Nation-Building Elevated

[M-A Lagrange]

I fully agree with Dayuhan, building a Nation is a myth. But building a State apparatus is possible. This does not mean it would be a success according to Western standards.
This being said, let’s look at the roots of the tree before commenting how the tree grows:

Let’s drop the Fukuyama and other Marxist theories on what are State and their capitalistic predatory ambitions.
We need here first to agree on what we are talking about: State apparatus.
What is a State, what are the basements and what are the role of administrations into it.

First, I will take the Clausewitz trinity of our beloved brother Wilf:
People, Leadership and Armed Force

A group of people, with a leader and the capacity to be organised to use violence to defend their land: a Cite (in Greek in the text).
Here lay the roots of a country, a state, a nation….
On this, I would recommend Aristotle, Hobbes and Locke… To end up with Rousseau.

Now, this leads us to what are the various kind of civil societies (knowing the fact that by this term we include military dictatorship, kingdoms… All kinds of societies which are not lead by civilians).

1) the societies without State (Stateless societies, Non State societies):
The most well known example are the Nuer from Sudan. Cf: E. E. Evans-Pritchard

In those kinds of societies, social hierarchy is low, power is not centralized and not structured through a centralized administration or proto administration. Authority is hold by family chiefs or elders or religious leaders.
Moral and religion are used as law or legal referent to sanction deviances, non respects of Tabou…
Such societies are centered on survival of the group.
Actual good example is Somalia. It is also the type of organization to which de regulated, and dismantled societies tend to go back in failed states during civil wars or more generally when the State (as an administration) is absent.
Such societies are seen by Hobbes as the Human Nature: the war of all against all. It’s the western imaginary “savage society”. (by the way, to me it’s much closer to Locke than Hobbes).
What in western politic has long been assimilated to anarchy (See Anarchy ) but is not, especially in traditional societies (See all theanthropoly in Africa, Oceania, South America…).

2) the societies with State:

The societies with Sate, at least the modern ones are based on Max Weber definition of the State.
Weber unveils the definition of the state that has become so pivotal to Western social thought: that the state is that entity which possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force
Weber distinguished three pure types of political leadership, domination and authority:
1. charismatic domination (familial and religious),
2. traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism), and
3. legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy).[56]
In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they can be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[57] He also notes that the instability of charismatic authority inevitably forces it to "routinize" into a more structured form of authority. Likewise he notes that in a pure type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a master can lead to a "traditional revolution". Thus he alludes to an inevitable move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic structure.[58] Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber

So State building is building legal domination according to Weber classification.
This is the base of JMM99 three areas schema you can access here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=7610).
The actual model of this are the USA, all European countries, Asian, South American countries… All modern states. But there is sometimes a difference between those Nations. The “orthodox” Rule of Law State build Nation being USA. Mainy European countries are based on a social contract that is declined into rule of law… (slice difference but makes all the difference in fact).

This is entirely based on western societies, by the way. And this is what State Building is willing to achieve. But may be this should be called Administration Building. But this is also where the bias is.
Several challenges are to be faced. The following list is not exhaustive, far from it.

For this, I will use first a Kilcullen article published in SWJ (New Paradigms for 21st Century Conflicts http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...-21st-century/).
Similarly, we traditionally conduct state-based diplomacy through engagement with elites of other societies: governments, intelligentsia, and business leaders, among others. The theory is that problems can be resolved when elites agree, cooler heads prevail, and governments negotiate and then enforce agreements. Notions of sovereignty, the nation-state, treaty regimes, and international institutions all build on this paradigm.

What he points out is the fact that to build a new partner, we need to have an Elite to discuss with. We need to replace an Elite by another. So State building is not just administration building but it’s also elite capacity building.
The problematic often face is then that you have a competition on legitimacy, at field level, between Non State Elites and formal State Elites. Especially when State building aim is to build a “Nation” ex nihilo.

Secondly, I will use the very recent work of Atlani-Duault on former USSR countries and culture. Basically, her work is based on the idea that to counter USSR authoritarian regime, West has been developing the concept of civil society and culture. The main idea is that during Cold war culture has been used to build civil society and a new Elite that would fight the communists. Now days, this has become an habit in State Building to look for civil society and create, even sometimes ex nihilo, a civilian Elite that would challenge the military/political power in failed States. The UN came even with the concept of non educated intellectuals….

The bias it creates is that we are looking to create spontaneous generation of Elites. In many Stabilization or State building manuals this has became: empowering local authorities. Hopefully, several of those manual are pointing the limits of the exercise.

So State building is creating a body we can talk with because it looks like us.
Nation Building is creating an Administration body that can think by herself. That does take time, especially as we do not always this to happen.

What Sufferedbeetle is referring to in previous post is the end or the aim of the administration and more precisely Governance. We tend too much to mix Governance and State building.
The role of democracy in modern State Building is central as several attempts of non democratic States have been made in the past, with various results.
The 70th werethe golden years of enlightened dictatorships. This had a very good result in Asia in the 80th. Unfortunately, as the democratic transition was too quick, brutal or simply too late, this is the roots causes of the radicalisation of religious opposition in many of those countries.
I Africa, this was a complete disaster since the beginning.

Nowadays, we try to dress it with the apparence of democracy in conducting elections giving choice to the people only to a panel of Elites coming from the civil society we (the West) have created or supported. We will see the result in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan… The previous results in DRC are not so much encouraging, I would say.
Then comes the problematic of integrating armed groups into a civilian structure… South America has been an interesting laboratory on this. The main tool being amnesty laws and elections…. With various results once again.
And finally how to fund a State admnistration or how countries do fund they develpment.

As JMM pointed out, for practical reasons, we tend to prefer to have a week dictatorship that would resist to insurgencies than a strong democracy that is too difficult to build, too time costly and weak against armed opposition.

But this just means that Nation Building needs to be rethought not that Nation Building has to be thrown away. (by the way, I have probably 8 to 12 hours difference with you guys. So do not expect me to be too much at the page immediatly ) )

[Dayuhan]

I fully agree with Dayuhan, building a Nation is a myth. But building a State apparatus is possible.

Under some circumstances, I agree. I'm not convinced that those circumstances are universally present.

A group of people, with a leader and the capacity to be organised to use violence to defend their land: a Cite (in Greek in the text).
Here lay the roots of a country, a state, a nation….

Ok, stop right there and ask about these roots. Is the capacity to organize present, or is it obstructed by internal conflict? When we talk about "their land", who are "they". Already we are assuming a perception of unity, a consensus that the people of whatever territory we're discussing perceive themselves themselves as a discrete entity. This condition is in many cases simply not present.

Now, this leads us to what are the various kind of civil societies (knowing the fact that by this term we include military dictatorship, kingdoms… All kinds of societies which are not lead by civilians).

1) the societies without State (Stateless societies, Non State societies):
The most well known example are the Nuer from Sudan. Cf: E. E. Evans-Pritchard

In those kinds of societies, social hierarchy is low, power is not centralized and not structured through a centralized administration or proto administration. Authority is hold by family chiefs or elders or religious leaders.
Moral and religion are used as law or legal referent to sanction deviances, non respects of Tabou…
Such societies are centered on survival of the group.
Actual good example is Somalia. It is also the type of organization to which de regulated, and dismantled societies tend to go back in failed states during civil wars or more generally when the State (as an administration) is absent.
Such societies are seen by Hobbes as the Human Nature: the war of all against all. It’s the western imaginary “savage society”. (by the way, to me it’s much closer to Locke than Hobbes).
What in western politic has long been assimilated to anarchy (See Anarchy ) but is not, especially in traditional societies (See all theanthropoly in Africa, Oceania, South America…).

2) the societies with State:

The societies with Sate, at least the modern ones are based on Max Weber definition of the State.
Weber unveils the definition of the state that has become so pivotal to Western social thought: that the state is that entity which possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force
Weber distinguished three pure types of political leadership, domination and authority:
1. charismatic domination (familial and religious),
2. traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism), and
3. legal domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy).[56]
In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they can be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[57] He also notes that the instability of charismatic authority inevitably forces it to "routinize" into a more structured form of authority. Likewise he notes that in a pure type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a master can lead to a "traditional revolution". Thus he alludes to an inevitable move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic structure.[58] Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber

Look at it from the other direction. What if the state we want to build contains multiple societies? What if these multiple societies are traditional rivals? What if they distrust each other, or loathe each other? These conditions are going to have a very real impact on the capacity to build a state, a nation, or an economy.

This is the key obstacle to... ok, call it what you will, nation building, state building, development, whatever in much of the post-colonial world. We're left with abstract lines drawn on maps by retreating colonists. We're inclined to assume that the people who live within these lines constitute a nation and possess the perception of unity that is required before building or growth can begin.

If we're talking about growing a nation, that perception of "us" is the seed, if we're talking about building a nation that's the raw material. Without it there are going to be pretty serious problems. Before we talk about a nation we have to ask whether the people in the territory in question see themselves as a nation. Is there an "us" there? Do the people who live within this arbitrary set of lines on a map see themselves as a discrete entity? Do they want to be a single nation? If the answer to those questions is "no", it's going to be pretty difficult to build a functional nation there.

Ultimately this question has to be sorted out by the people in question, and unfortunately human beings have generally gone through a fair bit of violence before coming up with an answer.

But this just means that Nation Building needs to be rethought not that Nation Building has to be thrown away. (by the way, I have probably 8 to 12 hours difference with you guys. So do not expect me to be too much at the page immediatly ) )

I also wouldn't suggest throwing the whole concept away, but I would certainly suggest that we need to ask in any given case whether the prerequisites for statehood exist before trying to apply our theories.

I'm also in a minority time zone; it all sorts out, not necessarily in any coherent fashion!

[Surferbeetle]

From the 20 Jan 2010 Wired, Could a ‘Virtual Surge’ Fix Afghanistan? By Nathan Hodge

Afghanistan, like Haiti, is a country in need of a major reboot. Yet despite billions in reconstruction dollars — and an influx of civilian development experts — it remains at the bottom of every development and transparency index.

But according to Ashraf Ghani, the country’s former finance minister and a onetime presidential contender, Afghanistan doesn’t need an army of consultants and contractors. It needs you, and your laptop.

Ghani is promoting the idea of a “virtual surge” as a development alternative in Afghanistan. The idea is simple: In order to help Afghanistan, you don’t need to be in Afghanistan. You can use distance learning and social networking tools to provide the information and expertise the country needs, and save money, time and lives in the process.

“The United States is a society where voluntary activity is ingrained in the culture — and where online community has become very, very real community,” Ghani said. “My idea is to harness the power of online community as the other side of America.”

Call it an alternative — or perhaps an adjunct to — the current troop surge. “The sense of sacrifice by the American soldiers is extremely well appreciated,” Ghani said. “But they don’t have counterpart civilians. There are very few really qualified civilians who can come and take the conditions of hardship. But that doesn’t mean that they cannot contribute.”