Nation-Building: A Key Concept For Peaceful Conflict Transformation? - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745323359 ISBN 13: 9780745323350

Verlag: Pluto Press, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

The term 'nation-building' has experienced a remarkable renaissance since the early 1990s. It has been used to describe and to justify the military interventions in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Linked to the idea of 'failed' or 'failing' states, the concept is used to hide and legitimise a whole range of diverse policies, allowing foreign powers to control and reshape countries in areas of conflict. Currently the international debate on nation building is heavily dominated by US actors and authors, especially by writers connected to the Bush administration or its policies. This book presents academic and political alternatives, presenting a critical view from 'Old Europe'. The book combines academic research and analysis with policy orientation, with contributors from both fields. It clarifies the terminology distinguishing developmental, peace-related, imperial and analytical approaches to nation-building. Highlighting its connections to globalization, democracy, ethnic and religious minorities, the contributors consider case studies such as Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Nigeria.

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Jochen Hippler is Director of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. He is also a freelance journalist and has written for German, Swiss and Austrian papers. He lives in Cologne.

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Nation-building

A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation?

By Jochen Hippler, Barry Stone

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2005 Development and Peace Foundation
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-2335-0

Contents

List of Abbreviations, ix, 
Preface, xi, 
Part I Concepts and Theoretical Aspects of Nation-building, 
1. Violent Conflicts, Conflict Prevention and Nation-building – Terminology and Political Concepts Jochen Hippler, 3, 
2. Globalisation and Nation-building – Not a Contradiction in Terms Rainer Tetzlaff, 15, 
3. Democratisation and Nation-building in 'Divided Societies' Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, 28, 
4. Shaping the Nation – Ideological Aspects of Nation-building Claudia Derichs, 42, 
Part II Case Studies, 
5. Deconstruction of States as an Opportunity for New Statism? The Example of Somalia and Somaliland Wolfgang Heinrich and Manfred Kulessa, 57, 
6. Afghanistan: Nation-building in the Shadow of the Warlords and the 'War on Terror' Rangin Dadfar Spanta, 70, 
7. Nation-building by Occupation? – The Case of Iraq Jochen Hippler, 81, 
8. Between Self-determination and Multiethnicity – International Actors and Nation-building in Bosnia and Kosovo Dušan Reljic, 98, 
9. Nigeria: The Oil State and the Crisis of Nation-building in Africa Cyril I. Obi, 111, 
Part III Politics of Nation-building, 
10. Between Projectitis and the Formation of Countervailing Power – NGOs in Nation-building Processes Jeanette Schade, 125, 
11. External Nation-building vs Endogenous Nation-forming – A Development Policy Perspective Ulrike Hopp and Adolf Kloke-Lesch, 137, 
12. Nation-building: A Strategy for Regional Stabilisation and Conflict Prevention Helmut van Edig, 151, 
13. Nation-building: Possibilities and Limitations of External Military Contributions Heinz-Uwe Schäfer, 164, 
14. Nation-states for Export? Nation-building between Military Intervention, Crisis Prevention and Development Policy Jochen Hippler, 173, 
Notes on the Contributors, 191, 
Index, 195, 

CHAPTER 1

Violent Conflicts, Conflict Prevention and Nation-building – Terminology and Political Concepts

Jochen Hippler

A large number of foreign policy discussions since the end of the East-West conflict have been determined by a series of regional conflicts – in addition to the dissolution and restructuring processes in the former Eastern bloc. Those that have stood out most include Iraq (Gulf War 1991, Iraq War 2003), Somalia, the wars during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia (particularly in Bosnia and Kosovo), Afghanistan, plus the wars and violent excesses in Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Liberia and others). The perspective had been shifting since the early 1990s because it was no longer possible to squeeze each conflict into the simple schema of the Cold War. The internal causes of conflict came more to the fore, with new modes appearing, such as culturalistic interpretations (clash of civilisations) or kneejerk ascriptions to 'ethnic' causes. In addition to other concepts – for example that of failed states – the term 'nation-building' emerged more and more in the Anglo-Saxon debate, in particular. This was noticeable in the political discussion, e.g. in the case of former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig and UN Secretary-General BoutrosGhali (Haig 1994; UN Chronicle 1994), in the media, e.g. Newsweek and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ 1994; Newsweek 1994), as well as in scientific analysis, e.g. through the work of Eriksen (1993) and Lenhart (1992). At the beginning, there was frequent discussion concerning the processes and problems of nation-building or its failure, though the term itself was avoided. In the meantime, the term has been used more and more, but hardly explained or addressed in theoretical terms.

In the second half of the 1990s, the term 'nation-building' gained acceptance on a broad front and became a natural part of both the political and scientific debate. The experience of the international community in places like Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq made it clear that breakdown of the state and the fragmentation of societies can trigger violent conflicts or make them insoluble. Such situations can, in the longer term, cause economic, social and political development to fail, give rise to major humanitarian disasters, destabilise entire regions and even turn them into sources of transnational terrorism – also generally affecting distant countries and calling Western political objectives into question. It is especially in these contexts that nation-building is discussed at international level: either as a preventive political option to avoid the breakup of the state and social fragmentation, as an alternative to military conflict management, as part of military interventions or as an element of post-conflict policies. Accordingly, a policy of nation-building constitutes a hinge between foreign, development and military policy for the purpose of preventing or managing violent conflicts, achieving local and regional stability, and facilitating development.

