| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The topic of nation-building is of enormous significance to both scholars and policymakers. Path dependence, a key theory of historical institutionalism, yields a great deal of insights into the extent to which conditions are favorable for outside actors to impose an institutional framework on a given society. Path dependence reveals several important variables that should be considered carefully in nation-building research. These variables include the effects of conflict on an occupied society, surviving institutions drawn upon by an occupier undertaking a policy of imposed nation-building, and the presence of a clear, salient national identity among the occupied society. This essay explores these variables with respect to four cases of outside-imposed nation-building to show the clearly divergent outcomes and their relationship to the variables of concern to a path dependence approach to the concept. Conclusions here are firmly in line with critiques of liberal peacebuilding as a universal template for imposed development.
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