1st Edition

From Nation-Building to State-Building

Edited By Mark T. Berger Copyright 2008
    222 Pages
    by Routledge

    222 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book examines the history of nation-building during the era of decolonization and the Cold War, and on the more recent post-Cold War and post-9/11 pursuit of nation-building in what have become known as ‘collapsed’ or ‘failed’ states.

    In the post-Cold War and post-9/11 era nation-building, or what is increasingly termed state-building, has taken on renewed salience, making it more important than ever to set the idea and practice of nation-building in historical perspective. Focusing on both historical and contemporary examples, the contributors explore a number of important themes that relate to ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ nation-building efforts from South Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s to East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq in the twenty-first century.

    From Nation-Building to State-Building was previously published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly and will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics and peace studies.

    1. From nation-building to state-building: The geopolitics of development, the nation-state system and the changing global order 2. Redirecting the revolution? The USA and the failure of nation-building in South Vietnam 3. Congo: From state collapseto 'absolutism', to state failure 4. Nation-building in the land of eternal counter-insurgency: Guatemala and the contradictions of the alliance for progress 5. From national development to 'growth with equity': Nation-building in Chile, 1950 - 2000 6. The national or the social? problems of nation-building in post-world war II Philippines 7. El Salvador: State-building before and after democratisation, 1980 - 95 8. Haiti: The saturnalia of emancipation and the vicissitudes of predatory rule 9. East Timor's double life: Smells like Westphalian spirit 10. Papua New Guinea at thirty: Late decolonisation and the political economy of nation-building 11. Peace building and state-building in Afghanistan: Constructing sovereignty for whose security? 12. Iraq: The contradictions of exogenous state-building in historical perspective 13. Beyond state-building: Global governance and the crisis of the nation-state system in the 21st century

    Biography

    Mark T. Berger is Visiting Professor of International History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.