Statebuilding

Statebuilding has become “a core concept in international discourse and western policy” (Bliesemann de Guevara, 2008, p.349). The responsibility of states is explicitly affirmed as a guiding developmental principle, in the OECD Principles of Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations (OECD 2007) and in the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative (GHD 2013/2003). The state that shall be built or whose creation is supported is “characterised by its technical, functional nature. The state is understood as a set of institutions that can be built and strengthened by external actors, or alternatively, taken over temporarily by international administration.” (Bliesemann de Guevara 2008, p.348). Statebuilding “is a crucial issue for the world community today. Weak or failed states are close to the root of many of the world’s most serious problems, from poverty and AIDS to drug trafficking and terrorism” (Fukuyama 2004, p.17). The lack of state capacity, understood as the lack of functioning state institutions, has been named as the main reason behind state failure:

Countries become failed states not because of their geography or their culture, but because of the legacy of extractive institutions, which concentrate power and wealth in the hands of those controlling the state, opening the way for unrest, strife, and civil war. Extractive institutions also directly contribute to the gradual failing of the state by neglecting investment in the most basic public services, exactly what happened in Sierra Leone. (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012, pp. 369, 370)

29 A functioning state, on the other hand, is understood “through the sheer physical force at its disposal and ultimately, through the moral power that it generates (…), the state tames or mediates the unruly differences that bring members of society into conflict and threaten their individual and collective survival and well-being” (Migdal and Schlichte 2005, p.5). A functioning state provides security for its citizens and for the international system. Drawing on Paris (2002), Bliesemann de Guevara (2008, p.360) points out that “international interventions contribute to the reproduction of the form and idea of the modern state”. This is a consequence of the underlying idea of liberal peacebuilding. A state modelled on the image of the western state fits into global governance and is a reliable partner, while a state with no clear boundaries that does not command the monopoly of force but shares it with a multitude of small groups is a potential danger.

However, the endeavour comes with problems. Statebuilding is a social engineering process, where one system of governance is replaced with another. This is a hegemonic attempt, as “the weeks immediately following the arrival of foreign troops tend to be a time of maximum possibility. The appearance of an intervening force normally produces a combination of shock and relief in the local population. Resistance is unorganised, spoilers unsure of their future. The situation is highly malleable” (Dobbins et al. 2007, p.xxiv). Written from the intervenor’s point of view, this extract seems to be about possibilities. Seen from the point of view of the intervened, it is about an alien force deciding about future governance. Paris (2002, p.305) names five “core contradictions” in the statebuilding endeavour: (1) it is intrusive thus creating a legitimacy problem, (2) local ownership can only be established through international control, (3) it promotes universal values, (4) it requires a break with the past that might lead to confrontation with the national elites, and (5) short-term and long-term objectives might be in conflict with each other. Furthermore, in societies emerging from civil war, the majority of public goods – such as education and health services – are not

30 delivered by the state but by international donors and iNGOs, thus weakening the state by supporting a neoliberal conception of it (Christie 2013). Legitimacy is highly problematic: by the very presence of external statebuilders, the legitimacy of the state is threatened (Bliesemann de Guevara and Kuehn 2013, p.222). The view that legitimacy is created through the provision of public goods has, however, also been questioned with Claire McLoughlin naming this “a leap of faith” (McLoughlin 2015, p.342). She states that the creation of legitimacy is also dependent on the population’s expectations as to what the state should provide, hence linking the creation of legitimacy to local culturally grounded expectations (McLoughlin 2015).

Furthermore, problems arise from the process of intervention. Local actors are not passive recipients of aid and although the intervenors claim impartiality, statebuilding takes place in political circumstances. It either in- or excludes actors (Duffield 2001, pp.7, 8; Bliesemann de Guevara 2010, p.118, Bliesemann de Guevara and Kuehn 2013, p.220). The external statebuilders have different perceptions and understandings and are “driven by the need to reduce complexity and to set up manageable categories, [thus] the interventionists tend to establish images of local politics based on the basis of selective interpretations of local society structures and of globalised ideas about the causes of war, terrorism and economic underdevelopment” (Bliesemann de Guevara 2008, p.352). The shared mindset of international experts has been described (Autesserre 2014). The common cultural background of international experts and their experiences ‘in the field’ results in interpretations of needs assessments that point in a – probably unconsciously – pre-decided direction and consequently shape projects in that way (Smirl 2015; Koddenbrock 2016).

All this results in the question what the consequences of western statebuilding are. Bliesemann de Guevara (2012, p.4) points out that

31 statebuilding does not result in a technically adapt, mostly western state, but rather that “state institutions tend to adopt a ‘western’ form under the influence of the internationalised norm, but keep functioning according to other social logics.” In the case of the media, this is all the more problematic as the understanding of the external media experts and the local actors, in particular the national government, are contradictory. While the western experts come with the belief in the necessity of a free media, the national government has its legitimacy and sovereignty to defend and thus aims to keep control over the media and the international actors pressuring for a free media. It might be that the media is experiencing what Snyder (2000) describes with respect to democratisation and marketisation in fragile or failed states. These attempts led to violence instead of to peace because they unleashed competition with no institutions in place to regulate it. “Democratisation produces nationalism when powerful groups within the nation not only need to harness popular energies to the tasks of war and economic development, but they also want to avoid surrendering real political authority to the average citizen” (Snyder 2000, p.33). Thus, a vicious circle would be created with elites in a partially democratised state with hybrid institutions using their control of the media to kindle nationalism, and then referring to press freedom and claiming that nothing could be done against hate speech. In this way, the very tool implemented to strengthen democracy would be used to undermine it. At the same time, the media with its watchdog-task is a device for kindling confrontations between groups in society, including the international community as a new actor in the mix (Bliesemann de Guevara and Kuehn 2013). As such, it seems that it cannot act the way it is intended to in a non-western state.

To summarise: the modern western state is the blueprint for today’s statebuilding projects that are performed in the interest of an emerging global system and out of security interests. Still, statebuilding does not result in western states or modes of governance. Instead, the mix of different interests between local actors, different international experts,

32 and the citizenry leads to hybrid forms of states that might look like modern states but follow their own cultural logic. For the media this is a problematic situation and it finds itself between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Tasked to hold government accountable but without the protection a stable democracy brings it simply cannot work as it is supposed to. Furthermore, it can easily be used to incite nationalist ideas.