa: The Post-Colonial State (2015); State Building and National Identity
Reconstruction in the Horn of Africa (2017); and National Liberation Movements as
Governments in Africa (2018).
and (5) the natures and structures of states. Adequately understanding

these themes is of great significance to understanding the sociology of
state formation and its consequences to society, moreover, its significance
to state-society relations. The pervasive conflicts and wars prevalent in
the HOA, which have given rise to the perception of failure, collapse,
crisis and the malfunctioning of the state are directly connected with
the thematic problems enumerated here. The work focuses on the
three models of state formation—proto-state, colonial state and national
liberation state—that constitute the central theme of the book.
The underlying rationale for preferring the three models of histor-
ical sociology of state formation as an explanatory edifice in the HOA
is because of the unique and complex history of the region. The region
contains the only African nation that escaped colonisation, Ethiopia,
which claims a long history of continuous statehood and civilisation, yet is
embroiled in the messy and incomplete process of state formation. Eritrea,
which traces its modern construction to state formation, was denied the
right to decolonisation and self-determination, and was thus forced to
embark on a protracted and successful liberation war to assert its state-
hood through national liberation state formation, another unique case
found in the HOA. South Sudan is perceived to be the only case of
successful secession in violation of the Charter of the Organisation of
African Unity/African Union, yet another case of the unique history of
the HOA. Referring to the uniqueness of the HOA, Clapham (2017: 2)
states, ‘the Horn provides the only cases in Africa in which secessionist
movements have succeeded in winning the independence of particular
regions from the states into which they were previously incorporated’.
This book consists of eight chapters. This chapter, Introduction: Chal-
lenges of State Formation, in addition to giving an outline of the book
provides an account of multiple variables that constitute the reasons for
the precarious nature of state formation in the HOA. It briefly analyses
the multifaceted variables that affect the process of state formation, such
as democratic deficiency, external interventions, conflicts, environmental
degradation and state crisis. The chapter argues that it is the intricate
interplay of these variables or pathologies that undergirds the shabbiness
of state formation in the HOA.
Chapter 2, Theories of State Formation, is an exposition of the theo-
retical body that informs the historical sociology of state formation. It
explores various theoretical strands, the genesis of state formation, and
historical routes and processes that explain it; and traces the historical
24 R. BEREKETEAB
evolution of the state during various epochs. A number of structural-

functional theories such as institutional theory, social contract theory,
colonial origin theory and diffusion theory of state formation are briefly
discussed. The chapter is intended to serve as a comparative perspective
in which the three cases are theoretically and conceptually linked to the
general literature and discourse on state formation.
Chapter 3, Proto-state Formation: Ethiopia, examines an endogenous
model of state formation. It deals with historical sociological state forma-
tion in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian case represents an indigenous model and
process of the historical sociology of state formation on a par with the
first stages of European history. The Ethiopian model is presumed to
be unique on the African continent, where modern state formation is
generally perceived to be the result of European colonisation. Moreover,
proto-state formation also indicates a long history of gestation where
different stages of transformation and reformation define and characterise
the process of state formation.
Chapter 4, Colonial State Formation, analyses state formation under
the aegis of colonialism. It interrogates the consequences of colonialism
to state formation and subsequent performance of the postcolonial state.
The structural and institutional bodies that were grafted onto society and
the dislocation and subsequent relegation to informality of precolonial
indigenous structures, institutions, mechanisms and authorities are scru-
tinised. The chapter examines the factors that render colonially induced
state formation inherently precarious.
Chapter 5, the National Liberation State, examines a type of state
formation that is an outcome of protracted liberation struggle. This
type of state formation is often based on and guided by national liber-
ation ideology. Foundations of state formation are laid down during
the liberation struggle, which among other things include fostering a
political culture of liberation. Features of the national liberation culture
that ensured the victory of the liberation movement are passed on to
the endeavour of post-liberation state formation. This often renders
post-liberation state formation very precarious because old conditions
are applied to new ones. It also indicates the inability of the national
liberation movement to transform itself from national liberation political
culture to a post-liberation civic culture of state formation. The chapter
argues that national liberation political culture and ideology hamper
post-liberation state formation.
Chapter 6, State Legitimacy and Government Performance in the

