Endogenous and Exogenous Statebuilding: A Complex Encounter

Abstract

The proliferation of international statebuilding interventions over the past two decades has generated a considerable debate and an extensive literature mostly focusing on ‘lessons learned’. The contentious encounter between external intervention for statebuilding and the domestic dynamics of state formation has become increasingly central although many aspects of this encounter remain overlooked. This panel analyses the ‘exogenous’ and the ‘endogenous’ as heterogenous sites of political demands and interests in processes of statebuilding. The objective is to bring new insights into the theoretical reflection and empirical analysis on statebuilding by discussing various ways in which external intervention for statebuilding and domestic dynamics of state formation interact and develop. Investigating why decades of statebuilding interventions have produced outcomes sometimes at odds with their declared purposes requires a problematization of the dichotomies that have characterized much of the literature (i.e., state/society or local/international), along with the investigation of the goals and agendas that have informed intervention. The panel locates itself within a nascent literature that seeks to bridge the separation between the scholarship on historical state formation and statebuilding (de Guevara 2013). The panel is opened by a discussion on the theories of statebuilding that highlights advantages and shortcomings of each approach. The subsequent papers offer empirical studies, each focusing on a single policy field: the economy in Iraq, education in Kosovo, urban citizenship in Timor Leste and local governance in South Sudan. Each paper explores the ‘exogenous’ and the ‘endogenous’ in relation to its policy field, providing a coherent narrative to the panel. The variety of the geographical contexts that the panel brings together represents a rich ground for analysis. Based on a theoretically informed analysis, the papers offer new empirical findings, gathered through extensive fieldwork, which contribute to advancing the debate over the tensions between endogenous and exogenous statebuilding.

Title	Details
Reviewing International Statebuilding Theories in the Case of Kosovo	View Paper Details
Making the State and Crafting the Nation: The Role of Education in Post-War Kosovo	View Paper Details
The Political Economy of Statebuilding in Iraq: The Role of Private Sector Actors	View Paper Details
Statebuilding Without Nation-Building: Understanding the Impact of State Building on the Development of Urban Citizenship in Dili, Timor Leste	View Paper Details
The Political Nature of Service Delivery and Local Government Empowerment In South Sudan	View Paper Details