How to build a State in a non State environment?

[JJackson]

A number of posters have bought up the willingness to meet the capital cost of a program without adequate provision for the running costs. Also there have been a number of examples illustrating the need for security prior to infrastructure needed for economic activity. Our destabilisation of the Soviet backed regime and Pakistan’s destabilisation of the US backed regime (and plenty of other examples elsewhere) have shown it is much cheaper to destroy than build. Putting these all together I have been surprised not to see more discussion of the viability of building an Afghan security force (police and army) in a country that could not afford to sustain either. Looking at the country, even assuming a miracle occurred and the central government had a firm grip and security of half the territory, would this be an adequate tax base to sustain a force defending it?

Going back to the question of ‘is a cleptocracy a necessary step on the path to a less corrupt form of government?’ and the excellent notion that it might be a good idea to look at the existing political systems, which the population are used to and understand, and try and build on these. In Afghanistan we seem to have setup a top down model in direct completion with the tribal shura model. The traditional model seems to have evolved to cope with an inbuilt level of endemic ‘corruption’ while our model has not, as yet, found a working balance. Corruption is, to a degree, in the eye of the beholder. In the US the political system has an ‘accepted’ balance in laws are passed by inducing Congressman to support a bill – he does not really care about – by promising some pork for something he does. It is the cost of doing business as is a bit of backshish in other parts of the world, in each case there are norms and there are unacceptable excesses.

The discussion has touched on legitimacy and I have real problems with NATO or ‘coalitions of the willing’ being legitimate arbiters of which countries should be invaded or what individuals/governments are created and empowered. This is a very dangerous precedent and I suspect Western publics would have a serious problems if Venezuela formed a coalition of the willing including Cuba, Iran and its friends and decided to do something about the failed state of Haiti. Which brings me to the UN, which I am unfashionably fond of, baring the Security Council which brings the rest of the organisation into disrepute. The fact that it has representatives from countries with high levels of corruption that are in it for personal gain is just another cost of doing business. Single nation states, with comparatively homogeneous political views, have enough trouble reconciling the wants of very red and very blue states when most countries could not spot the difference. For an organisation that needs to accommodate Myanmar, KSA, Israel, China and the US it does a remarkable job and, despite the weaknesses caused by this width, it can confer a level of legitimacy among the community of nation states that a military superpower and a few like-minded friends can not.

Looking at the latest batch of polling data – going back to ascertaining what the people actually want/think – I was surprised by the level of support the Karzai government received. Faith in the coalition forces has been slipping, year-on-year, and the only saving grace is the Taliban is even less popular than we are.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Going back to the question of ‘is a cleptocracy a necessary step on the path to a less corrupt form of government?’ and the excellent notion that it might be a good idea to look at the existing political systems, which the population are used to and understand, and try and build on these.

OK, a note on cleptocracy from a tribal point of view. Depending on the area and the level of centralization in the existing governance system property is viewed as corporate in a tribe. What I mean by that is that all the tribes property is considered owned by the head of the tribe and is distributed for use by members of the tribe in accordance with how he or she views it as being appropriate. A person in a tribal leadership position will look at the property that they have as theirs. All tribal members under him must get permission to use it.

In my mind this creates two problems. First, since the property is essentially theirs, they can use it for anything they want including themselves. Fast-forward to a tribal leader in a government position (or a leader whose only frame of reference for how to lead is tribal ways) that person does not see spending their budget any way they want as stealing. Second, all tribal members must get permission to use the tribal property. Fast-forward to a mid-level manager in a logistics chain. He will not release any parts until he has permission from the "owner" of the property. These are not things you are going to change over night. Iraq has had the "dictatorial advantage" for many years and the tribal mindset still limits capabilities. It is something you have to learn to work with.

[Steve the Planner]

Curmudgeon:

Very good description. I also see very similar relationships to how our local governments actually work, so there is some universality...

I wonder whether it is really our role to take them somewhere else, or just to acknowledge those limitations, and move on to whatever our real objective is.