Horn of Africa, argues that state legitimacy derives from two sources:
internal and external. While the domestic refers to legitimacy endowed by
citizens to the state, external refers to the international state system that
confers legitimacy on the state. In an ideal situation, a symmetry exists
between the two. In reality, however, there is usually an inverted relation-
ship. The notion of inverted legitimacy describes a reality where only one
source of legitimacy, either domestic or external, prevails at any time. The
chapter argues that the origin of the state and consecutive external inter-
ventions destabilise and distort state legitimacy in the HOA. It concludes
that inverted legitimacy leads to malfunction and crisis. It further argues
that state legitimacy determines government performance, as the latter
also determines the former.
Chapter 7, Common Characteristics of the Three Typologies of State
Formation: Synthesis, examines differences and similarities between the
typologies or models. The chapter attempts to reconcile and integrate
commonalities, defining the models by identifying the central elements
of each typology of state formation. It argues there is a convergence of
models in spite of historical divergence. One of the convergence points
is functions—all models of state perform the same functions, albeit with
diverging efficiency and capacity. Another is hierarchical organisational
arrangement and centralisation. The legitimate use of the means of coer-
cion, and monopoly of the use of means of violence, is a common feature,
at least in theory. Territorial integrity, or territoriality, and sovereignty,
entering into relations with other states, are general features of all states.
Chapter 8, Conclusion, provides a summary and concluding remarks.
By way of recapitulation, it recounts the main arguments of the book. It
resolves similarities and differences between the three models and infers
that while they may differ profoundly, all three display great similarities
in other dimensions. The differences are clearly displayed in the histor-
ical origins, trajectories, actors and structures involved in state formation.
Similarities are expressed in functions and responsibilities of state; the
three models perform the same functions, delivering services, security,
territorial integrity, socioeconomic services, etc. Service delivery vests
legitimacy in all state models. It concludes that a productive approach to
state formation in Africa would be to balance the dual legacy of colonial
and precolonial institutions; and charter routes, models and mechanisms
that take into consideration the specificities, peculiarities and realities of
every society.
26 R. BEREKETEAB
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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
amazing, too, what tales otherwise honest men and women will
fabricate in their eagerness to sell an autograph letter or document.
They will swear to heaven that they remember that auspicious day,
“over forty years ago, when I was but a mere child,” when the letter
was first shown them. I have had many such experiences. Several
times I have recognized straight forgeries, letters which were actually
written quite recently, and clumsily made to appear old and
important. However, there are times when one is due for a delightful
surprise. What you believe to be idle vaporings turn out to be
something delightfully different.
One day some years ago an old gentleman called upon me in New
York. I happened to be walking through my reception room when he
arrived, and did not catch his name. But in deference to his extreme
age—he appeared to be more than ninety—I immediately invited him
into the library. He was very plainly dressed, almost dingy in
appearance. I entered into conversation with him and he seemed
remarkably well informed. Every celebrity of the past sixty years he
appeared to know intimately. We talked of prominent literary figures,
of great political and financial leaders. He knew them all!
He even told me of an incident which occurred one evening at
Windsor Castle when he dined with Queen Victoria. I looked at him
queryingly, deploring that exaggerated ego which is the pleasure and
consolation of old age. He continued with anecdotes of Palmerston,
Gladstone, Disraeli, and Lord Salisbury. Lincoln had been his friend,
he said, as well as all the Presidents from Lincoln’s time; and every
corner and crevice of the White House was known to him. I thought
to myself that here was certainly an old liar, if ever there was one. A
regular Baron Munchausen!
Then I naturally turned the conversation to old books and
manuscripts. I mentioned a famous volume, and he said he owned it.
I mentioned another; he owned that too! If he had been a younger
man I should have had it clearly understood that I no longer cared to
be taken for a credulous fool. But being a Philadelphian, of course I
could not resist mentioning Benjamin Franklin. The syllables of his
name had hardly left my lips when my visitor announced, with
something of regret in his voice, that he had once owned the
manuscript of Franklin’s famous Autobiography!
With unbelieving amazement I stared at him. Then it dawned upon
me that the gentleman before me was a distinguished American
diplomat and everything he said was the truth! As Minister to France
many years ago, he had handled with extraordinary tact several
serious political situations; one time editor of the New York Evening
Post, he was also an essayist and historian. I leaned forward and
said in a voice which made no attempt to disguise either my surprise
or my pleasure, “Have I the honor of addressing the Honorable John
Bigelow?”
Mr. Bigelow then told me how in an off moment he had been induced
to sell, at what was then considered a high price, but which would be
a mere trifle now, the immortal Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
He disposed of it through a New York firm of booksellers to E. Dwight
Church of Brooklyn, and it is now in that bookman’s paradise, the
library of Mr. Henry E. Huntington, at San Marino, California.
Speaking of manuscripts recalls a rather pretty story of how I
unexpectedly secured an autograph essay by a favorite modern.
I remember one day in London, when I was calling upon my dear
friend, H. W. Massingham, the beloved editor of the Nation. His
editorial offices in Adelphi Terrace were directly beneath George
Bernard Shaw’s apartments in the same old Georgian building.
Knowing he was a good friend of Shaw, I asked if he had any of his
manuscripts. Massingham looked at me oddly for a moment, as
though my request had brought to his mind an entirely new train of
thought, then replied, “Oh, yes!” He ran his hand to the bottom of an
enormous waste-paper basket under his desk; it was filled to
overflowing, as though it had not been emptied for days. He drew out
a manuscript which he had thrown away, written in a familiar hand—
Shaw’s article on the censorship of the press! He offered it to me as
a present, and you will well understand that I accepted it eagerly.
This little story should delight Bernard Shaw himself.
To-day it is unfortunate that almost all manuscripts are typed. There
are, however, rare exceptions. The late Joseph Conrad was one of
the very few authors who worked almost entirely in longhand. When I
bought the manuscript of his book, Victory, at the Quinn sale in New
York in 1924, I paid the highest price—$8100—ever given at auction
for the manuscript of a living author. It was closely written on sheets
that fill two bulky cases.
The average writer nowadays, after he has corrected the final draft
of his work, has it copied by a competent stenographer and then
