Aid and state-building,Part I: South Korea and Taiwan

Under what conditions does foreign aid in the aftermath of war foster state-building? This article argues that institutional legacy and continuity and the politics of aid may matter. In the aftermath of war, for an aid regime to reinforce state-building, it may need to ensure continuity in the strength of the state and to use recipient mechanisms and finance policies that generate a greater state capacity. The existence and continuity of a Weberian state may increase the likelihood of effective state-building. If the state is relatively strong, with a Weberian bureaucracy, aid can further reinforce it when aid is spent through national systems or is aligned with local priorities, with efforts to ensure that the recipient leaders reinforce state effectiveness by implementing policies that may require greater state capacity. Evidence for this argument is provided through pairwise comparison of state-building patterns between South Korea and Taiwan.     

Liberia and Sierra Leone—dead ringers? The logic of neopatrimonial rule

There are many different causes behind the two civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some are clearly unique to each country, whereas some of the most significant causes of war are shared in both cases. This article argues that the most basic reasons for these two wars are to be found in the extreme version of neopatrimonial politics that was developed in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Neopatrimonialism is not unique to these two countries, nor to Africa. However, the historical experience of the two countries suggests that Liberia and Sierra Leone developed an extreme version of neopatrimonial politics built on the need to secure the self through self-categorisation into self and other. The article therefore suggests that the historical legacy of these interlinkages is so substantial that the fates of Liberia and Sierra Leone are locked together like a pair of dead ringers. Neither country is likely to achieve sustainable peace if warlike conditions still exist in the other country.     

The Toxic Politics of Bangladesh: A Bipolar Competitive Neopatrimonial State?

In order to understand the structural dimensions of the problems concerning democratic governance in Bangladesh, this article seeks to explicate whether or not Bangladesh is a neopatrimonial state. This article examines contemporary Bangladesh politics with a particular focus on the notion of neopatrimonialism and with special reference to the personalization of state power. The concept of neopatrimonialism has great utility in explaining leadership behaviour in a dysfunctional democracy such as Bangladesh, where personalized exchanges, exploitation of bureaucratic and state mechanisms and political scandals are common. I argue that Bangladesh is a special variant of the neopatrimonial state, which I suggest to be bipolar neopatrimonialism. I contend that since independence, successive governments and political leaders always attempt to monopolize state power in various ways. The patron-client society of Bangladesh helps political leaders to personalize the state power they possess. To monopolize state power, the political elites of Bangladesh create networks and alliances, relying on exchanges to meet their objectives. In this regard, state elites use elements of the state and political system to mediate these exchanges.     

Re-thinking Myanmar's political regime: military rule in Myanmar and implications for current reforms

The Myanmar military has long dominated national politics as well as the state apparatus since first coming into power in 1958. Despite a series of challenges to its rule, the military has been able to constantly re-invent itself while re-asserting its dominance over society. Cycles of popular protests and dissatisfaction with military rule have not led to regime change nor weakened the military as a unified institution. The latest incarnation of the nominally civilian government has introduced a series of liberalising reforms that have dramatically opened more socio-political space for opposition and non-state actors to participate in national politics. Despite the somewhat optimistic outlook of a more liberalised Myanmar in the future, the institutional design and historical legacy of the military's role in state-building have ensured that it has enough ‘reserve domains’ to maintain its prominent role within any foreseeable future governments in Myanmar. By tracing the historical development of the Myanmar military regime, this paper argues that current reforms were introduced as a strategy for the military to ensure its continued survival as the primary political actor in Myanmar.     

Construction Jihad: state-building and development in Iran and Lebanon’s Shiʿi Territories

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in Iran and Lebanon, this article compares the Iranian reconstruction and development organisation Construction Jihad with its Hizbullah-affiliated subsidiary in Lebanon. Beyond shedding light on Iranian and Lebanese history and politics, this comparison offers insight into the transnational diffusion of a development organisation by a state actor to its non-state or quasi-state ‘client’ in the Muslim and developing world. Despite the distinct environmental and operational conditions of Iran and Lebanon, Construction Jihad similarly assisted a nascent Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and a fledgling Hizbullah with state-building. The latter consisted of consolidating coercive power against domestic and foreign opponents, increasing administrative capacity through service provision and post-war reconstruction, and strengthening the political and religious identity of citizens and constituents. Regardless of the differing contexts of Iran and Lebanon, Construction Jihad counter-intuitively possessed a similar organisational and developmental model in both countries that did not neatly conform to the dichotomous typologies in development studies. This seemingly contradictory model was largely faith based, exclusive, distributive and top down with certain decentralised, community driven and participatory elements.     

