The Regional Dimension of Statebuilding Interventions

Abstract

In the post-cold war era, liberal statebuilding interventions have become a major tool of global governance. Yet, the variation in outcomes is still poorly understood. This article draws on state formation theory to elaborate a causal mechanism that can explain the successful monopolization of the means of violence in statebuilding interventions. Insights from the state formation literature suggest that the regional political system is crucial for state formation and statebuilding. In order to test the hypothesis, a novel process-tracing method is applied to the case of Sierra Leone. The case study suggests that only a cooperative regional setting enables interventions to succeed.

Notes

1. John M. Kabia, Humanitarian Intervention and Conflict Resolution in West Africa: From ECOMOG to ECOMIL, Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009, pp.104–9; David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone, Oxford: James Currey, 2005, pp.25–35.

2. Funmi Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008; Keen (see n.1 above), pp.260–66; Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone, London: Hurst & Company, 2005, pp.162–9.

3. Derek Beach and Rasmus Brun Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2013.

4. Oisín Tansey, ‘Evaluating the Legacies of State-Building: Success, Failure, and the Role of Responsibility’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol.58, No.1, 2013, pp.2–3.

5. Gary Goertz and James Mahoney, A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012, pp.9–12.

6. Gary King, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, pp.208–12.

7. John Gerring, ‘The Mechanismic Worldview: Thinking Inside the Box’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol.38, No.1, 2008, p.4.

8. Herbert Wulf, ‘Reconstructing the Public Monopoly of Legitimate Force’, in Alan Bryden and Marina Caparini (eds), Private Actors and Security Governance, Berlin/Zürich: Lit, 2006, pp.87–106; Markus Jachtenfuchs, Jörg Friedrichs, Eva Herschinger and Christiane Kraft-Kasack, Policing Among Nations. Internationalizing the Monopoly Force, Hertie School of Governance working papers, Vol. 28, Berlin: Hertie School of Governance, 2008.

9. Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1972, p.82; Christopher Pierson, The Modern State, London and New York: Routledge, 2011, pp.7–8; Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, p.3; Joel Migdal and Klaus Schlichte, ‘Rethinking the State’, in Schlichte (ed.), The Dynamics of States, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005, p.15.

10. Michael Wesley, ‘The State of the Art on the Art of State Building’, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, Vol.14, No.3, 2008, pp.376–9.

11. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Statebuilding and State-Formation: The Political Sociology of Intervention, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2012, p.7; Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk, The Dilemmas of Statebuilding, London: Routledge, 2009, p.1; Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Warlords and the Liberal Peace: State-Building in Afghanistan’, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol.10, No.4, 2010, pp.580–81; David A. Lake, ‘Building Legitimate States after Civil Wars’, in Matthew Hoddie and Caroline A. Hartzell (eds), Strengthening Peace in Post-Civil War States, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2010, p.31.

12. Weber (see n.9 above), p.824.

13. ‘[ … ]daß der moderne Staat ein anstaltsmäßiger Herrschaftsverband ist, der innerhalb eines Gebietes die legitime physische Gewaltsamkeit als Mittel der Herrschaft zu monopolisieren mit Erfolg getrachtet hat […]’.

14. Cf. Migdal and Schlichte (see n.9 above).

15. Charles Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp.169–91.

16. Ibid., pp.173–5.

17. Antonio Giustozzi, The Art of Coercion: The Primitive Accumulation and Management of Coercive Power, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, pp.7–8.

18. Mancur Olson, ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’, The American Political Science Review, Vol.87, No.3, 1993, pp.568–9.

19. Trutz von Trotha, ‘Die Zukunft liegt in Afrika: Vom Zerfall des Staates, von der Vorherrschaft der konzentrischen Ordnung und vom Aufstieg der Parastaatlichkeit’, Leviathan, Vol.28, No.2, 2000, p.26; Lake (see n.11 above), pp.38–43.

20. Weber (see n.9 above), pp.122–4.

21. Jørgen Møller and Svend-Erik Skaaning, ‘Stateness First?’, Democratization, Vol.18, No.1, 2011, pp.16–17.

22. Bliesemann de Guevara (see n.11 above), pp.2–4.

23. Paris and Sisk (see n.11 above), pp.13–14; David A. Lake, ‘The Practice and Theory of US Statebuilding’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol.4, No.3, 2010, p.259.

24. James Dobbins, The Beginner's Guide to Nation-Building, Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2007, pp.19–22.

25. Lake (see n.23 above), pp.272–3.

26. Barnett Rubin, ‘The Politics of Security in Postconflict Statebuilding’, in Charles Call and Vanessa Wyeth (eds), Building States to Build Peace, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008, pp.28–31.

27. Simon Chesterman, You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-Building, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp.99–101.

