STATE-BUILDING

What is State-building?

■ State building is creating and strengthening the institutions necessary to support

long-term economic, social, and political development.
■ State institutions include:
■ Legislatures to make laws
■ Judicial systems, federal and state court systems, to interpret laws
■ Executive agencies, such as the Departments of the Treasury, Education,
Transportation, and dozens of others, to administer the laws which control the
domestic economy, education, trade, and diplomacy, for example.
■ Police and military forces to provide security
■ In dozens of poor countries, development is simply not taking place because
state institutions are precariously weak or have failed
What is State-building?

■ Weak states have been at the center of the literature on state-building

since 1990s, a period that has witnessed drastic changes in the world
order when several new states emerged following the demise of the
Soviet Union.
■ Weak states are generally described as states whose public institutions
lack the framework, capacity and determination to generate change for
performing core state functions, particularly in providing the necessary
public goods and services and for pushing forward development while
safeguarding national security.
What is State-building?

■ Particularly after the Cold War, weak states invited the attention of scholars on
the importance of state-building as a means of dealing with conflict and
tackling post-war challenges, as well as securing economic and social
development.
■ Until the 1990s, state-building was largely viewed as an internal process
essentially initiated and driven by internal actors.
■ However, beginning with the new millennium, a new wave of arguments
emerged claiming that state-building is an exogenous process triggered by the
international community in response to the socio-economic difficulties in the
world
What is State-building?

■ Currently, scholars argue that although many external factors, such as donor impact,
may be crucial to the onset or acceleration of the process, state-building is mainly the
outcome of local dynamics.
■ In other words, state-building is a process that takes place as a result of national reform
efforts and relevant programs that often extend beyond the borders of a given state.
■ A somewhat different view of the concept supports the argument that state-building is
an internationally triggered local process that occurs in response to the emergence of
weak states requiring attention by the international community.
■ This view touches upon the notion of global governance and the mission of institutions
and organizations to make transnational impact with the aim of regulating world order
What is State-building?

■ Despite the lack of consensus among scholars on the exact definition of

the concept, state-building in its broadest sense is understood as the
process of establishing or strengthening government institutions through
reforms undertaken by national or international actors.
■ The definition adopted by the World Bank places emphasis on the
significance of reforms that improve governance, including adoption of
mechanisms that increase accountability and government action in
support of business and civil society.
What is State-building?

■ The most noteworthy push factor that has drawn international organizations into projects
for building capacity and strengthening weak states is primarily driven by the desire to
minimize undesirable spillover effects that produce hindrances to development in other
parts of the world.
■ These effects could range from epidemic ailments and poverty to mass migration and
refugee settlement crises.
■ From the standpoint of national priorities, however, state-building is directed more to
achieving and preserving security, embracing the rule of law, delivering basic public
goods and services, as well as establishing political legitimacy.
■ In the case of the latter factor, dominant approaches include growing the capacity of
institutions and embracing the principles of good governance.
What is State-building?

■ Key goals of state-building include provision of security, establishment

of the rule of law, effective delivery of basic goods and services through
functional formal state institutions, and generation of political legitimacy
for the (new) set of state institutions being built.
State-building and Nation-building

■ In the current study, state-building is understood as “the set of actions undertaken by

national and/or international actors to reform and strengthen the capacity, legitimacy
and the institutions of the state where these have seriously been eroded or are
missing”.
■ This definition implies that understanding state-building requires a multidisciplinary
approach.
■ In this regard, a confounding yet closely related concept to state-building is nation-
building.
■ Nation-building also may involve both reconstruction and development actions, but
the difference is that state-building deals more with increasing the capacity of
government institutions, whereas nation-building places emphasis on creating a sense
of belonging through the construction of a collective national identity that embraces
shared values and goals.
State-building and Governance

■ Governance is closely related to state-building as it encompasses the use

of political power or authority, as well as the political system and
institutions for administering state resources.
■ Moreover, good governance is often associated with aligning and
improving a host of public management processes and procedures that
would hinder state-building if not reformed.
■ Most often, poor governance encompasses flawed institutions and, as
such, it is an undeniable trigger of state failure.
State-building and Governance

■ According to the World Bank, good governance encompasses four

fundamental elements of state administration: public management,
accountability, legal framework for development, as well as transparency
and access to information.
■ In fact, many of the weak states, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and some
African countries that have captured the attention of scholars in those
elements of governance.
■ Thus, reform recommendations for state-building address improving
elements of governance most essential for development.
■ Integral to good governance, corruption is regarded significant to state
building, particularly affecting small and relatively weaker states.
Why State-building is important?

■ In the new millennium, state-building has become a leading priority for the international
development community.
■ Today, almost every major bilateral and multilateral donor identifies state-building as a key
objective, particularly in ‘fragile states’.
■ The concern about the need to build more effective states has grown out of the confluence of
several factors over the past two decades:
■ The emergence of a number of new states (the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, East
Timor), a number of which have remained weak and unstable;
■ The recognition that poverty and reaching the MDGs has remained most intractable in fragile,
conflict-affected and post-conflict states
■ The negative regional and global spill-over effects of state fragility
■ And a more general recognition that good institutions are crucial for sustained development
progress.
Why State-building is important?

