Themes

Question 1

What is statebuilding according to Timothy Sisk?

Answer 1

“the creation or recovery of the authoritative, legitimate, and capable governance institutions that can provide for security and the necessary rule-of-law conditions for economic and social development”

Question 2

What does statebuilding offer to outsiders after war according to Timothy Sisk?

Answer 2

An opportunity to create or reform states so as to prevent a repeat of conflict and promote human development.

Question 3

What is the tension in statebuilding processes between external and internal actors?

Answer 3

Internal actors want to “own” the process but it can involve rather assertive external intervention.

Question 4

Why are civil wars present global problems accroding to Timothy Sisk?

Answer 4

“conflicts spill over with deleterious effects on neighboring states and regions, and they present man-made humanitarian emergencies that prompt international intervention to protect civilians and deliver relief”

Question 5

What period has seen post-civil war statebuilding rise to the top of the international peace and security agenda?

Answer 5

post-Cold War

Question 6

How does Timothy Sisk describe the threat civil war poses internationally?

Answer 6

“countries that are vulnerable to armed conflict are an ever-present threat to international peace and security”

Question 7

How did The Organization for Development Cooperation-Development Coordination Directorate define fragile state?

Answer 7

“States are fragile when state structures lack political will and/or capacity to provide the basic functions needed for poverty reduction, development and to safeguard the security and human rights of their populations.”

Question 8

What is peacebuilding according to Timothy Sisk?

Answer 8

“preventing the recurrence of conflict and beginning to address its root causes – is primarily about implementing peace agreements and fostering reconciliation”

Question 9

How does Timothy Sisk see the relationship between peacebuilding and statebuilding?

Answer 9

“Statebuilding, as such, is a specific approach to peacebuilding that sees improvements in government capacities to deliver on security and development aims as a long-term linchpin to consolidating peace and solidifying the institutions and processes of governance”

Question 10

How does statebuilding differ today compared to how states formed in the Western world according to Sisk?

Answer 10

They used to take centuries and occurred internally. Today they still occur with internal actors, but involve much greater involvement from external actors and occur in a much shorter time.

Question 11

How does Sisk describe the process of statebuilding today in comparison to old statebuilding processes?

Answer 11

““Statebuilding” in contemporary parlance – sometimes known as “international statebuilding” to reflect the prominent role that outsiders play in such processes – is very much about the interactions of internal and external or international efforts to essentially expedite and indeed shape endogenous processes with external involvement”

Question 12

What do international actors seek to do when building a state?

Answer 12

Shape it to ensure allignment with international norms.

Question 13

What are the international norms that external actors seek to promote according to Sisk?

Answer 13

Women’s rights, minority rights, or other vulnerable people, and democracy.

Question 14

Even though statebuilding is the common aim of international organizations, development agencies, and transnational NGOs, what is not common?

Answer 14

An agreement on how to go about building the state after civil war.

Question 15

What is the principle threat to international security in the post-Cold War era according to Sisk?

Answer 15

Conflict within countries: civil wars, repression from autocratic regimes.

Question 16

What are conflicts not?

Answer 16

Wholly internal, spilling over borders and impacting the international community.

Question 17

What is the first victim of a violent struggle in a state according to Sisk?

Answer 17

The state’s ability to govern.

Question 18

Which states tends to be the most affected by internal conflict?

Answer 18

Those at the bottom of the global rankings on human development.

Question 19

What has been as result of conflict in Iraq?

Answer 19

Food insecurity

Question 20

Which organisation has tried to intervene to help the food insecurity in Iraq?

Answer 20

In 2009 the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation tried to restore destroyed marshlands to help food shortages.

Question 21

What did the government of Charles Taylor not do after the first liberian civil war (1989-1996)?

Answer 21

Rebuild state institutions, leading to no functioning government and human security threats and deprivation. (Sisk)

Question 22

What can instability in the constitutional framework do in the immediate wake of conflict?

Answer 22

Serve as triggers for further conflict - without a state to mediate disputes and reconcile interests, conflict is likely to repeat.

Question 23

What is the viscious cycle Sisk identifies in fragile states?

Answer 23

“Thus, there is a vicious cycle of violence, state weakness, social dislocation, and economic and environmental deterioration in most countries that suffer from the fragility syndrome.”

Question 24

How did states emerge according to Sisk?

Answer 24

“states emerged, historically, in part from the battles and struggles of kings to protect themselves from external threats, to rule over feudal lords who might challenge their supremacy, to extend authority over often autonomous city-states, and to curb the power of religious authorities over society”

Question 25

What is the only precise definition of a state in codified international law?

Answer 25

The Montevideo Convention of 1933: a permanent population, a specified territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Question 26

What effect did colonisation and empire have?

Answer 26

It disseminated the contemporary state system meaning it was inherited rather than internally constructed at the end of the colonial era.

Question 27

Give an example of a state being formed as a result of colonialism.

Answer 27

Modern India and Pakistan through partition in 1948.

Question 28

How does Sisk characterise Charles Tilly’s account of state formation?

Answer 28

“state formation and statebuilding have emerged historically largely out of external and internal war-making, through which states seek to expand and to secure external stability; through internal war, in which leaders emerge victorious over internal rivals; and through the political economy of taxation and the ability to raise recurring sources of revenue in order to fund the war and to protect allies”

Question 29

What does Sisk say states require today?

Answer 29

“both external legitimacy – recognition of their sovereignty by outside authority, principally membership of the United Nations – and internal legitimacy, or embeddedness in their societies”

Question 30

As well as international recognition, where else does Sisk say legitimacy comes from?

Answer 30

“process legitimacy through which rulers are chosen or laws are made…output or performance legitimacy…the ability to effectively provide public goods of security or the conditions for economic development; and through shared beliefs, or traditional sources such as a common national identity and beliefs shaped by religion, tradition, or the personality-cult following of transformative leaders”

Question 31

What must states be today according to Sisk?

Answer 31

“inclusive, both normatively in terms of international human rights and practically in terms of effective governance through broad participation of the poor and marginalized as a precursor to broader social stability”

Question 32

How does Sisk describe sovereignty during statebuilding?

Answer 32

“we can explain the in-between space of international intervention and local ownership as one of “shared” sovereignty between international actors and local elites”

Question 33

What is a transitional administration?

Answer 33

Where sovereignty is held solely by an external actor in transitional administrations, assuming temporary or transitional authority over a territory.

Question 34

How does Sisk describe the outcomes of transitional administrations?

Answer 34

“disappointing; they seem subject to crisis and reversal”

Question 35

Due to the disappointment of transitional administrations, what is statebuilding recognised as today?

Answer 35

“an essentially internally driven process, and that the most appropriate role for outsiders is to facilitate and support capacity through military intervention such as peacekeeping, UN “political missions” as in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Nepal, and through post-war aid flows”

Question 36

What are some criticisms Sisk identifies about the potential for international aid during the statebuilding process?

Answer 36

• “lack a common strategy and seem unable to coordinate in such a way as to create the right incentives for local protagonists to build capable institutions”
• “resources – specialists, infrastructure needs, and capital – are often insufficient, or, conversely, overwhelming of the context and thus create aid dependencies”
• “aid flows create incentives for local leaders and bureaucrats of states to be more loyal to the donors than to their own people”
• “ultimately injurious and neglectful of local desires and realities”

Question 37

What does the need to ensure stability lead to according to Sisk?

Answer 37

“dilemmas of authority arise in which the international community may need to exercise a muscular security presence to ensure stability and peace; however, this serves to dis-empower local actors and create problems of neo-imperial overstretch, or, concomitantly, dependency on a continued international presence”