State Building and Peace Building
Whether or not to provide services in parallel is often framed as a debate between state building and peace building. State building is argued to lead to peace when it involves seeking to develop an inclusive state, where legitimacy is built as the result of the state responding to the demands of all of society and providing public goods and services. However, supporting the state in this direction is not a simple task, especially for the following reasons:
- State-building may not automatically lead to peace as it is an inherently political process and will not automatically be inclusive or democratic.
- Political settlements that seek to appease those that threaten peace can strengthen the rule of repressive rulers.
- Political settlements that create power sharing agreements can weaken the state and lead to further entrenching divides.
- Focussing on state institutions may lead to overlooking domestic non-state actors, including traditional local leaders, and prevent the long term of a civil society.
Equally, peace building efforts that do not include the state can undermine its ability to function. Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute emphasise the need for NGOs and other development actors to deepen knowledge of the context and maintain a constant awareness of the relationship between state- and peace-building.
Read more about this topic: Fragile State
Famous quotes containing the words state, building and/or peace:
“Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discern only law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple truths!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“come peace or war, the progress of America and Europe
Becomes a long process of deterioration—”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)