Chapter 2
Norms, ideals and Modern statebuilding
The rise and fall of states is nothing new. Further, as Clapham notes, ‘states have historically derived from various specific and by no means universally realized conditions, and the global political system has until recent times comprised areas under the control of states, areas regulated by other forms of governance, and areas with no stable government at all’.[33] From the time of Westphalia and European absolutism, states have come and gone in the historical processes of state formation, failure and collapse.[34] The modern Western state has taken centuries to reach what is exhibited today, with a Darwinistic survival of the fittest approach contributing to the evolution of the membership of the international community of states: the modern Western state is the product of a lengthy process rather than a unitary declaration or act. however, following decolonization the bestowing of sovereignty and therefore statehood upon the former colonial territories, the majority of which are located in Africa, thrust these new non-Western states into the international system as fully sovereign states on par with those states that have existed for centuries. Herbst notes the obvious in recognizing that state formation and consolidation in post-Westphalian Europe differs greatly from that in independent Africa,[35] as within the latter the creation of independent states was superseded by decolonization and the granting of blanket sovereignty. As a result, what took place within the majority of former colonial territories was state ‘bestowing’ that took for granted the existence of state structures and practices. All of this together makes obvious one of the most fundamental yet most erroneous normative assumptions of policy and research surrounding state formation and failure: that all states will reflect or even follow the ‘European path’. The blanket sovereignty granted by the international community – through the Un – following decolonization bestowed juridical sovereignty upon the new states regardless of the existence, or lack thereof, of what are widely identified as ‘functioning’ or ‘acceptable’ state structures and practices. As Jackson states, ‘[t]o be a sovereign state today one needs only to have been a formal colony yesterday. All other considerations are irrelevant’.[36] However, this is not taken into account when these states are judged.
Whilst empirical statehood was not an explicit concern in the granting of statehood following decolonization, the opposite is apparent today. Current development policy centers on good governance, or what it means to be a legitimate, competent and accountable state, as vital to development and growth. Value-laden terminology often used in discussions on good governance, such as ‘sound’, ‘unaccountable’, ‘acceptable’, ‘legitimate’ and ‘competent’ denote not only an act of assessment, but also a sense of superiority and judgment – in this case in reference to the developed world towards the developing. These assessments and judgements are apparent nowhere more strongly than in literature and policy regarding what have been termed ‘failed’ states and how to ‘fix’ them. Assessing of the effectiveness of states, specifically those within the ‘developing world’, and the degree of ‘goodness’ in the governance of those states evidences the dominance of what Jackson distinguishes as empirical statehood in modern conceptions of what it means to be a state.[37] this is not only a sharp departure from the Westphalian statehood applied to the early European states, but also from what was required for statehood in the immediate post-colonial era.
Much of the current development focus of the international community, particularly those areas concerned with states perceived to be fragile or on the brink of failure, is closing the gap between juridical and empirical statehood by focusing on the functions and the provisions of the state apparatus and institutions. The empirical basis on which these assessments are made are rooted in the liberal state, informed primarily by Western-derived normative conceptions of statehood, government structure and government action. It is this basis of assessment that informs not only what a state is, but what a state should be, and it is this that underpins and guides much of current development and security policies and practices, including that of statebuilding.
Failed States, Successful States
The assessment of state performance reached a pinnacle with the attention on failed states. With the post-cold War focus shifting to the humanitarian or governance state, the criteria through which to assess state performance also altered. Whilst control of territory and therefore physical security remain of high importance in the assessment of state performance, these new governance-centric benchmarks for statehood are clearly evidenced in literature concerning failed states.
