State formation after civil war: Local government in national peace transitions
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Date
2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis group
Abstract
State formation after civil war offers a new model for studying the formation of the state in a national peace transition as an integrated national phenomenon. Current models of peacebuilding and state building limit that possibility, reproducing a fragmented, selective view of this complex reality. Placing too much emphasis on state building as design they place too little on understanding state formation as unplanned historical process. The dominant focus on national institutions also ignores the role that cities and civic polities have played in constituting the modern state. Mining ideas from many disciplines and evidence from 19 peace processes, including South Africa, the book argues that the starting point for building a systematic theory is to explain a distinct pattern to state formation that can be observed in practice: Despite their conflicts people in fragile societies bargain terms for peaceful coexistence, they make attempts to constitute the right to rule as valid state authority, in circumstances prone to conflict, over which they have imperfect influence, not control. Though the kind of institutions created will differ with context, how rules for state authority are institutionalized follows a consistent basic pattern. That pattern defines state formation in peace transitions as both a unified, if contingent, field of normative practice and an object of comparative study.
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Keywords
Civil war, State formation, National peace transitions, Local government
Citation
Powell, D.M. (2016). State formation after civil war: Local government in national peace transitions (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315558059