State Building, Security and Development: state building as a new development paradigm?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 H Marquette & Z Scott, 'Marrying statebuilding and aid policy: civil partnership or irreconcilable differences?', paper presented at the sgir seventh Pan-European International Relations Conference, Stockholm, 9–11 September 2010, p 7. 2 M Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001. 3 See UK Department for International Development (dfid), Building Peaceful States and Societies: A dfid Practice Paper, London: dfid, 2010; and oecd, Concepts and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile Situations: From Fragility to Resilience, Paris: oecd dac, 2008. 4 R Paris, 'Peacebuilding and the limits of liberal internationalism', International Security, 22(2), 1997, pp 54–89. 5 Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars. 6 Z Scott, 'Literature review on statebuilding', Governance & Social Development Resource Centre (gsdrc), University of Birmingham, 2007, p 4; and J Hippler, 'Violent conflicts, conflict prevention and nation-building: terminology and political concepts', in Hippler (ed), Nation-building: A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation?', London: Pluto Press, 2004. 7 S Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968. 8 A Leftwich, 'Politics in command: development studies and the rediscovery of social science', New Political Economy, 10(4), 2005, pp 573–607. 9 For a discussion of how thinking on state failure and state building has developed in international relations, see N Lemay-Hébert, 'Trying to make sense of the contemporary debate on state-building: the legitimacy and the institutional approaches on state, state collapse and state-building', paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association, Edinburgh, March 2010. 10 D Chandler, 'The security–development nexus and the rise of "anti-foreign policy"', Journal of International Relations and Development, 2007, 10(4), pp 362–386. 11 A recent cross-department paper, bringing together the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (fco), Ministry of Defence (mod) and dfid, similarly reflects commitment to a more holistic approach. See fco, mod & dfid, 'Building stability overseas strategy', London, 2011, http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/building_stability_overseas_strategy.pdf. 12 M Wesley, 'The state of the art on the art of statebuilding', Global Governance, 14(3), 2008, pp 369, 373. 13 As suggested by, among others, R Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa, London: Zed Books, 2001; D Chandler, 'The EU and Southeastern Europe: the rise of post-liberal governance', Third World Quarterly, 31(1), 2010, pp 69–85; E Newman, R Paris & O Richmond (eds), New Perspectives on the Liberal Peace, Tokyo: unu Press, 2009; R MacGinty & O Richmond, 'Myth or reality: opposing views on the liberal peace and post-war reconstruction', Global Society, 21(4), 2007, pp 491–497; G Harrison, The World Bank and Africa: The Construction of Governance States, London: Routledge, 2004; and R Paris, 'Peacebuilding and the limits of liberal internationalism'. 14 Scott, 'Literature review on statebuilding'; U Hopp & A Kloke-Lesche, 'External nation-building vs endogenous nation-forming: a development policy perspective', in Hippler, Nation-building. For a comprehensive summary of the development studies literature which has focused on state failure, and through this engaged in debates on statebuilding, see S Wolff, 'The regional dimensions of state failure', Review of International Studies, 37(3), 2011, pp 951–972. 15 A Leftwich, States of Development: On the Primacy of Politics in Development, Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. 16 The relationship between state building and development, in particular whether aspects of either are prerequisites for the other, of course depends very much on the perspective of the observer. This is an issue addressed throughout the articles, but by no means one which has been fully resolved. 17 Scott, 'Literature review on statebuilding', p 4. 18 Marquette & Scott, Marrying statebuilding and aid policy', pp 8–9. 19 As Marquette and Scott explain, 'The literature on statebuilding is also largely divided depending on alternative assumptions about the state. Several authors consider the concept of the nation-state to be the bedrock of the international system and therefore the entity of the state should be preserved at all costs. Others argue that states are often not worth preserving and the international community should let them dissolve so that new states can emerge that more accurately reflect pre-existing local "nations".' Ibid, p 9. 20 We are grateful to a reviewer for pointing out this possibility, and it is further addressed in the articles, eg Jackson and Beswick, in this issue. 