Semantically, the term ‘failed state’ is relatively new, although the concept of state failure is not. As Bøås and Jennings ascertain:
[A]lthough the rhetorical and policy adoption of ‘failed states’ is quite recent, intellectually speaking the concept has been around for a long time. Indeed, ‘failing’ or ‘failed’ are simply the most recent in a long list of modifiers that have been used to describe or attempt to explain why states residing outside of the geographical core of Western Europe and North America do not function as ‘we’ think they are supposed to.[38]
They continue in identifying previously used terms within scholarship, including ‘neopatrimonial’, ‘lame’, ‘weak’, ‘quasi’, and ‘premodern’.[39] Morton and Bilgin share this view, arguing that the failed state is nothing more than the latest representation of the problematic ‘post-colonial’ state.[40] Whereas the term ‘failed state’ was made popular by Madeleine Albright during her tenure as United states ambassador to the United nations,[41] after 11 September 2001 it became the dominant term associated with states in which there has been an ‘implosion of government’[42] and where the absence of central authority creates a vacuum of sovereignty. Indeed, a commonly used definition identifies failed states as those in which ‘the central government ceased to function and [is] unable to provide for the well-being of its population or protect it from internal or external threats’.[43] A failed state is unsuccessful at maintaining the most basic Weberian norms of statehood as well as in the areas of social provision and human security.[44] the Fund for Peace in its Failed states index also considers economic conditions in its consideration of state failure, and the State Failure Task Force adds to these factors such as environmental protection and ‘democracy level’ as variables in its statistical determination of a failed state.[45]
Although ‘failed state’ is a popularly used term within academia and policy, definitional ambiguity exists surrounding what the phenomena actually is. Definitions range from simply etat sans gouvernement, or ‘state without government’, to a state that is ‘tense, deeply conflicted, dangerous, and contested bitterly by warring factions’, characterized by criminal violence, poverty, corruption, flawed institutions and deteriorating or destroyed infrastructures.[46] Some usages of the term even include those states that are ‘aggressive, arbitrary, tyrannical or totalitarian’ in governing or those that are undergoing revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, mass killings and adverse or disruptive regime change.[47] Within these offerings a wide definitional expanse becomes clear, with everything from complete lack of government to poor governance to violent state actions falling into the broad conception of state failure. Exactly what constitutes state failure, how to assess failure, who assesses failure and whether or not there is an identified threshold that if crossed indicates failure remains uncertain. The exact meaning of the failure of a state is left open to interpretation and assessment, with the control against which a state is assessed being unspecified beyond vague criteria such as citizens’ needs and desires and legitimate government. What is clear, though, is that within the wide definitional scope there is one commonality: states that dramatically fail to meet the expectations of modern acceptable statehood.
Brinkerhoff exemplifies this in saying that state failure is a,
breakdown of law and order where state institutions lose their monopoly on the legitimate use of force and are unable to protect their citizens, or those institutions are used to oppress and terrorize citizens; (b) weak or disintegrated capacity to respond to citizens’ needs and desires, provide basic public services, assure citizens’ welfare or support normal economic activity; (c) at the international level, lack of a credible entity that represents the state beyond its borders.[48]
It is within the work surrounding what state failure is perceived to be that the criteria of state success, and therefore acceptableness, can be drawn out.
What is consistent throughout the literature, however, is the prevalence of assessment and judgement based on conceptions of Western democratic statehood and the model or ideal state portrayed through normative assumptions. These value laden comparisons of success and dysfunction, particularly those that compose state performance taxonomies,[49] paint a picture of superior versus inferior state forms, organizations and actions. The term – the classification, even – brings with it the semantically valued implication that ‘[a] failed state[s] is a polity that is no longer able or willing to perform the fundamental tasks of a nation-state in the modern world’, [50] ‘a ghostly presence on the world map’ that is ‘utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community’: they are the ‘threat of ungoverned space’.[51] These states which are, according to Rotberg, ‘black holes’ where a ‘dark energy’ exists and where ‘the forces of entropy have overwhelmed the radiance that hitherto provided some semblance of order’, are antithetic to secure liberal democratic states.[52] Whereas this language may appear to be overdramatic, the sense of pessimism and even despair portrayed is typical of the posture found throughout literature on failed states. Yannis less colorfully states that there are ‘minimum standards of governance that reflect a universal consensus about the minimum requirements of effective and responsible government’,[53] and that failed states are those that do not meet them. Although Yannis does not specify what these minimum requirements are, it is clear throughout the rest of his work, and indeed throughout most of the work on state failure, that they are based on liberal expectations of good governance.
The emphasis on the ideals of successful statehood highlights an important distinction that is prevalent throughout current state failure literature: that of societal responsibility. Yannis, amongst others, makes clear there is an idealized point or standard of statehood at which to aspire that goes beyond the existence of a central government; a standard which incorporates Rotberg’s political or public goods. it is here that the normative assumptions of what a state is expected to be become clearer: a central democratic government is expected to protect the territory and the people as well as provide certain goods and services, including ‘[w]hat are considered in the West to be norms of civilized state behavior – including those pertaining to human rights of individuals and groups’.[54] States that do not achieve this, therefore, have failed the standards of statehood, a departure from the more innocuous and literal etat sans gouvernement conception of the failed state. These standards of governance are echoed by Jackson, who claims failed states are those states that ‘cannot or will not safeguard minimal civil conditions for their populations: domestic peace, law and order, and good governance’.[55] The implication of failure to society as an aspect of state failure not only displays the value placed on societal responsibilities of states to their populations, but also links the existence of an effective central government to societal stability.
