Negotiating External and Internal Legitimacy: The Effects of Somaliland's Nonrecognition on Civil Society

From delivering essential services to mediating between citizens and the state, civil society bolsters critical governance roles, especially where state institutions are weak, contested, or in formation. Yet, social scientists tend to study phenomena within or between countries with formal recognition of statehood, or high external legitimacy. Thus, my research draws on 97 interviews with civil society actors and six weeks of ethnographic fieldwork in Somaliland– an unrecognized, democratic country in the north of Somalia– to address the question: What is the effect of a country’s nonrecognition on civil society? First, I theorize internal and external legitimacy as distinct, but interacting dimensions that are not necessarily co-occurring and can, at times, be contradictory. I situate countries within a relational ecosystem, where an institution’s capacity to enter into relations with others, and to confer or withhold (particularly external) legitimacy, depends on its own legitimacy. Unrecognized countries’ status within this network is also greatly impacted by their relationship with their recognized parent state (the internationally recognized state within whose borders they reside). Second, I study this network structure’s impact on civil society, demonstrating how Somaliland’s lack of international recognition: (1) exacerbates power imbalances among civil society actors, (2) undermines civil society autonomy and oversight, (3) constricts mobility and network formation, (4) displaces power to the parent-country Somalia, and (5) shapes civil society roles and internal legitimacy. I conclude by discussing the broader implications of incongruous internal-external legitimacy configurations for both future study and our understanding of inter-institutional relations across global contexts.