Research areas

Finn Stepputat studies state-formation, sovereignty, and citizenship in areas of armed conflict and/or limited presence of the state. He asks how international crisis-intervention, local conflict dynamics, and political economy influence state building and public authority?

Current research

Finn Stepputat is currently investigating the interplay between state-building and trade & logistics in the Somali parts of East Africa. Here, ports and corridors are being developed in a field of tension between local and centralizing interests, global logistical networks, and regional powers, including Middle Eastern states, China, and Ethiopia.

Finn is furthermore working on the collection of experience with how states and other authorities have reacted to situations where high numbers of dead bodies have outstripped the capacity of designated institutions during the Covid19 pandemic. This feeds into research on the history and current development of the state in post-colonial areas.

Projects

1. Port Polities, a three-year research project that compares Somaliland and Djibouti as two port-dependent polities that are influenced by different regional powers.

2. ‘Trade makes state’, is a book-project based on the research-program ‘Governing Economic Hubs and Flows in Somali East Africa’ (GOVSEA, 2014-19)

3. ’ Burial and the politics of dead bodies in pandemic times’ is a special issue under preparation for an international journal.