By Abdinoor Ibrahim Noor
Abstract
This article examines Somalia’s recent diplomatic crises as manifestations of broader institutional failures under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration (2022–present). Through a qualitative analysis of three case studies—the September 2025 ambassadorial dispute in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the December 2024 security crisis in Dolow, and the September 2025 E-visa policy controversy—this study demonstrates how the systematic erosion of democratic institutions has created a hyper-centralized governance system that undermines both domestic and foreign policy effectiveness. Anchored in theoretical frameworks of democratic erosion, neo-patrimonialism, and institutional decay, the analysis reveals how the Hassan Sheikh administration has weakened the functional independence of Somalia’s legislative, executive, and judicial branches. By situating Somalia’s experience within a comparative context of democratic backsliding in the Horn of Africa and other post-conflict states, this study contributes to the literature on democratic erosion by demonstrating how foreign policy failures serve as potent indicators of broader institutional collapse.
Introduction
The public confrontation between Somalia’s ambassadors to Kenya and Tanzania over jurisdictional authority in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in September 2025 provides a revealing window into the systematic institutional failures that have characterized Somalia’s governance under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s second administration (2022–present). This diplomatic crisis, far from being an isolated incident of individual incompetence, represents a manifestation of what Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt term ‘competitive authoritarianism’—a system that maintains democratic facades while systematically undermining institutional constraints on executive power (Levitsky & Ziblatt 2018). The incident began when Ambassador Jabril Ibrahim Abdulle, based in Nairobi, organized a high-profile business delegation to Kinshasa without consulting Ambassador Ilyas Ali Hassan in Tanzania, who held formal accreditation for the DRC. The resulting public dispute revealed not merely poor coordination but the apparent absence of institutional mechanisms for preventing, managing, or resolving such conflicts—a symptom of broader institutional atrophy under an increasingly centralized system.
This article argues that Somalia’s diplomatic dysfunction cannot be understood in isolation from the systematic erosion of democratic institutions that has transformed the country’s governance from a system of checks and balances into a system where significant authority is concentrated in the presidency. Drawing on James Madison’s warning in Federalist 47 that ‘the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny’ (Madison 1788), this analysis demonstrates how the Hassan Sheikh administration has weakened the functional independence of all three branches of government.
This study makes three central contributions to the literature on democratic erosion and African governance. First, it provides a data-rich analysis of recent diplomatic and policy failures, grounding abstract claims of institutional decay in verifiable empirical evidence. Second, it situates Somalia’s challenges within a broader comparative framework of democratic backsliding and post-conflict governance in Africa, drawing parallels with cases like Tanzania and South Sudan to highlight common patterns and unique dynamics. Third, it explicitly links domestic political structures to foreign policy outcomes, arguing that the former is a primary determinant of the latter.
The research employs a qualitative, theory-guided case study methodology centered on an in-depth analysis of three specific cases of diplomatic or policy failure. The cases were selected based on a ‘most different systems’ design, chosen to represent different facets of state function: diplomacy (the DRC ambassadorial dispute), national security (the Dolow crisis), and public administration (the E-visa policy). Data were gathered through a systematic review of primary and secondary sources, including official government statements, reports from international organizations, and extensive media analysis from both Somali and international news outlets from September 2024 to September 2025.
A key limitation of this study is the lack of access to internal government documents or direct interviews with the officials involved, which necessitates a reliance on publicly available information.
The article proceeds in five main sections. The following section provides a literature review, grounding the analysis in theories of democratic erosion and neo-patrimonialism. The third section analyzes the systematic erosion of democratic institutions under the Hassan Sheikh administration. The fourth section presents detailed case study analyses of three key crises. The fifth section offers a comparative analysis, situating Somalia’s experience in a regional context. The conclusion provides policy recommendations for democratic renewal and institutional reform.
Abdinoor Ibrahim Noor
Email : abdinoor.fareey@gmail.com
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Abdinoor is a senior policy analyst and international relations scholar specializing in Global South geopolitics, Arab world affairs, and Pan-African international relations.