As Gourevitch critically observes, by viewing state failure as domestic anarchy, analysts and policymakers ‘do not have to understand the local dynamics driving the crisis … Instead they can simply treat it as chaos’.[56] implicit in this analysis is that by identifying state failure in Western terms – that is, applying the assessment of failure, chaos or anarchy to situations that do not comply with norms of statehood – the self-image of the ideal Western state is reinforced and intervention to ‘fix’ or ‘remake’ the chaotic state is justified. Forms of political organization that do not mimic or comply with the familiar Western state or the picture of an ideal modern state are often present in states identified as failed. As a result, non-Western forms of political organization and practice are often overlooked as legitimate forms of state organization and are therefore excluded from acceptable solutions and conceptions of success. Within this is the underlying assumption that the key to a successful state, and the key to preventing state failure, is to create a modern democratic state that is familiar and understandable to the West.
One of the key criticisms of the ideal state is that there is no uniform model in practice. The Western liberal state is hailed as the solution to weak or problematic states, yet there is a significant degree of disparity between the political organizations of Western states, particularly those within Europe. Reviewing statebuilding projects a decade on from Haiti and Bosnia, a report from The International Peace Academy concludes that there was still a tendency towards a ‘one size fits all’ approach to political reform that missed the variety in models of democracy. the report noted that whilst ‘mature and advanced democracies’ possessed a shared commitment to the values of liberal democracy and market economics, ‘there is no uniformity of pattern in the structures, institutions and processes’.[57] This, as well as lack of recognition of variance in proposed solutions, is a significant gap. Despite the lack of a singular practical model of this ideal state, there is also an inability amongst its proponents to see benefits outside this framework. As a result, non-Western or non-liberal forms of political or state organization that may challenge the uniform applicability of the ideal state are often overlooked or rejected. This is not to say that in all instances the idea of the state is dead or being abandoned,[58] but rather that not all states and societies exhibit, or benefit, from the uniformity espoused by the ideal state. This does not mean that those states need to be fixed. In some cases, such as Somalia or Iraq, applying a standardized prescription for success through uniformity has been unduly negative and has resulted in chaos. The lack of a central government or the presence of a non-Western or weak government does not automatically mean there is an absence of control or provision, and a weak or absent government does not doom the state to the Hobbesian anarchy as parallel, shadow or social institutions may fill the empirical gaps. Success in a non-Western form of state or political organization does not mean an abandonment of the state design altogether, but rather an alternative to the political and state organization enshrined by the ideal state.
Much of the current literature and practice, however, fixates on the supposed anarchy created by the absence of the familiar liberal democratic state, and as such, success or failure is judged primarily on what Western components are missing in non-Western states. As a result, non-Western or non-liberal forms of political or state organization or even ‘deviant’ institutions and practices that may challenge the uniform applicability of the idealized liberal democratic state are often overlooked or rejected. This does not mean that states exhibiting these mechanisms of governance need to be fixed. Rather, it indicates that not all states and societies exhibit, or indeed may benefit from, the liberal democratic model of statehood. In some cases, such as Somalia, applying a standardized prescription for success through uniformity has been unduly negative and has resulted in chaos. in others, the firmly held liberal perspective failed to account for or accommodate the socio-political realities on the ground; for example, the role of an individual like Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in shaping political debate in Iraq does not fit within the liberal understanding or framework of the state. Whilst there is much focus on the value assessment of state success based on the comparison of these states to Western democracies, what is not recognized is the value of alternative forms of political organization or control and thus alternative sources of public goods, state control and security. The exclusion of ‘non-Western’ sources of political power poses significant questions for statebuilding. As will be discussed in the context of Somaliland, the placement or role of an ‘unfamiliar’ political actor can be a vital component for legitimizing the state and stabilizing the statebuilding process.
Taught and Learned Statehood
In this focus on the familiar, the liberal democratic state becomes as the path to state success, creating a system of promulgation of this style of state through policy and practice. Robinson, in his book The Theory of Global Capitalism, argues that an emerging transnational capitalist class is establishing the framework for a ‘transnationalist state’, or a state that conforms to values of statehood dependent on economic capability and production which in turn will favor capitalist production. He states that the transnational capitalist class,
in part by virtue of its position as an ‘organized minority’ and the resources and networks at its disposal for coordination, works through identifiable institutions and is fairly coherent as a collective actor … [this ensures] the reproduction of global capitalist relations of production, as well as the creation of and reproduction of political and cultural institutions favorable to its rule.[59]
Robinson’s argument is very obviously premised and dependent on the understanding of inter-state relations in the context of capitalist reproduction. however, the recognition of a self-reproducing system ensuring conditions favorable to its continuation raises interesting questions and similarities in regard to the role of the Western-dominated international system in the shaping or restructuring of states. if the Marxist undertones from Robinson’s thesis are removed, what is left is a powerful group of states – albeit a minority – creating and working, sometimes through international institutions, to reproduce normative values of statehood that favor those dominant states, as well as acceptable and familiar structures of governance and government. in other words, and taking the application of Robinson further out of the Marxist context, there is a dominant group of states that, through the international system and international institutions, creates a normative framework of acceptable statehood through which values reflecting the desires, interests and demands of those powerful actors are disseminated, enacted and reproduced. As such, this system is promoting the creation of states that reflect the acceptable normative standards of statehood, accomplished through the reproduction of known governance structures. With the dominance of the liberal state, its Western origins and the association this has with security in mind, it can be argued that the self-reproducing system aims to create a style and function of state that is not only seen to be proven, but importantly one that is user-friendly to the dominant Western states.[60] In this regard, familiar and known structures and functions are deemed not only safe and secure, but also controllable.
