Trade and stateformation

The research committee for development research (FFU) has granted Roskilde University (Tobias Hagmann) and DIIS (Finn Stepputat) 10 mill. DKK for the research program Governing Economic Hubs and Flows in Somali East Africa (GOVSEA). Running from 2014-17, this program will contribute to a better understanding of economic and political processes that have shaped state formation in Somali East Africa, including Somaliland, Puntland, and parts of Ethiopia and Kenya with Somali speaking populations. Looking at how trade and transport is organized along three transnational corridors in the region, the project seeks to explain how the daily management of market centers, transport facilities and commodities contributes to state-building and -erosion in the area.

The program is implemented by a consortium, which, apart from RUC and DIIS comprises Hargeisa University, University of Addis Ababa, and the Technical University of Mombasa. The consortium aims at strengthening qualitative social science research capacities in Somali East Africa.

GOVSEA will be launched at a public seminar about business and state formation in the Somali territories at Roskilde University Monday 31. March at 15-17