In this thesis I argue that US Military and Civilian leadership in Iraq, while both well-trained and well-intentioned, implemented a failed strategy that sought to fill institutional gaps within various national and sub-national governmental entities. This strategy provided short-term gains by increasing the capacity and capability of Iraq’s government to deliver public goods and services to its citizens thereby improving government legitimacy. Yet, in the long-term, a largely decentralized approach to development, a maladaptive transition plan, and an illusory estimate of the capacity of the security apparatus within Iraq proved detrimental to the broader US strategic objectives and state-building efforts in Iraq.

This thesis develops a new framework for explaining the effects and possible trajectories of state building interventions (SBIs). This is for both examining specific interventions and learning about the precise nature of the post-Cold War global order – how power is distributed, exercised, constrained and challenged within and between states. In the post-Cold War years, but particularly since the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, so-called failed states have become a central security concern for policymakers. In tandem, there has been an influx of practitioner and scholarly interest in international ‘state building’. Prevalent approaches to state building are premised on a static conception of the state and therefore seek to evaluate SBIs in terms of whether they help create ‘more’ or ‘less’ state. In contrast, this thesis examines SBIs as a new mode of governance in the global political economy that is transformative of both intervened and intervening states, leading to the creation of a transnationalising and transnationally regulated form of statehood. Based on a conception of the state as a site of social and political struggle this study examines the ways in which SBIs affect the distribution, production and reproduction of political power in intervened states: Who rules and how? What social and political conflicts are engendered or exacerbated by SBIs, and how are they managed? What alliances and coalitions support the production/reproduction of power relationships associated with SBIs? The thesis provides a conceptual framework for understanding the complex governance terrain SBIs open up. SBIs are conceptualised as multilevel regimes – sets of social and political relationships, institutions and ideas – that exist simultaneously within and outside intervened states. While preserving the formal sovereignty of intervened states, these regimes are nevertheless established to shape political outcomes by limiting the political choices available to domestic leaders. This is operationalised by opening up and shifting power to multilevel spaces of governance within the apparatus of these countries. Through case studies from Australia, Solomon Islands and Cambodia, the thesis analyses the politics of SBIs and their broader implications for contemporary statehood. Ultimately it establishes that regardless of whether SBIs are successful or otherwise in achieving their stated objectives they are associated with the emergence of increasingly authoritarian, hierarchical and anti-competitive forms of political rule, both within and between states.

This dissertation examines the intimate connection between the State-building process and the temperance movement and asserts that neither project was merely imposed from the top down, but rather, involved input from a variety of actors. As presidents worked to rebuild the federal government during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1940, they also strove to rid the country of alcoholism. In particular, utilizing prejudiced notions of class, ethnicity, and gender, they targeted working-class and indigenous men, who they tried to transform into pacifistic patriarchs, efficient workers, and sober, responsible citizens. However, the case study of Sonora demonstrates that this federal project did not go uncontested. Presidents relied on governors and legislators to mandate temperance, mayors to enforce these laws, and citizens to follow them, but these people did not always willingly comply and thus policies often had to be modified. In other instances, ordinary people supported the anti-alcohol campaign, creating unofficial temperance leagues, petitioning the president to close more cantinas, or demanding that corrupt authorities obey alcohol legislation. Governors', mayors', and especially citizens' contributions to the anti-alcohol campaign and the State-building process may not have been equal to those of federal leaders, but both projects certainly benefited from the input of a diverse cross-section of society.This present research adds to and combines three historiographical fields on the history of alcohol, State-building, and the social and cultural components of revolutions. It is the first, full-length study of the anti-alcohol campaign during the Mexican Revolution and the only work about Mexico as of yet to examine temperance from the national, state, municipal, and popular perspective. This work also corroborates the argument of recent political scholars, demonstrating that the process of State formation was shaped by input from individuals on a variety of planes. Finally, this dissertation shows that the government's cultural policies, which included promoting high art, distributing propaganda, and carrying out campaigns such as the temperance movement, should not be seen as trivial. Rather, attempts to form a new, modern citizenry through these projects were a vital part of the State-building process and of social revolution in general.