■ In the new millennium, state-building has become a leading priority for the international
development community.
■ Today, almost every major bilateral and multilateral donor identifies state-building as a key
objective, particularly in ‘fragile states’.
■ The concern about the need to build more effective states has grown out of the confluence of
several factors over the past two decades:
■ The emergence of a number of new states (the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, East
Timor), a number of which have remained weak and unstable;
■ The recognition that poverty and reaching the MDGs has remained most intractable in fragile,
conflict-affected and post-conflict states
■ The negative regional and global spill-over effects of state fragility
■ And a more general recognition that good institutions are crucial for sustained development
progress.
Gaps in Government Functions

Security gap:
■ The state’s most basic function is to ensure security and maintain control over its
territory. Terrorists and other criminal groups often take advantage of a
government’s inability to control its territory in order to mount violent, hostile, or
illicit acts.
Capacity gap:
■ The state plays a central role in meeting the basic needs of its people by providing
education, health care, and an environment conducive to economic growth. When a
state fails to meet these needs, the people are vulnerable to poverty, disease,
humanitarian crises, and political upheaval.
Gaps in Government Functions

Legitimacy gap:
■ States foster legitimacy by protecting basic rights and freedoms and
enabling citizen participation in the political process. An absence of
legitimacy allows for violent political opposition and increases
opportunities for corruption.
CHALLENGES IN
STATE-BUILDING
Political Challenges

■ The key political challenge continued to be the absence of true checks and balances
in the system.
■ There remain many challenges related to the pillars of democracy, mainly in
growing an accountable and transparent government, as well as institutionalizing
participatory policy-making.
■ The civil service has limited capacity in terms of achieving substantially higher
performance.
■ Also, adequate checks and balances among the executive, legislative, and judicial
branches need to be enforced and continually reinforced to institutionalize
democratic governance principles, policies and practices.
Institutional and Civic Challenges

■ Primary challenges in this sphere rest in building institutions and state society relations
for government to deliver public goods and services that meet public needs and
expectations and safeguard legitimacy.
■ The latter largely relates to the extent to which government possesses or acquires
governance capacity and technical expertise for doing so.
■ Issues of governance related to “reducing poverty, strengthening human rights,
securing gender equality, realizing the rights of children and youth, combatting and
preventing corruption, improving accountability, and greater political participation”
must be addressed through systems and programs that improve the wellbeing of
society.
■ Good governance challenges also embrace checks and balances that would
institutionalize cross-checks among the branches of government thereby improving the
quality (fairness, transparency and verifiability) of decisions throughout government.
Institutional and Civic Challenges

■ Moreover, the regulatory platform is laden with onerous regulations,

deficient institutional capacity, and archaic processes that further hamper
the effectiveness of the civil service triggering rising public discontent.
■ Further, cronyism and political patronage continue to hamper the
collective capacity of government often impeding development and
exacerbating the uneven and flawed enforcement of regulations and
ineffective delivery of public services.
■
Economic Challenges

■ At the internal front, challenges are observed to be derived from the rates
of advancement in human capital and social capital development.
■ Widening disparities in wealth and income have led to a serious
socioeconomic divide on several levels, most notably between rural and
urban areas.
■ These disparities also have promoted migration and have widened the
gap between the rich and the poor.
Essential Components for State-building

■ Legitimacy
■ Authority
■ Capacity
Legitimacy

■ Legitimacy means the legality of a government (e.g. granting of authority through

fair, democratic elections).
■ However, in the broader sense, it refers to the legitimacy of the relationship
between the state and society (‘social contract’) and, in particular, the government's
capacity to solve conflicts of interest consensually on behalf of its citizens.
■ Participation and transparency are both important factors and can reinforce trust in
the state and acceptance of the government.
■ Conversely, however, imbalanced favor towards certain groups can also undermine
legitimacy.
Legitimacy

■ Strengthening/establishing democratic processes that help to build trust

(election support, mediation/ reconciliation, transparency, accountability,
anti-corruption campaigns, etc.)
■ Working closely with legitimate local institutions (projects should be
perceived as projects set up by the government as opposed to donors or
local NGOs)
■ Strengthening pluralism and civil society
■ Getting the population involved in the planning and implementation of
policies and measures (participation)
Authority

■ Securing a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and the rule of law.
■ Many fragile countries are involved in violent conflicts.
■ In many cases, governments are unable to guarantee or maintain their
monopoly over the legitimate use of force in their capital cities and key
urban centres.
■ Other areas of the country are controlled by rebels or terrorist groups.
■ Authority is also reflected in an ability to guarantee constitutional
relationships
Capacity

■ It involves re-establishing basic governmental and administrative

capacities at state level.
■ The functioning of the administration and public services at all levels are
basic requirements for the comprehensive fulfillment of state duties. This
is also a very effective way of supporting the reinforcement of legitimacy
and establishment of authority