This book analyses the historical sociology of state formation in the Horn of Africa. It examines the genesis, trajectories, processes, routes and consequences of the evolution of state formation. Three analytical and explanatory models explain the process of state formation in the HOA: proto-state, colonial and national liberation. The models, heuristically and innovatively, provide understanding, interpretation and analysis of state formation. While the proto-state model explicates an indigenous historical process of state formation, the colonial model refers to an externally designed and imposed process of state formation. The national liberation model concern state formation conducted under liberation movement and ideology. The distinct significance of these models is that collectively they generate sufficient analysis of state formation. 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 Horn of Africa. Redie Bereketeab is Associate Professor of Sociology and Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute at Uppsala University, Sweden. His latest publications include: National Liberation Movements as Government in Africa (2019), and Alternatives to Neoliberal Peacebuilding and Statebuilding in Africa (2021). His research interest include political sociology, development sociology, African studies, conflict, peacebuilding, regional integration.

This book analyses the historical sociology of state formation in the Horn of Africa. It examines the genesis, trajectories, processes, routes and consequences of the evolution of state formation. Three analytical and explanatory models explain the process of state formation in the HOA: proto-state, colonial and national liberation. The models, heuristically and innovatively, provide understanding, interpretation and analysis of state formation. While the proto-state model explicates an indigenous historical process of state formation, the colonial model refers to an externally designed and imposed process of state formation. The national liberation model concern state formation conducted under liberation movement and ideology. The distinct significance of these models is that collectively they generate sufficient analysis of state formation. 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 Horn of Africa.

Why is the Horn such a distinctive part of Africa? This book, by one of the foremost scholars of the region, traces this question through its exceptional history and also probes the wildly divergent fates of the Horn’s contemporary nation-states, despite the striking regional particularity inherited from the colonial past. Christopher Clapham explores how the Horn’s peculiar topography gave rise to the Ethiopian empire, the sole African state not only to survive European colonialism, but also to participate in a colonial enterprise of its own. Its impact on its neighbours, present-day Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Somaliland, created a region very different from that of post-colonial Africa. This dynamic has become all the more distinct since 1991, when Eritrea and Somaliland emerged from the break-up of both Ethiopia and Somalia. Yet this evolution has produced highly varied outcomes in the region’s constituent countries, from state collapse (and deeply flawed reconstruction) in Somalia, through militarised isolation in Eritrea, to a still fragile ‘developmental state’ in Ethiopia. The tensions implicit in the process of state formation now drive the relationships between the once historically close nations of the Horn.

This book examines recent developments in the Horn of Africa region, the most significant in recent years being the July 2018 rapprochement between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Developments in Ethiopia, however, dashed the much-celebrated rapprochement; reform in Ethiopia encountered serious challenges, culminating in the war in Tigray. This book has three central themes: (1) the Eritrea-Ethiopia rapprochement; (2) the challenges of transition in Ethiopia; (3) peace, security and development in the Horn of Africa. The book aims to address such critical questions as: what factors led to the resolution of a festering conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia? What is the significance of the Eritrea-Ethiopia rapprochement for peace and security? What are the challenges to the reform and transition process in Ethiopia?

This book analyses the role of the African Union and regional economic communities in contributing to peacebuilding in Africa. Drawing together an international team of prominent experts, this will interest researchers, policymakers, NGOs, activists, regional and international actors of African politics, security, governance, and economics.

A new perspective on how the nation-state emerged and proliferated across the globe, accompanied by a wave of wars. Andreas Wimmer explores these historical developments using social science techniques of analysis and datasets that cover the entire modern world.