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This thesis argues that neopatrimonialism is vital to understanding the power structure of the secessionist Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (TMR), and that neopatrimonial structures have been manipulated by Soviet-era elites to sustain the unrecognized separatist state's independence. The thesis also argues that neopatrimonialism is not a stable structure and its effectiveness in retaining support for the regime has changed over time. The paper provides an empirical analysis of the TMR in order to answer two questions: "To what extent does neopatrimonialism explain the regime endurance of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic?" and "What does the case of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic reveal about neopatrimonialism and regime endurance over time?" The analysis examines the TMR regime's use of Soviet-era industrial and bureaucratic structures, media, party networks, and worker committees to assert and maintain control, distribute patronage, maintain support for secession, and co-opt important interest groups. The paper concludes that although neopatrimonialism is only one of several elements that support the TMR regime's endurance, the analysis of neopatrimonial systems in states with significant neopatrimonialism provides a framework for examining disparate but interwoven elements of a state's political economy. / Master of Public and International Affairs

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was one of the great blunders in American foreign policy. This thesis examines Neoconservative thought and policy, and its effect on the nation and state building effort in Iraq. It provides an analysis of the Iraqi Constitution and uses the faults of the Constitution to paint a picture of the larger instabilities and difficulties in Iraq today.

Este trabalho trata da relação entre competição, estrutura e agência nas Relações Internacionais. Ele se estrutura em três partes. A primeira parte contextualiza o estudo na agenda de pesquisa dos Estudos Estratégicos Internacionais. Para tanto, discute-se a pertinência do debate agente–estrutura, bem como delimitam-se os pressupostos ontológicos que nortearão o restante do trabalho. A segunda parte é o artigo. Analisam-se os efeitos da competição no processo de evolução dos sistemas políticos internacionais, sistemas políticos nacionais e estados. Por conta disso, discute-se a ontologia de cada objeto de análise e, em seguida, busca-se os mecanismos causais que conectam suas respectivas trajetórias evolutivas. De acordo com os atores e meios envolvidos, três dimensões de competição social são identificadas: competição internacional; construção do estado; e concorrência regulada. A hipótese de trabalho é que os resultados das interações entre as estratégias escolhidas pelos agentes para enfrentar o tipo de competição com que se deparam causam mudanças na estrutura dos sistemas políticos internacionais, nacionais e nas características das organizações políticas estatais. Na terceira parte, discute-se as implicações teóricas e práticas decorrentes do trabalho, bem como são assinaladas perspectivas para a continuação da agenda de pesquisa. Sugere-se que a incorporação de conceitos e categorias desenvolvidas pela literatura de Teoria de Sistemas e da Complexidade é fundamental para a superação de dicotomias ontológicas e epistemológicas nas ciências sociais. Ademais, argumenta-se que o aperfeiçoamento das organizações políticas é indissociável da compreensão de que a busca por defesa e segurança pelos estados não é apenas uma força destruidora, mas também pode produzir efeitos que potencializam a coesão social e expandem direitos fundamentais. Logo, propõe-se que a agenda de pesquisa decorrente desse trabalho deverá se debruçar sobre a questão de quais são as condições em que interações competitivas contribuem para o surgimento de organizações políticas capazes de sobreviverem e atuarem no sistema político internacional contemporâneo, bem como proverem segurança, bem-estar e direitos políticos para seus cidadãos. / This paper deals with the relationship among competition, structure and agency in International Relations. The study is structured in three parts. The first part contextualizes the work in the research agenda of the International Strategic Studies. Therefore, we discuss the relevance of the agent-structure debate, and delimit the ontological assumptions and that will guide the rest of the study. The second part is the article. It analyzes the effects of competition in the process of evolution of international political systems, national political systems and states. On that account, discusses the ontology of each object of analysis, and then seeks the causal mechanisms that connect their evolutionary trajectories. According to the actors and means involved three dimensions of social competition are identified: international competition; construction of state; and regulated competition. The working hypothesis is that the results of the interactions among the strategies chosen by agents to cope with the kind of competition they encounter cause changes in the structure of international political systems, national political systems and in the characteristics of the state political organizations. In the third part, it is discussed theoretical and practical implications resulting from study, and also prospects for the continuation of the research agenda. It is suggested that the incorporation of concepts and categories developed by Systems and Complexity Theory is fundamental to overcoming ontological and epistemological dichotomies in the social sciences. Moreover, it is argued that the improvement of our political organizations is inseparable from the understanding that the search for security and defense by states is not only a destructive force, but can also produce effects that enhance social cohesion and expansion of fundamental rights. Therefore, it is proposed that the research agenda derived from the study should lean over the question of what are the conditions under which competitive interactions contribute to the emergence of political organizations able not only to survive and act in the contemporary international political system, but also provide security, welfare, and political rights to its citizens.

