Over the last 30 years, Somalia has experienced a civil war that has torn the country apart. Countless civilians have lost their lives, almost all public institutions have been destroyed, and large...Show moreOver the last 30 years, Somalia has experienced a civil war that has torn the country apart. Countless civilians have lost their lives, almost all public institutions have been destroyed, and large segments of the Somali society have fled abroad to seek shelter (Mohamud 2020, 115). The country experienced a Hobbesian era of anarchy that symbolized what Robert Rotberg classified as “a rare and extreme version of a failed state. (…). a mere geographical expression, a black hole [where] there is dark energy, but the forces of entropy have overwhelmed the radiance that hitherto provided some semblance of order and other vital political goods to the inhabitants (no longer the citizens)” (Rotberg 2004, 9). To end Somalia’s acute state of anarchy and its protracted inter-tribal warfare’s, international multilateral organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and Somalia’s neighbouring countries have sought to mediate relations between the contesting factions that were exercising inter-tribal politics within the country. Three major peace and reconciliation conferences sponsored by the international community have been held to resolve the Somali impasse: the first summit took place in Borama (Somaliland) in 1993, the second in Arta (Djibouti) in 2000, and the third in Mbagathi (Kenya) in 2003. The Borama conference in particular is what led to the self-determination of Somaliland, which is not the theme of this thesis. The topic of this research is to look at the differences between these peace processes. By comparing the nature of these three conferences it is possible to identify practices and models of peacebuilding for Somalia, a country that is seeking stability to this day. Despite these costly peace-making conferences as it cost the United Nations (UN) and donor countries to spend enormous sums of money and resources, Somalia remains fragmented and unstable, with the current federal government barely able to control its capital, Mogadishu (Ingiriis 2020, 10). Through a top-down peace-making approach, the so-called international community (IC) has attempted to solve disputes between powerful actors without incorporating local values, history, expertise, and the everyday experiences of the wider Somali population into the peacemaking processes and ultimately these efforts have failed to produce effective dispute resolution (Ansems 2011, 99). Given these failures, this research attempts to investigate the underlying factors that explain the UN’s liberal peacebuilding approach (which applies a predefined conceptual top-down framework that neglects Somalia’s everyday experiences) and why it failed to bring forth any genuine reconciliation (Glawion 2020, 66). Due to the disconnect between the top-down peacebuilding framework and Somalia and democracy, this paper investigates how an alternative framework called the “pragmatic peacebuilding approach” which moves beyond traditional liberal peace, can facilitate a more practical approach to peacebuilding that is sustainable, reconciliatory and context-specific. This thesis will endeavour to test the following research question and hypothesis. The research question is quite straightforward: the UN’s top-down peacebuilding process has been taking place in Somalia for more than 20 years, why then have the UN’s efforts failed to yield plausible peace results in Somalia? The answer to the research question is based on the following hypothesis: in Somalia, top-down peacebuilding has prevailed over grassroots-level peacebuilding and this is why peacebuilding in Somalia did not succeed. The hypothesis is based on both a historical account of what has happened in Somalia, including Somaliland, since the early 1990s and on the review of the literature on the Somali problem as well as on peacebuilding in general. Somaliland achieved peace vis-à-vis a grassroots model of peacebuilding, while in the rest of Somalia the UN used a top-down approach.Show less