State-building
State-building as a specific term in social sciences and humanities, refers to political and historical processes of creation, institutional consolidation, stabilization and sustainable development of states, from the earliest emergence of statehood up to the modern times.
Within historical and political sciences, there are several theoretical approaches to complex questions related to the role of various contributing factors (geopolitical, economic, social, cultural, ethnic, religious, internal, external) in state-building processes.
Consequently, when state-building as an approach to peacebuilding is employed in conflict and post-conflict societies, the first priority is to create a safe environment in order to make wider political and economic development possible.
So far, the results of using the state-building approach to peacebuilding have been mixed, and in many places, such as in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, the initial high expectations set by the international community have not been met.
[1] A second approach conceptualizes state-building as an activity undertaken by external actors (foreign countries) attempting to build, or re-build, the institutions of a weaker, post-conflict or failing state.
Before the consolidation of European states, kings relied on their lords’ troops to emerge victorious from war, setting the final boundaries of their territories after years of campaigns.
[9] In their paper,[10] Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast offer an alternative framework - limited access orders - for understanding the predatory role of the state.
In political science 'nation-building' usually has a quite distinct meaning, defined as the process of encouraging a sense of national identity within a given group of people, a definition that relates more to socialisation than state capacity (see the ODI, OECD, and DFID reports cited above).
The conflation of these two concepts has been highly controversial and has been used by opposing ideological and political forces to attempt to justify or reject as an illegal military occupation the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
There have been some examples of military interventions by international or multilateral actors with a focus on building state capacity, including Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), East Timor, and Sierra Leone.
However, Jeremy M. Weinstein proposes autonomous recovery exists as a process that offers "lasting peace, a systematic reduction in violence, and post-war political and economic development in the absence of international intervention.
[17] State-building does not automatically guarantee peace-building, a term denoting actions that identify and support structures that strengthen and solidify peace in order to prevent a relapse into conflict.
[18] Whilst they have traditionally been considered two individual concepts with a complex relationship giving rise to dilemmas and necessitating trade-offs, as Grävingholt, Gänzle and Ziaja argue, the two actually representative two diverging perspectives on the same issue: a shaky social peace and a breakdown of political order.
Introducing state-building to mandates is controversial not only because this would entail extra costs and commitments but also because 'the expansion of peacekeeping into these areas has de facto extended the authority of the Security Council, with political, financial, institutional, and bureaucratic implications that have yet to be fully addressed'.
[24] The strength of the consensus that has emerged stressing that 'a minimally functioning state is essential to maintain peace',[24] ignores the complications that poor legitimacy and inclusion can lead to in the future, undermining the whole process.
For instance, while the Guatemala Peace Accords were considered successful, 'the formal substance of these agreements has not altered power structures that have been in place for decades (if not centuries) in any substantial manner.
In both democratic and authoritarian contexts, education seeks to promote social order and political stability by teaching citizens to respect the state’s authority from a young age.
[44] In response to the unsuccessful attempts to strengthen government administrations, developing countries began to adopt market-oriented managerial reforms under the pressure of the IMF and the World Bank.
[46] Economically successful states in East Asia have taken on programs to create infrastructure, subsidize the farming sector, provide credit, support spending on targeted research, and invest in health and education.
Furthermore, even when countries have tried to pursue authoritarian strategies that have worked, specifically Brazil, a divided military, regional oligarchs in power, and vast disparities in inequality delegitimized the regime.
Latin America experienced a period of rapid economic growth and political stability in the late-19th century, following independence and subsequent decades of decline caused by violence, reduced state capacity, and fiscal fragmentation.
[48] In the 21st century it became economically and politically difficult for Latin American countries to increase revenues, which led states to turn to debt for the necessary resources to pay for war.
[9][need quotation to verify] Tilly's theory that external threats strengthen the state's capacity to extract taxes from its citizens can apply to developing countries in Africa.
Drawing on Charles Tilly's theory of European state formation, a number of scholars have suggested that in focusing on internal rivalries, rather than challenging colonial borders, rulers were "less likely to see their economies as a resource to be nurtured than as an object of periodic plunder—the analogy to Olson's (1993) roving bandits should be clear" (Thies, 2004: 58).
In the absence of external threats, rulers thus had no impetus to replicate the patterns described by Tilly — war-making, coercion and resource extraction — that had proven crucial to the process of centralization of power in the states of Europe.
Academics have built models of the political economy in post-conflict African societies to understand the trade-off between the capability, delivery, and stability of public-service administration, and policies that result in weak civil service rooted in the nations' legacies of conflict.
[7][need quotation to verify] A number of scholars have criticized this claim for its "excessively Darwinian", overly deterministic and Euro-centric understanding of the process of state-formation (Thies, 2004: 69, see also Joseph, 1997).
Examples include: Despite the break-down of the Oslo process of 1993-2000 and the ongoing construction of Israeli settlements (1967 to present), the Palestinian National Authority continues to engage in state-building activities in its territories and has referred to the "State of Palestine" in official documents since 2013.
[55] Besides the lack of consistent outside support, the report identified key challenges to Palestinian state-building at the international level, including the lack of horizon on "final status" negotiations, failed peace negotiations, the tightening of the occupation, and the weak economic base, in addition to profound challenges at the domestic level, including: A number of scholars have questioned whether the Palestinian Authority was ever in a position to build a viable state.
Based on kernels of tribalism, fundamentalist religious ideology (Wahhabist Islam) and monarchical dynastic control,[57] Saudi Arabia formed as a 20th-century state with the support of tax revenues and military development.