Robinson is not alone in identifying the existence and dominance of these global institutions and structures. Although not underpinned by the same Marxist assumptions, Finnemore similarly asserts that international institutions and normative values ‘may make uniform behavioral claims upon dissimilar actors. They may shape and define the preferences of actors in ways not related to internal conditions, characteristics, or functional need’.[61] The uniform outcome of the impact of these normative values – the ‘one size fits all’ approach – ensures the reproduction of those values. What is important to note within Finnemore’s work, however, are the relationships between these international institutions, normative values and the state. Whilst Finnemore places emphasis on the role of norms and institutions, she does not divorce them from the state. Rather, states are symbiotically enmeshed in this web of relationships:
[s]tates are embedded in dense networks of transnational and international social relations that shape their perceptions of the world and their role in that world. States are socialized to want certain things by the international society in which they and the people in them live.[62]
Whilst all states may be embedded in these networks, their role in the establishment of them varies. Within the works of both Finnemore and Robinson, as well as other scholars writing on norms and institutions, one cannot completely overlook the role of dominant states in the international system as the powerful actors in determining the shape and outlook of the institutional and normative frameworks. Those states with the economic, cultural, political and military power will be the decisive factor in the composition of the normative system and the actions of the institutions. As a result of this, it is difficult to separate international institutions, including non-tangible institutions, and the norms surrounding them from those dominant states that govern them. Whereas these institutions may be the agents of change through policies and practices, the role of dominant Western states in the formation and function of these institutions cannot be completely discounted. And although Finnemore highlights the socialization of individual states through these networks and structures, the impact of this system of socialization on individual political actors within a state must also be recognized. As will be seen, the socialization of individuals as a method of embedding developing states in these dense networks and normative systems is an important component of certain development and statebuilding policies, both externally and internally driven.
Whilst Finnemore stops short of exactly specifying the role of the state in the creation of the normative frameworks guiding policy, what is interesting about her assessment is the differentiation between ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’. It is within this that the implied role of the state becomes clearer. Finnemore argues that the predominant way of interpreting normative values of statehood and the policies that go with them is to understand that functioning as a state reflective of those values is something that can either be taught or learned. There is a systemic impetus for the proliferation and reproduction of normative values, and international institutions are the primary teachers of statehood within this system.[63] Roughly analogous with the structure of learning and homework assignments a student receives in school, an example of this would be structural adjustment programs (SAPs), where the normative values relating to economic liberalization are taught to recipient states through conditionality agreements. Learning, on the other hand, has its origin within the state and is therefore domestically driven.[64] In other words, a state can be self-taught in that it can learn from, and then conform to, systematic normative preferences by voluntarily adapting actions, interests and policies to bring them in line with perceived systemic preferences. The difficult area Finnemore does not venture into, however, is a combination of the two: states which are concurrently instructed and learning the normative model of acceptable or ideal statehood. This is perhaps because a combination of the two is difficult to conceptualize in the context of a domineering and systemic normative framework. It also begs the question of whether learning is indicative of complicity, of manipulation or of both. a combination of being taught and independently learning would point to the rare existence of an enthusiastic state overeager to comply with the demands of the international system; returning to the student analogy of the state it is one that does its homework plus asks for extra reading. Just as it is difficult for many teachers to imagine many of their students eager to seek out extra work, in dominant understandings of the international system and of states it is difficult to envision a state willing to relinquish, at least to some extent, autonomy and identity necessary to drastically alter itself in such a way. Indeed, even within understandings of SAPS and conditional aid it is widely accepted that these changes are coercive rather than fully voluntary; states are left with little choice but to comply or suffer. However, this combination of the two is not as rare an occurrence as it may appear. Certainly there are states that have beneficially complied with reform projects and others who have sought them out. More obvious, though, is the combination of teaching and learning taking place within those territories undergoing domestically-led statebuilding projects; a category of political entities that will be returned to further in this chapter.
The existence of a normative value system surrounding statehood, as well as both the notions of teaching these values and voluntarily learning and adopting them, stresses the existence of an ideal type of state and preferred state functions and actions. although not expressly stated or referred to as an ‘ideal’, a clear conception of a model state preferred by powerful states and international institutions, based on ideas of democracy and security, can be extricated from literature and policy surrounding weak, fragile, failing or failed states. The important question arising from the teaching-learning nexus, though, is how is this model of statehood proliferated?
