From a conceptual point of view, state-building as an externally-led process has been subject to a mounting debate since the early 1990s. The two mainstream theoretical approaches to state-building (international vs developmental) agree on the need to understand the underlying principles of state-building. For example, some believe that supporting state-building requires the fostering of legitimate and sustainable state institutions (Andersen 2012; Gilley 2006; Mcloughlin 2015), while others believe that the maintenance of extraterritorial peace and stability is required, especially in situations of a state that fails to provide public services and security and is unable to interact with other states as a full member of the international community (Chauvet & Collier 2007; Collier 2008, 2002; Nay 2013; Rice & Patrick 2008, p. 3; Rotberg 2010). In such cases, the state suffers from a sovereignty gap that necessitates external intervention (Ghani & Lockhart 2009; Fukuyama 2005; Krasner 2004; Rice & Patrick 2008, p. 3) which can also take the form of shared sovereignty or trusteeship to help remedy a country’s lacking capacity to fulfil its functions (Caplan 2007, p. 13; Krasner 2004, pp. 85-120). However, while many accept that strategies for state-building intervention have not yet been fully developed, the conceptualization of international intervention varies depending on the context, timing and an amalgam of internal and external facts. The following section highlights some of the controversies that face externally-led state-building interventions in post-conflict and in-conflict countries.
Perhaps the most significant controversy in external state-building is the notion of one model fits all approach. Conceivably, no one can dispute the fact that the Western European model of the state-dominated contemporary state-building projects. Institutionalizing ready-made templates of Western liberal democracies has become the task of state-builders in post-conflict countries, who have shown unable to envisage an alternative model (Meyer et al. 1997, p. 144; Leguil-Bayart 1996, p. 3; Wimmer & Feinstein 2010, p. 764). Chandler (2010) maintained that “exporting frameworks of good governance as a set of international policy prescriptions is a type
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of a ‘silver bullet’ capacity to assist States in coping with problems” (Chandler 2010, p. 1). This template has become the model of intervention turned to by the United Nations and many other bilateral development agencies based on the triadic formula of modernization, democratization and liberalization.
Understandably, the one fits all model faces a lot of scepticism and criticism. Since the end of the Cold War, fears were expressed of “grafting the liberal model” with “unrealistic standards” meant to transform institutions in countries that are not necessarily suited to such sudden change and do not have the respective institutional frameworks to accommodate sudden and comprehensive state-building programmes (Fukyama 2004, p. 4; Migdal 1998; Suhrke 2006, p. 1). Thus, such an operational approach becomes a fool’s errand in countries that do not have a history of functioning governance (Brownlee 2007, p. 315). The problem with the one fits all model (or what can be said to be an export model) is that it provides a template-like solution for all states irrespective of their internal situation and the ensuing outcome of the state- building intervention, hence, the difficulty to generalize about different state experiences (Call 2011a).
Another significant controversy facing state-building is the sequencing dilemma. Miller (2013) maintains that the design of those programmes and policies meant to rebuild failed states and based on the template of liberalization first, institutionalization and stabilization have both strengths and drawbacks. However, it is intuitive for people to first see the negative side of a particular policy because of the impact that it can have on society. As an example, Khalidi (2011) and Haddad (2016) believe that economic liberalization, when implemented in an unprepared context such as that of Palestine, may threaten established social structures. On the other hand, Fukuyama (2004a) believes that even institutionalization is not enough as long as it does not involve norms and culture, especially when external state-builders follow the ‘security first’ approach. For, when security is paramount, this eventually weakens or delays democracy and thereby becomes counterproductive (Carothers 2007).
As an alternative to the sequencing theory, Carothers (2007) suggests that state-building and democratization are implemented gradually and simultaneously, and Fukuyama (2004a) suggests that this is done in a flexible manner. However, there is a consensus that this will not eliminate the risk that authoritarianism could be
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enhanced or new elites could be empowered, which state-builders usually invest in as they provide an interface with society and can claim legitimacy. This controversy is at the heart of double-edged principles and hypocritical practices of donors and external state-builders in post-conflict countries. In fact, state-builders lose their credibility when their own beliefs in democratic and good governance, accountability and transparency are compromized when applied in countries other than theirs, hence, jeopardising the sustainability of their professed ‘mission civiliatrice' (Paris 2002, p. 637). The case of the European position in the post-2006 Palestinian national elections and the sanctions imposed against Hamas, despite the fact that it won the 2006 elections, is quite proof of this. Some of the criticism pointed at the hypocrisy of the state-builders when it comes to democratic values in practice.
