TheJournal of Intervention and StatebuildingTen Years on: Critical Reflections and Stimulating Ideas on an Evolving Scholarship

Abstract

The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. This special volume opens up with a selection of nine of the most influential articles published in the journal. JISB's editorial team has asked the authors for their reflections on their original articles, telling us more about the writing process at that time, what they would do differently (with hindsight), or how they see their articles contributing to current debates on intervention and statebuilding. We have selected one article per volume, and we have ordered the contribution starting from volume 1 (2007) to volume 9 (2015). The articles will be made open access for the year, and we highly recommend (re-)reading the original articles along with the comments from the authors. Strong data provided by Minxin Pei and Sara Kasper support the thesis of the limits of the democratization that can be brought about by foreign powers. In their study 'Lessons from the Past: The American Record on Nation Building', they examined 18 US interventions seeking to promote democratization by coercive regime change prior to the recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They found that 13 failed to produce long-term democratic rule, including sustained attempts in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. The five successful interventions include a tiny country (Grenada); one that is far from clearly democratic (Panama); Italy (in which the US did not play much of a role), and two that are indeed great successes: post-World War II Germany and Japan (Pei and Kasper 2003).I hence set out to ask what sociological conditions set these cases apart from the others, and whether these might be reproduced in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere. I found that these conditions include (a) cessation of all hostility, (b) a high level of domestic security, and (c) local acceptance of the foreign occupation and the democratization drive. In addition, these nations had (d) a strong national unity, (e) competent government personnel, and (f) a low level of corruption. Furthermore, they had (g) strong economic © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING, 2016 VOL. 10, NO. 1, 3-24 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2015 fundamentals, including strong industrial bases, established infrastructure, educated populations, and vigorous support for science and technology, corporations, business and commerce. Their (h) cultural values included hard work, high levels of saving, and other forms of self-restraint and capacity to defer gratification, essential for democratic development. (i) Finally...

Biometric voter registration: A new modality of democracy assistance?

“…As part of long-standing debates about liberal democracy promotion, it has been argued, that we are witnessing ‘a retreat from democracy in liberal interventionism’ (Cooper, 2007: 614) – debates that US President Trump’s emphasis on retreat from developmental and other ‘soft’ programmes in Africa has revitalized (Campbell, 2017). Yet, as noted regarding other forms of intervention, retreat is not necessarily antithetical to expansion (Aaronson et al, 2016; Duffield, 2010), an important point, which is echoed in this article’s analysis of liberal institutions’ support of the roll-out of biometric voter registration (BVR) in democracy-promoting interventions throughout Africa. Though not the only region that has seen a turn to biometrics in electoral processes, Africa is an example of a continent where biometrics is currently rolled out in an increasing number of states with high hopes invested in the ability of BVR to bring about ‘free, fair and credible’ elections.…”

Umstrittene Regierungsführung in Afghanistan

“…Dieses für Afghanistan sehr wichtige Phänomen -eine große Diaspora, zerstreut über die gesamte westliche Hemisphäre und die reichen Golfstaaten -wird die Arbeit nur aus der Perspektive der nach Afghanis-17 Kritische Stimmen bezeichnen zudem die friedenserhaltenden Einsätze, mandatiert durch die VN-Charta unter Kapitel VII, auch als friedenserzwingende Maßnahmen (peace enforcement) (Oliver 2004;Schneckener/Zürcher 2007: 211). 18 Unter klassischen Staatsbildungsprozessen sind meist die Erfolge in den OECD-Ländern, insbesondere in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und in Japan nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg gemeint (Aaronson et al 2016).…”

Bones and Recognition: Compensating families of Missing Persons in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…I argue that compensation is not an externally imposed policy -as peacebuilding literature suggests (Schellhaas & Seegers 2009), or a policy that is driven by moral and ethical considerations -as the normative stream in transitional justice posits (Risse et al 2013), or even a policy that is prioritised in development. Instead, it is a policy born out of hybridity between the local and the international, alongside a range of other new post-war policies (see Aaronson et al 2016). In addition to structural conditions such as legacies of repression, economic development and the regional clustering of justice, this article highlights the interactions between external and local actors and their interests in awarding compensation.…”