Is suspect that tribalism in tribal areas is probably a very effective strategy of adaptation. If it didn't have some rationale or purpose, it could change by internal "evolution," or otherwise.

If our systems were appropriate for these places, why is there no history of democracy emerging in tribal areas on its own over thousands of years?

Maybe there is a better way, but "they" have to embrace and accept it for it to endure.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Steve,

I have a theory on that, which you will find in a somewhat inarticulate fashion back at post 39.

Bottom line, democracy takes a financial base - something that does not exist in most tribal areas (except relatively recently where natural resources like oil have created rentier economies). The tribal system works perfectly well for people living in areas with limited resources. It satisfies the needs of the people at that economic level.

This is why I am so focused on examining the economy immediately after establishing security. Unless you know what the geography and the culture can support economically you cannot determine the type of governance system that will function in that environment. Trying to install something the environment and culture cannot support will fail.

This presents us westerners with a dilemma. We feel it is our evangelical duty to spread freedom. The problem is, freedom (democracy) is expensive. Where freedom (democracy) is too expensive, it will fail. I remember reading somethere that no democracy has survived where the per capita GDP was less than $3K. Even where the economic conditions might support it (like Iraq) you have to overcome centuries of socialization. You have to retrain the society. For lack of a better term, you have to engage in societal engineering - which is what we are doing even if we do not want to call it that.

Worst than that, it is not what the people in that society need. But that is a anthro-socio-political argument that most people find too ... I am not sure ... but they find it unpalatable.

[Dayuhan]

OK, a note on cleptocracy from a tribal point of view. Depending on the area and the level of centralization in the existing governance system property is viewed as corporate in a tribe. What I mean by that is that all the tribes property is considered owned by the head of the tribe and is distributed for use by members of the tribe in accordance with how he or she views it as being appropriate. A person in a tribal leadership position will look at the property that they have as theirs. All tribal members under him must get permission to use it.

That may be true of some "tribal" cultures but it certainly isn't true of all. "Tribal" is a pretty broad world, and doesn't necessarily mean that there's an all-powerful "head of the tribe" in the picture. In many ways this is more characteristic of the post-tribal "big man" politics that have evolved in much of Africa.

I live in a tribal culture where there isn't any head; decisions are made by councils of elders... "elder" being defined not necessarily by age, rather by acknowledged competence. Can't be too quick to generalize...

[TheCurmudgeon]

That may be true of some "tribal" cultures but it certainly isn't true of all. "Tribal" is a pretty broad world, and doesn't necessarily mean that there's an all-powerful "head of the tribe" in the picture. In many ways this is more characteristic of the post-tribal "big man" politics that have evolved in much of Africa.

I live in a tribal culture where there isn't any head; decisions are made by councils of elders... "elder" being defined not necessarily by age, rather by acknowledged competence. Can't be too quick to generalize...

First, I agree whole-heartedly. Terms like "tribal" have been used to denote anything less than a Westphalian system.

I would disagree that "big man" is post tribal (so to speak), but it is fantastic that you are even familiar with the term in my opinion. I would consider big men an alternative or even pre-tribal (I know, that is not very articulate) system. This is why each society has to be examined individually. There are similarities. There are commonalities that can be understood and exploited. But unless you have an idea of what you are looking at you are clueless.

Actually, you sound like you live in an egalitarian society. Competence is the only measure of respect. Nearly impossible to get any enforceable decision without complete unanimity. Does that sound accurate?

[Dayuhan]

First, I agree whole-heartedly. Terms like "tribal" have been used to denote anything less than a Westphalian system.

Somebody's going to call you out and ask why "other than Westphalian" must be considered "less", so it might as well be me.

I would disagree that "big man" is post tribal (so to speak), but it is fantastic that you are even familiar with the term in my opinion. I would consider big men an alternative or even pre-tribal (I know, that is not very articulate) system.

