This volume examines and evaluates the impact of international statebuilding interventions on the political economy of post-conflict countries over the past 20 years.
Through detailed comparative analysis of key statebuilding policies and case studies, this handbook analyzes how international interventions have shaped political and economic dynamics and structures -- both formal and informal -- and what kind of state, and what kind of state-society relations have been created as a result. The volume aims to offer a more nuanced understanding of the complex impact of statebuilding practices on post-conflict societies, and of the political economy of post-conflict statebuilding. The book systematically examines the impact of statebuilding policies through the analysis of ten statebuilding interventions (ranging from governance conditionalities and assistance to full-fledged international administration), and of three cross-cutting thematic areas: institution-building and representation; economic reform; and the approaches of selected international statebuilding actors (i.e. the UN or the IFIs). Questions examined by the chapters include: How have statebuilding policies affected the relationship between formal and informal economic and political institutions? How are international statebuilding policies mediated through local political structures? How have outside interventions affected the balance between different political groups in a post-conflict country? To what extent have statebuilding policies led to a change or to the resurfacing of old elites? What policies have contributed to this, and why? This handbook will be of mcuh interest to students of statebuilding, humanitarian intervention, post-conflict reconstruction, political economy, international organisations and IR/Security Studies in general.
Foreword, Alvaro de Soto 1. Introduction, Mats Berdal and Dominik Zaum Section I: A Political Economy Perspective on Selected Statebuilding Practices 2. State-Building and the Limits of Constitutional Design, Oisin Tansey 3. Elections and Post-conflict Political Development, Benjamin Reilly 4. Transition from War to Peace: Stratification, Inequality and Post-War Economic Reconstruction, Stina Torjesen 5. Informal Actors and the Post-conflict Moment, Christine Cheng 6. State-building and Corruption: A Political Economy Perspective, Michael Pugh 7. State-building and the Political Economy of the Extractive Industries in Post-Conflict States, Thorsten Benner and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira Section II: Approaches to Statebuilding 8. The United Nations and International State-Building after the Cold War, Mats Berdal and Hannah Davies 9. The IFIs and Post-Conflict Political Economy, Susan Woodward 10. Regional Approaches to State-building I: the European Union, Richard Caplan, Spyros Economides, and Othon Anasthasakis 11. Regional Approaches to State-building II: The African Union and ECOWAS, Kwesi Aning and Naila Salihu Section III: Case Studies 12. Back to the Future: the Failure to Reform the Post-war Political Economy of Iraq, Toby Dodge 13. Building a State and ‘State-building’: East Timor and the UN, 1999-2012, Antony Goldstone 14. The Political Economy of State-building in Kosovo, Dominik Zaum with Verena Knaus 15. From New Dawn to Quicksands: The Political Economy of State-building in Afghanistan, Antonio Giustozzi and Niamatullah Ibrahimi 16. The Political Economy of State-building in Burundi, Peter Uvin and Leanne Bayer 17. The Political Economy of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, Atta El-Battahani and Peter Woodward 18. The Political Economy of Statebuilding in Haiti: Informal Resistance to Security-First State-building, Robert Muggah 19. Georgia and the Political Economy of State-building, Neil MacFarlane 20. How the EU and the US Stopped a War and Nobody Noticed: The Containment of the Macedonian Conflict and EU Soft Power, Kristof Bender
Mats Berdal is Professor of Security and Development in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. He is Visiting Professor at the Norwegian Defence University College, and author/editor of several books. Dominik Zaum is a Reader in International Relations at the University of Reading, and a Senior Research Fellow at the UK Department for International Development (DFID). He is author of several books on state- and peacebuilding.
Reviews for Political Economy of Statebuilding: Power after Peace
This is an important book because it focuses on the most critical and, sadly, often-neglected aspect of state building -- the political dimension. The high quality essays in this volume not only illuminate state-building cases and practices, they also make a compelling case that shaping political economies and fostering political settlements conducive to reform are foundational and essential to success. - Brig. H.R. McMaster, US Army. This book, which contains a magisterial introduction by Mats Berdal and Dominik Zaum, brings together some of the top thinkers in the world of peacebuilding. It takes the commonly expressed idea that 'development' is a necessary route to peacebuilding, and shows how neo-liberal interpretations of 'development' have often promoted instability, not least by promoting large-scale unemployment. - David Keen, LSE, UK Focusing on the interactions between external 'statebuilders' and local power brokers - and how these processes shape post-war developments - Mats Berdal and Dominik Zaum have produced an impressive collection of thematic and country cases that significantly enriches our understanding of the consequences of statebuilding interventions. - Astri Suhrke, Christian Michelsen Institute, Norway 'With a particular focus on economics, the book is a well-written, analytically impeccable and insightful account of the limits of state-building by some of the best scholars in the field.' - Erik Jones, Survival Journal June 2013
