Networks of Influence Among Djiboutian Government Officials

Networks of Influence Among Djiboutian Government Officials

Kaitlyn Neuberger

(Not Taking the Second Part of the Course)

Background

Although small, the coastal country of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa has a disproportionate level of geostrategic importance in today’s international system. Located just across the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait from Yemen, the country has close relations with the Gulf States and is currently deeply involved with the Yemeni refugee crisis that has grown out of the Yemeni civil war. Additionally, Djibouti serves as a humanitarian relief hub for many international aid agencies responding to the Yemen crisis. Djibouti is also the sole source of sea access for the large, landlocked country of Ethiopia, which relies heavily on Djiboutian ports for commerce. The Chinese have taken a vested interest in Djibouti as well, building several large infrastructure projects and beginning negotiations for the construction of a military base. The United States is also deeply invested in Djibouti, which hosts Camp Lemonnier, the only U.S. base in Africa, which is home to 4000 American service members.

This highly important country has been governed by President Ismail Omar Guelleh since 1999. As President Guelleh approaches his term limit, many in the international community are left to wonder who will take over leadership in this strategic location and how the new leader’s views will impact policy choices. With no clear successor, SNA could provide a valuable analysis of the current players in the Djiboutian government and perhaps serve as a predictor of who the likely frontrunners are for Djibouti’s next president.

Research Questions

•        Which Djiboutian government officials are most likely to be considered as successors for President Guelleh?
•        What are the profiles of these actors and what does their clan affiliation tell us about the government they would form?
•        What foreign governments have the most influence on these key actors?

Hypothesis

·      The successor for President Guelleh is likely already within the government system, since a single political party dominates Djiboutian politics.

·      Given the importance of clan dynamics in Djibouti, the prospective successor is likely Issa Mamasan.

·      The prospective successor will likely be better connected with the Gulf States and China than the “old guard” politicians who are better connected with Western Europe, particularly France and Belgium.

Methodology

Data

Securing the necessary data for this study will be challenging because so many of the connections between government officials and between government officials and foreign countries are undocumented or informal. Collecting this data will begin by building a data set around existing data from the U.S. Embassy in Djibouti, which describes the clan of each key government actor and their familial ties, which are extensive in Djibouti. After that open source research will be conducted on each official to see if any additional information is available regarding his international schooling or business ventures. Finally a survey will be constructed to collect all missing data. This survey will be sent to local contacts who can fill out some of the information based on their knowledge of the country and the key politicians. The survey will also be sent to the government officials themselves, although the response rate from the officials will likely be low.

Network Measures

For this SNA the most important network measures will likely be Eigenvector and in degree connections of different government officials. By considering how well-connected different officials are to each other, a clear leader may emerge as the best connected and most trusted member of the current administration who would have the potential to serve as a leader in the future. In considering the connection between government officials and foreign countries, tie strength and out degree connections will be the most important as a way to assess whether the most prominent leaders have connections with only one foreign nation or many and what the depth of these connections are. Additionally, by looking for cliques with in the government, particularly centered around key actors, we may be able to extrapolate as to who would fill out the other key positions in the government once President Guelleh’s successor is selected. We will likely see clear factional divisions between clans, but it will also be interesting to look for actors who serve as bridges between these clan factions.

Conclusion

This question is of particular interest to the U.S. State Department and other international actors at work in Djibouti given the highly centralized nature of the Djiboutian government. SNA will be helpful for answering these questions because it will provide a tool for successfully mapping the complex relationships between actors and will allow us to assess who is truly the most powerful prospective presidential successor based on measures of connectedness. Additionally, the connectedness of these actors to international actors is difficult to quantify and SNA will allow for a clearer understanding of what foreign nations have the most influence on Djibouti currently. These relationships are complex enough that the visualizations provided by SNA will be a significant improvement in how this issue can be understood and how any analysis of who the prospective successors for President Guelleh might be could be communicated to policymakers.