21 S Mallaby, 'The reluctant imperialist: terrorism, failed states and the case for American empire', Foreign Affairs, 81(2), 2002, pp 2–7; and A Etzioni, 'A self-restrained approach to nation-building by foreign powers', International Affairs, 80(1), 2004, pp 1–17. 22 See R Paris, 'International peacebuilding and the "mission civilisatrice"', Review of International Studies, 28(4), 2002, pp 637–656. 23 Scott, 'Literature review on statebuilding', p 5. 24 For more on the Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action, see http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_3236398_35401554_1_1_1_1,00.html, accessed 25 July 2011. 25 Ibid. 26 Marquette & Scott, 'Marrying statebuilding and aid policy', pp 15–16. 27 opm/idl Group, Evaluation of the Implementation of the Paris Declaration: Thematic Study—The Applicability of the Paris Declaration in Fragile and Conflict-affected Situations, 2008, at http://www.theidlgroup.com/about/documents/ParisThematicStudy.pdf, accessed 25 July 2011. 28 A Cornwall & K Brock, 'What do buzzwords do for development policy? A critical look at "participation", "empowerment" and "poverty reduction"', Third World Quarterly, 26(7), 2005, p 1052. 29 A Whaites, States in Development: Understanding Statebuilding, Department for International Development Working Paper, 2008, at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications/State-in-Development-Wkg-Paper.pdf, accessed 25 July 2011. 30 On the concept of multiple authorities in relation to African states, see C Lund, 'Twilight institutions: public authority and local politics in Africa', Development and Change, 37(4), 2006, pp 685–705. 31 Harrison, The World Bank and Africa. 32 J Goodhand & M Sedra, 'Bribes or bargains? Peace conditionalities and "post-conflict" reconstruction in Afghanistan', International Peacekeeping, 2007, 14(1), pp 41–61. 33 'Political settlements' is mainly a donor-preferred term for what many others would consider to be, broadly, a social contract. See Di John and Putzel's insightful paper on political settlements for more information. J Di John & J Putzel, Political Settlements Issues Paper, Birmingham: Governance & Social Development Resource Centre, University of Birmingham, June 2009. They explain that, 'political settlements are defined by dfid as "the forging of a common understanding, usually between political elites, that their best interests or beliefs are served through acquiescence to a framework for administering political power". An inclusive political settlement is one where the relations between the state and society, "the social contract", are robust and legitimate' (p 4). 34 N Lemay-Hébert, 'Statebuilding without nation-building? Legitimacy, state failure and the limits of the institutionalist approach', Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 3(1), 2009, pp 21–45. 35 D Collier & S Levitsky 'Democracy with adjectives: conceptual innovation in comparative research', World Politics, 49(3), 1997, pp 430–451. 36 See dfid, Building Peaceful States and Societies; and fco et al, 'Building stability overseas strategy', pp 11–14. 37 C Aoi, C de Coning & R Thakur (eds), Unintended Consequences of Peacekeeping Operations, New York: unu Press, 2007. 38 This may be the result of donor incentives and structures as well, and of what fits in a log frame and is 'measurable'. As Ferguson wrote, 'To "move the money" they have been charged with spending, "development" agencies prefer to opt for standardised "development" packages'. J Ferguson with L Lohmann, 'The anti-politics machine: "development" and bureaucratic power in Lesotho', The Ecologist, 24(5), 1994, p 176. Although Ferguson wrote this almost 20 years ago, little has changed in terms of the imperative for donor agencies to 'move the money'. 39 Arguably this long-term investment and commitment has been driven more by geographical proximity (in the case of EU investment in the Balkans) or long-standing and quite personalised political relationships (UK in Sierra Leone). On the latter, see Jackson in this issue and for a critical perspective on EU–Balkans relations, see D Chandler, 'European Union statebuilding: securing the liberal peace through EU enlargement', Global Society, 2007, 21(4), pp 593–607. 40 MS Grindle, 'Good enough governance: poverty reduction and reform in developing countries', Governance, 17(4), 2004, pp 525–548. 41 We are not suggesting here that state building which reflects 'citizen preferences' is easily articulated or unproblematic. Different groups and constituencies of citizens will have different aims and agendas, and a citizen-led state building would not necessarily be compatible with other goals of the donors, particularly long-term peace and stability.