External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation
Author | : Ja Ian Chong |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 305 |
Release | : 2012-06-29 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781139510615 |
ISBN-13 | : 1139510614 |
Rating | : 4/5 (614 Downloads) |
Download or read book External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation written by Ja Ian Chong and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-29 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores ways foreign intervention and external rivalries can affect the institutionalization of governance in weak states. When sufficiently competitive, foreign rivalries in a weak state can actually foster the political centralization, territoriality and autonomy associated with state sovereignty. This counterintuitive finding comes from studying the collective effects of foreign contestation over a weak state as informed by changes in the expected opportunity cost of intervention for outside actors. When interveners associate high opportunity costs with intervention, they bolster sovereign statehood as a next best alternative to their worst fear - domination of that polity by adversaries. Sovereign statehood develops if foreign actors concurrently and consistently behave this way toward a weak state. This book evaluates that argument against three 'least likely' cases - China, Indonesia and Thailand between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.