Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the prospects and pitfalls of present and past state-sponsored vigilantism in Somalia. It argues that the ongoing clan-based mobilisation will not produce durable security future if it is not accompanied by a concerted effort for a negotiated settlement.

Paper long abstract:

On May 15, 2022, Hasson Sheikh Mohamoud was elected president of Somalia for a second time, having lost the seat in 2017 to the former prime minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo. Soon after his victory, the president outlined his priorities on restoring law and order in Southern Somalia, which is plagued by political instability and conflict. At the heart of his strategy lay the provision of support to a clan-based vigilantes, Ma’awisley, who voluntarily took arms against an Al-Qaeda-affiliated militant rebel group, Al-Shabaab, formed in 2004 by Afghani jihad veterans. While this seems to have worked so far as the recapturing of significant territories from the grip of Al-Shabaab is concerned, knowledge of and speculation of what this holds for the future is limited. This paper speaks to this gap by exploring the historical dynamics of vigilante mobilisations in Somalia to make sense of contemporary strategies to defeat Al-Shabaab, and future implications for state-making. In so doing, it outlines how the modern state-building history in Somalia is replete with insurgencies against the state, how the state's responses to these insurgencies remained identical across time and space, and how such responses have, almost invariably, failed to produce the futures the state actors had imagined. Relying on key informant interviews, secondary data and personal observations, the paper argues that the ongoing clan-based mobilisation will not produce durable security future if it is not accompanied by a concerted effort for a negotiated settlement.