This thesis is an endeavor to develop a more thorough and nuanced understanding of the relationship between international and local actors in the post-Dayton state-building process in Bosnia. While state-building in Bosnia has received a considerable amount of attention and study, apprehension and depiction of the relationship between the international community and Bosnian governing officials has remained relatively homogeneous. This dominant account of the relationship has been that it is a contentious and oppositional one. To criticize the approach I highlighted two of its problematic aspects. These were the conception of the state, in the abstract, as a highly unified and cohesive entity. And, the depiction of internal and external as isolated and fixed actor-identities. The central argument of this thesis is that the international community and the nationalist parties (representing respectively the external and internal state actors) have become united in a mutually advantageous and mutually-reinforcing process of sharing power, responsibility, and blame. This process has been apparently oppositional but effectively cooperative, so that the outcome of twelve years of state-building has been the continued relevance and effective entrenchment of both the international community and the nationalist parties in the Bosnian state.

On its own, Kosovo has neither come to where it is today nor could it move any forward in the near future. The role of the international community and especially that of the EU is crucial in helping Kosovo overpass some of the current barriers and become a truly European state, instead of just another state in Europe. Therefore, from a state-building perspective, this paper strives to shed some light on the process of state-building in Kosovo and the role of the international involvement during this past decade.

This thesis examines approaches taken towards warlords and militias during the current U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan and that of the Soviet/Najibullah period analysing their impact on key state formation dynamics and state-building efforts. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, the study finds that while the current intervention has seen its warlord and militia strategies produce generally negative results, the past Soviet intervention can arguably claim some partial successes. Though these partial successes provided an “exit strategy”, they did not aid in the state-building efforts or regime stabilization goals that had been Moscow’s initial and primary goals. The study also point to the problematic omission of actors and social groupings, such as warlords and militias, in state-building theory, and shows how security goals as typically addressed in state-building need not be synonymous or conducive to the primitive accumulation of force that spurred dependency relationships in past state formation.

The study of externally-led democratisation in conflict-affected societies has expanded over the last two decades. The introduction of democracy from the outside has attracted extensive scholarly interest in accordance with the increasing engagement of the United Nations and other international agents in attempting to build long-lasting domestic, regional and international peace through promoting democratic forms of government in the post-Cold War era. The studies conducted to investigate democratisation in post-conflict societies have focused on the construction of government institutions and transferring necessary institutional competencies due to the fact that externally-driven democratisation policies target the state rather than the nation. In this respect, some studies undertaken to examine the process of democratisation in post-conflict societies pointed to the need for sequencing of tasks such as establishing security, law and order and building strong and capable government institutions in the first place. Their focus, however, has still remained on the state rather than the nation. Through examining two case studies, this thesis emphasises two significant points: 1) achieving successful democratic transformation in conflict-affected societies requires not only the construction of functioning central state institutions but also the creation of a shared sense of national community; and 2) sequencing of post-conflict reconstruction tasks therefore should also involve building a sense of national cohesion through promoting social communication, participation and inclusion in political, institutional and social processes while postponing the competitive or potentially conflictual aspects of democracy. The need to integrate the creation of a sense of shared national community into studies of democracy promotion in societies emerging from conflict stems from the fact that the reconstruction of post-conflict societies involves two separate but complementary and interacting processes. These processes were examined under two headings: state-building and nation-building. The construction of well-functioning, effective government institutions and the achievement of a sense of national community were found to be vital, inter-connected factors to consolidate democratic rule promoted by external actors. The lack of or a weak sense of social cohesion has an undermining effect on the capacity of state institutions to exercise authority and effectively and democratically perform their roles and duties. Failing to deliver their functions to the public and exercise political authority throughout the entire territory, weak state institutions, in return, do not provide a suitable environment for consolidating democratic rule, which requires the execution of the rule of law and protection and guaranteeing of citizens’ political rights.

From the mid-1990s, the amalgamation of security, development, and humanitarian imperatives under the single umbrella of ‘state-building’ has provided a compelling justification for increasingly intrusive interventions into the political, economic, and social affairs of subject countries. Guided by the assumptions of liberal peace theory, state-building initiatives engage directly with states, seeking to achieve a reformulation of structures of government as a first step towards the implementation of wider socio-economic reforms. The state-building project is geared towards the construction of a particular form of statehood in subject states; state institutions are to be reconstructed in accordance with a liberal template, and tasked with establishing the necessary institutional environment for market-led development and the liberal peace. Contemporary discourses of state-building and development are fundamentally interlinked, representing a unified process of neo-liberal replication in subject states, whereby fundamental transformations of social, political, and economic structures are to be implemented and sustained through the construction of liberal state institutions. Pressure to court international approval due to conditions of aid dependence curtails the potential for meaningful democracy in subject countries. Key questions of social and economic policy are subsumed as technical matters of good governance and removed from domestic democratic contestation, facilitating a transfer of formerly domestic considerations into the international sphere. These interlocking processes of state-building and neo-liberal discipline have contributed to an inversion of sovereign statehood, whereby the state serves to channel inward an externally driven agenda, rather than acting as a sovereign expression of domestic interests. This reality raises important questions regarding the nature of democracy in post-conflict environments, and in particular the impact of state-building activities on the prospects for broadly inclusive democracy in subject states. This study will examine the evolution of state-building as a critical components of peace-building missions, its central assumptions and goals, and its implementation in practice in Timor-Leste. The state-building process in Timor-Leste has contributed to the formation of an insulated state with little basis in Timorese society. The democratic experience in Timor-Leste has been profoundly disempowering; conditions of aid dependence have constrained elected governments in key areas of social and economic policy, resulting in a loss of popular legitimacy and mounting public disenchantment. Closer examination of food and agricultural policy and management of Timorese oil reserves reveals the extent to which government policy remains constrained by international preferences. In these areas, the government’s inability to act in the interests of the Timorese public has compounded social hardships and popular discontent, contributing to the build-up of anti-government sentiment that manifested itself in the 2006 crisis.