"Big man" is a pretty common and familiar term, is it not? I classified it as "post tribal" because of the prevalence of unconstrained "big man" politics in post-colonial Africa where the hastily contrived and often irrational national boundaries left tribal systems disrupted and in many cases disabled. While "big man" systems certainly existed in tribal societies, they were often constrained to some extent (not always, but often) by other elements of tribal politics. Of course the Cold War and the ability to draw support from external actors also enabled the "big man" systems... and one could go on.

This is why each society has to be examined individually. There are similarities. There are commonalities that can be understood and exploited. But unless you have an idea of what you are looking at you are clueless.

Agreed.

Actually, you sound like you live in an egalitarian society. Competence is the only measure of respect. Nearly impossible to get any enforceable decision without complete unanimity. Does that sound accurate?

Close to accurate, though the details are known to get complicated. Somehow that always seems to be the case where Homo Sapiens is involved.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Somebody's going to call you out and ask why "other than Westphalian" must be considered "less", so it might as well be me.

"Less" is only a matter of perspective. We westerners view it as "less" than what we have. Personally, I do not.

"Big man" is a pretty common and familiar term, is it not? I classified it as "post tribal" because of the prevalence of unconstrained "big man" politics in post-colonial Africa where the hastily contrived and often irrational national boundaries left tribal systems disrupted and in many cases disabled. While "big man" systems certainly existed in tribal societies, they were often constrained to some extent (not always, but often) by other elements of tribal politics. Of course the Cold War and the ability to draw support from external actors also enabled the "big man" systems... and one could go on.

It is very hard to generalize. From what I can tell from reading books and being stuck in the rear "big men" seem to fall somewhere between the egalitarian society and the true chiefdom, where a single leader holds sway. But that is only in the books.

[Steve the Planner]

It's a little more complicated than tribal versus non-tribal.

Whether in Dark Ages Europe, the role of a leader or strong man, in the best light, is to store wealth, control and manage it for the community as a whole.

We are witnessing these post-conflict areas, populated by the remnant survivors of a very high-stress condition over a number of years (Iraq, Afghanistan), so we seldom see the true system and folks that existed before, or under long-term, steady-state conditions.

A positive tribal leader, who, in good times, grabs everything that moves, also, in bad times, is the food-provider of last resort, and the guy who funds the new seeds after a long drought.

Iraq, on the other hand, was well on the way to post-tribal evolutions before we came along. Most of these local "good fellas" had long-ago been reconciled to an almost grandfatherly position, and not really "tribal elders."

The big leaders had long ago adapted to a prominent role within a post-Ottoman framework that is very different from the role of "tribal leader" or "elder." They were senior political/government advisors, and their role was balanced against the technocrats/bureaucrats similar, but not the same as, our federal system.

Ottoman structures are often best understood as bottom to top revenue machines. Money is extracted at the lower levels and funneled upward, with pieces taken at each level. This come down only by petition, diplomacy and influence. They are not high-performance systems easily adaptable to our version of government service delivery. Instead, most of that local service is a local matter, in the same way as many US localities. If you want good schools or policing, that is a local matter funded by local fees.

More often than was comfortable, I heard US folks discussing Iraq's civil structure as Stalinist or post-Soviet. In fact, it was post-Ottoman, with elements of true Mesopotamian heritage, and mega-private sector contracts.

A strong government was essential to manage the watersheds (the two rivers), and control productive agriculture. The family that owned Al Warka Bank also provided, through national patronage, the agricultural control system. The seeds didn't come from the government, they came from the government's agri-managers. Like a Purdue chicken farmer in the US, the company provides the seed or feed and promises to buy it, and help you finance operations, as long as you are dancing to their tune.

More than once, when I investigated a "Budget Execution" problem for a US-inspired school project, there was a local technocrat sitting on it for sound reasons, and mostly because they understood that it was either a dumb or unnecessary project, one that would never survive, or one that they understandably saw as a "sheik" or "goodfella" project that made no public or organizational sense.

