State Building as a Chimera: World Politics Beyond State-Centrism

International state-building efforts often fail due to misconceptions inherent in the institutions that support and execute them, leading to perverse consequences. Daniel Biro proposes an alternative framework for analyzing polities that do not conform to the conventional model of the modern state, drawing illustrations from Asia, Africa, and Central America.

Format: Hardback
Length: 183 pages
Publication date: 01 January 2021
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

International state-building efforts often fail due to fundamental misconceptions inherent in the institutions that support and execute them. Daniel Biro argues that the UN and major western states fail to fully account for the diversity and variability seen in the processes of polity creation, leading to perverse consequences. He proposes an alternative framework for the analysis of polities that do not conform to the conventional model of the modern state, with illustrations from Asia, Africa, and Central America. Biro suggests that it is more useful to consider local, alternative forms of governance without government as genuine social orders rather than merely deviations from a preconceived ideal of state order that traditionally ignores contemporary actors such as warlords or militias and the co-constitutive relations they share with the states and societies in which they flourish.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781472437020