Trade Makes States

Governing the Greater Somali Economy

Tobias Hagmann, Finn Stepputat

• Publisher: Hurst Publishers
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781787387058
• eBook ISBN: 9781805260905
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Trade Makes States highlights how trade and the circulation of goods are central to Somali societies, economies and politics. Drawing on multi-site research from across East Africa’s Somali-inhabited economic space–which includes areas of Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda and Ethiopia–this volume highlights the interconnection between trade and state-building after state collapse. It scrutinises the ‘politics of circulation’ between competing public administrations, which seek to generate revenue and to control infrastructures along major trade corridors.

Connecting classic debates on state formation with recent scholarship on logistics and cross-border trading, Trade Makes States argues that the facilitation and capture of commodity flows have been instrumental in making and unmaking states across the Somali territories. Aspiring state-builders are thus confronted with the challenge of governing the flow of goods in order to rule over lands and peoples.

The contributors to this volume draw attention to the ingenuities of transnational Somali markets, which often appear to be self-governed. Their dynamism and everyday administration by a host of actors provide important insights into contemporary state formation on the margins of global supply-chain capitalism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• List of Maps, Tables and Figures
• 1. Introduction: Trade and State Formation in Somali East Africa and Beyond: Finn Stepputat and Tobias Hagmann
• 2. Trust as Social Infrastructure in Somali Trading Networks: Neil Carrier and Hannah Elliot
• 3. War, Peace and the Circulation of Mobile Money Across the Somali Territories: Gianluca Iazzolino and Nicole Stremlau
• 4. The Revival and Re-Embedding of Somali Ports: Finn Stepputat, Warsame M. Ahmed, Omer Qualonbi, Simon Wallisch and Mahad Wasuge
• 5. Governing Marketplaces: Self-Regulation, Stateness and Materialities: Fana Gebresenbet, Kirstine Strøh Varming and Philemon Ong’ao Ng’asike
• 6. Governing Commodity Flows in the Somali Borderlands: Asnake Kefale and Jacob Rasmussen
• 7. Raising Fiscal Revenues: The Political Economy of Somali Trade Taxation: Ahmed M. Musa, Kirstine Strøh Varming and Finn Stepputat
• 8. Tilly in the Tropics: Trade and Somali State-Making: Tobias Hagmann and Finn Stepputat
• Afterword: Somalia, an Economy with ‘Stateness’: Peter D. Little
• Glossary of Somali and Arabic words
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover