The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq transformed Iraq’s political settlement by ejecting the previous elites from power and by initiating state-building processes with previously marginalised elites and different governance principles. Iraq’s current day elites and institutions are the inheritors of that process. This review summarises the post-2003 processes that structure the ...» more
Statebuilding
State-society relations and citizenship
State-society relations, citizenship and socio-political cohesion are areas of great importance to statebuilding and peacebuilding and are crucial to an integrated approach. State-society relations are defined by DFID as ‘interactions between state institutions and societal groups to negotiate how public authority is exercised and how it can be influenced by people. They are ...» more
The legitimacy of states and armed non-state actors
Legitimacy is a crucial aspect of all power relations. Without legitimacy, power is exerted through coercion; with legitimacy, power can be exerted through voluntary or quasi-voluntary compliance. Legitimacy lies at the core of state-citizen relationships and thus of the whole state-building agenda. This Topic Guide explores the meaning of legitimacy in relation to state and ...» more
Capacity building in the Ministry of Interior in fragile and post-conflict countries
This report reviews the literature engaging with a key issue, the reform of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) in fragile and post-conflict countries. While MoI reform is crucial to the success of Security Sector Reform (SSR), as it enables management and oversight of the internal security forces, it has often been neglected by international actors and by the SSR literature. The ...» more
Legitimacy, statebuilding and conflict
(This 10-minute presentation accompanying the reading pack was recorded at the GSDRC Seminar on Conflict and Development, London, 23 March 2015.) Building legitimacy is widely considered to be a central aspect of statebuilding efforts in fragile and conflict-affected states. It features prominently in the statebuilding policies of donors and the G7+ alike. In the literature,…» more