Building Ideal States?
The teacher-student association highlighted by Finnemore is evident in contemporary literature and theory concerning failed states as well as that aimed at fixing these failures; the successful states guiding the unsuccessful, or the model state serving as an example. While there has long been an impulse of trusteeship within development policy,[65] this push for teaching statehood is different: in most cases there is less intense direct involvement and action is better understood as socializing rather than occupying. Duffield identifies the dominant liberal framework and action as ‘a radical development agenda of social transformation’ with the aim to ‘transform the dysfunctional and war-affected societies it encounters on its borders into cooperative, representative and, especially, stable entities’.[66] However, the same connotations of distrust of the unfamiliar and superiority over other forms of governance that are associated with trusteeship continue, and the socialization can be intrusive or coercive. Whether through direct action or normative ‘teaching’, the aim is creating a form of government that covers all the bases or attempts to eliminate risks; to create a government that is functional and a state that is successful. However, the approach taken is creating a government that is from the outset concerned with everything needed to support society rather than going through the slow process of evolving into the successful acceptable state. The element of trusteeship or teacher-student relationship, therefore, is an expedited way to skip ahead to what a state should provide. In more extreme cases, this involves a much more intensive approach that has come to be known as statebuilding.
Since their inception, international institutions have assisted with development programs, aimed at bringing those states seen to be lagging behind into the fold of being a successful member of the international community. even before international institutions, individual actors acted in this way; much of the early colonialism was not only financially motivated, but was also aimed at civilizing those who were seen as backwards or inferior to the European way of living and governing. With the advent of international institutions, much of the development focus was economic, as reforming and modernizing economic systems through the empowering of complicit technocratic elites within the state was seen as the optimal way to spark and maintain developmental success whilst simultaneously allowing for an outwardly apolitical stance by the institutions. In the 1990s, however, policy prerogatives shifted to include an emphasis on the more political governance reform and the promotion of good governance within conditional assistance agreements. In the 1990s, the concept of good governance became associated with development. As already highlighted, this also became associated with security.
The perceived relationship between good governance and security and the role of the international community in maintaining this relationship was clearly articulated in Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s 1992 An Agenda for Peace and the immediate policy-made-practice in Somalia. As early as 1973 the World Bank was already including mention of governance in its reports on projects within countries, but it was not until 1992 that the institution gave a clear indication of expectations for establishing mechanisms for good governance as a condition of continued assistance.[67] Still, within this more economy-oriented aspect of development, good governance continued to exist primarily within the realm of economic development. Within Boutros-Ghali’s work, however, a link was made between governance and socio-political development, with the expectation that good governance would lead to stability and therefore security of the state and, by extension, the system. In both areas, good governance is viewed as exercising of power in a manner conducive to maximizing development and advancement opportunities: governance reflective of that found in the model of the modern state. As Harrison notes, for the World Bank expectations of good governance continued the theme of economic restructuring in that governance reform was the ‘promotion of a more efficient public administration, the promotion of accountability, the establishment of the rule of law and a capable judiciary, and transparency’.[68] For Boutros-Ghali and the changing post-cold War involvement of the UN, however, reform was also aimed at establishing governance that would ensure territorial and human security, and that meant extending beyond the realm of economics and finance.
