Living with a Failed State : Somalia
The East African Regional Security Complex and the EU"
András Hettyei
CERPESC 15/AF/06/2012 - 9 November 2012
Somalia is a unique place, as it provides the researcher with plenty of material to study. While it has brought terrible suffering and unspeakable sorrow to its inhabitants, the on-and-off civil war that has raged in the country since 1991 presents also a rare opportunity to the interested: here, after all, is a country which has had no functioning government, army, police force, tax collection, football league or national broadcaster for twenty years. What are the reasons for this course of history? How do the Somalis cope with the failure of their state? What can policymakers do to help fix the situation and prevent other countries from taking the same route to state failure? Questions over questions, which all warrant further research. This paper only attempts to examine two little parts of the huge “Somalia picture”, namely (1) the effects of state failure on its region and (2) the response of the European Union.