Fragility within stability: the state,the clan and political resilience in Somaliland

Abstract

Even in the context of a relatively flourishing state, fragility can be an enduring feature of a political system, particularly in the case of recently established or unrecognised states. This article examines the nature of state-building in a specific context to question the assumption that forms of hybrid governance or pre-existing forms of governance are a necessary evil to be tolerated but which needs ultimately to be overcome during state-building. It does this by adopting the language of resilience and focusing on the case of Somaliland to highlight the role of clan governance as a mechanism of political resilience and as a means of promoting the flexibility required for state-building. Yet, at the same time, the process of state-building often involves formalising governance and limiting the role of traditional social-political forms of governance such as clans, ignoring their role in legitimating and stabilising the political system. However, as this article argues, stability and fragility are inextricably linked; while the clan system has been an important force in stabilising the state, it has also become a pressure point for the state’s latent fragility. By contextualising fragility and stability within the language of resilience, though, this symbiotic relationship can be better analysed.     

External Influence and Challenges of State-building in Nepal

This article deals with the role of external actors in the post-2006 state-building process in Nepal. Two issues have dominated the state-building narrative after 2006: the peace-process and the constitutional process. There has been a strong presence of international agencies. Both issues were later usurped by the external agencies and Nepal loses its upper hand in determining politics, policies, and the law and reverted beyond the 1923 situation. Foreign policy, which should have been used to rescue the country from such a dilemma, could not act in the context of a weak centre. Against this background, this article endeavours to explain the degree of external pressure vis-à-vis the state-building process in Nepal. The central argument of this article is that among many other factors, state-building in Nepal suffers both ‘because of and despite’ its geo-strategic locations and it proposes a proactive foreign policy as the balancing force.     

Length of independence and democratic failure

This article takes as a point of departure a well-known but rarely tested assumption in the literature on state-building and democratisation, namely that democratic regimes in newly established states are politically unstable. When states take their first steps as independent entities, the state-building process is often incomplete, the political institutions fragile and democratic routines yet to be established. However, with increasing years of independence, these democratic shortcomings are expected to be remedied. This makes it reasonable to assume that the likelihood of democratic failure decreases with increasing years as an independent state. Based on an extensive empirical data set, the conclusion was reached that there is indeed a negative relationship between the length of independence and democratic failure and that this association is insensitive to the period in time when the countries received their independence. Furthermore, the results suggest that the length of democratic rule has a positive impact on democratic stability. However, this pattern is detectable only in states created after 1946.     

Donors,State Building and Corruption: lessons from Afghanistan and the implications for aid policy

This article critically analyses the state-building agenda from a governance and aid policy perspective, and from an anti-corruption viewpoint in particular, highlighting potential problems with both theoretical and practical applications of state building in a development context. Inconsistencies and contradictions between the state building and anti-corruption work have not been adequately explored or reconciled. In particular, the article explores these tensions using the example of the Performance-Based Governors' Fund (pbgf) in Afghanistan, where some donors are looking to reduce corruption in local government, encouraging often ‘warlord’ governors to run their administrative offices with integrity. The article argues that the pbgf approach—with its themes of being realistic, going for indirect strategies over the long term and building integrity rather than fighting corruption, provide important lessons for the anti-corruption community as a whole, both at the level of theory and practice.     

How Neopatrimonialism Affects Tax Administration: a comparative study of three world regions

Neopatrimonialism is a concept that has predominately been applied to describe governance in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, however, it has also been used to describe governance in states from other world regions. However, scholars have rarely attempted systematically to compare neopatrimonial rule in different regional settings. This paper aims to narrow this gap by examining the effect of neopatrimonialism on the tax administration as a core state function in six countries from three different world regions: Argentina, Venezuela, Indonesia, the Philippines, Kenya and Zambia. We conclude that neopatrimonialism is a valuable concept for comparative area studies with the potential to foster dialogue on the ‘state in operation’ across the regional divide. Nevertheless, several indicators are more valid for some world regions than for others. We find that there is no systematic relationship between neopatrimonial trajectories and the strength of tax administration. Individual actor decisions influence the outcomes of neopatrimonialism substantially.     