28. Richard Caplan, Exit Strategies and State Building, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.311–13.

29. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Staatlichkeit in Zeiten des Statebuilding: Intervention und Herrschaft in Bosnien und Herzegowina, Frankfurt am Main and New York: P. Lang, 2009, pp.78–87.

30. E.g. Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Hybrid Peace: The Interaction Between Top–Down and Bottom–Up Peace’, Security Dialogue, Vol.41, No.4, 2010, pp.391–412; David Chandler, ‘The State-Building Dilemma: Good Governance or Democratic Governance’, in Aidan Hehir (ed.), State-Building: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge, 2007, pp.70–89; Oliver P. Richmond, The Transformation of Peace, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

31. Mac Ginty (see n.30 above), pp.391–2.

32. Paul Jackson, ‘Security Sector Reform and State Building’, Third World Quarterly, Vol.32, No.10, 2011, pp.1812–13.

33. Ibid., p.1810.

34. Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Jonathan Goodhand, War Economies in a Regional Context: Challenges of Transformation, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003.

35. Neil Cooper, Mandy Turner and Michael Pugh, ‘The End of History and the Last Liberal Peacebuilder: A Reply to Roland Paris’, Review of International Studies, Vol.37, No.4, 2011, p.2000.

36. Giustozzi (see n.17 above).

37. Ibid., pp.175–80.

38. Michael Barnett and Christoph Zürcher, ‘The Peacebuilder's Contract: How External Statebuilding Reinforces Weak Statehood’, in Paris and Sisk (see n.11 above), pp.23–52.

39. Christoph Zürcher, Carrie Manning, Kristie D. Evenson, Rachel Hayman, Sarah Riese and Nora Roehner, Costly Democracy: Peacebuilding and Democratization after War, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013, pp.4–5.

40. Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000; Cameron G. Thies, ‘State Building, Interstate and Intrastate Rivalry: A Study of Post-Colonial Developing Country Extractive Efforts, 1975–2000’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol.48, No.1, 2004, pp.53–72; Miguel Angel Centeno, Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002; Ariel Ahram, Proxy Warriors: The Rise and Fall of State-Sponsored Militias, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011; Dan Slater, Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

41. Oliver Richmond, ‘Failed Statebuilding versus Peace Formation’, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol.48, No.3, 2013, pp.378–400; Bliesemann de Guevara (see n.11 above).

42. E.g. Herbst (see n.40 above); Peter Haldén, ‘Systems-Building before State-Building: On the Systemic Preconditions of State-Building’, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol.10, No.4, 2010, pp.519–45.

43. Spruyt (see n.9 above), p.34.

44. John Gerard Ruggie, ‘Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations’, International Organization, Vol.47, No.1, 1993, p.151.

45. Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1985, pp.49–52.

46. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000 [1939]; Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992.

47. Siniša Malešević, The Sociology of War and Violence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p.78.

48. Tilly (see n.46 above), ch.3.

49. Tilly (see n.15 above), pp.172–5.

50. Tilly (see n.46 above), pp.74–6.

51. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2002, pp.38–49.

52. Tilly (see n.46 above).

53. Janice E. Thomson, ‘State Sovereignty in International Relations: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Empirical Research’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol.39, No.2, 1995, pp.221–2.

54. Spruyt (see n.9 above), pp.6–7.

55. Ruggie (see n.44 above), pp.162–3.

56. Peter Haldén, ‘Against Endogeneity: The Systemic Preconditions of State Formation’, in Robert Egnell and Peter Haldén (eds), New Agendas in Statebuilding: Hybridity, Contingency and History, New York: Routledge, 2013, pp.32–54.

57. Ruggie (see n.44 above), p.146.

58. Victoria Tin-bor Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

59. Haldén (see n.42 above), pp.42–3.

60. Rubin (see n.26 above), p.28.

61. Carl Schmitt, The Theory of the Partisan: A Commentary/Remark on the Concept of the Political, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2004 [1963], pp.52–4.

62. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, ‘Transnational Dimensions of Civil War’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.44, No.3, 2007, p.9; Pugh et al. (see n.34 above); Jason Lyall and Isaiah Wilson, ‘Rage Against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars’, International Organization, Vol.63, No.1, 2009, pp.67–106.

63. Haldén (see n.56 above), pp.43–5.

64. Zürcher et al. (see n.39 above), pp.9–10.

65. Stathis N. Kalyvas and Laia Balcells, ‘International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict’, American Political Science Review, Vol.104, No.3, 2010, pp.421–3.

66. UNSC, ‘Peace Agreement between the Government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone’, New York: UNSC, 1999, p.20.

67. Olonisakin (see n.2 above), p.5; Kabia (see n.1 above), p.127.

68. UNSC, ‘Ninth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone. Document no. S/2001/228’, New York: UNSC, 2001, §58.