makes any further correction on it he wishes. Many writers find it
easier to create their stories directly upon the typewriter, while others
dictate. The typewriter—what a curse it has become to the collector!
A century from now it will be almost impossible to find the original
autograph manuscripts of writers of to-day who stand the test of
time. Who knows but that the styles will have changed, and the
machine upon which a masterpiece was brought to life will be
considered even more precious!
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CONRAD’S
“VICTORY”
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CONRAD’S
“LORD JIM”
No one knows exactly why there is hardly a scrap left of the original
manuscripts of most of the writers of the Elizabethan period.
Perhaps publishers in those days had one fault that is prevalent to-
day. They may have been too close to their writers to be able to
appreciate the value of the original draft, or perhaps they had scrap
baskets like Massingham’s. Of Shakespeare’s writing only six or
seven signatures are known, and these are attached to his will and
other legal documents. They are priceless, and have been kept with
great care at Somerset House and at the Record Office in London.
How unfortunate it is that not a single line of his original work
remains. What would collectors not give now for just one page of
Hamlet, or even a short note in Shakespeare’s own handwriting!
Surely, $500,000 would not be too much. Nor is there any
manuscript left of either of his noted contemporaries, Christopher
Marlowe and Robert Greene. Of these two, who opened the way for
the greatest dramatist of all time, not even a signature remains. I
was successful this year, however, in obtaining a letter of John
Fletcher, who very probably collaborated with Shakespeare in the
writing of Henry VIII. Fletcher addressed this rhymed epistle to the
Countess of Huntingdon. For years it had been in an old English
muniment room neglected and unsung; and it is really the nearest
approach to Shakespeare I have been fortunate enough to find.
When you think that hitherto not a signature of Fletcher’s had been
known, it makes this find the more remarkable. There are, however,
many relics of his great contemporary, Ben Jonson, early drafts of
his celebrated plays, and many books are known in which he
inscribed comments and notes.
ONLY UNCUT SHAKESPEARE QUARTO KNOWN, PUBLISHED IN
SHAKESPEARE’S LIFETIME
THE
Historie of Troylus
and Cresseida.
As it was acted by the Kings Maiesties
seruants at the Globe.
Written by William Shakespeare.
LONDON
Imprinted by G. Eld for R Bonian and H. Walley, and
are to be sold at the spred Eagle in Paules
Church-yeard, ouer against the
great North doore.
1609.
I have always been deeply interested in all that remains of the
literary lights of the Elizabethan era, and especially in Edmund
Spenser, another of the great masters of Shakespeare’s magnificent
day.
Last year, when I was crossing to England on the Berengaria,
another bookseller, truly a friendly enemy, met me on deck one
morning, and by way of greeting, said: “Speaking of association
copies, what would you give to own a presentation copy of the first
edition of The Faerie Queene?”
“Why talk nonsense?” I replied. “It’s impossible. It doesn’t exist.”
About two weeks later an eminent scholar who has made many
great and outstanding discoveries in early English literature called at
my hotel to see me, and invited me to go with him to inspect his fine
collection. He spoke of one book in particular, which he was sure
would interest me, but purposely neglected to say what it was. I
arrived at his home and had hardly got beyond the front door when
he placed in my hands a volume in its original binding of old calf. It
was Spenser’s own copy of The Faerie Queene, dated 1590, with an
inscription in his handwriting on the title page in Greek: “From the
author to himself.” He had also presented this volume to Elizabeth
Boyle, whom he married four years later. On a blank page toward the
back of the book he gallantly wrote in French, “A sa mistresse,” and
under this elegant heading had inscribed the complete first sonnet
from his glorious Amoretti, beginning:—
Happy ye leaves when as those lilly Hands
That houlds my life in hir dead-doing might,
Shall handle you and hold in Love’s swete bandes
Like captives trembling at ye victors sight.
The Amoretti was not published until five years later, in 1595.
As I stood looking at The Faerie Queene I became quite speechless
with surprise and delight, as no other presentation copy of Spenser
was known to me. Almost before I could regain my equilibrium my
host handed me another, a smaller volume. This was bound in old
vellum, a quaint little English travel book. With a gasp I read upon
the title page a presentation address to Gabriel Harvey, the poet’s
dearest friend, and incidentally, the bitter literary enemy of Ben
Jonson. It read: “The gift of Edmund Spenser, clerk to the
Archbishop of Rochester, 1578.” What enhanced its preciousness
was that Harvey had made notes throughout, commenting upon his
happy friendship with Spenser. After such a startling introduction to
his collection, I looked upon my friend, this learned book lover, with
even greater admiration than before; and if he had further offered me
a presentation copy of Hamlet I should not have been amazed. To-
day these marvelous mementos of the Elizabethan era are treasured
among the outstanding volumes in my library.
PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION TO ELIZABETH BOYLE
IN “THE FAERIE QUEENE” IN THE AUTOGRAPH OF
EDMUND SPENSER
One week later my friend the American bookseller called upon me at
the Carlton Hotel in London.
“Hello,” I began. “You’re just the man I want to see. I’ve found a
presentation copy of The Faerie Queene.”
“You unholy liar,” he said, not knowing whether to believe me or not.
“Yes,” I replied; “it is at your hand.” His hands trembled as he lifted
the book from the table, and I could see his face change color as he
read the magic lines in Spenser’s autograph.
An author’s manuscript will reveal just how his work was planned
and built, as well as the fluid state of his mind at the time. Very often
it reflects his attitude toward his subject, whether he wrote
meticulously, carefully, or with assurance and ease. The early
manuscripts of great writers are curiously alike in that they seldom
show any large amount of correction or rewriting. When these men
are young their very passion sweeps them along. But as they grow
older they develop a certain attitude of critical acuteness which study
brings, the experiences of life itself also cause them to be less sure.
Very often they become the worst faultfinders, and tear their work to
pieces to build and rebuild glorious phrases that later become
household words. The bugaboo of rewriting comes with the years,
accompanying the stern virtues of maturity.
In his later manuscripts you can almost see the author at work,
bending over his pages, writing lines, whole paragraphs, then
deleting them. These later manuscripts of noted men and women
show not only blotted lines but entirely new readings. However, the
notable phrase in the verses prefixed to the first folio of Shakespeare
by his editors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, dated 1623, does
not apply to most of the modern manuscripts. “And what he thought,”
they wrote, “he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce
received from him a blot on his papers.”
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF WALT WHITMAN’S
“BY EMERSON’S GRAVE”
There is also some impalpable quality in a great man’s handwriting

