Interventions and Statebuilding: From Fragility to Resilience

All inquiries for this course should be directed to the lecturer: Babatunde.Obamamoye@anu.edu.au Interventions & State-building looks at the interplay between the different conceptual understandings of the state, with state weakness and fragility on the one hand and state formation and state-building on the other. The course discusses how international interventions can reinforce state fragility or positively contribute to strengthen state capacity and societal cohesion. Crosscutting themes include (good) governance, inclusion and exclusion of local actors, securitization logics and the progressive detachment of international actors from local contexts, as well as new technologies of interventions and their impact on the ground. The course looks at the relationship between state-building and peace-building in countries that have experienced conflict. It explores these issues in the context of different types of states, including both ‘resilient’ and ‘failed’ states, drawing on diverse case studies drawn from post-conflict and transition countries especially in the Asia-Pacific region.