عنوان

The United Nations and Somalia

Number

LA114974

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

The United Nations and Somalia

General Material Designation

[Article]

First Statement of Responsibility

Assefaw Bariagaber

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

Numerous scholars have provided different explanations as to why the United Nations (UN) involvement in Somalia failed. Some have searched for an explanation in the structure of the UN and have suggested that lack of resources and inefficient UN bureaucracy were to blame. Others have faulted the anarchic nature of the international system in which the UN finds itself. Still others have attributed the failure of the mission to the confusion over the respecive roles of the UN and the U.S. This article argues that the UN involvement in Somalia is better explained from the perspective of a patron-client relationship. Applying Ravenhill's collective clientelist model, the paper argues that the UN acted as a patron in a collective clientelist relationship even though all of the components that sustain such a relationship were not present. It is further argued that (i) the UN-Somalia relationship was unstable because the UN neglected the development of cooperative horizontal relationships among various Somali factions in favor of a predominantly vertical relationship between itself and the various Somali factions, and (ii) the precipitous decline of the UN-Somalia relationship was unavoidable because of the particularistic motives and varying interests of each participant.

Date of Publication

1996

Physical description

162-177

Title

Journal of Asian and African Studies

Volume Number

31/3-4

International Standard Serial Number

1568-5217

Subject Term

African Studies

Subject Term

General

Assefaw Bariagaber

Call Number

10.1163/156852196X00133

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y