In June 2008, there was a big Iraqi budget conference where the ministries were going to develop and promulgate standards and procedures for capital project reviews for the 2009 budget. US folks were greatly worried about how this might interfere with their projects.

There were actually only about five US folks there, since it was an Iraqi conference. I listened to the bad US translations on my ear piece, but also was updated by my partner, a transportation engineer from California who also was fluent in Arabic. So, I got both sides.

When the conference turned to the standards, they whipped out the old standards book from 1968, that, to both of us, looked the same as every other project evaluation/EIS process we had used throughout our career. Identify the project and its justification. Identify costs, risks, uncertainties, and secondary impacts, compare alternatives to accomplish the same objectives.... All the required reports funnel to the Planning Ministry who creates a score card for the legislature (COR).

This is the DNA of their world---the 1968 standards book. Every technocrat in the room, whether from Basra or Mosul, immediately knew what it was, and started debating the fine points (as bureaucrats always do). The only ones who didn't know were the new officials, so the old-timers set up a system to bring them up to speed and get them copies of the old books.

It's absolutely true that we could have easily gotten a USAID contractor in No Va to create a project evaluation book for them, and try to force it out into their systems. But, why?

In Maryland, the identical process is used for State school construction financing, with all the justifications flowing to the Department of Planning, whose score card is used by the State Board of Public Works---up to a point for maybe 60% of the available funds. Th rest falls to politics, which is why the annual fund allocation process is known as the "Begathon." Let some character in No Va write a new procedure to cram down on Maryland's Board of Public Works and it will be sure to end up on the scrap heap.

I know most things aren't as complex as that kind of process, but, ultimately, everything in government follows the same flow, but with its own nuances.

From experience, a lot of our reconstructor-wannabes have some very simplistic notions about how real governments actually work, especially at a local level. It is all nuance and procedure.

One common phrase from the consulting world: That's the best idea that nobody would ever propose. A lot of what we are doing is that, so it doesn't work out. No surprise.

Ken White can tell you a hundred reasons why what a young LT thinks is a good idea that sounds rational won't work. And he can tell you what will.

The problem we have on the civilian side is often because we don't know how things did/will work in a local application, and are often dealing with survivor populations who don't know either, or are trying to game us (in the normal human fashion). But how do we get THERE with that?

Had the US spent time studying these Iraqi natural systems in advance, we could have jump started the system that already existed instead of trying to invent new wheels and fit them onto their railroad cars.

The same in Afghanistan. Just a bunch of nice locals talking to some well-intended foreigners who have more money than wisdom.

[TheCurmudgeon]

I just finished watching "The Final Option". Used to be our training film in the good old days where terrorists were state sponsored - when things were simple. I miss the old days ...

[Steve the Planner]

Midnight Mass, Cathedral of the Assumption, 2010.

The Archbishop asked us to pray for Christians in Communist Countries who are oppressed.

Maybe a little outta style to me, who was thinking about all the Christians being blown up in the Middle East.

It's just so hard to keep up....

[Dayuhan]

Whether in Dark Ages Europe, the role of a leader or strong man, in the best light, is to store wealth, control and manage it for the community as a whole.

We are witnessing these post-conflict areas, populated by the remnant survivors of a very high-stress condition over a number of years (Iraq, Afghanistan), so we seldom see the true system and folks that existed before, or under long-term, steady-state conditions.

A positive tribal leader, who, in good times, grabs everything that moves, also, in bad times, is the food-provider of last resort, and the guy who funds the new seeds after a long drought.

In many post-colonial environments what was missing from that equation was a clear sense of a "community as a whole". In many cases the "big man" saw himself as representative of and accountable to a community that was only part of the supposed "nation", or to nobody at all... and the existence of cold war patrons and external support removed the need to be at least partially judicious and competent in order to survive. Without external support a "big man" has to take at least some care of the community that sustains him; if he's completely inept and completely self-indulged he'll either be overthrown or his tribe will collapse, starve, or be conquered.

