State Crises, Globalisation and National Movements in North-East Africa: The Horn's Dilemma

by Jalata,Asafa

• ISBN13: 9780415348102
• ISBN10: 0415348102
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

By identifying the critical central contradictions that are built into the politics of the Horn of Africa, this book demonstrates that the crises of the Horn states stem from their political behavior and structural forces, such as internal social forces, and global forces that have become involved on the sides of these states without requiring accountability, the rule of law, or the implementation of, at least, 'limited democracy'. Acute political, social, cultural and economic crises in the Horn states, and the policy response to them, have contributed to social unrest, state conflicts and national movements. The Horn states have drastically failed to solve these crises and conflicts, and fail to provide protection and basic social services to the majority of their respective peoples. Consequently the peoples of the region have been exposed to recurrent wars and famines, absolute poverty, disastrous diseases, genocide, and continued subjugation and suffer under state-terrorism and global tyranny. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the disintegration of the Somali states, and the failures of the Ethiopian, Sudanese and Djibouti states to fulfill their governmental obligations, raise serious theoretical and practical problems for academics, policy analysts, and policy makers on regional and global levels. The contributors provide a deep understanding of structural and conjunctural forces that have interacted in the processes of state power; the role of intervention of global powers; and the consequent failure to build state as a public domain. The book also enriches our social scientific knowledge that is essential to develop pragmatic policy measures to address these problems. This book will be of great interest to policy makers and international organizations as well as researchers and students of politics and international relations.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix
Foreword	xi
Preface	xiii
The process of state formation in the Horn of Africa in comparative perspective	1	(29)
Asafa Jalata
The racialised and Islamicised Sudanese State and the question of Southern Sudan	30	(15)
Amir Idris
Global capitalism and the Oromo liberation struggle: theoretical notes on US policy towards the Ethiopian empire	45	(33)
William I. Robinson
Two national liberation movements compared: Oromia and Southern Sudan	78	(23)
Asafa Jalata
The Oromo Gada system of government: an indigenous African democracy	101	(21)
Lemmu Baissa
Contending democracies: US-sponsored `democracy' encounters indigenous Oromo democratic forms	122	(43)
Bonnie K. Holcomb
The Sidama nation and the solidarity of colonised nations in Ethiopia	165	(17)
Seyoum Yunkura Hameso
Globalisation and Africa: reconstructing the failed Somali state and reviving national identity	182	(20)
Alice Bettis Hashim
What next in the Horn of Africa? Reconsidering the state and self-determination	202	(29)
Leenco Lata
Select bibliography	231	(15)
Index	246