ECAS 2013

State failure has been the scourge of the developing world and one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Whether one agrees with the above statement or not, it is undoubtedly true that a large number of states in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from a lack of state legitimacy and a sense of ownership and loyalty that the population feels towards the state. The question of whether a bottom-up approach in nation-building and the potential secessionist movements this may trigger can be the solution and provide the link between grassroots politics and the lost art of persuasion, is now more pressing than ever.

African politics is more often than not framed in terms of power - and quite often not a legitimate coercive power - than of persuasion. However, as our world becomes closely linked and interdependent, it will become increasingly difficult to command power without persuasion. It is imperative that we examine whether persuasion, rid from the shackles of the 'frozen' boundaries, has the potential, as Lebow argues, to foster cooperation that transcends discrete issues, builds and strengthens community, and reshapes interests in ways that facilitate future cooperation.

This paper will try to explore the links between state legitimacy and ownership and see whether secession can be the missing link, whether it has the potential to redress the balance between power and persuasion.

Somaliland in northwestern Somalia is an accomplished de facto state that unilaterally seceded more than twenty years ago and, apart from international recognition, has everything a state must have. Somaliland supporters in the region and in the diaspora together with an increasing number of advocates in academia and the policy world argue that Somaliland deserves international recognition. The line of argumentation usually runs that, first, Somaliland has a different colonial history and existed for a few days as separate state in 1960; second, after its unification with the Italian administered south the people in the north were denied a fair share in power in united Somalia; third, northerners were marginalized and even oppressed out under the dictatorial regime of Mohamed Siyad Barre (1969-91); forth, this led to a rebellion of northern guerrillas against the government in the south, upon which the government reacted with brute force against northern civilians in the 1980s; fifth, after the regime of Mohamed Siyad Barre was toppled in 1991, the northerners managed to restore peace and order in their region and even introduced multiparty democracy in Somaliland and held a series of peaceful and reasonably fair elections. This paper scrutinizes these claims and provides a slightly more critical reading of the Somaliland case than usual. It argues that Somaliland's recognition might lead to more conflict in the region. Therefore, a discussion of this case has to go beyond the well-established 'master-narrative' and needs to understand the internal political dynamics related to the question of recognition.

R. Patman describes the states in the Horn of Africa, and their trajectories, as a "political metaphor" (R. Patman ; 1991). Once again, the creation of a new state in South Sudan reshaped the region's political geography. This study retraces the trajectories of the three post-secessionist states in the Horn of Africa (Somaliland, Eritrea, South Sudan). We will look at the way national elites coming from ranks of guerrillas adopted international rules to build a new state, and how some states have become marginalized as they expressed their opposition to those "rules", thus contributing to the building of a new regional order.

Contemporary crises in the region take their roots in the dissatisfaction which arises from the regional order built at the time of decolonization, around the four following states: Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and DjiboutiIn twenty years, the Horn of Africa has grown from four to seven states, a rather unusual phenomenonIn all three secessionist cases mentionned above, the guerillas who led the fight for independance are now struggling to move from control to governance in these early transition years. It is this ability for a leader to shift from the status of a military man to that of a politician which is the foundation of a successful secession. However, the threat of loss of internal and / or external sovereignty, following a secession, often serves as a pretext for confiscating power to those who dominated the fight for independance.

The quest for Oromo self-determination is one of the most sensitive as well as controversial issues in contemporary Ethiopian politics. At present, there are many Oromo-based opposition organizations and their factions that are struggling (either within or out of the legal political field) to realize the national right of the Oromo in Ethiopia. However, while some of them aim at achieving the goal of real autonomy within (a federal and democratic) Ethiopia, others call for the "exist option" - the creation of an independent Oromo state. This paper intends to: i) review/appraise the arguments presented in support of an independent Oromo state; and ii) explore the merits/demerits of this option in relation to its purported beneficiary, i.e., the Oromo people, and its practical outcome to "other" people in the remainder of Ethiopia. This assessment will be made by utilizing, with some modifications, the two factors - the internal merits of the claim and the nature of its the disruptive effects - that according to Lee C. Buchheit must be taken into account to determine the "legitimacy" of a secessionist self-determination claim.

The African borders represent agreements of European diplomats competing with one another in the Scramble for Africa. When the African colonies became independent time was due to fix the ruthless ignorance of these artificial borderlines. But surprisingly enough this did not happen. The Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka criticised in his recent book the intensity with which the principle of territorial integrity is defended - "[…] even at the expense of development, peace, and humanity" and asked: " Why do those who have gained their self-governance, accept as sacrosanct, what has been bequeathed to them by others who had no interest in Africa?"

In the proposed paper it is argued that a reshaping of the 'inherited' borderlines to correlate with historic, cultural or other means of traditional unities has hardly been addressed by the political elites of the emerging independent African states. The widely accepted argument that the territorial integrity became a fundamental OAU-Principle in 1963 to avoid secessionist wars is misleading. Rather, the adherence to the colonial borders is a result of the debate on African integration. The abolition of all borders and a Union Government as promoted by Kwame Nkrumah were no tempting prospects for the African HoSG. To avoid the surrender of the national sovereignties they argued in favour of territorial integrity.

An apparently paradox answer to Soyinkas question proposes that the debate on Pan-Africanism 50 years ago led to the prolonging of a colonial heritage instead of solving the colonial borders-problem.

'Collective power politics' as a new peace and security paradigm heralded new perspectives on democratization for a nascent African Union (AU). The combination of 'democracy enforcement' and an active external interference in African internal democratic processes raise critical questions about the costs, the implications and the effectiveness of the conceptual and policy shift. This article attempts to show that since its inception, the interventionist policy has proved politically and financially costly for most African states, including regional hegemons, while having limited impact on containing secessionist tendencies across the continent. Contextualising 'enforcement' within the context of the birth of the Southern Sudan, the Casamance secessionist movement and the Ivoirian crisis of 1999--2011, the paper argues that the reified principle of the non-violability of national sovereignty needs to be reassessed with regards to emerging complex demands for secession that rest upon not only the traditional argument of self-government but also on notions of human security, democratisation and the economic governance of collective resources.