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"Fragile states pose major development and security challenges. Considerable international resources are therefore devoted to state-building and institutional strengthening in fragile states, with generally mixed results. This volume explores how unpacking the concept of fragility and studying its dimensions and forms can help to build policy-relevant understandings of how states become more resilient and the role of aid therein. It highlights the particular challenges for donors in dealing with 'chronically' (as opposed to 'temporarily') fragile states and those with weak legitimacy, as well as how unpacking fragility can provide traction on how to take 'local context' into account. Three chapters present new analysis from innovative initiatives to study fragility and fragile state transitions in cross-national perspective. Four chapters offer new focused analysis of selected countries, drawing on comparative methods and spotlighting the role of aid versus historical, institutional and other factors. It has become a truism that one-size-fits-all policies do not work in development, whether in fragile or non-fragile states. This is should not be confused with a broader rejection of 'off-the-rack' policy models that can then be further adjusted in particular situations. Systematic thinking about varieties of fragility helps us to develop this range, drawing lessons - appropriately - from past experience. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly, and is available online as an Open Access monograph."

Nation-building --- Nation-building

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The U.S. experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and the resulting U.S. military doctrine emphasize the need for the United States to consolidate the gains it has realized on the battlefield. Recognizing this need, however, is much easier than understanding the measures necessary to succeed. Both U.S. decisionmakers and a variety of analysts have generally agreed that broad-based, inclusive governance and institutionalized capacity-building consistent with the rule of law are the long-term goals for stabilizing fragile states. The conditions under which these goals are realistic and how to realize them are much more contentious. This report summarizes research intended to advance at least partial answers to these questions, including a framework to help better understand when we expect U.S. leverage to be successful in nudging partners toward better governance practices. While there is no panacea for the difficulties of stabilizing countries after conflicts, this research offers guidance on how the United States might improve the odds of securing such hard-won gains and evidence to suggest that — at least under the right circumstances — it can do so.

Nation-building --- Nation-building --- Nation-building

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NATION-BUILDING

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NATION-BUILDING

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Central Peripheries explores post-Soviet Central Asia through the prism of nation-building. Although relative latecomers on the international scene, the Central Asian states see themselves as globalized, and yet in spite of - or perhaps precisely because of - this, they hold a very classical vision of the nation-state, rejecting the abolition of boundaries and the theory of the 'death of the nation'. Their unabashed celebration of very classical nationhoods built on post-modern premises challenges the Western view of nationalism as a dying ideology that ought to have been transcended by post-national cosmopolitanism. Marlene Laruelle looks at how states in the region have been navigating the construction of a nation in a post-imperial context where Russia remains the dominant power and cultural reference. She takes into consideration the ways in which the Soviet past has influenced the construction of national storylines, as well as the diversity of each state's narratives and use of symbolic politics. Exploring state discourses, academic narratives and different forms of popular nationalist storytelling allows Laruelle to depict the complex construction of the national pantheon in the three decades since independence. The second half of the book focuses on Kazakhstan as the most hybrid national construction and a unique case study of nationhood in Eurasia. Based on the principle that only multidisciplinarity can help us to untangle the puzzle of nationhood, Central Peripheries uses mixed methods, combining political science, intellectual history, sociology and cultural anthropology. It is inspired by two decades of fieldwork in the region and a deep knowledge of the region's academia and political environment. Praise for Central Peripheries 'Marlene Laruelle paves the way to the more focused and necessary outlook on Central Asia, a region that is not a periphery but a central space for emerging conceptual debates and complexities. Above all, the book is a product of Laruelle's trademark excellence in balancing empirical depth with vigorous theoretical advancements.' - Diana T. Kudaibergenova, University of Cambridge 'Using the concept of hybridity, Laruelle explores the multitude of historical, political and geopolitical factors that predetermine different ways of looking at nations and various configurations of nation-building in post-Soviet Central Asia. Those manifold contexts present a general picture of the transformation that the former southern periphery of the USSR has been going through in the past decades.' - Sergey Abashin, European University at St Petersburg.

Nation-building.