Political Economy of Statebuilding

This volume examines and evaluates the impact of international statebuilding interventions on the political economy of post-conflict countries over the past 20 years.

While statebuilding today is typically discussed in the context of ‘peacebuilding’ and ‘stabilisation’ operations, the current phase of interest in external interventions to (re)build and strengthen governmental institutions can be traced back to the ‘good governance’ policies of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in the early 1990s. These sought political changes and improvements in the quality of governance in countries that were subject to, or were seeking support under, IFI-designed structural adjustment programmes.

The focus of this book is specifically on state-building efforts in conflict-affected countries: countries that are emerging, or have recently emerged, from periods of war and violent conflict. The interventions covered in the present volume fall into three broad and overlapping categories:

• International administrations and transformative occupations (East Timor, Iraq, and Kosovo);
• Complex peace operations (Afghanistan, Burundi, Haiti, and Sudan);
• Governance and state-building programmes conducted in the context of economic assistance (Georgia and Macedonia).

This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, humanitarian intervention, post-conflict reconstruction, political economy, international organisations and IR/Security Studies in general.