Helping nations build themselves
Sunday, 27 November 2011 00:00
Book Review: ‘Can Intervention Work’ by Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus
It may have been proven that whoever coined the phrase “all politics is local” was also right about the role of local politics in nation-building. The success of post-conflict nation-building in Bosnia is debatable, and ‘nation-building under fire’ as undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq is and was for many a dismal failure. In times of economic crisis, the protracted costs of all of these efforts makes nation-building even more suspect and something to avoid. Such hesitance was on display within many states with respect to Libya. Peace time nation-building in the form of bilateral and multilateral development aid to developing nations has been under fire even longer for lack of effectiveness and efficiency. The so-called Washington Consensus that imposed swift, sweeping reforms and privatization on the road to a liberal economy, was discredited and for a short time replaced by the Beijing Consensus that emphasized unconditional loans and mega-projects by China to developing countries in exchange for access to raw materials. In turn, this approach to development aid was discredited to a large extent by local populations, as the Chinese disrupted local employment, environment and longer term prospects for economic development.
Stewart and Knaus attempt to show in their book that no matter what universal values or motives, grand plans or strategies the intervening state or states, the intervention and/or nation-building effort can only succeed when a local perspective is taken. The state to be build, and its people, must be not only stakeholders in the process, but actual drivers of that process. As Stewart argues in his analysis of the efforts in Afghanistan, the continuous increase of foreign nation-builders was ineffective and even counter-productive when based on a one-size-fits-all-strategy and self-proclaimed universal values. Knaus describes how Bosnia became a success, almost despite the international efforts. Despite the rigorous plans, international oversight, and foreign troop presence, it was the careful handling of local politics and basic security that made a lasting impact in Bosnia, even though problems persist.
The experiences of the past offers the following lessons: nation-building must be done on case by case basis; outside parties must accept and work with local values, customs and infrastructures; and the required resources in terms of volume and focus depends on the state of the nation to be build. That is why this book does not offer much in the way of guidance or a blueprint for future intervention. So one may argue that the value of this book lies in the fact that in all types of nation-building, indeed ‘all politics is local’; success depends on the local environment, preferences, economic situation, and people. Moreover, what Stewart and Knaus appear to suggest is that no blueprint can be made up, before an intervention or nation-building exercise. In that sense, perhaps nation-building can be compared to a differential diagnosis of a patient in the tv-show “House, M.D.”: The ailment is mysterious, the diagnosis unclear, the treatment an educated guess, and everybody lies.
Nevertheless, the goal of intervention and nation-building remains clear: security, stability and economic progress, which means connecting to the world economy. If Western countries have true believe in the universality of their values, they should trust that demands for the rule of law will originate from the people of the nation in question, followed by the establishment of some sort of democracy, no matter how incremental that process may be. If all politics is local, nation-building can never be imposed. At the most, nation-building must mean helping nations build themselves.