Nation-building is, however, neither easy nor without problems. The chances of achieving this objective from the outside are assessed very differently and often with scepticism; the paths and instruments to success are frequently unclear and it is questionable in many instances whether external players will be able to stay the course long enough in terms of time and financial commitment. External nationbuilding can drag outside players into local power struggles from which they find it very difficult to extricate themselves. Questions of legality are also difficult to answer in many cases because, although the principle of non-interference under the UN Charter is often ignored, it does still exist – and for good reason. Finally, it is frequently not clear what nation-building is actually supposed to mean.

NATION-BUILDING: EARLIER DISCUSSIONS

'Nation-building' is an old term that has already flourished and declined. Nation-building was a key concept of foreign, security and development policy in the 1950s and 1960s, in particular. At that time, it was closely related to the modernisation theories fashionable during those years, which viewed the development process in the Third World in terms of catching up with Western models. Societies were to be 'modernised', that is their structures adapted to the industrialised countries through 'traditional' or 'tribal' societies being turned into 'modern' nation-states, with the European model implicitly or explicitly intended as the goal.

Nationality and the nation-state were fundamental categories, with economic and political development regarded as promising success only in this context. In Rivkin's words (1969:156) relating to Africa:

Nation-building and economic development ... are twin goals and intimately related tasks, sharing many of the same problems, confronting many of the same challenges, and interrelating at many levels of public policy and practice.

Economic development was perceived to imply a market economy, and political development a nation-state. Political development as a component of or prerequisite for economic development was thus regarded above all as a nation-building process. The two together, that is accomplishment of the market mechanism and the nation-state, were regarded as being closely linked and as 'modernisation'.

It is evident that this view of 'development' – modernisation, nation-state and nation-building – applied European experiences to the Third World in a rather schematic manner. In some cases, Western state-building processes were even reappraised in explicit terms in order to learn lessons for nation-building in the Third World (after Lipset 1963).

Nation-building also took place in the 1950s and 1960s in the context of the East-West conflict and constituted a Western strategy for containing socialism and the Soviet Union in the Third World. In the same way as other concepts, it was intended to represent an alternative to the victory of liberation movements and the 'revolution'. Looking back, the head of the US development agency USAID, Brian Atwood (1994:11), summed this up in the following terms:

Thirty years ago, nation building was largely a postcolonial phenomenon, an ambitious program to help newly independent countries acquire the institutions, infrastructure, economy, and social cohesion of more advanced nations. Nation building was a strategic and competitive enterprise, part of the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The term 'nation-building' almost vanished into oblivion during the 1970s. Compromised by the constant emphasis on it in the Vietnam War, its association with military strategies and its conceptional link with markedly brutal political forms of 'pacifying' the country, it became unfashionable both politically and academically. As already pointed out, it was not until a generation later that it found favour again by being revived – first more by accident and then systematically – in the context of complex violent conflicts, especially where these displayed strong ethnic dimensions or elements of the breakdown of the state.

CLARIFICATION OF THE CONCEPT

The term 'nation-building' is used today in a markedly vague and inconsistent manner. To simplify matters, we can distinguish between several uses of the term, which are either directed at the real course, description or analysis of (past or present) historical-social processes or are normatively oriented and focus on a system of objectives or political strategies (Hippler 2002). The two frequently overlap in day-to-day usage.

• Nation-building is, on the one hand, a process of sociopolitical development, which ideally – usually over a longer historical time span – allows initially loosely linked communities to become a common society with a nation-state corresponding to it. Such a process can get off the ground as a result of political, economic, social, cultural and other dynamics. However, it is not automatic that such nation-building processes will proceed successfully. They can involve extremely different dimensions and instruments, such as economic integration, cultural integration, political centralisation, bureaucratic control, military conquest or subjugation, creation of common interests, democratisation and establishment of common citizenship or repression and acts of 'ethnic cleansing'.

There have been rather peaceful and particularly bloody nation-building processes, both in Europe and the Third World. They are thus not peaceful or conducive to constructive conflict management per se, nor are they necessarily violent. These processes combine 'natural' developments of an economic, political or cultural nature which can hardly be controlled by individual players with strategic decisions and active politics of key players who incorporate the developments for which they are not answerable and take advantage of them for themselves.

• Nation-building can, on the other hand, be a political objective as well as a strategy for reaching specific political objectives. Internal or external players strive to create or strengthen a political and social system constituted under a nation-state where this appears to serve their interests, where it fulfils particular functional requirements to a greater degree than a previously existing arrangement, or where it strengthens their power or weakens that of their opponents.

In such a context, the term 'nation-building' has a programmatic or conceptional character rather than serving to describe or analyse social and political processes. Either internal players strive to assert nation-state models of power or external players pursue the same objective. In both cases, this can ensue for functional reasons, such as improving social stability or economic development opportunities, though also in order to gain dominance and control in the relevant society. Nation-building can therefore be a development or imperial strategy depending on the political circumstances and players concerned.

