The International Community and Statebuilding: Getting Its Act Together? (Routledge Studies in Intervention and Statebuilding)

This book brings together policymakers and academics to analyse the international community’s performance in post-war statebuilding projects.

In the past twenty years, statebuilding has emerged as a centerpiece of international efforts to stabilize violent conflicts. From the Balkans, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, it has become widely accepted that statebuilding―defined as the development of transparent and accountable political institutions, stable and sustainable economic structures, professional public administrations, and civilian-controlled security services―is essential to the long-term stability of post-conflict settlements.

The International Community and Statebuilding brings together senior-level policymakers and academics in order to analyse the international community’s performance in post-war statebuilding projects. Filling an important gap in the existing body of work on this topic, the contributors explore how international state builders have attempted to negotiate the intersections of multilateralism, competing strategic priorities and agendas, organizational complexity, and domestic politics.

This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, peacebuilding, war and conflict studies, and International Relations in general.

Patrice C. McMahon is an Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is also the author of Taming Ethnic Hatred (2007) and co-editor of US Foreign Policy in the Age of Globalism with David P. Forsythe and Andrew Wedeman (Routledge 2006).

Jon Western is Five College Associate Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College and the Five Colleges, Inc. He is the author of Selling Intervention and War (2005) and co-editor of Global Giant; Is China Changing the Rules of the Game with Eva Paus and Penelope B. Prime.