Paper short abstract:

The paper looks at how sub-national unsettlement and conflict in the Somali Region of Ethiopia exists alongside efforts to consolidate Ethiopia's federal project. It highlights how different elite bargains within the region, across borders, and between centre and periphery contribute to this.

Paper long abstract:

The focus on centralised elite bargains in discussions of statebuilding, political settlements and post-war transition often overlooks the multi-layered bargaining that shapes sub-national settlements. A deeper look at the ongoing consolidation of Ethiopia's transition since the 1991 overthrow of the Derg government, reveals distinct political unsettlement at its margins. The Somali Regional State (SRS) of Ethiopia (also known as Ogaden region) has experienced ongoing insurgent conflict alongside increased administrative decentralisation, increased fiscal transfers and regional development programmes, and the growth of local governance structures under successive regional executives, which have been largely maintained and restrained by the federal government and its agencies.

The paper brings together research conducted in the region with practitioner peacebuilding experience to illustrate the spatial variation in transition processes where unsettlement and aspects of conflict, contestation and violence continue in Ethiopia's margins. In the case of the SRS, such dynamics are shaped by political bargains and priorities at the centre as well as the way in which both the centre and margin engage with regional Somali forces. The paper importantly traces the emergence of a regional presidency in 2010 which, demonstrating an unprecedented level of executive power and autonomy from Addis Ababa, has shifted centre-periphery relations from dependence to increasing symbiosis and elasticity. The paper concludes with a number of implications of the sustainability of this elasticity.