States: a solution to conflict or a product of it?  A critical analysis of how statebuilders represent violent conflict

Since the end of the Cold War, international statebuilding – creating and strengthening government institutions – has been regularly promoted by international organisations and western states in order to end, resolve and prevent violent civil conflict in non-western countries. This thesis critically reflects on how statebuilding policymakers understand and represent the problem of violent civil conflict which they seek to tackle. It offers an original exploration of statebuilders’ narratives about the relationship between violent civil conflict and states, their formation, strengthening and weakening. Three arguments are made. Firstly, statebuilders represent violent civil conflict as a process which destroys states and is incapable of generating legitimate forms of governance. Secondly, this is a major divergence from a body of academic literature on domestic state formation which suggests that conflict can, and may even be necessary, to produce states. By drawing out the major...Show moreSince the end of the Cold War, international statebuilding – creating and strengthening government institutions – has been regularly promoted by international organisations and western states in order to end, resolve and prevent violent civil conflict in non-western countries. This thesis critically reflects on how statebuilding policymakers understand and represent the problem of violent civil conflict which they seek to tackle. It offers an original exploration of statebuilders’ narratives about the relationship between violent civil conflict and states, their formation, strengthening and weakening. Three arguments are made. Firstly, statebuilders represent violent civil conflict as a process which destroys states and is incapable of generating legitimate forms of governance. Secondly, this is a major divergence from a body of academic literature on domestic state formation which suggests that conflict can, and may even be necessary, to produce states. By drawing out the major divergences between these two bodies of literature, the thesis attempts to make sense of statebuilders’ narratives about conflict and their political consequences for policy. I argue, thirdly, that statebuilders’ representations of conflict are in fact vital for legitimising the norm and practice of international statebuilding.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

States: a solution to conflict or a product of it? A critical analysis of how statebuilders represent violent conflict