With the establishment of UNOSOM ii in Somalia, Boutros-Ghali’s ideas were quickly put to the test. Attempts to establish good governance in Somalia, though, required further action than simply reform as the formal political system had collapsed and the power vacuum it created was fueling further conflict. UN Security Council Resolution 814 (1993) clearly stated the need for not only the maintenance of law and order to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, but also the ‘re-establishment of local and regional administrative institutions as essential to the restoration of domestic tranquility’ and the need to set up a transitional government ‘leading to the establishment of representative democratic institutions’.[69] Resolution 814 continues in establishing the mandate for the UN to assist in political reconciliation and the re-establishment of institutions and administration. Resolution 814 is not only a clear link between humanitarian concerns, political concerns and security concerns, but it is also the explicit establishment of the practice of statebuilding. Resolution 814 brought the ideas of post-conflict peacebuilding through the re-establishment of institutions of acceptable government from the realm of ideas into the reality of practice.[70]Statebuilding is often discussed under the guise of peacebuilding. When viewed in the context of post-conflict environments, statebuilding is about delivering ‘authoritative, legitimate and capable’ governance through the establishment of liberal institutions and practices that ‘can provide for security and the necessary rule-of-law conditions for economic and social development’ and a means through which further conflict can be prevented.[71] the assumption here, of course, is that poor or abusive governance is a driver of conflict, and that by providing a means through which the voice of the citizens can be heard and political and social goods provided in an effective manner is a way to ‘manag[e] social conflicts away from the battlefield and streets and into regularized processes of non-violent resolution’.[72] In states where institutions of authority have been destroyed or disrupted, such as post-conflict states emerging from a period of civil war, re-establishing institutions and ensuring good governance is a way to create a mediating outlet and process for further discontent. The development and security nexus heavily underpins this approach to peacebuilding: while negotiating peace agreements and reconciling at the societal level is important, ‘ultimately the extent of peace consolidation is based on the building of a state that is socially accepted as a legitimate, accountable arbiter of social differences and a provider of critical public goods’.[73] Longer term strengthening of institutions and practice through continued support serves to strengthen the state, creating security and stability not only for the population but also for the international system. In post-conflict countries, ‘statebuilding is the telos (or end goal) of consolidating peace’.[74]
Statebuilding as a security mechanism is not limited to the post-conflict realm, though. With identified risk emanating from weak, failing, fragile or failed states, statebuilding is also seen as a prevention mechanism to keep war from breaking out or to curb the dangers of failure, such as terrorism, humanitarian crises, refugee flows or cross-border conflict, through the strengthening of institutions and liberal democratic practices. Ghani and Lockhart maintain that forty to sixty fragile states contain the roots of many global crises, with ‘prolonged conflict or misrule, networks of criminality, violence and terror … providing an ever expanding platform that threatens the entire globe’. They offer a technocratic guide to rebuilding failed states, identifying this policy action as a form of risk management.[75] Rotberg, in his focus on the dangers of state failure, argues that policies towards fragile and failed states must address institutional weaknesses, economic underdevelopment and democratization through the fostering of elections. both the UK and Us government, amongst other Western states, place ‘fragile’ and ‘conflict prone’ states into the same category within security policy, identifying development within these states as a priority in the area of conflict prevention.[76] Tellingly, the UK government strategies and policy documents are produced not only by the Ministry of defense, but also by the department for international development.[77] the now infamous 2002 United states national Security Strategy firmly established state failure and state weakness as a security concern, and subsequent organizational and institutional policies identify key tasks necessary for the establishment of good governance for the purposes of strengthening and stabilization, tasks undertaken by the US State Department, the US International Development Agency (USAID) and the Department of Defense. USAID, in its self-description, maintains that ‘countries that have ineffective government institutions, rampant corruption and weak rule of law have a 30-to-45 per cent higher risk of civil war’ than other developing countries, so USAID is working to change that narrative through ‘integrating democracy programming’ throughout their core development work in order to ‘prevent conflict, spur economic growth and advance human dignity’.[78] Following the expensive, drawn-out and unpopular statebuilding interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, though, leading Western states have adopted a more facilitative and supportive rather than interventionist stance. Still, consistent goal of ‘democracy building’ is maintained, again linking expectations of good governance to security and stability.[79] The United Nations, itself underpinned by ideas of peace-through democratization, also identifies a link between state fragility and security within its operational structure, with much of this work undertaken by the relatively new UN department of Peacebuilding Operations, as well as the UN department of Political affairs and the UN development Program. As chandler notes, statebuilding is a key policy practice that has ‘increasingly become internationally accepted as [a] central mechanism through which the problems of weak or failing states can be addressed’.[80] Rather than being something concrete or accurately measurable, therefore, the ‘fragile’ or ‘failed’ state is best considered as a relation of international governance, particularly liberal global governance.[81]
Within these policies and practices, the problems of global insecurity, poverty, development and conflict are directly linked to the widespread existence of states perceived to be dysfunctional.[82] The ideas behind statebuilding here are fairly simple: the problem with weak, fragile or failing states is poor governance and a failure or inability to provide public and political goods. by addressing those weaknesses and failure through strengthening democratic governance, increasing institutional capacity, eliminating corruption and improving participation, development goals can be reached and the risk of conflict reduces, thereby improving security for the state in question and the system as a whole. the ‘solution to these [socio-political-economic] problems’ associated with the development-security paradigm is ‘therefore that of enabling states and societies to make better choices and decisions and at the same time ensuring that decision-making is more constrained by international frameworks’ outlining expectations for good governance.[83] ‘changing the rules of the game’ by changing bad governance into good governance serves to overcoming ‘institutional blockages’ that prevent ‘state-society relations from creating a stable social order and which prevent the state from benefiting from the stable social and economic order of institutional society’.[84] Through statebuilding, primarily through institutional design and capacity, it is maintained, fragility can be prevented from sliding into failure, thereby protecting not only the population of the state in question but also global security as a whole.
