The Beginner's Guide to Nation-Building

by James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, Beth Degrasse

Overview

This guidebook is designed as a contribution to future nation-building efforts. It is organized around the components that make up any nation-building mission: planning, military and police contingents, civil administrators, humanitarian and relief efforts, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and infrastructure development. This guide is intended to help practitioners avoid repeating earlier mistakes, help political leaders evaluate the cost and likelihood of success in any proposed operation, and help citizens evaluate their government's consequent performance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780833039880
Publisher:	Rand Publishing
Publication date:	04/25/2007
Series:	Rand Corporation Monograph Ser.
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)

Table of Contents

Foreword     iii
Preface     ix
Figures     xiii
Tables     xv
Summary     xvii
Acknowledgments     xxxix
Abbreviations     xli
Preparing for Nation-Building     1
The Military     19
The Police     47
Rule of Law     73
Humanitarian Relief     109
Governance     135
Economic Stabilization     161
Democratization     189
Development     213
Conclusion: The Cost of Nation-Building     255
Bibliography     261
Index     277
About the Authors     283

Editorial Reviews

The United States and the United Nations have, with increasingfrequency, embarked on military interventions and nation-building operations that have become larger, longer, and more ambitious. Dobbins and his associates at RAND have led the way in reflecting on these experiences in an effort to find lessons for the future. In this volume, they offer insights drawn from the review of 24 nation-building missions. Some of their findings take the shape of a list of guidelines for planning and deploying personnel and resources -- not least the realistic matching of goals to assets. They also emphasize the importance of using the correct "framework" in such operations -- that is, determining whether the intervention is aimed at peacekeeping, which is best done through the UN, or peace making, which is more costly and demanding and needs to be launched by the United States or NATO. Although these insights are not startling, implementing them is extremely difficult -- particularly because sustained and successful nation building requires intense cooperation among governments, international agencies, and domestic groups.

Foreign Affairs