The process of state formation seen in the past century in developing countries has diverged dramatically from the process experienced in Europe unsurprisingly as a result of different historical conditions. While the early European state building model will likely not repeat itself, it remains useful to compare state-making processes and experiences of survival to gain insights into contemporary state building and development.
This work will look at the idea of regionalism and its link to security. It will argue that that Eurasia, in terms of security, consists of a regional security complex. However, looking at the current conditions in the sub-regions of Eurasia, recent experiences emphasize the weakness of regionalism. Regional security is more capable of identifying threats than constructing viable mechanisms and institutions to tackle them.
War has been an omnipresent aspect of the international order. Consequently, ‘realism’ sees conflict and war as the defining aspects of international relations. Conversely, ‘idealists’ posit that human reason/different forms of societal organization can curb or even eliminate belligerency. This essay draws on ‘critical theory’ to show that realism is essentially limited in its analysis of the world system.
From a simple positivist position, it is relatively straightforward to claim that – in a not so distant future – the most significant threats to the human society will be environmentally related. It is difficult to conceive another set of problematics that could rival the global scale and potential magnitude of the consequences provoked – for instance – by a constant rise in the sea levels or by a substantial reduction in the global availability of water.
This essay presents some of the major criticisms of global civil society, namely its conceptual vagueness and incoherence; its rhetorical function as a legitimation device that arguably undermines the transnational demos; and finally its maintenance and reproduction of the neoliberal order.
In seeking to explain ‘tribalism’ and ‘state failure’ in Africa, academics often point towards the misalignment of the nation and the state: either the post-colonial state has failed to make the nation, or nations have descended into ‘tribalism’ in the process of carving out a state. What is common in these two presumptions, is that all African nations or states have the power to make their counterpart; by extension, the ‘failure ‘of such processes is rarely problematised beyond domestic politics and historical references to the impact of colonialism.
Recent months have seen inter-ethnic conflict in Kenya, exclusivist attacks aimed at immigrant populations in South Africa and continuing controversy surrounding the future of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Cases such as these expose serious societal tensions within some contemporary African states, including those traditionally considered the continent’s ‘success stories’. In light of this, it’s pertinent to ask about the achievements and limitations of nation-building in Africa.
The devastating financial crises that have hit developing nations in Latin America and Asia over the past several decades have given rise to numerous rallying calls to reform the “international financial architecture.” Liberalizing the financial system to foreign capital flows have contributed to immense domestic political and economic turmoil, and in some nations even to violence.
Quantitative forms of analysis have long been lacking in studies of African affairs. Bratton et al.’s, assertion that Africa as a whole is a vastly understudied continent, and that data is “scarce, spotty or entirely non-existent” was, until comparatively recently, fairly difficult to contend. This essay will hold up the recent achievements of quantitative analysis to the critiques presented by qualitative scholars.
The term ‘developmental state’ has been incorrectly used to describe any state presiding over a period of economic development and improvement in living standards. This essay describes the attributes of the ‘developmental state’ and explains how they led to highly successful economic development in the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs).
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