Anarchy Q & A  Randy poses a few interesting questions for me,
as does Rodrik in his last remarks. I’ll do my best to answer
them:  Q: Pete, do you think that if Somalia remains in its
stateless condition that it will emerge from poverty to
prosperity?  A: I think that the greatest sources of instability
and retrogression Somalia has experienced since going stateless
in 1991 are the few exogenously-created attempts, backed by the
international community, to reinstate government in the country.
The first of these was the “Transitional National Government.”
The second was the “Transitional Federal Government.” Despite
these interjections, internally, Somalia has proved a remarkably
stable anarchy, whereby the power of various groups that might
be interested in asserting their overarching control of the
country is checked by the power of competing groups. Instead of
this leading to conflict, it has mostly led to peace. When the
TNG, and later TFG, lodged itself in the picture, this power
equilibrium was disturbe