Thesis (M.S.H.P.)--Ball State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Apr. 16, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. [69]-73).

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Christopher Hunter, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Mathematics. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 26, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 122 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Este trabalho discute a História da Bolívia à luz da logística nacional. Procura demonstrar que o maior ou menor êxito da construção do Estado esteve relacionado inicialmente às vias de transporte (internas e com o exterior) e, posteriormente, à energia (combustíveis) e à capacidade produtiva. Busca evidenciar que o desenvolvimento econômico (pólos dinâmicos da economia) e a própria construção de um centro de decisão econômica (soberania) são em grande medida tributários dos limites impostos pela logística nacional. O trabalho procura investigar o quanto a logística nacional influenciou a formação social, a competição inter-estatal e a própria revolução nacional na Bolívia. Assim, examina-se, sucessivamente, a formação da sociedade boliviana, o papel da Guerra do Chaco, a Revolução Nacional (1952), o separatismo e a integração regional tendo como pano de fundo esse denominador comum – a logística nacional. Por fim, entende que as promessas não cumpridas de cidadania e soberania da revolução nacional boliviana, inconclusa, têm sua redenção no processo de integração regional – realizado a partir do paradigma do Estado logístico. / This work discusses the history of Bolivia in light of the national logistics. Seeks to demonstrate that the greater or lesser success of state building was related initially to inland transport and communication (internal and external), and then to energy (fuel) and production capacity. Seeks to show that economic development (dynamic poles of the economy) and the actual construction of a center of economic decision (sovereignty) are largely tributary by the limits imposed by national logistics. The work aims to investigate how national logistics influenced the national social formation, the inter-state competition and the national revolution in Bolivia. Thus, it examines, successively, the formation of Bolivian society, the role of the Chaco War, the National Revolution (1952), and separatism and regional integration with the background of this common denominator – the national logistics. Finally, it considers that the broken promises of citizenship and sovereignty of the Bolivian national revolution, unfinished, have their redemption in the process of regional integration – made from the paradigm of the Logistic State.

Este trabalho discute a História da Bolívia à luz da logística nacional. Procura demonstrar que o maior ou menor êxito da construção do Estado esteve relacionado inicialmente às vias de transporte (internas e com o exterior) e, posteriormente, à energia (combustíveis) e à capacidade produtiva. Busca evidenciar que o desenvolvimento econômico (pólos dinâmicos da economia) e a própria construção de um centro de decisão econômica (soberania) são em grande medida tributários dos limites impostos pela logística nacional. O trabalho procura investigar o quanto a logística nacional influenciou a formação social, a competição inter-estatal e a própria revolução nacional na Bolívia. Assim, examina-se, sucessivamente, a formação da sociedade boliviana, o papel da Guerra do Chaco, a Revolução Nacional (1952), o separatismo e a integração regional tendo como pano de fundo esse denominador comum – a logística nacional. Por fim, entende que as promessas não cumpridas de cidadania e soberania da revolução nacional boliviana, inconclusa, têm sua redenção no processo de integração regional – realizado a partir do paradigma do Estado logístico. / This work discusses the history of Bolivia in light of the national logistics. Seeks to demonstrate that the greater or lesser success of state building was related initially to inland transport and communication (internal and external), and then to energy (fuel) and production capacity. Seeks to show that economic development (dynamic poles of the economy) and the actual construction of a center of economic decision (sovereignty) are largely tributary by the limits imposed by national logistics. The work aims to investigate how national logistics influenced the national social formation, the inter-state competition and the national revolution in Bolivia. Thus, it examines, successively, the formation of Bolivian society, the role of the Chaco War, the National Revolution (1952), and separatism and regional integration with the background of this common denominator – the national logistics. Finally, it considers that the broken promises of citizenship and sovereignty of the Bolivian national revolution, unfinished, have their redemption in the process of regional integration – made from the paradigm of the Logistic State.

Service delivery NGOs (SD-NGOs) have long been criticised for promoting ‘technocratic’ and ‘depoliticised’ forms of development. However, some commentators have begun to argue that such agencies, and even their ‘technocratic’ interventions, can have positive impacts on political forms and processes. This study investigates these two opposing perspectives through the lens of state building and citizenship formation in the global South. Primary research into the activities of a prominent SD-NGO in Uganda called The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO), through its “mini-TASO Project” (MTP), finds that the project delivered important citizenship gains for People with HIV/AIDS (PWAs). This was visible in four main areas, namely, enhanced ability of PWAs to exercise voice, increased associationalism among previously unorganised and marginalised PWAs, increased voluntarism and more participation of PWAs in political contests. Yet, the project’s state-capacity building effects were more uneven. On the one hand, the programme played an important role in strengthening the bureaucratic ability of targeted hospitals to deliver HIV/AIDS services, enhanced PWAs’ legibility to the state as well as increased state’s embeddedness in society. On the other hand, however, it was less successful in expanding the infrastructural reach of the state in rural Uganda. The overall conclusion is that while SD-NGOs emerge as more political actors than critics claim, their potentially progressive effects are contingent on and remain limited by intervention and contextual factors. While intervention factors encompass issues such as the expertise of SD-NGOs, programme design and funding, the contextual ones include the pre-existing state-society relations, operating environment for civil society, influence of donors, and the character of both formal and informal political institutions, among others.