Standards for State-Building Interventions

Abstract

When we live in a successful democratic society, we are surrounded by political, legal, economic, and social institutions, each of which seems to depend on many of the others. When these institutions do not exist or are not functioning, which institutions must be established first in order to begin moving from anarchy toward prosperity? This is one of the great questions of social science. In state-building emergencies after the breakdown of a state, such theoretical questions about the foundations of the state become practical policy concerns (see The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building by James Dobbins et al., 2007). One may question the very possibility of benevolent state-building interventions by foreign powers, but any hope for planning such interventions, or for holding their planners to account, requires us to have some understanding of what should come first in building a successful democratic society.