How the International Community Screws Up: An examination of institutonal statebuilding's effects on the nation

Abstract: Since the beginning of statebuilding interventions following the end of the Cold War, they have been strictly focused on rebuilding state institutions, wherever they have taken place. As a growing percentage of states that had experienced civil war relapsed into new intrastate conflicts, it started to dawn on researchers that this approach was inadequate. Focus amongst researchers started to turn to explaining why traditional statebuilding did not do the job. Many have attributed it to a neglecting to address the root causes of the conflict. In recent years, the neglection of the nation in statebuilding has started generating attention. Particularly, a theory has emerged that the institutional approach to statebuilding in fact can have damaging effects on the nation. The testing of this theory on empirical cases has been limited as of yet. Hence, this thesis aims to contribute to this theory by applying it to the two cases of Burundi and Sierra Leone. In a comparative study, this thesis discusses the historical backgrounds, the statebuilding and its effect on the nation in each of the two cases. By comparing the results, the thesis reaches the conclusion that statebuilding, in its current form, indeed has damaging effects to the nation.