This paper frames Somalia’s modern history as a trajectory from aspiring high modernist nation-state formation to ‘disassembled’ state, examining how this has been accompanied by – and in part driven by – processes of identity formation and the penetration of marketised political relationships. The paper shows how armed conflicts and post-conflicts contributed to the emergence and consolidation of ‘clan units’ at the congruence of political-military entrepreneurship and emerging norms of public authority. It documents how failed wars and elite security politics (putchism and coup-proofing in both government and opposition) created the conditions for a parallel process of the monetisation of patronage, leading to the creation of a political marketplace in Somalia. The paper shows how peace processes and efforts to build social order from below contributed to a potential for consensus on the political ‘rules of the game’, but how this opportunity was squandered through the prioritisation of building a conventional state apparatus and the war on terror.