Both variants of usage of the term 'nation-building', that is the descriptive or analytical vs the normative-strategic, are very multifaceted and heterogeneous. This is especially evident in the second form, given that nation-building can be handled very differently in strategic terms as far as the specific objectives, players, instruments and results are concerned. For this reason, the two uses of the term not only imply differing views of the same subject, they also comprise very different dimensions with regard to the time factor, mechanisms and results. However, there are certain core elements in all nation-building processes without which the process could hardly proceed successfully over the long term.

ELEMENTS OF NATION-BUILDING

A distinction can be drawn between three central elements of successful nation-building, which are closely interlinked in most cases: a unifying, persuasive ideology, integration of society and a functional state apparatus.

• Nation-building will only be successful in the long term if it stems from an integrative ideology or produces this from a certain point on. Fundamental restructuring of politics and society requires special legitimation with regard to justification of policy as well as social mobilisation for its ends. The different variations of 'nationalism' clearly have to be regarded as the classic ideology of nation-building – with 'nationalism' here meaning everything ranging from the meaningful development of a common national identity up to and even including violent disassociation from other national or ethnic groups. Nation-building necessarily presupposes the forming of a 'nation', which can, however, be constituted in extremely different ways. As long as people in a region define themselves primarily as Pashtuns, Maronites, Bavarians, Yussufzai (a Pashtun tribe), Ismailites or members of a particular clan, nation-building has either not been concluded or has failed. The existence of the respective identities is not in itself the problem but, rather, their relationship with a 'national' identity covering all groups. It is quite possible for someone to be a Pakistani or Afghan and a Pashtun or Shiite at the same time if the two are made possible ideologically, just as someone can simultaneously be a Bavarian, Muslim and German. However, as long as the primary identity and loyalty lies with the tribe, clan or an ethnic or ethnoreligious group and the 'national' identity level remains subordinate or is missing, a nation-state will continue to be precarious. It is not absolutely essential, though, for such an integrating ideology forming the basis for nation-building to always and automatically be 'nationally' oriented. It can also be replaced by other value and identity models, at least for a time: constitutional patriotism – 'liberty, equality, fraternity' – secular ideologies (for example socialism) or religion can assume the same function or auxiliary functions. The cases of the founding of the states of Pakistan and Israel are illustrative in this respect: when states were founded for the 'Muslims of India' and 'the Jews', these originally religious classifications were increasingly reinterpreted in a 'national' way.

• The second prerequisite for a successful nation-building process involves the integration of a society from the loosely associated groups that existed previously. Pashtuns, Baluchis and Punjabis must not only be convinced that they belong to a common nation, this notion must also be founded in the social reality. To achieve this, the patterns of communication between the social groups need to be intensified to the extent that communication does not principally take place within the groups. Even though the internal communication of the (ethnic, religious and other) groups may remain stronger than that between them, a certain degree of close communication among them is a requirement for successful and enduring nation-building. However, apart from the political-cultural aspect, there are also practical requirements for this: nation-building needs a 'national' infrastructure. Transport and communication infrastructures, the development of a 'national economy' from regional or local economic areas, plus nationwide mass media for establishing a national political and cultural discourse are key variables.

• A crucial component of nation-building is the development of a functional state apparatus that can actually control its national territory. This implies, firstly, that the corresponding society has constituted itself as a political society, which corresponds to the two processes outlined above, especially the formation of a common society with its own self-awareness. In this way, the state becomes the political organisational form of a society that is able to act – if it did not already exist before playing a key role in the social integration process. State-building is a core aspect of successful nation-building. It presupposes a range of practical capabilities, such as creating a financial basis for a functioning state apparatus, that is an effective fiscal system, as well as an organised police and legal system and an administrative apparatus that are effective and accepted throughout the country. The state needs loyal personnel that do not identify primarily with individual social, ethnic or religious communities but, rather, with the state and the 'nation'. In particular, the state apparatus must assert its monopoly of force over the entire national territory in order to be successful over the long term.

For successful nation-building, this results, altogether, in a triangle formed from the highly complex individual elements of state-building, social integration and ideological legitimation. Certain components can be provided relatively easily from outside, such as parts of the infrastructure, while others are very difficult or even impossible to furnish from outside, as in the case of ideological nation-building. In the end, however, it is only engagement with each other, providing mutual strength, that will decide the success or failure of nation-building. As a rule, external players will consequently make nation-building easier or harder, but hardly ever be able to force it or completely prevent it where the internal factors stand in the way of this.

NATION, STATE AND SOCIAL MOBILISATION

The core political elements of nation-building comprise the nation-state plus a high level of social mobilisation and political integration. The state is not the central element solely by virtue of its modern, nation-state form being one of the most important results of nation-building; it is also the decisive player for the most part.

(Continues...)

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Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pluto Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0745323359
• ISBN 13: 9780745323350
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 216
• Herausgeber: Hippler Jochen
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland