Empire in Denial

The Politics of State-Building

David Chandler

• Editore: Pluto Press
• Anno: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781849642873
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Categoria: Geschichte & Theorie der Politik

This book argues that state-building, as it is currently conceived, does not work. In the 1990s, interventionist policies challenged the rights of individual states to self-governance. Today, non-western states are more likely to be feted by international institutions offering programmes of poverty-reduction, democratisation and good governance. States without the right of self-government will always lack legitimate authority. The international policy agenda focuses on bureaucratic mechanisms, which can only institutionalise divisions between the West and the non-West and are unable to overcome the social and political divisions of post-conflict states. Highlighting the dangers of current policy - including the redefinition of sovereignty, and the subsequent erosion of ties linking power and accountability.