Colin - I generally agree with your non-Western class except that I would put Japan into the Western states.
Dayuhan - Agree that nation building and state building are poor shorthand. What we are really trying[/U] to do is assist a state in achieving some mutually agreed upon goal(s).
Marct - free will, yes. choice, yes. Best achievable goal, yes (which may be sub-optimal from what we would desire). Democracy: my experience and research indicates that most societies and cultures have institutions that are compatible with political democracy. The trick is to identify them and work with the hosts to strengthen those insititutions in an attempt to move toward democracy over time. Although, over a long period of adaptation the institutions are not likely to look like the Canadian Parliament or the US congress, if successful, they will begin to play similar roles in making decisions and holding leaders accounable to followers. Brazil, a quintessentially Latin American state is, today, an industrial powerhouse.

Cheers

JohnT