State Building

State Building (dt. State formation, state structure ) is a term from the theory of the state , with which the development of a functioning state will be referred to. A discussion about this is mainly held in the English-language literature; but is also interesting for the German-speaking area. This term found its first further spread in connection with the formation of Western European states and addressed the assertion of power by the state over society (see Tilly 1975).

The focus of theoretical considerations on state building is generally the enforcement of state power under conditions of state change. In addition, states in processes of change or those with weak state structures have to face the challenges that the (re) establishment of state structures and tasks brings with it. Examples are the successor states of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia , but also Africa south of the Sahara . Whether there has actually been a disintegration of state institutions in recent years, which now necessitates a change in policy, is controversial in the scientific literature (cf. Schlichte 2005).

The state building includes, among other things, the establishment of institutions and the institutionalization of state processes. State building can also be equated with the development of a state center and the integration of the periphery into central state structures or understood as the change from informality to formality.

Charles Tilly describes the blessings of the State Building as follows:

"State building provided for the emergence of specialized personnel, control over consolidated territory, loyalty, and durability, permanent institutions with a centralized and autonomous state that held the monopoly of violence over a given population."

State of the discussion

The older state-building literature generally deals with the degree of statehood necessary to regulate the relationship between the state and society. The authors Charles Tilly , Theda Skopcol, Gabriel Almond , Joel Migdal and Stephen Krasner should be mentioned here. The relationships between actors from the state and society are primarily emphasized, but institutional aspects of these interactions are often in the foreground.

In recent years, State Building has outlined “building states” ( Fukuyama 2004a). That means reducing the inadequacies of weak states and increasing their state capabilities. Fukuyama (2004a) formulates it as follows: "State-building is the creation of new government institutions and the strengthening of existing ones." This applies in particular to states that are going through a process of "degeneration", be it through the collapse of superordinate (great power) ) Structures or through armed conflicts.

The topic of state building has been booming in Western politics and science since the late 1990s, because here a convergence point of the institutional interests of security and development actors has emerged. For both of them, this paradigm provides good legitimations for their further financing from tax money.

A state can only be built up with the appropriate state power. Institutional change and the development of a functioning state also require clarity about the essential components of statehood. The state building implies that minimum requirements are established for a functioning state (World Bank 1997). This lays the foundations for the state to perform and function properly. The fact that state building is often carried out in an unsafe environment, in which the old rules have lost their validity, has a handicap.

Authors who use the term state building do not set up a standardized catalog of factors that promote or hinder the development of state efficiency, but rather refer to classical state theorists and functional aspects of state structure (e.g. Tilly 1975). Components of state building vary from author to author. Kuzio et al. (1999) emphasize the influence of elites and institutions, Fukuyama (2004a and 2004b) institutions, Migdal (2001) elites and social aspects. There are isolated studies on the interrelationships between the individual components (e.g. Gallina 2006).

Statements about the state of a state

The state building approach is suitable for analyzing the constitution of a state. In a first step, the legitimacy and power of a state are generally identified. In a further step, the quality of the state can be examined in various areas.

Political institutions have an essential function as an instrument for the enforcement of power in a state. The conditions in which they arise and how they change are a central theme of the State Building.

As a rule, the following components are indispensable for a functioning state: State power is enforced through formal institutions, informal norms and networks are embedded in formal structures, the elites of the state identify with them and use state power for the benefit of society and society is included in state decisions.

See also

• Nation building

literature

• Gabriel Almond : The Return to the State in: American Political Science Review, Vol. 82, No. 3, 853-874, 1988.
• Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Florian P. Kühn: Illusion Statebuilding. Why the western state is so difficult to export , Edition Körber-Stiftung, 2010.
• Sabine Fischer, Beatrix Schmelzle (eds.): Building Peace in the Absence of States: Challenging the Discourse on State Failure , Berghof Research Center, Berlin, 2009.
• Francis Fukuyama : State Building. Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004a, ISBN 0-8014-4292-3
• Francis Fukuyama: The Imperative of State-Building , in: Journal of Democracy, Vol. 15, No. 2, 17-31, 2004b.
• Nicole Gallina: State, institutional performance and state change in Ukraine , Bern: Peter Lang Verlag, 2006.
• Anne M. Kjær / Ole H. Hansen / Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen: Conceptualizing State Capacity , Working Paper, March, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, 2002.
• Stephen D. Krasner : Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics , in: Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 2, 223-246, 1984.
• Taras Kuzio / Robert S. Kravchuk / Paul D'Anieri (eds.): State and Institution Building in Ukraine , London: Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-17195-4 .
• Joel S. Migdal: State in Society. Studying how States and Societies Transform and Constitute one another , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Dominik Nagl: No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Legal Transfer, State Building and Governance in England, Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1630–1769. LIT, Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-643-11817-2 . (Review; full text) .
• Theda Skopcol: Bringing the State Back In , in: Social Science Research Items, Vol. 36, June, 1-8, 1982.
• Klaus Schlichte : The state in global society. Political rule in Africa, Asia and Latin America , Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag.
• Charles Tilly : Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 900–1990 , Malden: Blackwell, 2000, ISBN 1-55786-067-X .
• Charles Tilly (Ed.): Western-State Making and Theories of Political Transformation , in: The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.
• World Bank : World Development Report 1997: State in a Changing World , Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997, ISBN 0-8213-3772-6

Web links

• Materials from the European Stability Initiative (ESI) on the subject, v. a. using the example of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tilly 1975, pp. 70 f.