Reconceptualizing International Intervention: Statebuilding, ‘Organic Processes’ and the Limits of Causal Knowledge

Abstract

This article examines the transformation in the conceptual understanding of international intervention over the last two decades. It suggests that this conceptual shift can be usefully interrogated through its imbrication within broader epistemological shifts highlighting the limits of causal knowledge claims: heuristically framed in this article in terms of the shift from policy interventions within the problematic of causation to those concerned with the management of effects. In this shift, the means and mechanisms of international intervention have been transformed, no longer focused on the universal application of Western causal knowledge through policy interventions but rather on the effects of specific and unique local and organic processes at work in societies themselves. The focus on effects takes the conceptualization of intervention out of the traditional terminological lexicon of International Relations theory and instead recasts problems in increasingly organic ways, suggesting that artificial or hubristic attempts at socio-political intervention should be excluded or minimized.

Keywords:

• intervention
• cause and effect
• sovereignty
• politics
• democracy

Notes on Contributor

David Chandler is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster. He has written widely in the field of intervention and statebuilding. His recent books include Resilience: The Governance of Complexity (Routledge, 2014), Freedom vs Necessity in International Relations: Human-Centred Approaches to Security and Development (Zed Books, 2013) and International Statebuilding: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance (Routledge, 2010). ([email protected])

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.