On another note, this literature review found that external state-building consolidates dependency rather than self-sufficiency in countries in which they intervene. It also strengthens the authoritarianism of local elites and rentierism rather than to institutionalize democracy and a strong economy. Above all, the most crucial dilemma facing post-conflict peacebuilding and state-building is the fact that external intervention can lead to conflict management rather than conflict resolution. Moreover, substantial investment to re-establish state institutions that can function without the support of external state builders does not guarantee stability. In fact, parts of unintended consequences are down to the complexity of the socio-economic, political and cultural environment in which state-building occurs (Schneckener 2010; Thakur, Chiyuki and Cedric De Coning 2007). In this sense, it may be fair to ask, whether there is an imaginable alternative of a more contextualized and locally-driven state-building representing a real internal process without the need to resort to external state- builders and their preordained modes of intervention.
In fact, some scholars still believe that international support can result in “successful state-building and development and that it must be based on international norms. However, it can neither be neutral nor value-free” (Lotz, 2010, p. 231). In this sense, scholars focused on examining the concept of unintended consequences, especially the policy implications of international state-building and the statist experiments of aid programmes and securitized development on local legitimacy, stability and social construction (Schneckener 2010; Fukuyama 2017; Skocopol 1999). A revision of the concept of unintended consequences would entail, more or
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less, changing or modifying the intervention modalities of external state-builders. As the Palestine case will show, it has been challenging to have a modified and more inward-looking intervention that takes into account the internal variables and their interaction with the external mode of intervention. It might be that the most significant challenge resulting from this problem is the willingness and capacity of both the Palestinian Authority and external state-builders to revisit or undo interventions that have badly influenced the social fabric and resilience of the society under occupation. As a matter of fact, the Palestinian experience or state-building experiment saw all the challenges of externally-led intervention. And although there has been a U-turn in the analysis of the Palestinian phenomenon with further calls for contextualization showing an intellectual maturity in looking at the unusual situation in Palestine, this could not influence decision-makers and external state-builders to modify their intervention. The biggest dilemma in the case of Palestine has been that tools of the state were used in a non-state situation.
One of those revised modes of intervention, which has been highly debated in scholarly research on peacebuilding, is the need for more local ownership encompassing the establishment of solid partnership with national stakeholders a la Brahimi’s light footprint (Chesterman 2004; Mac Ginty & Richmond 2013a). Chesterman (2004) highlighted the contradiction between instituting principles of liberal democracy and the risk of external intervention becoming a means of benevolent autocracy. However, he saw the need to ensure that state-builders work together with local counterparts in countries in which they intervene. Others (e.g., Donis 2009; Richmond 2012) were sceptical about the genuine nature and applicability of the discourse on local ownership used by external state-builders. They claimed that it was just a different form of conditionality and politically-driven rather than an honest attempt at contextualization. Moreover, renewed interest in local ownership triggered a new direction in state-building and peacebuilding theories and has become the enigma of the local turn with a redefinition and re-adaptation of both theory and practice of peacebuilding (MacGinty & Richmond 2016, p. 2013; Randazzo 2016; Schierenbeck 2015).
The newly emerging concept, namely that of liberal peacebuilding, focused on engaging the local level in the design and implementation of intervention modalities. The latter led in some cases to a new form of intervention called hybrid political order
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accommodating the local context and bridging the gap with the ‘one fits all model’. Liberal peacebuilding theory and practice have developed after the Cold War, because of the dominance of the Western ideology of democratization (Tziarras 2012, p. 1). It gained prominence in the protracted debate about the theory and practice of peacebuilding (Cooper, Turner & Pugh; Heathershaw 2008; 2013; Richmond 2006; Selby 2013). In most cases, the analytical discussion was fixated on trying to understand the factors that hinder democratization in the country in question—in this sense, being democratic denoted a Western liberal democracy “interwoven in the western political fabric”, thus shaping the contemporary model of the state in almost every country in the world, except for some in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America (Zakaria 1997, p. 23).
Discursively, there is a tendency that state-building suffers from “a dogmatic theoretical logic and controversial manifestations” (Richmond 2014). Obviously, state- building has become a vast and indispensable industry amalgamating geopolitics, economics and development, protectionism, international security, soft diplomacy, the lacking capacity of international practitioners and to a certain extent a new form of post-colonialism.
In this respect, there has been abundant criticism of the perils international intervention poses to post-conflict countries. With no alternative on the horizon or the choice of turning the back to a troubled state, the question that begs itself in this case is whether the growing academic criticism of the lacking real impact of state-building has the power to change the dynamics of international intervention (Blieseman de Guevara 2008, 2010; Chesterman 2004; Fukuyama 2004a, 2005; Lemay-Hébert & Mansoob Murshed 2016; Paris 2002; MacGinty & Richmond; Richmond 2014). In this respect, it is no surprise that the Palestine case became a laboratory for external state- building efforts and hence has also suffered from the perils of the one fits all model. The following section reviews the literature on state-building in Palestine in general and the Fayyad Plan for statehood in particular. This will shed more light onto the dynamics of state-building in post-conflict and in-conflict countries in the case of Palestine. The analysis highlights the challenges state-building poses as a path to statehood and, hence, looks into the prospects of transforming the dynamics of state- building for conflict management to state-building for statehood.
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