Look back to the history of the European Union¡]EU¡^, started with the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community¡]ECSC¡^ in 1951, then it turned into European Atomic Energy Community¡]EURATOM¡^and European Economic Community¡]EEC¡^to repeal customs duties. Maastricht Treaty was established in the year of 1992 and it brought a brand new, all concepts of integration. The international society and the academic world are interested in whether all these changes will bring the EU to a new single state or not. It¡¦s not an optimum way to via the highly legalized economic laws to define that if there¡¦s a tendency of building a new state of EU. In order to get more ideas of EU, this thesis chooses the youth policy, which has multidimensional concepts, to analyze the situation and to clarify the present and future state of EU integration. With the more specific analysis of the youth policy, this thesis has found that it has not only a goal of strategy, but also one of the most important chains of EU¡¦s integration. Therefore, this article uses the youth policy to be the main framework to check the existence of the EU¡¦s state-building. This thesis provides a new point of view to see if there¡¦s a possibility of the EU¡¦s state-building; begin with checking the EU¡¦s development to build the concept of EU¡¦s integration trend, analyze the EU¡¦s youth policy and compare it with the main trend of EU¡¦s development to explore if EU tends to become one state. The main framework of the study consists of ¡§Internal solidification¡¨ and ¡§external discrimination¡¨ to prevent the limitation of single integration theory and to exam the state of EU¡¦s integration. This proves that EU has found the motive to take the further step to the next stage of integration. It is likely to say that the relations between the member states of EU are getting stronger in cultural concept.

This MA Report explores existing literature pertaining to three aspects of politics during or directly following crises in the United States: state-building, suppression or expansion of civil liberties, and enduring alterations to the American social hierarchy. While acknowledging the many insights of all three areas of literature, the Report argues that literature on state-building is too concentrated on formal, top-down explanations. As a result, it neglects the crucial dependence state-building has on aspects, such as the active participation of civil society groups. The Report further argues that political science’s absence from research literature on civil liberties during crises needs to end. The abundance of legal and historical accounts on this subject offers a wealth of descriptive insights. However, they fail to offer causal explanations for why crises have such an inconsistent and dynamic impact on civil liberties. Finally, research over the impact of crises on American social hierarchies needs to move away from assuming social groups’ interests a priori. Instead, scholars should attempt to unearth what these interests actually were among these groups within the historical context given, looking specifically to the discursive contests among social groups as they attempt to frame crises in advantageous ways. / text

Most models of property rights assume they are supplied by the state on demand from society. Property rights are strong when state institutions enforce the law. The strength of state institutions in the provinces determines how well property rights will be enforced on the ground. The penetration of state institutions from the capital city to the provinces is a part of long state building processes. These processes pit centralizing elites against local notables who want to protect their authority and privileges. In the West, state building processes took centuries; in post-colonial states like Algeria and Tunisia, these processes have occurred over the last fifty years, and have occurred unevenly This dissertation asks why property rights are relatively strong in Tunisia, and why they are so weak in Algeria. To answer this question, it focuses on the development of local political and state institutions in the years immediately following independence. At independence, rulers in both states used their anti-colonial nationalist parties to buttress the state-in-formation. Their ability to do so, however, was conditioned on the development of those parties during the colonial period, and affected their rural state building strategies. The choices they made in the first decades of independence defined the parameters of local-national relations and the degree to which they can implement property rights on the ground. Using the Neo-Destour Party, which had developed into a mass-mobilizing movement by independence, the Tunisian state was able to project authority into the periphery. In return for vertical mobility opportunities, party cadres enforced national legislation during the early state building period. Property rights are strong. In Algeria, authority collapsed when close to a million European settlers fled in 1962. The French excluded Muslims from the political and economic sphere fearing they would subvert the foundation of the colonial system: strong settler property rights. At independence, the new regime had few cadres to staff the new state institutions, and an amorphous nationalist movement. The regime chose a two-tiered state building strategy. From the top-down, it placed its few cadres for the central and provincial administration. Its bottom-up strategy was to form a new set of party-administrators that could act as proxy agents on the ground through the municipalities. The top-down, bottom-up powersharing agreement turned on its side, however, as local notables infiltrated the local party organizations and municipalities. The party-administrators entered alliances with notables, creating localized political arenas independent of Algiers. Subsequent efforts to run land and property reform through the municipalities were undermined by these alliances, and have been since. In Algeria, property rights are nationally legislated, but they are enforced according to local dictates. Property rights are weak. / text