ABSTRACT
This chapter will be composed of three main parts, each representing a major epoch in Somaliland's failed experiment as part of the Somali Republic. At each stage, an argument will be presented that will call into question the widespread legitimacy or deep-rootedness of the 1960 union between present-day Somaliland and Somalia. The period between 1960 and 1969 will challenge the notion that the merger was ever the culmination of a complete ideological process or the achievement of a natural matching of ethnic identity and territorial governance that provides the basis for state creation in the modern state system. The Act of Union was part of a larger quest to unite all the Somali peoples, of which those making up the two merging regions were a large. The period between 1969 and 1981, the early years of military dictatorship, demonstrates that the concept of unity never manifested itself on the ground in the form of unified governance and administration.
