Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic study of the recent history of the implementation of public finance management reform in Somaliland shows the specific contribution anthropology can offer to understanding the complex effects of traveling models of tax management reform in a state without international recognition.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the processes of the Public Finance Management (PFM) reform implemented in Somaliland by UNDP and the World Bank in the last two decades. It dwells on deep descriptions of negotiations, adaptation, re-appropriations, and conflicting moments to unpack the complex relationship between prescriptive ideas of state-building through PFM and their enactments in the field. In describing the processes of translation of Somaliland’s PFM reform, it pays particular attention to the aspirations and political ideas of an emerging class of young Somali civil servants who take ownership of the PFM reform while remaining critical of international intervention in their country.

Drawing on science and technology studies, this paper describes two kinds of effects: the erasure of political claims and conflict in stabilizing this model of governance, and the emergence of new political ownership while strengthening ideas of national identity. Approaching state-building in Somaliland as an ethnographic object, this paper looks at conflicting views, coexisting models, competing approaches, and translation practices of a “traveling model” of international governance, to highlight the emergence of specific ideas of the state in post-conflict Somaliland.