ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary survey of contemporary research related to the Horn of Africa.

Situated at the junction of the Sahel-Saharan strip and the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa is growing in global importance due to demographic growth and the strategic importance of the Suez Canal. Divided into sections on authoritarianism and resistance, religion and politics, migration, economic integration, the military, and regimes and liberation, the contributors provide up-to-date, authoritative knowledge on the region in light of contemporary strategic concerns. The handbook investigates how political, economic, and security innovations have been implemented, sometimes with violence, by use of force or by negotiation – including ‘ethnic federalism’ in Ethiopia, independence in Eritrea and South Sudan, integration of the traditional authorities in the (neo)patrimonial administrations, Somalian Islamic Courts, the Sudanese Islamist regime, people’s movements, multilateral operations, and the construction of an architecture for regional peace and security.

Accessibly written, this handbook is an essential read for scholars, students, and policy professionals interested in the contemporary politics in the Horn of Africa.

chapter 1|5 pages

General introduction

part 1|103 pages

Liberation movements, separatism, and state formation

chapter 2|10 pages

Understanding the Oromo movements

From the Macha Tulama Association to the ‘Oromo Protests’

chapter 4|11 pages

Eritrea

Self-reliance, militarisation, and diaspora

chapter 5|12 pages

The Sudan people's liberation movement/army

Between separation and unity

chapter 6|9 pages

South Sudan after secession

The failure as a new state and the outbreak of war since 2013

chapter 7|15 pages

Sudan's challenge in remaining a cohesive nation and state

The enactment of violent and authoritarian modalities of governance

chapter 8|10 pages

Somalia

In search of national unity

chapter 9|9 pages

The Somali National Movement

Engineering self-determination of Somaliland

chapter 10|12 pages

Somaliland's struggle for recognition since 1991

External actors and dynamics

part 2|140 pages

Armed people, conflicts, and international interventions

chapter 11|12 pages

African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA)

If you want ‘to silence the guns’ by 2063, first kill the ‘white elephant’

chapter 13|12 pages

The Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula

The interplay between domestic, regional, and global dynamics in the rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea

chapter 16|8 pages

South Sudan

War, peace processes, and regional economic integration

chapter 18|15 pages

Embedded uniforms

The war in Darfur, Militias, Paramilitaries, and the rise of The Rapid Support Forces

chapter 21|14 pages

‘What is happening now is not raiding, it's war’

The growing politicisation and militarisation of cattle-raiding among the Western Nuer and Murle during South Sudan's civil wars

chapter 22|12 pages

The war in Tigray (2020–2021)

Dictated truths, irredentism and déjà-vu

part 3|156 pages

Authoritarianism, innovative regimes, and forms of resistance

chapter 23|14 pages

Ruling over diversity

Federalism and devolution in Ethiopia and Kenya

chapter 24|11 pages

State power and citizen agency

Reframing the power narrative in state-society relations in Ethiopia

chapter 25|13 pages

Being a de facto State is not enough

Somaliland's innovative regime

chapter 26|9 pages

The politics of state-building

Regime restructuring in Mogadishu

chapter 27|15 pages

The looming spectre

A history of the ‘state of emergency’ in Ethiopia, 1970s–2021

chapter 28|10 pages

Thirty years of autocratic rule

Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki between innovation and destruction

chapter 30|13 pages

Hegemonic elections

Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti

chapter 31|13 pages

Serving the regime

The state police and Kenya's electoral authoritarianism

chapter 33|13 pages

Sudan

The December 2018 Revolution and its aftermath

part 4|112 pages

Religion and religious movements – strategies and adaptation to new landscapes

chapter 35|17 pages

Political Islam in Somalia

From underground movements to the rise and continued resilience of Al Shabaab

chapter 37|13 pages

The ‘Islamic movement’ in Sudan

From the NIF to the December Revolution

chapter 39|10 pages

‘For God and my Country’

Religious lobby groups in Uganda and their role in policy making

chapter 40|9 pages

The civil rights movement of Ethiopian Muslims in 2012

Historical grounds and driving forces

chapter 41|14 pages

The strains of ‘Pente’ politics

Evangelicals and the post-Orthodox state in Ethiopia

chapter 43|15 pages

Singing in praise of Jesus in an ‘Islamic State’

The challenges faced by Habash pentecostalist migrants in Sudan 1

part 5|121 pages

People's movements

chapter 44|11 pages

The Migrant as Entrepreneur

chapter 46|10 pages

Migration within the Horn of Africa

New trends

chapter 48|12 pages

Girls on the move

Changing dynamics of migration in the Horn of Africa

chapter 49|10 pages

Migration is a personal journey

Stories of Ethiopian and Eritrean migrants as they forge their individual, and collective, journeys and existence in and out of the region

chapter 53|12 pages

Qof Ma Dhiban

Somali orality and the delineation of power

part 6|85 pages

Connecting the Horn

chapter 56|11 pages

Demystifying the national interest

The case of building dams and dismantling the Sudanese State

chapter 57|11 pages

China and the African Union

Infrastructure and trade deficits in strategic transport links in the Horn of Africa

chapter 58|10 pages

China's information infrastructures in the Horn

A laboratory for experimentation?

chapter 59|11 pages

Oil and gas in East Africa

Hope and illusion