Proximities of Violence: Civil Order Beyond Governance Institutions

This article is concerned with the relationship between the quality of a country's governance institutions and the degree of civil order it experiences. Using evidence from Somaliland, it argues that order and peaceful cohabitation can be sustained not only when, but even partly because, governance institutions are incapable of reliably controlling violence. It suggests that Somaliland's postconflict peace is less grounded in the constraining power of its governance institutions than in a powerful discourse about the country's structural, temporal, and physical proximity to war. Through its sensitivity to the ease with which peace gives way to war, this discourse indirectly harnesses an apparent propensity to disorder as a source of order. This case challenges the “common sense” causal relationship between institutions and order. If either the strength or the weakness of institutions can offer foundations for order, then neither quality can be assigned as its cause without also being its effect. This has important implications beyond Somaliland by suggesting that, if weak institutions can support order under certain discursive conditions, then discourse—which is inherently fluid—also mediates the relationship between robust institutions and order. This makes them more susceptible to rapid change than usually imagined.