69. Alhaji Sarjoh Bah, ‘Sierra Leone’, in Caplan (ed.), Exit Strategies and International State Building, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.110–12.

70. BTI, ‘Country Report – Sierra Leone’, Gütersloh: BTI, 2014.

71. Kabia (see n.1 above), pp. 57–60; Ismael Rashid, ‘The Sierra Leone Civil War and the Remaking of ECOWAS’, Research in Sierra Leone Studies (RISLS), Vol.1, No.1, 2013, pp.6–7; Kwesi Aning and Naila Salihu, ‘Regional Spproaches to Statebuilding II: The African Union and ECOWAS’, in Mats Berdal and Dominik Zaum (eds), Political Economy of Statebuilding, London: Routledge, 2013, pp.174–88.

72. UNSC, ‘Fourth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone. Document no. S/2000/455’, New York: UNSC, 2000, p.18.

73. Ibid.

74. ICG, ‘Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability’, No.43, Freetown/Brussels: ICG, 2002, p.4.

75. Felix Gerdes, Civil War and State Formation: The Political Economy of War and Peace in Liberia, Frankfurt-on-Main: Campus Verlag, 2013, pp.161–5.

76. Ibid., pp.167–8.

77. Jennifer M. Hazen, What Rebels Want: Resources and Supply Networks in Wartime, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013, pp.73–5.

78. UN, ‘Sierra Leone – UNAMSIL – Facts and Figures’, 2005 (at: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unamsil/facts.html).

79. Olonisakin (see n.2 above), p.38.

80. UNSC, ‘Report of the Panel of Experts Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1343 (2001), Paragraph 19, Concerning Liberia. Document no. S/2001/1015’, New York: UNSC, 2001, p.76.

81. ICG (see n.74 above), p.4.

82. Ibid., pp.4–5.

83. Hazen (see n.77 above), pp.99–101.

84. Ibid., p.130.

85. Gerdes (see n.75 above), pp.167–8.

86. Rashid (see n.71 above), pp.6–7.

87. Olonisakin (see n.2 above), pp.101–2.

88. Hazen (see n.77 above), p.82.

89. Gberie (see n.2 above), pp. 172–3; ICG (see n.74 above), pp.4–5.

90. UNSC (see n.68 above), pp.4–5.

91. Keen (see n.1 above), pp.267–8.

92. Olonisakin (see n.2 above), pp.103–4.

93. UNSC, ‘Tenth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone. Document no. S/2001/627’, New York: UNSC, 2001, p.3.

94. Gberie (see n.2 above), p.171.

95. ICG (see n.74 above), p.1.

96. Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007, Birmingham: The Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR), University of Birmingham, 2009, pp.22–3.

97. Desirée Nilsson and Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs, ‘Different Paths of Reconstruction: Military Reform in Post-War Sierra Leone and Liberia’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.20, No.1, 2013, p.7.

98. Ibid., p.7.

99. Ibid., pp.10–11.

100. Ibid., p.12.

101. Osman Gbla, ‘Security Sector Reform under International Tutelage in Sierra Leone’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.13, No.1, 2006, p.84

102. World Bank, ‘World Bank Open Data’, 2014 (at: http://data.worldbank.org/).

103. Ibid.

104. BTI (see n.70 above), pp.7–8.

105. Richers Downie, Building Police Institutions in Fragile States: Case Studies from Africa, Washington, DC: Center For Strategic & International Studies, 2013, p.10.

106. Bruce Baker, Multi-Choice Policing in Africa, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2008, pp.144–5.

107. Krijn Peters and Paul Richards, ‘Rebellion and Agrarian Tensions in Sierra Leone’, Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol.11, No.3, 2011, pp.382–5.

108. Lisa Denney, ‘Liberal Chiefs or Illiberal Development? The Challenge of Engaging Chiefs in DFID's Security Sector Reform Programme in Sierra Leone’, Development Policy Review, Vol.31, No.1, 2013, pp.13–14.

109. BTI, ‘Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2014 – Dataset’, Gütersloh: BTI, 2014. The dataset provides a measure for the monopoly on violence, assigning countries values from 1 (no monopoly) to 10 (fully monopoly). Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone each have a score of 8, indicating that a monopoly on violence has been established in principle.

110. UNOWA, ‘Vers une stratégie de sécurité pour l'Union du Fleuve Mano [Towards a Security Strategy for the Mano River Union]’, 2013 (at: http://unowa.unmissions.org/Portals/UNOWA/Press%20release/130629%20Press%20release%20MRU_FR_ENGL.pdf)

Additional information

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benjamin Brast is PhD fellow at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Science (BIGSSS). He holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from University of Bremen and Jacobs University Bremen. His research focuses on interventions, statebuilding and international relations.