There is no uniform step-by-step guide for statebuilding. Indeed, as Woodward notes, many of the practices found within statebuilding were developed for other purposes and circumstances in the development and peacebuilding realm but have ‘evolved in the past two decades as they adjusted to these different conditions’.[85] One of the biggest criticisms of statebuilding is the ad hoc manner of the implementation of these practices and the lack of coordination between agencies. Even within the big interventionist projects such as those seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, East Timor and Kosovo, different agencies and actors were responsible for different elements of the project, creating a situation where lack of continuity or failures in communication and standardization added to the complexity of attempts at statebuilding. In projects that are smaller-scale and do not have the substantial military support or significant international attention focused on them, the decentralized efforts of the statebuilders is also apparent and often problematic. Despite there not being a guide or a uniform approach, though, there is a clear framework for statebuilding, and within that, there is a clear ideological blueprint. Statebuilding is not characterized by socio-political change or building the state and all of its tangible and intangible components, but rather is concerned primarily with institution building. This blueprint puts emphasis on the creating of democratic and accountable institutions and strengthening institutional capacity in order to fulfil the liberal demands of the state, particularly those pertaining to protection and provision of public goods. Within this, the long-term goals of consolidating peace and creating a sustainable political solution within a state, as Sisk maintains, requires a ‘laser-like focus on the institutions of the state’.[86] This emphasis on the institutions and the practices surrounding them as the lynchpin for peace and stability echoes the liberal focus on peace through democratization and good governance. With the liberal dominance in the international system, though, this is not surprising. The goal of statebuilding is to build the ideal state.
In the dominant discourses of the international community the institutional components of the state and their scope of activity have been largely static in the last two decades. In line with liberal understandings, these components comply with expectations of Weberian bureaucratic administrations and modern acceptable statehood, and through this there is a framework for emerging states to match and a check list for statebuilding projects. Liberal economic institutions and democracy are part of the ‘political gold standard’ good governance model.[87] Despite the high-profile of the discourse surrounding democracy promotion there is very little said about the nature of the democracy being promoted. in the rush of countries making the shift to democracy in the late twentieth century there was only limited space for development of alternate structures or styles of state, and the Western based model of elections, legislature and independent judiciary became a template to be copied as best practice and as a path towards stability and acceptance.
In addition to liberal economics and a democratic government, the final pillar of this institutional state is the advancement of individual rights. As with economic reform and political change, these values are firmly entrenched in ideas of good governance. Exhibited by Boutros-Ghali, alongside the new emphasis on peacebuilding and institutional reform and reconstruction, the ‘increasingly common moral perception that spans the world’s nations and peoples’ of individual human rights and institutional protection for them became a component of expected empirical statehood.[88] Linked with democratic practice and the inclusion of the population in political choice, respect for individual rights is also seen as a legitimizing feature of the state, both externally and, importantly, internally. Demands for democracy and respect for human rights, once described by some as a western project, has been adopted beyond the western liberal world as rights have been demanded by communities across the globe. Linking into ideas of good governance, and with the model of liberal democracy being the means through which to ensure these protections, institutional expectations for the state being built become clear.[89]Institutionalization and the institutional state is more than simply establishing the tangible bodies of government that are the means through which legitimate power is exercised. Institutionalization is:
The process by which a cluster of activities acquires a persistent set of rules that constrain activity, shape expectations, and prescribe roles for actors. Institutionalization means that sustainability does not depend on any single individual but on a shared commitment to the principles, procedures, and goals of the institution.[90]
because it involves the embedding of the rules of governance within political practice itself to the point where those rules become a popular expectation for political action, statebuilding thus must not only establish these rules, but also much account for the repetition or enforcement of practice needed to embed these norms, expectations and behaviors not only within the political class, but also within society. In other words, the establishment of institutions and the practices surrounding them must outlive a charismatic leader empowered to lead the process – a common characteristic of international statebuilding – and must exist after the statebuilders leave.
The establishment of this form of institutional state is approached through a combination of external direction and internal adoption. Within this the empirical emphasis is on the tangible institutions, with the expectation that establishing those and increasing institutional capacity will lead to meeting the demands of governance found within the framework and the repetition of such practice will complete the cycle of institutionalization. Because of the expectation of conformity to systemically maintained structures, norms and values, the primacy here is on external legitimacy – both external expectations for how to achieve domestic legitimacy and external demands for the style of state. It has long been the accepted mantra and practice in the international community that if institutions are built, legitimacy will follow. It is assumed that institutions shaped in the mold of Western liberal democracies will lead to good practice, which in turn will lead to the good governance that is the foundation for stability and legitimacy. This is not to say that domestic acceptance of these institutions and the practices that are expected to follow is not a possibility, but instead it is an assumption rather than a consideration. In many ways, statebuilding has the standing attitude of ‘if you build them, it will come’ approach to constructing and legitimizing the state.[91]
Conclusions
The model of statehood portrayed within development and statebuilding policy and discourse is one of success in terms of compliance and of governance. In addition to Weber’s basic definition of statehood, what is now being encouraged, or even imposed, either directly or implicitly, is a legitimate, accountable and non-corrupt ‘good’ government, preferably chosen through a democratic process and eager to engage with the international community and its demands, dictates and desires.[92]
This model of success has become the benchmark of statehood necessary for creating economic and political state-to-state and state-to-institution relationships. Weak, fragile, failing or failed states – those unable or unwilling to engage with the international economy and those exhibiting poor or no governance – are seen as a threat to international stability for a number of reasons, whilst successful states are perceived as being viable and beneficial members of the international community of states.
