Somalia: Is anarchy the solution or the problem?

One of the books I’ve had on my reading list over the Christmas break has been the late Michael Van Notten’s The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa (Catallaxy has some comments on the book here).

Essentially, Van Notten documents the apparent success with which Somalia has been able to operate without any government, relying instead on customary law, clans and tribes, and a privatised court system. Although I bought it long before the current crises in Somalia, it nonetheless makes fascinating reading and raises some interesting ideas about how a society can be organised if, in the absence of government, there is a strong tribal or clan-based system. One can find a summary of some of Van Notten’s observations here.

One of the interesting things about Somalia is that although it has been without government since the 1990s, it has done rather well. Indeed, a World Bank publication [PDF] from last year reads:

Somalia is the quintessential failed state. After the autocratic regime of Siad Barre fell in 1991, the country collapsed into civil war. Peace has been established in some regions, but Somalia has only a limited government in the Northwest and no recognized government in the South. In these circumstances the private sector has been surprisingly innovative. Competition thrives in markets where transactions are simple, such as retail and construction. In more complex sectors, such as telecommunications and electricity supply, the private solutions are flawed but impressive: coverage has expanded since the 1980s, and prices are attractive compared with those in other African countries.

A more recent study [PDF] released at the end of November, 2006 reaches some similar conclusions. The author Benjamin Powell, of the Independent Institute, writes:

In 2005, Somalia ranked in the top 50 percent in six of our 13 measures, and ranked near the bottom in only three: infant mortality, immunization rates, and access to improved water sources. This compares favorably with circumstances in 1990, when Somalia last had a government and was ranked in the bottom 50 percent for all seven of the measures for which we had that year’s data: death rate, infant mortality, life expectancy, main telephone lines, tuberculosis, and immunization for measles and DTP. Furthermore, we have found that during the last years of Somalia’s government, 1985 to 1990, their performance was deteriorating compared to other African nations as their relative ranking fell in five of these measures. Since their government’s collapse, Somalia has seen its relative ranking improve in four of these measures and deteriorate in only one: infant mortality.

Perhaps most impressive is Somalia’s change in life expectancy. During the last five years of government rule, life expectancy fell by two years but since state collapse, it actually has increased by five years. Only three African countries, Guinea, Gambia, and Rwanda, can claim a bigger improvement. Telecommunications is another major area of success. With a variety of companies operating without burdensome government regulation, Somalia ranks high among African countries in the number of phone lines, mobile phone usage, and access to the Internet. According to The Economist, a mobile phone call in Somalia is “generally cheaper and clearer than a call from anywhere else in Africa.”

In fact, the ordered anarchy in Somalia attracted multinational corporations to the country. Coca–Cola, Dole, DHL, and affiliates of General Motors and British Airways, among others, began making investments in Somalia. Unfortunately, recent international efforts at establishing a new government in Somalia are likely to ruin what little economic progress the country has made.

This is not what one generally thinks of when one thinks of Somalia.

The significance of all this is that the unfolding civil war in Somalia appears to be inspired, in part, by this Somali resistence to centralised government. Powell goes on to explain that the so-called Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that is now working with Ethiopia to smash the Union of Islamic Courts was a created in exile and is backed by the United Nations. Although created in 2004, it only appeared in Somali in February 2006 and, according to Powell, only controls a single town. It is not, as one might have thought listening to news broadcasts, the “legitimate government” or a state of any substance; and it is not the victim of a coup so much as it seems to be an attempt by external forces to airdrop a pro-Western government onto Mogadishu.

As Powell concludes:

Prime Minister Gedi of the TFG recently said, “It is totally misguided not to accept the government. The alternative is chaos.” Unfortunately, he’s got it exactly backwards. It is, in fact, the attempts to impose a government on Somalia that create chaos.

Finally, this article over at the Daily Kos provides an interesting chronology of events leading up to the current war and makes similar observations about the role of foreign intervention in fostering the current problems.