State and State-Building Flashcards
Weber definition of a state?
“human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given territory”
Charles Tilly’s 2 definitions of state?
1) “coercion wielding organisations … exercises clear priority in some respects over all other organisations within substantial territories”
2) “war made the state and the state made the war” + “war making and state making as organised crime”
Thomas Hobbes definition of state?
1651…
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” + sovereign who is indispensable to guarantee collective security
2 steps of state building in Europe?
1) Build up of coercive means (External) = disarmament of civilian population (Louis XIII) 17 Century
2) concentration of violent means within the state (internal) - Extraction (drawing from the subject population the means of state-making)
3 activities which make a state?
1) State making - attacking competitors within the territory claimed by the state
2) Warmaking - attacking rivals outside of the country
3) Protection - protection of civilians from threats
What is neo-imperialism?
Practice of using capitalism, globalisation and cultural imperialism to influence a developing country
What is classical imperialism?
Direct military control or indirect satellite states (hegemony)
What does Finer say about the European state building model?
“the development of states in Europe is - in a world-historical perspective - highly idiosyncratic”
UN “complex peace operation post Cold War” Sucesses?
Namibia, Mozambique, Liberia
UN failures
Sierra Leone, Burundi, Ivory Coast, etc.
What are the obstacles to reconstruction?
1) State failure is an African problem (DATA)
2) African state failure attributed to leadership failure
3) Most states were weak even pre reconstruction
What is dependency theory (Singer and Prebisch) 1950?
Dependency theory is the notion that resources flow from a “periphery” of poor and underdeveloped states to a “core” of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former.
What is Westernisation?
Assimilation of Western culture; the social process of becoming familiar with or converting to the customs and practices of Western civilisation
2 factors of colonial Africa which impacted its long term development?
1) Industrial Revolution - ‘lions share’ went directly back to managing firms in West
2) African Trade Boom - devalued core commodities + forced Africans to specialise
Military and diplomatic interventions succeed when…?
There is a genuine political sentiment