Between Russia and Estonia: narratives of place in a new borderland

The Russian–Estonian border has undergone radical changes in the past two decades – from an integrated borderland between two Soviet republics to a border between nation-states and the new EU external border. Until the present day, it is a discursive battlefield that reflects the difficult relations between Russia and Estonia after the restoration of Estonia's independence. While much research has concentrated on antagonistic projects of identity politics and state-building from a top-down perspective, this paper asks how people living in the borderland make sense of the place they live in and negotiate shifts in the symbolic landscapes. Based on life-story narratives of Russian-speakers, it analyzes different ways of narrating and framing place and argues for a consideration of the plurality and ambivalences of place-making projects on the ground. Furthermore, it argues for a more balanced account of continuity and discontinuity in memory narratives by taking into account how the socialist past continues to be meaningful in the present. As the interviews show, memories of the socialist past are used for constructing belonging in the present both by countering and by reproducing national narratives of boundedness.     

State Building for Peace: a new paradigm for international engagement in post-conflict fragile states?

This article is intended to analyse two leading approaches that have guided international efforts to promote peace and development in conflict-afflicted fragile states since the 1990s, namely peace building and state building. In a relatively recent development a growing number of donors has sought to bring these two closer together, based upon the perception that the challenges posed by (post-)conflict fragile states need to be addressed through an approach that combines both—‘state-building for peace’, as the undp has put it. The article thus seeks to explore how the processes of building peace are related to the processes of building more resilient, effective and responsive states in (post-)conflict settings. It provides an overview of the evolution of these two concepts and analyses key complementarities between peace building and state building. It also explores the challenges that arise for both on the basis of these complementarities. The article goes on to examine some of the most significant tensions that arise between the two, and what these tensions may imply for the international assistance community. By way of a conclusion the article offers a few key lessons that emerge from the analysis for improved donor policy and practice in state building for peace efforts.     

“Illiberal Spaces:” Uzbekistan's extraterritorial security practices and the spatial politics of contemporary authoritarianism

Research on comparative authoritarianism has tended to neglect spatial approaches to the politics of non-democratic states. This article argues that spatial theory offers a useful framework for exploring extraterritorial security practices designed to counter political opposition among migrant and exile communities. A case study of Uzbekistan explores how the state responded to the perceived security threats posed by rapidly growing communities of labor migrants and the activities of many political and religious activists in exile. The security services developed a network of extraterritorial intelligence and security mechanisms – including surveillance, detention, interrogation and forced returns – to pre-empt or respond to any perceived threats to the regime emanating from abroad. These security practices extended the state in complex ways beyond its borders, resulting in new “state spaces” that reproduced elements of domestic repression in other jurisdictions. The article suggests that such extraterritorial practices are typical of contemporary authoritarian regimes, as such states seek to manage the spatial challenges produced by mass global migration, international financial flows, and transnational processes of knowledge production.     

Ideological Recycling of the Socialist Legacy. Reading Townscapes of Minsk and Astana

This article addresses the ways in which the systemic transformation of the former Soviet republics has been reflected in urban development in two capital cities, Minsk (Belarus) and Astana (Kazakhstan). Changes taking place in these capitals have been analysed through the prism of an ideological recycling of the socialist legacy, a concept that permits exploration of which aspects of the socialist legacy have been jettisoned and which retained, in the process of formation of a capital. The article explores the nationalising strategies adopted by Belarus and Kazakhstan and reified by various practices, including those involving the recasting of cities. These strategies, however, are analysed not as inventions of post-Soviet regimes, but as forms of structural continuity.     

Bureaucratic socialism in reform mode: the changing politics of Cuba’s post-Fidel era

Standard wisdom explains Cuba’s current transformation as one of economic change but political immobility. However, Cuban politics have also undergone a major change since the handing over of power from Fidel to Raúl Castro – even if the rhetoric used has been one of continuity. This article traces this process by looking at four areas: the depersonalisation and re-institutionalisation of the political structures; the diversification of the public sphere, particularly through the use of digital media; the liberalisation of travel and migration, with its transformative impact on state–citizen relations; and the turn to a moderate foreign policy, as highlighted by the rapprochement with the USA, with its implications for legitimising the underpinnings of Cuban socialism. Although the shift has been well below the threshold of a transition to multiparty democracy, Cuba has evolved from the charismatic model of the past to what can be understood as bureaucratic socialism in reform mode.     

