Why has the number of ‘failed’ states increased in spite of international intervention? This paper argues that this is in part attributable to the neglect of ‘nation-building’. The social and cognitive processes of creating a common national identity during post-conflict reconstruction are paramount. Capacity-building and institutional reforms are important activities. However it is the ability of people, and mainly elites, to use such structures to construct a ‘nation’ that prevents a state from collapsing.
Depending on historical contexts, present realities and future visions, the nation changes its characteristics, much like a chameleon changes its colours. The concept of ‘nation’ thus evades a common definition, generalisable indicators and measurable results. This paper takes a modernist approach, understanding the nation not as a product of natural, or deep rooted, historical forces, but as a recent historical and political development, actively instigated by citizens and their leaders.
This paper examined the ‘skin’, the ‘skeleton’, and ‘brains and muscles’ of the nation as a ‘political chameleon’. The ‘skin’ represents language, communication and industrialisation; the ‘skeleton’ – the institutions, the nation-state interdependency, the dilemma of multiple identities and the role of bureaucrats; and the ‘brains and muscles’ – the impact of elites and war(fare).
To accurately conceptualise the political chameleon it is important to understand that nation-building is a process of socio-cognitive standardisation. It is a process of identity formation underwritten by the spread of social and cognitive conformity within a politically and usually geographically defined population. Further:
- Central state administration is the prime driver for this process of socio-cognitive standardisation. Nation-building outcomes are largely determined by the varying ability of ruling elites to build and/or exploit central and political administrative institutions.
- Elites play an important role in processes of nationalism and nation-building, even though they can only do so in relation to a population at large.
- War(fare) can foster and catalyse processes of state formation, under the condition that it promotes central (political) administration and enhances socio-cognitive standardisation across the territory of a specific society.
Nation-states and their failure depend particularly on the state’s and its elite’s ability to set up a functioning structure of central state administration that allows for institutional and socio-cognitive standardisation. Political units weak in central administration are likely to be challenged by competing sub-units. Such sub-units are more effective in providing diverse services by issuing institutional and socio-cognitive standardisation. Challenges by sub-units can bring about ‘state failure’. In these cases, it would be difficult to attribute the state failure to the continued existence of nationalist feelings as opposed to simple irredentist claims based on ethnic and/or historic structures.
The two processes of state- and nation-building are thus inextricably interlinked. Currently, approaches to state formation and post-conflict reconstruction are based on literature that emphasises ‘institution building’ and ‘structural reform’. In future:
- There should be greater exchange and learning between ‘state-building’ and ‘nation-building’ literature.
- Issues of (political) identity should be considered and given similar weight to aspects of institutions.