The expectation of the acceptable successful state and the assumption that it is the path to security, provision and stability is a long-standing assumption that has dominated development policy since the end of the cold War and has proliferated the peace and security realm as well. Statebuilding is the epitome of this. Given its rooting in liberal understandings of peace and security, expressed very clearly in Boutros-Ghali’s ideas of the maintenance of these, peacebuilding is not a surprising place for statebuilding to fit. However, statebuilding itself goes far beyond areas such as negotiation and reconciliation that are typically associated with peacebuilding. Indeed, statebuilding is a highly intrusive and intensive project that involves establishing both tangible and practical institutions of government with the aim of creating stability through creating good governance and acceptable government. Bliesmemann de Guevara comically notes that the international community guides and intervenes in areas of fragility or collapse with a positive Bob the Builder mentality of ‘we can fix it!’[93] With the normative model of the ideal or acceptable liberal state guiding action and intervention in failed, failing, fragile, weak or post-conflict states, the approach taken is one of imbuing, or imposing, what is deemed to work: the institutionalization of liberal democratic practices and the instilling of good governance in order to create a safe and secure state, both for the population and for the system. Indeed, the ‘recovery of state capacities through international assistance has emerged as a leitmotif of international responses’ to conflict and fragility.[94] Despite its seemingly good intentions, though, statebuilding has not shown much success in practice, particularly in the intensively interventionist projects.
As Sisk concisely states, ‘statebuilding is a complex and problematic processes.[95] It has long been criticized that the dominant liberal approach to statebuilding is narrow and exclusionary; it is one which assumes political and cultural homogeneity and one which ignores not only existing power structures, but also sovereign complexities resulting from the imposition of institutions in target states. There is a tendency to ‘assume[e] that the political process is a product of state policies rather than constitutive of them’.[96] Meaningful progress in restoring or stabilizing states through statebuilding does not have a good track record, and as the OECD noted is ‘frequently bedeviled by liberal “orthodoxies” transplanted from consolidated, democratic countries’.[97] While intentions in statebuilding are good and the logic behind it makes sense, the approach taken have proven to be problematic and unsuccessful. At the heart of this are the assumptions surrounding the type of state to be built. The model of the successful state and the prevailing understanding that this can be achieved through institutionalization alone runs contrary to the process of both political and social change that is necessary for successfully redesigning or recomposing a state. Charles call notes that it is erroneous to say that there is a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model of statebuilding, and that there is no such thing as a ‘state-in-a-box’.[98] In many ways he is correct: there is no set in stone blueprint or checklist outlining and dictating each step to be undertaken. However, he is also wrong in that there is a normative ‘one-size-fits-all’ expectation for state success, one that demands liberal democratic ‘good’ governance. Although a normative expectation, its proliferation of the realms of development and security means that it has become a practical expectation, or even, a demand.
Within the proliferation of the liberal democratic state through development policies, including statebuilding, familiar structures and practices familiar are reproduced, leaving very little room for alternative forms of state design or practice. Whilst paying lip service to the importance of local considerations, underlying social structures that shape and determine the relationship between the people and the state are often disregarded in the political process. The institutionalization of the ideal incorporates known, familiar and predictable institutions of governance into the statebuilding paradigm. This obsession with the known, predictable and controllable is symbolic of what chandler notes is a hypocritical fear of autonomy.[99] In the quest to achieve the end goal of liberal democracy, a political system dependent upon autonomy of individuals and society, the autonomy of choice in states perceived to be failed or dysfunctional is a frightening prospect: What happens if the choices made to not comply with external expectations of how the state should be? Sisk claims that statebuilding constantly strives to balance a number of the exogenous and the endogenous, between external and internal expectations.[100] The challenge for external actors thus becomes balancing between external goals and agendas and internal expectations and socio-political structures and practices, a balance that too often places the external before, if not above, the internal. Building institutions and encouraging practices of good governance may have the best of intentions, but effective statebuilding must strategize around several key linkages, one of them being those between international interests and agendas versus national interests and legitimacy.[101] If statebuilding takes place without conscious strategies of how to balance the external and the internal, successful consolidation of the peace-bringing liberal state is questionable. Examining this balance is the focus of the next chapter.
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