Building the Other, Constructing Ourselves: Spatial Dimensions of International Humanitarian Response

Humanitarian reconstruction after a large-scale natural disaster has become a key site of international politics; a site where global assumptions, relationships, and responsibilities are negotiated, solidified and questioned. While post-crisis response strategies and institutional practices have strong spatial and material characteristics, these are rarely considered as significant—either to the reconstruction effort, or to international politics more generally. This article identifies and examines the "auxiliary space" created by the everyday practices of international aid workers and asks whether its effects may lead to unanticipated and potentially transformative outcomes not only for the reconstruction effort, but also for global North-South relations at large. The article concludes that post-crisis reconstruction sites may offer both cautionary and emancipatory potential for the evolution of international relations.     

Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan as Post-Soviet Rentier States: Resource Incomes and Autocracy as a Double ‘Curse’in Post-Soviet Regimes

This article presents an analysis of two post-Soviet states, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which can be identified as post-Soviet rentier states. Both countries are characterised economically by enormous national resources of gas and oil and low economic diversification as well as politically by strong autocratic presidentialism with neopatrimonial structures. These two factors, combined with further post-Soviet legacies such as a low level of political interest in the respective societies and a basically hierarchical orientation of the population, lead to a specific post-Soviet variety of rentierism. From a political science perspective, this article reveals the impact of resource policies on these comparably new political systems and concludes with a summary of core features of these post-Soviet rentier states.     

Mass destruction

How international organizations influence the domestic politics and foreign policies of states is often ignored in the study of international cooperation. This article develops an approach focusing on how states may influence the international agenda, which then shapes the position‐taking opportunities and constraints politicians face as they try to maintain their domestic political positions. This article is a preliminary exploration of how agenda setting works, what kinds of agenda‐setting strategies are available, and under what conditions agenda setting matters. Aspects of past secessionist crises will be used to clarify the discussion. The interaction between domestic position taking and international agenda setting will then be applied to the current crisis in Yugoslavia to determine why Greece, in particular, has been more influential than one might have expected.     

“You Don’t Have to Ride Jim Crow”: the Freedom Riders of 1961 and the Dilemma of Mobility

This article offers an exploration of what it meant to move under “cramped conditions” for African Americans and their compatriots during an era of often violent racial discrimination and segregation in the 1950s and 1960s in the USA. As the example of the Freedom Rides shows, these conditions included both moments of closure and entrapment determined by the rule of law as well as acts of resistance resulting from a century-long legacy of resistances. Particularly, I try to understand the complex “constellations of mobility” as a fragile entanglement of the politics of movement, representations of movement, and the embodied practices of movement. This paper proposes an approach to mobility that takes both historical forms of mobilities and immobilities seriously. On the one hand, my analysis relates to regulatory power and technologies used by state and non-state actors in order to retain white privilege over issues of mobility during the period preceding and accompanying the Freedom Rides. On the other hand, I argue along the lines of “mobility as resistance” by showing the strategies used to transgress written and unwritten laws and normative standards of the Jim Crow era.     

Xi Jinping: the game changer of Chinese elite politics?

Amidst China’s emergence as a global power, Xi Jinping is pushing through a range of ambitious reform plans that are reconfiguring both Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy. A fierce anti-corruption campaign has led to the dismissal of a large number of powerful figures, while a major effort has begun to bring party, state, and military power within Xi’s control. Many observers have interpreted these moves as radically altering the rules of game of elite politics, if not creating a personalistic political system. Our analysis shows that Xi’s corruption fighting and power centralisation represent part of his state-building project, in order to enhance the party-state’s capacity for the pursuit of governance objectives. We identify three rules regarding the Party’s power succession that would provide a critical test regarding how radically Xi is prepared to alter the Party’s key norms. The outcome of the 19th party congress in late 2017 would make it clearer whether Xi is in an effort to further institutionalise Party politics or turning the regime into his one-man rule.