Abstract:
State-building, has now established itself as an accepted form of international intervention.
The idea that international institutions or major powers should intervene in so-called ‘weak’ or ‘failing’ states to rebuild state institutions is no longer controversial, even when this means temporarily rescinding the rights of non-intervention and national sovereignty. In fact, in a reversal of traditional ways of perceiving security threats, today it is weak and so-called ‘failing states’ that are considered a menace, not the aggressive expansionist states of earlier periods. Initially confined to post-conflict reconstruction, state-building today is the framework through which many other goals – developmental, political and environmental – are pursued This article explores the contradictions at the heart of the statebuilding enterprise.
Details / PDF:
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