Of course there will be a huge difference between an environment like Iraq, where there was a relatively recent defined state with a functioning bureaucracy, and an environment where these things have not existed within human memory. Re building in Iraq can reach back to what was there; in Somalia or the DRC that's a bit more difficult.

[Steve the Planner]

Dayuhan:

You hit the nail on the head: Who is being represented/served?

Darwin assures, in a stable situation over time, that a bad "big man" will either destroy himself or his followers.

Take away all the natural/rational conditions, and the "big man's" feed back loop is something completely different. A game theory optimizer within some kind of weird cargo culture thing where coke bottles drops out of the sky and you have to grab what you can.

Very disruptive, very hard to "reconstruct" anything if it has gone on for a generation or more.

Afghan solutions must get beyond the simplistic through more money and influence at a broken and alien system.

Isn't that what this thread was about?

Whether we keep doing what we are doing or find a new strategy that could actually work there?

[TheCurmudgeon]

It's a little more complicated than tribal versus non-tribal.

...

More often than was comfortable, I heard US folks discussing Iraq's civil structure as Stalinist or post-Soviet. In fact, it was post-Ottoman, with elements of true Mesopotamian heritage, and mega-private sector contracts.

I think part of that is the military types understanding that the military model (and training) used by Saddam was soviet. Part of it is that civilians find the soviet model as the best example for a dictatorial state with a centralized economy.

More than once, when I investigated a "Budget Execution" problem for a US-inspired school project, there was a local technocrat sitting on it for sound reasons, and mostly because they understood that it was either a dumb or unnecessary project, one that would never survive, or one that they understandably saw as a "sheik" or "goodfella" project that made no public or organizational sense.

In June 2008, there was a big Iraqi budget conference where the ministries were going to develop and promulgate standards and procedures for capital project reviews for the 2009 budget. US folks were greatly worried about how this might interfere with their projects.

There were actually only about five US folks there, since it was an Iraqi conference. I listened to the bad US translations on my ear piece, but also was updated by my partner, a transportation engineer from California who also was fluent in Arabic. So, I got both sides.

When the conference turned to the standards, they whipped out the old standards book from 1968, that, to both of us, looked the same as every other project evaluation/EIS process we had used throughout our career. Identify the project and its justification. Identify costs, risks, uncertainties, and secondary impacts, compare alternatives to accomplish the same objectives.... All the required reports funnel to the Planning Ministry who creates a score card for the legislature (COR).

This is the DNA of their world---the 1968 standards book. Every technocrat in the room, whether from Basra or Mosul, immediately knew what it was, and started debating the fine points (as bureaucrats always do). The only ones who didn't know were the new officials, so the old-timers set up a system to bring them up to speed and get them copies of the old books.

It's absolutely true that we could have easily gotten a USAID contractor in No Va to create a project evaluation book for them, and try to force it out into their systems. But, why?

We try to "reinvent the wheel" way too often. Part of our mindset. That is a problem that WE have to overcome.

From experience, a lot of our reconstructor-wannabes have some very simplistic notions about how real governments actually work, especially at a local level. It is all nuance and procedure.

One common phrase from the consulting world: That's the best idea that nobody would ever propose. A lot of what we are doing is that, so it doesn't work out. No surprise.

Ken White can tell you a hundred reasons why what a young LT thinks is a good idea that sounds rational won't work. And he can tell you what will.

The problem we have on the civilian side is often because we don't know how things did/will work in a local application, and are often dealing with survivor populations who don't know either, or are trying to game us (in the normal human fashion). But how do we get THERE with that?

Had the US spent time studying these Iraqi natural systems in advance, we could have jump started the system that already existed instead of trying to invent new wheels and fit them onto their railroad cars.

The same in Afghanistan. Just a bunch of nice locals talking to some well-intended foreigners who have more money than wisdom.

Again, WE need to learn that there are other systems out there that work. Everything does not have to look like America.

Every problem isn't cause by the way things are in Afghanistan or anywhere else. Some problems do not even exist. We create them because of our expectations. They are not problems to the locals - they are problems because we say they are.