Respatializing Federalism in the Horn’s Borderlands: From Contraband Control to Transnational Governmentality

Analysts documenting the proliferation of border controls amidst the global War on Terror have highlighted recent extensions of state sovereignty into new geographies. Such shifts are largely driven by Western states’ security concerns as they partner with governments in Africa and other migrant-sending spaces to stem migration. In eastern Ethiopia, however, new dynamics of border securitization have facilitated African politicians’ efforts to extend governance in the opposite direction. This article traces how authorities in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State (SRS) between 2010 and 2018 instrumentalized the decentralization of border control in attempts to both address the persistence of “contraband” border trade and tax evasion, and solve a longstanding security problem: opposition activities among diaspora Somalis. Theoretically connecting a “borderlands as resources” framework to conceptions of transnational governmentality, this study analyzes how the governance of trade at national and subnational borders may enable efforts to regulate diaspora groups.