The Practice and Politics of Nation-Building

Karoun Demirjian, Damien Kingsbury, David Chandler | World Politics Review | 2009-12-09

If there is a "third rail" of U.S. foreign policy, nation-building would be high on the list of contenders. Yet if the word itself is universally decried, the policies that characterize it have played a recurring role in America's, and the international community's, interventions abroad. WPR examines The Practice and Politics of Nation-Building.

The Politics of Nation-Building
By Karoun Demirjian
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has repeatedly struggled with the question of how much is too much when it comes to foreign military operations. The debate routinely comes down to how far-reaching a military mandate presidents can chase before crossing into the political no man's land of "nation-building."

'Good Governance' and the Limits to State-Building in Bosnia
By David Chandler
The EU has been keen to promote itself as a policy leader in the field of good governance. But an examination of the EU's good governance approach to state-building in Bosnia suggests that the technocratic and administrative legitimization of external intervention is not beyond criticism, in both normative and practical policy terms.

Lessons Learned in Timor-Leste
By Damien Kingsbury
A little more than 10 years after the people of what is now Timor-Leste voted for independence, this small, half-island country has compressed into a few short years what many other post-colonial states have taken decades to achieve.

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