which draws one to it; people who have never dreamed of collecting,
who never heard of the collecting mania, will suddenly react to old
letters and documents. They are mad to own them. Some human
attraction exists in the written word of other years quite different from
the appeal made by printing. This appeal is primarily emotional,
rather than intellectual. Especially is this true of autograph letters.
They naturally hold a more personal message, in that they interpret
the spirit and reflect the period of the writer, who in informal letters is
off his guard, quite unlike the mood that an author brings to his work
when he knows it may be published. I have known people to weep
with delight at the sight of one of those charmingly familiar letters
written by Bobbie Burns. Indeed, I once became rather dizzy with joy
myself, when I bought the Harry B. Smith Library, which included that
famous letter of Charles Dickens about the inception of Pickwick,
which he writes to his publishers, Chapman and Hall. It is dated
1836, and was written one Thursday evening from Furnival’s Inn,
London. It says:—
Dear Sirs:—
Pickwick is at length begun in all his might and glory. The first chapter
will be ready tomorrow.
I want to publish The Strange Gentleman. If you have no objection to
doing it, I should be happy to let you have the refusal of it. I need not
say that nobody else has seen or heard of it.
Believe me (in Pickwickian haste)
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
PAGE FROM MANUSCRIPT OF DICKENS’S “PICKWICK PAPERS”
This great letter is now in the collection of that famous man of affairs,
fast becoming equally well known as a bibliophile, Mr. Owen D.
Young.
When I read Dickens’s wonderful living message,—isn’t there a
tremendous thrill in those words: “Pickwick is at length begun in all
his might and glory,”—I never dreamed I should one day own all that
is left of the original manuscript of the master’s greatest work, the
Pickwick Papers. This, which Dickens wrote when he was but
twenty-four years old, is without doubt the most valuable modern
manuscript in existence. An earlier owner, the late Mr. W. A. White,
abstracted from it a single leaf and presented it most generously to
the British Museum. What a gracious tribute this was from an
American collector!
When so many of the great English treasures have come to this side
of the water, how ingratiating was so splendid a gift! There the
Pickwick page lies, in a glass show case, in the British Museum, and
any day one may see Dickens’s never-failing admirers crowding in
front of it to read and thrill to the broadly penned words, now
browned and a bit faded. How rapidly the words seem to fly across
the pages of this manuscript! You can’t but feel, as you read, that
Dickens was almost divinely chosen to give to the world a fount of
humor which in its very humanity will delight man, woman, and child
throughout the years. All that is left of the manuscript is thirty-two
leaves, which Dickens himself arranged into two chapters. When I
read them I feel the closest union with Dickens the author; in these
pages the period just before the coronation of Queen Victoria is
made alive and vivid to us, bridging the world of yesterday to that of
to-day.
The Pickwick Papers first appeared in serial form in 1836, issued
monthly. I think he became weary writing them, although, heaven
knows, there is nothing in the story which would give the reader the
slightest inkling of this. But prefixed to my manuscript is a hitherto
unpublished verse. Dickens marks it “Private and Confidential,” and
it is written for the benefit of one Mr. Hicks, as follows:—
Oh, Mr. Hick

——S, I’m heartily sick
Of this sixteenth Pickwick
Which is just in the nick
For the publishing trick,
And will read nice and slick,
If you’ll only be quick.
I don’t write on tick,
That’s my comfort, avick!
July 26, ’37
DICKENS’S RHYME TO MR. HICKS, PREFIXED TO THE

MANUSCRIPT OF THE “PICKWICK PAPERS”
At the auction sale of the library of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts
in 1923, in London, I paid £3700 for the manuscript of Dickens’s The
Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. He had given it, the fifth and
last of his series of Christmas books, to the baroness in 1850. Ten
years after Pickwick, Dickens wrote this story, and the manuscript
demonstrates what I have said earlier about the painstaking and less
spontaneous work of an author as he grows older. The manuscript of
The Haunted Man is filled with blottings, deletions, and corrections. It
is now in the choice collection of Mr. Carl H. Pforzheimer of New
York.
OWEN D. YOUNG
I do not hesitate to prophesy that in time the works of Dickens will be
the most valuable after Shakespeare. He is one of the few English
authors whose appeal is universal. Even in translation his works are
wonderful, and they have been translated into almost every
language, keeping their peculiar raciness, though they must sacrifice
their English idiom. Dickens will be read always, by the man in the
street as well as by the scholar.
LAST LETTER WRITTEN BY CHARLES DICKENS

Speaking of the generosity of Mr. White in presenting the Pickwick
leaf to the British Museum recalls to my mind the magnificent gift of
Mr. John Gribbel of the Glenriddel Burns manuscripts to Scotland.
The great liberality displayed by this Philadelphian should do much
to cement international relations. All the friends of Bobbie Burns in
Scotland—and they are legion—gave up hope when these
manuscripts were purchased by Mr. Gribbel, believing them lost to

Historical Sociology of State Formation in The Horn of Africa: Genesis, Trajectories, Processes, Routes and Consequences Redie Bereketeab

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1 Introduction: Challenges of State Formation 1

ANDM Amhara National Democratic Movement

SEPDF Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front

Fig. 2.1 Development of the state in the HOA (Source Author’s

Introduction: Challenges of State Formation

1. The proto-state formation model Ethiopia represents. Ethiopia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

These three models, collectively, would enable us to understand, inter-

it from colonially created territoriality and accompanying institutions; and

conceptual framework; and section “Methodology”, methodological

2013). Compared to their relatively brief duration, however, the devasta-

Somaliland unilaterally declared its independence in 1991, while Punt-

The fourth factor is underdevelopment and abysmal poverty. The

Interplay of the Pathologies

an institutional artefact is very much contingent upon the construction of

formation depends on and reflects societal reality through the art of

pursued a policy of realising this dream and the ambition of uniting

The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is,

The political economy of the postcolonial state was framed in a way

client states (Yordanov 2016; Schmidt 2013; Woodward 2003, 2006).

a strategic waterway through which major world trade is commuted,

Western model of state formation? Should we have a specific model of

1. It assumes that Western societies are ethnically homogeneous.

This book does not attempt to provide answers to these conceptual

those of a single-cell organism are conducted. The latter represents a

requires a methodological approach encompassing multiple and eclectic

A historical analytical approach underpins process tracing that describes

Theme and Organisation of the Book

1 These include: Eritrea: The Making of a Nation (2007); State-building in Post-

and (5) the natures and structures of states. Adequately understanding

evolution of the state during various epochs. A number of structural-

Chapter 6, State Legitimacy and Government Performance in the

Brosig, Malte. 2015. Cooperative Peacekeeping in Africa: Exploring Regime

Written by William Shakespeare.

There is also some impalpable quality in a great man’s handwriting

Oh, Mr. Hick

DICKENS’S RHYME TO MR. HICKS, PREFIXED TO THE

LAST LETTER WRITTEN BY CHARLES DICKENS

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